Kiss Me First (28 page)

But none of these would do for ‘Tess’: her clothes were small and tight and fashionable. I remembered the girls at school talking about Topshop on Oxford Street – they seemed to go every weekend – so, one afternoon, I headed there.

It was not a successful experience. The shop was confusingly vast – I felt like I had done in Westfield – and the music as deafening as that in a bar. The automatic doors kept opening and admitting wave after wave of identical-looking young women, streaming in like orcs going into battle. We were then sucked down an escal-ator lined with mirrors – in unison, the girls turned to inspect their reflections – and disgorged into a huge underground pit. There the girls immediately dispersed and started plucking at clothes, dismissing them in milliseconds according to some private criteria. They were as focused and ruthless as the Terminator, pushing aside obstacles in their path – me – to get to the rails. The pumping music forbade standing still, insisting on a continuous forward velocity. The shop seemed limitless and clothes were everywhere, but in no discernible pattern. I stopped a woman wearing an earpiece and asked her where the skirts were, and she waved her hand around the store as if to say, ‘everywhere’.

Eventually I found some skirts, but they were horrible: short and made from orange leather with holes punched in it, and cost £80. Also, they didn’t have size 16. So I escaped back up the escalator and out to freedom. I’ve never been so pleased to be on Oxford Street.

I ended up getting my new outfit from Tesco Extra. The clothing department had plenty of items my size and I chose a short blue clingy skirt and a thin pink jumper. Back home I tried them on. I had never worn tight clothes before and the feel of them was quite alien on my skin. I didn’t look very much like Tess. Still, I thought, I looked more like her than I had done before.

My plan to meet Connor followed exactly the same lines as before. The next afternoon, Wednesday, at 5 p.m. GMT, we exchanged our customary Good morning / Good evening emails. I told him I had been woken early by the sound of seals mating on the beach;
Arf arf
, he replied. I asked him what he was up to that evening, and he said he was attending the birthday party of his friend Toby. I extracted the information that they were going to a place called The French House in the West End.

All was going according to plan. I got dressed and prepared to leave the flat. I had almost safely reached the door when Jonty came out of his room. He looked at me with confusion, and then whistled.

‘Hot date?’ he said, in what I think was an attempt at an American accent.

I nodded quickly, and then shook my head. ‘Yes. I mean, no. Not a date.’ I thought quickly. ‘I’ve got a meeting with someone.’

‘Ooh, very fancy. What about?’

‘My script.’

‘You’ve finished?’ said Jonty, eyes widening with what appeared to be sincere delight. ‘You are the darkest of dark horses. Good luck. Let’s celebrate later.’

I nodded again and hurriedly made my way to the tube.

And it was there, sitting in the tube carriage heading towards Green Park, just before 6 p.m., that I saw the paper. It was one of the free ones, tucked behind one of the seats beside me, and I unfolded it to see a fuzzy picture of Adrian on the front, which I recognized as the headshot he used on Red Pill. Above the picture, the headline read
: Internet Suicide Cult Exposed
.

My hands involuntarily released the paper; I remember it making a surprisingly loud sound as it hit the floor. I heard raspy breaths and realized they were coming from me, my ribcage feeling as if it was doubling in size with each inhalation. The man sitting opposite looked up at me from his phone and I closed my eyes, for what could have been seconds or minutes. When I opened them, the man had been replaced by a woman, who was reading a copy of the newspaper. She was holding it up, so I had full view of the front page; Adrian smiled warmly at me. I looked down the train and it seemed that every person on there was reading the same paper, the carriage populated by a hundred Adrians.

Eventually, I managed to lean down and pick up the paper, in what I hoped was a casual manner. The story ran across both the first and the third pages, although there wasn’t much to it; very few facts. All it really said was that a Red Pill member – no mention of who – had told police that Adrian had asked them to virtually ‘take over’ the life of someone who wanted to kill themselves.
Sinister Internet guru Adrian Dervish has been encouraging vulnerable people to commit suicide and then brainwashing his followers to impersonate them online
, I think was the wording. This unnamed member had gone along with the plan for a while but had then got cold feet and told their parents, who had gone to the newspapers. The police were now looking for Adrian.

