For Reasons Unknown: A gripping crime debut that keeps you guessing until the last page

Underneath his Jonathan Creek duffel coat Rory was dressed smartly in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and light blue tie. Matilda was wearing the same navy suit as yesterday; the trousers were creased, and there was a stain on a lapel she couldn’t remember getting. Compared to her subordinate she felt like a bag lady.

‘Another cold one this morning,’ Rory said, making conversation after a silence of a couple of minutes. ‘Forecast said there could be some snow by the weekend.’

Matilda didn’t reply. She didn’t feel as if she had anything to add to the pointless dialogue.

‘What’s the plan for today then, after the demolition I mean?’

‘Well I thought we’d track down Jonathan Harkness. He’s the only relative living in the area. We’ll tell him we’re having another look at the case and see what he has to tell us.’

‘And if he doesn’t have anything new to tell us?’

‘Then we work the file. There has to be something in there that someone’s missed.’

‘Do you think he’ll remember something new twenty years down the line?’

‘I’ve absolutely no idea. The brain is a complicated organ. It can block things out to protect a person from whatever horrors they’ve experienced or it can torture them by repeating it over and over.’

‘Fingers crossed for the last option then. Let’s just hope it hasn’t screwed him up too much.’

‘Well I’m expecting him to be a complete basket case. Anything different will be a bonus.’

By the time they arrived at the scene in Whirlow a huge hydraulic excavator was being slowly driven off a low-loader. There was a team of more than a dozen workers in HI-Vis safety gear milling about preparing to begin.

The house had been surrounded by large plywood sheets to stop potential thieves or squatters gaining access and this was now being taken down. Two members of the team donned hard hats and entered the property via the back door. They were to give the house a final sweep just to make sure a homeless person wasn’t taking shelter, before the house was pulled down.

Matilda pulled up a few hundred yards away from the house. From the back seat she lifted a pile of papers: the reports she had taken home and Charlie Johnson’s book, which she was almost halfway through, and began flicking through them.

‘I was talking to my fiancée about the Harkness case last night and she had a look on the Internet about it while I was in the shower. She thinks Matthew may have a part to play in the murders.’

‘Does she?’ Matilda replied, not paying much attention.

‘It makes sense if you think about it. He wasn’t in the house at the time and he went missing soon afterwards. It was days before he was found and he had no alibi.’

‘He had no motive either.’

‘All kids have a motive for killing their parents, no matter how tenuous.’

She wondered whether that was his opinion or that of his fiancée’s. She didn’t say anything.

‘Maybe they’d had an argument; maybe he was jealous of the attention his parents paid towards his younger brother.’

‘The attack was frenzied. Whoever killed them had nothing but hatred for them. It would have had to have been a pretty big argument for him to do that. Besides, if he was jealous of his brother, why not kill him too?’

Rory shrugged.

‘Read chapter ten,’ Matilda said, handing Rory the paperback. ‘Apparently, Jonathan was an accident. His parents rarely had time for him. There was no reason for Matthew to be jealous.’

Extract from A Christmas Killing by Charlie Johnson.

CHAPTER THREE: WHERE’S MATTHEW?

The police arrived quickly on the scene and Jonathan was escorted off the premises under the cover of a large blanket to shield him from the horror of seeing his parents in such a state. He was taken to Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital where he was assessed for injuries. At this point, he had not spoken a single word to anyone and police believed him to be in shock.

There was someone missing from this scene though; fifteen-year-old Matthew Harkness. He had not returned home from school but gone straight to the home of best friend, Philip Clayton, to play a computer game. He left later than usual and used Philip’s mountain bike to cycle home. The journey should have only taken ten minutes but he didn’t make it, and there was no sign of a bike. After interviewing neighbours, police launched a manhunt to locate Matthew. Nobody had seen Matthew since he left for school earlier that day. The back gardens of all the houses in the road, along with nearby parks, were searched immediately. However, it was dark and little could be seen. A full-scale search was to begin the following morning as soon as it was light enough. Fears were growing among police that Matthew could have been kidnapped by the killer(s), though this was never made public. A sharp frost overnight and freezing temperatures hampered the search for Matthew. Police turned out to search back gardens once again and the local community helped out however they could. Police spent the whole day searching the dense Ecclesall Woods before moving on to Ran Woods. Nothing was found. The search then moved to nearby parks including Abbeydale Park, Millhouses Park and Abbeydale Golf Course. Again, there was no sign of the missing teenager, or the red and black mountain bike belonging to his friend. By the time darkness fell on the first full day of the investigation Matthew was still listed as a missing person and no ransom demands had been made. All day the temperature had not risen above freezing. Police feared for Matthew’s safety. Wherever he was, he was obviously in danger from either his kidnappers or the severe cold weather.

