Gone Without a Trace

by Mary Torjussen

  Glad you’ve got your priorities right.

  As she stood to go, she said, ‘Hannah, think about it. You can’t be a single mum. You’d really hate that. It would be lonely and expensive and . . . It’s not what you hoped for, is it? And think of your dad! He’d go crazy!’

  At the thought of telling my dad I was pregnant, I felt dizzy and sick. ‘That’s why I need to find Matt!’

  ‘But would you want him back just because of a baby? Would you be able to live with him knowing that if it wasn’t for the baby, he wouldn’t be with you?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be like that.’ I swallowed hard. ‘I know he loved me. And he wanted children, too.’

  She hesitated. ‘When was the last time he told you that?’

  I couldn’t answer at first. I remembered him lying in bed with me in the early days, stroking my stomach and saying, ‘Can you imagine having a baby inside you? It would be so weird. Imagine it moving. It would be like something out of a sci-fi film.’

  ‘Or a horror movie,’ I’d said. ‘Don’t worry, I never forget my pill.’

  ‘I’m not worried. It would be amazing.’ He’d leaned over and kissed me. ‘You’d be a fantastic mother.’

  That had made me cry, though I hadn’t told him why.

  We’d had those conversations quite a lot in the early days, but I couldn’t think of the last time he’d said it.

  ‘Not for a while,’ I told Katie. ‘But he knew I wanted to be promoted first. And I wouldn’t have a baby unless I was married, either.’

  She gave me a pitying look then, and I said sharply, ‘Well you’re not married either!’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she said, and laughed. ‘My mum and dad can’t afford it yet.’

  When the rear lights of her car had disappeared down the road, I went into the kitchen to clear up. The Tupperware box she had brought was sitting on the counter. I took the lid off and stared at the cake, thinking of the love that had gone into it, the concentration on her mother’s face as she swirled the chocolate buttercream. I knew she would be so glad it wasn’t Katie who’d been hurt like this. I could feel my face becoming creased with a pain I couldn’t express, and my stomach clenched so tightly I knew I’d have to run to the bathroom in a minute.

  All I could think of was the look of pity on Katie’s mother’s face. I’d seen it before, many times, though not for years, and the thought of her feeling sorry for me now was too much. I picked up the cake she’d so lovingly made for me and shoved it as hard as I could into the kitchen bin.

  22

  By the time Saturday came around, I felt exhausted. I woke up late and went downstairs for breakfast, but then didn’t seem to have the energy to even shower or dress. I lay on the couch and pulled a blanket over me. Outside I could hear Sheila and Ray as they mowed their front lawn and washed their cars, and just their little routine tasks with each other for company made my eyes prickle.

  I lay there remembering the old days – the glory days we always called them after hearing that song. I thought of Katie and how I’d met her on the first day of school. She’d asked me one playtime if I’d be her best friend. I hadn’t known what a best friend was and was delighted when my mum told me. I used to love going to visit her; even at that age I knew there was a difference between her home and mine. There was a different atmosphere there; it didn’t depend on who was around. There was no frantic activity when her father’s car drew up outside, no relief when he left the house.

  She didn’t notice the difference, though, and used to love to come over to play with me. My parents were relatively wealthy and I had more toys than I wanted. She was jealous of that, I knew; her parents had much less money than mine, but everything they had, they gave to her. For her, that never seemed enough somehow.

  As we grew up, she took to following my every move, copying my clothes, my hair, my make-up. At times I was flattered, at other times annoyed. Sometimes my dad would treat us both to something, and that was when she seemed happiest, beaming up at him and telling him that I was really lucky. He loved that. She came with us on holidays, too, and somehow having her there on those trips to Florida or Marbella or wherever made everything easier for all of us. My mum loved her too, though she was always watchful, especially on holiday.

  And then, when we were seventeen, we saw James. James with his tall, lanky frame, long tousled hair and dark blue eyes. He carried his guitar everywhere, and to me he looked like some kind of suburban rock god. I was smitten from the start – well, we both were, really, but it was me he asked out – and I started to hang out with him all the time. Katie would hang around with both of us, though I knew it was James she really wanted and that made me want him more. Towards the end of the relationship, when it was more intense, we saw a lot less of her, and I know she missed seeing him just as much as she missed me.

  Throughout our teenage years, Katie and I kept scrapbooks. The bands we saw, the boys we went out with, the clothes we bought: we’d stick photos and tickets and newspaper cuttings in a scrapbook. One for each year. Mine were up in the loft; the last time I’d seen them was when I hit thirty and Katie and I had had a few too many and dragged them downstairs to laugh at. When I put them back in their boxes after Katie left that night, I looked through each one again and noticed that a photo of James had gone, one I’d taken of him as he stood waiting for me in the park, his guitar beside him. Katie and I were walking towards him and he was smiling at me as I took it. Even when I saw it that night nearly thirteen years later, it made me smile back. I sent her a text:

  Oi, where’s my photo?

  A couple of minutes later, my phone beeped:

  Which photo?

  You know damn well which one! I would have got you a copy if you’d asked.