I sat on the tube, the paper on my lap, as people filed on and off the carriage. The seats beside me were occupied and then empty and then occupied again. I was dimly conscious of legs pressing against mine, elbows pushing onto the shared arm rest. The train went past Green Park, my stop, and carried on to Stanmore, where it terminated. The doors opened but I remained in the carriage, and then eventually, got out and sat on a bench on the platform.

The first thing that struck me on reading the piece was not the wider implications in terms of Tess and my own involvement, but the fact that I wasn’t the only one Adrian had enlisted. The paper didn’t say how many there were, but hinted darkly at a
squad
of
computer whizz-kids
.

It was true that Adrian had never actually said there weren’t others doing it. Nonetheless, I thought back to that day on Hampstead Heath, how special he had made me feel. It had been – I thought it had been – our own secret project. He said he had picked me because I was an extraordinary person, uniquely capable of understanding both the ethical and practical dimensions of the undertaking. Although it sounds irrational, I felt betrayed.

My head fogged with emotion and unhelpful thoughts. It was only after a few moments that I started processing properly. If the police were after Adrian, they would presumably have searched his house. Who knew what information they might find? Maybe they were on their way to my flat right now. Maybe they were already there, waiting. I imagined the waiters from the restaurant below peering out the window as the officers lined up outside. Jonty would answer the door, and think that someone had died. He had once told me that whilst at college in Cardiff his room-mate had died in a car crash, and the moment the policeman knocked on his door to tell him had been the worst of his life.

When the truth was revealed, he’d be at first relieved, then shocked and hurt at my deception. Then, under questioning, things would start to make sense to him. ‘Yes,’ he’d say, ‘she was quite secretive. She hardly left her room. She said she was writing a film script.’

In my mind I saw the police searching the flat. I had locked my door, as always, but the padlock was a flimsy thing that could be easily opened with bolt cutters. Once inside, the evidence wouldn’t be hard to find. I had hidden the Tess stuff out of view – both the paper documents and those on my computer, as I did automatically – but it would take no time at all for someone to uncover them. The wall chart was just there, barely hidden by my posters.

I realized I had to get back home – if only to prevent Jonty from having to deal with the police. I crossed over to the other platform and boarded the next train back to Rotherhithe.

As I walked down Albion Street the flat looked quiet, my curtains drawn as I had left them. I stopped outside, imagining the police inside waiting for me, squeezed together awkwardly on the sofa, grave and silent, with all the evidence laid out on the floor in front of them. As I stood there on the pavement, I remember thinking that this could be my last moment of freedom. I admit that I actually inhaled the air, sucking that aroma of fried chicken and exhaust fumes and the metallic tang from the barber shop down into my lungs. A teenage boy on a bike weaved along the pavement, pursued by another one who called after him, ‘Oi, twat!’; a blast of music issued from a passing car. I looked up at the restaurant sign, above which I could see a sliver of my window, and realized I had never even noticed the actual name of the restaurant: Maharaj. The best curry house in Rotherhithe. Then I unlocked the door.

The flat was empty. Even Jonty wasn’t there, the piles of unwashed pans in the sink evidence that he had finished his stew and gone out. In my room I sprang into action. First, I made sure that all of Tess’s files were on my memory stick then deleted them and erased the Internet history from my computer. I knew that experts could find files that you thought you had erased, and that the only sure way of destroying information was to smash up the computer itself, but I wasn’t quite ready for that. I decided that if I saw the police come to the door, as a temporary measure I would drop my laptop out of the window into the restaurant yard, where the rubbish bags would hopefully both cushion its fall and disguise it from view.

I tried to rehearse my reaction for when they turned up. Should I deny everything? But if they had got to me in the first place, they’d have evidence that I was involved. And if my name was linked to Tess’s, that would be that. It would be a matter of moments before they established that she didn’t live in Sointula. Then they could check the IP address of the emails and trace it back to me. Then Marion would be told. Everyone would know. Connor would know.

