I met Xander at a concert.

The Philharmonia were playing a Finnish programme, and included amongst all the Sibelius was Suolahti's "Sinfonia Piccola." It had been a long time since I had heard it performed, not since that day in Norway, the day I had left twelve years in the past. That was the last time that I had killed somebody intentionally. The last time I had killed somebody was in the December of that year. Buying my weekly box of matches at my local newsagent, the pile of Wiltshire Times newspapers on the counter each informed any readers that "LOCAL SCHOOLBOYS DIE IN MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES." The headline was completely wrong. I knew for a fact that the two boys featured, Tony Lester and Pat Hedges, had already attended a term at university, so they weren't technically schoolboys. Additionally, having had a cheap read of the article, I discovered that the two boys had simply dropped dead in the foyer of Wiltshire Music Centre. I knew for another fact that there was a display of our Norway tour there, and I concluded that they must have seen my photograph and died of shock. Really.

From that moment, I knew that it was time to stop. If people were dying just by looking at me, then it was too easy. Everything that I had done had been unnaturally simple to execute, so it was only a matter of time before people realised that I was the common denominator in all of the deaths that I had enabled.

Stopping was easier than I had anticipated. My life became punctuated by ease. I passed all three sets of exams with very little effort, and I even graduated with a first degree in politics having not done as much hard work as I could have. Not long after I had made the decision to stop killing, I realised that there were two paths that I had to choose between in order to vent the excess anger and vindictiveness that I habitually possessed. The choice was between politics and teaching, and I favoured politics in the end. I knew that I wanted to get to the top, and that this would require a long, hard slog. Teaching was too easy, and I instinctively felt that I had better commit myself to something more taxing to prevent anything from imploding later on. On a roll, I was quitting whilst I was ahead.

After university, I managed to find myself a job in London making coffee for some MP. The Philharmonia concert was five months after I had moved into the city. I saw the programme advertised in an RFH booklet and didn't think anything of it until I realised that I couldn't remember the melody for the third movement of the Suolahti. All I could recall was the timpani solo and that the middle section modulated into E flat. Quickly, I became obsessed with finding out what the piece sounded like, and unable to find a recording of it anywhere, I admitted defeat and bought myself a ticket for the concert.

The performance was actually rather good, but it brought back memories of easier days when I didn't have to control my instinct to kill. Feeling rather out of sorts, I left the building at the interval to find something to burn. I found my way out to the riverside, where there was another figure present, sobbing into the river. I paid no attention and searched through my pockets for something flammable. I wondered if cough sweets would set alight. The figure turned to me just as I was striking a match and blinked back tears. He replaced a pair of glasses onto his face and looked at me.

'Stevie?' he asked.

Shit.

Xander.

After the end of the year of the Norway tour, only a handful of people still remained of the original party of seventy-nine. Carol Marrow, the peripatetic violin teacher who had come along for the ride, had escaped by escorting home Bobby Nicefield after the infamous uzi incident. The four percussionists, Mike Schwarzkopf, Helen Thomas, Darren Lessing and Ralph Forster, as well as Mr Morris himself, had avoided incineration by sound-checking in the church hall when I had torched everybody else whilst they were warming up in their green rooms. Finally, Kathryn Lord, the flautist, Damon Hedges, Pat's brother, and Xander had survived purely by chance. The three of them had been testing out the climbing frame in the school playground, and so had been unaffected by the fire.

I remembered Xander as being a complete head case, always as erratic as myself, but much less discreet, much less violent, about it. However, the other orchestra members found his eccentricities endearing, and so he had been very popular. It had been amusing to watch him climb up the flag pole of the MS Jupiter at three in the morning, but I couldn't help feeling hugely disappointed at his safe descent and return to the deck, as I had been hoping that he would have made himself one less person for me to kill. As it turned out, I completely failed to get rid of him when push finally came to shove, so maybe climbing the flag pole was some sort of good luck protection charm for him. When you tempt fate and your offer isn't taken up, you begin to get lucky.

Back to the riverside. Xander had obviously been completely moved by the music and he wanted to talk to me. I got the feeling that he wanted to talk, in general, to anybody. He still hadn't realised that I had been the cause behind the school fire in Voss, as well as the "mysterious deaths" of Pat and Tony, and if he had, he wasn't talking about that, at least. He needed consoling, but so did I, so I took him for a drink. We both got very drunk, which let my guard down, and so he managed to get hold of my telephone number. The original plan was for me to completely avoid him after that night because I didn't really want to be reminded of the youth orchestra, but that happened in the end.

