How to Disappear

by Gillian McAllister

  Aidan offers drinks, exchanges pleasantries about the traffic, a fixed expression on his face. Internally, his mind is spinning. The Facebook group is growing. It is full of vile threats. Rape. Attacks. So much anger.

  They won’t be able to arrest them all. Friends of friends, disgruntled fans. They have used pseudonyms, aliases. It’s full of new accounts. Funny names. Goodbye Mr X. Dr NoGood. The police won’t know who they are.

  He is standing in the kitchen trying to remember everybody’s tea order. There are six mugs in front of him. Lauren’s, Zara’s. His own. Harry’s. And two police officers’. God, who wanted what? He can’t think straight. A lynch mob could be outside right now, turning the corner on to their street.

  He makes a range of teas. Some white, no sugar. One black. One with three sugars. He mumbles as he sets them down – white no sugar, white three sugars – and lets them choose.

  The living-room shutters are closed against the October weather. The lamps are on. Bill is in his bed in the corner of the room, snoozing. Lauren is holding a burgundy throw cushion to her chest, staring at the floor. Zara is pale. She is slumped down next to him, in the dead centre of the sofa, and looking up to gauge his expression. He wishes she wouldn’t. She looks to Lauren for most things, but she looks to him when she’s in real trouble. When she found horrible Instagram posts about herself when she was thirteen. When a whole site of builders started jeering at her from across the street. It was Aidan she turned to. It’s primal. She thinks he can sort it, her stepdad.

  He holds eye contact with her, and he’s sure something is communicated between them. Why did you lie? he asks.

  She drops her gaze.

  What does he want from her? Screaming regret. The kind of tearful apology he would get from Poppy. Panic. Wanting to put things right. He doesn’t quite know, but it isn’t this. Silence and the occasional insistence that she made the right choice.

  ‘First things first,’ a police officer called Nazir says. ‘We are aware of the group. Rest assured, we’re monitoring it.’ His hand hovers over the teas. Eventually, he chooses one, seemingly at random.

  Nazir has the group open on his phone. He clears his throat, then puts his phone away and leans his elbows on his knees, like he’s decided to just go off record.

  ‘Why? Why would they go on a crusade against her, these football fans?’ Aidan interrupts. ‘I’ve been thinking about it and … I don’t know why they would.’

  Lauren looks at him sharply, but he can’t help asking these people, the people who are supposed to know what’s going on. He takes a tea, his fourth of the day, even though he already feels jittery, his mouth bitter and furry.

  Luke was going to sign to the Premier League club on his seventeenth birthday. Aidan has been googling him. He’d left school at fourteen and joined Holloway FC as a scholar, playing for their under eighteens and under twenty-threes. Aidan watched a clip of a match, uploaded to YouTube by a zealous fan. He had a good touch.

  And now … no signing. He lost his fitness while on remand. And Holloway lost their future star striker in his crucial development phase. He might return to form, he might not. He might never reach his potential. The group is focused on this: the loss to the club. The loss of sponsors and money during the year when everybody thought their most high-profile scholar was guilty of murder, his teammate an accomplice. The media storm when the club publicly supported him. Until they stopped.

  Their anger makes sense on paper but something about it doesn’t sit right with Aidan. He doesn’t know a single football fan so committed to their club that they would try to harm a teenage girl. It goes beyond drunken post-match fighting.

  ‘Who knows?’ Nazir says. ‘Who knows what goes on in their minds.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘I was getting to that,’ Nazir says crisply to Aidan. His hair is gelled meticulously, almost strand by strand, pointing down to his forehead like a row of teeth.

  ‘The identities are unknown to us – in the group, but also who was responsible for the attempted attack in the car. And so far, the crime they would be convicted of, if we could find them, would attract a non-custodial sentence. So, in some ways, it may be better to watch and wait.’ There is a beat of silence, like somebody turned the world off for a second.

  ‘Do nothing?’ Aidan says, bewildered.

  ‘Do nothing,’ Nazir confirms, misreading Aidan’s tone. He’s young. No common sense.

  ‘Wait for them to kill her?’ Lauren says sharply, and Aidan winces as Zara stiffens next to him.

