When You're Gone

by Marguerite O'Callaghan

  Then, during the summer holidays she got a late-night phone call from Kate out of the blue and knew something was wrong.

  Kate was hysterical and told her that she had been seeing Mr Hayman secretly for a couple of months, but he was into some really weird things and when she tried to end it, he got very upset.

  Since then, he’d been contacting her relentlessly and was obviously very unstable.

  Lauren had urged Kate to tell her parents and get advice about what to do, but she said she was too scared it would affect her modelling career and if her parents thought she wasn’t safe, there was no way they would let her have the freedom she craved. They were already unsure about half the stuff she did and her dad was extremely uncomfortable with lots of the jobs she was taking.

  Plus, she had just turned seventeen and if it got out that she had slept with a man in his thirties and a teacher for that matter, there would be serious consequences, especially for him.

  She didn’t want to provoke him further and didn’t want her own reputation to be marred.

  ‘I just remember thinking that she sounded so... vulnerable. Kate thought she knew what she was doing. But she didn’t. She was in way over her head.’

  Simon is in shock. He knows they have to go to the police with this information and he has to tell Lydia as soon as possible.

  Whoever this guy is, he might know something about Kate.

  44

  Lydia sees a call come through from an unknown number and although it goes against her natural instinct, she decides to answer.

  The young woman’s voice on the other side is vaguely familiar but she can’t really follow what she’s saying.

  She’s still disorientated from last night, and finding it hard to think straight.

  ‘Lydia, it’s Lauren, Lauren Cunningham, we went to Keats together, but I was a year ahead? I was friends with your sister?’

  Lydia tries to focus. She remembers Lauren, although she doesn’t remember ever speaking to her directly. She was way too confident and cool to want to hang out with Lydia, although she and Simon used to be friends when they were younger, apparently.

  ‘Yeah, do you know something? Have you heard from Kate?’

  ‘I’m sorry if this is weird but I’m actually outside your house right now. I’d love to come in and talk if that’s okay? I’m with Simon.’

  Lydia’s heart sinks in her chest. She can’t believe this. Simon is obviously trying to trick her and using some girl who was friends with Kate to get to her.

  She peeks through the living room window and can see Lauren and Simon standing outside the front gates.

  She grips the receiver tightly.

  ‘If you know something, tell me now, Lauren. You don’t need to come in. Especially not with Simon. I don’t want to be anywhere near him.’

  Lauren turns to Simon and shakes her head.

  ‘That’s cool, Lydia. He just drove me here. Can I come in alone, please? I know something about Kate, about a secret man in her life.’

  Lydia finds herself rushing to the front door and scrambling to open it.

  She shouts out to Lauren, telling her to come in through the smaller gate at the side.

  Simon tells Lauren he’ll wait in the car and tries to get Lydia’s attention, but she looks the other way.

  Inside, Lauren fills Lydia in on everything she just told Simon and also the fact that she just found out about Kate last night, on her way back to London.

  She wants Lydia to know that if she’d heard sooner, she would have come forward.

  Lydia is silent and picks up her phone to call McCarthy

  He picks up on the third ring and she breathes a sigh of relief, then goes on to tell him that a friend of Kate’s has come forward with details about an older man - a teacher - that her sister was sleeping with.

  McCarthy and Davies are driving through Camden and tell Lydia they’ll be there in ten minutes.

  ‘Lauren, I think this will take a while and having Simon outside will just look weird with the police coming. Can you tell him to go? I’ll get you home safe or wherever you need to get to afterwards, okay?’

  Lauren smiles weakly and agrees, then goes outside to tell Simon what the plan is.

  He drives away, disappointed that Lydia still won’t speak to him, but glad the police are acting so quickly.

  He hopes that down the line, Lydia will see that it was his smart thinking to contact Lauren that brought this teacher affair to light.

  Lydia leaves a voicemail on her mum’s phone, saying that the police are coming over to have a quick chat about something she’s discovered about an ex-boyfriend of Kate’s.

  She doesn’t want her parents to panic when they arrive back to see the detective’s car outside.

  They’re doing a radio and television interview today, appealing to anyone who might know anything about where Kate is.

  45

  A short distance from the Stone’s house, Ida Hegarty is sitting with her cat, Angel, on her lap and listening to the radio.

  Barbara Stone’s desperate voice fills the room. It cracks and breaks as she begins to cry and the radio host repeats what she’s just said in a respectful and slow way, giving her a moment to compose herself:

  ‘Yes, Kate is eighteen years old and has her whole life ahead of her. If you know anything, please contact the police.’

  Barbara interrupts him to add that she and her family miss Kate so much and if someone has her, is keeping her anywhere, there’s still time to let her go.

  Ida’s eyes glaze over. She’s feeling a message coming through.

  Angel feels the energy shift too and jumps from her lap, onto a nearby coffee table.

