The Death Club Read online

“You may want to wipe your lips,” she tells me. “You’ve got my lip gloss on you.”

  I wipe my lips on the back of my hand and it leaves a smear of sparkles.

  She lifts her hand and waves with her fingers, then reverses through the doorway and finally leaves.

  And she’s right. Of course she’s right.

  I didn’t report her when she gave me chocolates. Or when she gave me the letter.

  And if I was to report her now, it would look far, far worse.

  23

  Harper

  I walk home the long way, by the river. Thinking of Mum. Thinking of Dad.

  Thinking of Danny.

  If I had to kill someone, how would I do it?

  What a question.

  Is that what people joke about?

  When I see those girls with their friends and the boys, are they making jokes about mortality and murder?

  I open my phone. I have a message from Danny and I can’t wait to read it, but first, I open my contacts and go to Mum’s number.

  I’m not sure why I’ve gone to this number.

  Should I ring it?

  And say what?

  Mum hasn’t said a word to me for a long time. Dad is useless, but he still tries to make conversation.

  I click away from her number and open my messages.

  What’s on your mind, gorgeous?

  He makes me smile. But he also makes me worried. If he met me, would he still think I’m gorgeous?

  Not much.

  Just lost in thought.

  Parent troubles?

  What else?

  Bah, parent’s be damned.

  Think of me instead.

  Hopefully that’s a far more pleasant thought : )

  I smile, and continue walking home, ignoring all those pesky thoughts that tell me I’m worthless and that my parents don’t want me because there’s something wrong with me.

  Danny wants me even if they don’t.

  He can be my family now.

  24

  Will

  As I drive home, I’m buzzing with anger, and I do the only thing I can do to take my mind off all of this nonsense with Destiny — phone Natalie again. With my phone connected to Bluetooth speakers, I leave it unlocked as I drive and keep pressing her number, over and over, automatically — so automatic, in fact, that when she actually answers it takes me by surprise.

  “Hello?”

  She sounds tired.

  “Natalie? Natalie, oh my God!”

  “Will, you need to stop calling me.”

  “No, I know, just please — don’t hang up, okay?”

  “What do you want?”

  That’s a good question. In my persistence in trying to get through to her, I’d completely forgotten why I was trying to talk to her. What do I actually want to say?

  “Can we — can we meet? And talk?”

  “Will, I don’t think there’s much point.”

  “You’re my wife, Natalie, I—”

  “Will, we’re separated, that doesn’t mean much anymore.”

  “Look, Natalie, can’t we just… I don’t know. Meet. Discuss things.”

  “I don’t think—”

  I hear a man’s voice. He sounds annoyed. It’s muffled, but I’m sure he asks her something about whether it’s me ringing again.

  I recognise that voice.

  “Who is that? Is that Brian? Are you at Brian’s?”

  Brian is an idiot who’s spent the last five or so years telling Natalie I’m not good enough for her and that there’s nothing wrong with her drinking. I used to call him a friend, now I only call him names.

  “Right, don’t go anywhere. I’m coming over.”

  “Will, please don’t.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  I hang up and look for somewhere to turn around. I use a junction to the left, and don’t notice a car having to slam on their brakes because of me. Their horn and hand gesture make their feelings about me clear, but I ignore it; I’m protected in my car, and I have more important things to worry about.

  It’s been a few years since I’ve been to Brian’s place. We used to have dinner with Brian and his wife until they split up and Brian became an alcoholic. He’s a lecherous, predatory bloke, one that would sooner take advantage of a drunk girl than help her home, and I can’t believe she’s left me for him.

  Has she been with him all this time, getting drunk and fucking before coming home to me so I can pick up the mess?

  I pull up across the end of his drive and push myself from the car. I catch my reflection in the window; my suit is ill-fitting, my tie flutters chaotically in the wind, and my hair sticks up in all the wrong places. I never realised quite how awful I look.

  Right now I do not care.

  I bang against the door with my fist, full of energy, full of fight. When Brian opens the door, looming over me in the doorway, my adrenaline is immediately replaced with fear.

  “What the fuck do you want, Will?” he asks, walking out of his house toward me, forcing me to back up.

  “I — I — I want to see my wife,” I stutter.

  “Well your wife doesn’t want to see you.”

  “It’s not up to you—”

  “Get the fuck off my property before I break your neck, yeah?”

  I want to run away. I feel myself cowering, I feel my eyes watering, my arms shaking — but isn’t this the problem? That I’m such a coward all the time?

  If ever there is an instance for me to find a modicum of courage, this is it.

  Unfortunately, I can’t find any, and I just keep backing away.

  “You — you — you —”

  “You what? Look at you. You’re pathetic. You can’t even stand straight.”

  “I—”

  He grabs my collar.

  “Brian,” says a familiar voice from behind him.

