Gone

by Adam Croft

  I look up at my own clock on the kitchen wall. No time seems to have passed at all. The second-hand barely seems to be moving, even though I can see that it is. Slowly. Every second seems to take almost a minute, and I will the clock to move more quickly, to tick away those minutes until I feel I’ve waited more than long enough and I can start to get things moving. Until I’m closer to being able to have Anya back again.

  When you know someone — really know them, on a deep and soulful level — you don’t need facts and evidence. It’s almost as if there’s a deep-seated connection, and you know immediately when something has happened. They say some twins will feel pain when their brother or sister is injured. Right now, I feel the loss of Anya more acutely than I should. It’s not the loss of someone who was here but I can't find, but of someone I know on a subconscious level I never will find.

  I chide myself for jumping to conclusions and admitting defeat so readily, but I seem to have very little choice. Anya is gone, and at the bottom of my heart I know almost for certain that I’m not going to see her again.

  Because I might not know much, but I know one thing for sure: Anya is dead.

  4

  I was more impressed by how the police responded this time. I rang 101 and spoke to another female officer, who showed the level of concern I expected. Why they couldn’t have done that last night, I don’t know. Bloody red tape, I suppose.

  She took some basic details from me over the phone and wanted to know of any places I could think of where Anya might have headed. On that last question, I had nothing. If I could think of anywhere — anywhere — I’d have gone there myself.

  A few minutes later, I received a call back from the officer, sounding even more concerned than I expected. Her attitude was professional, I thought. Caring. She said they’d send an officer out to speak with me and to get some further information. Finally, I started to feel the cogs beginning to turn as the police machine sprung into action.

  The female police constable they send looks younger than I expected. I open the front door and welcome her in alongside another PC, a male, whom she introduces as Wilson. It makes me think of the character in Dad’s Army, but this Wilson is even younger than she is, and he isn’t a sergeant either.

  They come through to the living room and, once they’re settled in, PC McCain says she wants to ask me a few questions about what happened yesterday.

  ‘I’ve already told the lady on the phone everything I know,’ I say. ‘Should you not be out there looking for her?’

  PC McCain pulls a face that tells me this is a line she’s heard a hundred times before from families of missing people. Her response seems equally well rehearsed. ‘We need to establish the rest of the facts first. Adults have a right to disappear. As long as they’re not at risk or doing anything illegal, there really isn’t much that can be done. But of course we understand your concern, so we’re going to spend today establishing the facts and seeing what the state of play is.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ I ask, feeling bamboozled by her well-rehearsed speech. ‘Are you going to go out and look for her?’

  ‘If it’s established that she could have come to some harm, yes. At the moment we don’t see there is any particular indicator of risk, which is... Well, odd. We’re usually only come out once risk is established, but these things happen. If we can establish that Anya or others are at risk, we’ll circulate her description and a photo to local officers. We’d need you to provide a photo before we leave, if that’s the case. But what we do need now is to take some details from you for a risk assessment form. That’ll have all the facts and information that we can use to potentially help find Anya.’

  I nod. There isn’t much I could say to that. She comes across as very reassuring.

  ‘So, what time was it that you last saw Anya?’ she asks.

  I swallow hard, trying to hold back my frustration at having to repeat things I’ve already said. ‘Just before eight o’clock,’ I say. ‘That’s when I left for work.’

  ‘And you work at Tesco’s, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time do you start work?’

  ‘Eight-thirty.’

  ‘And was Anya awake when you left?’

  ‘Yes. She’s always up before me.’

  ‘And how did she seem? Was she happy? Did something seem to be on her mind?’

  I shake my head. ‘She was the same as she always is. She never changes. That’s what I love most about her. She’s always there, always with a smile on her face, always knowing the right thing to say at any moment. I feel lost without her,’ I say.

  PC Wilson is furiously scribbling notes as I speak.

  ‘Is there anything missing, at all?’ PC McCain asks. ‘Any clothes, personal possessions? Has she taken her passport?’

  I shake my head automatically. ‘No. No, I don’t think so. I’ve not looked too much... I’m just worried, you know. Her laptop’s gone. And her phone.’

  ‘Okay. It might be a good idea for you to double-check. It’s important for us to know if Anya planned to leave or not. We can have a look around the house for you, if you like. It might seem mad, but we’ve found people hiding or inadvertently locked in places. You’d be surprised.’

  ‘Uh, yeah, if you like,’ I say. The male officer gets up and has a very cursory glance around the house. I guess this is their way of establishing whether or not I’m guilty. If I’d said no and refused to let them look around, that would have raised a big red flag straight away.

  PC McCain asks me more about Anya — her family history, how long she’d lived in England, what our plans for the future were. And she asks again about friends. ‘It’s a bit odd that she didn’t know anyone here, isn’t it? I mean, surely she must have known someone. Purely by leaving the house at some point in her life she’d be acquainted with the local shopkeeper or a neighbour or two.’

  ‘She hardly ever left the house,’ I reply.

  ‘Hardly ever?’

  ‘Well, never.’

