The Day We Disappeared

by Lucy Robinson

  As soon as I saw a silver car turn into the drive ahead of us I knew it was going to happen again. My breath shortened almost to nothing and I felt a terrible weight on my chest. As my muscles drained of energy I tried to yell, ‘Reverse! Get out of here!’ but all I could hear were the gasping noises coming from my own mouth.

  The car. Nose to nose with ours. My heart racing, screeching, and Becca’s voice coming in slow waves.

  Then another voice: ‘Annie, oh, my God …’

  A hand coming through the window. A bright flash of blonde hair, a strong waft of perfume. Somehow I was out of the car and in my sister’s arms, and she was crying – crying and laughing and telling me how much she loved me and how much she’d missed me.

  ‘I think she just had some sort of a heart attack,’ Becca was saying, and then a man’s voice – Tim’s! – saying, ‘It’s probably a panic attack,’ and then a familiar pair of arms sitting me carefully on the drive.

  I stared woozily at Lizzy. Was it really her? My big sister? Beside her a long pair of legs folded down and Tim came into my vision. Tim Furniss, in a navy coat that made him look all handsome and doctorish. Someone was right behind me, supporting my weight. Becca. She was telling them what had just happened. ‘Knew we shouldn’t go to the airport,’ she was saying.

  ‘Quite right,’ said another voice, a French voice, full of concern and edged with brutality.

  ‘Claudie,’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There will be no further running off, my darling. Do you understand?’ And then she, too, appeared in my line of vision, and she had tears in her eyes. ‘You mad little elf,’ she murmured, hugging me. ‘You mad little elf with this dyed red hair, pretending to be in Thailand all this time. We have missed you so much.’

  After a while I felt well enough to sit up properly. Everyone sat down with me and, sick with shame, I tried to explain the last few months.

  ‘I’m so sorry I lied to you,’ I muttered, when it was done. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Lizzy said. ‘Please stop apologizing. I’m sure I’d have done exactly the same if it were me. Really, darling, it was an amazing plan! Like a film or something! And at least we got to see you on Skype.’

  ‘Every day I looked up at this drive,’ I cried. ‘Every single day, panicking that the police would turn up, telling me Stephen had harmed you … Or that he’d turn up himself and simply throw me into his car …’

  ‘Oh, Annie!’

  ‘A police car came here a month or so ago and I thought I was going to faint. All I could think was, Oh, God, they’re looking for me because Lizzy’s in hospital or something …’

  Lizzy looked at Tim, as if to say, ‘How bad is this?’

  Somewhere amid the chaos I registered surprise. It was a very familiar sort of a look. ‘You’re not going to commit me or anything, are you, Tim?’ I tried to blot my tears with my sleeve.

  Tim smiled. ‘No.’

  ‘Really? Even though I dyed my hair red and spent months speaking in an Irish accent?’

  In my peripheral vision I could see Claudine smiling. ‘Mad little badger,’ she murmured.

  ‘Annie,’ Tim said kindly, ‘do you not think it’s understandable that you look at a police car and fear the worst? After everything you’ve gone through?’

  ‘I have no idea what’s understandable any more.’

  ‘I know. But please listen to me, because I do. Getting into a relationship with Stephen is just about the worst thing that could have happened to someone with your history – of course you reacted badly. And you needn’t blame yourself, either. Like any sociopath he was irresistible at the start. He fooled us all!’

  ‘He did not fool me,’ Claudine said primly, but Tim told her to shut it.

  ‘None of us could have predicted what he’d do,’ he said. ‘It was awful and completely unexpected, and I am most certainly not going to handcuff you to Becca’s steering wheel for taking matters into your own hands. You won’t be the first woman to do something like this.’

  I was not. I’d read about women starting again on the other side of the world, some without even saying goodbye to their families. Many had changed their names; one had even had plastic surgery. Some had been protected by the police; others felt they could only trust themselves with their own safety so had decided to go it alone.

  All those lives cancelled. All those women, just gone, suddenly. Disappeared.

