How to Disappear

by Gillian McAllister

  As they turn to leave, a tall man, not unlike the one outside her school, emerges from behind a statue, then walks away, too. For just a second, Poppy is sure he has been eavesdropping.

  29

  Aidan

  Shepherd’s Bush, London

  One week gone

  Aidan hears the noise of the Telegram app while he is brushing his teeth. The burner phone is on the side of the sink. It keeps sliding slowly off the ceramic, but he doesn’t want to be parted from it, in case she rings, in case she needs him.

  The message is from somebody who calls himself Dr NoGood. His profile photo is a man in a balaclava.

  How’re the scrapers going @James Thomas? he’s written.

  All up and running, Aidan lies. He scrolls up. There’s a little notification in the group.

  Goodbye Mr X has left the group, it says, at 4.00 a.m.

  Aidan stares at it, then navigates to his profile on Telegram. It’s blank. Why would he leave? Could he ask?

  Kevin has answered him in the group. Great – we know the mother is a nursery worker.

  Aidan types back. Where has Goodbye Mr X gone? he says.

  Aidan sits on the side of the bath, waiting, his toes in the soft bath mat. The windowsill is littered with Lauren’s old bathtime candles. Winter spice. Walk in the Woods. Home Baking. He reaches out to touch one of them, lifting it to his nose to smell.

  He wasn’t in line with the ethos of the group, Kevin writes after a few moments. Wasn’t willing to go the whole hog. Promised things he didn’t deliver.

  Sorry to hear that, Aidan writes. He thinks, his brain whirring.

  Hopefully the arm teaches him a lesson.

  The arm? Aidan asks.

  He’s got a bit of a bad arm now ;-).

  Aidan’s heart is in his feet. Concentrate. Don’t get frightened.

  Okay, Aidan writes. Well, I’ll start pulling all newly hired nursery nurses off the internet for you to review.

  Shit. He tries to rationalize his thoughts, still sitting on the side of the bath. Lauren used to sit in this exact spot while the bath ran.

  Another message appears on the Telegram group from Brian.

  Making a list of Zara’s acquaintances. Got a mind map going. Can your scrapers monitor them to see if she gets in touch with anybody left behind? Also, both the mother and Girl A were members of a load of golden retriever Facebook groups, so can you comb those too for new likes?

  Sure, Aidan lies.

  I’ve got all my friends looking. Friends of friends. Been circulating her photo. We have Omar reviewing CCTV too – some CCTV has facial recognition. We’ll get there. My boy deserves the best efforts. Who agrees?? Brian writes. Then adds: We were going to be rich.

  Aidan stares at the phone. So that’s what it’s about. Money. No wonder. No wonder he is intent on justice. He feels he has nothing left to lose. He’s hard because he is at rock bottom.

  Three people reply positively.

  Anyone else?

  Definitely, Aidan writes. Girl A deserves to pay.

  Jesus. He can’t take knowing this. That they’re closing in. That they’re violent. But it’s worth it. This heartache, this hyper-vigilance. This collecting of information. All this thinking. To keep them safe.

  His family.

  The next morning, his phone rings with a withheld number. He immediately thinks of Kevin, of mysterious injuries, people whipped into line.

  He answers, and is surprised to find Lottie the police officer on the end of the line.

  ‘I wanted to update you and see how you’re getting on,’ she says. ‘Check you’re being sensible.’

  Aidan can’t help but smile at that.

  ‘As you know, the Facebook group has been made private. So we’ve lost our eye through the spyhole,’ she says.

  Aidan pauses for just a second. ‘They’ve taken it on to Telegram,’ he says.

  Lottie pauses – shocked, Aidan guesses. ‘Right.’ He can hear a smile in her voice.

  ‘So I’ve joined it,’ he adds.

  ‘I see,’ Lottie says, but Aidan hears: I see who I am dealing with here. She exhales slowly. A staticky noise fills the line. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I don’t have to tell you how risky that is.’

  ‘You don’t. But won’t it be useful?’

  ‘Yes …’ Lottie pauses. ‘Yes, it will.’

  ‘Right, do you need to go and report this now? Fill in a risk assessment form?’ Aidan says.

