Chapter 21 Laura
Laura
She is immediately reassured by how ordinary he appears.
He’s skinny, and at about five foot seven or eight, he is only slightly taller than her.
She hides her enthusiasm and tries to mimic his nervousness to help put him at ease.
His apprehension quietly pleases her. He poses about as much threat to her as plankton might to a shark.
However, she’s aware looks can be deceiving.
She is evidence of that. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, she’s been told.
Which is precisely what allows her to behave as freely as she does.
She glances around the room. No sign of a third party: no shadows behind cracked-open doors, no shoes visible in the gaps between doors and floors.
No stray noises. Damon appears to be alone, but she will remain hypervigilant regardless.
That’s how she operates. With care. She doesn’t take unnecessary risks.
Well, not anymore. She has learned from her mistakes.
Having been sent his address, she knew what to expect from the flat itself before reaching it.
She found images cached on property website MoveMe’s pages from the last time it was up for let seven years ago.
A phone call to the local council tax department in which she masqueraded as a debt collection agency revealed its sole occupier.
Lister. Why was Damon’s surname familiar to her?
She didn’t recognise his face when a Google search offered images of him in a five-aside football team, then a charity fun run.
A DBS search on the dark web revealed no criminal record.
She must have been mixing him up with someone else.
For all intents and purposes, he was who he said he was and posed no threat. So she thought no more about it.
The flat is open-plan but compact, to say the least. If Ikea made coffins, she’d be standing in one.
There’s about enough room for a double sofa and a single chair in the lounge, a circular dining table and four chairs by the window overlooking the town, and a light-grey galley kitchen with a metallic splashback.
No art on the walls, the only ornaments on surfaces a Lego Friends Central Perk set and something Star Wars related.
This manchild’s bachelor pad has all the personality of an Airbnb.
She removes her baseball cap to reveal blonde hair scraped back into a tight ponytail.
She wears frameless glasses, a little make-up, and is casually dressed in jeans and trainers.
Nothing that might make her stand out if she was ever caught on CCTV.
She may have reached her mid-forties, but she’s confident she can pass for a decade younger because people tell her that.
It pleases her when they’re surprised by her age.
She puts it down to her vegan diet, vitamin regimen, moisturisers, Pilates, jabs every four months to paralyse her facial muscles – and, most importantly, to what she takes from people. What she is about to take from Damon.
He introduces himself, asks for her coat, then leaves it hanging loosely over the back of the armchair.
She’ll have it dry-cleaned tomorrow. He’s about to close the door behind him but she insists they leave it ajar.
He doesn’t protest, and props it open with a thick copy of A Little Life.
‘My favourite book,’ she finds herself saying aloud, and he smiles.
It’s true: no other written words have placed as much joy in her heart as that novel.
Aside from We Need to Talk About Kevin. A bookmark protrudes from a page towards the back of the tome, suggesting he’s almost finished reading it.
The irony of the plot and Damon’s situation isn’t lost on her.
She knows that his username and the book are indications he is serious.
He wants to die. And she wants to help him.
‘It’s not that I don’t trust you,’ she adds as she continues to look around, ‘but I was let down in the past by someone who wasn’t who they claimed to be.’
‘Were you helping them like you’re helping me?’
‘No, Rya—’ She stops herself. He doesn’t need to know the hell that man put her through, and it won’t benefit her to rehash something that happened nine years ago.
She has spent the time since replacing him with others so that she can forget about him.
Yet still he lingers. And she can’t put her finger on why.
Perhaps it’s the excitement he brought to her life, the challenge. Or maybe how their story played out.
‘He was a very troubled person,’ she suffices to say.
Damon offers her a drink, but she declines. She only consumes what she pours herself. Besides, she can’t be sure how clean his crockery is. Value-brand dishwasher tablets are a false economy; they leave dirt the naked eye can’t see.
He takes a couple of puffs from a vape, conjuring blanched white clouds above him like he’s switched on a fog machine that’s vomiting up the synthetic scent of watermelon.
‘Have you travelled far?’ he asks.
‘London.’ Humouring him, though she’s here for a reason, which isn’t to make small talk. ‘But I know Northampton well.’ No need to let on how familiar she is with the town.
‘You said online you’ve witnessed people dying before,’ he says. ‘That watching me . . . die won’t be something new to you. Can you elaborate?’
He thinks he’s interviewing her for a job. Should have brought along a CV. References in the form of the file of death certificates she keeps hidden inside a picture frame housing an image of her and her three children.
‘No,’ she assures him, ‘you won’t be the first.’ She must choose her words carefully.
Can’t sound like an amateur, but she doesn’t want to frighten him off, either, by reeling off her bona fides.
‘I have . . . assisted people when no one else was willing to step up. And for a number of years, I worked for a helpline for people in emotional distress. Several ended their lives while I was on calls with them.’
Of all the jobs she has worked over the years, she misses that one the most. Nothing has been able to replicate the challenge of identifying who needed her extra help, the thrill of the chase or the end result.
There’s a wistfulness in what she admits next.
‘I’m accustomed to death. Sometimes I think it follows me around like a shadow. ’
A fleeting image of her father and her twin sisters flashes into her mind. Where it all began, behind that closed bedroom door. The one she’d been excluded from entering. She will never really know why it happened, but it doesn’t stop her from reflecting. For now, she blinks the memory away.
‘Can I ask why you sent me that first message?’ Damon continues.
She thinks for a moment. ‘You sounded desperate. And I want to help people like you. I see it as my mission.’ Laura isn’t fast enough to curb the small smile creeping across her face, followed by a dash of frustration.
There are so few people like her. She should be able to talk freely about what she has to offer.
But until the world has become as emotionally evolved as she has, she will be forced to keep it to herself.
Eventually, she hopes, they will understand.
‘Where do you plan to do this?’ she asks.
‘In the bedroom,’ he replies. ‘I’ve set everything up, ready for us.’
‘And does anyone else know I’m here? Have you mentioned me to friends or family, in person or by text or email?’
‘Nobody. And I’ve done as you asked and deleted my message board profile, my WhatsApp messages and the search history on my laptop.’
Nodding, she glances around the room again, this time spotting a handful of off-white rectangular marks on the walls, suggesting pictures or photos once hung here.
The only one left is of him and a woman – clearly taken years earlier, going by his haggard appearance now.
They’re holding hands, so it’s not a sister.
Laura concludes he’s now single and hanging on to the past. She has been guilty of that on more than one occasion.
‘No one else lives here?’
‘I live here alone,’ he says, a touch regretfully.
He leads the way from the lounge and into the bedroom, and she scans this room like a forensic scientist. It’s so boring in here she’s surprised spiders haven’t started weaving the words ‘Please help us’ instead of webs.
Laura asks him to close a slight gap in the curtains, not that anyone would be able to see anyway, as she doesn’t think his flat is overlooked.
But she can never be too sure. She turns up the dimmer switch to full so the room is bathed in light.
She doesn’t want to miss a thing. She also asks that he turn off his mobile phone and laptop.
Laura is wary of any devices with the ability to record and that don’t belong to her.
She picks up a coil of synthetic decking rope lying on the bed and yanks it to check its strength. The defibrillator he told her he bought is plugged into the wall. A green light flashes, indicating it’s ready for use.
‘Would you like me to record what happens?’ She removes her phone and holds it in her hand.
‘Why?’
‘In case you say anything you might later forget when I bring you round. I have a way I can send it to you afterwards that can’t be traced back to me.’
She masks her disappointment when he declines.
‘I guess we should get on with it,’ he says.
She nods, cricks her neck from side to side until it clicks, then slips into a mode so familiar to her, it’s like donning a second skin.