Kiss Me First (29 page)

Next to the article was a column on the same subject, with the picture of a solemn-faced woman at its head, in which she expressed her shock and outrage at the case. She called Adrian a
twisted Internet predator
, a phrase that was picked up and used in many of the subsequent articles.

A debate started in the press over the case. Predictably, most commentators were negative, railing against the dangers of the Internet and this lost generation of young people, vulnerable little souls who were there to be taken advantage of. It was presumed that the people who had died – in those early days, there still weren’t any figures – had been coerced into it.

I found all this supposition frustrating. None of these journalists knew the reality of each situation, yet they all thought they had the authority to weigh in with their opinions, presented as facts. I hadn’t read many newspapers before and I was amazed that they were allowed to do that.

Over the next twenty-four hours, some of the coverage became more thoughtful and reasonable. One male journalist wrote a long article about how, although the full story was yet to emerge, and obviously it was indefensible if people had been coerced into suicide, the principle behind the scheme was not necessarily wrong. He, this journalist, was a right-to-die supporter, and he said that he agreed with the basic principle of self-ownership, and that people could do what they liked with their bodies. Another article suggested that it was wrong for us to automatically presume that the suicidal are delusional. Why could they not have just had enough of life, and want it to end?

Often at the end of these articles, there was a place for readers to post their own comments and I must admit that, as I sat there during those endless hours, imagining the police were on their way, I couldn’t resist adding a few of my own. I posted a message of support to the woman who said that suicide wasn’t always a bad idea, and argued rationally against the more negative posts.

At the same time, I was keeping up with my Tess work. That might seem strange, but to abruptly stop communications would have been more dangerous. Marion would get worried and start calling; Tess’s friends, too. But beyond that, it also felt wrong to abandon her just because things had got complicated. I thought of a sticker that our next-door neighbour had on their car:
A dog is for life, not just for Christmas
. Of course, Tess was not a pet, but the sentiment struck a chord.

And, of course, there was Connor. He and Tess were in the habit of emailing each other several times a day, and when I didn’t reply to one of his messages for even a few hours – as happened on that Wednesday evening, when I saw the newspaper – he would write asking if something was wrong.

It didn’t seem fair for Tess’s friends and family to think that she was missing, and put them through that ordeal, only to then discover that she was actually dead. Much better for it to carry on as it had been, until the police knocked on Marion’s door and broke it to her that her daughter wasn’t living in Sointula but was missing, presumed deceased, a victim of the
twisted Internet predator
Adrian Dervish and the poor, vulnerable girl he had enslaved to do his bidding.

And so I carried on as normal, posting updates of Tess’s lovely life in Sointula –
Reasons to love this place,
#
358 – you can get a massage for thirty bucks
– and playing a silly email game with Connor in which we took it in turns to make up a line of a song describing our respective days.
I’ve accompanied a young felon to court,
he wrote;
I’ve walked sand all over my porch,
I replied.

Meanwhile, I was continuing to monitor news websites, and on the Friday afternoon there was a development in the search for Adrian that, for a moment, took the wind out of my sails: the police had discovered where he had been living, and had raided the premises.

Adrian Dervish was a false name, it transpired, and Red Pill had been registered in Brazil, so they couldn’t find him through that. But apparently the endless reproduction of his photograph had reaped rewards, and a woman had told the police that a man who looked just like him had been her neighbour for the past week. There was a picture of the block of flats, a grim, rundown place near Gatwick Airport. When the police got there, Adrian had already fled; however, it was reported, they had seized a number of computers that they were in the process of examining. They had already found
significant information
.

How long it would take them to trace me was impossible to predict, being dependent on how much information Adrian had stored and how well it was encrypted. Or if it was encrypted at all. I thought back to our conversation on Hampstead Heath, when he said he was hopeless with technology. He’d made a basic attempt at covering his tracks by using a foreign IP address, but would he have bothered to protect me? I imagined a police computer expert rolling up his sleeves in preparation for a tough job and then laughing when he saw all the evidence there in plain view.

