I wait because I have to. Two whole days, so nobody will know exactly when he disappeared, or where. Not easy, having him at home all this time. But who’s going to come calling? Who’s missing a drug dealer in a beat-up Toyota? Nobody. That’s the truth. The world’s a better place without him. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but it did. And now this is what I have to do.

Nine p.m. and I’m ready to go. I’ve had time to think about how to get this right. You can do a lot of planning in forty-eight hours, however much your world is spinning. My clothes from Tuesday are long gone, dumped in a rubbish container at work that was emptied by the bin men yesterday morning. I watched them do it. Every stitch I had on is now in a furnace or a landfill.

I’ve wiped the car for fingerprints until it shines, as well as his mobile phone, which is still in pieces on the floor. Every inch of the driver’s seat has been gone over with the Dyson. And yes, I emptied the dust down the toilet, then washed and scrubbed the vacuum inside and out. I removed the pencil using pliers and snapped it into three pieces. It went down a drain a couple of miles away. I washed the pliers in bleach.

There was a ten-litre petrol can in the boot of the Toyota. Red plastic with a black nozzle. It’s now full of petrol, syphoned from the tank. The tube I used was then cut into pieces and is now in the can itself.

By nine I’m in dark cycling gear, gloves, all nice and indistinctive. My bike is in the back of his car. I leave a few lights on in the house, ditto the TV. My phone, of course, stays there too.

I get in the Toyota and sit behind the wheel, staring through the windscreen into the darkness. I don’t look at him. But I can feel his presence, the bony body, the nasty eyes. I know if I look down and see him there, the person I killed, I won’t be able to do this. It will have been for nothing.

So off I go. It’s risky. But it doesn’t feel like risk now, as I drive. It feels like a challenge, a puzzle that I’m going to put together piece by piece. It feels like I need to do this.

Birstall is a small town just off the motorway. It’s not that far, although it will take a bit longer than normal tonight, since I’ll be taking the back roads. I drive steadily, head down. My heart’s racing. Nothing can go wrong.