Gone Without a Trace

by Mary Torjussen

  I tried to remember whether I’d even seen tulips in the shop. I couldn’t. I was still thinking of the text I’d had the night before; it had been on my mind all day. And yes, purple tulips were my favourites, and yes, I would have replaced them with the same flowers if I’d been able to, but I hadn’t. I hadn’t. I knew my memory had been bad lately, but surely I’d remember that?

  I looked in the kitchen bin. There was no plastic wrapping, no empty sachet of flower food in there. All that was there was the remains of the pizza I’d had delivered on Saturday night. I unlocked the kitchen door and checked the bins outside. The recycling bin only contained the pizza box and newspapers that I’d thrown in there on Sunday morning; the other bin had been emptied on Friday and had nothing in it at all.

  The garden bin was empty too. There were no dying tulips anywhere.

  I touched the outside of the vase. It was dry. I lifted it and checked the base and the Moroccan tile I’d used to protect the table from damp. Those were both dry too. There were no drops of water on the table or on the floor. I’d only been in the house for half an hour or so. Surely if I’d filled the vase with water it would be wet?

  I went over to the sink. I hadn’t used it that day and it was dry too. I sniffed it to see whether stagnant water had been put down the drain, but couldn’t smell anything.

  My head started to throb. The flowers had been dying; I knew they had!

  Then I saw the kitchen roll, hanging from its holder. On Saturday night I’d put the pizza box on the island and it had knocked my glass of wine. I’d grabbed the kitchen roll, but the one on the holder had only had one sheet left. I’d put a new roll on and ripped off the top sheet to mop up the wine. I knew I hadn’t used it since, but looking at it now, I could see more sheets had been torn off.

  I took the roll off the holder and put it on the counter. There were new rolls in the cupboard under the sink, and I took one out of its plastic wrapper and laid it next to the one from the holder, end to end. It was much bigger. Slowly I unwound the new kitchen roll, wrapping the paper around my hand until the two rolls were the same size. I looked down at the paper in my hand. That would be enough to wipe the sink, the table, the vase and the floor, if need be.

  I sat down at the island and looked at the two rolls, the paper, the vase of new tulips. I was so confused.

  Had Matt been in my house today? Had he bought me flowers? Why would he do that?

  And if he hadn’t done it, who had?

  15

  On Friday, Katie sent a message when I was at work:

  Hi Hannah, fancy meeting up tonight? James is going to the gym so it’ll just be us. x

  We had a bit of a routine, Katie and I, where we’d go to the cinema, then have a meal, but when I suggested a film this time, she wasn’t up for it.

  Just dinner and drinks? Seems ages since we talked on our own. x

  We agreed to meet at an Italian restaurant near her house at 8 p.m. I went home first and showered and changed. I knew I should make an effort, but I almost cried when I looked at myself in the mirror. My skin was dry and flaky and there were shadows under my eyes that made me look like I had jet lag. I knew it wouldn’t go unnoticed.

  When I arrived at the restaurant, I found Katie already there, sitting with a bottle of Prosecco and a bowl of olives. She was looking at her phone and smiling; it made me laugh, remembering one time I’d caught her beaming at her phone and found she was using the camera to check her make-up. She looked up as I came towards her, gave me a huge smile and put her phone in her bag.

  ‘You look terrible,’ she said, almost before I’d sat down. ‘Are you having trouble sleeping?’

  That took the smile off my face. ‘Well yes,’ I said. ‘Does that surprise you?’

  She gave me a concerned look. ‘You’ll be fine soon,’ she said, and poured me a glass of wine. ‘Now, what shall we have? I’m starving.’

  We ordered our food and sat chatting while we waited for the starters to arrive. She talked about her job and the recent conference, and another in Toronto she was booked in for later in the year. She made me tell her again about Oxford and the comments the managing partner had made, though really my heart wasn’t in it.

  When she started to pour me a second glass of wine, I stopped her. ‘No thanks, I’m driving. I’ll have some water.’

