Love You Gone: A gripping psychological crime novel with an incredible twist

by Rona Halsall

  Mel turned and sat back down at the table. ‘Yes. His parents still live on their farm, in Cwm Pennant. That’s in Snowdonia, near Porthmadog. His sister Ceri lives with them. And her two little children. And then there’s Luke’s cousin, Ted. They all run the farm together.’

  ‘And their full names?’

  Mel chewed on her lip as she looked at the sergeant, having a little debate with herself. Is now the right time? She ran her tongue round dry lips. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’ The sergeant stared at her and the look in her eye told Mel it was exactly the right thing to do. ‘I’m not…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m not the children’s mother.’

  Seven

  Monday

  The sergeant’s eyes widened and her lips compressed into a thin line as she waited for Mel to fill in the obvious blanks.

  Mel gathered her thoughts, rounding them up like errant sheep. She hated this – telling people that the children weren’t hers – because it made her feel inferior in some way, as if only a biological mother had the power to love a child. But that was wrong, so very, very wrong. She’d always treated the children as if they were hers and if anything, she believed she treasured them far more than a biological mother would have done. Because, to her, they were precious, giving her a role that she’d almost given up hope of ever fulfilling.

  ‘Their mother died. An aneurysm. All very sudden. I’m not sure how much of it has registered with them. Anyway, I’m their mum now and I love them like they’re my own.’

  The sergeant gazed at her and Mel wondered what more she was supposed to say.

  ‘They’re everything to me. Them and their dad.’ She leant over and grasped the sergeant’s hand, her voice pleading. ‘We can’t waste any more time. Please find them.’

  Lockett nodded and Mel realised what she’d done. She snatched her hand away, letting it fall to her lap, where restless fingers nipped at the fabric of her joggers. ‘What else do you need to know? Tell me how I can help.’

  It took quite a while, Lockett noting everything down in a small, neat script. So many questions, little details that, to Mel, seemed unimportant. Just get out there and find my bloody family, she wanted to shout. But she accepted there were procedures, that there were other people at work, behind the scenes, following up leads.

  Things are being done, she assured herself, but the tension in her shoulders refused to budge, and the feeling of loss that settled in her heart refused to lift. She looked up contact details and rattled off names as they worked through the network of people that knitted their family and work lives together. She found pictures and they decided which would be best for identification. And all the while she was listening for the phone. For the call that would tell her that her family had been found.

  It wasn’t a phone call but a knock at the door that finally interrupted the endless stream of information that the sergeant seemed to need. But although the exercise was mundane and annoying, it had been a welcome distraction and had helped to fill the time, stopping Mel’s mind from travelling to the darkest of places.

  She jumped to her feet and dashed into the hallway, throwing the door open just as the inspector was about to let himself in.

  ‘Have you found them?’ She clung to the door frame, waiting for him to put her out of her misery, Lockett hovering behind her.

  Stevens looked thoughtful and sighed before he spoke, which made Mel’s heart skip a beat – a sigh was never a good way to start answering a question. Bad news? She held her breath, waiting for the words she had been dreading.

  ‘Well, a mountain biker found the phone, apparently. On one of the trails. Handed it in to the information desk. But they didn’t think to keep him there for us to talk to.’ He shrugged, his mouth pinched round the edges. ‘So he’s gone. But we have a good idea where the phone was found and the search and rescue team are out now, combing the area.’

  ‘But you haven’t found them?’

  The inspector shook his head. ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘I can help.’ Mel grabbed her jacket. ‘I can help them look.’

  Stevens put his hand on her arm, stopping her from dashing out of the door. ‘No, it’s best to let them get on with it. They know what they’re doing and we don’t want to get in their way.’

  Mel leant against the wall, a pained expression on her face. ‘But I can’t just wait here. It’s killing me.’ She looked at him, eyes brimming with unshed tears, hoping he’d understand. ‘I can’t.’