  ‘So what about the window cleaner?’ she asks. ‘The postman? Milkman?’

  ‘I buy milk from work. And we have a different postman all the time. Sometimes a postwoman.’

  ‘And the window cleaner?’ PC Wilson asks, McCain shooting him a look that tells him he probably shouldn't have said that.

  ‘I think he’s called Brian,’ I reply. ‘But it might be Bert. He’s due back round here in three weeks if you want to ask him.’

  PC McCain gives me a look; not the one she gave her colleague, but another one which says she’s not particularly impressed. It’s only fleeting, though, and then she’s re-applied the veneer of the caring police officer speaking to the partner of a missing person.

  ‘And what about you? What family and friends do you have?’

  I look down at the floor and start to wring my hands without even thinking about it. ‘I don’t, really. I mean, I do, but I don’t. I don’t see my parents.’

  ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘They’re weird’, I reply.

  PC McCain gives me a look that tells me she wants me to elaborate, but I’m saying nothing unless she asks me. She holds the silence, using that old trick of trying to get me to fill it. I do, but not with what she wants.

  ‘And to be honest we don’t really have friends that we see regularly. I have my work colleagues, but they don’t count, do they?’

  ‘You tell me. Would you call them friends?’

  I think for a moment. ‘No,’ I reply. ‘That’s why I called them colleagues.’

  PC McCain looks at me for a few moments longer before she speaks again. ‘Can I ask you a personal question, Stephen? I don’t want this to sound odd or rude, but do you have any medical conditions or diagnoses at all? Some behavioural issue, perhaps?’

  ‘I have a condition called Asperger’s Syndrome,’ I explain. ‘It means that I—’

  ‘You struggle with empathy and emotion,’ PC McCain interrupts. I don’t like peop
le interrupting me. I wanted to tell her.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, trying to remain calm.

  ‘So would it be fair to say that if Anya had been upset or anxious yesterday morning, you might not have known it?’

  ‘No, I would still know.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I just would. Trust me.’

  The police officers both look at each other.

  ‘It’s hard to explain,’ I say. ‘I love her.’

  ‘And how would you define love?’ she asks, leaning forward in the armchair, placing her elbows on her knees.

  ‘It means that I really, really like her. That she makes the other part of me. That I don’t think I could live without her.’ The officers are both looking at me, and I feel I need to explain myself further. ‘My condition is only mild. I function perfectly normally. Most people wouldn’t ever know there was anything wrong with me.’

  As I say that, the police officers look back at each other again, and I can tell that I didn’t say the right thing.

  5

  I had to send the photo of Anya to PC McCain by email in the end, as the only one I had to hand was on my phone — the one I use as the background wallpaper.

  After the police have left, I look around the house for any signs as to where Anya might have gone and why, then sit and rest my eyes for a while. My head’s pounding and I need to clear it.

  An hour or so later, I open Facebook in the browser on my phone and I enter Anya’s email address and password. I know her password just the same as she knows mine — we know everything about each other. Her password is sandomierz, the town in Poland she grew up in.

  As the website logs me in, the first thing I see is the same photo of the two of us at the top of the page. And that’s when I notice the really odd thing. Her newsfeed looks bare. The only posts showing are ones from me.

  Steve Lightfoot

  Not long until Christmas now… anyone want to get me a Ferrari? Hehehe

  Steve Lightfoot

  Lovely weather for ducks :(

  Steve Lightfoot

  Please PLEASE no one tell me what happens on GOT but I really hope that joffrey gets wots coming to him…

  The posts cover the last month, if not more. I barely go on Facebook, so there must be other people whose posts would have shown up here. I click through to Anya’s profile, then to her friends’ list. I gulp as I see what’s on the screen.

  The only friend listed on her profile is me.

  As quickly as I can, I go back to the main part of her profile. There it is again, bigger this time — the photo of the two of us together. But under it is nothing. None of her Facebook posts, no information about her. Nothing.

  I sit back in my chair and try to make sense of it. Why would she delete everything from her Facebook profile? Why would she want to erase all trace of herself? She wouldn’t. It just doesn’t make any sense. That’s not the Anya I know.

  Unless it wasn’t her.

  The thought hits me like a ton of bricks. What if someone else did it? What if someone else did it in order to try and get rid of some evidence of something?

  No, I tell myself. I’m letting my thoughts run away with me. I need to remain calm and level-headed, not theorise about weird conspiracies. But, try as I might, I can’t help myself.

  I think about calling the police and letting them know about Anya’s Facebook profile. Realistically, though, what would they do? There’s no crime in deleting posts from Facebook. Anya was never a particularly heavy user of the website as it was, but I’m fairly sure she would have had more people than just me on her friends list.

  My mind spins with confusion. Part of me wants to tell the police, and another part thinks they won’t take me seriously. Part of me sees how weird it is that Anya’s Facebook profile has been completely locked down, and another part seems to accept it as strangely normal.

  But knowing Anya so well means that I know for a fact she wouldn’t have just upped and left. But no matter how much I tell the police that, they don’t seem to believe me.

