How to Disappear

by Gillian McAllister

  Her evidence will be read out in the Old Bailey and, hopefully, Luke, Brian and the rest of the group will go down for the murder of Jamie and Bertha, and the abuse of many others, as they should have months ago. The police got Mal acquitted of his role in the club’s murders in exchange for his knowledge – precisely what Aidan thought he’d agreed with Mal himself when he met him. An especially dirty deal with the police, considering Mal double-crossed Aidan and tipped the group off. His loyalties seem to lie nowhere.

  Aidan used to think grief would be like entering a fug, a temporary hole, but he is just as painfully conscious as he once was, only in immense pain, too, and expected to work and commute and put away laundry, the same as everybody else.

  He is widowed. His remaining daughter has been diagnosed with PTSD and, it turns out, a whole host of anger issues which she is working through with a therapist named Betty.

  His mother never said I told you so. Never once laid the blame in his lap that he had caused their deaths. She has been only nice. ‘It’ll get easier,’ she said again to him, last Thursday, when he took Poppy to the shop. ‘I lived through it – and I know.’ She had held his hand in hers, and brought it to her chest.

  Poppy had asked if Brenda stocked any shampoo other than ‘this cheap apple-scented monstrosity’, and that had made them laugh, just a little.

  And now, here he is, standing alone in the winter sun, hoping for convictions. He’s meeting Harry and his matcha-green tongue soon.

  It’s not an outcome that will do anything to undo what has happened. But it is an ending, nevertheless. Justice. A sad conclusion that will allow them all to move on, a conclusion Aidan has pushed for with all the determination of a man who has lost everything, and has only the truth to uncover.

  Lottie left the police. They met in a draughty Starbucks in the City on a weekend, when it’s like a ghost town. Steamed-up windows. Cold air blowing in with the automatic doors. The comforting whirr of the coffee machine. She told him she had quit after her second sip of a latte.

  ‘I couldn’t do it any more, not after what happened to you,’ she said, eyes on him. ‘You did everything right, and you lost. That is not justice or law enforcement, Aidan. They kept a covert op from me and sent you off to the slaughterhouse.’

  ‘You left for me.’

  She shrugged then. A small, sad shrug. ‘I’m a rule breaker. I don’t belong in an institution that adheres to the rules above everything else.’

  ‘What’ll you do?’

  ‘Be a mum, for now,’ she said. ‘Parenting is all about doing the right thing, no matter what, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. Because, even though it’s another loss, it’s a gain, too. For him. An ally. A friend. Finding meaning in meaningless tragedy.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I think I might work with gangs,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Not against them. Prevention is better than cure.’

  He raised his coffee up to her, at that.

  And so here he is, two failed court cases behind them: Luke’s, and the arsonists’.

  And now here it is. Another attempt.

  The final one.

  Luke, Brian and many members of the club are convicted of the double murder of Jamie and Bertha, and many counts of assault, at the end of a five-week trial.

  It was Luke’s idea to begin the initiations when he was only twelve. He is sentenced to twenty-two years without parole. Brian is given twelve years. The sinewy man, eight. Lesser members of the group, four. It’s one of the biggest trials of the year, covered on all the national news channels.

  Aidan should feel relief, but he is numb. He doesn’t feel anything any more.

  Still, the day after the jury returns the verdict, he goes to see his mother and they drink coffee together and he manages a smile or two.

  He’s got rid of his iPhone, and his burner phone.

  They did so much damage, he wants to live without them.

  Epilogue

  Aidan lets himself into the Islington house after his weekly visit to Brenda. The For Sale sign is up.

  Poppy is coming over for a takeaway later and a drive. They’re not taking pleasure in these things, but they are doing them. Poppy’s therapist said she should try to go with the day, and not with the mood, and that makes sense to Aidan. So he will keep making cups of tea. Keep changing the sheets. Loading the dishwasher. Walking Bill Gates. Going to work. Until something shifts internally.

  Maybe it never will.