  ‘No,’ Lottie says, but she says it thoughtfully. ‘You know, Aidan, there are people here who would do that, one hundred per cent,’ she says. ‘You’re not wrong. But I’m not one of them.’

  ‘Why?’

  He imagines her shrugging and thinking. She’s closer to Poppy’s age than his. He’s surprised she didn’t say hundy-p.

  ‘I believe in a different way of policing,’ she says eventually.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, without elaborating.

  ‘What would you do? In my shoes?’

  Lottie pauses again, and Aidan waits. ‘I would do what you’re doing,’ she says finally. ‘Because of my twins.’

  ‘Would you have – before?’

  ‘I don’t remember what my brain was like before them,’ she says honestly, which Aidan appreciates.

  Parenthood changes you so completely. Aidan can’t remember what he even used to do. ‘Good. If you went after Brian – the leader – now, what would you charge him with?’

  Lottie utters a thoughtful mmm. ‘Maybe something under malicious communications,’ she says.

  ‘What would you need in order to arrest them for more?’

  Lottie is silent. Aidan waits.

  ‘Not for this homeless person stuff,’ she says.

  ‘No,’ Aidan says, knowing whatever Zara knows is a lost cause.

  ‘If you wanted – hypothetically – for them to be arrested and convicted, you’re looking for the offence of conspiracy,’ Lottie says eventually, her voice low. ‘Two or more people agreeing to carry out a crime. Their crime being, by the sounds of it, murder or grievous bodily harm.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘They would need to have reached an agreement to commit that offence. And you would need to have evidence of that. Together with their identities.’

  Would. Those woulds. Making something real sound hypothetical. She could never advise him to do that. Become an informant. A spy.

  ‘Somebody intimated that they injured somebody else in the group who wasn’t complying,’ Aidan says.

  ‘Who?’

  Aidan thinks of the message he sent, asking where Goodbye Mr X went. He can’t send the police round now. He just can’t. They’d know there was a mole in the group. ‘I … I can’t say,’ he says. He can only double-cross them once. When absolutely everything is lined up for them to get arrested and go to prison.

  Lottie is silent in response. ‘Okay,’ she says, with a sigh. ‘Yes, I see. Right,’ she says. ‘You’ll continue to monitor the Telegram group for evidence of conspiracy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Talk of weapons, dates, and so on. Firm plans.’

  ‘Okay,’ he says.

  ‘Send everything you have to me.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘And I’ll be ready to act, here, when you have enough.’

  ‘Will you have to disclose it to someone there?’ he says.

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ she says.

  The weight on his chest is lifted by her tacit agreement to help him. There’s two of them now. The burden is shared. Their own conspiracy.

  ‘What if I got them to meet in one place? Like a sort of … I don’t know. A formal strategy meeting. And I made sure they would have their burner phones there, with all the evidence on them.’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Would that be enough? For you to arrest them for conspiracy?’

  ‘Yes. If they had the phones with the Telegram app on them,’ she confirms.

  Ai
dan’s heart seems to sing. His Gen-Z police officer, on his side, willing to break the rules and let him infiltrate encrypted groups. ‘Okay,’ he says, thinking. He’s sure he can engineer that. He thinks, next, of the scrapers. Of his wife and stepchild, vulnerable, waiting to be found. He needs to end this. And soon. He’s running out of time. ‘If I get you a date of that meeting, would that be … would you act on that information? Would you be there?’

  ‘If you have a date and time where you know they will be … we can arrange ourselves for then, too.’

  ‘Thank you. Will you … will it just be you?’

  ‘It’s in hand here. You don’t need to worry. I’ll alert the team when the time is right.’

  ‘I’ll suggest a few weeks’ time,’ Aidan says. That’ll be enough time to collect the evidence, but not enough time for them to find Lauren and Zara. He hopes. ‘Before Christmas? Maybe?’

  ‘Okay then,’ Lottie says. ‘Let me know when you’ve set the meeting up. And when you feel able, do send us what you have.’

  Aidan thanks her before hanging up, feeling hopeful for the first time in weeks.

  Buzzing, he opens up the message thread to Mal.

  Don’t you want to #FindGirlA? Aidan writes, then closes it.