  Natalie’s gentle hand rests on Brian’s arm, and Brian releases me.

  “Go back inside,” Brian tells her. “I’m dealing with this.”

  “Let me talk to him,” she says. “It’s fine.”

  Brian looks back at her. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her in the daylight. She’s pale and scarily thin, with bags under her eyes and veins sticking out of her arms.

  Brian gives me a final glare and says, “You come back to my property again, I’ll kill you,” before walking back inside the house.

  And here we are. Me and my wife. Standing face-to-face, just feet apart, as I’d been wanting. For the first time, I look at the woman I married, and have no idea what to say.

  “You look awful,” I tell her.

  She tuts and sighs. It probably wasn’t the best opening line.

  “Please, just come home with me,” I say. “We’ll forget all about this. We’ll get you some help.”

  She folds her arms. Shakes her head. Sighs and looks down, then looks back up at me.

  “Natalie?”

  “You do realise I’ve been sleeping with him, don’t you?” she says, her voice soft and soothing. I expected aggression, but there is none — just resolve.

  “What, Brian?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  She shrugs. “Years.”

  “God, Natalie…”

  “This day was going to happen. Eventually, I was going to leave. We both knew that.”

  “I didn’t.”

  She smiles like one would smile to a naive child.

  “We can work on it,” I say. “I’ve not always been the best husband, I know that, I probably drove you away from me, I get it, but we can figure it out.”

  Natalie laughs, and it kills me.

  “I tell you I’ve been cheating on you for years, and you beg me to come back to you? What is wrong with you, Will?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “But you should! If your wife cheats on you, you should care! It should make you angry, but I don’t see it. Where is your anger, Will? Why don�
�t you get angry with me?”

  “You’re an alcoholic. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “An alcoholic? I’m living the life I want to live.”

  “Just because you’re unhappy.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “Not with you.”

  “What’s the common denominator here, Will? What is it that’s driving me to drink, and driving you to despair?”

  I don’t say anything. Not because I’m not bursting with things to respond with, but because none of MY responses will help the situation.

  “I’m going back inside now,” she tells me. “And I don’t want you to bother me again. I’ll talk to a divorce lawyer we’ll get the process started.”

  She turns to go, but I pull her arm and turn her around. She hits my arm away from her.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Go home, Will.”

  “But—”

  “We don’t love each other anymore.”

  “I do.”

  She shakes her head. “Well, I don’t.”

  She turns to go back inside.

  Then I remember — Harper. What about her? What about her daughter? What about the one thing that should matter?

  “But what about—”

  She turns around with a huff. Looks at me with such an intense weariness.

  She doesn’t seem interested. If I’m beginning to be honest with myself, she hasn’t been interested in me or her daughter for quite some time.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Never mind.”

  She returns back inside.

  I return to my car.

  And as I drive home, trying to avoid people in other cars seeing me cry, I wonder when it was that she stopped loving me.

  Was it yesterday? A year ago? Ten years ago?

  Or did she ever love me at all?

  25

  Harper

  I hear Dad walk through into the house. He stumbles and swears as he slams the door, finding some minor inconvenience and blowing it up into a catastrophe.

  I lay upside down on my bed with my feet on the wall.

  Danny and I have been texting all evening, but he says he’s being called for tea and that he’ll speak to me later, and now I’m left with silence.

  Not that there was any noise while we were texting, except in my head, where there was a symphony of beautiful crescendos and elaborate melodies played by a glorious orchestra.

  I wasn’t sure I believed love was a thing. Can you blame me, with the parents I have? Dad would insist he loves Mum, but if love is holding the hair of your wife back while she throws up every night, then I’m not sure I want it.

  Then again, maybe that wasn’t love. Or it was their version of love. Or it was habit.

  Because what I’m feeling now is nothing like that. I don’t see a way it could be possible that Danny and I end up in the routine of misery my parents’ marriage spiralled into.

  And it isn’t that I don’t believe love happens to people… I just never thought it happened to me.

  But he says I’m special. That I deserve love, and I almost cried, which was strange, as I never thought it was something that would make me cry, the idea that I deserve love. Perhaps I never thought about it, or maybe I never let myself dwell on the notion of whether I was actually loveable.

  Now I do. Because he thinks I am.

  He says I am.

  He knows I am.

  I look at my phone screen. He’s not texted back yet. How long can dinner take?

  And that is when my thoughts are interrupted by a few knocks on the front door.

  Who could that be?

  We never get visitors.

  Then I think — is it Mum? Is she back? Has she come to apologise?

  I leap from my bed to the window, ignoring the head rush, hoping to see her suitcase on the driveway while she hugs Dad.

  But I don’t see a suitcase on the driveway.

  I don’t see Mum.

  All I see is a police car.

  26

  Will

  The knock on the door is confident. Three definite strikes that echo around the house.