  She didn’t reply until the next morning, when I woke to find a new message:

  I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. x

  I guessed she was going to try to change history, to pretend to herself that James was really smiling at her that day. He wasn’t.

  It was only then, when I was thinking about the scrapbooks in the loft, that I remembered I hadn’t been up there since Matt left. I hadn’t even thought of it. All my things he’d brought downstairs – my television, books and so on – had been in the spare room.

  The last time I’d been up there had been just after New Year, when Matt and I were putting away the Christmas decorations. It was always a bit of a struggle because there was no light bulb, so one of us would have to hold the torch and the other would wrangle the boxes and bags into position. The fact that we had hangovers hadn’t helped at all.

  I tried to remember what he’d had in the loft. He’d brought tons of stuff with him when he moved in, but most of it was distributed around the house, which was why it looked so bare now. I’d loved my home before he moved in, thinking it was minimalist and cool, but with his things in it, it looked suddenly vibrant and inviting. Welcoming. It was as though a sepia photograph had become full colour. Now it just seemed empty and lost, as though it was waiting for someone to come and breathe life into it.

  Within minutes I’d dressed, got the stepladder out of the shed and dragged it upstairs to the landing. The only access to the loft was via a hatch in the ceiling on the landing outside my bedroom. I steadied the ladder and lifted the hatch door up and to one side. It folded back and I chucked the torch in, then heaved myself up through the opening into the loft space.

  I hated being up there on my own. There wasn’t a proper ceiling – just rafters and thick insulation – and the torch cast shadows everywhere. I gritted my teeth and looked around.

  In the far corner were boxes containing stuff from when I was young: school reports that brought back such vivid memories; things I’d made in sewing classes and books I’d loved that I’d been saving for my own children. That thought stopped me in my tracks for a minute, then I put it from my mind.

  It was clear Matt had been up here to take his belongings. It didn’t seem as though
he’d left anything behind. There’d been a couple of suitcases and weekend bags; they had gone. A box of old cigarette cards his grandad had collected in the twenties that he kept saying he’d put on eBay; that had disappeared too. I made a mental note to check eBay; I’d put it on my to-do list when I went downstairs. There was also no sign of the yellow plastic bag containing some of his teenage clothes that he’d kept.

  Carefully I walked further into the loft. Chipboard had been laid on the joists long before I moved into the house but I never felt safe walking on it and I knew it was stupid to be up there when nobody else was around. In the distance I could hear my phone ringing in the living room, and realised that if I had an accident, I’d be stuck until someone came to the house. Even then, I doubted they’d hear me calling for help. The thought scared me. It was Saturday afternoon; nobody would know I was missing until Monday morning, when Sam or Lucy might be worried and call me, though if I didn’t answer, they would probably just think I wasn’t well. I could be up here for days, hurt, without my phone, the battery dying on my torch, unable to call anyone. My stomach dropped at the thought. I needed to get out of there.

  I turned towards the opening to the loft. Below, light streamed in through the landing window, shards of pink and green light from the coloured glass there. As I balanced, ready to turn to go back down the ladder, I grabbed a rafter and yelped as something scratched my finger.

  What was that? I shone the torch on the rafter and gingerly ran my fingers over the sharp edge of a metal nail that was sticking out of it. Something was stuck to it and I pulled it away. It was hair – a few strands of hair. They felt odd. Rough. I held them close to the torch and peered at them. They were coated in something dry and were the colour of rust.

  And then I remembered.

  It was Matt’s hair. Matt’s blood.

  Just after New Year we’d put the Christmas decorations back in the loft. I glanced over to the side and saw them there, large cardboard boxes filled with little glass ornaments and golden bells and fairy lights. It was always a horrible job, but this year Matt had tripped just where I was standing now. He’d banged his head on the rafter and when I’d shone the torch on him, there’d been a patch of blood on his head from the same nail that had scratched me now.

  I looked down at my hand. It didn’t even feel like his hair; it was matted and dry, no longer dark blond.

  I put it in the pocket of my jeans.

  It was all I had of him now.

  23

  When I finally reached my phone, there was a voicemail message from Katie.

  ‘Hey, Hannah, tried to reach you. I was talking to James about you being pregnant and he says that you need to get a check-up with a doctor. He said his sister had to register with a midwife when she found out she was pregnant and then she was put on to the system and had scans and things. What do you think? Do you want me to come with you?’

  I scowled at the message and sent a text instead of calling her back:

  This is why I need to find Matt.

  My phone beeped. I groaned. Katie again.

  But when I looked down at the screen, I saw it was a text from a number I didn’t recognise. It said:

  I know where you are.

  I stared at the phone.

  What?

  I read it again. It didn’t make any sense. I was in my own home! Who had sent it?

  Cautiously I went to the living room window and flattened myself against the wall to look outside. The street looked the same as usual. Cars were parked outside houses, children played in the spring sunshine. A delivery driver was knocking at a door across the road. Nobody was looking at my house. There was no van with blacked-out windows, no sniper crouching in the shadows.

  I went into the kitchen and checked the number against the text I’d received saying I’m home. They were different.

  I tried to call Katie, but the phone rang out.

  Agitated, I phoned her home landline and James answered.

  ‘Is Katie there?’ I asked.

