Forward Slash. Mark Edwards
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on standby but a copy of Heat was open on the armchair. ‘She told me she was going away, to Vietnam and Cambodia, and said she might not come back.’
Gary frowned. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t have gone without telling me.’
Amy picked up a framed photo from the bookcase, her face creasing with nostalgia at the sight of it. The photo was of her and Becky at Becky’s graduation, ten years ago. Their faces were close to the camera, smiling into the sun, so fresh-faced. They looked so alike in that photo that they could easily have passed for identical twins.
‘She’ll probably walk in the door at any moment and ask what the hell we’re doing—’
‘Here.’
Amy felt cold inside. If Becky really had gone away without discussing it with her beforehand, that would hurt. And what was wrong in Becky’s life that made her feel the need to do such a thing?
‘When did you last talk to her?’ Gary asked.
‘I haven’t seen her for about a month. We had a fight.’
Gary was clearly too English to ask what the fight had been about.
‘I’m really worried,’ she said, pulling out her phone and checking both her texts and emails, just in case something had come in from Becky. But there was nothing – just a load more emails from customers.
With all the contradictory signs in the flat, Amy didn’t know what to think. But it was the email from Becky that jarred the most. Something about it was off, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Either the way it was written or … something else. What was it? Despite the recent row, she and Becky were close. They emailed and texted each other all the time, and left comments on each other’s Facebook updates, so she was familiar with Becky’s written ‘voice’.
She hurried across to the desk where Becky’s new iMac sat. It looked as though Becky had been splashing the cash, she thought. She switched it on and waited for it to boot up.
‘She never told me she’d got a new computer.’
Gary shrugged. ‘But you said you weren’t talking …’
‘Nothing’s password-protected.’
‘She told me she’d do it herself when she could think of a suitably good password. Maybe that was just an excuse, though. I told her she must make sure she did it.’
‘I was always nagging her about that too.’
Amy went straight into her sister’s Mail program, where she checked the sent items. Because of the way the iMac synced with Becky’s phone, emails sent from either would show in the sent items of both.
There was the email. She read it again: Don’t try to find me. It was the last email Becky had sent. She scanned the list of emails sent over previous days. There didn’t seem to be anything else very interesting.
She turned away from the screen, all the energy that had propelled her since receiving Becky’s message ebbing away. At that moment, as if in sympathy, the room dimmed as a cloud passed over the sun. She was out of ideas. She looked up at Gary and was about to tell him that she was going to go home when the computer made a pinging sound.
A new email had arrived. The sender was CupidsWeb. She recognized the name – they were always advertising on TV. How did it go? True love is just a click away.
The subject line read: ‘You have a new message!’
‘What’s this?’ she said. Gary came closer to take a look as Amy opened the short email that was simply informing Becky that she had received a private message and that she needed to log in to read it. Amy clicked the link and CupidsWeb popped up, asking her for a username and password.
Amy clicked back to the email program and did a quick search for CupidsWeb. There were no emails from them other than the one that had just arrived.
‘That’s really weird,’ she said. ‘How long has she had this iMac?’ Without waiting for him to answer, she added, ‘Do you know what she did with her other one? Her laptop?’
Gary shook his head. ‘Sold it, probably. She’s into eBay and Gumtree and all that, isn’t she? In fact, I’m sure she did mention that’s what she was going to do.’
It was true, there were a few emails from various online marketplaces saying that Becky had won or sold different items. Amy had coached her on it a couple of years back and since then her sister had made quite a bit of extra cash from flogging her unwanted items.
Amy got up and started roaming around the flat, looking for Becky’s distinctive stripy laptop case. No sign of it on the bookshelves, in the cupboard, on Becky’s desk …
‘Thinking about it, though, if she’s gone away, she probably took it with her,’ Gary said, pushing his hair off his forehead. ‘Want me to look at those eBay emails for you?’
‘Sure,’ Amy called, walking into Becky’s bedroom and looking around. It was so dusty it looked as though Becky had been gone for months, not a day or two. She wasn’t even sure that her sister possessed a vacuum cleaner. All the pictures on the walls were very slightly crooked, too, and Amy shuddered. She had to straighten them all before she did anything else. No wonder she and Becky never thought of sharing a flat – they’d kill each other.
Amy leaned down and peered into the narrow space under the bed frame. Through all the dust bunnies she spotted a corner of the laptop case. ‘Wait, no need – I’ve found it!’ she said, sliding her hand under and dragging it out. She brought it back into the living room and switched it on.
‘Nice one,’ Gary commented. ‘But it’s not going to have anything on it that’s not on the new one, is it? I mean, she hasn’t changed her email address, has she?’
‘No … but …’ Amy sat on the sofa with the laptop open on her knee, logged in and scanned the numerous folders still on Becky’s desktop. ‘Look – she was very good at backing stuff up. Not good at filing anything – in her flat or on her computer – but I bet it’s all here. She used to get really paranoid that the computer would crash and she’d lose all her school reports and lesson plans.’
‘Good thought,’ Gary said as she clicked on a folder called ‘Old Emails Back-Up’. There they all were, with a sub-folder entitled ‘Personal’. Dozens of messages from CupidsWeb dating back two months.
‘I had no idea Becky was into Internet dating,’ Amy said.
‘Didn’t you? Well, everyone does it these days, don’t they? Every unattached person, anyway.’ Gary snorted. ‘Quite a lot of married ones too.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe you don’t need to.’ He looked her up and down and she resisted telling him that her own love life was so nonexistent that she doubted even Internet dating could help her.
She turned back to the screen. ‘Internet dating. I wonder what other secrets she was keeping from me?’
Friday, 3 May
Once I’d given Shaun my mobile number, we texted continuously. His texts were dry and funny, and I felt increasingly excited as the day of the date wore on, checking my phone after each lesson period – and sometimes during, too. I managed to resist the temptation during assembly, thankfully.
The home bell finally rang and I did the minimum amount of tidying up in my classroom before bombing out to the car, to go and get ready. But then, of course, I had to bloody run into Simon Pinto in