  Lockett took her gently by the arm and led her into the lounge, settling her on the sofa. ‘We’ll stay here with you,’ she said as she put a couple of logs on the dwindling fire. ‘And we’ll work through these people we’ve got listed to contact. See where that gets us while they do the search.’

  Mel could feel the panic flapping in her chest, making it hard to breathe. But what could she do? Realistically, what on earth could she do to end this nightmare?

  The inspector stood in front of her with his back to the fire, a puzzled expression on his face.

  ‘It’s all a bit odd, really.’ His steady gaze unnerved her and a surge of heat flushed up her neck. ‘It’s quite a hike from here to Hawkshead, where they’d have to go to get on any bus, either the one going west to Coniston or east to Windermere.’ He pursed his lips and looked at his sergeant. ‘Must be about four miles?’

  Lockett nodded. ‘Somewhere around that.’

  He tapped his phone and scrolled through it for a few moments. ‘I’m just looking at the bus timetable. The last buses on a Sunday would set them down at six thirty p.m. if they’d gone to Coniston or five fifty p.m., if they’d gone to Ambleside or Windermere. By which time it would be dark. So they’d walk back on the road, not through the forest, which would be nigh on impossible to walk through at that time of day. But they didn’t come back. So that means the dogs picked up their scent going from the house to the bus stop, not coming the other way.’

  He looked back at Mel, his eyes seeming to bore right through her. ‘In which case, how was the phone in the forest?’

  Mel’s mouth opened. And closed again. Silence filled the room, just the gentle ticking of the fire as the metal expanded with the heat. ‘Maybe someone stole his phone?’ It was the only thing she could think of, but given the lack of people in this part of the world, it seemed like a long shot.

  The sergeant frowned at her, then at the inspector, and Mel saw a glance pass between them. ‘I’ve got a list of people to work through,’ Lockett said to him. ‘Shall we get on with this in the kitchen?’

  ‘We’ll get the team organised,’ Stevens said to Mel. ‘If you could have a think, see if you can remember anything else that might help our search?’

  They left her then, went into the kitchen and shut the door. She could hear the murmur of voices and wondered if they were talking about her. She wondered what they knew, what they’d find out. What she should tell them.

  Her pulse quickened as the implications of things unsaid revealed themselves in her mind. She stared at the fire, her vision clouded by the swirl of what ifs and maybes that played themselves out in her head.

  She was startled out of her trance by the buzz of her phone. A text. Her breath hitched in her throat as she snatched it up and looked at the screen. Then she sighed, deflated. It was Annabelle, the mum of one of Tessa’s friends, wanting to know dates for the next fundraising meeting at the school. Mel was the chairperson and had been instrumental in a couple of successful events that she was hoping they could replicate in the summer term. Annabelle was her biggest fan and probably her closest friend among the school mums. She fired off a quick text and put the phone down.

  She thought about the new friends she’d made through school, the mums who looked up to her, relied on her to organise the fundraisers that had brought so much new money into the school’s coffers. She was something now, somebody important. Queen bee in her mumsy world, and it was a role she revelled in. Before Luke she’d just been a single working woma
n, living alone, with little social life apart from the choir. It was a lonely existence being self-employed, no work colleagues to socialise with and a need to keep a professional distance from her clients. For so long, she’d yearned for a family to call her own. And now… now, they were gone.

  Her hands clasped together in her lap, squeezing tighter and tighter as she held on to the images of the people she loved, as if they would disappear if she let go. But this was no good, this sitting here, doing nothing. No good at all.

  Mel paced round the house, a bundle of nervous energy, her mind unable to focus on any part of the situation she now found herself in, and unsure what to do next. She tidied the bedrooms, straightened duvets, carefully folded clothes and put them in drawers, picked up the children’s tablets and turned them off. She hadn’t been too happy when she’d spotted them, not when she thought they’d agreed that the kids should have a break from tech devices for a while. Seems Luke had made a different decision, but maybe he’d thought it would be something for them to do if the weather was bad. A holiday treat. He was all for treating the kids, was Luke.

