Paul Johnson - The Death List

The White Devil thought about the notes he’d sent the writer that morning. He couldn’t have said that they’d disturbed him. Nothing disturbed him anymore. He was immune, driven, dedicated only to his purpose. But he’d felt stirrings of something as he put the facts down. Not remorse or anything as feeble as that. Not even hate, though there had been enough of that in the past. It took him some time to identify the emotion, but he finally got it. Pride. He was proud of what he’d done, just as he’d been proud of what he’d done to his father. People like that deserved to die, they deserved to die in agony. They had done, and soon others would be going the same way.

It was why he’d been put on the surface of the earth.

“Les Dunn, Les Dunn. Les ’as done it again! Les ’as done it again! Pissed ’is pants. Crapped ’isself.”

The words burned into him, even though they weren’t true. Richard Brady had always picked on him, from the first day in Primary One. He was big, red-faced, and he had a mouth on him. His father was a lorry driver who brought him sweets and other things he stole from his loads. Richard Brady didn’t even have to nick from the shops on the Roman Road like the rest of them. He came to school with his pockets full.

It was the last year of primary school now.

“Oy, Les! ’Ave you done doing it?”

The crowd of arse-lickers around Brady sniggered. When Les didn’t answer, the bully walked quickly over to him.

“I didn’t hear what you said,” Brady yelled, cupping his ear.

Les felt himself start shaking, but he kept his lips together.

“Gone all quiet, ’ave we?” Brady grinned, and then grabbed Les’s balls. “Still can’t hear you.” He squeezed harder.

Les’s eyes were bulging. He took a deep breath and whispered two words. “You’re…dead.”

Brady leaned closer. “What?” Suddenly he was less sure of himself.

“I’m…going to…fuckin’…kill you.”

The bully took a step back, his face less crimson than usual. He looked round the crowd that had gathered. “Yeah, I think ’e’s done doing it,” he said, taking his hand away.

His cronies stared at him as he walked off, then started shouting at Les again. But he didn’t care. He knew he’d won. He’d discovered the power of words and how to wield it.

For the rest of that final term, Richard Brady kept his distance. He still joined in when the other boys made fun of Les, but he didn’t instigate the bullying. It was as if he’d seen a small dog’s teeth and lost the will to taunt it. He even waved at Les on the last day in the playground. He was moving to Watford in the summer holidays and he wouldn’t be seeing any of his primary schoolmates again.

By that time, Les had become an expert at concealing himself and watching people covertly. He took up a position behind some rubbish bins when the Brady family was getting ready to move out of the terraced house in Gawber Street. They had five kids and so much stuff that it wouldn’t all fit in Mr. Brady’s lorry. He’d got a friend to bring another one. When they’d filled it, old man Brady shouted out the address to the other driver.

Les smiled as he wrote it down in his notebook.

Two weeks later, he used some of the money he’d got from the local fences to take the train up to Watford. He had found a map of the town in the library and made a copy showing the streets between the station and the Bradys’ new place. It was a sultry day, the August sun hidden behind gray-white clouds that presaged rain. Les hid behind a battered Ford Cortina. In the early afternoon, the five kids appeared. Richard was the third by age and the only boy. He said something and all four of his sisters started shouting at him. Then they gathered together and walked away. Richard watched them leave, and then turned in the opposite direction. Les followed him, slinging the canvas bag he’d brought over his shoulder.

Richard Brady didn’t seem to have made any new friends since he’d arrived. He mooched around on a street corner, but when none of the local boys paid any attention to him, he set off toward a patch of green at the end of a road. Les, keeping his distance, realized that it was a small wood. Beyond it could be seen recently harvested fields. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. The heat was keeping people indoors, as well as making Richard Brady’s armpits damp. Les sniffed. He could smell him.

Brady disappeared into the trees. As Les got closer, ducking behind the parked cars, he picked up another scent. Richard was smoking from behind a tree trunk. When he reached the edge of the wood, Les squatted down and opened the bag. After he’d pulled on gloves and equipped himself, he concealed the bag beneath a bush and started to crawl silently through the undergrowth. He could hear Brady singing some horrible Sham 69 song about going drinking. He stopped when he got behind the tree. Controlled his breathing. And started the countdown. Ten…nine…On three, he tossed one of the bricks he’d brought to the left. On one, he went round the right-hand side of the tree. Brady was on all fours, looking in the opposite direction.

Les clubbed him on the side of the head with the other brick. Brady lay moaning on the parched earth, blood coming from his ear. He wasn’t completely out, but Les wasn’t bothered. He unwound the rope and slung it over a sturdy branch about eight feet above ground level. Then he got Brady into a sitting position and fitted the noose he’d fashioned round his neck. Les had spent hours working on it, having found a diagram in a book of knots in the library. There was so much to learn in there.

When he had it tight, he started pulling. Richard Brady was a fat pig. It took Les a few minutes to get him into a standing position, but he’d been working hard on his fitness, building up his upper-body strength. By that time, the bully was coming round. Les kept hauling away, until Brady’s feet were well above the ground. The boy started to choke, his face redder than ever. His eyes opened. When he saw Les, they got wider. They were already bloodshot. The tip of his tongue was caught between his front teeth. As Les finished securing the other end of the rope, blood dribbled down Brady’s chin. He was biting through his tongue, making throaty noises that sounded like someone trying to be sick and not succeeding.

Les smiled up at him. He’d taken the precaution of tying his hands and legs, as he’d seen in The Big Book of Executions. He stepped close and brandished the smoldering cigarette he’d found in the dust.

“Smoking is very bad for you,” he said, taking a drag. “Sorry, I can’t hear you. Are you done choking? Not yet? That’s all right, I can wait.”

And he did. He waited the thirteen minutes and twenty seconds it took Richard Brady to die. Then he undid the ropes from his wrists and ankles and took them away, along with the two bricks-he dumped them in cleared ground near the station.

On the train back to Euston, Leslie Dunn couldn’t stop smiling.

There was a small piece in the evening paper the next day about a boy found in a wood on the outskirts of Watford. The police didn’t think it was suicide and their inquiries were continuing. But it never occurred to them to come down to the East End. A month later, Les was scanning the paper in the library. The coroner had pronounced an open verdict. He said he suspected that other boys may have been involved, but the police had been unable to make a breakthrough. Richard Brady’s family was said to be distraught.

Les looked that word up in the Oxford English Dictionary.

“Ha!” He snorted before he could stop himself.

“Shoosh!” said the elderly librarian, the one with her gray hair in a ponytail. She’d taken the boy under her wing and looked very disappointed by his outburst.