Then You Were Gone (15 page)

She walked down the street towards the hostel. The building that housed it was another reflection of the confidence that existed in the middle of the previous century that the past was dead and gone and those lucky enough to be living in the modern era need never trouble themselves with it again. The building looked like the science block of a sixties comprehensive school – in fact it was attached on one side to a primary school. The lights inside the school were lit and Simone could hear through the windows high-pitched joyful voices singing ‘Autumn Days’, but the hostel’s windows were dark in the dull November afternoon. Simone walked up to the main entrance and tried the door but it was locked. A sign to one side read, ‘YHA Kielder is closed for the winter months. We will reopen at Easter. See you then!’

Turning away from the door, Simone gazed forlornly at the darkening skies. There was nobody around to talk to, nobody who was going to say to her, ‘He was here and now he’s gone,’ or, ‘He was never here in the first place.’ She had a book in her bag, a historical novel about queens and princes and treachery and betrayal. She could head along the road to where the bus had passed a shop and a grotty looking pub and see if she could find somewhere to pass the time until the bus came back for her. She knew she would not be able to concentrate for long enough to actually read the book, but she hoped that if she continued staring at it then at least any curious strangers might leave her alone. She walked along the path next to the school’s assembly hall, and noticed that the building was also partly given over to the village’s library. It was open, but only for another twenty minutes. She ducked inside, just as the first spots of rain were falling.

‘Hello there! Rain still holding off is it?’ The cheery woman’s accent was more Scotland than Northumberland but her attitude was almost American in its aggressive cheeriness. Simone fought an instinct to back out the door.

‘Erm, no actually. It’s just started.’

The woman gave a theatrical sigh. ‘And I thought we were going to get away with it today. Can I help you with anything in particular?’

‘Oh, I just thought I’d come in and have a look round, I’ve got some time to kill.’

‘OK, sure.’ The woman looked as though the curiosity was crippling her, but she was still British enough to refrain from asking for any more information. It occurred to Simone that this was not a village where people generally found themselves on a damp November afternoon with time to kill.

‘And I’m looking for somebody,’ Simone blurted as the woman was turning back to busy herself with covering books in plastic. ‘I wondered if you’d seen him.’

The woman was frowning now, a lack of comprehension clear in her face. ‘Just now? Because there’s been no one else in since this morning.’

‘No, I don’t mean just now – not even today, maybe. I just mean, you know, recently. Like, in the last couple of weeks.’

The woman’s gaze did not flicker but Simone could tell she was sizing her up for lunatic potential. ‘I’m really not sure what you’re asking me.’

A deceptively cool customer, Simone mused. ‘A friend of mine’s been ill – you know, psychiatric problems. We know that he liked to come up here sometimes to get away from it all and we thought he might be here now. None of us – his family or friends – have seen him for a few weeks and we’re getting worried. I’m in the area for work anyway and I said to his mother that I’d have a scout round for him.’
Jesus,
Simone thought,
good work, PI Simone
. She felt like high-fiving herself. Maybe she could do this after all.

The librarian nodded. ‘Right, OK.’ She seemed to buy the story, Simone noted with gratification. It must have been the repeated use of the word ‘we’, she decided, designed to give the impression that Simone was merely the representative of a large consortium of friends and well-wishers out to find their lost and fragile boy. ‘So…’ the librarian spread her hands in a ‘what’s next’ kind of gesture. ‘What does he look like, your friend?’

Even as Simone started to describe Mack, she already knew that this woman had seen him. There was a faint flush around the bottom of her throat, a certain keenness in her manner. She had seen Mack, she had clocked him, she remembered him well. ‘He’s tall, slim, black hair, blue eyes, London accent… Quite good looking,’ she added with a conspiratorial smile.
I know you liked what you saw, but I don’t mind
, was what she was trying to convey.

The woman was nodding as Simone spoke. ‘Yes,’ she said before Simone had quite finished talking. ‘Yes, I know who you mean. He has been in here. That was him this morning, that was who I was talking about.’

‘This morning? Like, today?’

She nodded. ‘This morning, like I said. He came in to use the internet, wasn’t here long. He came up to the counter to pay, then I saw him drive away.’

‘Driving? What was he driving?’