  Ida leans back in her chair and lets her eyes close.

  She can see a woman in her sixties in a country kitchen.

  The woman is broken hearted, disturbed-looking and knows something about Kate, is connected to her in some way.

  The woman’s body is skeletal and she looks like she is starving. Her bony hands come together at the palms as she closes her eyes and prays to God to forgive her.

  Ida hasn’t had a spontaneous vision like this for a while and it is deeply disturbing.

  She usually has to focus and meditate in order to tune into the energy of a missing person and she wasn’t even trying to with Kate Stone.

  This is the side of the gift that she finds frustrating and the hardest to make peace with.

  What was the point of the universe sending her this information, this disturbing vision of a troubled woman, when she had no power to do anything to help anyone, and no idea who the woman might be?

  All she can do is hope that Lydia will come to see her again and then she can maybe find out who the woman in the vision is.

  46

  McCarthy and Davies listen intently as Lauren Cunningham tells them about Mr Hayman.

  Lydia expected the interview to take a lot longer, but after ten minutes they’re getting ready to leave.

  They need to speak to the school immediately.

  Before they go, Lydia asks McCarthy if she can have a quick word with him out in the hall. She needs to show him something.

  She runs upstairs and roots around in a drawer for the iPhone she found under Kate’s bed, then hurries back down and hands it to the detective.

  ‘I found this in Kate’s room ages ago, but there are some strange, kind of sexual selfies on there, of Kate and I thought it was better if no-one saw them. There are also texts from two guys. The dates could match the time she was involved with this teacher so I thought maybe you should know and could check out the numbers or whatever.’

  McCarthy takes the phone from Lydia and asks if there’s anything else she hasn’t told him.

  She looks embarrassed and wasn’t planning on telling him like this, but explains that she went to Haven last night because she wanted to see if she could find anyone who knew her sister.

  McCar
thy is actually impressed. He didn’t think she had it in her to do something like that.

  Lydia goes on to tell him that she hasn’t had the chance to tell anyone yet, but she met a man at Haven who saw Kate with some man on Friday 6th.

  He didn’t remember much, except for the fact that the man was dressed in black and wearing a white mask. The guy who saw them, Gustav, is willing to talk to the police too, Lydia explains.

  McCarthy waits as she finds Gustav’s number in her phone and then he jots it down in his notebook.

  ‘That’s it, Detective McCarthy. I swear. I’m sorry about the phone. I just didn’t want those pictures getting into the wrong hands. The things people are already saying about my sister, you know…’

  McCarthy gives her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, then calls out for Davies to follow him to the car.

  ‘Can you tell your parents I’ll call them later?’

  Within minutes, McCarthy and Davies are headed to Keats High School.

  McCarthy tells Davies to call ahead to let the principal know they’re coming. He has a feeling about this Hayman guy and needs to speak to him immediately to find out where he was on Friday 6th May.

  47

  Louisa Hume is a formidable woman, and everything you would expect the principal of an elite, private Hampstead school to be.

  She shakes McCarthy’s hand stiffly, looks Davies up and down, then tells them both to take a seat.

  McCarthy gets straight to the point, and tells her that they need anything she may have on file about a teacher with the surname ‘Hayman’ who taught English on a substitute basis at the school at the end of 2014.

  McCarthy doesn’t tell her what it’s in connection with, and when Louisa hesitates, he explains that it’s a very serious, sensitive matter, and if she can’t help today, he’ll have to apply for a warrant to access the school records.

  Louisa is on her feet in seconds, telling the detectives to wait in her office while she checks the records on the second floor.

  Five minutes later, she returns with a print-out of Matthew Hayman’s staff record, containing his date of birth, London address and social security number.

  ‘Anything else on this guy? Did he work here before or after these dates?’

  The form says he only did two weeks.

  ‘This was all we had on the computer and I don’t recognise his name or remember him, I’m afraid. We’ve seen many subs over the years here at Keats.’

  McCarthy motions to Davies that they’re leaving, and tells Louisa they’ll be in touch if they need anything else.

  With a raised eyebrow, and a dry, unsmiling mouth, she opens the door and wishes them good luck.

  Once they’re outside, McCarthy calls the station with the name and social security number for the team to run immediately.

  He stays on the line while someone does the search, and in less than a minute they have a home telephone number for Hayman that’s registered to an address in Norwich. There’s also a recent speeding fine showing in the system, also in Norwich.

  ‘Right, we’re headed to Liverpool Street. Train to Norwich won’t take more than an hour and a half, right? It’s be too long a drive.’

  McCarthy stays on the phone to let the team know what the plan is, and he mouths to Davies to start driving

  His partner nods enthusiastically in response.

  ‘Text me the address and numbers for this guy, will you? And everything else you get on him. We need to find him today. I need back up from local police there, too. We don’t know what we’re going to find.’