  ‘Water? On a Friday night?’

  ‘I haven’t been feeling well,’ I said. ‘I don’t really want a drink.’ I worried about losing control if I drank too much; driving was a way of not letting my guard down in public.

  She looked at me sympathetically, then poured herself another glass. ‘It will get better, you know,’ she said. ‘You’ll get over it, don’t worry. It happens to all of us.’

  I raised my eyebrows. Katie would have a fit if someone dumped her, never mind if he moved out without telling her. She’d cried for weeks when she brutally finished with her last boyfriend, but had a miraculous recovery when she bumped into James and they started seeing each other.

  I didn’t mention the flowers until our main course arrived. I let her start her tortellini, then said casually, ‘Katie, something really strange has happened.’

  She put her fork down immediately. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Do you remember when you were at my house the other day? The day after Matt left?’

  She frowned. ‘Something happened then?’

  ‘Do you remember the flowers on the table?’

  She stared at me. ‘The tulips? Purple tulips in the square glass vase?’

  I knew she’d remember them; she loved to look at what I had in my house. I always expected to see the same thing at her place a week later. I was the same. I’d already ordered the dress she was wearing the other night.

  ‘Do you remember anything about them? Whether they were buds or in full bloom, anything like that?’

  She closed her eyes and thought for a moment. ‘They weren’t buds,’ she said confidently. ‘They weren’t fully blown, either. They were lovely, I remember that. Really fresh. I bought some just like them the next day. They made me think of summer.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘So how long would you think they’d last after that?’

  She picked up her fork and popped another tortellini into her mouth. ‘I don’t know. A few days? A week, maybe? It depends if you put any of that stuff in the water.’

  She knew I would have. I was always careful with things like that.

  We ate in silence for a few moments, then she said, ‘Why? Didn’t they last long?’

  ‘Yes, they did,’ I said. ‘On Monday before I went to work I was looking at them. They were just about to collapse. You know when the petals are starting to fall off? And I remember thinking, “They need to be thrown out”, but I was in a rush so I thought I’d do it later.’

  ‘Right,’ she said. She sounded bored now, and I wondered whether I normally talked about such mundane things.

  ‘So I went to work and got back at about six. And the flowers had changed.’

  Now she was interested. ‘What?’

  ‘They’d changed,’ I said. ‘There were new flowers in the vase.’

  She put her fork down. ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘When I left the house in the morning, the flowers needed to be thrown out. When I came back, hours later, there were new flowers there. They were buds. Purple buds.’

  ‘But still tulips?’

  ‘Yes, of course they were still tulips!’ I said impatiently. ‘But they’d changed. Don’t you see?’

  ‘Well, no, I don’t,’ she said. ‘Are you saying your tulips had regenerated?’

  I nodded.

  She tilted her head and looked at me with a sympathetic gaze. ‘Or maybe, just maybe, you’d bought new ones and forgotten? Which is more likely, Hannah?’

  I tried to ignore that whisper of doubt that told me she was right. I’d been to the supermarket just an hour before I noticed the flowers. No, I couldn’t let myself think that I
’d bought them and put them in the vase without remembering. I took another sip of water. ‘Or maybe,’ I said, ‘someone put new flowers there.’

  She stared. ‘Who’d do that?’

  I looked at her meaningfully.

  ‘What? Matt? Don’t be daft.’

  ‘Who else could it be?’

  ‘But Matt left his keys behind! You told us that on Sunday.’

  I faltered. ‘He might have made a copy.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Do you really think he intended to come back?’

  ‘He sent a text telling me he was back!’

  ‘That wasn’t him!’

  She spoke so loudly that quite a few people around us turned to stare. I flushed and rooted in my handbag.

  ‘Look!’ I whispered, passing her my phone. ‘Read the message! It says, “I’m home.” ’

  She took the phone from me and stared down at the screen. ‘But James told you that wasn’t Matt’s number. You saw his number on James’s phone, remember? It didn’t match this one. It could be anyone, Hannah. It could be a wrong number or anything.’