  ‘You felt you had nowhere to go because that was exactly how he wanted you to feel,’ Tim was saying. ‘He spent months whittling you down, cutting you off from your family and friends so that you were entirely dependent on him. That’s what they do, Annie. So, no, I don’t think you’re “mad”.’

  ‘All of what he said,’ Lizzy said admiringly, squeezing Tim’s hand. He squeezed hers back.

  They moved apart, but not until they’d exchanged a look.

  Eh? I thought. Lizzy was still smiling at Tim as he pushed his hair out of his face.

  He caught her looking at him and blushed slightly. And then she blushed.

  Hang on, I thought. Hang on a minute …

  ‘You are right,’ Claudine suddenly stage-whispered. ‘Your suspicions are correct. It is ’orrible, Annie. They are like teenagers.’

  I turned to her slowly.

  ‘They are lovers,’ she said, less forcefully. She looked guiltily at Tim and Lizzy, who had both gone red. ‘Sorry. I just … It is so disgusting I ’ad to share it with someone.’

  They both smiled, and Lizzy slid her hand into Tim’s. ‘This isn’t the time,’ she muttered, with the widest grin I’d ever seen.

  ‘What?’ I stared at them stupidly. ‘How long? How …’

  ‘Six months,’ they said simultaneously.

  ‘Although, really, it’s been going on for seventeen years,’ Tim added. ‘But neither of us had the nerve to do anything about it.’ He looked mad with pride and Lizzy looked mad with love. I felt mad with shock.

  ‘I … Oh, my God.’

  Claudine nodded furiously. ‘Agreed, Annabel. I vomit frequently in protest.’

  I giggled. Lizzy and Tim. Tim and Lizzy, secretly in love with each other for years. How had I not known? The number of times Lizzy had got drunk and told me she thought Tim was in love with me! And the pain in her face as she’d said it, too! All that time, all those boyfriends, she was thinking about Tim! And he about her. I shook my head, as if to make my brain catch up. Lizzy and Tim. Tim and Lizzy.

  The sound of a vehicle in the lane chainsawed through my thoughts and I scrabbled frantically to get into Becca’s car. ‘Stephen! Oh, my God, it’s Stephen, help, I …’

  Becca and Tim sat me back on the driveway as the car swished past and on towards the moor.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, slumping back against Becca. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Lizzy said. She took my hand. ‘Look, darling, we saw you on telly the other day, and it took us a few days to work out what the hell was going on. We, er, obviously thought you were in Thailand.’

  ‘I know. Apologies …’

  ‘Don’t start that again, sweetheart. You were very clever, all those Skypes with you wearing vest tops, talking about swimming and mountain-hiking and stuff – you should write spy movies or something! You’re so devious!’

  I smiled hopelessly. I could think of better things to be talented at.

  ‘So, anyway, Claudine saw you on the documentary –’

  ‘I do not ’ave much of a life since I kicked out Sylvester,’ Claudine put in ruefully.

  ‘And after a lot of thinking we called Mark’s yard in case they’d had any contact with you since the accident and a lovely lady told us there was a groom here called Kate Brady and we thought, Aha!’

  ‘Stephen did exactly the same,’ I said. ‘He wrote to me. This morning. I’m on my way out of here.’

  They were horrified. ‘He what? Where is he?’

  ‘In Somerset. He keeps texting me. I don’t know where he
is, but he’s very close.’

  ‘Motherfucker,’ Claudine hissed. ‘I will kill him. I will kill his stupid English arse.’

  I was woozy still from the panic attack but adrenalin was circulating darkly around me. ‘I really have to get out of here,’ I repeated. ‘I have to go to the airport and fly somewhere to stay for a week or so while I decide what to do.’

  ‘No,’ said Lizzy.

  ‘No,’ said Tim.

  ‘I will kill you before I allow this,’ said Claudine.

  ‘I will too,’ Becca said guiltily. ‘Sorry, pet.’

  ‘Are none of you listening? He’s on his way! He is a lunatic!’

