Have you seen this? That fucking headline?

The photo’s bad enough. A picture of her, all blonde hair and pink cheeks, smiling at everyone as if she’d never had a bad thought in her life. Thinking about how fucking gorgeous she is. Well, she’s not that pretty. You’re not that pretty, love. You could do with losing some weight, for a start.

But it’s the headline that drives me mad. “Why?” Just the one word, mind you. “Why?” As if it’s some deep, profound question, when the answers are fucking obvious to anyone who actually bothers to think.

What they should be asking is, what was she doing in the park in the first place? She must have known it was dangerous. But no, she thought she knew best, so she went through it instead of crossing the main road. Thought it was a shortcut. So there’s the answer to your “why?” She’s got no-one to blame but herself.

And why couldn’t she have taken a bus, anyway? The 152 goes from right outside that school she worked at to right outside her flat. I looked it up on Google Maps this morning. If she’d taken the 152, none of this would have ever happened. Alright, I know some people don’t like buses, like my niece Lucy, but that’s not the point, is it? She can’t afford a car, but she never takes the bus anywhere. I asked her why once. I said, Lucy, it’s not about convenience, it’s about whether you live or die. That’s what they don’t understand- it’s about whether you live or die. And Lucy said that she’d caught the bus every morning for five years in high school, and, after five years of being packed in like sardines with kids who stuck chewing gum in her hair and called her “four-eyes,” she decided that she just preferred walking.

But what I want to know is, what were her parents doing getting glasses for her, at that age? Because that’s what they did, my sister Edie and her husband. Dragged her to the opticians and had them slap a pair of glasses on her, just because she was squinting a bit. It wasn’t as if she was fucking blind. But no, Edie and Pete can’t have their daughter squinting, so let’s take her off to the opticians and make sure that the other kids bully her for the rest of her life. Sometimes I feel like saying to them, if your daughter ends up the same way as blonde-hair-pink-cheeks on the front page, and you feel like pointing fingers, then point them in the fucking mirror.

“Why?” it says. What I want to know is, why did she even take a job in this area? I bet you plenty of local girls would have killed for that job. I’ve read that article. She grew up in Benfleet. You can’t tell me that there weren’t any jobs in Benfleet. You can’t tell me that she wouldn’t have found one, if she’d just got off her pretty little arse and looked. It’s a nice place, too. Barely any crime. Her mum and dad must have begged her to stay. They must have begged her not to move to a place where you’re not safe in your bed at night. But she didn’t listen. I bet she never listened. I can tell, just by looking at her face, she was the sort of girl who thinks she knows everything, and everybody else is just stupid and narrow-minded. Well, look at that front page. How clever does she look now?

I bet I know just what it was. She might have grown up in a nice little town, with parents who’d give her everything she could possibly want, but they let her watch films, didn’t they? They probably bought her all the Disney films when she was a little girl. And she probably watched them over and over, until they got their hooks into her brain. Telling her that she was special, she was a perfect princess, and she was built for better things than staying at home and keeping her mum company. Telling her that, unless she went out into the world and saw absolutely everything in it, she’d be wasting her life. Well, real life isn’t a fucking Disney film, love. Most of us had worked that out by the time we were ten.

And what I’d like to know, what I’d really like to know, is, if old blonde-hair-pink-cheeks was too good for a job in Benfleet and too good for the bus, then why couldn’t she just have rented a flat closer to work? Why did she have to get one that meant she’d have to walk through the park on her way home? It was as if she wanted something bad to happen. Some people are just headed for disaster, no matter what. If it hadn’t been what happened at the park, it would have been something else. Sooner or later, something always gets them. You can’t expect anyone to be sorry.

Actually, saying that, the landlords and the estate agents don’t fucking help, putting the rent for those flats so low. They talk like it’s just good business, but really it’s tempting innocent people into a disaster area. It’s blood money, pure and simple. Blood money. And I happen to know why those particular flats are so cheap. It’s because those tight-fisted bastards can’t be bothered to fix the heating in that building. Half the time it doesn’t work, and the other half it’s clank, clank, clank, all through the night. I’ve heard stories of people not wanting to live there because they think it’s ghosts. So there’s the answer to your “Why?”- it’s because people are stupid fucking cowards.

Look at her face. Those bright eyes and that smug little grin- I can tell I wouldn’t have liked her. You can tell that she spent all her time laughing at people behind their backs. Fluttering her eyelashes at boys and then shagging their best friends, just for the fun of it. There’s something about her eyes. You can always tell, when you look at the eyes- they never fool you. You can tell she was a complete bitch. There’s something there. Something not quite right. Something actually quite evil.

