When You're Gone

by Marguerite O'Callaghan

  A few minutes into the act, Emma spots a table that’s a bit closer to the stage, hurries to grab it for the group and soon, Lydia is able to take a seat.

  She looks around to see if anyone else recognises her, and smiles at a few people, but no-one seems to actually know her and she assumes that means they don’t know Kate, either.

  Lydia had hoped she would meet lots of people who thought she was her sister tonight and find out more about who Kate knew from the club.

  But so far, she had just seen some disturbing stuff in the play room and made out with a woman.

  The lights suddenly get brighter as the latex duo leave the stage.

  There’s a loud drum-roll as they dim once more and Yukio appears on the balcony above their heads, flooded in orange light.

  The MC announces her name and the crowd applaud and cheer enthusiastically.

  Lydia looks around to see more and more people trying to get close to the stage and those that have been in other parts of the club, suddenly appear.

  Yukio is obviously very well-known and extremely popular.

  She looks incredible in a red, backless latex dress that trails along the floor as she walks.

  On her head is an extravagant head-piece of red flowers and her black hair falls down her back in thick plaits.

  Lydia knew that Yukio had some tattoos on her arms, but she had no idea she had this many. Her entire back is covered with dragons, flowers and skulls and the dress shows them off beautifully.

  Lydia thinks back to the day, not too long ago, when she met Yukio for the first time at London Bridge.

  She had been so gentle, softly spoken, the last person you’d expect to be doing this.

  As she makes her way down the steps from the gallery to the stage, oriental electro music plays loudly and the crowd gets louder.

  When she gets to the stage, Yukio opens a large wooden chest and the cheers get louder still.

  Lydia still has no idea what the act is going to be. She had assumed Yukio was some sort of dancer.

  She watches as her new friend pulls out a visor and makes a point of showing it to the cheering crowd before putting it on.

  Everyone seems to know what’s happening, except Lydia.

  Then, Yukio picks up some sort of gun, points it into the air above the crowd and starts shooting.

  She roars and snarls as flames fly out of the gun, travel a few feet into the air, then transform into hundreds of bright sparks that cascade down around the ecstatic fans.

  Some sparks are extinguished only a couple of feet from people’s faces and at one point, Lydia can actually feel her eyelashes curling in the heat. She can’t believe they’re allowed to do a fire show inside a building full of people. It’s dangerous, exciting and extremely entertaining.

  Yukio suddenly takes her visor off and grabs the mic from the stand behind her.

  ‘Fire hazard!’ she shouts, squealing with delight.

  The crowd cheers again.

  ‘Fire is SEXY!’ Yukio roars at them.

  Her face is contorted now, almost like a wild animal or as though she’s possessed.

  Lydia guesses that her cute girly personality doesn’t really suit the fire act, and instead, she needs to be fierce and hard.

  Lydia is clapping along with everyone else and smiling so hard, her face actually hurts.

  She can’t imagine what Yukio is going to do next and watches in awe as she takes out two long sticks and holds them up for the crowd to see. Then, she sets them alight, leans her head back, opens her mouth and extinguishes the flames in her throat.

  Lydia can barely watch, but the act goes on like this for another ten to fifteen minutes and by the time Yukio disappears back upstairs to the roar of applause, the entire stage area is full of smoke.

  Yukio comes to join them a few minutes later with two bottles of champagne. But, after a few minutes it seems obvious that there are too many fans in the main room. She’s being bombarded with people asking for hugs and autographs or telling her how much they love her.

  Lydia can’t believe she’s such a big star.

  They move upstairs to the VIP area where it’s quieter and a hostess leads them to a large table near the dance floor.

  Lydia spots the cage dancer who waved at her earlier sitting at a table near them with a few other people and decides to go over and introduce herself.

  ‘You waved at me earlier and I wondered if you knew my sister, Kate? We’re twins.’

  The girl nods and looks quite solemn as she shakes Lydia’s hand.

  ‘I’m Luci. Hi. I thought you were Kate at first, and then I remembered she was missing. I’m so sorry to hear about that. It’s so weird.’

  Lydia is relieved that someone finally knows Kate and asks if she knows anything that might help.

  But, Luci says she really only knew Kate from a modelling job they did together a year ago in Paris.

  Her own career didn’t take off like Kate’s had and the job in Paris was actually the last modelling gig she’d had.

  Since then, she’s been doing stuff like her job tonight, club appearances, dancing or hostessing.

  She’d seen Kate out at other clubs before, but never here at Haven and she had no idea who she might have been with on the night she went missing, either.

  Lydia struggles to hide her disappointment, thanks Luci and asks her to find her on Facebook if she remembers anything or meets anyone that might know something.

  As she makes her way back to her own group, Lydia sees two men she recognises from the play room sitting in a booth and decides that there’s no harm in speaking to them too.

  She takes a deep breath and goes to introduce herself.

  They seem like nice guys and have heard about Kate’s disappearance, but neither of them know her or were there on Friday 6th.