Xander and I continued to meet. He worked on the forty-third floor of a corporate building, and he made lots of money. Having lost all his outgoingness and verve for life on Tony's death, though, he had become quiet and introverted, and as a result, lonely. It was all very sad for Xander and I sympathised with him and all that, so it came as a great surprise when he decided to tell me that he was in love with me. He was rich and clever and I knew I'd never find anybody as good as him again as I was now committed to politics, so I humoured him and told him that I loved him back. All of a sudden, he asked me to marry him. I agreed to, and for the first time since the night of the concert, he seemed happy.

'Do you still keep in touch with the people from the youth orchestra?' he asked me, very soon after we had become engaged.

I didn't keep in touch with them in the first place.

'Not any more,' I replied.

'Well, Kathryn Lord sent me an e-mail saying that a memorial garden was opened on the site of the school fire-'

-flames, mmm-

-'And she's organising a reunion for us to say goodbye properly.'

'Sorry, what's been opened?' I had been thinking about fire again.

'A memorial garden. So she wants to know if we'd like to go.'

'Is she still a slut?'

'She's married with a baby now.'

'She could still be a slut.'

'Don't say that!'

'Why not?'

'I'm sure she's a very good wife and mother.'

'Right.' I can just imagine her trying to get her claws into Xander when she finds out how much money he's making.

'So are we going?'

'Do you want to go? Do you think it'll help?

'Yes.'

'Then we'll go.' I was being worryingly compliant. Maybe I'm in love. Shit.

We're on the ferry now. Twelve years later, and it's still the MS Jupiter. I hope the ship doesn't fall apart. I hope we don't drown here. It's like the Titanic. There aren't nearly enough lifeboats if we sink. I don't want to die. Not yet.

All eleven "survivors" are here, but nobody brought their families. I'd like to think it's because they were lying about them and they had to pretend that they were working or ill or whatever so that their cover wouldn't be blown. The reunion at Newcastle wasn't a particularly touching experience for me, though Xander appeared to be very affected. Carol Marrow seems to be more bitter, skinny and bird-like than ever, and her grey roots are showing from underneath her bottle-blonde hair. The four percussionists look much the same as they were, except their dress senses have improved (slightly), they sniff a lot and they're very jumpy. Caneheads. Bobby looks tired, and old before his time. Mr Morris has now lost his remaining hair, and to make up for it, a huge grey beard now engulfs his face. Damon looks like a member of a boy band. I don't remember his teeth being so white. I am rather gratified to discover that Kathryn is still a harlot, though a classy one, because though her skirts are short and her necklines are low, there doesn't appear to be a sign of African animal skin-print anywhere. Her breasts seem bigger, possibly from the baby but hopefully from silicon.

We're eating dinner in the fake pan-Asian restaurant, which used to be the fake New York-Italian restaurant. Everybody tells Xander and I how happy they are for us, then proceed to boast about how great their lives are and how much they love their respective husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends etc. Most of them are fakes, and Bobby's anecdotes about his girlfriend gradually become more and more exotic with the more wine that he consumes. Only Damon is genuinely pleased for us, but that's the Hedges way. It emerges that he looks like a member of a boy band because that indeed is his job description, and the group are quite a hit with the teenybopping Smash Hits readership. I ask for his autograph on a napkin in case I need the money later on. He doesn't understand.

Later on in our cabin (not in the bilge this time, so an improvement there), Xander tells me that he didn't realise that meeting up with everybody would be so difficult for him. I opt not to tell him that it wasn't as hard as it had been for me, having to resist the urge to pull my carefully packed automatic out of my bags and gun everybody down there and then. I just let him start crying and pat him like a dog until he finally falls asleep in my lap.

It's raining in Bergen when we arrive. We are to stay at the local Holiday Inn (shit, they're everywhere) for tonight, and then tomorrow we'll hire cars to drive to Voss, where we'll stay for the next couple of days. Kathryn has planned the whole operation with military precision, and she's starting to get on my nerves. What am I talking about? She's always been on my nerves. I'll re-phrase. She's started to impose herself more obviously on my nerves. That's better. I'll be a good speechwriter when I'm prime minister. The hotel is adequate and a great deal more expensive than the Youth Hostel. I wouldn't have minded staying there, but I suppose that firstly, nobody wanted to relive the day when they had to pack up the belongings of their incinerated friends (apart from Marrow, Bobby and I, as we were already home in Wiltshire or on the ferry by then), and secondly, everybody wanted to prove that they had enough money not to stay in a youth hostel. Nobody's really been as successful as Xander and Damon, though, and we all feel slightly inadequate, though nobody says it.