  ‘Until it dies down,’ Nazir says, ‘which I’m sure it will. Or until they make themselves known to us. What we can do is offer you police protection. Day and night. At the front of your house,’ he says. ‘Just in case they know where you live.’

  ‘Right,’ Aidan says faintly. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘It will ensure your safety,’ Nazir says.

  ‘Well, you’ve been a real help,’ Lauren says sarcastically.

  ‘When is the police watch starting?’ Aidan says, gesturing vaguely to the front of the house.

  ‘Right away,’ Nazir says. ‘I’ll make the call now. Next half-hour, latest.’

  Next to him, Zara shifts, leaning her body weight slightly against him. Aidan looks down at the bend of her knees in her lounge wear, the arches of her bare feet. They’re exactly like Lauren’s. Long, elegant toes.

  Something dark settles across his shoulders. He has to do something. Anything. If the police won’t, then it’s down to him.

  10

  Zara

  Islington, London

  Zara has hardly slept for the last week, and last night was the worst of all. It felt like she could hear every sound in London. The creaks of the house, the distant sirens and the shouts as people left the pubs on the high street. They all became menacing. The house creaking was a stranger’s feet on the stairs. The sirens were the police, desperately trying to catch up to the men who want to harm her. The shouts were the group. Twice, she got up to check the police presence. True to their word, the Met have installed a man in an unmarked car out the front. He sits there until seven in the morning, and then somebody else takes over. Zara hasn’t been to school.

  She dreamt last night – when she did sleep – that she had carried out her lie in court. That Luke and Mal were convicted. They’d all be better off. She dreamt, too, of what she could do to retaliate. What she might do.

  And now, Zara, her mother and Aidan are walking back from the cinema. It’s the late afternoon. Her mother said that they couldn’t sit inside all day, that they had to get on with life. It had been almost a week of confinement. And nothing happened when they left the house. Nothing happened when they turned on to the high street. Zara didn’t, as she imagined she might, feel a cold hand on the back of her neck in the cinema. It has been a perfectly normal afternoon. And now, Zara is looking forward to escaping back into To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before on the sofa with a cup of tea. A tame evening, but tame evenings are the best. Escapism is the answer.

  The lanes that spread off the high street are made amber by bright shopfronts preparing for Christmas. Zara’s breathing is steady. Her pace is slow. She is thinking about the film they saw, a silly action thing, the sort of film her school friends like. It was about bravery and strength. She is thinking, as she walks next to her mother and stepfather, that they will be okay. That they can face anything as long as they’re together.

  The policeman nods discreetly to them as they walk up their road, towards their house. The autumn leaves line each side of the street like they’ve been washed there by a tide they can’t see. Her mother is laughing at something Aidan said, but Zara isn’t listening.

  She puts her key in the lock. The house is in darkness, and she doesn’t hear Bill come to greet them. He must be sleeping.

  They step inside. The hallway is black. Zara flicks the light switch on and Aidan blinks. ‘Going to the cinema in the late afternoon alway
s makes me feel weird, especially when it gets dark so soon,’ he says, taking his trainers off.

  ‘I like the early dark nights,’ Zara says to him. ‘Cosy.’

  ‘I’m going straight in the bath,’ her mother says. She adores the bath.

  Zara pushes the door into the dark living room and stops dead.

  A man is standing on their patio, looking in, his face pressed to the glass. Zara’s mother reaches for the light switch.

  ‘Stop!’ Zara shouts to her. ‘Look …’

  He’s looking in, but that isn’t what chills Zara. It’s his face. He’s grinning. A triumphant, cruel grin. He meets her gaze and, with one white finger, points downwards. To Bill, who’s sitting by the patio doors, panting excitedly, tail wagging, smiling up at the intruder who he thinks is a friend but is an enemy.

  The man then brings his other hand out from behind his back. He is holding a long, silver knife. He brings it up to his throat, making a slitting motion, while staring at her.

  11

  Lauren

  Islington, London

  ‘Bill,’ Lauren cries.