  My first thought is that Natalie has changed her mind — but that is not Natalie’s knock, and even so, she would just walk in.

  Which makes me question who it is, and I stare at the door, trying to figure it out.

  The knocks come again, breaking me out of my trance, and I open the door.

  A police officer fills the frame, his white shirt sleeves beneath a stab proof vest. He’s taller than I am, and a lot more muscular.

  “Hi, are you Will Coady?” he asks, his voice deep and gruff.

  I nod, unable to keep my mouth from hanging open.

  My body stiffens.

  Destiny.

  She must have told someone something, and he’s here to arrest me. My life will become like Patrick Armidge’s. My daughter will disown me. Guilty or not, I’ll forever be seen as a sex offender.

  “May I come in?” he says.

  “Er…”

  No, I do not want you to come in, I am tempted to say. But I am not the kind of person to say that to a regular guy, never mind a police officer.

  “Okay,” I say, opening the door for him, then for some reason, I add, “would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Oh, that would be great,” he says. “Two sugars.”

  I’m confused.

  If he’s here to arrest me, then why is he having a cup of tea?

  “Am I in trouble?” I ask as I walk into the kitchen, and I hate myself for the quiver I can hear in my own voice.

  I put the kettle on. Get a cup. Put the teabag in. Add two sugars.

  “You? No, not at all. I’m here to talk to you about your daughter, Harper.”

  Harper?

  What has she done?

  Nothing. Surely. She barely leaves the house. She wouldn’t steal anything or hurt anybody. She hardly has any friends to be antisocial with. What could she have done?

  “Is Harper in at all?”

  “Yes, she’s upstairs.”

  “Perhaps it would be a good idea if you were to ask her to come down. It would be good to speak to both of you.”

  “Has she done something?”

  “She has not broken the law, no. But we are worried she may be in danger.”

  Seeing the look on my face, he adds, “Not any imminent danger, no need to worry. I just need to talk to her.”

  “Okay.”

  The kettle finishes boiling. I pour the water into the cup. Add some milk. Place it on the counter before the police officer. Then I go to the bottom of the stairs and call out Harper’s name.

  She doesn’t come out of her room. Of course she doesn’t.

  I call again.

  After no response, I tut and begin to make my way upstairs. That is when she opens her door.

  “Dad…” she says. “Why is there a police car outside?”

  “An officer is here. He wishes to talk to you. To us. Both of us.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Could you come down please?”

  She looks away, a weak look in her eyes, and she looks so young.

  “You’re not in trouble, Harper, please just come down.”

  She shuts her door and makes her way slowly down the stairs, and we emerge into the kitchen together.

  The police officer’s stare lingers on Harper. He smiles a little, like he’s looking at a niece he hasn’t seen in a while.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, her voice small and timid.

  “I will explain everything,” he says. “Just please know, you are not in any trouble.”

  “Okay…”

  “Is there somewhere we could sit?”

  “Yeah,” I reply. “In the living room. This way.”

  He smiles and follows us.

  27

  Harper

  Me and Dad sit on the edge of the sofa, and the police officer sits on the armchair opposite. He takes up th
e whole seat, and I’ve never seen someone who looks so confident. He leans forward and smiles at me in a way that I imagine is meant to be reassuring, but is not.

  “I just realised I never introduced myself,” he says. “Forgive me. My name is Officer Simon Felix.”

  He offers his hand to me, and I shake it. His grip is firm and makes my loose hand feel small in his.

  He shakes Dad’s hand too, who offers his in return just as tentatively.

  “Have you heard of a girl called Linda Salborough?” he asks.

  Dad shakes his head.

  Yes, I have heard of her. I was abused for posting an RIP for her on the message board.

  I remain silent.

  “She was a young woman, about your age.” He indicates me. “Who had quite a large presence on a message board that I believe you post on.”

  Dad looks at me, confused, and I suddenly feel defensive. There’s nothing wrong with going on message boards.

  “You may not know this, but she was found a few weeks ago. Dead. In her bedroom. Following an overdose. It was believed to be suicide, and we had no reason to question that. Until now.”

  He looks from Dad to me, like he’s trying to gauge our reactions, like he’s looking for shock on our faces, and I wish he’d just get to the point.

  “Upon closer examination of her computer, we found that she had taken a video of her suicide and streamed it live to another person’s computer. We looked further into this, and found thousands of messages between her and this boy, both on her computer and on her phone. This was a boy that she met on the message boards.”

  He takes a moment. Takes a breath. Looks between us, then places his focus back on me, and chooses his next words carefully.

  “This boy — if he is in fact a boy, as he may well not be who he said he was — convinced Linda to kill herself. And to film it. In order to join something called The Death Club — an exclusive club for people whose death has gone viral. Fortunately, we managed to find this video before it could be spread across the internet. Linda never got to join this club; not that she’d know.”