  ‘I thought she’d gone shopping with you. Isn’t she answering her mobile?’

  ‘It’s ringing out. Am I supposed to be meeting her? My brain’s fried at the moment.’

  ‘I might be wrong,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t really listening. She’s probably at her mum’s. Any message for her?’

  I hesitated. He and I rarely spoke on our own nowadays, but I couldn’t keep this to myself.

  ‘I’ve had a text come through on my phone,’ I said. ‘I don’t know who it’s from.’

  ‘What, another one? What happened with the one the other night?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘It might have been a wrong number.’ I blocked the memory of how I’d raced around the house like a madwoman trying desperately to find Matt. ‘Anyway,’ I hurried on, ‘this text today . . . it’s just weird.’

  ‘Weird?’ he said, sounding distracted. ‘Sorry, I thought that was Katie at the front door. What does it say?’

  ‘It says, “I know where you are.” ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘ “I know where you are.” ’

  ‘Well, where are you?’ he asked, and I laughed, feeling lighter. It was ridiculous to get wound up over such a stupid message.

  ‘I’m at home.’

  ‘Well I suppose anyone could guess that, on a Saturday afternoon. What’s the number?’

  I read it out to him, and heard him tapping something on a keyboard. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just seeing whether the number’s anywhere online,’ he said. ‘No, nothing’s coming up.’

  I made a mental note to check it myself later.

  ‘James,’ I said, unable to keep the thought to myself, ‘do you think it was from Matt?’

  ‘Matt? It’s not his number, is it?’

  ‘No, but his number was dead after he left. He must have got a new phone.’

  ‘Or blocked you.’

  ‘I tried it from different phones.’ Including a phone box at Lime Street station that I’d gone to one evening, desperate for him to pick up and talk to me.

  ‘And it’s not the same number as the one the other night, is it?’

  I wished I hadn’t told him about this now. ‘No.’

  ‘He wasn’t there when you got home, was he?’

  I flushed with shame. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, why would he send you that message?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You could always ring the number,’ he said. ‘Or do you want me to?’

  ‘No,’ I said, feeling dejected. ‘It’s OK. It’ll just be some nutcase. I’m better off ignoring it.’ I ended the call, feeling worse than I had before I’d spoken to him.

  Within a few minutes, my phone rang. It was Katie. ‘Hi, did you want me?’

  ‘Katie, were we supposed to be meeting today?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve just spoken to James and he said he thought we were going shopping.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, and laughed. ‘No, I’m shopping for his birthday present. I know it’s not for another few weeks, but I wanted to look at cameras and I knew it would take me ages to choose one he’d like. I didn’t want him with me, so I said I was meeting you.’

  ‘I would have gone with you,’ I said. ‘I’m just sitting here making myself feel worse.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetie,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you’d be up for it. Anyway, how come you were talking to James?’ The subtext was loud and clear: all communication between James and me should go through Katie. I’d been aware of this since she first started seeing him, when she’d shut her mind to the fact that he and I had been lovers years before. Now she never mentioned the fact that we’d been together, and James and I certainly didn’t; it was as though it had never happened.

  I told her about the message I’d received, and she was silent. For a moment I thought the signal had gone, then she said, ‘But who would send that?’

  �
��I thought it might be Matt,’ I said, knowing I sounded like a complete loser. ‘Who else could it be?’

  ‘Matt? Why would he do that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I was forced to admit. ‘That’s what I don’t understand.’

  ‘What time did you get it?’

  ‘Just a few minutes ago.’

  ‘That’s weird.’ There was another silence, then she rallied and changed the subject, talking about her job and how mean someone had been to her. I put her on speaker phone so that my hands were free, and while she talked, I picked up my pen and updated my notes.

  Two texts now. Different numbers.

  Were both from Matt? I couldn’t believe he would send me a text saying he knew where I was. It just didn’t seem like the sort of thing he’d do. So if he didn’t send it, who did?

  The flowers, though, were different. My face softened at the thought of him choosing them. He knew I loved having fresh flowers in the house, and he knew purple tulips were my favourite. The CD, too, was a gift I’d treasure. Of course I would stand by him. Of course I would! He knew that too.

  That night I lay in bed unable to sleep. Now all I could think of was the text I’d received that afternoon. Who had sent it? What did they mean, they knew where I was? I was in my own house!

  Just before midnight, I picked up my phone and stared at the message again. I clicked on the contact button at the top of the screen, then touched the phone symbol. The screen lit up as the call was put through. It rang and rang, but nobody picked up.

  Then I dialled the number of the text that had said I’m home. I lay on the bed, stiff and tense, and listened to it ringing, but I knew.

  I knew that he wouldn’t answer. I just didn’t know why.

  The next day when I woke up, I was facing Matt’s side of the bed. The sheet was cool and smooth and it was as though he had never slept there. As though he’d never been here at all. I shook my head, then reached under my pillow and took out the photo from the university website. He looked just as he had when I’d met him on the plane, and my heart yearned for him. I wanted to be close to him again. I wanted to put any problems behind us, to start over. I’d known we’d be together as soon as I first saw him, and I think he did too, deep down. We were a couple right from the very beginning.