The Good Samaritan
Page 38
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Laura was anxious, I could sense it. From the moment she answered the phone and I identified myself, something in her voice told me she was trying hard to keep her emotions under control. But she wasn’t that good an actress.
I sensed she didn’t want me to know how pleased she was to hear from me again, and I wondered if Charlotte had been fooled by the same veiled enthusiasm.
The flat had been feeling claustrophobic and, when the walls threatened to close in on me, I grabbed my phone and my notebook and headed to Abington Park instead. I was watching ducks fight over a crust of bread in the smallest of the park’s three lakes when I reached Laura again. I’d allowed a few days to pass after asking if she’d be with me in person when I died. I’d wanted my request to sink in and for her to mull it over – then, fingers crossed, agree.
I began with a fake apology for putting her in a difficult position.
‘Honestly, Steven, I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to listen to everything you have to say to me.’
Her breath was more uneven than normal and her tone forcibly controlled. It was as if she wanted to tell me something but was battling with herself over whether she should. We chatted some more and I began asking her questions about herself. I deliberately flattered her by saying I imagined she looked like that actress from The Hunger Games films. Of course I knew exactly what Laura looked like, because I’d been so close to her so often. But when she asked if I’d thought of having children, she caught me by surprise.
‘There was someone once, I guess, who I considered having a family with,’ I replied. ‘She was sweet and kind and I thought that she really loved me, but suddenly she disappeared from my life.’
I hoped that the more vulnerable I made myself, the more she’d recognise weakness and want to take me up on my offer. Another quarter of an hour of small talk passed before she couldn’t hold herself back any longer.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said suddenly. ‘If you’re serious about wanting to end your life, then I’ll be with you in person when you do it.’ She was whispering, probably scared of being overheard.
I tried to sound appreciative, when really I was both ecstatic and disgusted by her enthusiasm. She went on to explain that she only worked with people whom she felt she knew inside and out. So she expected me to be open with her about every aspect of my life. She would provide me with her work rota and I was to call and check in with her at set times and at least three times a week. Only then would we set a date for my death.
‘I will be on your side from the beginning to the end of this process, but this is a business relationship,’ she added. ‘We both have our parts to play, Steven. Yours is to tell me who you are and mine is to ensure your transition is a smooth one.’
The first test had been about persistence and convincing her I was ready to die. The second was to make her believe one hundred per cent that Steven was real. And if there was even the tiniest crumb of doubt, I knew she would spot it.
I had to be on the top of my game to knock Laura from the top of hers.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SIX MONTHS AFTER CHARLOTTE
‘The knot needs to go high and behind your neck so it pulls tighter as more pressure’s applied,’ Laura explained. Her tone was quiet and sometimes I had to strain to hear her. ‘When you practise it, make sure that when the rope’s tied to the beam, it doesn’t slip. It’s so important to remember that.’
She had given me five weeks until the day of my self-execution. By week two, she’d begun detailing the practicalities of how I should hang myself. I lay on the bed with the phone clamped to my ear, my knees pointed upwards like two pyramids and my notebook resting on my thighs. Sometimes I’d draw stickmen doodles. Today, I was hanging them from stickmen gallows. As long as she heard the sound of rustling or my voice repeating her words, she seemed happy.
Next, she advised me to test the rope’s strength and to use padding so it didn’t dig into my neck and make it bleed. She explained where exactly I should put the knot and what type to use. She seemed to want to make sure my death was clean and, if possible, pain-free. I couldn’t work out why someone so eager to watch me die cared whether I was hurting as I swung from the beams. Surely it made no difference to her?
I closed my eyes as she spoke and tried to imagine her hunched over the desk in her office, whispering to me down the receiver, getting a kick out of giving me instructions on how to end it all, while surrounded by a room full of people who didn’t have a clue what she was up to.
