Gone Without a Trace

by Mary Torjussen

  She took out her phone and called her boyfriend. A minute later, she had it. ‘Hide your number,’ she said. ‘He might not answer if he thinks it’s you.’

  I was about to make a sharp retort, but I knew she was right. I swallowed my pride and dialled.

  ‘This number is no longer available,’ said the automated voice.

  My face was hot with shame. ‘Looks like he’s changed it.’

  ‘I’ll try it from my phone,’ Katie said. She dialled and put the phone on loudspeaker. We heard the message again, and she ended the call.

  ‘There was really no sign beforehand that he was going to leave?’

  I shook my head. ‘Thinking back, he did ask me a couple of times last week when I’d be back from Oxford. I’m such an idiot. I thought he was looking forward to me coming home.’

  My face smarted as I remembered what I’d said to him then. ‘You keep asking that! Don’t worry, I won’t be late!’ All the time he must have been wondering how long he had.

  She seemed at a loss as to what to say. ‘And you weren’t having rows? He wasn’t staying out late?’

  ‘Nothing unusual.’ Again I could feel the sting of tears behind my eyes. ‘I thought everything was fine.’

  ‘And . . .’ she hesitated, ‘in bed . . . How was it?’

  I rubbed my eyes. Slicks of wet mascara smeared my hands and I took some kitchen roll from the counter to dry my face. ‘It was great.’ I swallowed. ‘It was always great.’

  She was quiet for a long time, then she took my hand. ‘He’s a bastard,’ she said. ‘A real bastard.’

  ‘I know.’

  She stood to wash her mug in the sink. ‘Where do you think he’s gone? Any ideas?’

  Suddenly I wanted to be alone. ‘Leave that, Katie. No, I’ve no idea where he is, and I don’t care, either.’

  Despite that, once she’d gone, I went back up to bed and spent hours on Google trying to find the numbers of his friends, his colleagues, his family. I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until I’d tracked him down.

  Matt worked as an architect for a large local firm. Their offices were always closed at the weekend, though occasionally on Saturdays he’d drive off to see a project he was working on. I couldn’t call him there until Monday. Of course, his work number was no longer on my phone. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d called him on it, but I knew I hadn’t deleted it. He’d done that for me.

  In the early days of dating, I’d ring him each lunchtime, and he’d answer his mobile in a very formal voice, saying, ‘Oh good afternoon, Ms Monroe. Just a moment, let me take this call outside where it’s quieter.’ Then he’d take the phone to his car and we’d spend our lunch hour talking in low, urgent voices about what we’d done the night before and what we wanted to do that night. Those phone calls had naturally become fewer and shorter once we started to live together, and we tended to text as it was quicker, but even so, we’d had several phone conversations over the last few months.

  Everywhere I looked I saw the loss of him. I hadn’t realised how much stuff he’d had; how our house – my house, I had to keep reminding myself – had become crammed with his possessions. I lay on the bed with my eyes closed, but when I opened them, all I could see was that yet another thing was missing. His clock. His radio. Everything he owned.

  All I felt was humiliation. My cheeks burned – not with the injustice of him leaving, though that smarted too, but with the shame of knowing that he’d felt the only way to get away was to run like a thief, albeit in broad daylight. I burrowed under the quilt, my mind racing with questions I wanted to ask and things I wanted to say but knew I couldn’t. Not now.

  I lay there as the day passed, gaining solace from the dark. Now I couldn’t see that he was gone. If I stayed like that, my eyes fixed on the dwindling light around my bedroom blinds, I could pretend he was still there, behind me, saying nothing, just lying with me, almost touching me.

  5

  By the time I got to work on Monday, I was a wreck. The weekend had passed quietly; after Katie had gone, I saw nobody. The friends I went running with, Fran and Jenny, had sent texts asking whether I wanted to meet up early on Sunday morning, but I just didn’t have the energy and I couldn’t face telling them about Matt, so I replied that I couldn’t make it and that I’d be in touch. My mum had texted to ask whether Matt and I fancied coming round for lunch on Sunday, but I just replied, Sorry, busy, and she took the hint and left me alone.

