What drives a person to insanity? Or do they walk, slowly scuffing their heels as they drag their feet before jumping into the abyss? I think I'd run and throw myself into Crazy head first. I wouldn't wait for it to take me prisoner and feed me mental bread and water while I banged my head repeatedly against the wall of madness.

That's what I'd like to do, though when I found the woman, I realised I had no choice. I was being dragged by my hair and thrown off the edge.

Behind the supermarket. Why would I go behind the supermarket? Why would I think it was a good idea to climb the gate? What brought me to that short, fat alleyway where the used cigarette ends pile against the corner of the fire exit doorway? Well, we don't need two guesses for that, do we? It wasn't the Tooth Fairy leaving a trail of expelled molars for me to follow as if I were Hansel trying to find his way home.

Stomach torn open. Plastic carrier bags crammed inside. The eyes gone and the tacky hen party fairy wings attached. There was something else. Buried in the carrier bags. Only just seen. A tiny, foetal hand.

The police didn't believe I was innocent of this, not after the last time. When a murder is so horrific but the culprit isn't captured, it's not easily forgotten by the boys in blue. It's a lantern to light their way through the murk of the criminals they wander among. It's a pyre on the ashes of their straight run of convictions. And a coincidence is a happenstance which bumps into another happenstance once day and they go for coffee and a flapjack whilst reminiscing on how they always seem to be doing the same things. It's not a random occurrence whirling into another and collapsing in a heap of tangled events.

Fingerprints. Interviews. A lawyer I'd never heard of or met before. Mum crying outside. I could hear her sobs through the door. But I was innocent! I didn't do this! I didn't! The voices had delicately laid their hands on me and given me the slightest nudges to push me in the right direction. Or, I imagined them being Gromit, throwing track down to guide the runaway toy train holding the penguin which stile the Wrong Trousers. I was the penguin, bang to rights.

I would have preferred to be Wallace, but I wasn't so keen on cheese.

In the end, again, they had to decide I was not guilty. But how did I find two murders so similar? They had to be committed by the same person. Did I know something I didn't know I knew?

Huh?

"Three," I said.

"Three what?" asked the Detective Constable. He'd introduced himself as Dave initially. He was ingratiating himself, worming his way under my defence so I would be off guard and confess to everything. I almost fell for his manoeuvre but it was bound to rail. I hadn't done anything.

But it was time to speak.

"Three murders."

"When I was twelve, I found dead eight dogs in Bradley Woods."

D.C. Dave slumped into his chair, shocked.

"What?"

I sat up. The secret was out - well, one of them. Why bother to hide it now? In for a penny, in for... my life. They might change their mind about my guilt, but at least I could release the beast I'd kept imprisoned for so almost a decade. The lights had been off, the door had been locked but now, at the mention of its name, the beast awakened and wanted to be free.

"When I was twelve, I found..."

"Yes, I got that." Dave interrupted, though I was sure he'd much prefer to be called by his title of D.C. Philips (one 'L' thank you very much) now we were wading deep into serial killer territory. "What happened? Who did you tell?"

"I didn't tell anyone. I was twelve and I was terrified. I suppose I thought you'd think I did it. Now look at us! I just ran."

"You ran? Where?"

"Home."

"Makes sense. Home to mummy. What else? What about the dogs?"

I don't know if Mum had ever been Mummy but I didn't correct him. Nor did I acknowledge the sarcasm. I was twelve. Of course I ran home to my parents. Just because I hadn't told them what happened didn't change the fact I was still a child at the time. At twenty two, my mother needed me to be her child more than I needed her to be mum. I hadn't fled into her bosom this time. I'd reported it to them. Called the police and stayed while they arrived and closed off the area, erecting their white tents and starting the fruitless house to house enquiries. The people in the area weren't the sort to eat fruit. They drank Carling at 9am and sat in the tiny front gardens, shirts off, smoking their non-tobacco roll-ups until late at night. They'd then turn up the music to the point they could no longer hear the neighbours banging on the walls and swear at their children. I was there because... I don't know. Because they made me, I suppose.

