Gone Without a Trace

by Mary Torjussen

  ‘I’ve got photos. Mum, you need to get out. He’s furious with me and he’s blaming you. You need to get out before it’s too late.’ I thought of Katie on the concrete outside Matt’s apartment; of Matt lying in a pool of blood. My voice broke. ‘Before he kills you.’

  When she spoke next, her voice sounded different. Resolute. ‘How long do I have?’

  ‘He left the office a couple of minutes ago. So fifteen minutes? Maybe ten, now. Five, even. Don’t come to my house. Go to Auntie Chris’s.’ My mother’s sister lived in Scotland; Mum hadn’t been allowed to see her for years. She had a huge husband, one who took no prisoners.

  There was a pause, then Mum said, ‘Thank you. Thank you, pet.’

  She cut the call and I threw my phone into my bag and started the car. I wanted to get home and go to bed. To be alone.

  The rest of the journey home was horrendous. I could hardly see where I was going. Tears streamed down my face and all I kept thinking about was Katie and Matt. I’d lost them both.

  Katie, the girl I’d known for most of my life. Funny, beautiful, jealous Katie. I’d thought we’d be friends for ever.

  And Matt. When I’d seen him walking down the hill yesterday, his jacket swinging behind him, he’d seemed happy and carefree, just as he was when we first met. Yet today, in his apartment, he was a shadow of his former self, and although he looked the same as he had done for months and months when we were living together, it was like looking at a stranger.

  If only I hadn’t gone up there today. I could have written to him. I could have seen him at his office after work. Why had I gone to see him on his own? I kept thinking of Katie’s expression as she fell, and Matt’s face, his eyes shut and his temple bleeding. It was all because of me.

  By the time I reached my street, I was almost hyperventilating with fear and guilt and something else, too. My hands drummed on the steering wheel as I tried to think what it was.

  At last I realised. It was loss. My heart ached at the thought of never seeing either of them again.

  I turned into my driveway and slammed on the brakes. Through my living room window I could see that a light was on.

  59

  I sat in the car and stared at the window. I remembered leaving the house earlier that day, though it seemed like weeks ago now. The whole place was ready for Matt’s return. I’d thought we would sit at either end of the sofa in the living room and talk things over like adults. Like adults who wanted to make a go of their relationship. I’d bought flowers to welcome him home, candles to light as the night grew dim, wine to toast his return. I’d hoped for so much that morning; believed it would happen, too. And when I thought of the way he’d hesitated when I’d asked him to come home, my heart tilted. I’d been sure he was about to agree; I could tell he wanted to.

  But although everything was ready and waiting for us to return, I was sure no lamps had been lit. Only the soft glow of candlelight had been planned for his homecoming; the sharp yellow glare of electric bulbs wasn’t part of my plans for the seduction of Matt.

  In my mind I tried to track my movements just before I left the house. To turn on the lamp there I would have had to reach over the end of the sofa and pull a little silver chain, which would switch on the bulb.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t retrieve that physical memory.

  Slowly I got out of the car and carefully locked it. There were no lights in the neighbours’ houses, no cars in their driveways. In a movement that reminded me of that day so many months ago, I went up to the living room window and looked through. Everything was as it had been that afternoon when I’d left the house. Everything except the lamp.

  I must have switched it on.

  Mist from my breath frosted the glass, and as I thought of all that had happened since Matt had left, I shuddered and let myself into the house.

  The hallway was dim and quiet, and I knew nobody else was there.

  In the living room the lamp glowed brightly and I stared at it for minutes, willing myself to remember switching it on. I couldn’t. I turned it off at the socket and shut the door.

  I was more exhausted that evening than at any other time in my life. I felt weary with sadness. No matter whether Matt lived or died, I’d lost both him and Katie today, but it seemed I’d actually lost them months before. Slowly I walked into the kitchen.

  All I could see were the photos of Katie standing with her arm around me and smiling at me as though she was my friend. I looked again at the one of us holding hands aged five, and for the first time in my life I wished I’d never met her.

