Free Her Last Tomorrow by Adam Croft

That’s the money shot for their front page, they’ll be thinking. A great shot of two grieving parents. That’s what they want, isn’t it? Build the drama, sell the papers. It doesn’t matter how much of it is real.
    And, right now, I don’t know how much of it is real.
    I comfort Tash, my brain only really processing the noise of the cameras firing and flashing. Somewhere amongst the maelstrom, McKenna’s words rattle, distant and faded.
    ‘...if anyone has any further information, to call our incident room on...’
    I close my eyes and try to push it all away.

19

    I feel strangely cautious about conducting any sort of research on my own computer now. For all I know, the police could have installed some sort of tracking software on it and be watching all of my online activities. That wouldn’t usually worry me too much, but I don’t intend on just conducting any old sort of research.
    The police have returned the car already, but didn’t bother to do me the courtesy of letting me know they’d found nothing. Even though it’s back, I still can’t shake the thought of the car being tracked or followed. So, I slip on my shoes and leave the house, deciding to walk into town.  
    My first port of call is the library. I go inside and speak to the young girl at the desk about using their public computers. She tells me I’ll need to sign up for a library membership. Yeah, I know. A writer who doesn’t have a library membership.
    Apparently it only takes five minutes to sign up. All I’ll need to do, she says, is type in my identification number and password and I can then use the computer. I don’t like the sound of this. The last thing I want is my research activities being logged against my name by a public body.
    I know there’s an internet café in the next town. At least there was six months ago when I last drove past. I decide I could do with the walk anyway.

    When I get to the internet café, I push the door open and walk inside. There’s no-one in here other than the man, who I presume to be the owner, sitting at a desk at the back of the shop. I’m not particularly surprised — who uses internet cafés when everyone has computers and smartphones these days?
    I walk up to the man and ask if I can book some time on the computers. I hand over my money and he points me in the direction of a terminal. I’d always presumed there’d be some fancy system in which I’d have to insert my coins and have some sort of countdown clock in the corner of my screen, but instead the man just looks at his watch and jots down the time on a notepad. I guess that works too.
    I wait an age for Internet Explorer to actually open — this is why I use a Mac — and I eventually get around to being ready to type in my search terms. Fortunately for me, my screen faces the wall so I don’t have to worry about the prying eyes of the shop owner or anyone passing by on the street.
    I sit for a few moments, not actually entirely sure what it is I want to search for. My brain feels like it’s full of fuzz, unable to formulate any clear thoughts. I try to think back to the mindfulness exercises I’ve done in the past and remember some of the techniques, but no matter how hard I try I just can’t shift the fog.
    I pull a notepad out of my bag and start to doodle. A few minutes later I’ve still typed nothing into the computer but have created a brainstorm, with the word MURDER in the middle and all manner of ways of killing someone stemming from it. So far I’ve covered strangulation, electrocution, blunt force trauma, stabbing and ‘accident’, complete with inverted commas.
    Although I’ve spent years writing about people dying in all sorts of horrible and gruesome ways, when it comes down to it I realise that I’m not going to be able to do it myself. The ideas I seem to be favouring are what one might call the indirect methods: ‘accident’ seeming particularly enticing.
    I turn a page on my notebook and continue