  The biggest worry for me is that I can feel this dreadful realisation. When you have a bond with someone that’s that close, you know when something is seriously wrong. And, deep down, I know that Anya isn’t coming back. It’s a thought I’ve been trying to shake off since I first had it this morning, when the clear light of day allowed me to think with clarity — a clarity I wish now I didn’t have.

  Sometimes being able to think clearly is a burden. That’s what I always think. At times like this, I’d far rather be able to ignore the reality and bathe myself in the delusion that everything’s alright. It would make life much more bearable.

  The thing that’s upset me the most is that the police haven’t given me any clear indication of what they’ll be doing. They’ve asked me lots of questions, tried to convince me that everything will be fine but haven’t told me what their plan of action will be. Are there teams of officers out on the streets, searching for Anya? Are they going to try tracing her movements somehow? Are they knocking on doors?

  Truth be told, I don't see what good any of it would do anyway. I’ve convinced myself this isn’t going to end happily, and I don’t see any way back from that.

  It’s a mess. It’s all a huge, horrible mess. The perfect life I’d had laid out for us. I’d once been so lonely, and I thought I didn’t mind. Then Anya came into my life and everything changed. I saw what was possible, what life was like with someone else in it. And my whole outlook was altered.

  That’s what frightens me the most — the thought of going back to the way things were, all alone, lost in my own mind. With Anya, the world had purpose. It had reason. A reason I didn’t know I was missing until I found it. And when you meet someone who has that sort of impact on your life, you can’t think of life without them. Because everything changes.

  I’m not good with change. Never have been. The occasional positive change I don’t mind, but this one certainly couldn’t be described using those words.

  I can feel my heart racing faster, and the intense stress and pressure makes me feel hot, as though it’s the height of summer. I throw off my jumper and the t-shirt underneath and head into the bedroom, flinging open my wardrobe and looking for a cooler vest top.

  And that’s when I notice it.

  That’s when I see that all of Anya’s clothes are gone.

  6

  I spend the rest of the day in something of a daze, not quite sure what to think or what to believe. That’s what’s worst — the feeling of utter helplessness. There’s absolutely nothing I can do, and that’s ruining me. I feel a duty to Anya, as if it should be me out there looking for her, trying to find out what’s happened.

  I feel completely useless. All I can do is wait. I imagine this is the point at which people who drink would start to drink. Right now I’m thankful that I don’t.

  So I just sit. I sit and stare, and time passes either slowly or quickly, I’m not sure which. All I know is that it passes, because the next thing I register is the fact that it’s dark outside. It gets dark early this time of year, but even so I must have been sitting and staring for a good couple of hours at least. Sometimes time just passes like that and I have no idea what’s happened. It’s almost as if I’ve zoned out. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism. It used to scare me, but now I’m not so sure it does. I find it strangely calming, actually.

  I guess at this stage most people would ring their friends or family. Family’s out of the question for me, but there is one person I know I can rely on. I take out my phone and select Jen’s name in the Contacts app.

  The phone rings and rings, but there’s no answer. It’s always the same with Jen — I don’t know why she bothers having a phone.

  I wanted some advice, someone to tell me I wasn’t just being ridiculous and panicking unnecessarily, but now I realise that’s not possible. I’m going to have to call the police again. If they don’t like it, tough.

  I phone 101, give the operator m
y crime reference number and the phone rings for a few seconds before a male voice answers.

  ‘Uh, is PC McCain there please?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m sorry, she’s out on a call at the moment. Can I take a message at all?’

  A message, I think. Great sense of urgency there. Yeah, just jot it down and hope she sees it at some point.

  ‘Um, I think it needs a bit more than that,’ I say. ‘It’s about my girlfriend who’s gone missing. PC McCain is investigating.’

  ‘Right. And your name is...?’

  ‘Stephen Lightfoot.’

  ‘Okay, Stephen. And what was the message?’

  I swallow hard. ‘There is no message. There’s been a development.’

  ‘Righto. And what’s the development?’ he says. I visualise him saying this over his shoulder to the rest of his team, sniggering and chuckling at me.

  ‘Her clothes are all gone. All of her stuff.’

  He suddenly sounds a lot more concerned. ‘I see. And when did you notice this?’

  ‘Just now,’ I say. ‘I mean, I didn’t think to go looking through her wardrobe beforehand. I didn’t think she would have just upped and left.’

  There are a couple of seconds of silence. ‘Okay, well I’ll need to let PC McCain know and get her to speak to you, but to me it does sound as though that might be the case. If she’d been the victim of some sort of crime it’s very unlikely she would have packed her bags first, don’t you think?’

  ‘I... I don’t know,’ I reply, not really knowing what to say.

  ‘Is there anything I can help with at all? We all work as a team here, so you can speak to me if you like.’

  ‘No. No, I need to speak to PC McCain,’ I say.

  The officer clearly picks up on the level of concern in my voice and immediately tries to sound more reassuring. ‘Listen, she should be back soon. I’ll get her to call you straight back when she returns, alright?’