Who knew what had passed between Adrian and Tess – but, judging from my experience, I suspected she hadn’t been too discreet in her correspondence.
You’ve
really found someone to help me die? You fucking legend.
As for tracing me, they could pick and choose their method. I hadn’t masked my IP address – Facebook would be able to see that Tess’s account had been accessed from my computer. Gmail too. My credit-card details were stored in Red Pill. Why had I not thought to take precautions?

Anxious as I was about an imminent knock on the door and the unpleasant formalities that would follow, my thoughts kept leaping forward to the moment when Tess’s family and friends were told what had been going on. Or, more precisely, when Connor would discover the truth.

I mentally scrolled through various scenarios. Connor at work, receiving a call from Marion, his expression slowly turning from one of polite bemusement to open-mouthed horror. Connor at home one evening, relaxing on the sofa watching an old episode of
Miss Marple
(his guilty pleasure). The doorbell rings and he frowns at the interruption, and then panic grips him as he makes out the shape of a policeman through the frosted glass of his front door. (Of course, I didn’t know he had frosted glass in his front door; I was just imagining.)

However he found out, I felt certain he would hate me, because he wouldn’t hear my side of the story. He would assume that I had done it as a kind of sick joke, or for monetary gain. The thought of him thinking badly of me made me feel physically sick; I had to get down from my desk and bend double on the floor. And it was whilst crouching down there, staring at the crumbs in the carpet, that I realized I had to break the news to him, now. I had to explain in person. If he understood why I had done it, he would forgive me.

Normally I carefully consider the pros and cons of major decisions, but the moment this idea came to me, I knew it was the right and only course of action. And I admit that I was anticipating more than just forgiveness from Connor. After all, if Tess was dead, there was nothing to stop us being together. Once he was over the shock of the news, he would see that. Now he was free to love someone else, and the person he wanted was right here, in London, ready and available.

My anxiety morphed into impatient excitement; I wanted to see Connor right away. As I say, it was a Friday afternoon, so I decided I would go down to Temple and catch him as he was leaving work for the day. I put on the tight Tesco skirt and top I had bought for our previous, thwarted encounter and brushed my hair forty times. Luckily Jonty was out, so I didn’t have to invent another excuse for looking so dressy; it also meant I could use the mirror in his room, the only full-length one in the flat. I had mum’s make up bag but there was no need for it: my eyes were shining and cheeks were rosy, all of their own accord. I looked as nice as I had ever done, I thought, and smiled at my reflection.

It was five past six when I reached his office. My normal bench was occupied by three middle-aged tourists taking the weight off their feet, but I couldn’t have sat still, anyway: I was too excited. I paced up and down the little park, mouthing to myself the opening line I had decided upon – ‘I have some bad news, and some good news’ – and all the while keeping my gaze locked on the black door of Asquith and Partners. Just before half-past six, Connor emerged.

He was alone, his leather bag strap across his chest, talking into his phone and walking briskly up the road. As before, the sight of him produced a lurching sensation in my chest and made my legs feel weak, but at the speed he was walking I had no time to waste. I gathered myself and started after him, struggling to keep him in view as he headed out of the cobbled streets of Temple and onto the larger road above, which was busy with cars and people. At the pavement he came to a halt, still talking on his phone. I was able to catch up, and was almost within touching distance when I heard him say, ‘Yeah, I see you.’

I stopped, and watched as he waved in the direction of a little red car parked on the other side of the road. In the driver’s seat was a smiling blonde woman, and in the back, waving back at him enthusiastically, were two little children. I watched as Connor waited for a gap in the traffic, crossed the road and got into the passenger seat. He leaned over to kiss the woman on the lips, before turning around to greet Maya and Ben. And I watched as Chrissie started the engine and pulled out, and the red car merged with the traffic and disappeared from sight.

