How to Disappear

by Gillian McAllister

  The group have found more photos of Zara. They have twenty-five images now. They’re combing CCTV for her. They are talking to her friends. It’s all to the good, for Aidan. The more witnesses, the more evidence. He is noting down the names of the people they’re in contact with, and sending them nightly to Lottie, who always seems to be on her email.

  Somebody is walking too closely behind him. Aidan turns, hoping to startle them, but they are reaching to clasp his shoulder. It’s a colleague, in HR, somebody who believed him when he said his wife had left him. ‘See you in the morning,’ the man says to Aidan, who lets him pass before saying, ‘Sure.’

  ‘Chin up, okay?’ the HR man says.

  Aidan ignores him. He will fall asleep on the Tube, he thinks. He gets more sleep on the Central Line than in his bed. It’s the only place he feels safe, half listening to Radio 4’s The Pin, the warm air around him, the safety of strangers. He’s looking forward to it.

  Later, as he gets off, something cold presses into his back. He thrashes immediately, turning around. Hands encase his own, drawing them together effortlessly behind his back, like he is under arrest. A voice in his ear. ‘Don’t say a word or Poppy’s dead.’

  Aidan’s body becomes limp, immediately compliant. He walks where the man leads him: towards an alley between two buildings. You’d never look twice at it. It’s grey, dirty, a forgotten, rusted ladder leaning against the wall.

  He’s been foolish, wearing his glasses, his work pass. Hasn’t varied his route home.

  He turns around and sees there are two men, both wearing black balaclavas. Neither from the group. They’re hires, Aidan presumes. The group don’t want their hands dirty. The realization gives him momentary relief, like somebody who’s been given their favourite meal on death row. At least they won’t connect him to James Thomas.

  ‘You say you’re not texting Lauren,’ one says to him. A heavy London accent. They can’t be over twenty. Just kids, really. But that’s worse: kids don’t think actions through.

  ‘No,’ Aidan says. They’re leading him further up the alleyway. The buildings are getting closer together, like they’re in Alice in Wonderland. Something is still pressing into his back, and he is trying to commit to memory any identifying features of the men who are about to kill him.

  ‘In there,’ the first says to him, pointing to a fire door with the torch of his phone.

  The light hurts Aidan’s eyes and leaves bright zigzags in his vision. He squints at his assailant before they go in. He’s mixed race. Dark eyes. That’s all Aidan can work out.

  ‘Your phone to us.’ He holds a palm out with one hand, and wrenches hard on the metal door handle to open the door with the other.

  It’s a warehouse. Clearly long abandoned. It’s tomb-like in its temperature and smell. A layer of plaster dust kicks up a cloud as they walk through it. The first man releases Aidan and throws him to the floor. He scoots back towards the door, but the other man closes it. They’re in semi-darkness, the only light coming from their torches, two bright beams, two suns in the night sky.

  ‘Phone,’ the first man says again.

  Aidan hands it over. There’s nothing on it. The burner phone is safe in the lining of his rucksack.

  The man holds it up. ‘Passcode?’ he says.

  ‘It’s fingerprint,’ Aidan says, holding his thumb out.

  The man unlocks it then begins scrolling. ‘Your texts with Lauren stop,’ he says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We know this is bullshit.’ He throws the phone on the floor, where it lands and skids away from him.

  The second man grabs Aidan’s bag and rifles through it. He throws out a couple of receipts, Aidan’s Oyster card. Any minute now, he’s going to find the phone. He’s going to find it and they’re going to work out that Aidan is James Thomas and he and his family will be dead.

  Sweat blooms across Aidan’s chest. He tries to keep his face impassive. His hands are wet, skidding through the plaster dust on the floor.

  The burner phone is light in weight. It’s concealed well. He’s prepared for this exact eventuality, he tells himself. But this inner monologue is pointless. They’re either going to find it or they’re not.

  The second man throws Aidan’s wallet on to the floor, then holds the bag up. An efficient hand into each corner of it, like a security guard. Aidan stares at it. He hasn’t found it.

