Free Coding Isis by David Roys Page B

man. I think you’re a good man Chris, if I didn’t you wouldn’t have married Michelle, no matter what she thought of you, I would have made sure of that. Michelle’s a smart girl and I trust her judgment, but I want to know the truth and I want to hear it from you.’
    ‘I was not having an affair with Jasmine. I love Michelle. I would never do anything to hurt her.’
    Bob gave a slight nod, as though he’d heard what he wanted to hear. He said, ‘OK, that’s good enough for me. Let’s get you home to your wife. You should focus on getting your life back to normal. Don’t wallow in this shit Chris, let it go. Let the cops figure out what happened to the girl and move on. OK?’
    It was OK. Chris was happy to get back to his old life. But that wasn’t really possible was it? Life wasn’t like a computer program, you couldn’t undo the bits you didn’t like. Jasmine was dead, and before she died, she’d been reaching out to him. He wanted to know why. The rest of the car journey was in silence. What needed to be said had been said. Chris knew that once they were back in the house, Bob Whittaker would be Dad once more. They’d joke and smile, share a whiskey or a beer and watch the Redskins play. He also knew that no matter how well he got on with Bob, if he ever hurt his little girl, he would be sure to find out what kind of justice he was prepared to mete out.
    Naylor climbed the stairs to the dormitory room in the Foggy Bottom campus that had, until recently, been occupied by Jasmine Allan. The room was at the south end of a long corridor that had five similar doors. Each door was painted gunmetal gray, the floor in the hallway was linoleum. Everything was uniform and plain, except for the last door that had a tape across the door, Police Line, Do not Cross . A patrolwoman was standing at the door. Guarding the room, preserving the evidence.
    Naylor nodded to the policewoman as he approached the door. He showed his badge, a formality, but necessary nonetheless. The policewoman acknowledged Ben and smiled as he ducked under the tape and entered the room. The room was simple: bed, desk, sink, mirror, and a noticeboard with tickets, photographs and letters pinned to it. He took down a photo of Jasmine and some other girls. College friends on a night out, he guessed. They looked happy and carefree. Jasmine was a pretty girl, her jet black hair tied back. Her big brown eyes shone with the joy of the moment. He didn’t recognize the girls in the photo, maybe they were friends from her home town. A farewell party perhaps? The bed was unmade, a pair of cotton shorts and a baggy Nirvana tee-shirt looked like they’d been thrown to be picked up later. The sink was clean but surrounded by cotton wool, cleansers, toners, and other cosmetics. The desk had a mixture of books on computing, make-up brushes, powders and lipsticks and a laptop computer. He picked up the computer and opened the lid. The fan and hard drive simultaneously whirred into life and the screen displayed a brief message in white text on black before changing to show dancing lights that swirled around the screen before grouping together into a corporate logo, then some text told him it was restoring from a saved state.
    The screen prompted for a user, there was a single option, a tiny picture of Jasmine with her name underneath. He clicked on the picture and after a few seconds the menu options and folders of her computer were displayed. No password. He clicked the icon to launch a word-processing application and checked the most-recently-used files. There were some assignments that sounded technical, too technical for an old cop like him, but also a document that had been saved to a folder called diary , with a filename that appeared to be the date. Naylor sat at the desk and started to read the entries. There was no mention of any close friends, but she did write about her fellow students. The girl in the room next door, Beth, was a permanent