The Vanishing

by John Connor

  This morning had been the same – so that Rachel’s last ever contact with her child had been unthinking, fleeting, void of the significance the moment was to later acquire. Rachel had simply passed Lauren to Lovisa, then bent forward and kissed her on the nose. Lauren, as usual, hadn’t even appeared to notice that this was a transition. She was with Lovisa now. She would see her mummy later. Then Rachel was rushing off, because her first appointment was for nine, and would be waiting.

  At three minutes to ten the entire clinic suffered a power cut which lasted nearly fifteen minutes, an event which caused a measure of quiet panic since most of the systems had only limited back-up power. Rachel had just finished her first consultation and for a time she stood in the windowless, darkened corridor outside her cubicle, listening to the running footsteps and voices. Then she decided to go down to the crèche and check on Lauren. There was no real reason to, and by the time she got there the lights were back on.

  She entered the crèche at thirteen minutes past ten, according to the wall clock with Mickey Mouse hands, which she looked at as she came in. She found Lovisa absent, but Millie – the other assistant – was fussing over a very young baby, who was crying. She looked for Lauren among the other kids playing on the floor and it took about ten seconds, she calculated, to realise that the reason she couldn’t see her wasn’t because she wasn’t looking properly, but because Lauren wasn’t there.

  The sudden, shocking perception of her child’s absence had come to her once previously, when Lauren had crawled off into some shrubs in a friend’s garden, so she knew not to give into it immediately, not to let loose and yell with panic. But that came pretty quickly once she discovered that Millie wasn’t even aware that Lauren was gone.

  All the predictable stages of reaction had followed. She could recall them less well now, because they had dragged into months of police enquiries and useless activity and all become blurred together in her (often drugged) recollection. The immediate responses were significant enough – the frantic combing of the corridors near by, then the hospital, then the street outside, before some kind of worse realisation began to set in – but oddly, they weren’t the moments that had stuck clearly in her head. Not like bending down and showing Lauren the daffodil.

  She had been living with the truth ever since. Lauren had been snatched. Someone had come in and deliberately removed her from Rachel’s world – possibly arranging the power cut to facilitate this, the police had said, waiting until Millie had run out of the room leaving the kids ‘for just a few seconds’ unprotected. It had taken months to realise, to fully sink in, but around ten minutes past ten on 14 April 1990 Lauren Gower had vanished.

  Twenty-two years ago. If alive, Lauren would be twenty-three years old now. If.

  They had told her that time alone could heal her, that she would get used to the livid absence at the heart of her life, that the need to live and move on would finally dull the agonising mental trauma. But they had lied. Nothing had changed. Only her limited ability to control her focus, to turn away from it. There was no living with it, and never would be, no accommodation with the horror. All she could do was avert her concentration and hang on. Fill her head with other things. By a sheer effort of will she had to trick herself that she was just like everyone else around her. The normal people. She had to pretend she was one of them.

  5

  Ile des Singes Noirs, Sunday, 15 April 2012, 4.20 p.m.

  Sara Eaton sat on the very end of the wooden dock, the letter in her hand, waiting. In front of her, shimmering in the intense afternoon sunlight, stretched the vast, translucent blue of the Indian Ocean, framed in the near distance by the twin horseshoe promontories of the island. The wide bays to either side of her – formed on the inside of the horseshoe – were rimmed with a thin edge of golden beach fringed by the palms and mangoes cascading out of the jungle interior. The view was stunning, and though she had sat here and gazed at it almost every day she had been here, it never failed to inspire, to lift her spirits, to leave her mentally gasping at whatever it was such perfect natural views revealed – something beyond the image, she thought, without being able to articulate it better than that.