  She sighed as she remembered the discussions they’d had about that. Heated discussions, if she was being perfectly honest. He spoilt them, of that there was no doubt, and the last thing she wanted was spoilt kids. She put their last argument out of her mind and went downstairs to carry on her tidying, an activity that she’d always found therapeutic. But her pulse refused to calm down, her heart banging away in her chest as if she’d run a half marathon. How her family lived like this, she didn’t know; their messiness was a constant bone of contention and they never seemed to learn. She put books back in the bookcase, a DVD back in its case, hung jackets on coat pegs, straightened the pile of wellingtons in the hallway, then walked round the house again, wanting it to be nice and tidy for when they came back. Because they would, wouldn’t they?

  The place was so quiet, so empty, just the low murmur of voices from behind the closed kitchen door. She inched closer, trying to listen, but the words didn’t carry through the solid pine and she walked away a few steps. She hugged herself, needing the comfort of arms around her as her eyes focused on the row of wellingtons she’d just tidied, going down in size from Luke’s size tens to Callum’s size twos.

  Her family, right there in the hallway.

  But the tears wouldn’t come. It wasn’t sadness that she felt, it was… apprehension? No, worse than that. Fear. It jabbered in her head, all the possibilities piling themselves up into a mountain of worries. Her life, as she knew it, had come to an abrupt end, a halt, an impasse. And Luke was to blame. Her hands tightened round her ribs, fingernails digging in. She’d trusted him to come up here on his own with the kids, trusted that they’d be okay. And look what he’s done!

  She gripped herself tighter as she looked at the wellingtons again, their shapes still remembering the feet that owned them. Callum’s hand-me-downs worn through at the toes. Tessa’s leaning inwards due to her flat feet. Luke’s still plastered in mud from helping out on the farm.

  She was still standing next to the kitchen door when it opened and Lockett burst out, almost walking into her.

  ‘Oh, I was just coming to find you. To give you an update.’ She held open the kitchen door, her face a closed mask, expressionless. ‘Why don’t you join us.’

  The sergeant looked at her a little differently, Mel thought, a look that sent a shiver of nerves up her spine. What do they know?

  Eight

  Monday

  Mel sat at the table, opposite the police officers, sensing a distinct change in their manner. The inspector didn’t look quite so friendly and sympathetic. Neither did the sergeant, although, to be honest, she hadn’t been that friendly to begin with. Mel’s heart squeezed in her chest and she could almost feel it struggling to pump the blood round her body, making her feel light-headed. She clung on to her chair, worried that she might faint.

  ‘We’ve got a bit of a puzzle on our hands here,’ Stevens said. ‘And we’re going to need a bit more clarity on a few points if we’re going to sort it out.’

  Mel nodded and ran her tongue round dry lips.

  ‘You see, the bus drivers do the same routes all the time. They know the regulars and notice new people. And the driver on the route that goes through Hawkshead swears that your husband and children got on the bus on Friday, and he hasn’t seen them since. He didn’t bring them back that day or Saturday. And neither did the other driver who covers the route on a Sunday. So, can you tell us again when he last contacted you?’

  Mel couldn’t think, his words filling her mind. ‘Friday? No, they can’t have been missing since Friday.’

  ‘But when did you last hear from him?’ Lockett stared at her and Mel looked down at her hands, words stuck in her head as if glued there.

  ‘Do you want to check your phone?’ Stevens asked.

  Mel felt hot now, uncomfortable under their gaze.

  ‘I don’t need to check. It was Friday. I think I told you that before. That’s when he sent me a message to say they’d arrived safely.’

  She twiddled her wedding ring round her finger.

  ‘And you haven’t heard anything since?’ The inspector’s voice was neutral, but there was a challenge in the question. They obviously thought she was lying and her cheeks burned.

  When she finally spoke, her voice sounded shrill, defensive. ‘I told you, we had an agreement when I was working that we didn’t contact each other unless there was an emergency.’

  Mel looked up to see two pairs of eyes studying her.

