Betrayed by someone you know (20 percent)
Killing people connected to you (17 percent)
Arrested for a different offense (17 percent)
You frequent or are connected to the kill site (16 percent)
Victim escapes or survives (15 percent)
You confess (5 percent)
Caught in the act (4 percent)
DNA/forensic identification (4 percent)
Spotted with the victim by a witness (2 percent)
Killed by your victim (1 percent)
I accept that the above will be surprising to many of you who have watchedCSI,DexterorSilent Witness. The truth is this:forensic evidence is far more likely to convict you than it is to identify you as a suspect. Obvious exceptions exist, and if you don’t know who I’m talking about then are you even a true-crime fan? You should put in some proper study time. What’s clear from the above is that you need to give the greatest attention to the people around you, your criminal history and your choices of victim and kill site. These account for the majority of problems you might face down the line.
I can imagine many of you are shocked that far more serial killers aren’t tracked down by those mythical beings known as “profilers.” These soothers of public conscience are neither use nor ornament, as my granny would say, and I’ll tell you more about them as we go.
I’ve always demonstrated a natural talent for avoiding suspicion. I made my first kill when I was just twelve years old and no one suspected a thing, despite the fact that it was in broad daylight with multiple witnesses. I was certainly a natural talent from the outset, but this accomplishment so early in my life was a revelation, for I was a quiet child, mediocre in school; I was a short preteen, too, and rather weedy. In spiteof my puny frame, I killed a much bigger boy in the summer holidays, not far from my home.
I remember it so clearly, and the reimagining of my first time brings to mind a quote fromGreat Expectations.I doubt many of you will have the intellect for it, but I’ll try you. The great Charles Dickens said:
Pause, you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
I can see my skinny little self stood there, in that quarry, on my most memorable day. My first victim, still alive and fresh, lugging his raft toward the water. Little did either of us know that he would be the first link in the long chain of the most successful serial killer in your lifetime.
This was the moment when it all began.
The moment Denver Brady was born.
Chapter Two
Sam barely sleeps that night, or the next. She dreams she’s being chased through Holland Park and she can feel his fingers sliding up her legs, no matter how quickly she runs. She wakes sweating and pads downstairs, turns on the news. On her old TV, she sees her godfather.DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR HARRY BLAKELAW, the banner at the bottom of the screen reads, and Sam grabs the remote and turns up the volume. His voice sounds different on television: less of the Essex boy and more like the Broadstairs gentleman.
“… Charlotte was just fourteen years old,” Harry is saying to the reporters, “a straight-A student, popular, with a loving family and her whole life before her.” Harry pauses, swallows, clears his throat and continues. “We’re appealing to anyone who was in or around Holland Park on Thursday evening into the early hours of Friday to come forward. Often, witnesses have seen much more than they realize, so please, even if you think you saw nothing out of the ordinary, contact the Metropolitan Police if you were in the area.” Harry reads out a telephone number and then takes a fewquestions, but it’s an active investigation so there’s very little he can say.
The feed switches to another man standing outside what appears to be a red-brick school building, and the banner now reads:HUGO WENTWORTH-BRAND—HEADTEACHER. “Charlotte is… was… a wonderful girl,” he says, running a hand through his dense white hair. “She was especially talented at netball, playing center for our school team. Her father never missed a match. Charlotte was highly capable academically and had Oxbridge aspirations, hoping to follow in her father’s footsteps. Teachers and pupils alike adored Charlotte. Wicked sense of humor, too…” The headteacher smiles, tears in his eyes.
“What’s your fondest memory of Charlotte?” asks the reporter.
The headteacher smiles again and wipes his cheek. His chin wobbles slightly as he says, “Thank you, gentlemen, that’s all I can manage for now.”
A sudden knock on the door brings Sam back to her untidy lounge. Wondering who could be calling on a Sunday morning, she makes her way into the small hallway, between her lounge and kitchen, and picks up the last couple of days’ post from where it’s landed on the mat, then peers through the glass in her front door. A man in a bright-green Asda uniform stands holding a crate of groceries. She slides off her deadbolt and security chains, then awkwardly drags the door open. The man doesn’t even look at Sam as he reels off this week’s substitutes and she’s grateful he doesn’t notice that she looks like exactly what she is: a woman who’s spent the weekend in the same pajamas, without showering or even brushing her hair.
Sam dumps the crate out on to the hall floor, thanks the driver and locks the door again. She grabs a packet of chocolate Hobnobs and munches through them as she moves the groceries, one item at a time, into the kitchen cupboards. The kitchen lino is sticky underfoot and her slippers make a sucking sound as shemoves about the room. She promises herself that, once she’s back at work, she’ll get on top of the housework, too. She rinses her dusty fruit bowl under the tap before putting the fresh green apples in it. It’s been a while since she’s bought any healthy food. But tomorrow is a new week and Mondays are always a good day to begin a new chapter.
She heads upstairs to the small landing that separates the two bedrooms and only bathroom. She tips her already-overflowing laundry basket upside down and begins to sort her clothes, placing the darks into her old hiking backpack, ready to head to the laundrette tomorrow after work. She can take the whites on Tuesday.
Drained by the small exertion, Sam makes her way back downstairs and rewatches her favorite episode ofOnly Fools and Horses, the one where Del Boy disguises Rodney as a schoolboy to win a free holiday. Sam usually laughs aloud at the sight of the young Nicholas Lyndhurst in his skateboarding gear, but today she can’t shake off her thoughts of a dark corner in Holland Park and a fourteen-year-old girl called Charlotte.
The morning ofher return to New Scotland Yard, Sam rises early and jumps straight into the shower, lathering her dirty-blonde hair twice before combing it straight into a ponytail. She eats two slices of peanut butter on toast, and one of the apples from the fruit bowl.
It’s not until Sam goes to pull on her work clothes and the buttons of her suit trousers won’t meet in the middle that she realizes there’s going to be a problem. No amount of pulling or wiggling can get her body inside any of the clothes that Past Sam had slid into with ease. She rummages deep inside her wardrobe, frustration mounting. She literally has nothing to wear. She pulls back the wardrobe door, ready to slam it with a force that the old hinges would be unlikely to survive, but stops herself. She takes a deepbreath in through her nose, holds it, exhales, and makes her way calmly out of the bedroom.