  Today the sea was extraordinarily calm, the surface utterly unruffled by wind or waves – like a huge azure mirror, reflecting perfectly the rare clumps of high white cumulus. The humidity was uncharacteristically low, making the naked sunlight seem stronger, enough to send the monkeys and parrots into the shade, producing an almost unreal level of silence. Below her, the smaller white motor launch made the only sound she could hear as it moved rhythmically on the imperceptible swell, gently butting against the jetty piers where it was fastened, causing the lines up to the short mast to jingle slightly in their loops.

  She wore a yellow, long-sleeved cotton shirt, very loose white trousers and a broad-brimmed white sunhat. The only part of her left exposed was between her trousers, which ended at her knees, and the canvas deck shoes, and she had heavily coated the bare skin with total block. She had learned the hard way what the midday heat could do. Two years ago, just before her nineteenth birthday, she had burned badly, got sunstroke and had to be flown out to the hospital in Victoria, on Mahe, in the Seychelles. Ile des Singes Noirs wasn’t strictly a part of the Seychelles chain, but the facilities on Mahe were the nearest thing to civilisation.

  She was waiting for the seaplane to appear. The island was short on modern means of communication – there were no fixed phone lines to the nearest, larger island (which would be Remogos, approximately two hours away, via the launch), no antennas for mobile phones and no signal even if there were one. There was a single satellite phone installation, with an intermittent connection, powered by solar energy, at the farthest end of the island, on a hill. You could drive there on the heavily rutted road in about two hours, using one of the jeeps. She had done that earlier and had called to check the schedule. The plane was on time and on its way, but she was still having to estimate when it would arrive. Transport didn’t work like clockwork out here. She had been on the jetty for an hour now, reading her magazine, or rereading the letter or just sitting staring at the sea.

  She turned her attention back to the letter. It troubled her. They sent the seaplane to bring provisions and mail once a week and this had come back with it on Tuesday. It was from her old nanny, Felice Cotte, sent from Paris, where Felice lived, and redirected by the staff in Sara’s London flat. So by the time it got to her it was over two weeks out of date. She read the relevant parts again. Felice had received a letter – an actual written letter, not an email – from Sara’s mother, Liz Wellbeck. This was unusual. For almost two years Liz had been living in a bespoke clinic she had established for herself in Brussels. She was a virtual recluse. Felice had heard nothing from her in over three years when this letter arrived out of the blue.

  The letter had reached Felice fourteen days ago, on the first of the month. It was short and written in Liz Wellbeck’s distinctive, near-illegible scrawl – Felice had sent it on to Sara, with a covering letter explaining its origins and indicating that she had subsequently tried to contact Liz at the clinic, without success. Sara read the note again now.

  My Dearest Felice. What I did is unforgivable, unspeakable – I can live no longer with the burden of it. I feel a filthy disgust in my heart. I cannot put things right, but I must try to help those I have inflicted with suffering and loss, before it’s all too late. I cannot leave this wretched place, so it is up to Sara now. She needs to contact a man called Tom Lomax, in the Metropolitan Police, in London. He will tell her why. He knows it all. Elizabeth Wellbeck-Eaton.

  That was it. Sara had no idea what it meant, what it referred to, or why her mother had not contacted her directly, and while her mother’s mental condition often gave rise to quixotic behaviour, the note had a disturbing tone. She had tried to contact her mother, taking Thursday to fly out to their house in Victoria to use the more reliable communications there, but that had, as usual, drawn a blank. One
of her mother’s specialities was an aversion to telephone contact. There would be phone lines into her clinic, no doubt, but Sara didn’t know the numbers. They were secret. She had two mobile numbers for her mum – including an ‘emergency’ number – but on Thursday, at least, they had both been switched off.

  Sara hadn’t liked it. But nearly all communications with her mother were odd. It had been that way for half her life, and she had got used to it. She could contact her father, of course, but she knew from past experience what his reaction would be. He would dismiss the note as gibberish, more of her mother’s nonsense. So she decided, in the interim, to locate and speak to this Tom Lomax, whoever he was, before attempting to go to Brussels herself. Perhaps he would be able to explain what her mother had meant. It took only money and staff to arrange a meeting, and she was short of neither of those resources, even here. It would be far easier than flying to Brussels to be told that her mother couldn’t even recall writing the note.

