When You're Gone

by Marguerite O'Callaghan

  Another was from Poland and seemed really interested in Jared, wanting to know how much money he earned and what his job was. He had a fake name too of course, with fake ID to match, and a backstory about a broken marriage, a big house in Islington and a job as a hedge fund manager. The polish girl seemed impressed and genuinely interested in getting to know him better, and it crossed Jared’s mind that not all of the girls were being forced to be here, not directly anyway and it might be difficult to prove that the men controlling them were forcing them to have sex for money.

  This was often the case when it came to prosecuting anyone, because the girls were brainwashed into thinking that this is what they wanted for their lives.

  At about four in the morning, Dave had pulled Jared aside and asked if one of the girls would be good for him ‘in the long-term’. Jared asked what that would mean.

  ‘You saw the prices for these girls, didn’t you? So, you decide if you want sex on a call-out basis, or maybe you want a girlfriend… or maybe you want, what we call a ‘slave’, eh? All these girls are looking for someone to look after them, but it’s not free.’

  Jared decided that it was a good time to bring up the girl from the advert. The one who could be Kate. He hadn’t mentioned her up to now because he didn’t want Dave and his men to suspect anything, but he needed to convince this guy that he had a very specific type.

  He said he wanted a tall skinny girl with long dark hair, and preferably english as her first language. He told Dave that he had a lot of money to spend but she had to be worth it.

  ‘The girl in that advert you placed sounded perfect, mate. Is she a real girl? Dark eyes, tall. Tall is great.’

  Dave had eyed him up and down, suspiciously and then looked kind of amused.

  ‘You are one sick bastard of a yank.’

  He laughed loudly and Jared was immediately repulsed at his yellowing, stained teeth and stale alcohol breath.

  ‘You perverts are all the same. The more money you have, the more specific you want your girls to be.’

  Jared felt like he was making progress. He had been officially branded a pervert by this man and that was actually an accomplishment. It meant that he believed him and Jared was being seen as one of them.

  But he didn’t want to push it any more, tonight. He had made it known that he had big money, knew what he wanted and that was enough, for now.

  Dave had poured him another whisky and offered him a smoke, then nodded in the direction of the girls and asked if he liked any of them or wanted to try them out.

  ‘Do what you want with them here, upstairs, or put one in a taxi and take her home for a day or two, eh?’

  He laughed again, and Jared had to struggle to not look disgusted. Dave suddenly seemed to be enjoying his company and Jared took a few moments to pretend that he was considering one of the other girls, then turned to Dave and with a serious tone said:

  ‘You know, call me a freak but... I don’t really do prostitutes that much anymore. What I want is much more specific, you know?

  Dave had seen everything in the twenty years he’d been in this business, so this didn’t actually surprise him. He’d found girls for customers in the past who didn’t even want to touch them or just wanted to cuddle, watch them in the shower, take them on a date once a month or pay for their university education. He’d had requests for blind girls, amputees, girls with little or no english, fat girls, spotty girls, girls who liked to act like toddlers.

  He nodded at Jared, and walked back to the rest of the men.

  ‘Gents, I hope my colleague here can help you decide what you want. Thanks for coming.’

  And that was it. Dave was about to leave. Jared cursed to himself, and was about to give up, then Dave had shouted back at him that he’d be in touch about that special girl he’s into. And with a wink, he was gone.

  Jared stayed for another half hour and then fell out into the cold morning air. He needed to get home to sober up, before he could write this report for the team, and pass his findings on to McCarthy.

  31

  Tony Briggs is throwing a lavish dinner party at his home in Kensington when McCarthy calls just before 7PM.

  McCarthy needs Tony to take a look at some photographs of Simon to see if he recognises him, and all of his staff at Haven need to do the same.

  Tony is happy to help and lets the detective know that he’ll contact him immediately if he, or anyone else at the club recognises Simon from the images.

  The results from Simon’s laptop and phone have also come back and so far, they haven’t revealed anything unusual. There is nothing that links him to Kate or Haven.

  His browsing history doesn’t have anything from Friday evening either and Simon’s phone records show he made one call at ten o clock to Lydia Stone, sent a few online messages to friends and his brother George. And that was it.

  McCarthy is disappointed and surprised in equal measure. He is sure that Simon is hiding something, and knows from experience that if someone has a dark secret, their web history is usually where that secret hides. If Simon was at Haven that night, surely, he would have brought his phone with him, thinks McCarthy.

  Then again, Kate hadn’t brought her phone out with her the night she went missing either.

  32

  Barbara and Lydia arrive home from the hospital.

  Lydia looks pale and fragile. She gets out of the passenger side and opens the large black gate that leads into their driveway as her mother slowly drives the car inside.

  She barely slept at the hospital and felt like every time she closed her eyes, Simon was going to somehow get into her room and do something to her. It was alarming how quickly she had gone from loving and trusting him, to totally believing he had done something to her sister and could hurt her too.