  He throws it to the floor in anger. ‘Remember, you tell the police about this – we take Poppy,’ he says to Aidan.

  Aidan swallows, then nods. Of course they will. They almost already did. They are setting out to be violent. And so, of course they will be violent.

  ‘Where’s the second phone?’ the first man says.

  Aidan thought the group members would be cold when inflicting violence. But those eyes aren’t cold. They’re something worse: hyped up. Angry.

  ‘What second phone?’ Aidan says, trying to buy time. He’s thinking about Poppy, Lauren and Zara. If these men kill him, he needs to make sure they will be safe. Quick. Think. He closes his eyes for just a second. He needs to get the phone and tell them to run. Go abroad. Do anything to minimize the risk.

  ‘Your wife sent a little fucking parcel,’ the first man says.

  The letter. His mind races ahead. A congratulations message, signed by L. They have assumed only one person could have told Lauren Hannah’s news: Aidan.

  Why didn’t he tell Hannah to make the Instagram post public, reinstate it – and then the information could have come from Instagram and not Aidan? That would have solved this. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

  Or maybe they are going after every single person Lauren left behind. The thought chills him.

  ‘So we need to find the line of communication, you see?’ the other says.

  He’s too close to Aidan. He can smell coffee on his breath.

  ‘So, you going to tell us?’ the first says.

  Aidan can’t think of a solution. There isn’t one. It’s impossible. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, then.’

  The second man grabs him and holds him down.

  Aidan braces for impact. The first punch is a sunburst of pain right in his chest.

  Each time he thinks they’ve stopped – the kicks to his head, the punches to his gut – they continue.

  ‘We’ll come back for more, soon. Every week, until you tell us,’ one of the men says. Aidan doesn’t know which. He can’t look up. It’s too painful.

  When they finally leave him, three of his teeth are on the warehouse floor, in a deep splash of red.

  46

  Zara

  Coniston, the Lake District

  Five weeks gone

  Some things have changed that Zara didn’t even think about. They’re studying different novels in English literature, novels she has had to speed-read over the weekends. This school is doing An Inspector Calls and Of Mice and Men. Her mother has read the latter, but told her it’s about farm workers, which it doesn’t seem to be.

  Zara finds her jaw is set constantly. Clenched into a horrible shape. There’s still yet more things to come, more things to steel herself for. She concentrates, instead, on making friends. She overheard Phoebe talking about another sleepover with a popular girl called Olivia earlier, and now she is going to invite herself, while Olivia is enjoying a lunchtime detention for standing and talking too much in PE.

  Zara and Phoebe are sitting on a wall that is slightly too high to get up on gracefully. Zara thinks they ought to be reading the scene of An Inspector Calls they have a class on after lunch, but Phoebe doesn’t want to. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said, with a wave of her hand, and Zara isn’t yet in a position to be herself. She can’t talk too earnestly about Shakespeare and lettuces. She needs to be liked.

  ‘What are you getting for Christmas?’ Zara says.

  ‘God, look at him,’ Phoebe says, pointing down to a boy she likes. ‘Has no idea I exist.’

  Zara’s cheeks colour as the shameful f
eeling of having been ignored descends on her. It happens all the time. If she speaks up – in group situations, or one on one – she is very often ignored. Sometimes, she wonders if she is wearing an invisibility cloak, like Harry Potter. But the reality is that she’s just irrelevant. Plain, bookish Zara. Not even worth listening to.

  Last night, Zara walked in on her mother with the television paused on live music. The National. Her mother and Aidan had always joked about how much the lead singer looked like Aidan, and there she was, staring at it, on pause, her eyes wet. Zara couldn’t help but say something. She told her mother to get her shit together. She can blush with the shame of the memory now. It just came out. This temper, it’s come from nowhere.

  ‘Do you think he’d meet me, if I asked him?’ Phoebe says.

  ‘Maybe,’ Zara says.

  ‘Maybe next week.’

  This is her moment. She should ask about the sleepover. The words are fully formed in Zara’s mouth, but she can’t say them. She just can’t.