  I didn’t want to see anyone, yet I didn’t want to be alone. The atmosphere in the house was full of self-recrimination and fury. At first the television and radio stopped me hearing the voices in my head, but then I panicked and switched them off. I needed to hear those voices in case they said something I ought to know.

  When the alarm clock woke me on Monday at seven, I found I was lying in exactly the same position I’d been in at seven the previous night, my shoulders hunched and the skin on my face dry and creased, my pillow damp from tears I’d shed in my sleep.

  It took all I had to go into work that day, but after the meeting in Oxford on Friday I couldn’t let myself down. After a lukewarm shower, I dressed carefully and used my handbag mirror to apply make-up, making sure I focused on one feature at a time, unable to look myself in the eye.

  I was halfway to work when I remembered I hadn’t checked the bins in the back garden. It wasn’t even as though they were being collected that day, but I found myself doing an illegal U-turn, accompanied by the blare of horns from exasperated drivers, and hurtling back home. I hurried out of the car, forcing myself to nod to Ray, who was peering out of the window next door, and went through the back gate into the garden.

  I lifted the lids expectantly. I don’t know what I thought I would find. Just a solitary bag of rubbish sat in the green bin; I remembered emptying the kitchen bin on Thursday night, and nothing had been put in there since. I checked the other bins, even the garden one, but there was nothing different, nothing added to them. I looked at my watch and panicked. If I didn’t hurry, I’d be late.

  As soon as I arrived at work, I left a note for my assistant, Lucy, to tell her I had a headache and didn’t want to be disturbed if possible. In the safety of my own office, I picked up the phone to call Matt’s workplace.

  The woman on reception sounded bored. ‘Good morning, John Denning Associates, Amanda speaking. How can I help you?’

  I swallowed hard. When I spoke, my voice sounded strange, as though it hadn’t been used for days. Which it hadn’t, I suppose. ‘Hi, can you put me through to Matthew Stone, please?’

  ‘Hold the line,’ she said and disappeared for a few minutes. When she returned, she said, ‘There isn’t anyone called Matthew Stone here.’

  ‘Try Matt,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure which he uses at work, Matthew or Matt.’

  I could hear the click of a mouse, then she spoke again. ‘I’m afraid there’s nobody with that name working here.’

  I faltered. ‘Are you sure? He’s one of the architects.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m new here, so I don’t know many people, but his name’s not on the database.’

  Through the glass of my office door I saw Lucy arrive and pick up the note. She smiled sympathetically at me and moved her hand to offer me a drink, but I shook my head and stared at my computer screen until she sat down at her own desk, facing away from me.

  All morning I pretended to work. I shuffled papers about, I looked at documents on the screen, I read my emails in a daze, but I couldn’t focus, and a moment later I couldn’t remember anything I’d read. Thoughts were whirling around my head. Where was he? Why hadn’t he told me? Why had he deleted everything? They turned incessantly in my mind, but I just couldn’t come up with an answer.

  Eventually, after racking my brains to come up with the guy’s surname, I phoned Matt’s boss.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding distracted. ‘Matt left us a week ago.’

  My heart hammered in my chest and I
thought for a moment I’d faint. I thought of him leaving the house every morning dressed for work, arriving home every night chatting about his day.

  ‘So he’s not working there now?’ I asked, sounding stupid.

  ‘No. David Walker’s taken over his projects for the time being. Are you a client? Is there a problem?’

  ‘No.’ I swallowed hard. ‘No, no problem at all. Can you tell me where he’s gone to?’

  ‘Sorry, we can’t pass that information on.’

  I put the phone down and stared blankly at the computer screen. I’d read in the newspapers about people keeping up the pretence of working, and I’d always thought they must be having a breakdown. And maybe if that was all Matt had done, I’d think the same thing. Yet when I remembered the way he had removed every last trace of himself from our house, I knew that wasn’t what had happened here. He wasn’t the one having a breakdown. He’d left that for me.