  I picked up the photos and put them face down in a drawer. I had no idea what I would do with them.

  The smell of the waste bin was heavy in the air, and more flies circled the sink. I opened the back door and heaved the rubbish into the bins outside. I couldn’t think why I hadn’t done it before. It had seemed too much effort, what with all I’d had to think about. I disinfected the kitchen bin and washed out the sink. Even through the rubber gloves I could feel the slime and crumbs that had built up over the past months. I looked at the filthy crockery toppling in greasy piles on the kitchen units, and I saw the madness I’d gone through during those days and nights I’d spent searching for Matt.

  I loaded the crockery and cutlery into the dishwasher. Though I crammed in as much as would fit, there were still tons of dirty dishes on the counter, and I filled the sink with hot soapy water and scrubbed them all until they were clean. I kept my eyes averted from the mess. Everything reminded me of the time I’d spent looking for Matt, the time when Katie was in touch daily, hourly sometimes, asking for information. I felt betrayed on so many levels.

  I was spraying the kitchen counters with bleach when I looked up at the units and saw the extent of my notes. It looked like I was mad. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to read them again, and what was more, I didn’t want to.

  I ripped off all the Post-its and threw them into the bin. I lifted the bottle of bleach and squirted it over the cabinets. The words I’d written in red marker looked as though they were dripping blood, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut as I scrubbed and scrubbed at them.

  Even though I scoured those cupboards for over an hour, I knew they’d never be the same again. They wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny in the early-morning light and would always show the marks beneath. I didn’t care any more; it was the least of my problems. I was no longer the same woman who’d spent weeks choosing the units, paying for them out of my savings. I’d stood for hours in the kitchen when the builders had gone, seeing the room as a testament to my success. Now I knew what a failure I was.

  When the kitchen was gleaming, I opened the fridge door. My notes hadn’t reached as far as here, and there had been nothing to clean. On the counter next to it I saw the bottle of Nuits-Saint-Georges I’d bought for Matt and me to share that night, and I threw it into the recycling bin. At the back of the fridge was a bottle of white wine. I’d forgotten it was there and breathed a sigh of relief when I found it. I needed this now.

  I shut the fridge door. Just where the note saying Satisfied? had been were some of my alphabet fridge magnets. Matt and I used to use them to write little messages to each other. Since he’d gone, they were crowded in a bunch towards the bottom of the door. Now some of them had been moved and rearranged into a message.

  It said, See you soon.

  My mind spun almost out of control. Matt had been here today? I thought of the lamp in the living room. He’d done that?

  I shook my head. It couldn’t have been Matt. He’d been at work today, surely? He’d had his suit on when I saw him; he wouldn’t be wearing that if he wasn’t at work. And if he had been here, surely he would have been happy to see me at his apartment door? In my heart I knew he hadn’t wanted to see me; I could picture his face now, though I could hardly bear to. He was shocked. Terrified.

  I flinched at the thought.

  I knew then that all these messages, the calls and the note through the post h
ad been nothing to do with Matt. It wasn’t his cologne – there probably wasn’t any cologne – and the flowers? Well, I must have bought them myself.

  I was sick to death with lying to myself about this. It wasn’t Matt. It never had been Matt.

  So who was it?

  I was so tired and so shaky from what had happened today that when I saw the message, all I could think was: Bring it on. I’m ready for you.

  I was no longer scared. Katie was dead. Matt might die.

  The worst had already happened.

  I took the remaining Vera Wang wine glass from the cabinet and out of habit wondered whether Matt had its partner with him in the apartment in Manchester. I couldn’t see Katie being too happy about it if he had. He couldn’t hide its significance, either, since she’d bought identical glasses for her next anniversary with James and would have recognised it a mile off.

  I shook my head. Matt hadn’t got the glass. Matt hadn’t been near the house.