  The expression ‘pulling the rug from under your feet’ had come into Lydia’s mind so many times over the past couple of days.

  First, the images on Simon’s camera, then the necklace and fetish clothes found at his flat, and the fact that even a psychic, who couldn’t possibly know his name placed Simon at Haven the night Kate went missing.

  It was all so hard to believe.

  It had also crossed her mind that maybe Simon had pushed her the other day and that’s how she hit her head. Either way, Lydia is now officially terrified of him and the thought that he’s out there somewhere, possibly knowing where Kate is, torments her.

  She can’t bear to think that she was intimate with this monster and every time she thinks about him touching her, a wave of nausea comes over her.

  She has no choice but to block it from her mind.

  Lydia has no strength left, no energy to cry, fight, or try to figure any of this out. She just wants it to be over, and for Kate to be safe and home again.

  When Lydia goes upstairs to have a shower, Barbara stays in the hallway, crying and clutching a photograph of Kate.

  She’s been hiding her tears for the past few days, desperately trying to keep it together for Brian and Lydia.

  They are all struggling, and the two weeks that Kate had been gone have felt like two years.

  33

  While the rest of the city is getting settled down for the night, McCarthy is on his way down the high street in Hendon to grab a coffee.

  Julia from the office calls to say she’s found something on the CCTV footage from Haven, and after hearing what she has to say, McCarthy rushes back. The coffee can wait.

  Within five minutes, he’s looking at the screen himself.

  In black and white silent footage, he can see a male figure arrive at the club just before midnight on Friday 6th May, wearing a butterfly mask, identical to the one found in Simon’s flat, as well as a long black coat and chunky black boots.

  Julia skips forward to show McCarthy the same person leaving the club, just before 1AM. His facial features are clearer in this bit and Julia freezes the frame, zooms and sharpens.

&nbs
p; It’s clearly Simon, although most of his face is covered by the butterfly mask.

  McCarthy needs to get him back in for questioning as soon as possible. They need answers.

  But McCarthy worries that the image on CCTV isn’t enough to make an arrest, simply because it will not be considered a close enough match due to the mask obstructing a view of Simon’s face.

  They need him to talk.

  They need him to break.

  34

  The next day, Simon calls in sick to work and sits in his little kitchen with his head in his hands.

  He hasn’t been able to sleep or eat, and he feels unsafe, like his time is almost up and he must do something drastic to save himself from the circling wolves.

  He thinks about getting on a train to the west coast of Scotland and just disappearing for a while. But his mind goes to his family, especially his brother. George is only seventeen and it would kill him to say goodbye to him. Plus, running away might make him look even guiltier in his family’s eyes.

  On the other hand, if the police continue to investigate, Simon knows its only a matter of time before the truth starts to spill out and then he could lose everything, anyway.

  They would never look at him the same way if they knew the truth.

  The first time Simon went to Haven, he had been so scared, having seen their insane promo reels on YouTube and hearing the rumours about dungeons and gimp masks.

  He was literally shaking at the thought, but his friend, Lauren really wanted to go for her eighteenth birthday. And she was pretty persuasive.

  Lauren Cunningham had always been Simon’s ‘fun’ friend, the first person he got drunk or stoned with, the first girl he had seen naked when she decided to strip off and jump into Highgate ponds one summer evening.

  Her parents were the rich absent type and Lauren was left to her own devices most of the time.

  She was equal measures of child-like and wild because of it.

  Her mum and dad would do things like disappear for the weekend, leaving five hundred pounds on the kitchen table with a note telling Lauren to take her friends to dinner or the movies. It was actually really sad and Simon could see that she longed for more of a stable home life, and the kind of parents who cooked dinner, asked about school and had normal boundaries.

  Simon had been kind of obsessed with Lauren at junior school, and then one day, she just decided that he was her new best friend and she’d had enough of girly drama.

  She was funny, silly, full of energy and effortlessly beautiful, with long blonde hair and giant blue eyes. Lauren’s parents used to call her Lauren Bacall after the actress, but when Simon googled Lauren Bacall, he thought they were crazy. In his eyes, Lauren was the most beautiful girl in the world and far more beautiful than Lauren Bacall, or anyone else he had seen for that matter.

  She was also the first girl Simon ever kissed. When they were fourteen, they had spent the day hanging around together in Soho, and went back to Lauren’s house in Notting Hill afterwards, where she stole a bottle of vodka from her dad’s stash, took two large swigs and proceeded to make-out with him on her bed.

  Simon had never felt like that before, and was devastated when, a few minutes later, Lauren laughed and brushed off the kiss, telling him that they had to kiss, just once, to get rid of the sexual tension that would inevitably exist between them.

  Simon had laughed along, although he was secretly devastated that Lauren didn’t actually like him like that.

  But, the kiss gave him hope, too, and from that moment on, Simon would do anything Lauren asked him to do.

  No matter what time of the day or night, if she called or texted, he was there. He couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss, or help fantasising that they might end up together one day.