In the car with Xander and Damon, we talk about Damon's band. They're called the Lost Cause, which I find absolutely hilarious, but I don't say anything. They have had seven top ten hits and a number one album that's getting on for platinum, and they're currently number one in New Zealand, of all places.

'Do you write your own songs?' I asked.

'Yeah, I write them,' Damon replied.

'And what do you consider to be your best song?'

'There's this one called, "Hey Baby I Really Really Love Ya" that's quite good*'

I don't know what to say now, so I just say: 'Cool.'

The skies are murky above Voss. Kathryn's car is in the lead because she was the only person who could be bothered to buy a map. We drive through the town until we reach the church car park. I step out of the car and all at once my mind is filled with dancing flames, petrified screams and the scent of burning flesh. Everybody else dutifully troops off to the memorial garden with Kathryn, grim-faced and mournful. I decide that I want to see the church again before I look at the pretty flowers. I never recovered Steve, my beloved bass guitar from it, and I wonder if he is still there. The church is shabbier than I remember it being, and the walls need more paint and the chairs need new coverings. I step onto the stage, and my footsteps echo as I walk towards the piano in the corner. Behind the piano is Steve, dusty and not at all well looked-after, but still alive. I pick him up and leave the church to put him back into the car.

Once I'm back in the car, everything clicks and I realise what I have to do. I open the boot and find the bag containing the gun and pull it out. I screw on a silencer and tuck the gun into my inside jacket pocket. Though I am loath to believe it, I feel that destiny has brought these people back here for me to finally finish off properly. I will be the only survivor of this whole Norway saga, and this makes me feel happy. Walking jauntily towards the garden, I let the killing instinct take me over for one last time and it feels good to be truly alive once more. This is the calm before the storm, and I feel peaceful and happy.

The garden is very beautiful, and it looks better than anything on those irritating television programs that everybody was crazy about ten years ago. Everybody is standing around looking suitably saddened, apart from Darren, who is considering mainlining some of the white powdered rock in one of the flower beds which is the new, fashionable gravel. I sit down on a bench beside Xander and hand him a clean handkerchief, as he has already been sobbing copiously. He kisses me, and then I stand up and smile.

'Goodbye,' I whisper, and then I pull out the gun.

Carol Marrow is the first to go. There isn't even a look of shock on her face as I shoot her in the chest, as it all happens so quickly that she doesn't even realise what's happening. Or maybe she's just stupid.

Kathryn turns to run. I shoot her left leg first. When she's on the ground, I try to shoot her head but miss, and the bullet goes through her neck instead. Good enough.

Helen screams, so a bullet through the chest silences her.

Mr Morris takes a consoling step towards me so that he can try to start negotiating with me, but that's a mistake, because I now have a clean shot of his head and I end it swiftly for him.

Mike then starts freaking out and yelling, but this is annoying me so he's next to go.

I haven't felt this good since the fire. It's a shame I couldn't torch this lot as well. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.

Who's left? Darren and Ralph are sitting on another bench, shocked from the entire episode and glued to their seats (haha), so they are very easy to deal with. Bobby gets a bullet in the back as he turns to run.

I feel slightly guilty about having to shoot Damon and Xander as I rather like them, but I'm rather looking forward to the headlines in the tabloids about Damon and anyway, I'm going to have to finish-

-I'm falling to the ground, as Xander has just rugby tackled me, and he's wrestling the gun out of my hand. I shouldn't have been so careless.

'You killed everybody!' he screams. 'It was you who burnt the school down as well, wasn't it?'

'Yes,' I answer. What else can I say?

He's pointing the gun at me now.

'You killed Tony and Pat as well!'

'Not personally,' I reply. This is probably a bad idea.

'I'm sorry,' he wails, blinking back tears. 'I love you.'

And he pulls the trigger.

But I'm not dead.

My arm hurts.

He missed.

Xander, you arsehole.

I think I'll marry him anyway.

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