Chapter 1
I was born Robert Patrick McGuiness, yes I was Irish and my mother and father were Irish, we moved to England in 1953 when I was six, my brother James was born ten months after the big move, He died before he was 8 months old, the doctor said it was cot death that had taken him up to heaven, I knew differently, the pillow that I had held over his head the night before had more to do with his death than the cot, I didn’t really care for James, he was too noisy and got all the attention, he just seemed to get in my way, it was like he had stolen my parents, I was lucky if I could get a smile out of my mother whilst James was around, after he was gone, I got hugs and kisses and life was good again.
Less than a year later my mother gave birth to a girl, Patricia, strangely she died in the same cot but I didn’t smother her, I know I had planned to do it, the same problems had risen and I was on my own again, but before I could get to her, she died, I don’t know what of, but I was bitterly angry with her for dying on me like that, a total waste of a good plan, how dare she die before I could kill her, I almost wanted to suggest that my parents have another child, but I didn’t want to repeat that isolation of being second best.
I eventually realised that I had my pick of children at school, I was sometimes scared at how my eight year old mind worked, it didn’t take me long to realise that I could feed my lust for misery and pain and death without causing pain to my own family. I felt invincible and I couldn’t wait to get started.
It was pretty obvious to me that if I wanted to kill somebody then I would have to start a fight or at the very least get involved in a fight in the playground, this would be pretty easy, finding the right victim would be the hard part, I was a good fighter and I wasn’t scared of anyone at my school I just didn’t want to pick someone who could actually punch me back, the only problems I could see were, detection, the body would definitely be found, I guessed that if I did it in the morning then nobody would miss my victim until the end of day when his mother picked him up from school, this gave me time to try and get the body hidden, I couldn’t go and dig a hole so I needed to work on that plan.
The second problem I was worried about was evidence, I had to be thorough with the way I killed him, I had to make sure nobody saw me and that I left no proof that I was the one who had murdered a child, lord knows what my father would do if he found out, I definitely couldn’t get caught.
That was pretty much my prognosis of a perfect murder, only I didn’t see it as murder at the time, more, a bit of fun, a fight that went wrong, I didn’t mean to do it! Only I did mean it, every last bit of it.
Tuesdays were bin collection day, I decided that I could get rid of the body in a bin bag toss the bag into the larger bins and let the bin men take him away to wherever they take our rubbish, I just needed to pull bin duty for that week and I’d be laughing.
Craig Simpson was my victim, he was short and skinny, he looked like he hadn’t eaten for a month, it was well known that his family were poor so I felt like I was doing them a favour by reducing the number of mouths to feed round the dinner table, hell I could even take out his sister too and then I might becomes something of a saviour to the Simpson family, I thought of all the praise and adoration I could receive until the reality hit home that I could never tell anyone what had happened to Craig, so I guess I would have to settle for being a silent hero, I made a mental note to always wear a knowing smile whenever I saw Mrs Simpson in the future.
Pulling bin duty was easy and it got me out of assembly every morning for the week, I had to empty all the bins in the classrooms into a black sack then take the sack to the main bins and throw it in for collection on Tuesdays. Now all I needed was Craig.
Craig’s mum always drove him to school; his sister was at secondary school and got on the school bus. That morning I got up early and walked through the fog and pitch black night to where Craig’s mum always parked her car, I decided to let the tires down, I needed Craig to walk to school today! I did each tyre one by one, and then I slashed them with my pocket knife for good measure, I ran home hardly able to contain my excitement, I was about to explode on the inside, but you would never be able to tell for looking at my exterior, I had been practicing this for months, showing no expression or emotion on my face no matter what was happening inside.
I arrived at school earlier than normal, I could have kicked myself for making the mistake of changing routine, I was always one of the last to arrive, it didn’t seem to matter as the rest of the children filed through the school gates, I even viewed them as children even though I was a child myself, I felt above them in some way.
Our teacher took registration, everyone was present apart from Craig, my plan was working already, I pictured the scene in my head, Craig’s mother almost crying as she looked at the tires on her clapped out old car, she would be pacing up and down trying to work out what to do, she would be smoking a cigarette as she decided to call the police, she always called the police, she was a nut case, no matter what happened, she’d call the police, she would then tell Craig that he would have to walk to school on his own while she waited for the police to arrive.
Craig would, about the time of registration, be walking merrily to school, it was a route he was familiar with so he wasn’t scared about doing it alone, he also knew that he would be late so he didn’t hurry too much, the kid was so predictable!, The teacher gathered everybody up and led them to assembly and I dutifully stayed behind to empty the bins, This particular morning I did that job in a lightning quick time, I had to get to the main bin shelter before Craig arrived, I had roughly 25 minutes to do the job, my heart was pounding with excitement, I threw the rubbish sack into the big bin, went and filled a bucket of water and then waited for Craig, he walked through the school gates and towards me, hidden in the shelter, when he got close enough, I emerged, beckoning him to, ‘take a look at this’ which is an invitation nobody can resist.
The killing went like clockwork, I punched him hard and repeatedly hit him in his face with my fists, I held his face and repeatedly smashed the back of his skull against the wall, eventually I took my knife and stabbed him in his eye, blood sprayed out onto my jumper and turned my hands red within seconds, I eventually removed the blade and sliced his throat, then bundled him into the bin liners, I tied the sack then struggled to get him into the bin, this was something I hadn’t planned, he was supposed to go into the sack then I was to simply toss him into the bin, he wasn’t heavy, he never ate, he was a bag of bones, yet suddenly he’s as heavy as an elephant. It didn’t matter. I felt the sack eventually leave my aching shoulders and fall into the bin, the job was done, now for the blood, there was a lot, I picked up the bucket of water and sloshed it around, washing away the worst of the blood, most of it was on my jumper, but I had a plan for that too, it was going straight in the bin outside the school gates, different collection day to the school so it wouldn’t end up next to the body.
I had to get a couple of buckets of water to wash away all the blood, I then returned to my class and informed the teacher that I had done the bin duty and even rinsed the area down because it was pretty smelly, washing down the area was usually reserved for Fridays, all bin monitors loved Fridays because you got to play with the hose pipe, I also told my teacher about a strange man I saw who was in a red car that was parked outside the school gates looking at the school. There wasn’t a man at all, I didn’t even see a red car for that matter, but I already knew that once Craig was reported missing all hell would break loose and with no record of him arriving at school because he missed registration the police would have to start looking for a figment of my imagination, the man in the red car would become the prime suspect, the body would be off the premises and I’d be home free.
Happy days!
