That was the exact moment my life went to hell.

"ALWAYS TRUST YOUR instincts, Alex," was something my dad used to say. He was no stranger to trouble: nothing serious, but a couple of dodgy business deals that hadn't gone the way he'd wanted. A good man, if a little lost, and not the sort of person qualified to give you advice like that.

But he was right. Your instincts are there for a reason, and on the day that I walked out of school with Daniel Richards's twenty quid they were screaming for me to find the little kid and give it back. You can probably guess by now that I didn't. No, I learned to ignore my instincts, to switch off the little voice that tells you not to do things, to deny the fact that I hated myself for what I was doing.

And that's how I became a criminal.

The thing is, it was so easy. It started off with me, Toby, and Brandon walking around the playground demanding money from the other kids. The kind of thing you always see in films, just before the big, ugly bully gets his comeuppance. Only I was thin and scrawny, not bad-looking, and I didn't get my comeuppance for another two years.

Loose change, a fiver every now and again, and occasionally some candy-it wasn't enough. When Toby suggested we break into a house or two, Brandon backed out. I didn't. Greed wouldn't let me. So we did; we hit a small bungalow three roads over from my house, one we knew was empty for the night. Around three hundred quid stuffed in a fake can and a bundle of jewelry that we chickened out of selling and ended up throwing in the trash.

I still haven't forgotten the old lady who lived there-glimpsed with a long-dead husband in the faded photographs on the mantelpiece-and the knowledge that those rings meant more to her than any amount of money. But I buried my doubts just like I buried all my other uncomfortable thoughts. Committing any crime can be easy if you don't think about it.