And she is okay. It’s taken her time to reach this point, but she has made it. Keeping herself busy has helped. Despite the distractions, she learned last week that she passed all four A levels a year early with A* results. She has been offered a place at university and starts in October.
Two years have passed sincethatmorning. Since she began the day catching up online with friends and scrolling through social media. Since she responded to the man she’d been chatting to on a dating app. Since she opened her email inbox. Since she read the first message that blew her world apart.
Chapter 102
Sally
Subject: Email 1: Helena
From: [email protected]
Dear Sally,
Firstly, and most importantly, please accept my heartfelt apologies for everything I am about to tell you. And I meaneverything,for I am aware this will be a lot for one person to shoulder. But I have no one else to explain it all to. So I am very sorry for the pain I will be putting you through and for what I will ask of you. I hope that one day, you can forgive me.
I’m your mum’s friend, Damon, and I believe you and I have something in common.Someonein common. I think we share Ralf Lister as our father. I recently learned that long before Icame into Helena’s life, she and my dad were in a relationship. And they were very serious by all accounts. When I recently turned up at your mum’s house and you and I met, I later found a discarded provisional driver’s licence application in the fireplace with your name, date of birth and email address on it. I realised you were born shortly after Dad went to prison for fifteen years of our lives. I think you were conceived not long before he introduced me to your mum. Please know, Dad was an innocent man. He took the fall for something I did. He is no longer with us and that is my fault. But more of that later.
Sally’s mouth was agape as she sat in the bedroom of her aunt’s house, her hands gripping her phone tightly as she continued to pore over the message. Damon went on to explain what he’d done as a child which had led to him staying with Helena; his ECT treatment; how he’d gradually learned more about himself each time he died and the lives he’d taken since. He added that when she received this email – scheduled to arrive twelve hours after his death – he himself would be the last of his victims, thanks to the assistance of a woman he’d met online. He also expressed regret that all of this was to occur under her and Helena’s roof.
By the time this email reaches you, I will be somewhere I can’t return from. Somewhere better, I hope. I realised once I started scratching that itch, I couldn’t stop the bleeding. Now I have all the answers I’ve been seeking. Your mum was right, finding the truth has done me no favours.And I know that if I don’t leave now, I will kill more people. It’s the way I am.
This is the first of three emails you should have received by now. The second contains a live link to camera footage that was recording my death, the location of the hard drive it was saved on and the cloud it was automatically sent to for backup. There are also screen grabs of the conversations I had with the woman who ended my life, and all I know about her.
The third email goes into much more detail about what I now know about myself. There are names of my victims, dates, times and locations. You can forward this to the police too. It is your decision as to whether you read it first or not.
All there is left to do is apologise once again for this burden. I like to think that I’d have enjoyed having a half-sister (if it turns out my hunch is correct) but the reality is I probably would have hurt you like I hurt everyone else. I hope you go on to have the incredible life that our dad and Helena wanted for me.
With love and regret,
Damon Lister.
Sally remembers running downstairs to find her aunt and Uncle Addo in the kitchen and thrusting her phone at them.
‘Is it true?’ she asked Carolina. ‘Do I have a brother called Damon?’
A bewildered Carolina read the email, her brow furrowing. She showed it to her husband before replying to her niece with a reluctant nod and a quiet ‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t Mum tell me?’
‘It was such a complicated situation,’ Carolina apologised. ‘She didn’t want you to be hurt by it.’
Sally pointed to the email on the phone. ‘And do you think Damon has done all the things he says he has here?’
‘Some I know to be true, because your mum told me, when she was pregnant and struggling with her separation from Ralf. But I really hope the rest are not. Perhaps the boy is having some sort of breakdown?’
‘There’s more,’ Sally added. And after then reading Damon’s full, unabridged third email containing a more detailed confession, they all watched in horror from the beginning, a link he’d provided to the video of his own death at the hands of a woman he identified in the accompanying notes. It ended when his phone’s battery ran out of power.
Sally, Carolina and Addo drove through London’s early morning rush-hour traffic to reach Helena’s house. Sally spent much of it in silence, scrolling through her phone, reading newspaper stories about her father written around the time of his court case. The man she had spent her whole life wondering about had allowed the world to believe he was a child killer. She hated him for it yet reluctantly respected the lengths he’d gone to, to protect his own child.
Her aunt and uncle made her wait in the car as they entered Helena’s house, returning quickly from upstairs, confirming Damon was dead inside and there were two other bodies laid outin a spare room. Addo removed his phone from the central console and prepared to dial 999. Carolina placed her hand over his keypad.
‘I don’t think we should,’ she said. ‘We need to think this through and the damage it could cause Sally.’
She turned to her niece in the back seat.
‘If we hand the police Damon’s email confession, it will put you in the spotlight,’ Carolina began. ‘There will be investigations and huge media interest, and social media will blow this up in a way we can’t control. Your name and image will be everywhere ... being the half-sister of a serial killer will be a terrible burden to carry. Much more than finding three bodies in your house. It will bring you the wrong attention at university, and will follow you for the rest of your life.’