  She heard footsteps on the planking behind her and turned to see Janine Mailot walking towards her, carrying two tall glasses. ‘I thought you might need to cool down,’ Janine said in French. She was from Mahe, and spoke the local Creole, plus French and English, but she had been to university in Paris, so usually used French when speaking to Sara. Sara had completed the last four years of her secondary education in Paris and had spent much of her childhood there, so her French was fluent. Janine was five years older than Sara, but Sara’s closest friend nevertheless. It had been that way all her life – she had never been able to get on comfortably with people her own age, even as a child. She had met Janine through the project here, just over a year ago – Janine was a research scientist, here to do the blood analysis on the monkeys – but they had very quickly formed a bond.

  ‘Perfect.’ Sara smiled at her. ‘Sit down with me. What is it?’

  ‘Fresh lemonade. Arthur just made it.’ Arthur was local too, Janine’s uncle. Sara used him as a caretaker for the old house when she wasn’t here, as a chef when she was.

  Janine was about to sit, but right then they heard the faint drone of the seaplane’s twin engines. ‘That’s it now,’ Janine said, squinting into the distance. Sara stood beside her, taking the glass of lemonade and sipping it appreciatively. They watched as the speck in the distance grew larger, the engines shattering the silence. Life was so slow and leisurely on the island that the coming and going of the seaplane – their main link to the world outside – was always an event, even if it wasn’t bringing in a complete stranger, as it was now.

  The pilot set it down easily and taxied almost right into the dock. He cut the throttles, jumped out on to the float and attached lines to two fixed buoys, at the other side of the plane. Then he crossed to the near float, shouted a greeting to Sara and threw her a line. She caught it and tied it to a block, while the pilot threw the second line to Janine, to secure the tail. Sara then let herself down a ladder, got into a little rubber dinghy and used a large rod to push the boat across to the nearest float, rowing the last few yards. She tied the dinghy to the float and stood up, balancing carefully but easily. The pilot greeted her again – he was a Senegalese who had been flying for her for nearly a year now – and they exchanged pleasantries about the trip as the passenger struggled to get himself out of the cabin and on to the float.

  He looked tired, ruffled, uncomfortable. One side of his face was discoloured by a livid bruise, beneath his left eye. He was badly dressed for the island – in a thick, striped dress shirt already soaked with sweat, a tie (untidily loosened), suit trousers and black brogues, a crumpled jacket in his hands. He looked like a thug, Sara thought. But an attractive one? Maybe. Hard to tell with the bruise. Automatically she glanced back towards the dock and the treeline. There was a watchtower in the trees there, built especially to give a clear field of fire across the dock. She could see a figure moving on the high platform, see the sights of the sniper rifle trained on them. The figure – Jean-Marc, she guessed – saw her looking and waved briefly, to let her know she was covered. Jean-Marc was local too, the man she trusted with what little security she allowed when here. He had a team of three who patrolled the island.

  ‘You didn’t get that bruise during the trip, did you?’ she asked. The man was standing unsteadily on the seaplane’s float.

  ‘No. Am I meant to get into that thing?’ He was pointing at the dinghy. His eyes caught hers and she had to stop herself from reacting. He had intense, dark eyes. They were beautiful. For a second too long she couldn’t get her gaze away from them. ‘Yes. Just step across,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. If you slip the water’s only waist deep here.’

  He grinned. ‘Maybe I should just dive in. It’s been like a sauna in that cabin.’

  The pilot explained quickly. ‘AC down again. Sorry. I’ll get it checked tomorrow.’

  ‘How unfortunate,’ Sara said, holding a hand out to steady the visitor. ‘I’ll get you a change of clothes.’

  ‘A cold beer would be good too.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll check if we have any.’

