By some miracle, sleep takes hold of me. And I don’t move from this spot for the rest of the night.
Chapter 57
Laura
It’s approaching 7 a.m. when Laura’s car pulls up outside the block of flats where Damon lives and the trail of breadcrumbs has led her. A little over five weeks have passed since she last visited him here. Then, it was at his invitation, after he begged her to help him to die. And like the Good Samaritan she is, she agreed. They almost accomplished their shared goal before they were interrupted by an unexpected gatecrasher.
She switches off the ignition and recalls how she didn’t stay to find out who the intruder was or why she was there. Instead, she raced from Damon’s flat, jumping down the staircase two steps at a time, out of the lobby to the road. Then she continued running for at least a mile, before, exhausted and panting, she came to a halt. She took a seat inside a bus shelter and cried.
Laura wept for her unfulfilled expectations, for being unable to complete what she’d set out to accomplish and for again putting herself in a vulnerable position. She should have learned from the mistakes of nine years ago. Of Ryan. She flinched as she recalled his name. The pain he’d put her through. But conversely, how hehad been the catalyst for the most exciting period of her life. It had proved impossible to replicate. And God knows, she had tried.
Once she pulled herself together, she retraced her steps to where she had parked her car, close to Damon’s flat, and drove back home to London, stopping off at a motorway service station to find out all she could about him. She had done a little due diligence before they met, but clearly not enough. She had allowed her overwhelming desire to be there with him as he exhaled his last breath to cloud her judgement. And that made her angry with herself.
It didn’t take much scrolling through Facebook before she found Damon’s profile. It was set to private, but his banner photograph was a wedding picture. She screwed her face up at his pale green suit: something a laundry basket would spit out.
She recognised the image of his bride immediately. It was the interloper who had stopped her from killing him. Tagged as Melissa Lister. The combination of first name and surname amused Laura. Quite the tongue twister. If it was her, she’d have kept her maiden name. But going by how much Damon’s flat screamed ‘single man’, it was clear to Laura they were no longer together.Lister, she repeated to herself, not for the first time. Why did that sound so familiar?
Melissa’s Facebook page was also set to private, but she wasn’t as guarded with her Instagram page. And Laura’s hunch was right: there were no images at all of her and Damon. But there were plenty of Melissa cosying up to another woman. It was obvious they were a couple.
The plot thickens.
Throughout the remainder of the car journey home, Laura ran through every possible explanation as to why Damon’s need for help in ending his life might’ve been a scam. But try as she might, she couldn’t think of a plausible motive. She kept replaying Melissa’s reaction to what she’d interrupted: it appeared to be disbelief. Buther arrival being merely unfortunate timing didn’t mean Laura was going to let Damon off the hook. He owed her his last breath.
Over the following days, she gave herself time to formulate a plan. For years she’d been a regular fixture atEnd of the Line, a Samaritans-style charity helpline established to listen to the worries of lonely, desperate and suicidal callers. Some she had actively encouraged to end their lives, but these scenarios weren’t frequent enough to satisfy her appetite, so after a number of years, she had left. The palliative care offered by the nursing home where she now volunteers offers close to what she needs, and on a much more regular basis. When patients have no family or friends to be with in their final hours, she works extra shifts and quietly inhales their final moment. But these are easy pickings. They are fruit offered to her on a plate. She longs to fill her lungs with more than the stale death rattle of the terminally ill. She has longed for someone like Damon.
Laura was at the breakfast table eating from a bowl of yoghurt, blueberries and chia seeds when it struck her from nowhere why she might recognise Damon’s surname. Fifteen minutes later, and following a rummage through her house and a dive into the dark web, she found her answer. She had to push her laptop to one side and draw in a long breath. What she had learned was a game changer. Killing the same person twice was always going to be a first for her. But this was an even better opportunity, almost too much for her to comprehend.
It was more important than ever that she not let Damon get away.
Today, she hovers on foot by the key-coded entrance to the car park under the apartment block. She doesn’t know the entry number, but she doesn’t have to wait long before a tenant appears and picks up their vehicle, and she slips inside the car park before the gates close.
Laura almost immediately finds what she is looking for: a souped-up Astra parked close to the entrance. She recognises it as the one belonging to Garry, the man who was supposed to have made it clear to Damon that Laura is not done with him yet. The man she sent to taunt him simply because she can. What use is a mouse to a cat, after all, unless it can be toyed with?
But why has Garry since vanished, and left behind his prized possession – not to mention his smartphone, back in his awful flat?
The car’s doors are still locked, but as she peers inside, she can see a set of keys lying in the central console.Odd and odder.She considers smashing a window to gain entry, then checks his phone again. Amongst the other pointless customisations that scream ‘pizza delivery boy’, he’s also had a keyless entry system fitted. She opens the app and the door immediately unlocks.
She’s not sure what she is looking for when she slips inside and closes the door. There’s certainly nothing immediately surprising. The passenger footwell contains empty cans of Red Bull and polystyrene boxes with the remnants of takeaway meals inside. He is what he eats: cheap and disposable. There is nothing of interest in or on the back seats or inside door pockets, but she does find a small unlabelled bottle – complete with pipette – containing a transparent liquid in his glovebox. GHB, the date rape drug, she assumes. She has found it useful in the past, although she doubts it’s for the same reasons Garry has.
She’s about to leave when she spots a small, dashboard-mounted camera. Its green light suggests it’s either recording or live-streaming. She scrolls through his phone again and finds the accompanying CamMe app inside a folder. In another minute she’s scrolled back a week, to the date she asked Garry to drive here and up the ante on Damon, and presses play. The video begins with him following another car into the car park and positioning his vehiclein a spot opposite a bin storage area. She fast-forwards three hours until she spots a figure she recognises. Damon entering his car.
It’s rare she is left speechless, but that’s what happens when she watches the events of that confrontation play out. It’s only then that she realises how much she has underestimated Damon. And how he has the potential to be one of the most thrilling chapters of her life so far.
Chapter 58
Melissa
Melissa checks the equipment in the back of the ambulance ahead of the day’s shift. She is tired and tetchy and lets out a yawn so wide, her jaw clicks. It’s the result of another fitful sleep in which she dreamed about Adrienne drowning a newborn baby in the sea while Damon stood watching from the beach. Each time she ran towards Adrienne, her feet sank deep into the pebbles. It isn’t the first time the dream has haunted her. And every night she has it, she awakens to find herself sitting upright, face and chest drenched in sweat, and Adrienne rubbing her back, assuring her it’s not real and that she’s safe. Her girlfriend is understandably concerned where this is coming from. Melissa has tried to reassure her that all is well.
When she left Damon, she vowed that in her next relationship, she would be honest about everything right from the start. Only, deceit has crept in again. Because she isn’t excited by this baby. Not anymore. Damon’s demands have put paid to that. The joy she felt in the beginning of their journey has been replaced by guilt over what she’s allowed Damon to persuade her to do. She knows the longer they continue, the more they are living on borrowed time. And the less chance there is of them completing their IVF journey.
As Melissa wipes clean the green plastic stretcher cushions, she wonders how life might’ve been had she stayed in her lane. Had she and Damon begun the family he’d longed for. She thinks back to a year before she and Damon married, when she admitted she had grown tired of her job as an assistant manager at a hotel on the outskirts of town.
‘It doesn’t fulfil me,’ she told Damon. She knows now she could also have been referring to their relationship. ‘I want more out of life.’
‘Such as?’ he asked.
‘I’ve talked about being a paramedic for as long as we’ve known each other. Perhaps now’s the time to start looking into it properly?’