  ‘Anyway, I thought…’ She sighed. ‘I thought he was still cross with me. I thought that was why he wasn’t replying to my messages.’

  ‘And why would you think that?’ Lockett asked. ‘You’d had an argument?’

  Mel sighed again. ‘Look. The thing is… my husband, he’s not… he’s not well. He’s been having a few problems and…’ She stopped, trying to work out how to phrase it. In the last six months, things between them had become… difficult. She thought back to a night that changed everything and a situation she should have handled differently. More carefully.

  ‘Daddy, can I come into bed?’ Callum’s voice was shaky, punctuated with little sobs.

  ‘Hey, course you can, son.’ Luke’s voice was a sleepy murmur as he took his arm from around Mel’s waist and shuffled her over the bed a bit to make more space. ‘Hop in.’

  A draught wafted over her back as he lifted the covers. Her lips pursed and her body tensed as Luke turned his back on her so he could cuddle his son, leaving Mel hanging on to the edge of the bed.

  ‘Another nightmare, was it?’

  ‘I thought you’d left me, Dad. I was all on my own in this dark place and something was chasing me and you weren’t there.’

  ‘Just a nightmare, son.’ Luke’s voice was soft and warm. ‘Nothing to worry about. I’m here.’

  ‘I’ve got that meeting in the morning,’ Mel said, jaw clenched. It was a pitch for her first major customer, her big break, the thing she’d worked five years to achieve. ‘I’ve got to be up at half five. New client, remember?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Luke mumbled, already drifting back into sleep.

  ‘Daddy?’ Callum’s voice was a stage whisper.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Can we go fishing tomorrow?’

  ‘Fishing?’

  Mel’s hands curled into fists under the pillow, her teeth grinding.

  ‘The river by Pops’. I saw a great big fish in there on Saturday.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘It was this big.’

  Mel elbowed Luke in the kidneys. ‘Shift up, will you, I’m falling out here.’

  ‘I can’t shift up.’

  ‘Well, can Callum shift up?’

  ‘He’s on the edge.’

  ‘Well, it’s not going to work then, is it?’

  ‘Course it will. You’re okay, aren’t you, Cal?’

  She didn’t hear him respond. Ma
ybe he nodded. Wide awake now, tension bunched her shoulders as she looked at the digital display of the alarm clock: 2.53. 2.54. 2.55. She took a deep, calming breath and her eyes started to close.

  ‘Can we, Dad?’ Her eyes flicked open. Luke shifted, nudging her further towards the edge, and she could feel herself slipping.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ Mel jumped out of bed. ‘Please, I need to sleep!’ She lowered her voice, spread out the words so the meaning was absolutely clear. ‘I’ve got a really important meeting tomorrow.’ Her nails dug into her palms, frustration coiling insider her like a spring as the pressure built. ‘I do not want to hear about fucking fish!’ That came out louder than she’d intended and sounded harsh, making her instantly regret her outburst. The bedclothes rustled, feet thumped on the floor, accompanied by the sound of snuffling sobs as Callum ran from the room.

  ‘Did you have to?’ Luke snapped. He put on the bedside light and she squinted in the sudden brightness. He glared at her, his eyes narrowed in an angry frown.

  ‘I’ve got a—’

  ‘I know what you’ve got,’ he said, clearly annoyed, as he got out of bed. ‘But we’ve got a son and he’s more important than any frigging meeting.’ She watched him march out of the bedroom and winced as he slammed the door behind him, a hollow feeling swelling inside her.

  He hadn’t come back to bed and, after a little while, she had gone to find him, wanting to put things right between them all.

  Looking back now, that had been a mistake. It would have been better to let things cool down. But instead, things had been said and done, the memories of which still festered underneath the skin of their relationship like a boil.

  ‘He can flare up,’ she said now, aware of the police officers watching her. ‘He has these little trigger points.’ She chewed at her lip, wondering if she was making sense. ‘He’s easily stressed and it was all a bit of a rush getting ready for the holiday.’