Gone Without a Trace

by Mary Torjussen

  ‘Any news?’ Katie whispered as soon as he went to the bar. ‘Have you found out anything more?’

  I looked around to see why she was whispering. There were a few other couples in the room, but nobody who looked the slightest bit interested in us.

  ‘My next-door neighbour, Sheila, saw him buying boxes in B and Q the weekend before he left,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t spoken to her about him until today. They were away when he left, so I assumed they wouldn’t know anything.’

  ‘Boxes?’

  James sat down beside us, putting my drink in front of me. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Matt was seen buying boxes the week before he left,’ I said again.

  ‘What kind of boxes?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what kind of boxes!’ I snapped. ‘Plastic boxes. Packing boxes. Something to put his stuff in, I suppose.’

  He reared back. ‘OK, OK!’

  ‘Did he buy anything else?’ asked Katie. ‘How long was she watching him for?’

  ‘She wasn’t watching him! They were just both in the shop and she noticed what he was buying.’

  We sat in silence for a bit. I looked up and saw Katie give James a warning look. I glared at her. The silence continued.

  ‘So, work going well?’ asked James. ‘Hit that promotion yet?’

  I looked down again, but not before I saw Katie nudge him hard.

  ‘Hannah,’ she said gently. ‘What’s up? Has something happened? Apart from him buying boxes, that is. Is there something else?’

  I nodded miserably. ‘Two things.’

  She took a long drink. ‘What’s the first?’

  ‘Have you had more texts?’ asked James.

  ‘Yes, but they’re the least of my problems. I can’t even begin to tell you what’s been happening.’

  ‘What?’ asked Katie, sounding concerned. At last she was taking this seriously!

  ‘Someone’s been coming into my house.’

  ‘What?’ she said again. ‘When you’re in there?’

  ‘No, thank God,’ I said. ‘When I’m at work.’

  ‘You’ve seen them?’

  I shook my head. ‘I know it sounds stupid, but I know someone’s been there.’

  She leaned back and had another sip of her drink. I sensed she was losing interest. ‘I doubt it, Hannah. Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘Who do you think it is?’ asked James. ‘Who’d do that?’

  I stared at him. ‘Who do you think? It’s Matt. He’s been coming into my house when I’m not there.’

  ‘Matt?’ Katie looked dumbfounded. ‘But why would he do that? He’s left you.’

  ‘I know he’s left me!’ I hissed impatiently. ‘You tell me that every time I see you! But he’s coming back. I know it. He’s texting me and he’s coming to the house.’

  ‘He left his key behind, didn’t he?’ asked James.

  ‘He put it on the hook when he left,’ I admitted. ‘But he could easily have made a copy.’ I saw Katie dart a look at James, and fury raged in me. ‘I’m not crazy, you know!’

  ‘Nobody’s saying you’re crazy,’ said Katie in a patient voice that made me want to slap her. ‘Why don’t you get a burglar alarm? That’s what I’d do.’

  I stopped in my tracks. I hadn’t thought of that. ‘But what use is that to me if he’s coming in when I’m at work? I’d have Ray round all the time if a bell was ringing out.’

  She shuddered. ‘Ugh, you can’t have that.’

  ‘You can buy a program that uses the webcam on your laptop,’ said James. ‘It picks up any movement in the house. It’s activated when there’s a sound or a movement. Just leave it switched on, and if someone comes into the house when you’re not there, it’ll record them.’

  ‘Really?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s not expensive, because you don’t have to buy any hardware, just a program. You simply point your webcam in the direction you want to film. Make sure you change your settings so your laptop doesn’t automatically log you out, though.’ He took out his phone and showed me the sort of thing he meant on Amazon. ‘The beauty of it is that you can watch it while you’re out. On your phone or on your computer at work. You can see if someone’s coming into the house.’

  I sat quietly for a second, furious with myself for not thinking of this. I remembered seeing a YouTube video of a woman in Florida whose home was burgled. She was at work when it happened and saw the whole thing on her computer screen.

