I charitably assumed the constant ‘you knows’ were a nervous tic and tried to see beyond them.
‘Good on you,’ I said and squeezed his arm. ‘Takes guts to really open your eyes.’ Well, not really, if there’s a multi-million-pound trust fund to fall back on when you get tired of living like the common people, but he seemed to appreciate it, absent-mindedly rubbing the spot I’d just touched.
From then on, I was in. It took a couple more weeks of weeding to suggest a drink after work, but he was keen. Unfortunately so was Lucy. And, even worse, Roger. We ended up in a dismal pub near the centre which I guess could’ve been nice if a roundabout hadn’t encircled it at some point in the recent past （and, let’s be honest, if the clientele had been completely different and the wine list had offered more than a lukewarm chardonnay from Australia）。 The talk was mainly about fucking frogs, with Andrew keen to tell us about his own private collection.
Roger rolled his eyes. ‘This chap thinks the local ones aren’t interesting enough, don’t you, fella? Always looking for something a bit more … exotic.’ He said it as though a foreign frog was dangerous, enticing Andrew away from the decent hardworking types found in the marshes. Roger definitely voted to leave the EU. I feigned interest, and encouraged my cousin to say more, while Roger turned to Lucy and attempted to engage her on the topic of topsoil. Andrew lowered his voice and tilted his head towards me slightly.
‘The centre is a lovely place, and Roger means well. But he’s right, I am interested in the more “exotic” ones, just as he says. It might sound mad …’ he trailed off as I looked at him with interest, ‘but I’ve been researching what frogs can do for depression. Have you heard of Kambo?’
No, Andrew, of course I fucking haven’t. Normal people don’t think about frogs and depression. Normal people don’t spend their days in dingy marshes off a dual carriageway waiting for visitors who never come. But then, normal people don’t try to annihilate their entire families so I really should learn to judge less and listen more. I opened my eyes wide.
‘It’s a secretion from a type of frog and there’s a ton of research on how it helps to cure depression and addiction. We’re all so dependent on western medicine pushed on us by big pharma, but it’s becoming so clear that nature offers us better ways to tackle our human struggles. Kambo, man …’ he paused. ‘It’s worked miracles on so many people.’ He glanced over at Roger to make sure he wasn’t listening and turned back to me. ‘That’s why I’ve got these frogs at home. I’m trying to perfect the dosage. Too much and you vomit uncontrollably. It’s a tricky process. And I’m breeding them so that I can increase my supply and help more people.’
I didn’t need to fake interest by now. What a weird path for Andrew to take, doping himself up with frog juice. Surely there must be a nice Harley Street therapist available to deal with his issues in a less bonkers way? Then again, rich kids have always tried to forge their own path, stymied by a lack of drive and comfort levels that make hard work seem unnecessary. Some become club promoters. Some weed-smoking artists. Why not a frog dealer?
I bombarded him with questions, and told him I thought he was brave. I’m not ashamed to say I opened up about my own personal struggle with depression and made myself vulnerable in front of him. Didn’t matter that it was all tosh and that despite having very good reason to experience deep sadness, I had been lucky enough to swerve it. Men like women being vulnerable. They like to feel that we might need help, despite any surface-level confidence.
By the time we left the pub, I felt like I’d cracked him. And yet my shoulders were tense and my hands were balled up into fists as I walked to the station. He was a nice man, I thought, though fairly clueless. I didn’t feel the acid burning in my throat when I thought about him like I did when I conjured him as an image of his father or grandfather. And that feeling, the ever stoked anger which made my ears feel as though they were on fire, that’s what made it easy to kill Jeremy and Kathleen. That’s what made it fun. I didn’t feel that corrosive sensation in my windpipe for weeks afterwards. How would I enjoy this new challenge if I couldn’t summon the acid?
By the next shift, we’d swapped numbers （one of the perils of a burner phone is never knowing your own number off by heart） and would text each other during the week with links to research papers we thought the other would enjoy. I didn’t read anything he suggested, but it was easy to react appropriately with a quick skim of the conclusion. God bless these pointless academics who spend years doing some mind-numbing survey that nobody will read but helpfully tack on a footnote which summarises it all in two minutes. Texting might sound like there was flirting going on, but thankfully I think Andrew really just enjoyed someone who was willing to indulge his niche interest in amphibians and hallucinogens. The alternative would’ve added a hideous dimension to what I hoped would be a fairly straightforward catch and kill.