Chapter 2
Popping My Cherry
It was an extremely hot and still day, the kind rarely enjoyed in England.
Owing to that particular area’s past, the landscape was littered with abandoned quarries.
Over time, these places filled with groundwater and became havens for wildlife, including the local youth.
On warm days, villagers would head to the quarry to sunbathe, socialize and swim.
The shale floor felt not dissimilar from sand and the rock bounced the heat around inside the quarry, making the place a suntrap.
If it was a good day, the ice cream van might stop near by.
That day, it didn’t. I’d gone to the quarry with my cousin, Bobby, who was a couple of years older than me. At twelve, that small age difference can feel like a lot, and, given my small stature, I noticed the distance between us keenly.
The quarry was only five minutes from the village market square, and Bobby knocked on his friends Gordie and Jono along the way.
Gordie had a nasty habit of calling me “Tiddler,” and sometimes my cousin would join in.
I preferred Jono, who was a milky, doughy creature with a stutter.
I tended to keep myself to myself whenever the three boys were together.
That day, I sat on the toasty shale, reading, while Bobby and his pals worked on the raft they had spent the summer building.
From my shady spot, I could see their already-tanned skin turning increasingly pink at the shoulders.
The grown-ups were all at work and, for the most part, we had the place to ourselves.
The boys had, over the preceding weeks, acquired four barrels and lashed four planks to them to form a square floatation craft that was quite impressive. That day, they were building oars from pilfered baking trays that they nailed to the ends of old broom handles.
I recall quite vividly the minutiae of the day.
I was reading a book about Mary Ann Cotton that I’d waited months for the library to acquire.
I’d only picked up Mary Ann that morning, when Bob and I had gone into town to buy ourselves some pop for our day at the quarry.
The librarian, a nosey old hag, asked if my mother knew what I was reading and I poked my tongue out at her.
It was some time around 2 p.m. Definitely after lunch, which we hadn’t brought. My hunger added to my anger at discovering that Mary Ann Cotton was likely entirely innocent. I was about to throw the book into the quarry depths when it all began.
The raft was being launched. A couple of younger children gathered around as Bobby, Jono and Gordie pushed the craft out on to the water, each jumping aboard, perched above a barrel.
The little children cheered, but it was immediately obvious to me, watching from the shade, that the boys would have a problem.
The raft was a square construction and the fourth barrel, without a sailor aboard, was lifting out of the water.
They’d all tip off. Jono’s milky flab, coupled with Gordie’s height and muscle, made the endeavor impossible.
They’d ignored the simple laws of physics.
Idiots, I thought, as I tilted my face skywards and breathed deeply, turning my mind back to the final chapter of my book on Mary Ann Cotton and the day the prison officer in Durham Jail had escorted her to the scaffold.
I pictured her trembling lips and pinioned hands.
I wondered if she had protested her innocence, or better still, begged for—
“Oi, Tiddler!” Gordie was standing over me, dripping. I’d been so deep in thought, I hadn’t heard him approach. “It’s your lucky day,” he said. “We need a fourth man for the raft.”
I glanced from Gordie to the shoreline where my cousin Bobby and the fat boy, Jono, were waiting. They were all at least a foot taller than me and significantly heavier.
“No,” I said firmly. Gordie stared at me, so I elaborated with, “I can’t swim.”
“Just come and have a look,” Gordie said, “you don’t have to get on it.
” He placed his hands on his hips and, reluctantly, I stood.
He put a sweaty arm around my shoulders and I could smell his musk.
Not entirely unpleasant, but nothing like my own body produced yet.
“Tiddler will be the fourth man,” Gordie called to the others.
“No,” I said again, trying to back away. “I can’t swim!” Gordie held me firmly around the shoulders and I didn’t meet Bobby’s eye because he knew only too well that I was, in fact, a fine swimmer.
“Don’t worry, Tiddler,” Gordie said. “You can sit in front of me. I’ll look after you.”
“I c-can’t swim too great, neither—” Jono began, but Gordie cut him off, calling him a chicken and dragging me forward.
Gordie maneuvered me over one of the front barrels.
I was still fully clothed, in torn denim shorts and an overly small black cats shirt that had been Bobby’s.
The boys launched me on to the water. The barrel was between my legs like a battered, round horse and my feet dangled in the water.
It was startlingly chilly and my skin pimpled as the others mounted their barrels and began to row.
I watched as the water changed color beneath me and I saw the skeleton of an old car in the murk below.
There were no fish and few plants, just dark depths.
We’d reached the middle of the quarry, the deepest point, when the raft failed.
Looking back now, it was inevitable, wasn’t it?
Before we had a chance to realize our peril, the planks had detached and we were clinging to debris.
Gordie immediately swam to shore with an impressive front crawl.
My cousin bobbed on a barrel a fair distance away from me.
Jono was holding on to a plank close by.
I was treading water, trying desperately to hold on to my barrel; it kept spinning round and I was too small to reach over the top of it, as Bobby had done.
