I want to kill someone. My target is the proprietress of Cotswold Ice Cream. I shall then assume her dreamy identity, creating and pedalling fair-trade dairy products from her hilltop farm.
I was inspired by a recent article in the New Yorker about Frédéric Boudin, a Frenchman and professional impostor. His biggest con was getting the Spanish authorities to believe he, at the age of 23, was a missing child from Texas who had been kidnapped by a European porn ring. The American authorities flew him to Texas where he was reunited with the family of the missing teenager. He lived with them for nearly five months before being exposed by a local private eye. The story is extraordinary and true, and I’ll put my money on a Hollywood studio having a version on the big screen by next summer.
My cunning plan to achieve the ideal rural life is of course flawed. Bourdin spent six years in a Texas jail, and he didn’t even kill anyone. Should any local law enforcement be reading this, you can relax. For now I will content myself with a tub of Cotswold Ice Cream’s passion fruit and mango madness.