  48

  A thin wrinkled hand pours water from a kettle into a yellow chipped teapot.

  The hand belongs to a lady in her sixties with large brown eyes and a mouth full of false teeth.

  Her body is wasting away, and her mind has been lost for most of the last decade.

  She pours tea into a little cup and adds three spoonfuls of sugar, counting them aloud as she does so.

  Her hand shakes, so some of the sugar falls from the spoon on to the table. She curses at it, then takes a sip of tea, muttering something to herself as she stands up and crosses the room to pick up a black gym bag from the floor.

  She places the bag on the table, takes another sip of tea, and looks at it curiously, nodding to herself.

  She opens it, and pulls out a large hoody, a pair of dirty green socks, a phone charger and a bundle of papers.

  A photograph falls out when she looks through the papers, and the woman picks it up and stares at it blankly.

  Then, she shuffles over to the sofa where she sits down, and turns the television on via remote control.

  On screen, the news reader gives an update about Kate Stone, and shows a short video clip of Barbara’s appeal from that morning with the phone number for viewers to call if they have any information that might help.

  The woman takes another look at the photograph in her hand, and a tear rolls down her cheek.

  ‘What have you done?’ she whispers, before putting the photograph down, and bringing her palms together in silent prayer.

  49

  McCarthy and Davies are on board the 12.45 train to Norwich, and McCarthy is going through the iPhone that Lydia gave to him earlier.

  The photographs of Kate shock him a little, and he wonders who she took them for, and why she also thought to hide the phone.

  He types the address they found for Matthew Hayman into Google Maps and sees that it’s on a small victorian terrace, ten-minutes’ walk from Norwich city centre.

  It’s not really what McCarthy was expecting, and not the sort of house you could easily hold someone captive in without a neighbour noticing.

  The fear that Kate has already been murdered surfaces in McCarthy’s mind just as an email comes through from Julia at the office with images of Hayman.

  He’s well-built and pale, with dark eyes and dark hair. There’s also a link to a Facebook profile, and McCarthy looks through the public images and groups that Hayman belongs to.

  There are about fifteen images of him online and it all looks pretty normal to McCarthy. The most recent one is at a football match in Norwich with two male friends, and there are others of a fishing trip, and quite a few of sunsets or funny memes, but nothing out of the ordinary that McCarthy can spot.

  He takes out his notebook and dials Gustav’s number.

  They still need to have a formal interview with him, but a description of the man he saw with Kate on May 6th is enough for now.

  Gustav is expecting the call, and happy to help. He tells McCarthy what he told Lydia; he had met Kate a few times at the club, and she had always been alone. But, on Friday 6th of May, he saw her standing next to a tall man, with a white mask that obscured most of his face. He was also wearing a long black coat or cloak.

  Gustav also explains that the room they were in was pretty dark, especially where Kate and the man were standing, and he only glanced at them a few times.

  McCarthy asks for more information about the mask, and Gustav take a few moments to think, then says that the closest thing it resembled was the mask from ‘Phantom of the Opera’.

  McCarthy asks him to come by the station in Hendon to make a statement, and Gustav agrees.

  As soon as McCarthy hangs up, he calls the station back and tells Julia they need to go through the CCTV again, looking for Hayman based on the photos they now have.

  They also need to look for anyone going in or out of the club the night the Kate went missing who was wearing a white mask or a long black cloak.

  Davies looks on, as his partner becomes more and more animated. McCarthy feels like they are close to breaking this.

  50

  The frail lady is staring at the photograph of Kate Stone and shaking her head in disbelief.

  On the television screen is a paused frame of Barbara Stone’s troubled face, and the information hotline to call.

  She picks up the phone and s
lowly dials.

  After a few rings, a male voice answers.

  ‘I told you not to call this number.’

  She hesitates before responding, and her words come out in a mumbling stutter, as if her mouth is full of something.

  ‘I want to know what you’ve done with this girl Matthew. What have you done?’

  Her voice is raised now, and frantic.

  ‘I’m about to call the police.’

  She listens and nods as the man explains something to her.

  ‘You better not be lying to me, son. Not this time.’

  As the line goes dead, she stares back at the silent television screen, and lets the phone fall to her side.

  51

  When McCarthy and Davies arrive at Lindley Street, they know that back-up is less than five minutes away.

  Davies has never worked on a case as big as this, and looks genuinely terrified as they walk the short distance from the taxi to the front door of Matthew Hayman’s home.

  They ring the doorbell, and peer through the stained-glass window panels on the door, as they wait, hoping to spot any movement or light inside.

  There’s no answer. No movement. Nothing.

  Davies peeks in the window of the front room. The netting only comes up halfway, and he can see the place looks lived-in. There are healthy-looking plants on the shelves, and an open magazine on the coffee table.