  ‘Right,’ I said, getting up. ‘Thanks for that. I’ll go and buy one right away.’

  ‘Stay here for a bit,’ said Katie. ‘Have another drink.’

  I shook my head. ‘Are you kidding? He might even be there now. I’m going home to get it sorted.’

  ‘Want any help?’ asked James.

  I thought of the state of the kitchen. The notes were stuck all over the cabinet doors at the moment and I couldn’t stand to see their expressions if they saw that. I knew how it would look to anyone who wasn’t involved. ‘No, I’ll be OK, thanks.’

  As I turned to go, Katie spoke. ‘You said there were two things. What was the second?’

  ‘The second?’ I said. ‘The second is that I think Matt had a girlfriend. I think he left home to be with her.’

  Both of them stared at me. Before they could ask me why I thought that, I smiled, thanked James for the drink and left the pub to run home.

  37

  One day a couple of weeks later, a text came through from my mum asking how I was, and suddenly I wanted to see her, to talk to her. I called her landline and she answered within a couple of seconds.

  ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Hannah.’

  ‘Hannah? Oh hello, sweetheart. It’s lovely to hear from you.’

  I cleared my throat. I never found it easy to talk to her, and now, the pity I felt for her because of my dad’s affair made it even worse. ‘Are you free later? I might call round.’

  ‘Of course! Do you want to come for dinner? Dad will be home early tonight for a change. We’ll be eating at half past six.’

  I flinched at the thought. Since I’d seen him with Helen in the restaurant, I was furious with him, and no matter how much I tried to dampen those feelings, they still rose up and made my blood boil. It would be worse if I went when he wasn’t there, though, especially after getting the text he’d sent me instead of Helen. If it was Helen he was texting. It could have been anyone. He could be seeing a number of women; how would I know? But I knew that if he thought I’d gone home to see my mum and deliberately avoided him, he wouldn’t be happy. He might even come round here to talk to me about it. My blood ran cold at the thought of that.

  ‘I’d love to stay for dinner, Mum, but do you mind if I come a bit earlier? I want to chat to you.’

  I could hear her racking her brains, wondering what was going on.

  ‘Something to celebrate?’ she asked coyly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, OK, well I’ll be home all afternoon, so come whenever you like, pet.’

  I arrived at my parents’ house just after three that afternoon. I parked in the driveway and sat for a moment gearing myself up. I hadn’t seen them since February, when Matt and I were invited to my dad’s birthday dinner. It was all right, but in a way I found it harder being there with Matt because I had to make sure I didn’t show I was getting stressed, otherwise he would have got upset on my behalf. I usually tried to go for a swim or a run after visiting them, but that night it was too late by the time we got home, and I was a bit of a wreck.

  I’ve never had that feeling that so many others have going back to their family home. I remember at university that by the end of term my friends would all be looking forward to seeing their families. One of my best friends there, Sarah, said that she never slept anywhere as well as she did in her own bed at home. I remember looking at her and realising the gulf between us. It was so far from my experience.

  Even as a child, I knew the second I entered the house who was there and what was going on
. That was why I was so sure Matt had been making those stealthy visits. Sometimes, when I was young, if I wasn’t overheard coming into the house, I’d hear enough to make me leave immediately and go to Katie’s, or later to James’s. Katie’s mum used to accept my excuses that I’d forgotten something or that I was allowed to stay out later, and would fuss over me, making me a hot drink and something to eat. She’d always phone my mum before I left their house, and it was years before I realised the call was to warn her to be prepared for my arrival. She never said a word to me, though, and I know she didn’t say anything to Katie, either. There’d always be a hug for me whenever she saw me, and she told me several times that Katie thought of me as her sister. I felt a twinge of guilt as I remembered how I’d rammed her chocolate cake into the bin.

