The Good Samaritan

“I liked being thought of as the maternal type. To them, I was helpful, inoffensive and indispensable, and that suited me down to the ground. Because when you’re not considered to be a threat, you can get away with much, much more.”

This internal monologue explicitly states the duplicity at the heart of Laura’s character, creating dramatic irony as the reader understands the falsity of her benevolent persona. She identifies her maternal reputation not as an aspect of her personality but as a calculated tool for avoiding suspicion. This admission highlights the theme of The Compulsive Nature of Manipulation and Control by framing her kindness as a strategic camouflage for her predatory behavior. It also foreshadows later revelations regarding Laura’s true nature as a mother, such as her responsibility for her son’s disability.

“I lowered my voice, held the phone closer to my mouth and launched into a well-rehearsed but selectively used speech.

‘Perhaps, deep down, you aren’t serious about ending your life,’ I began. ‘[…] Are you so deep into it that you don’t realize nothing is going to change unless you find the courage to do something about it yourself?’”

This quote reveals Laura’s methodical manipulation. The use of rhetorical questions and reverse psychology shows how she dismantles a caller’s resolve by framing suicide as an act of courage. Describing her speech as “well-rehearsed” underscores that her manipulation is a honed skill, a key part of her predatory toolkit rather than a spontaneous act.

“He didn’t understand that Henry’s heart and mine were one and the same. And as long as I could feel his pulse, he would always be my anchor.”

This statement introduces the central “anchor” motif, which represents Laura’s paradoxical reliance on the vulnerable for stability. Her belief that she and her son are spiritually fused is a prime example of her unreliable narration, as she rewrites her profound guilt into a narrative of maternal connection. By finding her moral grounding in Henry’s complete dependency, she exposes her psychological need to control the vulnerable to justify her own existence.

“I know all of this because I am an expert.”

Following a detailed inventory of her macabre knowledge, this stark, declarative statement confirms Laura’s god complex. The use of italics emphasizes her profound arrogance and the pride she takes in her lethal “expertise,” connecting directly to her “Freer of Lost Souls” persona. This line is a direct expression of the theme of Rewriting Reality to Reconcile Trauma, as she frames her murderous compulsion as a professional, intellectual pursuit.

“‘I know about you, Laura,’ he growled. ‘I know what you are and what you’ve done. I know everything.’”

In this confrontation, related in retrospect, Laura’s husband, Tony, shatters the carefully constructed reality she maintains. The forceful repetition of “I know” acts as an indictment, stripping away the facade of the devoted wife and mother she projects. This moment reveals that the foundation of her family life is built on deceit, directly engaging the theme of rewriting reality by showing the violent rupture that occurs when that rewritten reality is exposed.

“I had made him my anchor, but other forces were dragging him along the seabed, further and further away. I felt him pulling at me.”

This quote from a flashback about her childhood friend Nate expands upon the anchor motif that defines Laura’s parasitic relationships. By framing Nate, an unhoused man ultimately revealed to be her own victim, as her source of stability, the narrative establishes her pathological need to latch onto vulnerable individuals for her own psychological grounding. The metaphor of being dragged along the seabed illustrates her perceived loss of control and provides a rationale for the extreme measures she later takes to secure her “anchors.” It also foreshadows the revelation that it was Nate who died jumping into the sea with Charlotte, implying that Laura knows this on a subconscious level.

“‘It’s just us today, sweetheart.’ He leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. ‘You’re stronger than us. Once you find your anchor, never let go of it. No matter what.’

Before I could ask what he meant, he gently closed the door and turned the lock.”

This memory of her father’s final words before he murders her sisters and dies by suicide is the formative trauma of Laura’s life, establishing the psychological source of her obsessions. His words twist a horrific act into a twisted anointment, casting Laura as a “strong” survivor and making clear that finding an anchor is her life’s purpose. The image of the closed door becomes a symbol for her fear of emotional exclusion, marking the genesis of her compulsion to witness and control the final moments of others.

“Instead of finding a man I’d promised to help in the last moments of his life, I was confronted by something shocking in the patterns of the wallpaper. I realized I wasn’t looking at wallpaper at all. It was hundreds of photographs of me.”

This moment marks a critical turning point in the narrative, as the hunter becomes the hunted. The reveal of the photographs inverts the power dynamic, transforming Laura from an unseen predator operating through the anonymity of the telephone into an exposed and surveilled target. The photographs motif, used here as a weapon, shatters Laura’s sense of control and omniscience, demonstrating that her own manipulative tactics can be turned against her.

