How to Disappear

by Gillian McAllister

  ‘Right,’ Harry says very quietly, after a brief pause. ‘That is quite different.’

  ‘But he didn’t mean it, I know he didn’t,’ Zara says passionately. ‘He was so scared, he gets like that sometimes because of his PTSD, because of his past, and they were so … they were so awful, after they’d done it. They didn’t regret it at all.’

  ‘So the footballers were the victims of the attack?’ Harry says, writing something down on a legal pad.

  ‘They don’t seem to behave much like victims to me, do they?’ Zara says, looking directly at Harry.

  ‘This is …’ Lauren says, and Aidan waits, leaving the punishment to her. ‘You shouldn’t have done this,’ she says eventually.

  Harry looks on impassively, ever the lawyer. Gathering the information. Waiting, catlike, for his moment.

  ‘They didn’t care at all,’ Zara says, and now the tears come. ‘They didn’t give a shit.’ She grips the table. Her hands leave sweaty marks on the Formica. They fade as Aidan looks at them, disappearing to nothing.

  ‘What made you do it?’ Harry says.

  Zara considers his question for a few seconds. ‘The police,’ she eventually answers, folding her hands awkwardly in her lap. ‘I think the police.’

  ‘What?’ Harry says. ‘Why?’

  ‘They said, “And Jamie wasn’t attacking them, was he?” That’s how they said it. Wasn’t. I thought … I thought about self-defence, but I thought. God, it sounds stupid now, but I thought the police wanted me to … to leave that bit out. I thought I was being … invited to.’

  This seems to annoy Harry. He crosses his legs so forcefully under the table that it rises up for a second, and Zara presses down with her hands to steady it.

  ‘How so? Did they say anything else, Zara?’

  ‘Well, I stammered, and then the woman police officer, she said, “And no movement from Jamie?” And then she asked, “And Jamie was just lying there?” and I thought they wanted me to … I thought what the boys did was so bad that … that we should turn a blind eye to Jamie. Because they still killed him, you know?’

  ‘Right,’ Harry says faintly.

  Aidan looks at Zara. Teenage logic. There’s no nuance to it. No common sense, no understanding of the justice system, of perjury. Just a desire to please, a feeling, instincts.

  ‘Why would the police want you to do that?’ Harry adds.

  ‘Because they want convictions, don’t they?’ Zara says. ‘Numbers. I thought … I don’t know. I saw two boys kill someone and I wasn’t … I guess I just … I got it wrong, didn’t I? I did the wrong thing. Clearly.’ Her head drops ever so slightly.

  ‘Yes,’ Harry says. ‘They … I mean, he was lunging at them, by your account. They did what any reasonable person would do.’

  ‘I know,’ Zara says in a small voice, but there is still something defiant about the set of her jaw.

  ‘Look,’ Aidan says. ‘What happens now?’

  Harry lets a tiny expulsion of air out of his mouth. ‘It’s pretty unprecedented,’ he says. He checks the time. It’s an Apple Watch. The screen springs to life as he turns his wrist. Aidan can see he has a waiting text message, too. Lauren leans right over to read it, and Aidan almost smiles. She is always so reliably herself.

  ‘The prosecution will need to take a view,’ Harry says. ‘Let me consult with my colleagues across the street.’ He scoots his chair back and leaves the room in one swift movement.

  Aidan looks at Lauren, and they leave the room together.

  ‘I hope he can help us,’ Lauren says.

  Aidan frowns. Harry isn’t going to help them, he thinks sadly. He belongs to the State. He’s there to prosecute crimes on their behalf. Crimes like murder and – yeah – crimes like perjury, too.

  6

  Aidan

  Islington, London

  In the middle of the night, Aidan is awake for a few moments before he realizes. His eyes are open in the not-quite-darkness of central London. Lauren is sleeping on her side, turned towards him, as she always does, her belly rounded and naked, forming three distinct rolls that she’d like to be two.

  A burglar alarm is going off somewhere across the street. Three beeps, then a pause. Aidan taps his foot on the mattress along with it. Beep, beep, beep, pause. Beep, beep, beep, pause. He turns on to his back, an arm above his head, and watches the ceiling light up blue, three times, then dim.

  The Crown Prosecution Service reviewed the police tape of Zara’s statement in the afternoon, while Aidan, Lauren and Zara waited.