  That day when I rang the bell and my mother answered the door, I knew immediately that she was alone and that all was well. For now. She hugged me and I noticed she seemed a bit smaller than usual. We used to be the same height, and OK, I was wearing heels and she was wearing slippers, but I seemed to tower over her. She was only sixty; surely she shouldn’t be frail already?

  I gave her a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates. Before I’d left the house, I’d noticed on my phone that over the last few months she’d made loads of missed calls and left messages I hadn’t bothered to answer, and I knew it was wrong of me. I knew she would have wanted me to turn to her as soon as Matt left, but I’d felt humiliated, ashamed of the way he’d done it. What did it say about me that he had to leave like that? I couldn’t bear to have her look at me with pity in her eyes.

  My mum . . . I don’t know, I’ve always seen her as kind of weak. She never really had much of an opinion about anything. Before she said anything, she’d look to my dad for approval, and if he disagreed with her, she wouldn’t defend herself. It used to drive me crazy when I was growing up, when I was dying for her to speak up for me and for herself. She wasn’t a good role model for me really.

  As for my dad, all we had in common was work. I couldn’t confide in him. If I tried to, it always ended in tears. My tears.

  As soon as my mother hugged me, I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. The shock and frustration I’d felt, the loneliness since Matt left, it all came out when she put her arms around me.

  She was startled, I could tell. I hadn’t been so upset since my teens, when I’d suffered the usual angst that teenagers go through. Even then I tended to cry on my own; I’ve never liked anyone to see me that way.

  ‘Sit down, sweetheart,’ she said, guiding me to the sofa in the living room. The wood-burning stove was lit, despite the warm day, and suddenly it was just what I needed. I’d been cold for so long. It was as if the dread I’d felt when I realised Matt had gone had turned into something solid; as though within me was a block of ice that was building day by day. I’d felt it in my stomach first, but now it had moved up to my chest, and at times it was as though it was stopping me from breathing.

  She made me a mug of hot chocolate and put the biscuit tin in front of me.

  ‘You’ve got awfully thin,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’

  It was clear I wasn’t all right – why else would I burst into tears? – but she seemed willing to let me bide my time and tell her when I was ready. I dried my face on some tissues and gave her a watery smile.

  ‘Matt’s left me,’ I said, and started to cry again. She sat next to me, set my drink on the coffee table and put her arms around me once more. It was so comforting; I don’t know why I’d never let her hug me before. Well, not for years. Decades. Since I was very young.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ she said, and I really wished that was true.

  I drank my hot chocolate and described what had happened, how I’d come home and found he’d gone, taking all my memories of us together. She sat quietly and said nothing, just let me tell her all about it.

  ‘Well,’ she said in the end, ‘it looks like that’s over, anyway.’

  ‘But I want to find him!’ I wailed. ‘I want to talk to him!’

  ‘I know you do,’ she said sympathetically, ‘but he’s made his decision. It’s a shame, pet. I really liked him, and I know you did too, but you can’t make someone stay with you. If he’s not there voluntarily, it doesn’t mean anything, does it?’

  ‘I think he wants to come back, though,’ I said, and I told her about getting the text saying he was home.

  ‘And was he?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. I looked everywhere.’

  She winced at that, and I knew she was picturing me running around the house calling his name.

  ‘Can I see the message?’

  I took my phone out of my bag and showed her.

  ‘So that number . . . is it Matt’s?’

  ‘No, not his old number,’ I admitted. ‘I told you, he deleted his details from my phone. But James had his number and it’s not the same. And I rang his old number and it’s out of service. It stands to reason he’s got a different one now.’

  ‘Have you called this number?’

  I nodded. ‘I did, but it just rang out. Nobody answered. And I sent a couple of texts.’ That was a slight underestimate; I’d been texting all night.

  We sat in silence. I wanted to tell her about the flowers, but after seeing Katie’s response, I was frightened of the same thing happening again. I still felt like I was going mad when I thought of that.

  ‘Do you know why he left?’ she asked then. ‘Had you been having rows?’