The woman grimaced. ‘Christ, I’ve no idea. It was a smallish car – you know, like a Fiesta or one of those little Peugeots. Not really tiny like a Mini though. And it was dark blue – like navy, only they don’t really call cars navy do they? And, um, well, that’s all I noticed about it really. I don’t do cars,’ she added unnecessarily.

Simone smiled weakly. ‘Me neither.’ She paused, trying to think what to ask first.
Was he OK?
was all that she really wanted to know. ‘How did he seem? I mean, obviously you don’t really know him, but… was he OK?’ There. She’d actually said it.

There was a half-smile on the woman’s face as she considered the question. Just picturing Mack’s face was clearly enough to make her smile. ‘I really couldn’t say. I suppose he was quite – I don’t know…
preoccupied
I suppose is the word. He definitely didn’t want to chat, put it that way! I asked him if he was up here for work and he said yes, but I thought it didn’t seem likely. Most people who work here are either Forestry Commission or with the water board. He didn’t look like he was either of them. He looked more like…’ The woman hesitated, as if trying to think how to put it tactfully.

‘More like a travelling salesman?’ Simone asked.

The librarian nodded. ‘Yeah. Or like, I don’t know, one of those motivational training coaches you get on team building days.’

Simone could not help but smile. She knew Mack would hate to be described as such, largely because it was a little too close to the mark.

‘Anyway,’ the librarian continued, ‘like I said, he wasn’t keen to stop and chat for long.’ She rolled her eyes as if to say,
Story of my life…
‘But, you know, not everyone’s up for passing the time of day with the librarian. They just have stuff to get on with, don’t they? Plus, he seemed like he was in a bit of a rush, said he was heading straight off back to London.’ She tailed off, eyeing Simone sympathetically, then she screwed up her face and looked puzzled. ‘Actually, there was one other thing. I should have said earlier when I mentioned about his car. There was someone else with him.’

‘What?’ Simone’s heart pounded. ‘Someone else came in with him?’

The woman shook her head. ‘No, outside in the car. There was someone in the car waiting for him. I could see her in the passenger seat.’

‘Her?’ Simone’s throat ached with the effort of trying to act normal. ‘Could you see who she was? I mean, what she looked like?’

The librarian shrugged. ‘Not really. She was quite far away and the sun was reflecting off the glass a little bit. I could tell it was a woman though – well, a girl really. She can’t have been more than twenty I wouldn’t have said. Long dark hair. Pretty.’ She was silent a moment, looking at Simone, and Simone knew what the woman must be thinking, how she must be pitying this frazzled, lonely stranger who had got bus after bus north through the country, chasing after a man who had thrown her over for a young, pretty brunette.

Simone knew she had to say something. Pathetic and pointless as it was – after all, she was never going to see this woman again – she felt as though she needed to save face. ‘Well, I guess that’s good then that he wasn’t on his own. And it’s good that he said he was heading back to London.’

The woman nodded sympathetically. ‘Sorry I couldn’t be more help, pet. But I’m sure he’s fine. And like you said, sounds like he’s on his way back home right now as we speak. He’ll get there before you most likely if he’s driving and you’re on that rickety old bus!’

‘Yes,’ Simone nodded. ‘You’re right. Erm, I don’t suppose you could tell me what he was looking at on the computer, can you?’ Seeing the woman’s expression, she said, ‘No, no, of course you can’t. Sorry – worth a try!’

The woman smiled apologetically. ‘Bye, pet. Hope you find him!’

‘Me too,’ Simone muttered as she hunched her shoulders against the heavy drizzle and set off for the freezing bus shelter.

The bus was on time, fortunately, but still it was almost dark by the time Simone boarded it. It was the same driver she had had earlier. ‘Now then, pet. Nae room at the inn was there?’

Simone only grunted in response. For all that she sometimes longed for the peace and solitude of the countryside, the people there were, in her experience, much less willing to mind their own bloody business.

‘Told you it was closed, like, but would you listen?’ and he chuckled at his own cleverness half the way to Hexham.

