I was 12 when I resolved to kill the bully who grew up to be the golf club bore ...

So begins a spine-tingling tale (with an ingenious twist) from the queen of crime writers P.D. JAMES, starting a special series to enthral you in lockdown

BY THE time you read this I shall be dead. Dead for how long, of course, I cannot predict. I shall place this document i n the strongroom of my bank with instructions that it shall be sent to the daily newspaper with the largest circulation on the first working day after my funeral. My only regret is that I shan’t be alive to savour my retrospective triumph.

But that is of small account. I savour it every day of my life. I shall have done the one thing I resolved to do when I was 12 years old — and the world will know it. And the world will be interested, make no mistake about that!

I can tell you the precise date when I made up my mind that I would kill Keith ManstonGreen. We were both pupils at St Chad’s School on the Surrey borders, he the only child of a wealthy businessman with a chain of garages, I from a more humble background, who would never have arrived at St Chad’s except for the help of a scholarship endowed by a former pupil and named after him.

My six years from 11 to 17 were years of hell. Keith Manston-Green was the school bully and I was his natural, almost inevitable victim: a scholarship boy, timid, undersized, bespectacled, who never spoke of his parents, was never visited at half-term, wore a uniform that was obviously second-hand and was, like the runt of the litter, destined to be trampled on.

For six years during term time I woke every morning in fear. The masters — some of them at least — must have known what was happening, but it seemed to me they were part of the conspiracy.

And Manston-Green was clever. There were never any obvious bruises: the torment was subtler than that.

He was clever in other ways, too. Sometimes he would admit me temporarily into his circle of sycophants, give me sweets, share his tuck, stick up for me against the other boys, giving hope to me that all this signalled a change. But there never was a change.

There’s no point in my reciting the details of his ingenuities. It is enough to say that at six o’clock in the evening on the 15th of February 1932, when I was 12 years old, I made a solemn vow: one day I would kill Keith ManstonGreen. That vow kept me going for the next five years of torment and remained with me, as strong as when it was first made, through all the years that followed.

ITMAY seem odd to you, reading this after my death, that killing ManstonGreen should be a lifelong obsession. Surely even childhood cruelty is forgotten at last, or at least put out of mind. But not that cruelty; not my mind. In destroying my childhood, Manston- Green had made me what I am. I knew, too, that if I forgot that childish oath I would die bitter with regret and self-humiliation. I was in no hurry, but it was something I had to do.

My father had inherited the family business on the fringes of London’s East End. He was a locksmith and taught me the trade. The shop was bombed in the war, killing both my parents, but government money compensated for the loss. The house and the shop were rebuilt and I started again.

The shop wasn’t the only thing I inherited from that secretive, obsessive and unhappy man. I had, like my father had, a part-time job.

Through all the years, I kept track of Keith Manston-Green. I could, of course, have received regular news of him by placing my name on the distribution list for the annual magazine of St Chad’s Old Boys’ Society, but that seemed to me unwise. I wanted St Chad’s to forget I had ever existed.

I would r e l y on my own researches. It wasn’t difficult. Manston- Green, l i ke me, had inherited the family business and, motoring through Surrey, I would note every garage I passed which bore his name.

I had no difficulty, either, in finding out where he lived. Waiting for my Morris Minor to be filled, I would occasionally say, ‘ There seems to be quite a number of Manston- Green garages in this part of the world. Is it a private company or something?’

Sometimes the answer would be, ‘Search me, guv, haven’t a clue.’ But other times I got a nugget of information to add to my store. ‘Yeah, it’s still owned by the family.

Keith Manston-Green. Lives outside Stonebridge.’ After that it was only a question of consulting the local telephone directory and finding the house.

It was the kind of house I would have expected. A new red-brick monstrosity with gables and mockTudor beams, a l arge garage attached which could take up to four cars, a wide drive and a high privet hedge f or privacy, all enclosed in a red-brick wall. A board on the wall said, in mockantique script, Manston Lodge. I wasn’t in any particular hurry to kill him. What was important was to make sure that the deed was done without suspicion settling on me and, if possible, that the first attempt was successful.

