This column is from the spring 2026 issue of VICE magazine, THE NOT THE PHOTO ISSUE. Buy it now—or get 4 issues each year sent straight to your door, by subscribing.
Read the previous instalment of Diary of a Hitman here.
I don’t come into contact with real photos much these days. You don’t, do you? Not in the modern world. It’s all screens now, that’s what I’ve observed. It shouldn’t matter to me, and it doesn’t really. I know that things change and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. And I don’t wish for the world to return to any previous state, because I know this world now.
Recently I bought a PlayStation from Argos, but I’ve yet to plug it in. I had heard there was a game where you were managing supervolcanoes, quelling them, evacuating islands underneath them, that sort of thing. But after I got the device home I realized that it didn’t have a disc drive, and likely would need to be connected to the internet. I don’t have it, I don’t even have a computer, truth be told. Which suits me fine. My job is all face-to-face meetings. Or single line text messages. (Though of course at one time this was considered as futuristic as flying to Mars.) The dossiers I’m handed are hard copies, but the pictures of targets are almost always printouts. Only very rarely, so rarely that I would say, ‘Oh!’ if it happened, will I find actual, old-world photographs. A tad harder to dispose of than paper printouts but I’m not afraid of a bit of extra effort from time to time. You can’t be, not if you want to last long in this line of work.
Usually, it’s passport photos—though most people just do them on their phones these days, don’t they—or moments captured by novelty booths at weddings, or disposable cameras taken to music festivals and then forgotten about. But every once in a blue moon I’ll get one that feels as though it really mattered to somebody.
I always wonder if they noticed the picture missing from the desk or the mantelpiece. And if they did, whether or not it felt part of a general unravelling. Evidence of some overhanging curse. Maybe they turned out the attic looking for it, with a feeling lodged in their flank that if only they could find it then this would kickstart a glorious comeback. This would prove to whoever it may concern that they weren’t a lost cause. They were going to be OK, after all. Well, I hate to break it to them…
When I was a child I used to mime using a camera, with one hand as the lens and the other on an invisible button. I’d stand in front of a tree or a pond in the botanical gardens. Or—and I don’t know why I was there or really where it was—a pile of coal in the garden of a tumbledown house with smashed windows, and I’d say, “click,” and then commit the image to memory as though it was a photograph I was keeping.
“Every once in a blue moon I’ll get one that feels as though it really mattered to somebody”
As far as I can tell I am alone in the garden, overgrown with vines and dandelions. The coal weighs down a section of the wild grass. It confuses me that there would be a big pile of shiny coal there. What could it be for? You don’t burn shiny coal, do you? You burn the matte stuff. That said, I don’t know much about coal. Could be it isn’t even coal at all, just its own thing, some other type of gleaming black stone. But aside from that the image is bright and blurry. All green and haze and that queasy August feeling of having had too much summer.
Through one of the broken windows you can discern a figure in the room. A face, staring intently down at me. Maybe it’s their coal. Maybe they think I’ve come to steal it. It would be interesting to work out more about that experience but I only have access to this one picture in my mind. I should have turned round and said, “click.” Maybe a few times in a circle to make a complete panorama, but alas. Hindsight is 20/20.
Last week there was a real photograph in the manila envelope I took from one of Roger’s goons, and I recognized the person. It was the old Roger, my first boss, and in fact the first boss I ever had due to a lifetime of hiding away and not finding my niche. Roger may not be either of their actual names. It may be only me that knows the bosses as Roger. I can never ask and so it’s the same as it not mattering. Is that how it works? I think it is.
“He got me a birthday present once,” I said.
“Get out the car.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we need you to,” said the man, his leather jacket creaking as he turned to face me.
“No,” I said. “I mean, why him?” and tapped the photo of old Roger.
“Yes,” said the man. “Because we need you to.”
Ridiculous of me to ask why. Why any of them? This profession is not about Why but rather about Where and What Time, and Will They Be Alone.
I didn’t destroy the picture of old Roger. I put it in my drawer at home. He’s dressed as a vicar in the picture. Or else he actually was one. Maybe I can ask him when I do the job. I’ll be waiting for him in his allotment shed. Thinking about it, it’s set for a Sunday morning, so chances are he isn’t a vicar, or isn’t an active one.
Maybe I’ll take the photograph with me, and be holding it up as he walks inside. And just before I do it, I’ll say, “Is this really you?”
This column is from the spring 2026 issue of VICE magazine, THE NOT THE PHOTO ISSUE. Buy it now—or get 4 issues each year sent straight to your door, by subscribing.
The post Diary of a Hitman: Spring 2026 appeared first on VICE.