  He got himself into the dinghy. ‘Tom Lomax,’ he said, extending his hand to her. ‘I must stink. Have I time for a shower before I meet the client?’

  ‘The client?’ She frowned at him, then shook his hand. ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ she said. ‘But I’m Sara Eaton. Thanks so much for coming.’

  6

  What had he expected? Someone very much older – older than he was, certainly – but she looked like she was about twenty. He hadn’t dared ask. She was a fraction taller than him, with very short, very blonde hair and the lightly tanned, smooth, perfect skin that only the very wealthy or the very young could have. He had sat beside her in the dinghy feeling dirty and old, her laughing eyes taking him in. Green eyes – a child’s eyes, in a child’s curious face, but she didn’t have the shyness of a child. She moved and acted like she was used to being in control. It made her seem older than she looked. In the enclosed space, her long legs had rested against his until they got to the dock, apparently without any self-consciousness. She spoke to him like she was five years older than him.

  He took the shower and the beer she offered, not wanting to refuse now. She had given him a room on the top floor of a big, old, colonial house, built from a dense black wood. There were carved panels all over the staircase, colonial images of hundreds of naked savages, running amok, slaughtering, killing. The ceiling of his room was covered with them too – racist imaginings from another age and world. They made him wince, but from the window there were incredible views of the bay. Everything was comfortable, especially the air conditioning, but he showered quickly, drank the beer only because he was uncertain if he should drink the tap water and he was very thirsty.

  This journey had sounded like something promising, when proposed to him by the flunkey solicitor in London. He had slept for the first half, letting the swelling over his cheek settle down, the confusion in his brain dissipate. After that some excitement had crept into his head – at the very least he had been plucked out of all that London shit – the shit that was his present life; the grinding warfare with Sally, trenches dug in front of her twin desires that he should pay more and at the same time see Jamie less, the miserable daily business of trying to claw in enough cash from reluctant clients, in order to service his own debts. That was the real fight, and even with Alex’s help he was losing it. The next big, desperate decision would be to get rid of the house and car, downgrade. Or jack it in and try something entirely different. But what? There was a faint chance that this thing with Sara Eaton – whoever she was – would deliver better options than working for criminals.

  After the refuelling stop in Dubai there had been dramatic turbulence, then a very rushed change in Victoria, on Mahe, in the Seychelles, with barely enough time for him to get to the waiting seaplane. There had followed a miserable, cramped, bumpy and parched three-hour trip here. That had dampened his enthusiasm. By the time the pilot was pointing out the i
sland to him – a very indistinct green speck on an endless blue horizon – he was feeling so sick he didn’t care.

  Here was called Ile des Singes Noirs. Black Monkey Island. He had no idea where it was. Nor had he seen any monkeys yet, black or otherwise. But he had seen plenty of men with guns. By the dock there had been a watchtower and a guard with a sniper rifle trained directly on him. Looking out of his window he had seen another two, walking around with automatic weapons. All of which made him nervous. So he drank the freezing beer (flinching as it passed across the broken tooth), dressed in the clean, light clothing they had left out for him in the room, took more of the painkillers he had brought along and went out to meet her, as she had suggested, in a large, open summerhouse, to the side of the main building. She was already in there, waiting for him.

  The summerhouse was a spacious circular structure, on short stilts, with a rush roof and open sides, bare boarding on the floor. It looked like it had been built in a hurry and patched periodically to keep it upright. Maybe that was the fashion with these things, for these people. There was a table in the middle with several chairs. She sat at one side, with the other, older woman he’d seen at the dock opposite her. The jungle started a few feet past the shelter and the bigger trees were leaning over it. He could see movement in the higher fronds, and a chattering noise, but couldn’t make out what was making it. Looking back in the direction of the dock, he was startled to see that the sun had become a huge, crimson orb, very low in the sky. The entire horizon was stained a deep red, the colour running into the sea. Above him it was already shading into darkness. He stopped as he took the two steps into the summerhouse, looking across at the view with his mouth open.