The criminal always has to return to the scene of the crime. Always, always, always. Has to, has to, has to. Has to return. Don’t ask me why because I couldn’t tell you. It’s as if this there is this tremendous force acting upon us, compelling us to return, unwise as this may seem. And let me assure you, it generally is unwise – very unwise. Especially if the police are still around in force, as they often are course. There’s nothing like a crime scene for attracting the attention of the police, as you might imagine.

Nothing like crime, nothing like a crime. The normal instinct is simply to run away from the scene of the crime as fast as possible, but it’s not as simple as that when you’re an actual bona fide criminal. Indeed it isn’t. Perhaps it’s the criminal mind that does it – we hear an awful lot about the peculiarities of the criminal brain these days and so it seems to me to be natural enough to wonder if the well-documented idiosyncrasies of the criminal neuroanatomy may not have something to do with it. We don’t think in the same way as non-criminals do, you see. We don’t think in the same way at all. The peculiarities of the criminal brain you see! The peculiar and unusual abnormalities of the abnormal criminal brain.

I was born omniscient but became stupider and stupider with each passing year. The years passed very quickly, as they generally do, and before I knew it I had reached the end of my tether. The years passed by quickly as they inevitably do, and before long the best years of my life had passed me by. I fell into a deep, deep sleep. When I awoke nothing had changed and yet everything had changed. I had slept on the job, I had fallen asleep at the wheel. Things have gone too far, and yet they had not gone far enough. Two long rows of people dressed in strange otherworldly garb were filing solemnly past me and as each one walked passed me they murmured comments – ‘So you nodded off again Rip’, one would say and ‘You look like you’ve overslept, my friend’, the next person would whisper, and so on and so forth. ‘Hope you had a good sleep there, buddy,’ another would add. All of this had a distinct feeling of deja vu about it, as I’m sure you can appreciate. I checked the time on my custom-made subdermal chronometer, my joints creaking noisily as I did so. It was half past forever.

It wasn’t long before the police were on the scene, making a detailed forensic observation. They had set up a cordon and were in the process of interviewing witnesses. No one had seen anything and so no coherent statements were made. In the confusion I managed to escape, walking off down the road as fast as I could without drawing attention to myself. If you walk too fast people think you’ve got something to hide and if you’re not going fast enough then they think you’re dawdling. Either way the authorities will be notified and inquiries will be made. Prepared statements will be read out to the press. Running, running, running. Forever running. Forever running from the terrible thing. It becomes a way of life of course. It becomes who you are. If you ask me who I am I will reply ‘I am the one who flees, I am the one who flees the nameless horror…’ That’s all I can tell you – I know no more. I don’t want to know more. I flee the terror that is too great to speak of…