Today, she sits in a café downstairs in the nursing home where she volunteers, her hands wrapped tightly around a mug, but not drinking from it. The patio doors are open, allowing the July sunshine to creep indoors, but she chooses to remain inside, distracted by the memory of finally killing Damon. She has no doubt that when he answered the door to her, he knew how this was going to end. Discussion was unnecessary. All that mattered were actions. In fact, she’s sure that if he were being honest with himself, it’s what he’d wanted all along, from the first time they corresponded on the online message boards.
After that initial encounter back in the spring, Laura kept herself to herself for a while. But she missed feeding from the despair of the desperate. She hungered for it. And she couldn’t stop thinking about Damon. He was unfinished business. Then later, when she realised who Damon was and how, unbeknownst to him, she had been responsible for shaping much of his life, she saw an opportunity. To have blood from both mother and son on her hands.
Chapter 99
Sixteen Years Earlier
Laura
It was soon after Laura began volunteering for the telephone helplineEnd of the Linethat she first crossed paths with Bobbi Lister. Bobbi was a caller prone to frequent bouts of depression that stemmed from the sudden death of her infant son some years earlier. These episodes would come and go, and the majority of the time, she either wanted someone to listen to the woes of a still-grieving mother or have someone impartial to vent her frustration at about the injustice of her loss.
She was fragile, conflicted, and carrying a heavy heart. Laura recognised something in Bobbi that B0bbi had yet to see in herself. Futility. Because nothing she, nor anyone else, could say was ever going to change how Bobbi felt about her life. Her only chance of releasing her burden was through death. And it was up to Laura to help her understand that. But it wasn’t going to happen overnight. Laura would need to play the long game.
To keep Bobbi all to herself, she informed her what shifts she would be working over the next couple of months, so that if shecalled, she could be transferred straight to Laura. Slowly and over a series of many, many conversations, she began to work on wearing Bobbi down, planting seeds in her mind to make her believe her depression was having a negative effect on the parenting of the only child she had left. That the loss of her infant son was more through negligence than the cruelty of nature, and the death of Callum, her boyfriend’s son, could have been prevented had she given him stricter curfews and paid him more attention.
With perfect timing, months of negative reinforcement were followed one day by a hysterical phone call in which Bobbi admitted to Laura that her son was responsible for the recent death of a child. Bobbi was overwrought to the point of incoherence as she sobbed. She kept repeating what a terrible mother and person she was, and how only a few minutes earlier, she had kicked her son out of the family home because she couldn’t bear to be around him any longer. In the past, some of Laura’s callers had threatened to end their lives, but more often than not, it was only talk. But there was something in Bobbi’s tone that suggested she was at breaking point. And Laura was ready for her.
‘I want to be erased from the world,’ Bobbi told her. ‘I don’t want there to be any trace I was ever here. I’m cursed.’
‘Are you sure about this?’ Laura whispered, so neither of her two colleagues in the office she shared could hear. ‘Because I don’t blame you if that’s how you feel. You must be so exhausted from letting down people who love you. I know you haven’t meant to, but some people really can’t help it.’
‘I am,’ she wept. ‘I’m so, so tired. They’d be better off without me.’
An idea came to Laura. ‘Do you know what some land managers and agriculturists do to clear areas? They start controlled fires to burn away underbrush and to stimulate new growth. If you want to truly erase yourself and everything you’ve tainted, a firemight do that. Everything gone in the flames, in one fell swoop. It would be as if you had never existed: you and your belongings now ashes.’
‘I don’t know if I could take the pain, Laura,’ Bobbi replied.
‘You won’t have to,’ Laura soothed. ‘Almost all housefire deaths are a result of smoke inhalation. Perhaps a little coughing at first, but then you’ll be unconscious long before the flames reach you. It will be swift and painless.’
‘Do you promise?’ Bobbi asked in desperation.
‘I promise.’
There was a pause for a minute as an anxious Laura awaited her response.
‘I know it’s a lot to ask,’ said Bobbi, ‘but will you be there for me if I do it? Will you stay with me on the phone? I don’t want to be alone.’
It was music to Laura’s ears. ‘I’d be honoured to.’
Minutes later, Laura was able to hear the crackling of flames as Bobbi’s lit match turned her sofa into a roaring fire. Then she ran into the bedroom, barricading herself in. All the time Laura continued to reassure her it was the right thing to do for everyone. But not even Laura could prevent the panic from setting in as Bobbi began to choke on the acrid smoke.
‘You said it wouldn’t hurt,’ Bobbi spluttered.
‘It’ll all be over soon,’ said Laura. ‘Hang in there.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Bobbi? Bobbi?’ Laura asked, but she didn’t get her reply. Instead, she heard the sound of three loud thuds before the smashing of glass. ‘What’s happening?’ Another interminably long pause.
‘I’ve broken the window,’ Bobbi eventually spluttered. ‘But it’s made the smoke worse. What have I done?’
Laura thought fast. There was only one option available to Bobbi. ‘Jump,’ she said firmly.
‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘I’ll be with you. Keep your phone held to your ear so you can hear me talking to you. You’re doing the right thing, Bobbi. For yourself, for your son, for all who’ve known you. Don’t give it another second’s thought. Just do it.’
The last thing Laura heard was a final gasp of breath before two seconds of rushing wind, and then a clattering of the phone as it hit the ground along with its user. It couldn’t have landed far because she heard what she had desperately hoped for – for all those months. Being there for Bobbi’s last breath was like nothing else. Laura’s body became awash with an overwhelming sensation of euphoria, and once she removed her headset, she retired to the office bathroom to recentre herself.
