Then She Was Gone

Laurel Mack cleans her daughter Hanna’s flat as she does every week, but she sees no signs that her daughter slept there or even come home the previous night. Hanna has never been the social type, nor has she ever had a boyfriend, so her absence causes Laurel alarm. Paranoid about her daughter’s safety because of the disappearance of her younger daughter, Ellie, 10 years before, she quickly calls Hanna at work and breathes a sigh of relief when Hanna answers. 

Laurel thinks back to the day 10 years ago when Ellie disappeared. Laurel has always been a pessimist, even when all three of her children were alive and well. When Ellie left for the library and never came back, Laurel’s cynicism snowballed. Paul, her husband, was sick with a cold when Ellie disappeared, and she had hated him for it. She had also resented Hanna and her request to eat the leftover lasagna that Laurel promised to save for Ellie. 

Ellie looks back at all the little things that led to her disappearance: getting a B+ in math, dating Theo (who was better than her at math), and begging her mother for a tutor. Even though they didn’t have extra money for a tutor, Ellie convinced her mother she needed one before the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams, pushing until her mom gave in. 

For the last 10 years, the police had no leads in Ellie’s case. She was last seen on CCTV footage (Closed Circuit Television) on Stroud Green Road, stopped next to a parked car to check her reflection in the window. Ellie wore a black T-shirt, jeans, white sneakers, and a navy backpack, with her hair in a ponytail. The police felt she tried to make herself invisible on purpose, and they suspected she ran away. When the police downgraded the search after two years, Laurel’s husband, Paul, and their two children, Hanna and Jake, just kept plodding forward, living their lives, but Laurel did everything she could to keep the search going. Recently, they did a 10-year anniversary appeal on television, and now the police have a lead.

Ellie remembers the first day she met with her math tutor, Noelle Donnelly. She recalls her strange smell, like cooking oil, and her unkempt, unattractive appearance. Ellie wished her mother would stay in the room with them, feeling uneasy about being alone with a stranger. 

On her way to the police station to hear about the lead in Ellie’s case, Laurel thinks about the way her life has fallen apart since Ellie’s disappearance. Paul left her to live with another woman, and Jake and Hanna moved out of the house at the first opportunity. Laurel and Paul sold their family home, and Laurel now lives in a two-bedroom flat. She fills her days by working part time, visiting her elderly mother, cleaning Hanna’s flat, and visiting friends out of a sense of obligation. As she nears the police station, she feels a sense of urgency and importance that she has not felt in her life for years. Earlier that year, Crimewatch did a 10-year anniversary appeal, reconstructing the CCTV footage from Ellie’s disappearance, but no new information surfaced until now. 

Noelle brings Ellie little gifts and asks after Theo as they continued to meet for tutoring sessions, and little by little, Ellie begins to like her. However, one day when Noelle arrives, Ellie notices a marked change in her mood. She asks Ellie about the worst thing that has ever happened to her, such as a pet hamster dying, but Ellie states she has never had a hamster. Noelle tells her she’s a lucky girl and expresses bitterness at not being able to have the things she wants. In subsequent sessions, Noelle continues to have mood swings and ask more strange questions, so Ellie decides to stop tutoring with her. She tells her mother she feels confident about her exams, rather than telling the truth that Noelle acts strangely sometimes. 

Someone found Ellie’s backpack near Dover, in a forest area near the ferry terminal. At the police station, the police ask Laurel and Paul if they recognize the bag or any of the items in it. The bag contains all of the things Ellie took with her to the library the day she disappeared, including the clothing she was wearing and a passport—Hanna’s passport. The police officer says the clothing shows signs of “intensive wear” (31), and they theorize that Ellie may have been on her way to Europe. Laurel thinks about why Ellie would have Hanna’s passport, and she remembers that someone broke into their house a few years after Ellie’s disappearance. Laurel has always suspected that Ellie broke in, but she can’t believe she was planning to run away. At that moment, another officer announces that they’ve found human remains.

A week before their GCSE exams, Ellie and Theo talk about their summer plans. Ellie can’t wait for all of the good times ahead of her, free of studying and tests. 

When their house was burgled years ago, Laurel suspected it was Ellie—she could sense her presence in the air when she entered the house. The burglar only took a few random items: a pair of silver candlesticks, an old phone and laptop, some cash, and a cake Hanna baked. There were no signs of forced entry. The police never found any leads, but Laurel held out hope that Ellie came home, even just briefly. She stayed close to home in case Ellie ever came back, and she lost touch with Jack and Hanna in her obsession to find Ellie. Three years ago, she finally gave up and internalized the “madness” that haunted her (38), but now that the police have found some of Ellie’s bones, all her grief and desperation come rushing back. 

Ellie had not thought about Noelle very much since ending her tutoring sessions, so when she saw her on Stroud Green Road as she was walking towards the library, it took her a moment to place her. Noelle asked if she was ready for her exams and offered to give Ellie a practice paper. Despite her misgivings, Ellie followed Noelle to her house just a few houses down the street. In hindsight, Ellie wonders if anyone saw them walking together towards Noelle’s house, and she thinks about all of the details that led her to this moment.

Paul and Laurel host a funeral to bury Ellie’s partial remains. Police say she was run over by a car, then dragged into the forest. The police investigate in the area surrounding the forest and ask if anyone remembers seeing a young girl along the road, hitchhiking, or sleeping outside, but no one knows anything, and the investigation ends.