Then You Were Gone

Could you leave the one you love?

Mack was that guy, the one who had it all. The looks, the charm and that twinkle in his clear blue eyes. Yet, after those first few moments of meeting him, Simone just knew he was the one. Four days ago, Mack told Simone he loved her – and then disappeared without a trace.

Now Simone is forced to question everything she ever knew about Mack – and whether it was all a lie. Determined to find him before the trail goes cold, she’ll do anything to uncover the truth. But how do you find someone who doesn’t want to be found?

And what if his secret is best left buried…

Then You Were Gone

Claire Moss

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © Claire Moss 2015

Claire Moss asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474036474

Version date: 2018-09-20

Claire Moss was born in Darlington, north-east England, in 1977.

She has worked with books and the written word all her adult life as a bookseller, librarian and novelist. Having always been an avid reader of popular fiction, she struggled to find women’s fiction set in the north and containing characters concerned with issues other than beauty and credit cards. Eventually she decided she would have to write it herself. Then You Were Gone is her third such novel.

Claire Moss is married and lives in North Yorkshire with her husband and two young children.

Many people have helped this book become what it is. I would particularly like to thank Victoria Oundjian, Charlotte Mursell and all at HQ Digital for superb editorial feedback and an excellent cover. Also Eve White, all at Thirsk Write Now and everyone else I have bothered. Lastly to all of my lovely family and friends for their support.

For Andrew

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgement

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Excerpt

Endpages

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Sane people do not call the police because their boyfriend has not texted them for four days. And Simone was pretty certain she was still sane. She also knew that it was probably best not to call the police even if the boyfriend was not answering your phone calls or emails. She did not know if he would answer the door to her as she had not gone as far as calling round to his flat to test him out.

She knew what a sane person would say, if a less-than-sane friend asked their opinion on this situation. She knew what she would say if anyone, sane or otherwise, asked her opinion. She would tell them that people sometimes avoid other people because that is easier than telling them the truth. People sometimes avoid other people even when they are in a relationship with that person, because they are in too deep, or they get scared, or they change their mind, or get a better offer. Grown adults, particularly ones who live alone and often work alone, sometimes need time to themselves and they should not have to justify that need to anyone. Even their girlfriend, if they have one, and if both parties are one hundred percent agreed that she is definitely his girlfriend.

So it was possible Mack was avoiding her. It was likely, from a dispassionate point of view, that he was avoiding her; that was what any other sane person would tell her was happening if she had been feeling sane enough to ask them their opinion.

But this was Mack. This was her and Mack. He would not play games with her, any more than she would with him. Simone was sure of it. But she was sure in such a way that she still did not feel able to go round to his flat, just in case she did find him peering round the curtains with his back pressed to the wall trying to pretend to be at the newsagents. Or, worse, she might find him there with someone else, someone younger and prettier, someone with perfectly plucked eyebrows and highlighted hair, someone more his usual type.

Simone tapped her nails against the back of her phone. It was Saturday morning and she had not seen Mack since Monday evening. He had met her from work and they had gone to see a band at Scala. Mack had been quiet, drinking a bit more than usual, talking a lot less than usual and once the band had finished he had rushed off home without inviting Simone to come back with him. She had known the band would not be his sort of thing – fiddles and foot stamping and clear-voiced, shaggy-haired female singers – but she had dragged him along to many similar gigs in the past and he had always put on some kind of pretence that he was finding the experience tolerable. She could have invited him back to her place, but she did not. A man in a mood is best left to come out of it in his own way. She had learned that, if nothing else, over the years.

And then on Tuesday he had texted her to cancel their planned meal out on Friday. He was away for work until Thursday, which she knew to be true, but now the tone of his absence had shifted away from ‘miss you’ and ‘can’t wait to see you again’ towards ‘not sure when I’ll get back, might be too tired to come over’. He would cancel the restaurant, the text said, and be in touch before the weekend. And then, at the end of the message, there it was. The thunderbolt. The reason Simone was seriously considering calling the police – or at least seriously considering the possibility of seriously considering calling the police. For at the end of the message, Mack had written, I love you x.

It was the first time either of them had said anything like that to each other. And a man like Mack – Simone was fairly sure she knew what kind of a man Mack was – would not have said that, or anything like that, as a throwaway line, a place-holder to keep her on-side until he returned from whatever tryst he was headed off to. And she was sure – nearly sure – that he would not have said that and then immediately disappeared from her life. At least not on purpose.

