Her name was Ginny; I still remember her. She was lying with her legs spread on the bed with one hand holding onto the brass bedhead while wearing stockings and next to her this panty drawer was open and spilling over with lingerie. Oh my god, I said to myself. I looked between her legs and it was like two worlds colliding and it was like lingerie was the highest pinnacle of civilisation; everything we had been fighting for; in Gor and in Middle-earth and in reality. It was a profound moment of worship and afterwards I walked back through to the living room and it was like walking onto the command deck of a spaceship. I told them how great it was, that they should try masturbating on acid, and one by one – all except Findlay – they took their turn in the bathroom so that the magazine was soaked right through and I had to wrap it in a plastic bag and throw it in the bin in the morning. After that it was inevitable that we would form a band.

Someone had given the description of a person with blue hair and who was dressed like a schoolboy fleeing the scene. The band needs to split up, Alan said. We need them to go into hiding. We had a meeting at Duncan’s parents’ house; the four of us sat on the bed with a single bare light bulb illuminating the room and dirty clothes piled everywhere. Duncan’s dad came into the bedroom, he wasn’t quite drunk yet, just moderately sauced, and he asked us about the killing of the Chinese. I heard he was hit over the head with a paving stone, he said. Who is even strong enough to lift one of those, never mind bringing it down on some poor bugger’s skull? We shook our heads and tried to picture the scene and the superhuman effort involved; all except Alan, who just sat there with his head in his hands. Things escalated from there. I demanded to see the dolls, they were kept in boxes in the basement of Findlay and Alan’s house, and I insisted that we break them out and examine them. What for? Duncan asked. Are you looking for bloodstains? Maybe, I said. I might be. He looked at me like he was caught in the teeth of something; like a great mouth had opened up behind him and he had felt that first pressure on his flesh; that frisson just before the tooth penetrates the skin; which is the prerogative of young bodies, I realise now; that expectant shudder where doom itself seems like a fair exchange and more worthy of jaw-dropping awe and complete and utter surrender than total weeping despair. I felt like I was pregnant with every idea in the world and that none of them mattered.