  ‘Well, it’s actually classed as a personality disorder,’ Tim began, but Claudine held up a hand to silence us and, as always, we obeyed.

  ‘Annabel,’ she said quietly. ‘Here is what is actually going to happen. You come back to London with us –’

  ‘Yes,’ she insisted, when I wailed, ‘No!’

  ‘You are coming back with us and you are moving in with Lizzy. It is all planned. I have told Tim he is not allowed to stay the night with Lizzy while you are there because if you hear them having sex you might, quite reasonably, throw yourself out of the window.’

  I held my head between my hands. It was all too much.

  ‘We take out a restraining order against Stephen, and then –’

  ‘No! Never! Claudie, are you mad? Do you not understand how dangerous he is?’

  Claudine sighed. ‘Read this, please,’ she said. ‘And then we talk.’

  It was a letter from a girl called Ros Martin, sent to Lizzy at her work address.

  Dear Lizzy,

  I’m trying to contact your sister but cannot find any way of getting hold of her. I decided to write to you at your workplace; I really hope that’s OK. If you read the enclosed letter to your sister you’ll perhaps understand why I went to the lengths of tracking you down.

  Please do feel free to read this message in full before deciding if you think she will be up to dealing with this.

  I looked nervously at my sister but she gave me a smile of encouragement. ‘It’s not nice, but it’s good,’ she said. ‘We’re all here, Annie.’

  I glanced up at the lane, scanning for cars, but everything was still. I started reading.

  Dear Annabel,

  I thought long and hard about whether or not to send this letter, but it felt wrong not to. I am very sorry if the contents of this message are upsetting.

  My name is Ros and I’m an artist, based in Lea Bridge. Until a few months ago I was in a relationship with a man called Stephen Flint, whom I’m afraid I think you know.

  Stephen was a really fantastic boyfriend for a while, but I became suspicious when I kept finding my phone in places that I had not left it. I’m not the sort of person to forget where I’ve put things, and I suspected that he was checking my messages, even though I couldn’t imagine why he would.

  I blushed. How sharp Ros Martin was, noticing what was happening with her phone. And what a useless fool I had been with mine.

  At the same time, he started working extremely late and became a lot more irritable and difficult. I tried to be understanding about it, because relationships are as much about getting through bad times as they are about enjoying the good. Unfortunately, it seems that our ‘relationship’ was skewed a lot further towards the bad than I could possibly have imagined.

  I called the switchboard at FlintSpark once at around eleven p.m., shortly after he’d texted me to say that he was starting a video conference with San Francisco. The night-time guard said that nobody was in the building at all, other than security. But when I called his direct line a few minutes later, he said he was at his desk. I realized he must be diverting his calls to his mobile.

  To cut a long story short, I then decided to find out exactly what was going on, as it was clear that he was lying to me frequently, and I had a quick check of his emails one night when he was in the bath. Regrettable behaviour, but it paid off: I found some shocking pieces of information and am now in touch with many of the girls whose lives he’s destroyed.

  With regard to you, I discovered that he had hired a man to hack your email account and find you in Thailand. I’m very sorry if this is distressing news but I wanted you to know. From what I can tell he even went to Thailand himself but didn’t find you, and the email hacking was fruitless as you appeared to have closed the account down.

  I hope that you remain safe out there.

  When I confronted him about you – you were the first person I found out about – Stephen said that you had run off with a vast sum of his money, and that he was pursuing you for legal reasons. His argument was very convincing and for a few days I believed him. I wish I hadn’t. I knew by then he was bad news. The problem is, as you no doubt know, he is incredibly convincing and lovely when he wants you onside. Even though I was in a state of heightened suspicion, he was able to manipulate me.

  Because of my investigations I’m now in contact with six women with whom Stephen has been in a ‘relationship’ in the last two years. Two appear to have been involved with him at the same time as you – a girl called Petra Navarro who I believe you met in a restaurant in Hackney, and a Nancy Stevens who lives in New York.