As I sat there, waiting for the knock on the door, I scoured the web. I put a Google Alert on Adrian’s name, and every few minutes my laptop bleeped with news. For the first day or so, it was just the same story, repeated all around the world. Even sites in Japan were carrying it. I sat at my laptop for many hours, only my fingers moving as I clicked the mouse. I heard Jonty come and go. Then, at 6 a.m. on the Thursday morning, there was a development. One of the newspaper websites carried an interview with the Red Pill member who had broken ranks.

Randall Howard was his name. I didn’t recognize him, but that was no surprise since most members didn’t use their real photographs, and it was quite possible that I’d had many conversations with him. He was a year older than me, and had a fat, featureless face and short spiky hair. The photograph showed him sitting on a sofa beside his mother. She had her arm around his shoulders and looked angry.

The story Randall told in the interview was similar to my own. He had found Red Pill after a friend recommended it.
At first I thought Adrian was amazing
, he said.
He was so clever and funny, and he really seemed to care.
He described how, after being a member for a year, he had been approached by Adrian for a Face to Face. They had met in a London park.

The paper gave few details about Randall’s ‘client’. I know now that it was because the police were investigating and details had to be withheld. All it said was that he was a man in his late twenties, whom the paper called ‘Mark’. At first, Randall said, he was committed to the idea. He believed wholeheartedly in the cause; that it was a person’s right to commit suicide if he so wished, and the duty of others to assist if requested. He said he had asked Adrian if Mark was mentally sound and Adrian had assured him that he was. Adrian had put him in touch with Mark, and he had started collecting information, by email. Unlike with me and Tess, however, they had actually met in person. It was after this encounter, in a coffee shop in west London, that Randall started to have doubts.

There was this moment when I looked at him whilst he was talking, and the chocolate from his cappuccino had stained his lips. It suddenly occurred to me what exactly was at stake. I realized that he was a real person.
He also said that, although Mark was ‘adamant’ that he was sure about what he was doing, and he was of sound mind, Randall thought he could detect some reluctance.
He kept on looking away when I was talking, off into the distance, with a sad expression.
He described how Mark’s hands were shaking so much that he scattered sugar all over the table.

Randall had carried on with the project for a few weeks after that, collecting information, as I had done. But then one night, when Mark got in touch to suggest a date for checking out, Randall had
an epiphany
. He realized that this whole thing had to stop, and, moreover, I quote, that
Adrian Dervish had to be stopped
. He went downstairs, where his mother was watching TV, and told her everything. She immediately went to the newspapers. Then the police got involved.

I don’t know how many other vulnerable young people this despicable man has brainwashed
, his mother was quoted as saying
.
Mark had apparently changed his mind about wanting to die and was grateful to Randall for halting the process.
I can only hope that by coming forward, Randall has saved some other lives, too
, Randall’s mother said
.
The interview ended with Randall saying that
I once thought Adrian was a god – now I realize he’s the devil.

I found the article unsatisfactory. Even if Mark had, as Randall diagnosed,
a manner which suggested to me that he really didn’t want to end his life
. Even if he had remarked on
how lovely the weather was
, which, according to Randall, meant that he was still capable of appreciating the world. Even if it was true that Mark didn’t really want to die – although, like I said, I didn’t think Randall was qualified to make that assessment. Even taking all that into account, it didn’t follow that the others Adrian had helped, like Tess, were the same. It was faulty logic.

The way Adrian was depicted also bothered me, but in a less straightforward way. I’d go as far as to say I felt conflicted, which isn’t something I was used to. On one hand, I took some satisfaction in the damning portrait Randall painted: my abrupt banishment from the site was still fresh in my mind, and I couldn’t disagree with the description of Adrian as
uncompromising
and
intimidating
. I also admit to less rational feelings of aggrievement – betrayal, even – on discovering that I was not the only one Adrian had enlisted. Yet Randall’s use of absurd, overblown language like
the devil
made me cross, and, beyond that, I still felt a deep-rooted loyalty to Adrian which made me defensive at this one-sided, hysterical attack.