Because after that, after the thunderbolt, there had been – nothing. No text, no phone call, no email, no reply to any of the messages she had left for him. His mobile went straight to voicemail and there was no answer when she called the phone in his flat. So Simone concluded that she had reached the point where she either bit the bullet and crossed the line into stalker territory or sat back and waited for Mack, like the caged bird of inspirational fridge magnet fame, to prove his love by returning to her after being set free.

Simone pulled her fingers through her hair. She had taken some extra care over her appearance this morning, much as she might deny it to herself. She had not yet left the flat, but she was wearing tinted moisturiser and mascara as well as her newest, cleanest pair of jeans. The look was slightly ruined by the huge mohair cowl-neck she was wearing in an attempt to keep warm, but after last winter’s monumental gas bill she had made a promise to herself to keep the heating off until November. Now, with two weeks to go, she could feel her will beginning to weaken and had cracked out the winter woollies in an attempt to stave off the inevitable.

She knew what the best jeans and the modest make-up were in aid of, of course. It was in case Mack did come back unannounced and call round to surprise her. She wanted to look like someone he would tell that he loved.

The flat’s chilly, clinging air, along with the constant nail-tapping worry and the checking her phone and her emails every forty seconds were finally becoming too much though, and she stood up to get her coat and bag. She could step out for an hour or so, go and get a decent cup of coffee at the cafe round the corner, read the papers, act normal. If Mack came round while she was out, then he could just wait for her, like she had been doing for him. Eyeing her phone on the coffee table she considered for a split second leaving it in the flat in the hope it might buy her an hour of sanity, but she knew she would not do it.

As she picked up the phone and put it in her bag, there was a knock on the flat’s front door. Through the mottled glass of the door panels she could see the outline of someone tall, slim, unmistakably male. Simone let out an involuntary noise, halfway between a sigh of relief and a grunt of annoyance. That bastard. Where had he been? When she answered the door, her face must have betrayed her disappointment.

‘Hi. What’s wrong?’ It was a man, but it was the wrong man. It was Jazzy. Not Mack.

‘Oh, hi.’ Simone felt the sag in the middle of her body as the adrenaline shot ebbed away and the realisation sank in that it still was not him. ‘What’s up?’

Jazzy looked puzzled. ‘I just asked you that.’

‘Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine. I was just on my way out.’

‘Can I come in?’ Jazzy appeared not to have heard her. Or not to care. In Jazzy’s head the fact that the two of them had spent three years in university sharing a house seemed to mean that for ever more Jazzy would have constant unfettered access to wherever Simone was currently living.

He came in, past Simone and through the kitchenette, and sat down heavily on the sofa. He looked tired. He always looked tired now.

Jazzy turned down Simone’s offer of a cup of tea and looked round the flat. He cleared his throat and said in what she recognised as a forcedly casual tone, ‘Is – erm, is Mack here?’

Simone felt it like a punch to the guts. ‘No. No, he’s not.’ She stared at Jazzy for a moment to see if he was going to break into a grin and say I know he’s not, that’s because he’s out in the corridor waiting to surprise you! but he continued to wait, wide-eyed, for her to go on. ‘I haven’t seen him since Monday night,’ she said slowly. ‘I thought you might… I mean, I was going to ring you and ask you if you’d seen him, but I didn’t want to…’

‘Look mental?’ Jazzy was smiling and Simone relaxed enough to smile back.

‘Well, yeah.’

Jazzy’s mouth was closed but Simone could tell by the pouty shape of his lips that he was biting the tip of his tongue with his front teeth. It was something he always did when he was considering what to say next. ‘Well, the thing is, I haven’t seen him for a week either,’ he said. ‘He didn’t come back into the office yesterday when he’d said he would, and I can’t get hold of him on the phone. He usually emails me while he’s away, just for an update or whatever, but he hasn’t done that either.’

‘Right.’ Simone was unsure what to think. That Mack might be avoiding her began to seem less likely and there was a moment where, to her shame, she felt what was undoubtedly relief. But, a second look at Jazzy’s stubbly, drawn face reminded her that that option being removed only rendered what remained even more worrying. ‘I had a text from him on Tuesday,’ she added.

‘How did he sound?’

‘Fine.’ She nodded, then smiled shyly. ‘Actually,’ she blurted, unable to contain herself, ‘he said he loved me.’

Jazzy raised his eyebrows in an impressed gesture. ‘Really? Nice one.’

‘No need to sound so fucking surprised, thank you very much.’

