Free What You Wish For by Mark Edwards Page B

I spent Sunday preparing my photographs for Theresa Smith. Marie sat at her computer. I think she was just browsing the web.’
    ‘So you’ve got no clues at all?’
    ‘No.’
    He sighed. ‘For a photographer, you’re not very observant, are you?’
    ‘I didn’t know I was going to be investigating her disappearance .’
    ‘Hmm. And you’ve tried to contact everyone she knows?’ Simon said.
    ‘I don’t have any of her friends’ details.’
    ‘Aren’t they on her computer? I take it you’ve looked?’
    ‘I would, but it’s password protected.’
    He rolled his eyes. ‘You’re not very good at this stuff, are you? Listen, try all the passwords you can think of. Including “password” itself. If you can’t crack it we’ll take it to someone who can.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘If you really want to find her you’re going to have to start thinking like a detective. Try to put aside your angst and grief and be logical.’ He swallowed. ‘If you need any help, I’ll be there for you. Although I still reckon she’ll turn up.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Didn’t she used to go to a lot of conferences on UFOs? You should find out if there have been any this week. Think, Richard, think. Stop sulking and moaning and do something.’
    We left the café and I thanked him.
    ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘if you need any help . . .’ He barked a laugh. ‘You’re definitely going to need it.’
     

8
    I sat in front of the PC. What was her password?
    First, I tried vanity and typed richard .
    No joy.
    I tried again. I looked over at the windowsill, where Calico looked out at the street. I typed the cat’s name.
    Access denied.
    I had a horrible feeling that if I failed a third time I would be locked out. I thought hard. With my heart thumping, I typed chorus .
    I was in. I hissed, ‘Yes.’ I wasn’t such a shit detective after all.
    I started to click through the address book, which was sorted by first name. The top entry was Andrew, with his phone number, home address and email address. Well, that wouldn’t be much use, would it? I moved to the next one, then flicked back and forth through the addresses.
    There seemed to be the phone number of everyone she knew, as well as the addresses of various organisations, such as the Ministry of Defence, the British UFO Research Association, UFO Magazine , Quest International . One that caught my eye was ‘Mum’. As far as I knew, she hadn’t had any contact with her mum while we’d been together.
    I exported the address book, after a lot of fiddling, onto my phone and felt my despair lift a little. Now I could make a start.

    The first number I called was Marie’s mum’s. There was no answer. Did anyone ever answer their phone? Then I called some of the other numbers. First, I phoned Kathy, who told me she hadn’t seen or heard from Marie for a few weeks. Not since she’d stormed out during our argument about Sally.
    ‘You’ve got me worried now,’ she said. ‘I can phone around people from college if you want, see if anyone’s heard from her?’
    ‘That would be great.’
    While waiting for Kathy to make her calls, I phoned the college itself to see if they’d heard from Marie. The woman on the switchboard put me through to a Pete Stapleford, the head of the computing department.
    ‘Let me check,’ he said, putting me on hold for a minute. ‘No, she hasn’t been to any of her lectures this week. We left her a couple of messages asking if she was sick. You’ve got me worried now. I’ll ask around.’ I asked him to call me if he found anything out.
    I scanned the list of addresses again. Kathy was taking care of most of the names in the file; I tried a few other local numbers, but they were all people who hadn’t seen Marie since she had left school. There were a few other private numbers, scattered around the country. My finger hovered over the phone, undecided. I sat and waited for Kathy to call back.
    When she phoned, an hour later, Kathy said,