  Phoebe puts her lunchbox back in her rucksack and jumps down from the wall. ‘Should make a move,’ she says. ‘I need to go and find Olivia before class. I said I’d sit with her.’

  ‘Right,’ Zara says. She follows Phoebe, deflated. The moment has been and gone. She’s not going to be invited to the sleepover. Instead, she is going to have to make her own evening. A shower, a novel. Something to pass the time. Maybe she’ll reread The Hate U Give.

  ‘What’re you doing this weekend?’ she says to Phoebe.

  ‘Oh, this and that,’ Phoebe says.

  Zara’s heart hurts. They don’t even want her there. Why would she want to invite herself somewhere she isn’t even welcome? They walk through a drift of autumn leaves.

  ‘I love these crunchy piles,’ Phoebe says.

  ‘Want to do something Friday?’ Zara says suddenly.

  Phoebe hesitates, looking at the school building in front of them. She seems to think for five seconds, ten.

  Zara holds her breath.

  ‘Come to mine,’ Phoebe says eventually. ‘I’ll have a sleepover.’

  Zara closes her eyes in relief. Not because of the invite, but because she said I’ll have, not I’m having. She was sparing Zara’s feelings, like throwing her a bone, a pitying bone. Zara takes it, only because she has nothing else.

  47

  Aidan

  Central London

  Sixteen days to go

  ‘We’ve all had months like this, Aidan,’ Aidan’s HR manager is saying to him in the meeting room.

  Aidan is nodding.

  ‘When one thing goes wrong, and then another, and another.’

  ‘Yes,’ Aidan says. He can’t tell the truth. What would happen? He would say: actually, my wife is in witness protection with my stepdaughter – but please don’t tell anyone. And the people looking to hurt them beat me up – but please don’t tell the police, or they will harm my daughter.

  ‘After my divorce I had all sorts happen. Car got clamped and then I kicked the clamp and broke my toe.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Aidan says.

  ‘But, nevertheless, a few comments have been made recently about your work ethic. And now, in the light of this … brawl … we’re just wondering if you need to take some time off?’

  This is his cover story. Lauren left him. His life has spiralled out of control and, last night, he hit somebody in a pub in a moment of frustration, who hit him back even more forcefully. Of course, Aidan wanted to say he was attacked. That he was the victim. But he needs it to be completely believable. A double bluff. And nobody who was lying would say they landed the first punch. So that is what he did. Stalemate.

  ‘No,’ Aidan says, rubbing a hand across his stubble. He couldn’t give less of a shit about work.

  He’s got a dentist appointment in the morning. They’re going to fit him three false teeth for the princely sum of £1,000.

  ‘I just need to get the teeth sorted, and then I’ll be fine.’ He lisps on the s. ‘I’ll take tomorrow.’

  ‘Take as much time as you need. We’ve all lamped someone once. Or wanted to.’ His manager raises his eyebrows.

  Aidan drops his head. As much time as he needs. Is that a dismissal, or a hint at one? HR never say what they mean, after all, do they?

  ‘It’ll get better, mate,’ the man says. A friendly clap on the shoulder, and they leave together.

  Since the attack, Aidan has a new plan. He has shaved his beard off, and replaced his smashed glasses. And, now – just for today – he is going to leave out of the front, and do his normal commute to Islington.

  Hannah has collected Bill from the flat this afternoon.

  Aidan is going to sort it out. As Aidan, not as James.

  It takes only a day for them to follow him when he leaves the office. They’re tracking his movements. He makes it easy for them. Leaving work and going straight to Islington. He even wears a name badge from a work event on his coat.

  They are the same two men: the group must have hired them, just as Aidan suspected. The thought gives him shivers. They have the ability to hire people. To blame those people for a killing, and get away with it themselves. There must be conversations in the group that he is not privy to. Maybe the group knows exactly who he is, what his plan is, and are exacting revenge right this second.