  He will see what Mal says to that. Next, Aidan opens the Telegram app and scrolls up. He will just screenshot everything. His fingers are poised to do it, but then he stops. His cheeks heat up and he races over to his computer. Of course, of course, he thinks, as he googles Telegram app screenshots.

  Telegram monitors screenshots depending on the settings of the group. If the group is set to secret, it will prohibit screenshots or tell the members of the group that a user has taken a screenshot (and name the user).

  Aidan puffs air into his cheeks. He has dodged a bullet. Sweat blooms across his forehead.

  He gets his usual phone out and begins taking photographs of the screen of his burner phone. He sends them to the burner phone and saves them in a file called ‘evidence’.

  30

  Zara

  Millfield School, the Lake District

  One week gone

  Zara’s smile is fixed as Phoebe takes the selfie. She tries to make it seem more natural, to smile how Poppy does, both rows of teeth on show, but she looks ridiculous, rigid, instead. Despite her brush-off, Phoebe has latched firmly on. Zara is glad of it, in a way. It’s nice to have an ally, even a fake one.

  They are on their way back from school. Nothing special, but her mind is racing. It always is. She checks the witness protection list of rules every morning and still she can’t remember them all. No, that’s not quite true. It isn’t that she can’t remember them. It is that she requires clarity. What does ‘no contact with anyone with whom you were previously affiliated’ really mean? What is contact? Is looking at a photograph okay? And what does ‘you must strictly adhere to the background information provided to you regarding your identity’ mean? A girl called Sienna from Bristol is a different person to Zara from London. She just is.

  ‘Am tagging you,’ Phoebe says. She shows the phone to Zara as she types Sienna Smith into the search bar.

  ‘That one,’ Zara says, pointing to the third name down. SiennaSmith99.

  ‘Your initials are SS,’ Phoebe says, with a dimpled smile. ‘How cool.’

  So they are, thinks Zara, for the first time. And then she thinks. And thinks again. Social media, but no selfies. It’s listed in the witness protection rule sheet.

  ‘Wait, actually, I look awful in that,’ Zara says. She grabs Phoebe’s phone from her. ‘Let me delete it and take a nice one of you.’ She gestures vaguely to the roadside. ‘Stand there.’

  Phoebe blinks, surprised, then smiles for the photo. She takes the phone back and looks at it. ‘No, you look lovely,’ she says. ‘I’ll put both up.’

  ‘No,’ Zara says. ‘No. I don’t want you to.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ Phoebe says. She widens her eyes as she looks down at her phone. ‘Sure.’

  Zara stares into the distance. She hates this. She hates the lies, the constructed, fake personality. She’s not vain. The selfie is nice.

  Phoebe is so much cooler than Zara. Her hair is not straight or curly. It’s unruly, but it looks good, tucked behind her ears like that. The sort of mess Zara is afraid to make. Sometimes, Zara wishes she could let her hair down, and set herself free. Wear odd socks and zany clothes and stop giving so much of a shit what everybody thinks.

  They start walking home.

  ‘I’ve followed you, even if you won’t let me put your photo up!’ Phoebe says. ‘You have five hundred followers – wow! But no posts?’

  ‘Oh,’ Zara says, biting her lip. She reaches for her phone and looks. ‘Must be bots,’ she says. Bots organized by the protection service. Bots arranged to follow her in order to legitimize her profile. She hopes it’s that. Rather than … anything sinister. The group members. The people who know she knows about the motto. The people who know what she might do about that.

  ‘I deleted all my posts. I wanted a digital purge, you know?’ Zara says, though she would never care about such a thing. Or would she? She doesn’t know any more. Who is she? Sienna, or Zara? Panic rises up through her.

  ‘You have to like the photo of me,’ Phoebe says as they round a corner. There are mountains up ahead of them, a backdrop that hardly shifts, no matter how far they walk. The sky is a darkening royal blue, the mountains beige and grey. Zara can’t stop looking at them. Her legs ache from the undulating hill roads she has to walk to school on.

  ‘It’s the algorithm,’ Phoebe says. ‘More people see it if it gets lots of likes in those first few minutes.’