  Lydia asks if they know anyone who was there that night and they tell her about a guy called Gustav who’s in the play room tonight.

  They believe Gustav was there on Friday 6th.

  Lydia tells Yukio and the others that she’ll be back in a few minutes and makes her way to the play room, determined to find out something about her sister before she leaves.

  Back inside, Lydia asks the first person she sees - a voluptuous blonde lady - if she knows who Gustav is and the lady gives her a knowing smile and points him out.

  Gustav is hard to miss, standing at about six-foot-two with a shaved head, huge muscular shoulders and an outfit that makes him look like a gladiator from ancient Rome.

  Lydia is scared just looking at Gustav and she watches as he gags and binds a woman, then hits her on the back with some sort of cane, but she moves towards the front of the crowd and tries to make herself visible to him, hoping that when he’s finished what he’s doing, she can speak to him.

  Sure enough, after about ten minutes he finishes with the woman, but walks straight out a staff door at the back of the play room.

  Lydia’s heart sinks and she scolds herself for not making more of an effort.

  She’s thinking about following him, when she feels someone tap her lightly on the arm.

  ‘You look like you might be interested in having a turn this evening. What are you in the mood for?’

  Lydia is flustered and can barely get her words out in the correct order.

  ‘Gustav? Hi. Yes. I wanted to talk to you about my twin sister Kate, actually. Do you know her?’

  Gustav looks confused and asks again if she wants to try something with him.

  He doesn’t seem to be getting it.

  ‘Do you recognise me? You’ve seen me before, right?’

  Lydia tells him about her sister, but Gustav claims he hasn’t even heard about Kate’s disappearance until now and although Lydia finds it hard to believe, she gives him the benefit of the doubt.

  There’s something honest about Gustav. Something in his eyes.

  He says he’s a little freaked out by the f
act that Lydia looks so much like Kate and Lydia wonders how well he knows her sister.

  He tells her that he was right here on Friday 6th and Kate came in at around midnight or something like that.

  He saw her a few times on her own, just watching from the crowd and then a while later, probably at 3AM when it was pretty quiet in the play room, she was with a man.

  Lydia cannot believe she’s hearing this and asks if he’s one hundred percent sure it was Friday 6th and it was definitely Kate he saw.

  Gustav nods confidently and says that Kate and the man were at the back of the room when he saw them and the man was wearing a white mask, was dressed in black, and possibly had a cloak or long coat on.

  He recalls Kate had a smaller mask that was briefly wearing it in her hair at one point so he could see her face.

  Lydia begs him to try to remember anything else he saw, but Gustav shakes his head and tells her that’s all he knows.

  ‘Gustav, this information has to go to the police, okay? I know it’s a small detail but you are the only one who remembers anything about who Kate may have been with that night.’

  Lydia discreetly takes her phone out and asks Gustav for his number. He gives it without question, nods and smiles, before walking towards a group of women waiting for him on the other side of the room.

  Lydia goes back to the others in the VIP section and tells the gang that she has to go. She’s exhausted and it’s really late.

  She hugs each of her new friends, tells Yukio she’ll call her tomorrow and thanks everyone for an awesome night.

  Naomi tells her that Sam at the front door will show her to a taxi, and they’re usually lined up, right outside.

  As Lydia waits for her coat and bag at the cloakroom, a pair of eyes remain fixed on her.

  It’s Jared Cooper.

  He spotted her earlier, dancing with her friends and almost had a heart-attack.

  He’s had a photograph of Kate Stone pinned to the wall in his office for weeks and for a moment he thought he had found her.

  Jared can’t believe how identical the girls are.

  He hadn’t met Lydia and heard she was the quiet, shy sister, but the girl he saw on the dance floor tonight was certainly not shy.

  In fact, it looked like she well and truly belonged at Haven.

  42

  At home, Lydia creeps in the front door and up the stairs, trying to avoid the creaky steps.

  Her ears are still ringing from the music and she feels pretty drunk.

  Tonight has been the strangest, most exciting night of her life and it will take some time for everything to sink in: kissing Belle, meeting Gustav, witnessing all that S&M stuff. Nevermind the fact that her new friend was a fire-eating, latex-loving fetish celebrity.

  She makes it to her bedroom on the second floor, throws her coat down on the bed and looks at herself in the full-length mirror, thinking that if she took a snapshot of herself right this second, she would only see her sister.

  The thought makes Lydia shiver and her mind flashes to the moment on the balcony at Haven when she thought she saw herself in a mirror.

  She takes her shoes off and kicks them under the bed, walks to the ensuite, opens the shower door and leans in to press the power button to ‘ON’.

  She unties her dress at the neck and watches with amusement as the ropes fall to the ground and land in a heap at her feet.

  When she can feel the shower is hot enough, Lydia gets in, closes the door behind her and allows the hot water to wash the day away and all of the strangeness she’s encountered.

  Lydia could spend hours in the shower if she had her way. She finds it so hypnotic and calming.

