When I had given evidence in the witness box.

I know I said earlier that I didn’t attend the trial, and I didn’t, not as a spectator. And I was only there for half an hour anyway. And the trial did drag on for weeks. I think it would have dragged on for weeks and weeks more, and all at the taxpayers’ expense, if I hadn’t given my evidence. If I hadn’t got up in the witness box and had my say.

You see, it all hinged on the mother’s evidence. She’d been there when the butchery took place. But the counsel for the defence said that she was an unreliable witness.

So I got up and said my piece. And it did involve a crisis of conscience. Because I had to swear on oath and tell the truth and everything. So I explained how I knew that Mum was being sexed by the ice-cream man on Wednesday evenings when Dad was out playing darts at the Legion. And how I saw everything happen on that terrible evening.

It was my evidence that hanged him.

Crisis of conscience, you see. You can understand that. Should I own up and be honest and tell the truth, or should I lie? I chose to tell the truth, which hanged my daddy. I could have kept quiet, I could have lied, but I didn’t.

Well, I wouldn’t have, would I?

I’m an honest fellow.

And I’d gone to a lot of trouble anyway.

A lot of trouble. But then, it takes a lot of trouble to commit the perfect crime. Which I had done.

You see, I really hated that ice-cream man for sexing my mother. I wanted him dead. But I didn’t have the nerve to kill him myself and I was sure that, even if I’d had the nerve, I’d have been caught. So I needed someone to do it for me. Which was why on that fateful night I phoned the Legion and tipped off my father, in a disguised voice, of course, that the ice-cream man was on his way over to sex his wife. I phoned a little early, you see, because I needed time to go and hide myself in the wardrobe. So I could watch the murdering. So I could give evidence. Because I wanted the Daddy dead too, horrible swine that he was.

It was two perfect crimes in one, really. Which is pretty damn good, in my opinion.

So one more perfect crime wasn’t going to hurt.

And I had, during the course of all my pacing and heartbreaking, come up with a really good one to rid myself of Count Otto. It was such a good one, in fact, that I felt certain that even if Sherlock Holmes teamed up with Miss Marple, Ironside, Lazlo Woodbine and Inspector Clouseau, my name would never come up once during the course of the investigation.

It would be the perfect crime.

And it sort of was. Or would have been. I’m not quite sure, really. Things certainly didn’t turn out the way I’d planned. But that’s life for you, isn’t it? Full of surprises, and none of them, in my opinion, pleasant.

So let me tell you the story of what happened. I’m sorry if I bored you for a bit with all the talk about life and death and the dead not telling the truth and me not knowing why and suchlike. But it’s all relevant and it did provide the opportunity for me to own up about my dad and the ice-cream man, because I’m being honest here: I’m telling you all of the truth, the whole truth, as it happened.

I had come up with a three-phase plan to win Sandra back and I was certain it would work.

Now, I must have been asleep. My face was in the ravioli. I’d cooked it myself in the new macrowave oven the night before last. You probably don’t remember macrowave ovens. They were the Betamax of the microwave revolution. They never really caught on. I suppose it was their size. Ours, which was about the size of a Mini Metro, took up most of the kitchen area. But it was fast. It could reduce an entire Friesian cow to ashes in about 0.3 seconds. I think the macrowave oven accounted for a lot of people who supposedly went “missing” back in the early seventies. You could definitely commit the perfect crime with a macrowave oven.

They were soon withdrawn. The macrowaves leaked out, apparently. I know that all my checked suits became plain suits and the wardrobe was two rooms away. And all the fur fell out of our cat. And it used to cast my shadow up the kitchen wall when it was on. And years later the shadow was still there and couldn’t be washed off.

It was red hot with ravioli though. It cooked up ravioli so fast that it was done before you even put it in.

So there I was, asleep or something, face down in my plate of ravioli, when suddenly I’m being struck around the back of the head by something hard, which I later identify as being the piece of breezeblock that I was carving into a facsimile of Noddy Holder,[19] by Sandra, who had made an unexpected return to the marital home.

“Wake up, you piece of scum,” Sandra shouted, loud enough for me to hear but not appreciate. “Wake up and look at this mess.”

I woke up and looked at the mess.

And when I’d got over the shock of being woken, I showed no surprise at the mess whatsoever.

“I recognize this mess,” I told Sandra. “It was here yesterday and also the day before. Why are you striking me on the head to draw my attention to it?”

“It’s your mess!” shouted Sandra, and she surely shrieked.

“Cease the shrieking!” I said to her. “There’s a man upstairs who flew Spitfires. You’ll frighten him.”

“He died years ago. You lazy bastard. I go away for a few days of well-earned rest …”

“Did you have a nice time?” I asked, from beneath the table where I cowered, still ducking from the blows.

“No,” said Sandra. “I got thrush.”

“Give it to the cat,” I said. “It will be grateful for a bit of fresh meat. I haven’t fed it for a week.”

Sandra struck me with renewed vigour.

I crawled out from under the table and now, being fully awake, clopped her one across the nose, which sent her reeling and caused her to relinquish her hold upon the breezeblock, which she dropped, breaking Noddy Holder’s nose.

“Now look what you’ve done,” I said.

“What I’ve done,” said Sandra, clutching at her bloodied nose. “You hit me! You hit me!”

“You started it,” I said.

“I’ll have you for this. I’ll sue you. You’re finished.”

I sighed sadly. “Welcome home,” I said.

“You call this home?”

“Let me make you a cup of tea,” I said. “Did you bring me back a stick of rock?”

“I’m leaving you,” said Sandra. “I can’t take any more.”

I sat myself back down in the chair I had so recently been knocked from. “We’ve got off to a bit of a bad start here,” I said. “So let’s let bygones be bygones and start again. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our relationship and I think I’ve come up with a solution. Firstly—”

“Shut up!” shouted Sandra. “Shut up!”

“Firstly, I think we should go out together more. No, not now, because I have a lot on in the evenings, but soon, then—”

“Shut up!”

“And I’ve bought this book, Bring the Bounce Back into Your Marital Sex Life Through Bestiality. We’ll have your pussy earn its thrush, eh?”

“Shut up!” Sandra took up dirty plates and threw them in my direction.

“And counselling,” I said. “Marriage counselling. I found this ad in the Brentford Mercury. We can go and see this marriage counsellor. She’s a young woman and she’ll help us sort things out. It costs quite a bit, but it will be worth it. We’ll be all right for a threesome and if you’re not too keen to do it with me at first, I don’t mind, I’ll just watch.”

Sandra tried to throw the macrowave at me. But, come on, it had taken six strong lads to get that thing in here.

“I hate you!” shouted Sandra.

“Hate is healthy,” I told her. “Hate is just love trapped inside and trying to get out. You can beat me if you want. And I’ll beat you. We can hurt each other until we both cry for mercy. Come on, let’s do it now.”