Mrs Pargeter 01; A Nice Class of Corpse

∨ A Nice Class of Corpse ∧

17

WEDNESDAY, 6 MARCH – 10.45 p.m.

It is strange – or perhaps even amusing – to see how quickly my thoughts are once again turning to murder. After my first, eminently successful, foray, which so simply – and even elegantly – achieved what I needed, one might have expected a period of peace and recuperation, a period of resting on my laurels, before thoughts of murder should once again begin to dominate my mind.

But that, I fear, is not to be. Already I am experiencing that cliché of history and literature – the fact that one crime very easily leads to another. I can understand how this unalterable rule of human life might cause considerable anguish to those afflicted with a conscience, to those who commit one murder on the premise that it is a once-and-for-all solution to an intolerable problem, and then find themselves drawn inexorably on to new murders.

For me, of course, such considerations do not matter. Since removing Mrs Selsby, I have still felt no pang of remorse – indeed, no emotion at all, except for a certain smug satisfaction.

My new target is another lady – one, who, I fear, is already showing far too much interest in Mrs Selsby’s death. I do not yet know how much she knows, but I fear the worst. What she does not actually know, she may deduce, and that is a risk that I do not at the moment wish to take. Though reconciled to the possibility that my new career may end in my apprehension by the police, I do not wish to invite such an outcome. I think I will enjoy the short time left to me better if I retain my freedom.

Besides, imprisonment would rather limit my opportunities for committing other murders. For, yes, here in my diary I can make the confession that would be inadmissible anywhere else: I derived immense satisfaction from my first murder, and, though I pretend to myself that committing the second will be an unfortunate necessity, it is in fact something that I look forward to with enormous excitement.