He laughed. ‘Sorry,’ and he gave her a fond smile that made her want to cry.

‘Because at first I thought…’ If it had been anyone else, anyone other than Jazzy, she would have kept this to herself. Simone knew how most of her friends thought of her. The porcelain doll with the porcelain heart; smooth, cool, impenetrable and invulnerable to the pain the rest of them felt at their imperfect relationships. And it was a persona Simone had always been happy to play along with. So much easier than to have to open up the painful sores for inspection and discussion; better for everyone to pretend they were not there at all. But with Jazzy there had never been much point pretending; Jazzy would know everything anyway, just from the way she was breathing, from the colour in her cheeks, from the way she spoke Mack’s name. When she first met Jazzy, over a decade ago, her reserves of energy had been so depleted that she had never bothered even trying to build up the usual defensive wall around herself. No point starting now, she supposed.

‘I was a bit worried,’ she continued, ‘you know, maybe him not being in touch or anything, maybe it was because he, I don’t know, regretted it or something. But if you haven’t heard from him either, and he’s not come back…’

Jazzy winced. ‘Yes, I know. I know what you mean.’

There was a pause while the two of them looked at each other. Simone realised, to her embarrassment, that Jazzy’s breath was visible in thin clouds in the flat’s dim air.

‘Are we supposed to be worried about him?’ Jazzy asked. His voice sounded light, but as though he were consciously trying to keep it that way.

Simone looked at him. The feeling of wanting to cry threatened to overwhelm her again, but she fought it down. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.’

With every previous boyfriend Simone had always been able to play it cool with little or no effort. She was cool. But with Mack that had all, to her unending surprise, changed. At first, in the first few tentative weeks of their courtship, there had been the usual hesitation and denial and one step forward followed by four steps sideways, the two of them circling round each other, unsure whether something so seemingly perfect could really be trusted. But in the last few months, something had grown between them – what her grandmother’s generation might have called ‘an understanding’. They were together, and being together was seriously important to them both, and it was for real this time. And for the first time since… well, for the first time in a very long time, Simone had allowed some of the frost inside her to thaw, had allowed herself to believe that this man, that the life she might have with this man, might be worth laying herself open to pain and heartbreak for.

And now he loved her, and he was gone.

Simone swallowed and looked at Jazzy. ‘I was thinking about… about the police.’

Jazzy’s jaw was set. ‘Right. What, you mean like a missing person?’

She nodded. ‘What do you think? I mean, he’s a grown man, he’s allowed to go off by himself for a few days isn’t he? I just don’t want to…’

‘Look mental?’ Jazzy said again.

‘Well, yeah.’ Neither of them laughed this time and they both sat for a moment in silence. Simone watched as the wisps of their breath appeared and disappeared on the air.

Jazzy shook his head. ‘You’re not being mental,’ he said with confidence, as though consciously bringing himself back to the moment. ‘But I don’t think we need to call the police yet either. Have you got his mum’s number?’

‘No. And even if I did, there’s no way I’d ring her. I’ve only met her once, that really would make me look mental.’ Only a few weeks ago Simone had met Mack’s mother for the first time, in an Ethiopian restaurant in Lewisham with a BYO licence and Dolly Parton on the sound system. Mack had been his usual easy-going, ebullient self, at least on the outside, but Simone flattered herself that she already knew him well enough to detect something else in his demeanour, a stiffness and reserve that she had rarely seen him display. It could be that he had just been nervous, perhaps that he felt, as she did, that there could be a lot riding on this evening, that he really, really wanted to make sure his mother liked her. Or it could have been something else, something that Simone hoped she might find out about in due course. Family dynamics are a fraught and emotional thing for all but the best-adjusted, Simone knew that better than anyone, and if there was something difficult in his relationship with his mother, he may be waiting until he and Simone had known each other a little longer before he let her in on it. She had decided not to push him on it, and he had not mentioned the evening since. His mother had been pleasant and polite but not especially interested in Simone, who had come away wondering if his mother had seen her merely as another amongst many attractive young women who had skirted round the edges of her son’s life over the years.

Jazzy held Simone’s gaze for a few moments. Only someone who knew him as well as she did would have been able to see the worry behind his eyes. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK. I tell you what, why don’t we just wait until Monday? If he’s still not come to the office and we still haven’t heard from him then we’ll – well, we’ll talk again and decide what to do. But don’t worry, I’m sure it won’t come to that.’

