I’m not sure how long they were there, or who found them, the discarded body parts I mean. A burly inquisitive dog, perhaps, sniffing at it while it tugged hard on its lead, its owner trying desperately to pull it away from the flies and the stench? Or a group of nosey kids, on an adventure in the neighbourhood, just like those kids in the film Stand By Me, flipping the box lids open and running away as a swarm of flies and the smell hits them. Yet, coming back again, with t-shirts over their mouths and noses, to look inside once more and prod at its contents with sticks; they pause and take photographs on their phones for evidence and proof to fuel stories at school the next day.

Whoever it was who found them, I’m not sure why the killer decided to so brazenly leave them there for all to see. Why not drive them out somewhere more secluded, burying them at night? Throwing carefully tied plastic rubbish bags, their contents covered in quicklime, into deep graves up in the mountain. I wondered this on first hearing the story. Then I remembered the time I had walked up there myself, having to stop and pretend to check my phone every 10 minutes while I caught my breath.

Yup, I would have dumped them in an alley too.

2/7