THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE

When Tracy Hall fell for Max Tavita, she fell for a mirage. Max was a false identity created by a con man, and Tracy was the latest in a long line of women whose life savings hed stolen.

- GENEVIEVE GANNON

Falling in love takes a leap of faith. When you meet someone new, putting your heart in their hands requires trust, and just a little bravery.

In 2016, when Tracy Hall first downloaded a dating app, Happn, she wasn’t feeling particularly courageous. She was 40, newly single and trying to imagine what her life would look like post-divorce. Tracy and her daughter, Asha, then six, lived near the beach, where Tracy loved to unwind from her demanding marketing job by running along the shoreline or plunging into the ocean. She is, she says, a positive person, and so when the Romeos on the dating app slung her profane pics or described themselves as “married but looking for other opportunities” they were fodder for stories to make her friends laugh, rather than a cause for genuine despair.

“I have an optimism bias. I just think the best of everyone,” she says.

Yet, after she laughed off her disappointments over cocktails, she couldn’t deny the sting of loneliness she felt when her friends went home to their husbands.

“When you go into the dating apps, you have to open yourself up,” she says. “I say to my daughter, if you go into every situation just looking for the red flags, love and kindness can’t actually exist in that world.” But she was still careful. Or so she thought.

Max Tavita had platinum blond hair, a career in finance, a swanky flat and had just returned from a 16-year stretch working in New York, via a brief stint in London. He wasn’t the first promising prospect, but he quickly became Tracy’s favourite. Despite his flash credentials, he struck her as humble and attentive.