“I held the key so tightly in my palm that it made a deep impression in my skin. And I wondered if I’d told Charlotte a day earlier we were set to complete on our forever home, might it have saved her? I’d never know.”

Here, John Marrs gives Ryan’s grief and guilt a physical manifestation, establishing the psychological state that will motivate his quest for revenge. The house key represents a future now rendered impossible and inflicts a physical pain that mirrors his emotional agony. This connection between his loss and the house he bought for his family foreshadows the latter’s transformation from a site of lost dreams into the eventual stage for his elaborate revenge plot.

“No, she’s pro. She keeps it on the downlow cos she works for a suicide helpline called End of the Line or something like that. Lol. Someone recommended her to Chloe4.”

This dialogue, found by Ryan on an internet message board, references the “Freer of Lost Souls” motif and launches his quest for revenge. The detached, informal language of online forums, including the casual “Lol,” creates a sense of anonymous cruelty that mirrors the symbolism of the telephone.

“‘Eye,’ he muttered. ‘Eye, fa.’ He was imploring me to understand him.

‘Eye, eye, fa,’ I repeated, before understanding what he meant. ‘An eye for an eye,’ I said, and his finger pressed against mine.

His head nodded ever-so-slightly.”

This moment marks a critical turning point in Ryan’s character arc, solidifying his transition from victim to avenger. His interpretation of his grandfather’s fragmented speech as a mandate for revenge illustrates the theme of rewriting reality; Ryan actively seeks and finds justification for his violent intentions. The ambiguity of the communication suggests Ryan is projecting his own desires onto his grandfather, highlighting his increasingly compromised morality and the theme of The Blurred Line Between Victim and Perpetrator.

“‘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.’”

Laura’s framing of her plan to assist in a suicide as a “business relationship” is an example of how euphemism facilitates her detachment. By describing her role as ensuring a “smooth transition,” she sanitizes the act of murder, recasting it as a professional service. This choice of diction evokes the Freer of Lost Souls motif, portraying her as a grim project manager who sees vulnerable people as tasks to be completed.

“‘Have you ever thought afterwards that you might have got it wrong with someone? Have you helped them and thought later that maybe they should have just held on for that bit longer?’

‘No,’ she replied without a pause. ‘Everyone who comes to me is a volunteer, like you are. I don’t seek people out, they seek me. I have never—and will never—regret anything I do.’”

Laura’s response to Ryan’s questioning is a definitive statement of her lack of remorse. The line “I have never—and will never—regret anything I do” is an absolute declaration that underscores her inability to feel guilt. Her justification that her victims are “volunteers,” like her, demonstrates her psychological need to reframe her predation as a consensual act, which is central to the theme of rewriting reality.

“All I’m saying is that when it comes to people, no matter how much you think you know them, you can never predict what goes on in their heads, even your own kids. […] People who kids think they can trust can talk them into actions that have a catastrophic effect on their future. Do you know what I mean, Mrs Morris?”

In this moment of confrontation, Ryan ironically weaponizes Laura’s own manipulative language, warning her about what he himself has done to Effie. This marks a critical shift in the narrative, cementing Ryan’s transformation from victim to a perpetrator who adopts his tormentor’s methods. The dialogue deliberately blurs moral lines as Ryan mirrors the very behavior he seeks to punish.

“‘Yes, of course I do,’ I replied, but in truth, a fog was descending from nowhere and everything was becoming muddled.”

This passage uses the metaphor of a descending “fog” to externalize Laura’s psychological state and establish her as a profoundly unreliable narrator. Her inability to remember the traumatic event that fractured her family—the fire she set—demonstrates the theme of rewriting reality to reconcile trauma. This cognitive dissonance shows how Laura constructs a false reality to absolve herself of guilt and maintain her self-perception as a victim.

“It gradually dawned on me, as Effie spoke, that I’d never really heard what she had to say before. I’d listened, but all too often I’d dismissed her words and feelings as those of a child. Now, with her fifteenth birthday approaching, she was a young woman, and it was time I treated her like one.”

Laura’s internal monologue reveals the mechanics of her manipulation, as she reframes her grooming of Effie as a moment of genuine maternal connection. She recognizes Effie’s transition to womanhood not with empathy but as an opportunity to exploit her more effectively. This is a stark illustration of the compulsive nature of control, where even a mother-daughter relationship becomes a tool for revenge.

