Here’s a taster of my new novel Death Nest, taken from the beginning of chapter 1.

  This is the third time in as many weeks I’ve been called into school to speak to Ben’s teacher. Only last week, Mrs Trench complained of him swearing in class. The week before he got into a scuffle with another child. This time, the incident is serious enough to involve the head teacher, Mr Brown – a scrawny young man in his late twenties. From behind his desk, he addresses me in condescending tones.

‘Mr Unwin, we’re concerned about Ben. Deeply concerned. As you know, he’s been swearing at teachers, getting into fights…’

  ‘He got into one fight, and that was self-defence,’ I cut in.

  ‘He really ought to have found a teacher, and resolved the matter that way,’ says Mrs Trench, a thin, wraithlike figure sitting to my left.

  I shrug. ‘And that teaches him what, exactly? Do you think crying to HR is going to help him when he gets treated unfairly in the workplace? People have to fight their own battles. Ben didn’t start that fight, but he finished it fairly and proportionately. The fact that he’s learned that at his age is reason to be proud of him, not to punish him.’

  Mr Brown sighs. ‘We’re not here to discuss that, or the swearing.’

  ‘I really don’t see why you were so shocked by the swearing.’

  ‘We were concerned about what he might be watching on television,’ Mrs Trench says.

  I laugh. ‘Children pick up swear words at school and often don’t know what they mean. He’s seven, for God’s sake! He wasn’t trying to be aggressive.’

  Mr Brown passes me an open exercise book. ‘Ben wrote this, as part of an English exercise to write a story about taking a walk in the woods. We expected the children to write about trees, blackberry bushes, acorns, conkers, animals they might have glimpsed, and so on. However, Ben’s story is… somewhat different.’

  I scan the story. Ben’s handwriting is excellent, and his word usage articulate and vivid. I get that familiar surge of pride. He’s a very bright child.

  As the story progresses, my pride turns to unease.

  I took Sebastian into the woods to kill him. He didn’t know, and I didn’t want to tell him, because I knew how much killing him would hurt. Sebastian doesn’t understand, but there’s bad inside him, and the only way to get the bad out of him, is for him to die. So I took him deep into the trees, where we were all alone, and no one would hear him screaming. Then I stabbed him with a dagger I’d secretly brought with me. There was a lot of blood. He cried and kept asking me to stop. But I didn’t stop. I had to get rid of the bad inside him.

  At the end of the story is a gruesome illustration featuring a stick figure next to a tree with a dagger in his hand, standing over another stick figure on the ground, who appears to be bleeding out. Mr Brown and Mrs Trench scrutinise me as I look up from the picture. It is understandable why they found Ben’s story alarming. But I suppress my own creeping fears and shrug.

  ‘Yes, it’s a disturbing story, but lots of children write about dark things to express morbid fascination and macabre curiosity about violence and death. Typically, they grow out of this later in life, and don’t become killers.’

  ‘Do you know who this Sebastian might be?’ Mr Brown asks.

  I shake my head. ‘We don’t know a Sebastian, unless there’s someone called Sebastian that Ben knows in school. Is there?’

  ‘There are no Sebastians in the school,’ Mrs Trench says.

  ‘Look, obviously he’s just made him up, like the rest of the story. He doesn’t actually want to kill anyone.’

  ‘What do you make of this bit where he talks about killing Sebastian, to get rid of the bad inside him?’ Mr Brown asks.

  ‘I couldn’t say.’

  ‘We think it might be advisable to seek counselling for Ben. Between the fights, the swearing, and now this violent story, the opinion of a professional…’

  ‘The incidents are unrelated,’ I interrupt. ‘Yes, this is a peculiar story, but I really think it’s nothing to be concerned about. As I said, children often express themselves in unsettling ways that have a rawness, curiosity, and honesty to them, that perhaps…’

  ‘Mr Unwin, please remind me what it is that you do for a living?’

  ‘I help design computer games, but I don’t see how that’s relevant.’

  ‘My point is you are not medically qualified to make judgements about Ben’s mental wellbeing.’

  ‘As his father, I think I am exceptionally qualified. There is nothing wrong with my son.’ I glare at Mr Brown and Mrs Trench, trying to remain calm.

  Mrs Trench exchanges glances with Mr Brown and addresses me with a horrible expression of phoney pity. ‘Forgive me for asking Mr Unwin, but how long has it been since your wife passed?’   I stand, fuming inwardly. ‘I’m finished here. Thank you for your concern.’

Death nest, Simon dillon, 2023.

Death Nest is out now, in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and their various outlets.