Then She Was Gone (2 page)

He remembered the fear on Lauren’s face, the way she shrank back from him. She was like a stranger.

He left that part out.

‘It said she was taking Molly away. That she had to take her away from me. I tried to speak to her about it, but she was just babbling. It read like she was . . . she was
going to do something stupid.’

The Muslim detective didn’t speak, waiting for him to continue.

‘I knew I had this place waiting for me if I needed it. So, once Lauren had fallen asleep that night, I packed a few things and came over here. I thought giving her some time might be
best. My aunt passed away a few months ago and my cousins are still trying to sell the place. I had a key from when she was still alive.’

‘We talked to your new neighbours . . .’

He shook his head, trying to work out why the conversation hadn’t gone the same way as it had done previously. Before, when he’d reached this part of the story, there had been
sympathy and concern. This was different.

‘We spoke to a number of them. None of them remember you arriving here, let alone with a child in your company. No one heard a baby crying, which seems odd. Why do you think that would
be?’

He opened his mouth and closed it again. Considered his answer first. ‘I don’t know. The average age around here isn’t exactly on the young side. Maybe they didn’t have
their hearing aids in or something.’

‘Mr Johnson,’ the detective began, looking towards her colleague and then back at him. ‘We couldn’t find a Lauren at the address you gave us. We’ve had people
search inside the property and they couldn’t find any signs of her. We’ve also put out a trace on her name and come up with no record of her being a resident either. We’re waiting
on hospital records, but if she gave birth in the past few weeks as you say, we should find her, shouldn’t we?’

He didn’t like the tone the detective was taking now. ‘Of course. It’s not like I’ve dreamed the whole thing.’

The detective glanced at her colleague again. ‘We’re not saying anything right now, Tim. We just can’t find any trace of anyone who remembers anything about your movements in
the past couple of days.’

‘Speak to the neighbours back in the other house. They’ll definitely remember.’

‘We have, Tim. They’re saying they thought you lived alone.’

He made a noise halfway between a laugh and a shout of alarm. ‘That’s not possible . . .’

Day five of Molly being missing and the media interest had disappeared almost entirely. What at first had been front-page news was now relegated to a small
Information Wanted
section on a local Facebook group. As soon as the police had decided that the most likely thing to have happened was that Molly’s mother had taken her child
back, the media had moved on. Just another domestic. Another father left to pick up the pieces.

He thought about the likelihood of him ending up in a superhero costume on top of Buckingham Palace, but decided his current luck would see him locked up with a terrorist in some cell.

The detective – DC Hashem – continued to visit him, but seemed to eye him with more and more suspicion by the day. He was surprised she was still coming, but the questions were more
confusing by the day.

He was tired of it all. Sleep was a distant memory. He would drop off for an hour or two then jolt awake with his heart beating, stumbling off the couch to pull back the curtains once again.
Every noise outside made his heart stop for a beat. He could smell his own mustiness emanating off him.

There was no end for him. Not a happy one, anyway. He felt that with every fibre.

A persistent banging came from the hallway. He jumped off the sofa, moving so fast he knocked over a side table, barely aware of it crashing to the floor as he flung open the front door.

‘Oh, come in,’ he said, making his way back to living room. He noticed the table upended on the floor and bent to pick it up. ‘Sorry, must have knocked it over.’

‘It’s fine if you got a little angry, Tim,’ the female detective said, looking around the room as if it were her first time there. ‘It’s a trying time, I understand
that.’

‘Angry? No . . . I just bumped into it,’ Tim said, righting the table and then standing to face the detective.

‘Do you get angry often, Tim?’

Tim was stuck for a moment, staring open-mouthed at the detective. ‘What? Why are you asking me that?’

‘I think it’s a perfectly reasonable question. Do you throw things around, maybe punch a hole in a wall, or rip a door off its hinges?’

‘No, I do not. I can get cross sometimes, but I’m not violent . . .’