‘No,’ Simone agreed. ‘I’m sure it won’t.’ Her words sounded firm and confident to her ears, so she wondered why she felt the panic rising again as she once more fought down the overwhelming urge to cry.

Chapter Two

Jazzy, Petra and Rory lived round the corner from the post office. Living so close to the main road was the only way they could afford to live in Winchmore Hill, but it did bring certain benefits; such as actually having the post delivered before they set off for work.

‘Letter,’ Petra said, handing Jazzy the plain white envelope without looking at him. She was holding a slice of dry toast between her front teeth as she tried to tie her hair back. Jazzy grabbed the letter from her with one hand as he used the other to try and prevent Rory from wiping his slobbery face all over Jazzy’s good work trousers.

‘Thanks. I’ll open it on my way, I’ve got to go if I want a seat on the bus. Come here, big guy,’ he said to Rory, picking the baby up and kissing him on the top of his head, the only visible part of him that was clean and dry. ‘Love you lots, have a good day at nursery. Bye darling.’ He kissed Petra’s cheek, and she nodded at him in good-natured acknowledgement.

‘Let me know about Mack, won’t you?’ she said through the dry toast.

‘Sure.’

Jazzy forgot about the letter until he was nearly at work, so preoccupied was he with thinking about Mack. When he had texted Simone last thing the previous night: ‘Anything?’ the reply had come simply: ‘Not yet.’ The hope embodied in those three letters ‘yet’ was what made him angry; angry at what Mack might be doing, angrier still at the thought that Mack might be in the process of proving Petra right.

Petra had warned Jazzy all along about allowing things to go so far with Mack and Simone.

‘You know what’s going to happen,’ she had said. ‘He’ll do what he always does, he’ll get bored, he’ll ditch her and where will that leave you? Whose side are you going to take then?’ They both knew whose side he would take – his loyalties lay with Simone and always would – but it was left unsaid.

‘No,’ Jazzy had protested, ‘I really don’t think he will, not this time. I think he really likes her.’

‘Of course he bloody likes her. She’s beautiful, she’s cool, she’s got awesome hair – and then she also goes and has the cheek to be a really nice person. Of course he likes her. But Mack likes a lot of people, if you know what I mean.’

Jazzy had smiled. It made him happy that Petra liked Simone. ‘Yes but you’re forgetting, Simone’s so low maintenance that she barely classes as a girlfriend at all. If anything, Mack’ll be the needy one and Simone’ll get bored and ditch him.’

Petra had rolled her eyes. ‘Have you ever known a woman get bored of Mack before he got bored of her?’ The question did not require an answer. ‘Just…’ Petra had thrown her hands up, ‘if they’re going to get together, then fine. I just don’t think you should encourage it. Because when it all goes wrong, it’s you she’s going to blame for it.’

And now it was looking as though it was going wrong, and Jazzy wondered if Simone would blame him for it. Jazzy would be surprised – shocked, even – if Mack had gone AWOL from everything, from London, from the business, from Jazzy, just to get rid of Simone. But, loath as he was to admit it, it was not entirely unthinkable. He and Mack had met ten years ago when they were teaching English in a high school in rural Japan, the only westerners in a fifty-mile radius, apart from a tall, outdoorsy Canadian girl who worked in the elementary school next door. She had fallen for Mack, swiftly and entirely, and he had seemed pretty smitten with her too, but when Mack went back to England among promises of undying devotion and vows to keep in touch, he had deliberately given the girl an email address and mobile number that bore no relation to his real ones. That Canadian girl had not deserved it any more than Simone would. And Petra was right; if Mack was taking a massive shit all over Simone’s feelings, then it was, at least partly, Jazzy’s fault.

He thought back to the conversation he had had with Simone in his local pub to try and persuade her to give Mack a chance on a second date.

‘He really likes you. He told me. Honestly.’ This was true.

Simone had looked unconvinced. ‘Yes, he likes me so much that he’s waited a month before getting in touch again.’

‘He’s been away a lot with work. He didn’t want to arrange something he might have to cancel at the last minute.’ This was only partly true. Mack had been away for three out of the preceding four weeks, but it was only when he had returned to London a few days ago that he had mentioned Simone.

‘I keep thinking about her,’ he had confided. ‘If I ask her out again, do you think she’ll say yes?’

‘I guarantee it,’ Jazzy had told him with a wink.

And he had been determined to do so. Simone’s misgivings did not seem that serious to him, certainly nothing that could not be talked round.