“Swim to Jono, he’s really close to you!” Bobby called as the barrel spun again, plunging me into the cold blackness. The icy water filled my ears and tingled against my scalp as I gulped. My legs burned and my feet cramped inside my sandshoes.
I remember very clearly thinking that I was going to die.
I had once read somewhere that fresh water was far less buoyant than salt water or that used in swimming pools.
I was facing my final end. I thought of Mary Ann Cotton, swinging.
I thought of Ted Bundy strapped to Old Sparky.
I pictured the lethal injection closing the eyes of John Wayne Gacy.
I thought about how no one would write a book about me.
I would just be dead. Forgotten. No one would even remember that I had existed.
As if in response to my thoughts, I abandoned my barrel and swam to Jono.
I gripped his outstretched hand, my fingers twisting in his.
It’s incredible the impressions we have in extreme moments, for despite the peril of our present situation, I noticed that Jono had been eating hot cross buns.
Even though they were now dripping wet, his hands were sticky with molten syrup and the ripe sultana smell lingered on his breath.
My cousin had drifted farther away. Everyone on shore was shouting.
I didn’t make a sound. I only focused on my fingers.
On Mary Ann Cotton. On Ted Bundy. I maneuvered my grip so that Jono and I were no longer holding hands but, rather, our fingers interlinked as if we were about to play a game of Mercy.
I watched Jono’s face. I could see he was tiring.
Panting. Snot hung from one of his nostrils.
His big lips flapped. He’d sink like a fat stone.
The thought gave me a tingle that, being only twelve, I’d never felt before.
I gripped his hand as tightly as I could and I pushed.
Down.
As hard as I could.
Jono gasped and vanished. I pushed more. Stretching every muscle. Below, I could feel Jono fighting to be free. I would not let go. A hard pleasure electrified me, pulsing from my fingers to my toes. I grunted. The guttural sound from the back of my own throat only made me push harder.
The other boys were shouting, their voices echoing off the stone of the quarry.
They’d realized Jono had gone under. Voices were everywhere.
The plank, freed from Jono’s weight, easily supported me.
Jono was now below me, his fat fingers desperately clawing at my hand and inner thighs, gouging my flesh.
The water was so deep. So cold. If Jono had only had the sense to pull me down, instead of trying to push up, I’d have had to let go.
Stupid boy. Evolution at work. After another moment, I felt a juddering and then Jono’s hand relaxed, flopping against me.
I stayed there for a moment, enjoying the way his fingers felt between my legs.
When I could truly stay afloat no longer, I let Jono go and swam slowly to shore.
I was barely able to mask the satiation radiating from my face, from my body, for the whole world to see.
I lay on the hot shale, panting, watching a wisp of cloud floating overhead.
As I basked in the bosom of the warm quarry, I felt, for the first time in my short life, true joy.
I thought of what I’d just become and what lay before me still.
Look at me, Mary Ann. Look at me, Ted. Look at me, Jeffrey.
Look at me, Mr. Gacy. I am on my way to becoming you, and more.
I’ll be everything you couldn’t be—alive and free.
Some men who’d been working near by had arrived on the scene and now swam out to the wreckage in hope of finding Jono.
Gordie sat weeping. My cousin yelled to the men to keep looking.
More adults arrived. I saw Jono’s mother on the shore and I stood to go and give her the bad news but a large man intercepted me and piggy-backed me home.
The headlines were wonderful. I remember cutting them out and taking them to show Bobby, who was confined to his bed and puked water for a week.
He mourned his friend terribly and felt, I think, guilty for what had happened.
Jono’s equally milky mother visited Bobby daily, sang hymns and placed a framed picture of Jono by my cousin’s bed.
“There’s nowt as queer as folk,” my uncle sighed when the woman had departed. He was a man of few words.
Following the trip to the quarry that summer, a lightness came over me that lasted for months. Each night in bed, I felt Jono’s fingers clinging to me. Some nights, I clawed at my own legs in my sleep. In the daytime, I began to hum. Sweet little tunes as I went about my business.
No one noticed my new-found joy except Bobby’s mother, who began to reach for his hand whenever I was close by.
I realized that if I wanted to pursue my newly discovered passion, I would have to take care to educate myself and become the best version of myself that I could be.
Fortunately for you, my natural talent, coupled with tenacity and grit, meant that I went beyond my own wildest dreams.
I became the best, and that entitles me to bestow my sagacity on whomever I choose.
And I choose to help you become the best serial killer that you can be.
Assuming that you’re not entirely stupid, you will experience some success if you follow my guidance.
I’ll also let you get to know me more personally.
I’ll tell you all about Sarah, Sean, Amy, Betty and Melanie, and a few more besides.
I hope you’re as excited as I am to get going.
Remember to take notes and to take breaks.
Have a KitKat. Drink lots of water. This is going to be a real page-turner. The juiciest bits are coming right up.