"They were like the woman."

"Jessica."

"OK. They were like her. Their stomachs were cut open and pine cones had been shoved inside them. They had no eyes. Those crappy wings were stuck to them."

Dave swore and leaned forward. He began to drum his fingers on the desk and his nose twitched as if it wanted to sneeze but couldn't be bothered.

"So. All that time ago, and you didn't think to mention it last time?"

"I thought you'd think it was me. I was still a kid. And it was traumatic. I wasn't thinking straight."

"And now you are?"

"I think so."

"Lucky us."

"Lucky you," I said. "Not so lucky me."

"Why's that? Are you worried you're in the frame?"

I shook my head.

"No. Lucky me. I've seen the same atrocities three times now and I'm sitting here with you making stupid digs at my expense."

D.C. Philips smiled. Who smiles during a murder enquiry? Shouldn't that be in the police training guide? Something not to do? There's been a spate of particularly gruesome deaths so you show your pearly whites? Not quite pearly or white maybe, but dental hygiene notwithstanding, it seemed like an odd thing to do.

"I like you," he said. "You freak me out, but I like you."

"Erm... Thanks?"

"You're welcome. Now. These dogs. Did you kill them?"

"No!"

"The girl?"

"No! I..."

"The woman?"

"No! I said no!"

"I didn't think so."

"What?"

Philips sat back in his chair. His smile was fixed and forced. The warmth which should have been there, if the sentiment was genuine, was missing but his posture was relaxed. He looked as if he actually did want the grin to be real but, in the face of such horror, a plastic one was all he could muster, mister.

"You're not the sort of person to do this."

I frowned. Was there a 'sort'? Did there have to be a particular type? I thought anyone could be a murderer. It was like cancer - we all had it in us, it just needed the right trigger to become a killer. So, perhaps I had done it. I had, without even knowing it, committed multiple murders and the voices were there telling me. They were my accusers and were leading me to the scenes of my crimes.

"What voices?"

I looked up. Had I said that out loud?

"Pardon?"

"It makes me laugh," he said, his smile gone showing just how funny he thought it actually was. "People sometimes mix up their inside and outside voices. They say something and are shocked when someone responds. It's as if their mind insists on being heard even when they don't want it to be."

I wondered if the voices were exactly that. My mind trying to be heard - not to others but to me. I was effectively shouting at myself but in a way I had yet to decipher. No wonder, if so, they had not shut up for so long. What were they trying to tell me?

"You hear voices?"

I didn't say anything at first. I'd opened up about the dogs at a time where I could have been seen to have had a hand in the others too. If I were foolish enough to talk about my constant companions, I would seem insane, adding fuel to the fire flicking at my demise.

"No, I don't hear voices."

The voices grew louder, perhaps incensed by my denial. It was hardly of biblical proportions but I would probably have been miffed myself. I closed my eyes and tried to shut them out. If I couldn't close my ears, my eyes were the next best thing.

"Of course you don't," he said.

I opened my eyes. He was watching me, the warmth from the smile earlier finally reaching his eyes. I lowered my hands from the sides of my head. I hadn't realised I'd raised them. My next move, my next words, could shape the rest of my life. Asylum, jail or a man rolling on the floor, laughing hysterically.

"OK. I hear voices."

There. I'd said it. I'd admitted it. I felt like holding my arms out, wrists together. Snap on the cuffs. Lock me up. Throw away the key and forget about me.

"Tell me more." D.C. Dave Philips wasn't laughing. His hand hadn't moved to his handcuffs. He was composed, as if he and I were discussing which brand of tea bags we preferred rather than murder and madness.

Fine. Let's go. I told him. I started from being a child, being woken by the whisperings of creatures in the dark I couldn't see and dad couldn't find. I told him about the dogs and the cycle rides and the feelings of alienation and the guidance. He listened in silence apart from the occasional question to prompt me. Once I was done he sat back, having leaned further forward with each passing moment.

"Quite a story," he said.

"You think I'm crazy."

"Not at all. I think you're psychic."