  Nancy broke up with Stephen on New Year’s Eve because she had begun to suspect that he was seeing someone else. He flew out to patch things up with her a few days before New Year’s Eve but she discovered that he was staying in a hotel with another woman. From what she’s managed to work out, that woman was you.

  I sat back, stunned. The last-minute decision to take me to New York, rather than Paris. The endless calls from Stephen’s ‘office’ and his cold fury when he finally got back only minutes before midnight. He had just been dumped. By another woman. And then asked Claudine out on the internet. You couldn’t make it up.

  As for Petra, Stephen told her that you had mental-health issues; that you had tried to commit suicide at the age of sixteen and had been mentally unstable ever since. He told her that since he had ended things with you, you had stalked him relentlessly. Petra later discovered that this was wholly untrue, and that you and he were still very much together when they bumped into you in a restaurant in Hackney.

  ‘It’s not wholly untrue, though,’ I said, now really frightened. I ran a hand over my face. ‘Oh, God, what has he done?’

  ‘What do you mean, pet?’ Becca asked. She was still sitting next to me, an arm around my shoulder, reading the letter in tandem.

  I swallowed. ‘I did try to take my life when I was sixteen.’

  ‘Oh, pet,’ Becca said.

  Lizzy squeezed my foot.

  ‘But that’s not the point. The point is that I never told Stephen.’ I looked wildly at Tim. ‘How does he know? Is there any way of him accessing my NHS records?’

  Tim shook his head. ‘Impossible. Are you sure you never told him?’

  ‘Positive,’ I whispered. ‘What has he done? How does he know?’

  I felt dazed. Stephen was a monster. A monster completely without limits.

  ‘I have to get out,’ I said. ‘We have to go. Please!’

  ‘Listen,’ Tim said firmly. ‘If Stephen turns up here right now, I imagine your sister will probably kill him. And if she doesn’t, Claudine will. We all will. You are not in danger right now.’

  ‘Keep reading, darling,’ Lizzy said. ‘It’s okay.’

  I blew out a long breath. Yes, I could take a little more. Somewhere inside me, amid the terror and the panic, a spark of rage had ignited.

  I am also in contact with his PA, Natasha Everidge, who eventually had the courage to resign from FlintSpark six months ago. She was never involved with him herself – I suspect she was too useful to him – but she helped him pretend to be working late repeatedly. She is deeply upset about the whole thing. She has also secured the co-operation of Stephen’s ex-chief operating officer, Rory Adamson. Rory had apparently had several arguments with Stephen abou
t his persistent habit of sleeping with his female staff, which frequently led to him missing important meetings and events.

  Of course – Rory. The look he had given Stephen in the château, when Stephen said I was joining them for drinks. Not again, Flint, he must have been thinking. Not this one too …

  There is one other woman in the equation who I’m going to have to tell you about. Her name is Penny Flint and – as you might already have guessed – she is his estranged wife. They have a son, Sebastian, to whom Stephen does not have access.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ I cried. Barnaby, his nephew. Barnaby was called Sebastian, and he was Stephen’s son?

  ‘Motherfucker,’ Claudine muttered.

  Penny replied to my letter, saying that she and her little boy had been through enough now, and wouldn’t be able to help with our case, but that she wished us luck. ‘You’ll need it,’ she wrote, which I have to say I found somewhat daunting.

  To the matter at hand. Of the six of us, three have been physically assaulted by Stephen, he has broken into two of our flats and all of us have received what constitutes sufficient unwanted contact to put him in breach of the Protection from Harassment Act. We have decided to build a case against him together. The charges will include harassment, stalking, GBH and forced entry. On each count our cases are strong.

  However, as you know, Stephen is extremely clever and will hire the best lawyers in the country to defeat us. As yet, he does not know that we are building a case against him, but we have all successfully taken out restraining orders against him so he is already very angry. I am worried that he will be redoubling his efforts to find you, given that you currently have no legal protection.

  We would like you to join us in our case, Annie, if you feel able to do so. We are working with a brilliant CPS prosecutor who is completely on our side – she is determined to have Stephen put away, and she feels that you could add real weight to the prosecution.