In the picture, she’s got straight, shoulder-length hair, but that’s a lie, too. What the paper doesn’t tell you is that, a few months before she died, old blonde-hair-pink-cheeks decided to get her hair braided. All done up into ratty little plaits. That wouldn’t have made such a good front page, would it? They wouldn’t be asking “Why?” then. She probably loved having her hair like that, though. Probably all her friends had the same style. But that wasn’t as funny as she thought, because someone else had her hair like that, too. She probably never even knew it, but with her hair in those ugly plaits, she looked exactly like Victoria Devereaux.

And the most ridiculous thing is, that wouldn’t even have mattered if she’d just gone to the party two weeks ago. I found out about it through a friend of my son’s. My Richie and his friends were all invited, and they all went, but not old blonde-hair-pink-cheeks. They invited her to go, but she was too good for their party. And the ridiculous thing is, if she’d gone, she could have saved herself. If she’d gone, she might have met my Richie. She might have made an impression on him, and made sure that he’d never, ever mistake her for Victoria Devereaux, as long as he lived. But she didn’t go. She missed her last chance, and she probably didn’t even realise. So don’t you go asking me questions like “Why?” Not when people can be as thoughtless as that.

Actually, if you’re going to ask “Why?” then my answer is simple- “Because of Victoria Devereaux.” If Richie had never met that bitch, then everything would have been fine. You should have seen her in the mornings, walking to the estate agent’s with her face made up like a fucking clown’s and her skirt so short that you could see the cellulite on her arse cheeks. That’s always how it is, isn’t it? They can dress like whores to reel the men in, but underneath, they’re as ugly as sin.

She knew what she was doing to my Richie. She knew that every time she batted her eyelashes (which are fake, just like the rest of her) or gave him a sexy little look, she was giving him a little bit of hope. She led him on. That’s what they always do. They let men think they’re interested, and then they shoot them down just for fun. And then they’re surprised when something like this happens. Well, it’s her fault. There’s blood on her hands.

I mean, it’s the media, isn’t it? it tells them that that’s the only way to get a boyfriend. Never mind decency and self-respect, just show off your tits and they’ll come running. They tell them men want “sultry seductresses.” In other words, “whores.” I mean, when I was young, we had something called “morals,” but I suppose that sort of thing is a bit old-fashioned these days. A bit behind the times.

Well, if it’s old-fashioned, then my Richie was as old-fashioned as it gets. You’d never see him treat a girl badly. All throughout his teenage years, he was the only boy in that whole shitty school to treat girls with a bit of respect. He was the kind of boy who’d hold doors open, and carry their books for them, and walk home with them just to make sure they were safe. I’ve always said, if he’d found a girlfriend who was as sweet as him, one with manners and class, that would have been the making of him. But he never did. All the girls at his school were… Well, there’s plenty of words for them, but none I’d use in polite company. None of them appreciated him. Let’s leave it at that. None of them appreciated him. He tried so hard with them, and all they did was laugh at him behind his back. If you ask me, girls like that bring this kind of thing on themselves.

The boys were almost as bad. Little fuckers. Felt jealous, didn’t they? Because he was going on to better things, and there they were, sat at home, knowing they were going to be stuck working at Tescos for the rest of their lives. I’m sorry, but Richie was so much better than them. I know mothers always say that about their children, but he was. You could tell, just by looking at him. Most of those boys, they looked more like animals than human beings. More like pigs. As if their mothers had screwed their way through the farmyard before they were born. People like that- weak people, useless people- they always want to bring down anyone better than them. They hate being reminded of what they are, so they won’t let anyone rise above them. It hurts them. They ground him down, my Richie. He had more intelligence and drive than anyone I ever knew. He had a spark, and they tried to put it out.

So don’t ask me “why.” Don’t print stupid headlines that ask it as if it was some profound question and we’ll never truly know the answer. I just told you the answer, didn’t I? I just gave you all the answers you’ll ever need. Cause when we live in a world like this- a world where a good, decent boy can see all his potential wasted because nobody ever cared enough- then it’s no wonder that things like that happen. In fact, it’s a miracle that they don’t appen more often. When you get right down to it, the only answer to “why” is something that you should have learned when you were a baby- life just isn’t fair.

He’s a good boy, my Richie. He’s a good boy.