There’d been times when we’d spoken about more mundane things. In fact, death and how I was going to achieve it made up less than a quarter of our conversations. She wanted to know details about my life, from my relationships with my parents and Johnny, to my favourite meals, films, the songs I wanted played at my funeral, ex-girlfriends . . . you name it, she asked it. I believed she was genuinely interested in what I had to say. It was as if she wanted to harvest everything she could in our time together so she’d have the perfect picture of who would be dying in front of her.
At times, I even wondered if I’d got it wrong about her, and perhaps Laura was just a bored housewife with a fantasy, seeing how far she could take it before she or I gave up and admitted it was all make-believe. However, as the weeks went on and the day of my ‘suicide’ approached, she gave no indication she was ready to quit.
Creating the persona of a man preparing to take his own life was a lot tougher than I imagined. It became all-consuming and I had to make a note of every lie I told her. My notebook was a biography of a man who didn’t exist.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ I began during another conversation.
‘Yes, of course,’ Laura replied.
‘Can you tell me something about you? It doesn’t have to be too personal or anything.’
She paused before answering. ‘Why?’
‘Because I want to know more about the person who cares enough about people like me to help them.’
‘What would you like to know?’
I knew where she lived, the place where she worked. I’d seen her family. I’d followed her around her favourite shops. I’d watched her read a book to her disabled son. She seemed like a perfectly normal woman. But I didn’t have the first clue about why she did what she did.
‘Can I ask if you’ve done this for anyone else? Have there been more people like me?’
‘Yes, there have been.’
‘Can you tell me more about them?’
‘Would you like the next person I choose to know about you?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Then you have to respect their privacy.’
We were on our twelfth conversation so I was familiar enough with the slight nuances of her tone to know when she was leaving her comfort zone. But with not long left to go, I gambled that she was too invested in me to be put off by my familiarity. Instead, she explained how everyone was different, so with each person she took a different approach. It was as if she tailor-made suicide packages for them. Not that I ever heard her use the word ‘suicide’. She seemed to deliberately shy away from saying it out loud.
‘This life is difficult to negotiate alone,’ she continued. ‘Some people fall by the wayside and need help in finding their way back onto the right road. Others want to stay off the road completely and that’s where I come in.’
Laura was anxious, I could sense it. From the moment she answered the phone and I identified myself, something in her voice told me she was trying hard to keep her emotions under control. But she wasn’t that good an actress.
I sensed she didn’t want me to know how pleased she was to hear from me again, and I wondered if Charlotte had been fooled by the same veiled enthusiasm.
The flat had been feeling claustrophobic and, when the walls threatened to close in on me, I grabbed my phone and my notebook and headed to Abington Park instead. I was watching ducks fight over a crust of bread in the smallest of the park’s three lakes when I reached Laura again. I’d allowed a few days to pass after asking if she’d be with me in person when I died. I’d wanted my request to sink in and for her to mull it over – then, fingers crossed, agree.
I began with a fake apology for putting her in a difficult position.
‘Honestly, Steven, I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to listen to everything you have to say to me.’
Her breath was more uneven than normal and her tone forcibly controlled. It was as if she wanted to tell me something but was battling with herself over whether she should. We chatted some more and I began asking her questions about herself. I deliberately flattered her by saying I imagined she looked like that actress from The Hunger Games films. Of course I knew exactly what Laura looked like, because I’d been so close to her so often. But when she asked if I’d thought of having children, she caught me by surprise.
‘There was someone once, I guess, who I considered having a family with,’ I replied. ‘She was sweet and kind and I thought that she really loved me, but suddenly she disappeared from my life.’
I hoped that the more vulnerable I made myself, the more she’d recognise weakness and want to take me up on my offer. Another quarter of an hour of small talk passed before she couldn’t hold herself back any longer.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said suddenly. ‘If you’re serious about wanting to end your life, then I’ll be with you in person when you do it.’ She was whispering, probably scared of being overheard.
I tried to sound appreciative, when really I was both ecstatic and disgusted by her enthusiasm. She went on to explain that she only worked with people whom she felt she knew inside and out. So she expected me to be open with her about every aspect of my life. She would provide me with her work rota and I was to call and check in with her at set times and at least three times a week. Only then would we set a date for my death.
