I kill people for a living. As jobs go, it’s not a bad one. I work from home, make my own hours and the death can be as mild or as gruesome as I like. It’s a chance to exercise my creative side. The money might not be as good as some jobs, but there’s a certain satisfaction in the work that makes up for it.

Of course, it requires a basic selection of implements. A sharp knife is always useful, rope, wire – you’d be amazed at how effective a garrotte can be – a gun, rope. Nothing that can’t be obtained in a shop or with a modicum of ingenuity. After that it’s just down to the imagination.

I’d say it’s a growing trade, but then it’s always been here. Killers have been around almost as long as man – just think of Cain and Abel in the bible, and they wouldn’t have been the first. I’m not a killing machine, I leave that to the repressive machines that have roared through history like juggernauts. I prefer the personal touch, always one on one.

Sometimes the victims deserve it, sometimes they don’t. That’s out of my hands. I’m only the instrument of death. The decision comes from somewhere out there and it’s transmitted through me.

Dark nights, shadowy, rainy evenings, bodies bleeding into the snow. They mount up. I’ve actually lost count of how many there are now. 26 maybe? The total really doesn’t matter. I’ve seen most of their faces. I remember the eyes, the twist of a mouth, not numbers.

Oh, and before you think just who is this rather sick puppy, maybe you should know I’m a crime writer.