  I went upstairs with the wine and the glass and lay on my bed, and all I could think was it was exactly the same as the night I’d come home from Oxford to find Matt had gone. I was exhausted; every muscle in my body ached. I propped the pillows against the headboard and the photo of Matt slipped out. I picked it up and looked at it. He was smiling in the photo, but not at me. I hadn’t known him then. I wasn’t sure I knew him now. I put on my headphones, the ones that blocked out noise. I’d used headphones like that every night when I was young and lived at home, so that I wouldn’t hear my dad hitting my mum, wouldn’t hear her crying.

  I was as bad as he was, really.

  Now I sat like he did night after night, drinking without tasting, like a man on a mission, and as I drank, I thought, I am just like my father. I couldn’t see any way out of this. It was as though he permeated me like the letters in a stick of rock, so wherever you broke it, there he was. The evil inside me.

  60

  I drank and thought and drank some more, and eventually I must have slept, because I woke in the middle of the night, just as I’d done the night Matt left home, with my hand clutched around the stem of the glass and the room reeking of alcohol and sweat and tears. The smell was so familiar but I didn’t know why, and then I remembered my dad, the smell of him on the mornings after he’d hurt my mum. I shuddered and jumped out of bed, throwing my headphones on the floor.

  In the bathroom I brushed my teeth, just as I had when Matt had first gone. Just like then, I avoided my face in the mirror, too ashamed of what I’d see.

  Back in bed, I rang the hospital and said I’d heard that Matt was there and asked how he was. Apparently being an ex-girlfriend doesn’t put you on a list of people who need to know, and the nurse I spoke to wouldn’t tell me anything. I noticed, though, that her voice didn’t change when she spoke to me, and when I’d put the phone down, I thought that if he’d died, her tone would have softened, maybe just a fraction. It hadn’t. She’d sounded busy, impersonal and abrupt.

  ‘You’ll have to contact his family for any more information,’ she’d said.

  ‘I will,’ I’d replied. ‘I’ll give his mum a call now.’

  I tried to imagine how that conversation with Olivia would go, if I ever dared to have it. I didn’t even know how to get hold of her, but if I did, if I turned up there at the hospital, I cringed at what she’d say to me.

  I thought of her sitting by his bed, holding his hand. That was where I should be now; that was what I should be doing. There was no way I’d get past her, though, no way she’d allow me into the room, never mind let me sit beside him.

  And I knew he would wake up. It was inevitable. He’d hit his head hard, hard enough for me to think he was dead at first, but how many people died from that sort of injury? Whereas Katie . . . I shuddered as an image of her falling flashed into my mind.

  I forced myself not to think of that.

  If Matt woke up, even for a second, I knew he’d say my name. I knew he’d blame me. He wouldn’t say a word about how much he’d upset me or how he’d humiliated me by running off like that with my best friend and dumping me in front of her. He’d say I pushed Katie.

  It felt like a metal band was tightening itself around my head. I lay down and tried to do my deep breathing, to shut out all thoughts. This time, counting my breaths didn’t work. I couldn’t think those words, couldn’t obey the instructions, because at that moment in the distance, for a split second only, I thought I heard a siren.

  I think that’s when I realised that the police were going to get involved. I started to shake. I knew they’d come here. They’d come whether Matt woke up or not. Had Katie told her parents why Matt had left me? I closed my eyes tightly, unable to bear the thought of them judging me. But then I remembered the cake her mum had baked; she wouldn’t have done that if she’d known. Matt’s mum, Olivia, wouldn’t need much encouragement, though. She’d judged me all along. I couldn’t bear to think of the conversations she’d had with Matt about our private lives. She had no right to know any of that!

  For a wild moment I thought of running away and leaving them to it. I had about fifteen thousand pounds in savings that I could access immediately. I had a passport, a car. I could work anywhere; I knew that. My mind raced as I thought of starting from scratch with a new name. A new identity. I didn’t have a clue how to go about doing that.

  But then I thought of being caught by the police. Cornered. I imagined seeing a photo of myself on television, with the word ‘Wanted’ above it, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. No one could be anonymous nowadays. My car registration would be tracked wherever I went. There were cameras on every major road. My phone would be easy to trace. I knew I’d be caught, and then they’d never believe anything I had to say.