  A parcel is lying on his hallway floor, pushed in through the letter box and dropped. It’s a jiffy bag. No postmark. He stops dead in his hallway and stares at it.

  No. Please no. Not the group. Let the peace continue, even amid the grief.

  He opens it. It’s small but weighty. Inside is bubble wrap.

  He opens that, and there it is. A burner phone. Wrapped in a note secured with elastic bands.

  His hands shake as he pulls the note out and flattens it on the kitchen counter. Before he reads it, he rushes to the front door and locks it, then closes the shutters.

  Then he returns to it. Chest full of helium and hope.

  Keep in touch. L. xx

  He stares and stares at the piece of paper, slightly tufty and ripped at its edges. Then he turns on the phone. One contact: In Case of Emergency.

  He texts ICE, not knowing who he is texting, not knowing if it’s a trap, or a joke, or a game.

  The phone rings immediately.

  ‘It’s me,’ she says.

  And, oh my God. It is her. It is her voice, it is her voice, it is her voice.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry … we had to wait until the group broke down and Luke got convicted and it was definitely, definitely safe. I’m so, so sorry. We’re alive. We’re alive. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry I had to let you believe it, too. It was the last resort. The only way to keep us safe. I’ve been so fucking lonely! I’ve been having two baths a day! Eating so many cakes, I’ve got so fat!’ She prattles on, his ebullient wife. Not allowing him time for it to sink in. Not giving him space. She rumbles on like a freight train, like she always has. Months. She’s been dead for months.

  ‘What …’ he says, but he can’t think. Can hardly speak.

  He sat in the hospital and was told she was dead. He attended her funeral. And yet. And yet. Here is her voice, big and beautiful and true.

  ‘The person protection service faked our deaths. It was the only way to keep us safe. Apparently, it was always their plan if the group found us for a second time. Zara was going to testify at the new trial but they thought if the case wasn’t successful, she would be in even more danger. So they faked our deaths. We’ve been in Scotland since December.’

  ‘I can’t …’ Aidan stands in the kitchen where two minutes ago he was a widower, and stares at the wall. ‘You’re both fine?’

  His mind skitters over the facts. No doctor ever told him they were dead. The protection service arranged the funeral. He never saw the bodies – they were too damaged, he was told. No wonder the court case fell apart against the arsonists, there were no bodies. There was no proof. He never saw a pathologist or a nurse or a funeral director. He saw a death certificate, but Jon gave it to him. Faked. All faked.

  Fuck.

  They’re alive.

  They’re alive!

  Could it be?

  It could. It is. He’s on the phone to her.

  He tilts his head back. A slice of March sunlight from the edge of the shutters illuminates him.

  ‘We’re fine. We get asthma if we exercise. That’s all. They got us out.’

  ‘Is this safe?’ Aidan says.

  ‘Yes. The members of the group who aren’t in jail have disbanded … properly disbanded. Tell me everything,’ she says.

  ‘Poppy is looking forward to the art foundation,’ he says woodenly.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she says. ‘Zara has chosen all artsy A-levels.’

  A-levels. Aidan shakes his head. His body still
feels like they’re dead. A heavy, sad weight in his stomach. How can this be? How can they be talking about fucking A-levels?

  Lauren is about to say something. Aidan can still tell, can still read her so easily. He waits for a beat.

  ‘We can come back,’ she says. ‘Now that they’re all inside. Aidan?’

  Aidan turns to the window at this precise moment, the moment he is given everything he ever fucking wanted, and blinks. ‘To London?’ he says.

  ‘Yes. Well, maybe we could go … nearer to Poppy. Wherever you are,’ she says, ‘I can be.’

  ‘When?’ Aidan says.

  ‘Now. Now. Now. Zara will bring a boy … he’ll probably have a heart attack. He thinks she’s dead, too. He’s our next phone call.’

  ‘A boy?’

  ‘She met this boy called Dom. Family moves around a lot anyway. He might come with us. I think we should let him. Once he recovers from the shock.’

  Bill Gates pads into the living room and barks.

  ‘Is that Bill?’ Lauren says, her voice deliciously warm in his ear.

