Free What You Wish For by Mark Edwards

description. They frowned and said they hadn’t.
    The sky darkened. I found myself standing on the spot where we had made love. I looked down. That flattened daisy – had we done that? I sat on the grass and hugged myself.
    Back home, I phoned Simon again.
    ‘She’s not on the hill,’ I said. ‘Simon, what the fuck am I going to do?’

    I couldn’t wait forty-eight hours. The next day, I walked down to the police station in town. On the way, I tried to call Fraser Howa rd. This was my third attempt since I’d spoken to his wife. There was no reply.
    PC David Ashcroft – who I had been at school with – walked into the interview room and pulled a chair out from beneath the table; it scraped across the floor. He looked at me. I must have been a mess. I hadn’t shaved for three days and probably stank of stale smoke. The day I realised Marie was missing I had smoked my way through her left-behind packet of cigarettes. Then I had gone out and bought another carton.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
    ‘Like shit.’
    He opened a notepad and asked me to describe ‘the missing person’.
    ‘Her name’s Marie Walker. She’s twenty-three. White, blue eyes, pale red hair, small stud in the side of her nose, about five foot three, beautiful.’ I had already been asked to complete a questionnaire, giving Marie’s details, which Ashcroft now picked up and scanned quickly.
    He looked up. ‘Have you got a photo?’
    I shook my head. ‘I know, it seems ridiculous. I’m a photographer and I haven’t got a picture of my girlfriend.
    ‘Right,’ said Ashcroft, looking at me curiously. ‘Let me get this straight. You came home two days ago and Marie wasn’t there. You have no idea where she might have gone?’
    I shook my head again.
    ‘And nothing was missing?’ He looked at the questionnaire. ‘Just her jacket, her phone and her bag. What was in the bag?’
    ‘I have no idea.’
    ‘The usual woman’s stuff, I suppose.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘Any idea what she was wearing? Apart from the jacket?’
    I had thought about this and tried to work it out. I was pretty sure her black jeans were missing, but apart from that . . .
    ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.
    ‘Does she drive?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Does she have a job?’
    ‘Not as such. She’s a student.’ I didn’t want to get into the whole UFO consultancy thing.
    ‘What about family and friends? Have you tried ringing them to check if anyone’s seen her?’
    ‘Her dad ran off when she was a kid and I don’t know where her mum lives. In Hastings, I think, but I couldn’t say where exactly. And I don’t have the contact details of any of her friends either.’
    He shook his head despairingly. ‘How long had you been together?’
    ‘Four months.’
    ‘What about another boyfriend?’
    I was offended. ‘No!’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Well, of course . . .’ But was I sure? How could I be? She had so much spare time during the days while I was at work, she could have been doing anything with anyone. My paranoia flared up.
    ‘Had anything happened recently, anything that might suggest why she’d go off? Any bad news?’
    ‘Her best friend died in a car crash.’
    He drummed his fingers on the table and looked around, up at the small, grimy window that hardly let in light. He looked bored. ‘Richard, I’ll be totally honest with you, all right, seeing as you’re an old mate.’ This was an exaggeration. He had been a twat at school and we’d barely spoken. ‘We don’t give much priority to cases like this. She’s not a juvenile or a pensioner. She’s not what we class as vulnerable. She’s an adult, capable of making her own decisions, able to go where she likes. It’s not a crime to go missing, you know. This girl seems to have no ties – no job, no kids, just you it seems – and therefore she’s free to go wherever she pleases, with whoever she wants. I know you’re worried. I expect I would be in your situation.