‘I just find it odd that he went missing,’ Rory said. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t do that unless you had something to hide.’

‘According to Matthew, when he was eventually found,’ she began, casting her eye down his statement, ‘he had come home and saw the police cars with flashing lights outside the house. He thought his parents had called them as he was late coming home and he just panicked and continued cycling.’

‘But his parents weren’t thick; they’d have just called the parents of the friend he was staying with. They wouldn’t call the police.’

‘His parents weren’t thick but maybe he was.’

‘I’m sorry but I don’t buy it. He was missing for three days before just turning up out of the blue. If he was worried about getting into trouble for being late home he would have stayed away just the one night, not for three, not in the middle of winter.’

‘Unfortunately,’ Matilda began, flicking through the three-page statement, ‘it doesn’t go into a great deal of detail. It doesn’t even say where he was hiding, for crying out loud. All it says is that he was hiding in the woods. Sheffield is one of the greenest cities in the country; it’s surrounded by bloody woods.’

‘Is Matthew still in Sheffield?’

‘No. He moved away as soon as his education was finished. I’ve no idea where he is now. We’ll have to try and track him down. These case notes are pitiful.’

She closed the file in frustration and looked up as the roaring sound of the hydraulic excavator slowly moved onto the plot of the Harkness house. It was demolition time.

A few nosy neighbours had congregated. They were dressed appropriately in long coats, hats, and scarves. They had their hands firmly in their pockets to keep warm or their arms wrapped tightly around their bodies. Some people didn’t care about the cold; they just wanted to be witness to an event that would go down in local history.

From a nearby Mondeo a young man in his early thirties wearing an open-necked shirt, faded blue trousers, and scuffed black shoes climbed out from behind the steering wheel. From the passenger seat, a gruff-looking man close to retirement hoisted himself out with a large camera around his neck.

‘Bloody press,’ Matilda said under her breath.

‘Are we getting out?’ Rory asked.

‘No I don’t…’ she stopped when her eyes fell on something of interest. She quickly scanned through the reports in front of her once again and found what she was looking for: a photograph. She looked up through the windscreen then down at the picture again.

‘Do you reckon that’s Jonathan Harkness?’ She showed Rory the photo of an eleven-year-old Jonathan in school uniform. He was looking directly into the camera lens and had a forced smile on his face. It was obviously a school photograph and he didn’t seem too pleased to be having it taken.

Rory looked at the picture then up at the young man in the black coat who was standing away from the crowd on his own. ‘It looks like him. Same build, same hair.’

‘Come on then.’ She whipped off her seatbelt and jumped out of the car.

Shortly after arriving at his childhood home, Jonathan saw the journalist and photographer climbing out of their car. He hoped they wouldn’t recognize him and lifted up his coat collar. He was standing alone, away from the crowd of ghoulish onlookers, but wondered if this might draw attention to the reporter so he slowly edged back to join them.

As soon as the large hydraulic excavator made its way onto the overgrown garden where he used to play, his attention was firmly aimed at the home he was born in.

His heart was beating loudly in his ears and he took a deep breath. He was dressed for the weather, wrapped up in scarf and gloves, but he was shivering underneath his thick winter coat. His mouth was dry and he swallowed painfully a few times. He watched as the arm was slowly raised a little higher than the roof. The bucket was angled and just as it made contact with the house he closed his eyes tight. The crunching sound caused him to jump. He opened his eyes and saw the large hole in what used to be his bedroom.

A large section of the front of the house was soon torn down and for the first time in more than twenty years, daylight penetrated the rooms. He looked up at the damaged building and saw the blue and white striped wallpaper that adorned the walls of his sanctuary.

He hadn’t realized how much this was going to affect him. As soon as he saw the wallpaper he could feel a lump in his throat and tears gathering in his eyes. He was hoping for a cathartic experience, closure maybe, but he couldn’t cope with this. It was killing him. The crowd of gawkers around him gossiped among themselves; their voices fighting with the noise from the demolition site.