Here at home we had a cat like that, he belonged to my wife, always when he was lost for a long time we knew that when he came back we had to have all the implements to take care of him, when we did it we closed all the doors and windows so he wouldn't come out, after a few hours when he noticed that we weren't around he disappeared and at night he came back and looked at us with that face like "Ha! I went out and they couldn't stop me humans", he was one of those bitter cats but they are affectionate in their own way. We miss him.