He didn’t look up at them, staring at the marks and stains on the table in front of him. Making patterns in the random smears.

He knew he looked uninterested to the cameras pointed in his direction. As if he did this every day, a normal occurrence in his life.

Inside, his heart was beating hard against his chest. Outside, he remained cool. Aloof. Calm.

They asked for his name again. They had been doing that regularly since he’d arrived. He’d shaken his head and declined to answer. That way, they would spend more time trying to work that out than questioning anything else. And without a name, they wouldn’t get very far.

All part of the plan. What there was of it, anyway.

He wasn’t going to give them anything easily. He was there for one reason and one reason only.

When they’d offered a solicitor, he’d shrugged his shoulders. They’d taken that as an acceptance. The solicitor was now sitting close to him, tensing up with every word he said that wasn’t ‘no comment’, a folder full of notes balanced on his knees. A weedy little thing, who looked like a strong wind would blow him over. He wouldn’t be required.

He was ready to tell them what he wanted them to know.

‘You have been arrested on suspicion of the murder…’ the DI said to him, the words coming through a fog of coffee-scented breath that made him wrinkle his nose in disgust. The guy kept talking, but he wasn’t listening anymore. Simply waiting for his turn to talk.

‘I did it. I killed them all.’

A shared look between the detectives. A shuffle of papers and a throat-clearing from the solicitor. Trying to get his attention. Stop him talking. Do as he had been told. Say the things that would give him a chance of a defence when they got to court.

There was no chance of that happening.

‘All?’

‘I’m the one.’

‘You’re the one what?’ DI Hicks said, a crease forming across his forehead, as his eyes scanned his notes and then shot back to him.

‘I’m the man you’ve been looking for. Eight people dead. I killed them all.’

He could feel the atmosphere between them shift a little, as the detectives slowly began to understand what he’d said.

‘You’re saying you’ve killed eight people?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who are the eight people?’

‘What do you need to hear?’ he said, wondering how his voice would sound on the recording. Whether it would resonate with someone listening back later. Whether they would read into what he was saying and make assumptions. Psychoanalyse him in sensationalised documentaries. They would call him evil. A psychopath. Wicked and immoral. Mad or bad. As if those two words were interchangeable.

That wasn’t the truth. He was just like everyone else in that room.

He was just human.