It was one of my constant pleasures, scheming over possible methods. But I knew that this mental anticipation could be dangerously self- i ndulgent. There would come a moment when planning, however satisfying, must give way to action.

When the war broke out in 1939 my fear, greater than that of the

I rang the police and said, there’s screaming in the clubhouse ... please come quick!

driver in hand. As I said, I have a good eye. It took only two swings to kill her, three more to batter her face into a pulp. I dropped the driver, let myself out and locked the door. There was a public phone box at the end of the lane.

When I asked for the police I was put through promptly and without trouble.

I disguised my voice although it wasn’t strictly necessary. It became the confused, highpitched, terrified voice of an older man.

‘ I’ve just passed the golf club. There’s screaming in the clubhouse. A woman. I think someone’s killing her.’

‘And your name and address, sir?’

‘ No, no. I’m not getting mixed up in this. It’s nothing to do with me. I just thought I ought to let you know.’ And with gloved hands I rang off.

They came, of course. They came j ust i n time to see Manston-Green bending over his wife’s body. I couldn’t have planned that.

I imagined they might have been late but would still have had the club with her blood and matted hair, the fingerprints, the evidence of quarrels. But they weren’t late; they were just in time.

I resisted the temptation to go to the trial. It was irritating to have to forgo that pleasure, but I thought it prudent.

Press photographs were being taken of the crowd, and although the chance of being recognised was infinitesimally small, why risk it?

And I thought it sensible to continue going occasionally to the golf club, but l ess frequently.

The talk was all of the murder, but no one bothered to include me. I took my solitary lessons and departed.

He appealed, of course, and that was an anxious day for me. But the appeal failed and I knew that the end was now certain.

THERE were only three weeks between sentence and execution and they were probably the happiest of my life, not in the sense of an exultant joy, but of knowing myself at peace for the first time since I’d started at St Chad’s.

The week before the execution I was with him in spirit through every minute of every hour in that condemned cell. I knew what would happen on the morning when he would be launched out of this world and out of my mind.

I pictured the arrival of the executioner the day before to fulfil Home Office requirements: the dropping of a sandbag in the presence of the governor to make sure that there would be no mishap and that the length of the drop was correct.

I was with him as he peered through the spyhole in the door of the condemned cell, a cell only feet away from the execution chamber. It’s a merciful death if not mishandled and I knew Manston- Green would die with less pain than probably would I.

The suffering was in the preceding weeks and no one could truly experience that horror but he.

In imagination I lived his last night, the restless turning and twisting, the strengthening light of the dreaded day, the breakfast he wouldn’t be able to eat, the clumsy kindness of t he constantly watching guards.

I was with the hangman in imagination when he pinned Manston-Green’s arms. I was part of that little procession which passed through the dreaded door, the white-faced governor of the prison present, the chaplain keeping his eyes on his prayer book held in shaking hands.

It’s a quick death, only some 20 seconds from the moment the arms are pinioned to the drop itself. But there would be one moment when he would be able to see the scaffold, the noose hanging precisely at the level of his chest before the white hood was pulled into place. I exulted at the thought of those few seconds.

As usual I went to the prison the day before the execution. There were things to be done, instructions to be followed. I was greeted politely, but I wasn’t welcome.

I knew they felt contaminated when they shook my hand. And every prisoner in every cell knew that I was there.

Already t here was t he expected din, shouting voices, utensils banged against the cell doors. A little crowd of protesters or morbid voyeurs was already collecting outside the prison gate.

I am a meticulous craftsman, as was my father before me. I am highly experienced in my part-time job. And I think he knew me. Oh yes, he knew me. I saw the recognition in his eyes that second before I slipped the white hood over his head and pulled the lever. He dropped like a stone and t he r ope t autened and quivered.

My life’s task was at last accomplished and from now on I would be at peace.

I had killed Ke i t h Manston-Green.

THE Part-Time Job by P. D. James is published by Faber & Faber at €3.99 in paperback © PD James 2020. Also available from Amazon.co.uk as an ebook (€2.20). Published with kind permission of the Estate of P.D. James.