‘Ah, but that’s not strictly true, is it?’ the detective said, moving past him and perching on the edge of a chair. ‘We know, for example, that you received a police
caution for being involved in . . .’

‘That was nothing,’ Tim interrupted, but then he stopped himself. He breathed in and out and fixed the detective with a stare. ‘What has this got to do with anything? Can you
tell me what you’re doing to find Molly?’

‘Can we go over things again? I want to make sure we have all the information on Molly as best as we possibly can.’

Tim wanted to walk out, get away from the woman and from the house. To be back in that moment, in the park, pushing Molly along. Free and happy. Instead, he was forced to stand there and
listen.

‘Why haven’t you been in touch with your parents?’

‘We’re not close,’ he said after a few seconds, trying to remain calm. ‘There’s no reason to have them involved.’

‘We’ve spoken to them,’ the detective said, looking at him with those inquisitive eyes of hers. ‘I don’t think they were all that happy to find out from the TV that
they were grandparents. Bit of a shock, I think you can imagine. Did you not think to get in touch and let them know what was happening?’

‘No, I didn’t. As I said, we’re not close.’

‘Falling out? Temper get the better of you?’

This time he made a movement towards the door, but the male detective standing in the doorway stopped him in his tracks. ‘Why are you asking me these questions?’ Tim said, turning
back to the female detective. ‘They have nothing to do with Molly being missing. Have you found Lauren yet? That’s what you should be doing. Finding her and seeing if she has taken my
daughter.’

‘Calm down, Tim. Come and sit down.’

He looked back at the male detective who was still staring at him and decided to sit on the sofa. Settled on the edge. ‘Please, just tell me what you want to hear. I just want you to find
her.’

‘We understand that. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, though, which is making our job just that little bit more difficult. So, how about we clear those up and then we will be
in a better position to find your daughter. Sound fair?’

Tim nodded, wrapping his arms around himself and leaning forwards.

‘You said you’d been with Lauren for just under a year,’ the female detective said, confusing him by changing tack. ‘Did she ever meet any of your family?’

He was beginning to see how his answers were unlikely to help him. ‘No, she didn’t. There was no reason for her to meet any of them. I wasn’t close to them, so why would I
introduce her to them?’

‘Did she meet any of your friends?’

‘I don’t really have any friends. I left all that behind a long time ago.’

The detective made some sort of noise under her breath. ‘So, she wasn’t introduced to your family, or friends, yet you were living together and she became pregnant. Were you working
at the time?’

‘Yes, I worked from home. Tech support for various websites. I have my own business.’

‘You don’t speak to your family, you have no friends, you work from home and your neighbours don’t know you exist. That seems a little like isolation to me. Is that
intentional?’

He didn’t know how to respond, so he shrugged his shoulders instead.

‘We’ve tried to locate Lauren from the information you’ve provided us with, Tim, but we’ve been unsuccessful.’

‘I don’t understand . . .’ Tim began, before being interrupted.

‘I’m saying, we’ve checked into every local and national database. We’ve also checked again at your previous address, with your old neighbours and anyone we could find.
No one recalls a woman being there. No one recalls a child being there either. We can find no trace of anyone named Lauren Moran, born on the date you gave us, in the area – or nearby, in
fact.’

‘That can’t be right.’

The detective leaned forwards, placing her notepad to one side. She stared at him.

‘Did they exist, Tim? Either of them? What is the truth here?’

Three weeks she had been gone.

That’s how long it took for him to give in and call for help. He hadn’t spoken to the group in years, but it was finally time.

He waited until the train came above ground, leaving the tunnel which ran underneath the River Mersey, and then pulled out his new mobile phone.

‘It’s me . . . Tim . . . I need help . . . I need the club to help me . . . Yes, I know, again, but that’s what
it’s for, right?’

He could hear the exasperation from the voice on the other end of the line, but managed to set up a meeting for the next day.

