It was midnight on Monday the 11th of April, 2016. Fourteen-year-old Lucas Markham had set out for his girlfriend Kim Edwards’ house on Dawson Avenue in the small market town of Spalding, Lincolnshire. In his backpack, rolled inside a black T-shirt, were four kitchen knives. When he arrived at the back of the house, he clambered onto the roof of a shed and knocked three times on her bedroom window. He waited, but before long he realised that Kim, who was also 14, was fast asleep. Lucas walked back home alone.
The following night he returned. Again, he knocked on the glass. Again, she didn’t hear him.
The next night, Wednesday, Kim heard him knocking.
The Collected Works of Kevin EG Perry 