It’s not always messy, either. Injuries are often internal. A movie might have somebody turn to liquid and spatter the onlooking crowds with blood, but the crush of organs can happen on the inside. The cracking of the skull doesn’t always mean that your brain dribbles out.

Now multiply that by twenty.

It’s worse that they don’t all land at the same time.

The Nobodies.

The Teachers.

The Broker.

They drop in a crescendo, like giant hailstones that once had hopes and ideas. The weight as they connect with the floor comes from their experiences. You hear it and feel it because they have loved somebody and fucked a few more and failed exams and had first kisses and watched their grandparents wither and eaten bad sushi.

And hitting the water can have the same effect. It doesn’t cushion the fall. From that height, liquid can impact a body in the same way as a solid.

They don’t all land on the road. Some hit the Thames.

The Salesperson.

The Fighter.

The Au Pair.

They are The People of Choice. The ones now with courage. And they choose not to fear.

In the middle of the bridge are the last three to go. One whose hip hits the concrete with full force and opens a point in the abdomen that allows an easy escape for part of the large intestine. One who lands, feet first, with a snap of both femurs that sounds like a tree branch breaking in a storm. And one whose thud acts as a poignant full stop to the morbid charade. They are the last black lines on a barcode. They are telephone-hold music.

The Shrink.

The Chef.

The Detective.

This is one solution. And it is now the end.

71

DON’T GET SLOPPY

The trick to being a successful serial killer is to not get other people involved.

Because other people have a way of fucking things up.

Take the diminutive Donald Henry Gaskins. Insult him. Call him Pee Wee. Stick your thumb out on the side of any highway in North Carolina. And wait. Wait as 110 people are murdered. Many of them hitchhikers. Let him refer to them as pleasure kills. See how he gets away with it by working alone.

Now watch as a van breaks down on the side of the road and he is forced to take three lives at once. See how he can’t move them on his own. Watch as he calls an old con friend to help. Then brags about his other victims and the graveyard he has for the remains. See how long it takes this associate to roll over when questioned by the authorities.