  6

  I couldn’t keep Matt’s disappearance from Sam, of course. He and I had started work as assistants at around the same time, fresh from university. We worked in different departments, with our offices either side of a large open-plan area. We didn’t tend to see each other often at the weekends, though sometimes Matt and I would invite him and his girlfriend, Grace, to our house for barbecues in the summer, and we’d been to their place for a few parties over the years. We were good friends at work, though; we had each other’s backs if we were struggling. I’d always been able to trust him.

  He sent me an email mid-morning saying, You look like you need a break. Canteen?

  I looked out of my office window. He was watching me. I waved, and he stood up and put on his jacket.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked once we were sitting in the canteen. He put a tray down on the table and passed me a mug of tea and a glass of water. ‘You look pale. What’s wrong? Hangover?’

  I grimaced. ‘Not exactly, though I did have too much to drink over the weekend.’ I took the tea gratefully and looked up at him, unable to decide whether to confide in him. I hate people knowing about my private life, but I knew Sam wasn’t the type to gossip. ‘This is strictly between us. Promise?’

  He nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s Matt. He’s left me. I don’t know where he is.’

  He looked shocked and said nothing for a few minutes. I don’t know what he’d been expecting, but it didn’t seem to be this.

  ‘Wow,’ he said, eventually. ‘That’s a surprise. What happened? Had you had an argument?’

  I took some painkillers from my bag and drank half of the water. ‘No, that’s the thing. We hadn’t argued for ages. When I got back from Oxford on Friday night, I found he’d gone.’ I wasn’t about to mention the forensic nature of his disappearance, the fact that not one thing of his remained in the house.

  ‘What about his friends? Have you asked them where he is?’

  ‘His friends were mainly guys from work,’ I said. ‘We’d go out for meals with them and their partners sometimes, but I don’t have any of their numbers. When we went out together, we usually saw Katie and James. If I was away with work, Matt might go to the pub and see people there he knew from years back, but I’m not going to go down there and ask them where he is.’

  ‘He’s not on Facebook or Twitter?’

  ‘He was,’ I said. I could hear my voice tremble and I quickly drank some more water. ‘Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. The lot. He’s deleted his accounts.’

  He took his phone out. ‘Remind me what his surname is.’

  ‘Stone.’

  He was silent for a few minutes, tapping his screen. Every now and then he grimaced and tapped again.

  ‘I thought he might have blocked you,’ he said, ‘but there’s no sign of him anywhere.’ He put his phone back in his pocket and drank his coffee. ‘Could you phone him at work?’

  ‘He’s left his job, too.’

  ‘What? I thought he liked it there.’

  I said nothing. He had; he’d loved his job. He was an easy-going man and people warmed to him. He was happy at work. Mind you, I’d thought he was happy at home, too.

  ‘And you’ve no idea where he’s gone?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I admitted.

  ‘He doesn’t know anyone who’s a bit dodgy, does he? He isn’t running away from anything?’

  I laughed. ‘Matt?’

  ‘I know he doesn’t seem the type, but it happens. He’s not in debt, is he?’

  ‘I doubt it. I went to get some money from the ATM for him a couple of weeks ago, and he had a few thousand in his current account. He’s got savings, too, but surely his current account would be empty if he was in debt?’

  ‘I suppose so. And he hasn’t seen anything? Witnessed a crime or anything like that?’

  I stared at him. ‘Are you thinking he’s in a witness protection programme?’ I laughed again. ‘You think they’re protecting Matt so that he can give evidence in court? And he didn’t mention it to me?’

  He looked a bit sheepish. ‘Well I’m not saying it’s happened. I was just thinking of all the possibilities.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ I said. ‘There’s no way he wouldn’t have said something at the time. But . . . do you think I should call the police?’

