I do not think that they will sing to me. ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ T. S. Eliot The soul of torture is male Comment on exhibit cardThe Museum of Criminology and Torture, San Gimignano, Italy. All chapter epigraphs are taken from ‘On Murder considered as one of the fine arts’ by Thomas De Quincey (1827) FROM 3½″ DISK LABELLED: BACKUP.007; FILE LOVE.001 You always remember the first time. Isn’t that what they say about sex? How much more true it is of murder. I will never forget a single delicious moment of that strange and exotic drama. Even though now, with the benefit of experience and hindsight, I can see it was an amateurish performance, it still has the power to thrill, though not any longer to satisfy.Although I didn’t realize it before the decision to act was forced upon me, I had been paving the way for murder well in advance. Picture an August day in Tuscany. An air-conditioned coach whisking us from city to city. A bus-load of Northern culture vultures, desperate to fill every moment of our precious fortnight’s package with something memorable to set against Castle Howard and Chatsworth.I’d enjoyed Florence, the churches and art galleries filled with strangely contradictory images of martyrdom and Madonnas.