  Zara reaches for the dog, but Lauren stops her, getting him herself. The man is running down their garden, a black figure barely visible in the darkness. Bill strains against Lauren’s grip on his collar, trying to get to the door, trying to see where he goes.

  ‘Get the fuck out,’ Lauren hisses. She grabs Zara as quickly as she can, not caring if she’s too rough, if she’s too frightening. She puts Bill’s lead on him. Lauren stares at the brick wall at the bottom of their garden. The man is nowhere to be seen. He could easily have leapt that wall, and now he’ll be gone for ever. Untraceable. Vanished.

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ Aidan says loudly, striding to the back door.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Lauren says. ‘He’s got a knife. Come on.’

  ‘So I’ll get a knife, too.’ Aidan turns towards the kitchen.

  God, he seriously means that. He starts going through their kitchen drawers. Opening the cutlery drawer, the one containing their best plates, the one with their utensils in. He’s procrastinating. He knows exactly where the knives are. Lauren is relieved to note in the chaos that this behaviour is for show.

  ‘Aidan.’

  He turns to look at her. For a moment, just a second, she doesn’t recognize him. He’s puffed up. Angry.

  ‘Come with me outside to the police,’ she says.

  ‘Fine.’ He slams one of the drawers closed. ‘Man,’ he says, rubbing a hand across his beard. His expression changes, dropping back to normal. He comes towards her, shoulders slumped.

  She grabs his arm and leads him back out into the hallway, to Zara. As they reach the front door, where they stood happily just moments ago, they exchange a glance. Lauren isn’t sure what it holds. Only that it is loaded. She will remember this glance, she is thinking, as their eyes meet and part.

  They emerge on to the street, which looks exactly the same as it did two minutes ago. Cold, quiet. Unassuming.

  Lauren stares at it. Everything is different.

  They walk as quickly as they can to the police car, Aidan slightly ahead.

  ‘There’s a man in the fucking back garden with a knife,’ he says as soon as he reaches the car.

  The police officer startles, winding down his window.

  ‘You’re supposed to be watching the house,’ Aidan shouts.

  The officer is out of the car like a shot. Running towards their house. He starts speaking into his radio.

  Aidan tries to run after him, and Lauren pulls him back by his arm again. ‘Leave them to it,’ she says.

  Bill is sitting, oblivious, and Zara is rhythmically stroking his head, staring into the distance, shivering slightly. Her eyes are wet. Lauren wants to cover her eyes and ears, out here in the freezing cold, hiding from enemies they barely know they have.

  She stands next to the unmarked car and pulls Zara to her. She begins to cry into her coat. Aidan stands rhythmically kicking the kerb with the toe of his trainer. The sound thuds like a heartbeat in the night.

  Lauren cries, too, on to the top of Zara’s head, trying as hard as she can to stifle her tears. This is it, she is thinking. They’re never going to get away. They’re never going to go back to normal. This is it.

  Nazir is back. He’s in plain clothes – off duty, maybe. Lauren wonders what he was doing, as she rests her hand on Zara’s still-trembling leg. Was he out with his wife? Cooking?

  They didn’t catch the man. Of course they didn’t, Lauren thinks bitterly. He ran off down their back garden and over the wall.

  ‘There have been two incidents inside a week,’ Aidan says, and Lauren’s glad he has spoken up for them.

  Nazir is clearly waiting to talk. He is holding a white envelope. He keeps touching the long edge of it to their coffee table, but Aidan keeps going. ‘I mean, it’s time to talk about arrests, isn’t it? Surely? Zara got a good look at his face,’ he says, looking sideways at Zara, who nods.

  ‘I did,’ she says. ‘And he did a motion – across his throat. A clear threat. And they know where we live. They know my name and where we live.’ She leans forward, folding in on herself. Her teeth are gritted, and Lauren can see she is trying not to cry.

  ‘I know. Look, we are searching for him.’ Nazir rubs at his goatee.

  Lauren raises her eyes to the ceiling and breathes deeply. She can’t bear this. She cannot bear any of it.

  ‘But, first, I need to give you this,’ Nazir continues.

  ‘What is it?’ Aidan says, taking the envelope.