  ‘Yeah,’ Aidan says, dumbstruck, punch-drunk. So fucking lucky he can’t even see straight. ‘You want me to put him on?’

  ‘If he can fit me in around his meetings,’ Lauren says, and she laughs so loudly Aidan has to move the phone away from his ear.

  She comes home a week later.

  ‘We’re free,’ she says as she gets into bed next to him for the first time in months. ‘We’re free.’

  He slides his hand down her arm, and reaches for her hand.

  Their fingers interlock, under the duvet, as they always did. As if no time has passed at all.

  Author’s note

  It turns out, witness protection is not a very easy subject to research, for obvious reasons. While I have endeavoured to find out how it works, there are many blanks I have been unable to fill in, due to the UK’s protection service not wishing to reveal their secrets to me (quite reasonably), so necessitating the use of quite a lot of artistic licence and some common sense. I hope it was believable despite basically having … made it up.

  Acknowledgements

  There is something rather wonderful about writing the acknowledgements section of a book. It’s like tidying up the bottles and the glasses after a good party. Novelists mark the passing of the years by which book they were writing, and 2019 will always be How to Disappear, for me, and for all the people who assisted.

  Firstly to my agents Felicity Blunt and Lucy Morris. I have rarely met two smarter women. I am honoured to have you steering the ship of my career, reading draft after draft of this book, always tweaking, always asking clever questions, always highlighting the lines that are me at my best, and asking very kindly for the rest of the manuscript to be so! I was a lesser writer before you two. Really, I was.

  Secondly to my wonderful editor Maxine Hitchcock, who lets me write books with two parallel narratives, with nineteen narrators, and now, too, a conspiracy book! Whatever I do, she is on board. To everybody on the Michael Joseph team, especially Rebecca Hilsdon, Olivia Thomas, Jen Porter, Grace Long, Shân Morley-Jones, sales and marketing and art. I am one of very few authors who can say that their every book since day one has been a bestseller, and it is because of the MJ dream team.

  Writing a book about witness protection is something of a tricky thing, and the following people have helped enormously. Imran Mahmood, who, when I asked him whether the initial concept worked, said ‘absolutely’. Muhammed Hafiz, my very kind post-office helper, on postmarking rules. Dalbir Kaur, who gave me the quite frankly wonderful guide dog story. To Jane Gosden and all at HMP High Down (including the very wonderful restaurant The Clink), who gave me a brilliant tour and let me ask lots of weird questions about how footballers would fare if in prison on remand. To Ian Foster for the football help, and Jade Deacon too. To Emma at Bodmin Agents, and Phil and Tin Johnson at JJ Associates – both of their help was invaluable on finding people who don’t want to be found.

  And finally, of course, to my friends and family. To Holly, Lia and Lucy for the sanity-saving best friendships. To Claire Douglas, Beth O’Leary and G X Todd too, for the WhatsApps, word-count tallies and lols. I have to say, there is nothing like befriending writers and asking them research questions. The answers you get are so vivid. The voice notes and the smell of cucumber sandwiches all belong to Lia.

  This novel would be truly different without my father. I came up with the idea one autumn night in 2018 while he was over and we were boiling potatoes together, the clammy smell steaming up my kitchen. He turned to me and, even though I was actually planning a different novel, said, ‘You have to write this.’ He’s helped me take it through various guises – it started life with Zara having been sent into protection because she was a released offender, if you can believe that. Then followed an extremely wooden draft where Aidan knew about the Find Girl A group, but did nothing to assist it. Aidan was finally born one day playing chess with my father where he said, ‘So Aidan: is it that he takes too much care?’ Those ten words changed this book. After he left, I thought, yes, yes, yes, Aidan would infiltrate the group, and this novel was changed for ever.

  And finally, thanks, as ever, to David. This one’s a stone cold love story, and you’re the only man I’ve ever loved. It could only ever be dedicated to you.

