Burying Bodies With My 12 Year Old Son

Picture the scene…

Sitting in the car, my twelve year old son in the passenger seat beside me, on route to a football match.

This sweet, funny, young man who I adore.

Last year, he morphed from a cheeky mum-loving-hug-monster into a hair-in-his-face-grunting-don’t-touch-me-pre-teen.

I no longer look down at his soft hand in mine, I have to look up, and I rarely get the privilege of eye-contact or his full attention.

Only when he wants food or a lift or he is angry about something.

I still adore him, I’ve just lost him to his pubescent hormones for a few years.

I know he’ll come back to me.

Well, imagine my surprise when he instigated a conversation.

Not just any conversation.

Not football talk.

The subject of my current series is the teenage accomplice of a serial killer.

I have spent many a dinner table conversation sharing ideas for my novels, talking about characters motivations for their unsavoury choices, discussing plot twists, questioning how the shocking endings to my stories will land with my readers.

In the car, my son and I worked through the best options for body disposal, something I have spent some considerable hours researching.

Dumping bodies in large expanses of water can be a mistake.

The bodies have a habit of floating to the surface.

Or being nibbled at, resulting in parts being separated and then washing up somewhere.

Burning in a furnace can be successful, but the logistics of getting a body to the necessary location without detection is tricky.

Burying seems to be the most favourable solution.

In the woods, a grave deep enough not to be dug up by animals, somewhere that avoids human interference.

I often wonder when I walk around the woods near my home how many unfortunate victims have been hidden away beneath my feet.

I like to walk the less trodden paths.

Who know’s who I am passing over as I go?

I learned two very valuable things whilst talking to my boy about the best methods of cadaver cover up.

Firstly, I realised that my communication-avoiding-son actually listens to me, and not only that, but he is interested in what I write about, even if he doesn’t show it.

Secondly, he gave me an idea for a book.

Well, a murder, at least.

He came up with an idea that I had not thought of.

A genius idea.

A dark suggestion.

An unexpected but brilliant way for my protagonist to kill in plain sight.

I would love to share his idea with you, but I’m not going to, and I will only reveal what he suggested when I write the novel.

You are welcome to make your own suggestions, of course.

None of you will guess his idea, though.

My relationship with my boy is changing.

We are both changing.

The conversation we shared in the car on the way to his football match showed me that we are still on this journey together.

We are still relevant in each other’s worlds.

I am still important to him.

I hope he will always remember how important he is to me.

The book, when it is written, will be dedicated to him, so that he knows that I listen to him, that what he says is valuable, and the we can both bring something special to each other’s lives.