  Nazir waits a beat. ‘Do you know what an Osman warning is?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ Lauren says. She looks at Aidan, who has an unreadable expression on his face.

  ‘I do,’ he says. He slits open the envelope. ‘Is this a joke?’ He passes the papers to Lauren.

  She looks at them, but can’t take them in. ‘What is it? What is it?’ she says. ‘What am I reading?’

  When Aidan looks at her, his eyes are red-rimmed, as though he’s been crying for hours without her having noticed. ‘It’s a notice … of threat to life,’ he says.

  Nazir takes over. ‘It means your lives are under threat,’ he says. ‘Yes. These two attempts, given the weapon, we believe that … if given the opportunity, Zara would be seriously injured or worse.’

  ‘Right,’ Lauren says, her mouth completely dry, like she has just woken up with a hangover. ‘So …’

  ‘Given the anonymous nature of the group, and the careful way they haven’t yet committed an offence that would definitely attract a custodial –’

  ‘Apart from murder,’ Zara says.

  Lauren looks at her in surprise.

  ‘They were defending themselves,’ Nazir says. ‘Against Jamie.’

  Zara laughs – a hard, bitter, adult laugh – and Lauren winces.

  ‘If you find him, what will you charge him with?’ Lauren asks.

  Nazir looks awkward, his eyebrows going up, his gaze down. ‘It would be, basically, trespass,’ he says. ‘Maybe possession for the knife, if we could find it.’

  ‘Not attempted murder.’

  ‘He hasn’t made an attempt.’

  ‘But you have a piece of paper –’ Aidan reaches for it again and puts it in front of Nazir on the table, ‘– that says, given the opportunity, he will. I mean, he had a fucking knife, Nazir. Are we not on the same side here?’

  ‘We in the police,’ Nazir says loudly, ‘are of the opinion that this group want to seriously harm Zara. But we can’t prove that in court. The police and the CPS do not always agree.’

  ‘Great,’ Aidan says. ‘Fucking great. So … what? We’re under threat. You can’t charge them with anything but trespassing. Carrying a knife at a push. We all know they want to kill us. So, what are you going to do? What. Are. You. Going. To. Do?’ He bangs his mug down on the table.

  Lauren winces. He’s had about eighteen teas today. It makes him rude and hyped up, though today she is t
hankful for that.

  ‘We are proposing a solution.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ Aidan says.

  ‘Based on that … on that disconnect,’ Nazir says, his hands a few inches apart. ‘Between what we think and what we can prove.’

  ‘What is it?’ Lauren says, unable to take the tension any longer.

  ‘I am going to recommend that protection is offered.’

  ‘Protection?’ Aidan says.

  Nazir’s eyes meet his levelly in their living room. ‘Witness protection,’ he says.

  Lauren’s entire body fizzes, then freezes, every inch of her skin covered in goosebumps.

  Witness protection.

  Lauren has never really thought about witness protection, and yet here it is, being presented to her as the only solution to a seemingly impossible situation. She stares at Nazir. ‘A new … a new name? A new location?’ she says. ‘That?’

  He nods. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in.’

  ‘We can’t –’ Lauren says, but then she tries to think. Don’t get hysterical. Not in front of Zara. She’s done that enough lately. She tries to quell the rising panic. They can’t move away. They can’t leave their lives. Not because of these youths, these thugs, these fucking teenagers.

  ‘I –’ she says.

  ‘Is there any other option?’ Aidan says, quietly.

  Nazir looks at each of them in turn, then speaks. ‘No,’ he says. ‘We think that – if you stay here – they will harm you.’

  It begins to rain outside, little patters against the windows. Lauren can only hear them because the room is completely silent.

  ‘It’s protection or our family gets harmed?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  Her head drops. All of the fight has gone out of her, like she is doomed, hunted. Like she is already, here in her living room, a condemned woman.

  12

  Zara

  Islington, London

  Zara sits at the centre of the sofa and the centre of the universe, it feels like to her. Everybody is looking at her. Her lie has grown from a single sentence, uttered to two police officers in a shabby room, to this. Weekend meetings of police and lawyers. Witness statements. Conspiracies. Going into hiding.