  I knew it wasn’t, but there wasn’t a lot of point in saying anything. We finished our pasta in silence, and it was only when we were given the dessert menu that we started to talk again, this time studiously avoiding the subject of Matt.

  The restaurant was only around the corner from her house, so Katie didn’t need a lift. I’d parked down a side road, and she walked there with me. Just before we reached the car, she said, ‘Oi, Hannah.’

  ‘What?’

  She pointed to a dismal display of flowers in a large concrete bowl on the pavement. ‘Take some of those home and liven them up a bit, will you?’

  She laughed and waved goodbye and I got into the car. I was scowling at her and thinking about the flowers, thinking I must be mad, that they couldn’t have changed, as I put my key in the ignition and switched on the engine. I put my lights on and reversed a little so that I could pull out on to the road.

  The opening bars of a song started to play. I paused and listened. It was ‘Stand by Me’. I smiled. I loved that song. I glanced down to see which radio station was on, then braked sharply.

  The music system showed a CD was playing. I frowned. I didn’t play CDs in the car; I either listened to the radio or used Bluetooth to play my iPod. I didn’t even have that song on a CD. Matt used to have it on vinyl; we used to play that Ben E. King album a lot when he first moved in.

  I ejected the CD. It was a blank one, used for recording at home.

  Scrawled on it in handwriting I didn’t recognise was: Hannah.

  16

  I played that track on a loop that night, sitting on the living room floor with my back against the sofa. In the early days, when Matt first moved in, we played every album of his. We’d sit there in the evening with a bottle of wine and talk about our pasts and what we hoped for our futures. I’d tell him about my day, he’d tell me about his, then he’d kiss me and before we knew it we’d be on the floor and the album would be starting again from the beginning. This song had been an old favourite, and I had to close my eyes to stop myself thinking of the nights we’d played it. I couldn’t afford to get sentimental; I needed to think.

  I had only two sets of car keys. One was in the kitchen, on the hook with Matt’s house key. The other was always with me. I kept my house keys on the same key ring and I never left the house without them. As soon as I’d got home, I’d checked the spare car key was on the hook, and it was; nothing had changed.

  The problem was that the CD had started as soon as I turned the ignition. On the way to the restaurant I’d been listening to a programme on the radio about David Bowie, and I’d turned it up, thinking about the school discos Katie and I would go to where ‘Heroes’ would be played and everyone would go wild. The song had ended just as I parked the car.

  I’d never known Matt to burn a CD. If he wanted me to listen to something, he’d tell me and I’d download it on to my phone or my iPod. I couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been in my car; when we went out together, we tended to go in his. Besides, I knew that wasn’t really the point. The fact was that when I turned my car engine on, it automatically played whatever was playing the last time it was turned off. Same channel or device. And I knew that in the two years I’d had that car, I’d never played a CD.

  So who had?

  Work was becoming increasingly difficult. I still wasn’t sleeping well, and most nights saw me sitting in the kitchen with a bottle of wine, making notes and trying to figure out where Matt had gone.

  I didn’t know what had happened to me. Although I’d never been a calm person, now I was constantly agitated. It was as though I was on high alert. I thought about Matt all the time, sometimes about the things I’d liked about him, sometimes about the ways he’d frustrated or annoyed me. It wasn’t as though I’d elevated him to sainthood; far from it. The thing that really got to me was that I didn’t know where he was. It was as though there was a clue that was just out of reach, something just at the corner of my eye, and if I was fast enough I’d see it and I’d know where to find him.

  So I’d sit there with just the glow of the laptop lighting the kitchen and I’d go through my notes, moving them around the marble surface of the island, trying to find that missing link.

  Then something would occur to me and I’d be focused again, back on to Google, beavering away in search of him. When I was active, when I was looking for him, it was almost as though I could forget the shock of his leaving. I became absorbed, forgetting in a way that this was personal. I looked up private detectives and their techniques, and wondered what I might have found on his iPad or his phone if I’d looked at them weeks ago. I hadn’t done that for months, though.