The traffic on the bus’s return leg was, if anything, even sparser. In the moments that she was concentrating, Simone counted a total of two cars passing in the other direction. There was a white builder’s van in front of them for a few miles and when they swung round a bend she spotted the lights of a car close behind them, but other than that she and the stupid, full of himself driver may as well have been alone in the world. Simone was glad there were no other passengers. She felt that if she held herself completely still and did not look at or speak to anyone then she would continue to be able to fight the panic that was bubbling inside her all the time. If she lost the battle and descended into a howling, bawling mess then at least there would be nobody other than the evil old bus driver to witness it.

Somewhere after Bellingham her phone beeped and she knew she was back in the twenty-first century. She had a text and a voicemail message. The text was from Jazzy:
Check your voicemail, it’s from me
. Simone smiled. Indeed he knew her too well. As often as not, she did not even notice that she had voicemail messages, and when she did she had been known to accidentally delete them in the process of listening to them.

His voice sounded very far away, as though he was at sea and speaking to her through a howling gale. The sound of his voice, the knowledge that he had called her always, still, caused a little pulse of something – excitement? Adrenaline? – to shoot through her.

‘Simone, it’s me. Listen, I… Shit, I don’t know where to start. First of all, where the fuck are you? I rang your mum’s so I know you’re not there – don’t worry, I think I managed to fluff things so she won’t panic and report you as a missing person, but… Where are you, Simone? Anyway, wherever you are, you need to come home. If you’re looking for Mack, then stop, OK? He’s mixed up in something bad, I’ve no idea what but you need to stay out of it. Please. Look, some stuff’s happened here – someone’s trying to scare me, they’ve tried to… Well, someone went to Rory’s nursery. He’s fine,’ he added quickly, as though sensing Simone’s horrified gasp. ‘He’s fine, Petra’s fine, they’ve gone away for a few days. And someone – a different guy I think, I don’t know… But someone’s been trying to scare Ayanna too. She’s here with me now. I’m looking after her.’ Even through the howling gale of the poor phone line Simone could tell Jazzy’s fake bravado when she heard it. Then his voice became quieter, drifting out to sea so she had to strain to hear it. ‘We’ve found something out too. Those false papers Mack wanted, the ones he got from Ayanna’s brother. They weren’t for him. They were for someone else, we don’t know who exactly but they were for a young woman. A girl really, I suppose. We don’t know,’ he repeated. Then very softly, so faint she could barely hear. ‘Just come home, Simone, come home safe. Ring me at home when you can, OK? And take care. Bye.’

Simone pressed the red button to end the call, her hand trembling slightly. The message had made her feel many things, and thrown up too many questions to begin thinking about. But the overriding impression she was left with was of how worried Jazzy was about her. That, at least, was something. She pressed dial to call him back, and spent the rest of the journey in muttered conversation with him, explaining how close she had come to finding him, but that still she was coming home empty handed. ‘He’s on his way back to London though,’ she kept saying to Jazzy, repeating the librarian’s assertion as though it were stone cold fact. ‘Try ringing him, try going to his flat. He’s on his way home. Find him.’

As the bus drew up near the station in Hexham, the rest of the town was deserted. It had started raining in earnest about twenty minutes earlier and even the puddles remained undisturbed by traffic, but as the bus slowed to a stop a car came from behind and pulled in at the kerb on the opposite side of the road. It must be, Simone surmised, the same vehicle that had been behind the bus all the way from Kielder. Must be someone else aiming to catch the Newcastle train, she mused. She should have hitched a lift, it would if nothing else have saved her five pounds eighty and from having to put up with the bus driver’s insufferable smugness. Simone stood and walked to the door, but as she stepped down from the bus, still nobody had emerged from inside the car. She turned her back on it, heading for the station ticket office, when something jolted into place in her mind. It must have been the talk of cars with the librarian that had made it stick in her mind, the way the woman had described the car Mack had been driving as ‘navy’. Because this car, the one now parked opposite the station, was navy too. But that was not why Simone had noticed it – it was not, she was sure, the car the librarian had described. It was a huge, heavy-looking estate, a Volvo or Saab or something equally solid and Nordic. It was because the car now parked opposite the station had the letter SPO at the end of its registration – Simone’s initials. And outside Kielder library earlier that afternoon had been parked a big, navy estate car with the initials SPO at the end of its registration.