  Afterwards, Harry had confirmed that Luke and Mal would be completely exonerated. That they were defending themselves against an attack. He had confirmed, too, that the CPS wouldn’t press charges against Zara: the interview footage confirmed her account that the police appeared to ask leading questions. That it would be easy for a teenager to be swayed by such an ‘amateur line of questioning’.

  Outside, afterwards, Lauren had tilted her face to the sun and said that it didn’t matter. That it was over. A quick sweep of fear had travelled up Aidan’s back, though he didn’t know why.

  He reaches for his phone now. Four thirty-two in the morning. On Facebook, he sees that a distant friend of his, somebody he met at a party – a friend of Lauren’s? – has made a charitable donation. His heart sinks when he sees the cause it is for.

  He needs to steel himself, so he gets out of bed and puts a dressing gown on. Before he leaves, he glances across at Lauren, duvet thrown off her, bottom completely exposed to the air, round and taboo.

  He stands in the hallway and peers out of the window. Their Islington street is foggy – big balls of moisture dyed amber by the street lights. Aidan goes into Poppy’s room. He wants to be alone. It’s empty right now and he gets into her bed. It’s a double. She chose sheets from The White Company – if it’s not a brand name, Poppy isn’t interested – and Aidan has to admit they’re very soft. He folds the bottom of the duvet over on itself, creating a kind of envelope, and puts his cold feet inside it.

  He bought the bedding after Poppy’s mother Natalie’s diagnosis. Multiple sclerosis. The post-divorce world they lived in became even more complicated when those words were spoken by the consultant. Poppy’s shopping trip was no compensation for it, but he’d taken her anyway. She’d picked out so much stuff. Silk pillows – ‘So my hair won’t curl so much’ – and a brushed cotton sheet. The lot. One hundred and eighty pounds. He’d mentally added up how many hours’ work that was on their walk back to his car, a habit he’s had since the 2008 recession.

  He looks at Facebook now, still lit up on his phone, and back at the donation. It’s a Kickstarter. Help Luke Taylor back on his feet after Girl A’s lies.

  Donated £10. Disgraceful, is all his friend’s comment says.

  He sits up in bed, silk fucking pillows falling around him.

  In the half-light of Poppy’s empty bedroom, he puts Girl A into Google. He doesn’t even have to click the ‘news’ tab. The internet is awash with his family.

  INNOCENT! WRONGED FOOTBALLER WAS ATTACKED BY HOMELESS MAN AND SERVED A YEAR IN A HIGH SECURITY PRISON

  SUSPECTED KILLER FOOTBALLER WAS ACTUALLY ACTING IN SELF-DEFENCE – COURTROOM SHOCKER

  WHO IS GIRL A? WHAT WE KNOW

  YET ANOTHER WOMAN LIES IN THE WITNESS BOX – WHEN WILL THESE FALSE ALLEGATIONS END?

  WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF HOLLOWAY FC? LUKE TAYLOR ACCUSED, NOW FREED, BUT WITH HIS CAREER IN TATTERS

  Aidan blinks, looking at the headlines about his family. About his stepdaughter’s lies.

  Aidan cannot understand how this has happened. How they are here.

  He clicks on a BBC News article with an accompanying video. It is Luke and Mal, on the court steps of the Old Bailey. He presses ‘play’, turns the volume down low, and watches.

  A news presenter narrates over the footage as the defendants stand posing for photographs.

  ‘Luke Taylor, up-and-coming striker for Holloway FC, was today acquitted at the O
ld Bailey on a charge of murder, alongside his accomplice, Malcolm Henderson,’ the undulating news reporter’s voice says. ‘While the police suspected Taylor and Henderson of murder, the truth emerged in the courtroom during the dramatic questioning of an anonymous witness known only as Girl A.’

  Aidan shudders as the narrator says it. How the fuck has this happened?

  ‘Taylor and Henderson were, in fact, acting in self-defence against an attack by the deceased,’ the news presenter says. ‘The truth only came to light under fierce cross-examination from Neil Thorne QC. Taylor was released today, free to return to his life, and his career – what is left of it.’

  Henderson’s representative was contacted for comment, but declined. Taylor’s father has told the local news that his son has been robbed of his career.