  So, when Lauren asked Simon to secretly go with her to Haven, he couldn’t help himself. Like every night they went out together, Simon thought this could be the night. They were drunk before they even got to the club, and Simon was worried that Lauren wouldn’t be allowed to go in if the doormen spotted how unsteady she was on her feet.

  But, she flashed them a big smile and she and Simon got in without a problem.

  A few minutes later, they were in the middle of the wildest party they could ever have imagined.

  Lauren disappeared to the toilets and Simon found himself walking around, mesmerised by every single person he saw. He was also relieved to see that there were obvious newbies like him around the place and guys who were a little self-conscious in their fetish wear.

  Simon was wearing tiny PVC shorts, lots of body paint, glitter on his chest, and black lipstick and eyeliner.

  Lauren had arranged it all and convinced him that if he didn’t dress properly, he would be turned away at the door.

  He had brought a jacket in his bag just in case, but with the alcohol buzz, dim lighting and the fact that everyone around was also dressed up, Simon actually felt totally liberated, and like he really belonged there.

  The theme that night was ‘Fantasy and Freaks’, and there were people wearing all kinds of incredible fetish costumes. He saw men in their forties and fifties on all fours with dog collars around their necks, being led around by their ‘masters’ for the night, and although lots of people seemed like they were pretty used to the scene, the vast majority weren’t taking themselves too seriously.

  He felt empowered and elated that he was able to be part of such a wild and brave event and found himself standing rather proudly in his PVC shorts.

  But the night ended quickly for Lauren, who, true to form, hooked up with a guy in less than an hour and asked Simon if he wanted to jump in a taxi with them. They were going back to her place.

  Simon couldn’t believe that Lauren had made such a huge deal of the night and then rushed off so quickly because she met some hot guy.

  He joked to her and her new friend that they could just stay and have sex in one of the play rooms upstairs, but they ignored him and staggered off towards the exit.

  Simon was used to this sort of thing happening with Lauren, used to the heart-sinking feeling he got every time she didn’t choose him, every time it seemed like she would rather sleep with any other boy on the planet, apart from him.

  But he also felt something else that night too, a strange relief that she was gone and he had free reign to enjoy himself.

  In the current fog of confusion and panic, Simon decides to send Lauren an email.

  He hasn’t seen or heard from her in about a year, and she seems to have disappeared from social media, too.

  Simon has a tablet that the police didn’t find and logs into his email account, sends Lauren a one-line email, asking how she is and if she’s heard about Kate’s disappearance.

  Then his phone rings. It’s the police.

  They tell him they’re on their way and need to take him down to the station immediately.

  Simon doesn’t argue. He hangs up, and calmly calls his lawyer.

  35

  Lydia is sitting at a wooden table in her back garden, listening to music with her headphones and eating a cheese and Marmite sandwich.

  She kicks Molly’s tennis ball to her and smiles at the little dog’s antics.

  Animals just know when something is wrong and Molly had been peeing inside and crying in the night ever since Kate went missing.

  Lydia feels a pang of guilt as she realises this is the first time she’s seen the dog playing in weeks and she turns the music off and throws the ball all the way down the garden, towards the shed at the bottom, clapping her hands in encouragement as Molly races for the ball and rolls it back up the lawn to her.

  Lydia rewards her with the end of the sandwich, a small piece of buttery crust and watches as Molly devours it, then barks excitedly for the ball game to continue.

  A text comes through from Simon.

  Just seeing his name on the screen makes Lydia’s heart race and her mouth becomes dry.

 
; ‘Lydia, I know I’m not supposed to contact you, but I just wanted to say that I won’t hide anything, anymore. I’m on my way to the police station again. I love you Lydia. And your family. I would never do anything to hurt you guys. No matter what happens, please believe that xx’

  She re-reads the words a few times until tears blur her vision. She wants to believe Simon, doesn’t want to think about him hiding things from her, lying, being obsessed with Kate, stealing things and God knows what else.

  How can one person be so many things at the same time? Geeky, thoughtful, affectionate, peaceful and also deceitful, secretive and perverted?

  Lydia calls Molly and goes back inside, locking the door behind her.

  36

  At the station, Simon agrees to speak to McCarthy without his lawyer present.

  He now knows that the CCTV footage from Haven proves he was there the same night as Kate and he knows his DNA might be found on the items of clothing they found at his flat, too. He can’t keep avoiding this.

  McCarthy hits RECORD and the interview commences.

  As before, Simon states his full name and address first, then McCarthy asks him to tell them what he was doing at Haven on the night of May 6th.

  Simon tries to stay calm, but his hands are shaking.

  ‘I’ve never told anyone about this side of my life. I went to Haven on Friday the 6th of May on my own. I swear. No-one knows that I dress like that sometimes and no-one knows I’m into the stuff that goes on at Haven. I didn’t tell anyone I was there that night because I need to keep this a secret. I had no idea I would see Kate and when I did, I freaked out and left before she could see me.’