‘I will be on your side from the beginning to the end of this process, but this is a business relationship,’ she added. ‘We both have our parts to play, Steven. Yours is to tell me who you are and mine is to ensure your transition is a smooth one.’
The first test had been about persistence and convincing her I was ready to die. The second was to make her believe one hundred per cent that Steven was real. And if there was even the tiniest crumb of doubt, I knew she would spot it.
I had to be on the top of my game to knock Laura from the top of hers.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SIX MONTHS AFTER CHARLOTTE
‘The knot needs to go high and behind your neck so it pulls tighter as more pressure’s applied,’ Laura explained. Her tone was quiet and sometimes I had to strain to hear her. ‘When you practise it, make sure that when the rope’s tied to the beam, it doesn’t slip. It’s so important to remember that.’
She had given me five weeks until the day of my self-execution. By week two, she’d begun detailing the practicalities of how I should hang myself. I lay on the bed with the phone clamped to my ear, my knees pointed upwards like two pyramids and my notebook resting on my thighs. Sometimes I’d draw stickmen doodles. Today, I was hanging them from stickmen gallows. As long as she heard the sound of rustling or my voice repeating her words, she seemed happy.
Next, she advised me to test the rope’s strength and to use padding so it didn’t dig into my neck and make it bleed. She explained where exactly I should put the knot and what type to use. She seemed to want to make sure my death was clean and, if possible, pain-free. I couldn’t work out why someone so eager to watch me die cared whether I was hurting as I swung from the beams. Surely it made no difference to her?
I closed my eyes as she spoke and tried to imagine her hunched over the desk in her office, whispering to me down the receiver, getting a kick out of giving me instructions on how to end it all, while surrounded by a room full of people who didn’t have a clue what she was up to.
There’d been times when we’d spoken about more mundane things. In fact, death and how I was going to achieve it made up less than a quarter of our conversations. She wanted to know details about my life, from my relationships with my parents and Johnny, to my favourite meals, films, the songs I wanted played at my funeral, ex-girlfriends . . . you name it, she asked it. I believed she was genuinely interested in what I had to say. It was as if she wanted to harvest everything she could in our time together so she’d have the perfect picture of who would be dying in front of her.
At times, I even wondered if I’d got it wrong about her, and perhaps Laura was just a bored housewife with a fantasy, seeing how far she could take it before she or I gave up and admitted it was all make-believe. However, as the weeks went on and the day of my ‘suicide’ approached, she gave no indication she was ready to quit.
Creating the persona of a man preparing to take his own life was a lot tougher than I imagined. It became all-consuming and I had to make a note of every lie I told her. My notebook was a biography of a man who didn’t exist.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ I began during another conversation.
‘Yes, of course,’ Laura replied.
‘Can you tell me something about you? It doesn’t have to be too personal or anything.’
She paused before answering. ‘Why?’
‘Because I want to know more about the person who cares enough about people like me to help them.’
‘What would you like to know?’
I knew where she lived, the place where she worked. I’d seen her family. I’d followed her around her favourite shops. I’d watched her read a book to her disabled son. She seemed like a perfectly normal woman. But I didn’t have the first clue about why she did what she did.
‘Can I ask if you’ve done this for anyone else? Have there been more people like me?’
‘Yes, there have been.’
‘Can you tell me more about them?’
‘Would you like the next person I choose to know about you?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Then you have to respect their privacy.’
We were on our twelfth conversation so I was familiar enough with the slight nuances of her tone to know when she was leaving her comfort zone. But with not long left to go, I gambled that she was too invested in me to be put off by my familiarity. Instead, she explained how everyone was different, so with each person she took a different approach. It was as if she tailor-made suicide packages for them. Not that I ever heard her use the word ‘suicide’. She seemed to deliberately shy away from saying it out loud.
‘This life is difficult to negotiate alone,’ she continued. ‘Some people fall by the wayside and need help in finding their way back onto the right road. Others want to stay off the road completely and that’s where I come in.’