  The events of the night drift through her mind, but she tries not to dwell on anything too much. After a sleep, things will, hopefully be clearer and she can tell Detective McCarthy what Gustav had seen.

  She will just have to find a way to explain to her parents how she ended up at Haven.

  Lydia steps out of the shower and is relieved to see her make-up free face looking back at her from the mirror.

  She feels like herself again and hums as she towel-dries her hair, not being able to risk the hair dryer at this time, in case her parents wake.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye Lydia sees something reflected in the mirror that makes her freeze with fear.

  A figure standing in her darkened bedroom.

  She feels like her heart has actually stopped beating and she can’t breathe.

  She tells herself to count to three, closes her eyes on an inhale, holds her breath for a few seconds, then opens her eyes as she exhales and slowly turns around.

  Whatever was there is gone.

  She forces herself to walk into the room and turn the main light on.

  ‘Oh my God, I’m going insane.’ she whispers to herself.

  She contemplates going to her parents but doesn’t want to make things worse or for them to worry that she’s going mad.

  Instead, she quickly pulls on a long-sleeved t-shirt and some leggings, ties her hair up in a fresh towel and climbs into bed.

  Once she’s under the covers, Lydia starts to cry.

  The figure she saw just now by the window had the same outline as her sister and earlier in the club, she thought she saw herself in the mirror on the balcony, but maybe that was Kate trying to contact her.

  Lydia wonders if she is being haunted by her own sister and did that mean that Kate was dead?

  She’s never heard of someone being haunted by a living person.

  Then, she thinks that maybe Kate is trying to contact her because she’s the only one who can find her.

  It takes Lydia almost an hour to fall asleep, but she’s too scared to take the anti-anxiety meds on top of all the alcohol she has drunk.

  43

  It’s only just after 8AM when Lauren Cunningham calls Simon from the taxi to let him know she’s on her way to his flat.

  She sounds exactly the same to him, with the same slightly too-loud, husky voice and an extremely dry sense of humour.

  There was a time when Lauren coming to his house would have made Simon rush around to make the place look nice, but he’s too exhausted and emotionally drained to be able to do anything beyond taking a shower.

  When he’s dressed, he puts the kettle on and sends Lydia another message. He needs her to know that the police have released him and he misses her and wants to see her.

  It’s only been a couple of days, but not being able to speak to Lydia has been driving him crazy. The way things ended between them wasn’t right and he longs to be there for her until they figure out what’s happened to Kate.

  He texts:

  ‘Lyds, I just wanted to say hi. The police let me go home after a couple of hours. Obviously they found nothing to worry about on my computer or phone. I miss you so, so much, and I love you, Lyds. Please can we talk? I want to explain a few things to you face to face. X’

  A few seconds after pressing send, the buzzer goes and Simon opens the door to an exhausted-looking Lauren.

  She’s still gorgeous, with the same beautiful smile and dimples that Simon used to love.

  The pair spend a few moments smiling at one another and hugging.

  Lauren is the first person to touch him in days, and Simon holds her a little too tightly.

  She looks concerned, asks what’s been going on and Simon fills her in about Kate, the fact that they found weird photos on his camera and then discovered he’d been at the club the same night she went missing.

  Lauren is just about the only person he can explain things to. She knows he went to Haven every once in a while.

  Simon tells her that Lydia has dumped him, probably thinks he’s a freak and the police think he has something to do with Kate’s disappearance.

  Lauren listens intently and when Simon is done she gives him another hug.

  ‘My darling Simon. I believe you one hundred percen
t. I’m just glad I was able to get back in time and be here for you. It’s such a mad coincidence that you emailed and I just literally had email access for the first time in almost a month. I know something and I think the police need to know too.’

  She tells Simon that a couple of years ago, when she was in year twelve and the Stone twins were in year eleven, she had a substitute English teacher for a week or two called Mr Hayman.

  One Friday, she and Kate started chatting to him after school and it quickly turned into very suggestive and flirtatious talk.

  Lauren says she had no idea what came over them and it was like she and Kate were seeing who could shock Mr Hayman the most, or something.

  ‘You know what I’m like, and Kate isn’t much better. She likes to shock and seduce guys. She can have anyone she wants and I think we were getting competitive about this guy and a bit jealous of one another.’

  Lauren continues to tell him that she was driving to her parents Notting Hill house that day and when Mr Hayman said he lived nearby in Holland Park, she insisted he travel with her.

  Kate had looked defeated, but Lauren asked her to join too, and from that point on the day got more and more out of control.

  The three of them got drunk and both girls made out with Mr Hayman and Kate ended up actually having sex with him.

  She went home really late that night and got into trouble with her parents and she and Lauren had sworn never to tell anyone about what happened.

  After that, Mr Hayman taught Lauren’s class for a few more lessons and seemed genuinely embarrassed and shocked about what happened. But Kate just laughed about it and made Lauren swear she would never tell a soul.

  A couple of weeks later, Lauren was out of school with glandular fever and by the time she recovered, the school year was nearly over.