  Aidan lies back in the bed, rubbing his hair back from his forehead with the palm of his hand. Bloody hell. Fucking, fucking hell. He knows this is just the beginning.

  Aidan wants Lauren’s sunny positivity. Her laughter. A wave of her hand. ‘Tomorrow’s chip paper!’ she will say, and he will love her for it. And so, when she arrives downstairs, he knows that he will tell her what he’s seen on the internet.

  She’s wearing leggings, a dressing gown and slippers. She wears odd combinations around the house, adding layers as the day goes on. A T-shirt, a jumper of his, a cardigan. Bed socks and a woolly hat. By the end of the day, she is layered up like a Russian doll.

  It’s seven o’clock in the morning. The kitchen is half lit by a grey sky and nothing else.

  Their dog, Bill, stands solemnly by his bowl. Lauren blows him an unselfconscious kiss as she arrives in the kitchen, as she does most mornings. She refers to him as her ‘son’ to strangers, and has a photograph of him in her purse, right next to Zara and Poppy.

  Lauren falls in love with things. It’s a lesson Aidan learnt early on. Bill was a guide dog puppy. Lauren applied to foster him five years ago, without telling Aidan. That was Lauren all over, zany schemes. He wishes he could be more that way. Less uptight. But he can’t – not since his father died when Aidan was fifteen, anyway, and he became a man. And so he did the next best thing: he married someone fun.

  She said she would be paid to maintain the puppy’s training at home and to drop him off at school every day. ‘Substitute second baby,’ she had said glibly. She’d just turned forty. The baby-making window had closed. And they’d wanted it to, mostly, ready to move on with their blended family: no pushchairs, no nappies, no kids’ club holidays.

  ‘I have to hand him over when he’s two, though, when he becomes a proper dog,’ she’d explained when she sent the form off. ‘When he graduates.’

  Bill went everywhere with Lauren. He rode upright in the passenger seat of her car to parks on the outskirts of London – ‘Should I put a seat belt on him?’ – and slept at her feet while she watched television. Lauren would use ‘we’ whenever she spoke about him. ‘We’ve been to Hyde Park.’ ‘We’ve been playing tug of war all afternoon.’

  Aidan could see what was going to happen before Lauren could.

  The week before Bill was due to be eligible for guide dog applications, Lauren turned to Aidan and said, ‘You know what?’

  ‘What?’ Aidan said.

  ‘If I could run away with this dog and not give him back, I would. Be a fugitive on the run from Guide Dogs UK.’ And then she gave a laugh, a sort of maniacal laugh that told him she meant every word.

  ‘You want to keep him,’ he said flatly.

  Lauren shrugged. ‘I love him,’ she’d said. She self-consciously moved a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘I’m fucking forty,’ she’d said with a laugh. ‘But I love this stupid dog.’

  ‘But a blind person needs him.’

  ‘I know.’

  The next day, while he was working, a text had come through.

  Guide Dogs UK said some people do buy back the dog they trained.

  That was all it said. Sent exactly at 1.00 p.m. Not a minute earlier or later. Lauren had likely waited all morning for his lunch hour.

  What’s their price? Aidan had asked, his blood pressure rising.

  Lauren had gone silent. Unusual for her.

  When he walked in, she said, ‘Don’t be mad.’

  He raised his eyebrows, holding on to the wall as he eased his trainers off. He said nothing; something his wife was joyfully incapable of.

  ‘I asked their price, like you told me to,’ she said, like it was all his idea. ‘And we could do it.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘We could do it if we remortgaged.’

  ‘Remortgage? For a dog?’ Aidan said.

  ‘We could keep him. The funds are used to train loads more … that’s why it’s so expensive. To ease the moral burden!’ Bill appeared, then, padding into the hallway. Lauren’s hand drifted down to the top of his head and rested there, completely unconsciously. But it wasn’t the hand that did it. It was the look on her face. A brief close of her eyes, a smile just beginning as her fingers fanned out across his yellow fur. Love.

  Lauren fell in love easily, and she fell hard.

  Aidan sent the mortgage form off the next day.

  They gave Bill a middle name: Gates. It made them laugh. ‘He’s the richest dog in the world,’ Lauren said, the day the money came through.

  ‘Sleep well?’ Lauren says now, though he guesses she knows the answer.