  Read more

  The new book from

  GILLIAN

  McALLISTER

  COMING 2021

  Read on for a sneak peek …

  Read more

  BRITISH MAN MISSING IN VERONA

  A MAJOR search is underway in the hills just outside Verona, Italy as British National, William McGovern, 31, is still missing after forty-eight hours.

  The Italian Carabinieri have confirmed today that McGovern is an ex-pat, living and working in Verona, where he disappeared. He has not been seen since the evening of Sunday, 6 July.

  The Polizia di Stato are calling for any sightings of McGovern who stands at six feet one inch, is slim, with dark hair and glasses. He was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans on the evening of his disappearance.

  The Carabinieri have today employed cadaver dogs to comb the local area.

  The search continues.

  Read more

  Forty-eight hours earlier

  Cathy

  Cathy only answers the phone call that comes in the middle of the night because she is awake, online shopping. Two fake trailing plants, reduced from twenty pounds to ten. Irresistible. They will arrive while she’s still here in Verona, a little insurance policy against the post-holiday blues.

  Frannie. Slide to answer. Cathy’s eyes flick to the top of the screen. It’s 1.25 a.m. The room is completely dark around the blue bubble of light the phone creates. Cathy knows that beyond the phone lies a pine chest of drawers, a stone floor and a still-damp blue bikini dangling off a chair, but she can’t see them. All she can see is her sister, calling her in the small hours. Calling Cathy because she knows Cathy will be alone, because Cathy is always alone.

  She sits up in the bed and swipes to answer. The sheet falls away from her. She’s wearing pyjamas, even in the Italian heat. It seems somehow wrong to sleep naked. That particular luxury, for Cathy, is reserved for the future, she hopes, with some as yet unknown man.

  ‘Help me, please help me,’ Frannie shouts as soon as Cathy answers. Electricity shoots across Cathy’s chest and down her arms.

  ‘What? What?’ Cathy says. Sweat forms on her upper lip and between her breasts.

  ‘Please help me,’ Frannie says.

  ‘Where are you? Are you safe?’

  ‘Please come. I’m on the road. Turn right off the track road and then left. Half a mile, tops,’ Frannie garbles.

  Cathy waits. Waiting for Frannie to start making sense.

  ‘It’s him. The man from the market,’ Frannie says, and then rings off.

  Him.

  Shit.

  Cathy gets out of bed and starts scrambling a
round for clothes to throw on over her vest and shorts. She finds a pair of pink shorts she bought in Verona a couple of days ago and pulls them on, the price tag scratching against her lower back.

  Why didn’t she stay on the line? Cathy tries to call back, but it rings out.

  Cathy rams her feet into her dusty flip-flops and grabs her bag. As she leaves the silent villa, not thinking to wake anyone, the closing of the large wooden door sounds like a gunshot in the night. The outskirts of Verona are completely black at this hour. Even after a week and a half, Cathy still isn’t used to it. Struggling to see her own feet as she walks. The total power of the moonlight a shifting, eerie white-blue light that beams through the window.

  The only other light comes from her bedroom window in the house behind her. It projects a neat rectangle of light on to the patio. And then: nothing, like she might be at the edge of the world without knowing it. The world has no horizon. It smells of cooked hay and rose bushes.

  Frannie is scared. Cathy is sure of it. She tries to call her again, but this time it goes to voicemail. Maybe she is exaggerating. Cathy hopes so. She’s always enjoyed the drama of Frannie’s hyperbole; the way she tells a great story. ‘There were literally fifty dogs in the waiting room today,’ she once said. She’s the receptionist at their family veterinary practice. She had refused to concede when Cathy pushed her. ‘Yeah, actually fifty,’ she’d said, and Cathy had thrown her head back and laughed. ‘They must have had to sit some behind the reception desk,’ she’d said, while Frannie nodded, eyes gleaming.

  She sprints, the long, tough grasses whipping and snapping around her ankles like snakes, muttering pointless prayers out loud. Please be okay. Please don’t be hurt, or frightened. As she reaches the end of the drive, she turns and sees headlights in the distance. She can only see it because of the deep Verona dark.