  And that was when I decided I’d call the police myself. I’d tell them what had happened before anyone else could. I’d get my say in first.

  I trembled at the thought of that. I didn’t think I could do it. I wished I hadn’t told my mum to go to Scotland. I knew that if I called her she’d come back down, but by then Matt might have woken up. The police might have come for me by then.

  Even so, I needed her. I knew I wouldn’t be able to speak to her, so, my hands slippery with sweat, I sent her a message:

  Mum, I need your help. Something terrible has happened and Katie has died. Matt is in a coma, and if he wakes up he’ll say it’s my fault. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

  I sat back, my eyes flooded with tears. I wanted her there; I couldn’t wait for her to come back from Scotland. When I didn’t get an immediate response, I guessed she had turned her phone off. My dad had probably been calling her non-stop since he’d discovered she’d gone.

  I didn’t know my aunt’s number, and all I could remember of her address was the town she lived in. I rang Directory Enquiries, but the woman answering the call said they didn’t have a number for her.

  I was going to have to do it on my own.

  I forced myself out of bed. I needed to pack a bag in case I was kept in for questioning. My knees buckled beneath me at the thought, but I told myself to get a grip. If I didn’t pack, someone else would do it for me. I might as well make sure I had the things I wanted. And if all went well and they believed me, then I’d take off on holiday somewhere.

  I put a few changes of clothing in, some nightwear too. And toiletries. I added my Kindle but guessed I wouldn’t be able to use it, so put a couple of paperbacks in as well, just in case. I thought of packing a notebook and pen, but knew I wouldn’t want anyone to see anything I was prepared to write down.

  I was just about to leave the room when I remembered the photo of Matt. I’d had it under my pillow for months now and would sleep with it in my hand. I pulled it out and looked at it again. It was just a colour printout rather than a proper photo, and the page was creased and torn. Though the image was of poor quality, I could still see his smile and the way he looked completely at ease. He hadn’t looked like that yesterday when he saw me.


  As I gazed at him, I was suddenly filled with fury. If he hadn’t run off like that, we wouldn’t be in this situation! Katie would be alive, he wouldn’t be in hospital and I wouldn’t be here, thinking of escape. Why had he done this to me? For a moment I wanted to rip the photo to shreds, to stamp on it. I wanted to never ever see his face again. And then I calmed down enough to know there would be a day when I’d want to look at him once more, would want to remember the good times we’d had together. I didn’t know when that day would be, but I knew it would come. Eventually.

  I put the photo in my bag. I didn’t want to leave it here for anyone to find.

  I took my bag downstairs and left it in the hall. I didn’t know what to do, whether to drive to the police station or to call a taxi.

  In the kitchen I looked over at the clock on the wall. It was nearly two o’clock and pitch black outside. The lights from the neighbouring houses were out and all was quiet.

  Now would be a good time to go and report it, I reasoned. It would be quiet there and I’d be able to talk to them without them being interrupted all the time. I knew that what I had to say would take some time.

  I put the kettle on to make tea. I thought I’d go after I’d drunk it, though to be honest I still wasn’t sure whether I’d be setting off for an incognito life in France or going to my mum in Scotland or to the police a mile away. I poured a cup of tea and took it into the living room at the front of the house. I just needed an hour to sit in peace. It might be the last time I’d spend in my house for a while. I didn’t know where I was going; I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t know whether anyone would believe me or even whether they should.

  There in the living room were the candles I’d bought that morning to celebrate Matt’s return. I thought of him in hospital; not far away but a million miles from me. My heart heavy with longing and regret, I lit them for him now. For him and for Katie.

  On the mantelpiece, church candles clustered in groups, magnificent against the huge silver mirror. The hearth held two big cream candles, each with eight wicks, which flickered fiercely as I walked past. The smell of vanilla and roses and lilies filled the air. Tea lights sat in coloured glass holders on the coffee table, trembling in the draught. By the time I’d finished, the room was lit up as though it was Christmas.