  ‘You should see this,’ Aidan says, the anxiety erupting from him without warning. He opens his laptop and tries to pass it to her across the kitchen counter, but it’s so messy. She went shopping the other day and overloaded the fruit bowl. It towers between them. She reaches for the computer and stares at the screen as she holds it, standing up.

  ‘What, what?’ she says. She reaches over to boil the kettle, balancing the laptop on the palm of her hand. The kettle’s blue light comes on, illuminating her face. She looks tired.

  ‘There’s a crowd funder, for Luke,’ he says.

  ‘Some of the comments,’ she says, looking up at him with concern.

  ‘I know,’ he says. The crowd funder has been populating with them all morning. Things they’d like to do to his stepdaughter, ways in which they will make her pay for lying. He takes the laptop from her and scrolls through them, reporting each one for violent content.

  Lying shit needs to pay.

  Think sum1 should find this Girl A and tell her what’s what.

  She deserves to be hung – isn’t it a crime to lie in court x

  She deserves worse than hanging, mate.

  Make her suffer. Make her realize what it’s like to feel pain. Twist her arms behind her back, bag over her head lol. Show her who’s boss.

  Fuck her I say till she cries out.

  Two days after the trial, the door closes behind Zara. Aidan watches her go. Lauren is making sweetcorn fritters, swearing at how the batter is clumping together.

  ‘Where’s she gone?’ Aidan says.

  Lauren shrugs, licking her index finger. ‘She’s gone to speak to the homeless people. I let her go.’

  ‘What?’

  Lauren looks up at him in exasperation. ‘She was anonymous. Nobody will recognize her. And she wants to speak to the … to Jamie’s friends. To apologize, I think. For letting them down. Look. What time are you going to stop stressing about my child and go to see yours?’

  ‘That crowd funder is vicious.’

  ‘I can’t keep her inside for ever, like a prisoner,’ Lauren says. ‘She wanted to go out, so she’s gone. She’s almost an adult. Harry said it was fine.’

  Aidan stares at Bill, sitting in his bed in the corner of the kitchen, watching the fritters sizzle in the pan.

  ‘I did think about it, alright?’ Lauren says to him suddenly. One of the fritters is slowly burning. ‘But she has to go to school tomorrow. Ten o’clock on a Sunday morning is a pretty good time to try her being out, don’t you think?’

  Aidan checks the crowd funder again, as he has m
any times today. In the comments, somebody has pasted a single link.

  Aidan clicks it, and it opens the Facebook app on his phone. It navigates him automatically to a Facebook group.

  The group is called Find Girl A. He sits back for just a second, like the beat between a firework being lit and it going off. Fuck.

  ‘There’s a Find Girl A Facebook group,’ Aidan says quietly, unthinkingly.

  ‘Find Girl A?’

  He points to the screen.

  Lauren’s eyes track across it. She’s a quick reader. ‘Oh, shit,’ she whispers. She looks at him, then points to the screen. ‘Zara Starling,’ she says.

  At first, Aidan thinks she is being superstitious, or reverential. That, by uttering her daughter’s name, nothing bad will happen to her. But her lips are white, and he looks at his phone again, searching for an explanation for her terror. There it is, posted by a man with a blank profile photo calling himself Dr NoGood.

  News just in on the grapevine, he has written. Girl A is also known as … Zara Starling. Zara’s Facebook profile photo is attached, smiling, happy Zara, taken on holiday this summer, totally unaware.

  Aidan’s eyes meet Lauren’s across the kitchen. His stomach drops. They know who she is.

  Lauren’s hand is already reaching for her phone, trying to call Zara.

  They have found her.

  7

  Zara

  Highbury, London

  Zara is on her way back from seeing one of Jamie’s friends, and she feels worse, now, not better. She wishes it was possible to remove information from her brain, and store it somewhere else for a while.

  Nevertheless, at least she isn’t anxious. She is walking in the sunshine in Highbury, thinking how she used to hate to go out. She joked she was a hermit, an introvert, but, specifically, she didn’t like the Tube, lifts, wide-open spaces, and exam halls.

  From these, she constantly planned escape routes and excuses. If, during an exam, she felt weird, or like she needed to leave, she’d say she was having a nosebleed; no, she’d say she’d got her period unexpectedly. Anything was less embarrassing than anxiety.