Brutes
Men are far more likely to fight you, but women are noisier, so plan accordingly and gauge your level of expertise against the prospective victim.
I’d recommend using a gag. I also put socks over my victim’s hands.
This prevents scratching, which can lead to your DNA being collected by the victim.
Too many people are forensically aware nowadays (fucking CSI) so vics will sometimes try to scratch you for this reason alone.
I’ve even had one try to write a message in their own blood, so I now take care to minimize blood splatter, too.
You can do that in a variety of ways; cling film (shout-out to my boy Dexter) and plastic bags work well.
Don’t use the victim’s bathroom. If you need to, pee in the sink and then run the hot tap for at least ten minutes.
Definitely don’t take a dump, but if the worst happens, flush the toilet multiple times and use a lot of bleach.
Don’t drink from the victim’s crockery or eat their food.
A woman was recently captured by police after her DNA was found on a Krispy Kreme doughnut left at the crime scene.
(I can’t blame her, really—who can resist a Krispy Kreme?) Don’t vomit.
It’s almost always smell that makes one sick, so avoid rupturing the stomach and intestines where possible—the odor is overwhelming.
Pin your nose in your early days; a simple swimmer’s nose clip does the job.
You might be tempted, as I was with Betty, to take a souvenir. This can be very risky, but I confess to having magpie-like tendencies and I admit that I found my favorite pair of earrings under the most unusual circumstances.
All across England there are affluent spa towns, inhabited mainly by the wealthy.
In Victorian times, the gentry would retreat to these places to take the air and recover from the demands of the social season.
I’ve always enjoyed British tradition, so whenever the stresses of life become too much, I find myself gravitating to these places and taking some time for myself.
Who doesn’t love a firm-fingered massage?
Tony and I were enjoying a weekend of self-care, complete with riverside strolls.
I spotted Mel crying on a bench by the river, her fake eyelashes hanging askew.
Tears rolled down her orange cheeks. A cigarette dangled between two bronze fingers, tipped with neon-pink plastic.
An ugly dog, some kind of bull-jawed fighting thing, was at her feet, straining on its studded diamanté collar.
“Don’t worry. She’s soft,” Mel said through a smoky exhale, as I approached.
I’d heard many an owner of these beasts say similar things to rightfully wary passersby. A week later the brute eats their baby. I had Tony on the lead and he whimpered as I sat at the far end of Mel’s bench.
“Is something wrong, my dear?” I asked, feigning a Home Counties accent to match my old-man disguise. Mel shook her head and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her polo neck.
I was tempted to leave it there; I rarely engage in conversation with victims beforehand, especially in public. It’s highly risky. But I was seeking a new level of challenge, and something about her person had set an idea germinating at the back of my mind. So I pushed a little.
“You can tell me, dear. I’ve seen it all already. I don’t judge.”
“It’s my bloke and his raging,” she said after another drag on her cigarette. “He never means it. He feels awful for it. But sometimes I piss him off so much he just loses the plot. Jealous, see.”
“Why is he jealous?”
“Not him. Me. I’m jealous. I seen another girl on his Facebook and started mouthing off again.” She shrugged, then winced with the motion.
“Oh dear. Jealousy is never good in a relationship. What happened next?”
Melanie took another long draw on the cigarette, forcing smoke out of the corner of her mouth and revealing a cracked incisor.
“Lashes out, don’t he? Gives me a slap round the head…
” Mel lifted up her peroxide-blond hair to reveal a swollen and blackened lump of an ear, her fingertips tracing out more bumps across her skull.
Then she pulled down the collar of her polo neck, revealing thumb-shaped bruises around her neck.
I noticed tiny scars on her cheekbones and one on the tip of her nose, with faded stitch marks around it.
A little diamond stud twinkled in the daylight; I remember thinking that the tiny rhinestone was the classiest thing about our Mel. Poor bitch.
“Lovely earrings, dear,” I said.
“Ta. Me mam got them. Real diamonds. My fella—Richie, he’s called—wants me to take them down Ramsdens and get a new TV.”
It was clear to me that this Richie fellow was a low-level predator.
Barely bobcat level. Beating his tiny girlfriend around the skull was smart: no visible bruises meant no proof.
Fair enough—he might occasionally mishit and blacken an ear.
But scarring her face? That was plain stupid.
His stupidity pissed me off. Men like him give men like me a bad name.
Driven by base instincts. No control. Unoriginal.
“Excuse my ignorance, dear,” I said, readying to ask the most obvious question in the world, the one dumb women like this one never want to hear, “but why don’t you just leave him?”
Melanie chuckled slightly, rubbing her rugby-player ear.
“I have,” she said. “I’ve left him five times.
He tracks me down, don’t he? Them restraining orders do nothing.
