Mary Furst’s room seemed untouched.
Her mother did not come inside with me. She stayed out in the corridor, acting as though the door was still closed to her.
She said, “After the police were done, I made it back the way it had been.” She hesitated before adding, “In case…she comes back.”
What do you say to that?
I opted for silence, stood in the middle of Mary’s room and looked around. The bed was made by a mother’s hand. Sheets tucked tight, pillows fluffed and inviting. A few stray stuffed animals at the head of the bed; inanimate pets. Probably closer to Mary than some of the friends she had at school.
Like I said: talismans…reminders…memories.
There were pictures on the wall. The framed ones were paintings. Originals, not prints. Looked like they’d been given as gifts. A recurrent theme of dogs made me guess at a lost family pet. Not recent, but Mary had been old enough to be struck by the loss.
Other images were more expected: torn posters of bands and films. Guys – tanned, with white teeth – glared down, with open shirts, one or two dispensing with them altogether. How much of a fight had that caused with Mum?
I checked the bookshelves. Waist high along one wall, the top shelves were decorated with knickknacks; pewter dragons with false gems for eyes, some cute looking models, a couple of pictures of other kids I guessed were her friends, all framed perfectly. Looking at the books themselves: a few old children’s classics – battered and well read – sat alongside more adult works. I smiled when I saw Catcher in the Rye, and noticed the crack in the spine. The kind of book, you get to it at the right age, I hear it can change the way you look at things. Come to it older, as I did, you wonder what all the fuss was about. I pulled the copy, thumbed.
An inscription:
Will this change your life, too?
Love,
D.
Feminine handwriting. The attention to detail you don’t get with most boys. I popped the book back into place. Didn’t figure it as too important, but maybe teenage angst had played some role in this particular drama.
Also on the shelves, of course, there were the obligatory Harry Potter novels. The older ones were cracked and thumbed, the newer ones looking fresher with the latest edition hardly looking touched. Lost interest? Or an appreciation of how much the books were going to be worth in their new condition?
More space was given to CDs. Music from bands I didn’t know. Maximo Park, Biffy Clyro. The names meant nothing to me.
The computer was tucked away in a corner. I didn’t figure her for a geek, but I guessed she knew her way around the machine. I turned back to Mrs Furst, gestured to the computer, still feeling like an intruder.
She said, “Aye, if you must.”
I booted the PC. No password protection. As though asking an idle question, I said, “You have your own computer?”
“No. I can barely turn the bloody thing on.”
That meant no password because there was no need for a password. Mary felt safe enough with her mother booting up the machine because the woman wasn’t about to go snooping. Maybe not because she didn’t want to, but more because she just couldn’t.
I turned away from Mrs Furst and mouthed the words, Sorry, as though Mary could actually see me or at least sense what I was doing.
The computer whirred, slow. Not out of date, but getting there. I checked the modem, saw the PC Activity light start flashing as Windows kicked in. The start up sound boomed at me, “Come with us now, on a journey through time and space…” The desktop was decorated with an image of two cats in a basket; stupefyingly cute.
I checked the documents folder first.
Lot of schoolwork by the looks of things. Essays and projects. Saved pages from the internet. Adobe documents. Lots of scanned images.
I checked Outlook Express. Bypassing the password got me into her saved emails. She wasn’t that security conscious. Organised meticulously.
I clicked through folders, named for recipients. Most of her friends identified by nickname.
I skimmed e-mails. Checking for keywords: anything that signified tension or worry. Nothing jumped out. The usual back and forth: worries about schoolwork, boys, parents.
Check the local folders, skim past the number of messages in each folder. Check the disparities.
One name:
Deb.
362 messages. More than double any other number.
I figured Deb for the mysterious “D” who’d gifted Mary Catcher. Clicked through a couple of the mails. Shorthand, mostly. Never specific. A lot of talk about classes and how Mary shouldn’t be afraid to nurture her talent.
Read more like a concerned older relative than anything.
Maybe something more. Or was I looking for connections where there were none?
I searched for messages from her last known boyfriend, Richie Harisson. Finally found him in the folder marked:
Ra-Ra-Rasputin
An in joke?
Aye, you’re full of them as teenagers. Like a secret code; a way of hiding what you’re thinking from the rest of the world.