  ‘Not unless you believe something’s happened to him.’ He must have seen I was upset, because he said gently, ‘It sounds as though he’s just left you, Hannah. There’s nothing the police can do. Did he take anything belonging to you?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, just his own stuff.’

  ‘Well then, I wouldn’t bother. He’s probably gone to his mum’s. That’s where they all go, the one place they’re always welcome.’

  ‘He wouldn’t go there.’

  Luckily he didn’t ask me how I knew, because I wasn’t sure at all. He’d left home at eighteen, though, and was twice that age now. Would he really have gone to his mother’s?

  ‘But on a brighter note,’ I said, forcing a smile into my voice, ‘I might be made a director soon!’

  His face broke into a huge smile. ‘Oh, fantastic! I knew you’d get there before me!’

  ‘Let’s see what happens, eh? Nothing’s definite.’

  ‘So tell me all about it,’ he said. ‘What did they say?’

  We spent the next ten minutes dissecting the conversation I’d had in Oxford, but the fact remained that I’d give up the chance of promotion in a heartbeat to have Matt back home, and I could tell from the sympathetic looks that Sam was giving me that he knew it too.

  Later that afternoon, when I was sitting staring out of the window, clearly doing nothing at all, Sam came into my office.

  ‘Hannah,’ he said, ‘do you and Matt have a joint mortgage?’

  I stared at him. ‘What? Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Because if you do, how are you going to sort that out when you don’t know where he is?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, the house is mine. We kept our finances separate.’

  When I met Matt, I’d been living in my house for years, so I just kept it in my name and he gave me money each month for the bills. My dad had paid the deposit; it had been a blatant bribe to encourage me to pass all my exams at the first attempt and qualify as an accountant – in his mind a proper job. Some days I knew how lucky I was; on other days, when my job was stressful, I’d dream about the life I could have lived if I’d been able to make that decision myself.

  ‘Matt does have a house in London that he rents out, though,’ I added. ‘He bought it and did it up just before he came back up here to work. I met him when he was living there, remember? I used to go down to London every weekend to see him.’ My voice faltered as I remembered the journeys down there on a Friday straight from work, clutching my overnight bag and wearing new underwear and stockings, knowing they’d be ripped off within five minutes of us being alone. Those weekends had been perfect, like little honeymoons. After a few months, Matt had started looking for jobs in Liverpool. ‘I thou
ght we’d get married one day and sell both places and buy something new between us. We talked about it a lot.’

  I stopped then, realising I couldn’t remember when we’d last discussed it. He’d looked up prices of houses on his street a few months ago, just before Christmas, and when I’d suggested he sell, he’d said he’d be mad to do that now, that prices were starting to rise and if he left it a while longer he might get enough to pay off his mortgage. I hadn’t questioned it, hadn’t even thought he might have an ulterior motive for not selling yet. No matter how much I thought about that conversation now, he hadn’t seemed any different when he’d said that; hadn’t looked like he was plotting anything or planning to run away.

  ‘You don’t think he’s moved back down to London if he’s already got a house there?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘The tenants have it for another year. They only signed the renewal a month ago.’

  Still, once Sam had gone back to his office and I was left with my thoughts, I called the landline number Matt had had in London all those years ago, the number I had dialled each night when I was in bed. I hadn’t thought of that number from the day he left until now, but I found I could remember it easily, remember the rhythm of the numbers as I tapped them out and the excitement I’d felt each time I’d called. When the tenant answered with her distinctive Brooklyn accent, her baby crying for attention in the background, I quietly put the receiver down.

  I was right. He wasn’t there.

  7

  It was pretty depressing going back to my house that night. I stayed at work as long as possible, until it was only the cleaners and me left. I saw one of them giving me a pitying look, and I glared at her. She had no idea of the stress I was under! It was nearly breaking me having to do my job and think about where I should look for Matt. She turned away quickly, her face scarlet, but that was it: I couldn’t stay there with her looking at me like that. I pushed my chair back and picked up my coat. I’d carry on with this at home.