Tim was desperate. There was no evidence his daughter had ever existed as far as the police were concerned. Just his word, which wasn’t enough.

He’d spent his time wandering around, hoping to catch sight of her. He was certain he would recognise her. There was a small mole, or birthmark, on her right earlobe. He could close his
eyes and remember the touch of it on his finger, as he rocked her to sleep, stroking the side of her face and touching her ear. He was the only one who knew that was what would work.

It was obvious to him what had happened. Lauren had found out where he’d gone, attacked him in that park and taken Molly somewhere. The problem was proving that he was right.

The problem was proving their existence at all.

How could Molly be unreal when every fibre of him ached? He felt incomplete and malformed without her.

How could he have made her up?

He blinked and had an image of Lauren cowering from him, as he stood over her. Another second and the image was gone. Replaced by the wheel spinning once more.

He left the train at Moreton station and walked the ten-minute journey from there through a dodgy estate to his altogether nicer one. He pulled his coat tighter around him as the wind picked up
and swirled fallen leaves on the ground ahead of him.

He entered the street where the house he’d spent almost a year with Lauren was situated. He’d decide to move back – convinced Lauren would return there if she was going to come
back anywhere.

Flashing lights stopped him in his tracks. A police car was parked up outside his house. Another van was there, the words
Scientific Support
emblazoned on the side. He
broke into a jog, which turned into a sprint as he covered the remaining few yards at speed. He stopped at the end of the driveway, almost barrelling into a uniformed policeman who was standing
guard.

‘What’s going on?’ Tim said, already out of breath, but not caring. ‘Why are you here? Have you found her?’

‘You need to stay here for a second.’

Tim tried to move past the police officer, but a burly arm blocked his path. He looked towards the house, squinting into the darkness, before a light was switched on in the hallway and two
figures emerged.

‘Mr Johnson,’ a voice called out from the direction of the front door.

‘Have you . . . have you found her?’ Tim said, his words faltering as he lifted a hand to his mouth. ‘Is she OK? What’s going on?’

‘I need you to come with me,’ DC Hashem said, taking her hands out of the pockets of her coat. Tim saw the man standing behind her was the same one that had accompanied her to the
other house.

‘Tell me now,’ Tim replied, words falling from his mouth without him being aware of them. ‘Just tell me, is she OK? Please tell me Molly is OK. Where’s my
daughter?’

‘I just need you to come with us now. We’ll explain everything down at the station.’

He didn’t think he could make the short walk to the car, but he was opening the door and getting in before he realised he’d started moving. Other people headed towards the house,
wearing white overalls and carrying shovels. The male detective sat in the back next to him. The car pulled away, Tim looked back at the darkened house and he began to shake uncontrollably. He
could feel the man’s eyes on him.

He whispered to himself for almost the entire journey back to Liverpool.

‘Please let her be OK. Please let her be OK. Please let her be . . .’

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.

Mahatma Gandhi

I’m a fighter. I believe in the eye-for-an-eye business. I’m no cheek turner. I got no respect for a man who won’t hit back. You kill my dog,
you better hide your cat.

Muhammad Ali

While seeking revenge, dig two graves – one for yourself.

Douglas Horton

You’re consumed with hate.

You think of nothing but desolation and the absolute need to devastate. To destroy. To satiate yourself in vengeance.

You have lived your life in moments of desperation. Each day passing in a blur of perceived normality. Now is your chance to be something more.

You plan. You want it to be perfect. There isn’t anything you haven’t foreseen and countered for. You cannot be stopped. Nothing will stand in your way.

They must pay for what they have done.

You want the violence. You feel it in every fibre of your body. The desire, the craving. You need to make things right. You need to redress the balance.

You don’t see them as victims. You know others will, but that does not matter. You know the truth. You know the public will care little, instead waiting for the next instalment. A reality
show to end them all. A true fight to the death, beamed into every living room. No one cares about the so-called victims. They just want the next part to begin.