“Listening to Ryan talk in-depth about the loss he’d felt after his wife’s death humanized him a little. Until that moment, he’d been an unpredictable force bent on tormenting me. But watching this video, he became a real person, a man who’d suffered; who was fractured and lonely. He was nothing like the formidable opponent I’d spent months hiding from in my house.

It made me want to break him even more.”

This quote subverts expectations to highlight the depths of Laura’s cruelty. Her reflections in the first paragraph recall similar moments when Ryan, observing Laura, feels empathy for her despite his rage and hatred. For Laura, however, witnessing human vulnerability evokes not sympathy but malice by appealing to her desire for control. The pause created by the paragraphing heightens the impact of the abrupt tonal shift, further underscoring Laura’s malevolence.

“‘Perfect,’ I muttered, pulling out a pair of yellow rubber gloves from my jacket pocket and slipping them over my hands. Then I reached into my bag to remove what was making it so heavy.”

The procedural act of putting on rubber gloves before desecrating Charlotte’s wedding dress highlights Laura’s cold and methodical cruelty. The dress is a symbol of what Ryan has lost, and Laura’s attack on it is a deeply personal escalation of their conflict. This action, described with detachment, marks her shift from indirect manipulation via the telephone to direct, tangible acts of psychological terror.

“I think there might be some confusion here, Mrs. Morris. Your friend’s body was found washed up in a cove by the beach in East Sussex.”

The revelation that Nate died not in the local river but in East Sussex directly connects his death to the novel’s opening scene. This factual correction from an outside source confirms that she guided her childhood friend to his death alongside Charlotte, though Laura herself refuses to accept this until her confrontation with Johnny. The quote serves as a crucial plot point that retroactively redefines Laura’s first “success” and exposes the full extent of both her predatory nature and her self-deception.

“You need to know that my wife doesn’t recognise her own lies. The psychologists wrote that she rewrites episodes from her history and her recent past if they don’t suit her. She will always be the victim, never the guilty one. And she rearranges timelines and locations.”

In this scene, Ryan learns the extent of Laura’s pathology from her husband, Tony. This piece of dialogue functions as exposition that directly confirms the novel’s theme of rewriting reality. By having Tony articulate Laura’s specific psychological patterns—rearranging timelines, rewriting history, and casting herself as the victim—the author validates Ryan’s suspicions and solidifies Laura’s status as a deeply unreliable narrator.

“‘Years Seven, Eight, Nine…right up to Year Thirteen,’ Dad continued, ‘all talking about how you’ve been suspended for molesting a girl and terrorising her mother.’”

After Laura plants child pornography on his computer and releases a manipulated recording, Ryan learns from his father that his reputation is destroyed. The use of ellipsis and the sequential listing of school year groups creates a sense of an overwhelming, unstoppable cascade of ruin. This moment demonstrates how modern technology becomes a weapon that amplifies a single lie into an inescapable public verdict, illustrating how Laura’s campaign of manipulation extends beyond her direct victims to inflict collateral damage.

“You will never understand why I do it or what it’s like to hear a person’s last breath, because you don’t have the capacity to feel in the way I do. You don’t respect the fragility of human life like me. You’ll never know how the beauty of death equals the beauty of birth, or how those first and last gasps of air are exactly the same.”

As she prepares to murder Janine, Laura’s speech reveals the depth of her sociopathy and self-deception. This passage explicitly connects to the last breaths motif, framing her obsession not as predatory but as a unique, elevated form of empathy. The paradoxical logic of equating the “beauty of death” with birth showcases her complete psychological break from reality and her god complex. The direct, condescending address to the dying Janine highlights Laura’s delusional sense of superiority.

“‘The neighbours called 999 and firefighters rescued Henry,’ I continued, ‘but by the time paramedics resuscitated him, he’d been starved of oxygen for too long and suffered massive brain damage. Your once happy, healthy kid suddenly had the mental age of a one-year-old and it’s all your fault.’”

Johnny confronts Laura at Henry’s care home, revealing that he knows the truth about Henry’s disability. This dialogue acts as a pivotal narrative climax, dismantling the central lie that defines Laura’s constructed identity as a victim. Johnny’s direct, factual narration strips away Laura’s psychological defenses, exposing the horrific reality she has repressed. The stark contrast between the “happy, healthy kid” Johnny describes and Henry’s current state underscores the tangible consequence of her actions.