It was terrifying, awesome, yet at the same time fascinating, an adventure, and an education.  The human brain was not a solid lump of creamy white, like the flesh of a walnut.  It was pinky grey, mushy, shone of fluid seeping, and it squished like a thick set custard or blancmange when it was hit.  It had a plentiful blood supply!   

Frightening though the experience had been, killing was somehow exhilarating.  It felt good.  It gave a sense of relief, excitement and accomplishment…..or even purpose. 

‘Free!’  Nobody had seen it and followed.  At least he hoped that no one had seen!  Nobody had yelled out.  Of course, it could be done better next time.  A better choice of weapon would have speeded it up, and all that running could have drawn too much attention!   ‘Calmer next time.  A better weapon, and a better place to do it’…..but there would be a next time!

CHAPTER 2

A BELFAST SUBURB.

The man leaned against the door post, his squat bulk almost filling the doorway, surveying the neighbourhood as usual, smoking.  The calm late September breeze silently waved the branches of the elm trees lining the pleasant but rather nondescript, nearly well-heeled suburban street.  That part of Belfast was full of red bricked semis and detached houses with high privet hedges and privacy.  They were quiet streets in which people saw their neighbours come and go, but didn’t really know them.  Little had changed there in years.  If anything did change, he would have been the first to notice it, always on the doorstep, unemployed, boredom verging on depression, nothing better to do than watch the world go by, each day much the same as the one before.  Monotonous!

The breeze swirled his smoky exhalations above his head and into oblivion, and dislodged the Brylcreemed flap of greying sandy hair which failed to disguise his receding hair line.  Fag hanging from the side of his mouth, he pushed his hair into place, nicotine covered fingers spread like a comb’s prongs.

No one in the street.  Just a few lit windows.  The Morrisons’ tabby going on night patrol, an orange glow streaking the darkening sky, and silence.  In the silence of the night there were times when he felt like he was King of the world, the only man left in it!