  The next morning I’d jolt into consciousness, aware of the blinding light coming through the window, knowing if the sun was shining that fiercely, then I was late. I’d rush into the bathroom and dress in a hurry, and although I tried to look professional, I knew I was slipping.

  Lucy would be waiting for me each day in the office, with a cup of tea ready. Up until now she used to greet me eagerly, and seemed to love the time we spent together in the morning chatting about what we had to do that day. I would guide her through her work and talk to her about my jobs, so that she could learn more about the business. Later in the afternoon we’d meet again and go through what we’d both done that day. George Sullivan, my manager, had done the same thing for me, and it had really helped me when it was time for me to progress. Lucy was ambitious; I knew that and I liked it. I saw something of my younger self in her. Lately, though, I’d noticed she seemed impatient with me.

  She used to be a bit in awe of me, I think. As well as talking to me about work, she’d come to me for advice in her personal life and for help in her studies, and she’d always notice what I was wearing and ask where I’d bought my clothes. Now, though she’d sit opposite me and take notes about what I wanted her to do that day, often she’d be reminding me, rather than the other way around. Sometimes I’d catch sight of an expression on her face and recognise it as a mixture of pity and contempt. Though I’d flush with anger, I’d know it was justified. She used to admire the way I worked and I no longer seemed able to work in that way. She would never have looked at me like that in the past. She wouldn’t have had any reason to.

  One morning, after Matt had been gone for nearly three weeks, Sam came into my office. I hadn’t been avoiding him; I just hadn’t had time to meet him at break times lately. I saw Lucy glance up as he came into my room, and she stayed there looking at us until I gave her a pointed stare and she blushed and turned away. He closed the door then, and I wondered whether she was another one who thought he and I were having a fling. She knew Sam was living with Grace – Lucy had met her at our office parties tons of times – and she knew I was with Matt, too. I hadn’t told anyone apart from Sam about him leaving me, and it really annoyed me that she thought either of us would be unfaithful.


  I looked back at Sam. He was pale and nervous.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Have you got a minute?’

  I glanced at my screen, eager to get back to Google. I’d remembered that I hadn’t phoned Matt’s barber, Johnny, to ask whether he’d seen him. I knew it was a wild card, but I’d come to the end of the road – I hadn’t a clue where he was. We’d bumped into Johnny one time when we were in a restaurant in Liverpool, so I thought maybe he’d seen Matt sometime over the last month.

  ‘What is it?’ I knew how I sounded. Impatient. Surly.

  ‘I’m worried about you.’

  ‘No need,’ I said quickly, calling up Google. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

  ‘Hannah,’ he said carefully. ‘I’m really worried about you.’

  I looked away from the screen at that. ‘Why?’

  He hesitated. ‘You’ve changed,’ he said. ‘Since you and Matt split up. Has something happened? You were always so—’

  ‘So what?’ I snapped, and he jumped.

  ‘So professional. Smart. I’ve been worried about you for weeks now.’

  I glared at him and his voice trailed off.

  ‘I don’t think I’m any different at all,’ I said. ‘Obviously it upset me when Matt left, but I’m OK. I’m dealing with it. You can’t expect me to be back to normal already.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘Of course I don’t. But you seem so . . . so disturbed by it.’

  ‘Disturbed?’ I hissed, unable to keep up the pretence any longer. ‘What do you mean, disturbed? Have you any idea what I’m going through?’

  He flushed. ‘But you said—’

  ‘Get out,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got time for this.’

  He turned and left the room, his face scarlet and his eyes averted. Lucy continued to work at her computer, but I noticed her gaze stayed on Sam until he reached his own office and shut the door.

  I sat back down and pulled my keyboard closer. I entered ‘Johnny barber Liverpool’ into the search bar; over 800,000 results showed up.