  ‘Sure,’ Zara says as she looks down and watches their feet walk in perfect sync along the road together. Imagine wanting more people to find you, and not fewer?

  ‘I think I like it here,’ Phoebe says.

  Zara feels so bitter, suddenly, next to her contemporary who wants Instagram likes and who has never seen somebody be murdered. ‘Great,’ she says.

  ‘Do you?’

  No, Zara screams internally. I miss absolutely everything. I miss bookshops with late-night openings and being able to buy stationery at eight o’clock on a Saturday night.

  ‘I don’t really think about that stuff,’ Zara says with a shrug. She stares at the mountains, still in sunlight, though they are in the encroaching dusk. She lets a sigh out, and allows her true feelings to pass. It’s for the best. It is. Phoebe says goodbye to her as her mother arrives in a Volvo and waves to Zara through the window. As Phoebe gets in, she hears her say ‘sleepover at the weekend’ to her mother. Phoebe closes the door behind her, and the rest of the sentence is lost. But then Phoebe opens the door again, to dislodge a seat belt, and she hears the rest of it.

  ‘Not your new friend Sienna?’

  ‘No,’ Phoebe says, fiddling with a seat belt that’s become stuck in the door. ‘She’s a total ice queen.’

  Later, lying on her bed, trying to concentrate on a boring geography textbook on globalization, Zara gets a text from Phoebe.

  You didn’t like the photo!

  Zara rolls on to her stomach, dropping the book on the floor, and opens Instagram.

  Ice queen. Zara has been called many things that are mean but correct – nerdy, overly earnest, awkward – but never, ever, ever an ice queen.

  She finds the photo and scrutinizes Phoebe. All that hair. She’s gorgeous. She presses ‘like’, then looks to see who else has. Names and names, nobody she knows. People from Phoebe’s old school, she guesses. Forty-one likes. Zara would get none from anybody real.

  She stares at the geography textbook on the floor next to her bed and wishes school taught other things. How to report a crime. How to stem a wound. How to liaise with the police … and the rest.

  She reaches down for the herbal tea she made herself after school. It’s camomile. Nice stuff. Her mum is forever trying to treat her – ‘Nice things are the backbone of life,’ she wil
l say – and she cradles it between her hands, lying on her front, the phone on the bed next to her. She holds the mug with one hand and types with the other. Nobody will ever know, she reasons, thinking of the rule sheet. She can just take a look. It’s harmless.

  She types Hannah’s handle into Instagram and watches it populate. She’s updated her Instagram stories, but Zara can’t watch those: it tells the user the viewers’ usernames.

  She looks at the latest photograph, taken in a waiting room, and pinches to zoom in on it. As she does, her mug wobbles on the bed. She reaches out to grab it, in haste, and double taps the photo. She puts the mug back down on the floor and stares in horror. She double taps again, to undo the ‘like’. Her upper lip is sweating. Will Hannah be told?

  Zara sits up, hands shaking. And there’s nobody she can ask. No well-meaning friend to whom she can say, ‘Hey, would you mind just letting me know if Instagram tells you something, if I go and like and unlike your photo?’

  It’s not like she can ask her mother. It would be another thing she has done wrong. Another disaster in a whole line of them.

  31

  Aidan

  Shepherd’s Bush, London

  One week gone

  It’s three o’clock in the morning when Aidan wakes. 3.02 a.m. precisely. He’s woken at this time since Lauren left. He can predict the time before he has even opened his eyes.

  Bill is sleeping on Lauren’s side of the bed. ‘This is a sham marriage,’ Aidan says to him.

  The dog opens his eyes sleepily, then huffs, his jowls quivering.

  He gets up, just like the NHS website says to do if you’re suffering from insomnia, and sits at his computer, staring out at the street below. They’re opposite a twenty-four-hour shop in Shepherd’s Bush. It has a yellow sign. Food and Booze. Did Lauren ever shop there?

  He wiggles the mouse and his computer wakes up.

  He’s going to provide the group with fake information.

  He types private investigators, skip tracing into Google. He clicks an article entitled Finding People Who’ve Skipped Town. He just needs to be one step ahead of them, is all. His eyes blur as he reads it.