Last time I ran, I hid at my mate’s house but Richie’d put this tracking software on my phone.
He broke in and beat the shit out of me—and my mate, too.
She pressed charges but he scared her out of coming to court because Richie knew she was dealing on the side and …
well, everything was dropped. Anyone who tries to help me is putting themselves right in danger. Richie would kill them, and me too.”
“That’s a very sad story,” I said. “I hope it all ends for you soon.”
Mel didn’t notice me following her home.
Nor did she spot Tony and me a week later.
We saw her and her gentleman head to their local the following Friday.
Mel in a dress shorter than her eyelashes, tottering on narrow heels; him in a muscle top, revealing an enormous chest and bulging neck that was home to a Union Jack and several Chinese symbols.
The couple followed a fairly regular routine and I soon knew who’d be where, and when.
Their Asda shopping arrived every Sunday and the driver left it in their porch.
It was too easy for me to slip an extra bag in among the next delivery: three bottles of fine wine (cork tops of course), some king prawns and two large steaks.
That evening, I knocked on their door, holding Tony’s lead in my hand.
As I’d planned, they were enjoying my gifts—without knowing they were from me, obviously—and as Mel swayed against the doorjamb, I could see her boyfriend slumped in a chair at the kitchen table.
I told her that Tony was missing and I was searching people’s gardens for him.
Mel let me in without question, walking me through the small home to the back door.
I searched the garden thoroughly and by the time I let myself back inside, Mel was nodding off on the sofa.
I ensured the boyfriend was well and truly unconscious before I slipped on my rain coat and a pair of his fake Nike trainers that were by the door.
Then I beat Mel to death with my gloved hands.
It took a lot longer than one might expect! And considerable strength and stamina. I’d placed an Asda reusable bag over her head to minimize blood splatter, but removed it afterward so that I could fully admire my artwork.
When it was done, I took one of the chap’s muscle T-shirts from the laundry basket, soaked it in Mel’s blood and then put it in the washing machine—the logical next step for a really stupid murderer.
Where should we dispose of our clothing?
I really hope you remember. I smudged blood under his fingernails and around his neckline.
I even rubbed a little inside his nostrils; I thought this was a particularly adroit move as the brute might shower before the police arrived.
Then I stuffed the reusable bag in his coat pocket.
I doubted the forensics team would look too far beyond these efforts, given the likely long paper trail of police reports following phone calls from concerned neighbors.
There were probably hospital records of injuries the boyfriend had inflicted on Mel over the years, too.
If I was really lucky, the restraining order would be the final nail in his coffin.
Everyone knows restraining orders are of no use when the woman is alive, but their evidential value would serve me well.
Finally, I picked up the dog lead, ready to leave, and took a moment to admire my masterpiece. I’ve debated whether or not to include this next detail in my book. I know it could go against me in later life and my advice is to never remove anything from the crime scene. But …
Mel’s face was, for the most part, obliterated.
However, her lovely little blackened ears were still intact.
Her diamond earrings twinkled through the congealing blood, which was turning a stunning deep scarlet.
Blood that’s partially dry takes on a delicious hue; it’s the most moving color in the world.
I’ve written to Dulux several times but they’re unable to match it. What a feature wall it would make.
I digress.
I wanted to remember Mel. Not as she was, but as I’d made her.
So, I took her earrings as a small souvenir.
I keep them in a drawer with Betty’s rings and other precious things.
Sometimes, when there’s a long stretch of normal life to power through, I put one of them in my pocket and it gets me through a dull day.
I figured the police would assume the boyfriend had stolen the earrings, either after killing her or at some point earlier.
Witnesses could come forward to say that he thought the diamonds were valuable and should be sold.
Heck, it might even harm his defense, as such calculating thoughts about selling diamonds would surely convince a jury that he didn’t kill Mel in the heat of the moment.
Glorious. As I type this, I am reaching down occasionally and caressing all that’s left of little Mel.
In a tragic turn of events, I really did lose Tony.
It happened not long after Melanie’s boyfriend, Richie, was convicted of her murder.
On finding his little body cold and stiff one morning, I bought a small wicker basket from Home Bargains, dug a large hole beneath an oak in a park and carved his name into the tree trunk.
I couldn’t stop crying. I probably should have had counseling, but for obvious reasons I had to suffer alone. I never returned to that town again.
What I did do, however, was research the location of women’s shelters in towns and cities I wanted to visit.
I’d realized that a predator already existing in a victim’s life made it far easier for me to avoid any kind of in-depth investigation.
In reality, it’s always the husband “what dunnit,” so why not turn that to my advantage?
I repeated this winning formula several more times.
Thanks to me, a not insignificant number of domestic abusers are now wallowing in prisons around the United Kingdom.
That’s more than any police officer can honestly say.