  When he’s sure they’re watching, at the Buy and Collect Tickets machine next to a flower vendor, he pulls a piece of paper out of his bag. He scrutinizes it carefully, then types Truro, on the big screen, in full view of them. He looks around him surreptitiously. They’re watching. Just in case they haven’t got it, he flags down a TfL worker and asks loudly if this is the right way to buy a ticket to Truro. He practically shouts it.

  When he’s bought it, he places the ticket in his rucksack. Then he lightly screws up the piece of paper, and puts it in an overflowing bin, just outside the station.

  On that piece of paper is an address: 5 School Road.

  It took him a long time to find the right combination of addresses. He needed something that would throw up multiple results: a common street name within the vicinity of Truro. And he needed, obviously, nobody to live at any of them. It had to be far away. To be credible, and to buy him time.

  There are three streets called School Road near to Truro. It should be enough to keep them busy: 5 School Road, Bodmin; 5 School Road, Truro; 5 School Road, Redruth. None of them is the address of a house. Two are schools, one is an eye hospital. It took Aidan hours.

  And they will be on their way soon. To the addresses in Cornwall. And then, by the time they arrive back – newly angry, no doubt – he will be ready.

  For the meeting, and for the police.

  You added me ages ago and just wondering y?

  That’s the message that is displayed on Aidan’s phone as he stands on the roof terrace of his flat in Shepherd’s Bush. He’s smoking, roll-ups, from the corner shop. Cigarette after cigarette after cigarette. Already, his fingers smell, his cheeks feel hollowed, his teeth fuzzed. He looks out over London in the darkness. Tiny little model houses beneath him. Yellow windows. The clouds above are luminescent, even in the darkness, lit up by all of London.

  He’s almost there. It’s almost over.

  The message is from the second defendant, Mal. He considers it before replying.

  Aidan finishes his cigarette, breathing the chalky clouds out into the winter air, then types back a reply.

  I’m trying to Find Girl A, he writes.

  Mal reads it, but doesn’t reply.

  So Aidan types: I know about the initiations.

  A few seconds later, Mal has blocked and deleted Aidan, Mr A, from Facebook.

  48

  Poppy

  Shepherd’s Bush, London

  Fourteen days to go

  Her father has been beaten up.

  Poppy is sure of it as she watches him move around his flat’s tiny kitchen. Bruises. Strange teeth, his jawline odd, jutting forward. He told her he wa
lked into a lamp post. Isn’t that the oldest story in the book? Like something from a bad play.

  And so it isn’t what her dad pulls out of his rucksack, rips up and puts in the bin that makes Poppy pay attention. It’s the bruises. Her father is up to something.

  Poppy rinses the plates before stacking the dishwasher, as she always does at this time of the evening, whichever house she’s in, and waits for him to be elsewhere.

  As soon as he’s in the shower, late, ten-ish – he seems to let her stay up these days without any argument – she has her hand inside the kitchen bin. Old tea bags and mouldering vegetables touch her arm, but she digs further anyway. Her merino wool sweater gets wet, but for once she doesn’t care. All she can think about is what the balaclava man said about her dad being in touch with Lauren. She knows exactly what she’s looking for. That distinctive orange-and-white stripe of a train ticket. She’s sure that’s what he ripped up.

  She finds five pieces of six and takes them into her bedroom. Before she looks at them, she lights a Diptyque candle her dad bought her two weeks ago. It was £40, and only tiny. She just couldn’t resist the smoky fig scent, the weight of the votive in her hand. So far, she has burned three millimetres of it. She’ll allow herself one more millimetre, tonight, while it’s on the windowsill, a lit-up beacon right in the middle of London. Something to relax her, to steel her nerves as she looks at the ticket.

  It’s easy to piece them together. Straight edges around the outsides, torn edges inwards.

  It’s a return to Truro. For Saturday. Poppy sits back on her bed, stunned. They don’t know anybody in Truro.

  Unless they do.

  Unless her dad has lied to her.

  Poppy is walking to school with Emily, after filling her in on the discovery of the train tickets, when Emily says it. ‘I think we should look at your dad’s phone.’

  Poppy isn’t surprised by this, only humbled that Emily has taken the time to think it through since she told her about the balaclava man.