2013

I don’t know why I did it.
Actually, that’s a lie. It was the money. Root of all evil and all that.
The reason I don’t mind telling you’s because my brief’s already told me I’ll get off on a technicality. See, he reckons I shouldn’t have been allowed to place a bet on a death toll and that it’s the fault of the company that made the bet up.
Court’s next week. It’s a ‘landmark case’, he tells me, which means I’ll be famous.
My brief reckons this’ll put a stop to all the unscrupulous match-fixing that’s been going on. They can’t touch the horses because it’s mostly old money, like they’re above the law, which I suppose they are now I come to think of it.
So, story goes, this gambling website had a bet on how many teenage killings there were going to be in good old London Town during last year, 2013, so I thought I’d lump down ten thousand on 63-66 killings at 60/1.
It being about the start of November, and with only 45 teenagers dead already, I thought these were very good odds indeed, especially with Bonfire Night, Christmas and New Year’s Eve coming up.
I’m a wily old sod when it comes to these quirky bets and I know that most knifings happen in winter. It’s cold, see, and the kids haven’t got anywhere to play like in summer. They can drink themselves stupid in the park and easily crash the night there none the wiser.
In winter, it’s a different story. Money’s tight and families don’t seem to be able to cope like they do in summer. Less bills and clothes to pay. Tearaways just haven’t got a chance in winter, so stabbings always go up with the cold.
When it got to the start of December, my shrewd analysis of the situation proved correct. Another half-dozen deaths took it up to 51 teenage killings.
The media made a hoo-haa about it because it was looking like a record, but I knew it wouldn’t change things. Society don’t change with a few timely newsbytes and, besides, kids can’t help themselves. They were never as bloodthirsty in my day, when a fight meant fists and maybe the odd stick here and there. It’s all changed now, though. They’ll kill someone for looking at them in the wrong way. I don’t suppose it helps when they know they’ll either get away with it or, if the police pull their finger out, maybe get a few years in the clink. It’s all about respect these days, but I can’t see it myself.
Most the youngsters round here are trained to fail from dot. Society does that to a kid. It tells them they’re worthless and if their parents join in, they’re bound to explode sooner or later. Take it out on someone else. Even the score. Gloat at the blood coming out like it might close up their own wounds. You just can’t stop it. Kids are past caring.
So, by mid-December, with further five of killings under my belt, driving the tally up to a steady 56, I’ve got to admit that I felt reasonably confident that I was onto a winner.
Then there were no more killings for a week and I started thinking the police had swept a few under the carpet to keep the numbers down (the record’s 60). I kept checking my favourite news-sites for more death but nothing changed.
The week before Christmas is always a good time for killings in London, and 2013 proved no different.
By Boxing Day, the number of killings had shot up and hit the record.
I remember seeing the number on the news, leaping out of my seat, punching the air, dancing around the telly while some MP was filmed on an estate calling for calm in the community with a bunch of hoodies behind him pulling faces.
My boys, Darius, who’s seventeen, and Drake, who’s nineteen, didn’t get the joke and asked me why I was so happy about this bumper crop, so I had to tell them, otherwise they’d have thought I was a right bastard.
I sat them down and showed them the website. Then I showed them my account and how much I stood to win if three more kids got stabbed or shot. When they saw the odds and how much I stood to win, their mouths dropped to the floor.
‘You jammy bastard!’ Darius said to me. ‘How comes you got 60/1 on it?’
‘And how comes you had ten grand to bet with when you won’t even buy me a new strip?’ asked Drake
‘Forget the bleeding strip,’ I told him. ‘I’ll be able to buy you the effing club if this comes off!’ He’d been after that new strip since the start of the season, but when it sunk in, the boys screamed and yelped. Then there was an awkward silence.
That’s when the trouble started. I could see the boys mulling over closure. That’s what money does at the end of the day. It makes you do things you’d never dream of under normal circumstances. It’s a bit like playing God.
The thought of £610,000 being placed into your account and being sorted for life can make you do some very bad things.
So, I started putting this contingency plan together to secure my winnings. The boys had come up the same idea, as it happens.
On the day before New Year’s Eve, there were reports of one stabbing in North London but the lad hadn’t quite died. He was in a critical condition with his family praying for him, half the hospital working on him and all I could do was wish the poor boy dead.
By the next morning, he’d died, and I felt awful when I heard the news. It’s weird looking back now, but I was on another wavelength by then.
Only two more teenagers to go and I was made for life.
I’d already confirmed with the gambling website, notes4neets.com, that the cut-off was midnight on New Year’s Eve so I knew that it’d go to the wire, what with most killings happening after midnight’s festivities, so I did the unthinkable and asked Darius and Drake to go out and kill a couple of teenagers. They agreed to do it so long as I promised them a flat each. I agreed so off they went, down to the East End in the Polo.
When they got back home, they told me they’d done it but then it came on the news that the two they’d done were twenty, which didn’t count, so I sat glued to the telly all night for news of more death. The boys were shaking and crying so I gave them some whisky to calm them down.
There was a kid on a life-support machine in Harlseden but he didn’t count because it was his father-in-law who’d stabbed him. Another lad had six drips in him at a private hospital in Kensington, but then I found out he’d overdosed on an exotic melange of class A’s at some soiree, which put that one to bed.
Typical of my luck, or maybe it was the devil in the detail, 2013 was the first year in London’s history (since records began) that no teenagers died on New Year’s Eve; small mercies considering that 2013 was also the year that saw the most teenagers being killed in one year.
My hopes were pinned on the vague possibility of the police unearthing dumped bodies yet to have been found, but the website had strict rules in place that prohibited any bodies found after a week, ‘as time of death could not be made certain by autopsy after this time’.
On the morning of January 7th 2014, the police came to visit. They handcuffed Darius and Drake and took them away for questioning, locking them up without bail.
Unfortunately, the DNA proved beyond doubt that they’d killed the lads in the East End.
The weirdest thing happened the day after, though.
This posh lawyer from London turned up at my door and told me that me and the lads would be in the clear if I did exactly as he said. It was a case of diminished responsibility, he said, and he was acting on behalf of some deeply religious client who wanted to see gambling websites like notes4neets.com shut down forever.
All I had to do was claim that I’d lost all sense of perspective because of the implications of the bet put by the site and he’d see to it that Darius and Drake were given suspended sentences. I’d be cleared of everything.
There’s only a week till the court case and I’ve had letters of support from some very powerful people.
The thing that worries me is the amount of death threats I’m getting.
No matter how hard I try, I just can’t get any sleep. Darius and Drake have been put into care and my wife’s left me.
Still, it could be a lot worse, I suppose.