Desmond lives in a small, cheap flat in London - as cheap as it gets in London anyway. It's overpriced, moldy and it's walls are paper thin but he can't afford anything better. Not in London, or any city like it. And Desmond feels that he has to live in a big city. Something draws him to them. It is as if with all those millions of people gathered there, he feels he can get lost in the crowd. Be one person amidst many. He feels exposed out in the country. It's where he lived when his mother was killed. That's why he bares living like he does, on the meager salary of an assistant librarian.
Desmonds works as an assistant librarian in London and has done so for his whole adult life. He has always had an affinity for books. He could get lost in them, lost in the worlds that lurk between those pages - the secrets and knowledge that they may reveal. The little money that he has left after paying for his ridiculously priced apartment in London and food goes to his research: he scours bookshops, the internet even new age stores full of healing crystals and tarot cards. All in an effort to prove what seems impossible but he is absolutely certain is the truth: the supernatural exists.