  ‘Well, obviously sometimes we had rows. Everyone does. But I didn’t have a clue he was going to leave. The night before he went, everything was fine. He ran me a bath and brought me up a glass of wine.’ The floodgates opened again. ‘And the next day I got home and he’d gone and taken everything with him.’

  My mum looked horrified and hugged me again, but this time she said, ‘I wonder why he did it?’

  When I was calmer, she made me sit and watch a film with her.

  ‘You don’t want to be sitting dwelling on that all afternoon,’ she said. ‘You need to take your mind off it. You must feel like you’re going mad, thinking about it all the time.’

  I did.

  So we sat and watched Pretty Woman for the millionth time. She was right, I did need something to take my mind off Matt. This was something we’d often done, Mum and I, sitting and watching television on our own when my dad was out. Then we’d see his car headlights swoop up the drive and we’d leap into action. Long before he was due home we’d have made sure the kitchen was spotless, the living room tidy. Nothing could be out of place. My job would be to plump up the cushions and then disappear. Hers would be to make sure that his dinner – which he was usually late for or didn’t want anyway – was ready, hot and fit to eat. As we never knew when he’d be home, it was hard to relax.

  That day, on the sofa together, I found myself watching her as she sat absorbed in the film. She’d never been a really strong woman, and I knew I’d held that against her in the past. She was pretty enough, but she was thin, and even when her face was in repose she still seemed to look wary. Alert. Mind you, I knew how that felt. I paused the television when she went out to the kitchen to check the leg of lamb that was roasting in there, and followed her out to help. As she walked to the oven, I noticed her limping.

  I closed my eyes and the familiar panic swept through me.

  I’d thought that was over.

  I said nothing, of course. I never did.

  My dad came home half an hour early, at six o’clock. Even though I hadn’t lived there for years, my body responded to the familiar sound of his key in the front door just as it did then. My heartbeat increased and there was the usual buzzing in my ears for a second. He seemed to take a while to come through the hallway. He knew I was there, as my car was in the driveway, but he didn’t call out. My mother and I were still. Frozen. He came into the kitchen and stood in the doorway, looking at me.

  As soon as I saw him, I knew I was in trouble, and
from the way my mum became suddenly flustered, she knew it too. We seemed to each become hyperaware at the same moment, our senses acutely tuned to the situation. I think my dad was the same, actually.

  He gave us no greeting, just said, ‘I hope dinner’s ready.’

  He was trying to catch Mum out. He’d come home half an hour earlier than he’d told her, expecting to have to wait for his meal. My mother, however, was used to this sort of manipulation and was one step ahead of him. The look of relief on her face was evident.

  ‘Of course it is, darling,’ she said.

  She poured him a glass of wine and took the lamb out of the oven. She and I carried the dishes to the table while he washed his hands in the downstairs cloakroom. Neither of us looked at each other as we hurried to make sure everything was ready by the time he came out.

  ‘I had an interesting conversation today,’ he said once he’d carved the lamb.

  My heart sank and I saw my mum give me a worried look.

  ‘I bumped into Katie’s mum. Remember Katie, your old friend?’

  ‘Of course I remember her,’ I said. ‘I see her a couple of times a week.’

  My mother was pale now and her eyes pleaded with me to shut up.

  ‘Well, she told me that she believed congratulations were in order.’

  I put my knife and fork down. I felt more nauseous now than when I’d been sick in the mornings.

  My voice sounded weak and scratchy. ‘Congratulations?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said smoothly. ‘She said it was a shame about Matt leaving.’ He fired a look at my mum. ‘Did you know about that?’

  I could have slapped both Katie and her mother. ‘I’ve just told Mum,’ I said quickly. ‘I came round to tell both of you.’

  He looked as though he didn’t believe that for a minute. ‘And then she said that it would be hard on you with the baby, but that she knew you’d cope.’

  The only sound in the room was my dad’s knife and fork on his plate as he cut up his meat and popped it into his mouth. I kept my head down, my eyes averted from my mum. Any sign of allegiance would be seen as an open challenge.