I don’t know exactly how long I stood there on that thronging pavement. I was aware that the people walking past seemed annoyed that I was rooted to the spot, and pointedly pushed past my shoulder or clicked their tongues. If they had asked I would have explained that I couldn’t actually move; my legs would not let me. My brain felt similarly leaden inside my skull, as if it had shut down in order to avoid processing what had just happened. It only allowed silly, tiny thoughts, like how it was a good thing that I had not put on any mascara earlier, as it would now be smudged down my face.

Eventually my legs started to work again and transported me to the tube station. The train was rammed, but a woman stood up and offered me her seat. I’m not sure why she did it but I was grateful. Sitting down, I was aware of how short my skirt was: my lap seemed to be all bare thigh, the skin pale and mottled. Beside me was a man in a crumpled suit, who looked a similar age to Connor, slouched with his legs wide apart and tapping on his iPhone. The screen was in full view and I watched, as if from behind glass, as he composed a text to someone called Mila:
I’ll make it worth your while, you know that. I haven’t forgotten what I promised at Ascot . . . Xxx
. I imagined myself leaning over and typing
PS – Oh and guess what – I’m married!

Back at the flat, I was relieved to discover that Jonty was still not home. I wrote him a note saying I was ill and not to be disturbed, and locked my door behind me. It hit me then that I was completely exhausted, and without taking off my shoes I lay on the sofa and fell asleep.

When I woke it was very dark, and both the street and the flat were quiet. Opening my laptop to check the time, I noticed I had forty-eight new emails, and was confused until I remembered that I had set up a Google news alert for mentions of Adrian and Red Pill. The Saturday newspapers had just been published, full of updates, analysis and debates on the story.

I read the stories impassively, as if I had no personal connection with the subject matter. Another member, a boy called Stephen, had come forward to say that he had also been approached by Adrian to take over someone’s life, but hadn’t gone through with it. There were more reported sightings of Adrian, in England and overseas, in Prague and New York. One paper carried the headline
Is YOUR child part of a suicide cult?
.

In an interview Randall had been asked how many others he thought might have been enlisted, and had replied,
I don’t know. God knows. Hundreds, maybe.
The paper then used this as justification to ask a ‘respected psychologist’ to compose a checklist of warning signs for parents worried that their child was one of Adrian’s minions. The first question was,
Does your child spend an excessive amount of time at their computer?
The second:
Do they keep odd, antisocial hours?

Although I read the articles, I could not concentrate on them. All I could think about was Connor; or, more specifically, why had he done this? Why did he lie about being separated from Chrissie? Over the course of the weekend he sent Tess several emails, all as flirtatious as normal. When I asked him what he had got up to on Friday night, he said he’d gone out for drinks with people from work and then ended up at a party in Whitechapel.
It was boring, because you weren’t there.

I re-read our past emails.
Wondrous creature. This is a rare thing that’s happening here, you know that? I feel I can tell you anything. Kiss me first.
He had asked me once about my memories of being a child, and I told him about a memory of walking down Kentish Town High Street with mum when I was seven – although I relocated the scene to Dulwich, where Tess grew up – and spotting what I thought was a little pink teddy bear in the gutter. I had presumed that some other child had dropped it, and felt sorry for it because it was all dirty and forgotten. I crouched to pick it up, and it was only when I lifted it to eye level that I saw it wasn’t a teddy after all, but a sawn-off pig’s trotter.
Aww, poor little Heddy
, he had replied.
That’s too sad. I want to come and wrap my arms around you
. Now that mum was dead, he was the only person who knew about that.

Did it really matter that he was married, I wondered. Perhaps he and Chrissie were putting up a front for the children. One of Tess’s unhappily married friends, Carmen, had emailed her once:
We’re doing the old ‘staying together for the kids’ thing
. Perhaps he was being selfless by staying married to Chrissie. And he hadn’t told Tess because he suspected she would have nothing to do with him.
No more married men
had been one of her 2009 New Year’s resolutions.