The Derrick Bird I Knew: By Everybody In Cumbria

An army of journalists from the daily papers swarmed like locusts over the sleepy backwater county of Cumbria today, interrogating every shocked resident for their impressions of the berserk taxi driver.

Their painstaking efforts were rewarded, as they built up a complete picture of the most evil man the world has known since Tuesday.

Derrick Bird, it emerged, was a taciturn taxi-driver who always kept his thoughts to himself as he drove his passengers around; a devoted family who lived for his annual trips to Thailand; a jocular visitor to the village pub where he often regaled the regulars with his amusing silences; a cheerful outgoing loner who was well-liked by the people from whom he kept his distance.

It is increasingly likely, say the experienced hacks, that Bird’s serial slaughter was triggered by a combination of factors, including: an argument with other taxi drivers; a dispute over a family will; background radiation from Windscale; nitrogen narcosis brought on by years of scuba-diving; one Bettaware catalogue too many on his doorstep; or a hitherto-unsuspected sympathy for moles.

“Each of these motives might, to the inexpert eye, appear somewhat unlikely to unleash the homicidal maniac who lurks within us all,” warned a psychological profiler today. “In combination, however, they form the classic blueprint for mass murder.”