The Vanishing

Rex and Saskia are a young couple driving to the South of France. Their petrol gauge is broken and their tempers are fraying, so they pull in at a service station to refuel. As soon as they stop, they make up, and Rex buries two coins at the base of a fence post as a token of their love. Saskia goes off to buy cold drinks and vanishes.

Eight years later, Rex is still haunted by her disappearance. Then one day he sees words scrawled in the grime of a yellow car parked outside his window: REX YOU'RE SO SWEET. His obsession flares up again.

The Vanishing is a short psychological suspense novel by the Dutch writer Tim Krabbe. It was originally published in Dutch as Het gouden ei and was adapted for the screen as the film Spoorloos, with an English-language remake following.