Forget Me Never (8 page)

‘We’ll have to change the locks,’ Effie said. She looked at me. ‘The bedrooms have been done too – did they take any of your things, Sophie?’

It took me a second to realize what she meant. I’d been so upset for Reece that it hadn’t even occurred to me to check the spare room.

‘Better have a look,’ I said, getting up.

I was fully expecting to find the room as I’d left it. To my astonishment, it was just as bad as Reece’s. What kind of burglar does the spare room? I thought, opening the wardrobe.
My clothes were all there. Next I checked the bedside table. My sewing – check, make-up bag – check. The necklace and earrings I’d taken off last night and not had time to put on
this morning were gone. Weird – I would have thought it was obvious they were just cheapies. Wait . . . Edith. Where was Edith? I looked in the drawer where I’d put her, but she
wasn’t there. I tried to remember if I’d used her last night – no, I definitely hadn’t. Surely the burglar hadn’t nicked an old laptop! I sifted through the room,
looking in increasingly ridiculous places, but Edith was gone.

I returned downstairs.

‘They took Edith,’ I said.

‘Edith?’ Hill looked alert. His face fell somewhat when I explained Edith was a laptop.

‘She’s not anything special,’ I said. ‘My cousin gave her to me. If the burglar wanted a decent computer, he should have taken Reece’s or the one in the sitting
room.’

‘They’re desktops,’ Reece said. ‘Much heavier.’

‘Yeah, but Edith’s ancient.’

I told Sergeant Hill about the necklace and earrings. He scribbled everything down in his notebook, shaking his head.

‘Burglars usually go for the obvious,’ he said. ‘Cash, credit cards, jewellery and laptops. But considering he’s made off with very little of value, he’s created a
great deal of mess.’

‘Am I allowed to clear up, or do I need to leave everything as it is?’ Effie asked.

‘Leave it for the moment, Mrs Osbourne – I’ve got some colleagues on the way to dust for fingerprints. In the meantime I’ll ask the neighbours if anyone saw
anything.’

‘Try Mrs Thatchins across the road,’ Reece said viciously. ‘Nothing passes that nosey old bat by. She’ll love this.’ He looked at me. ‘So much for you coming
here to avoid trouble, eh?’

We left Sergeant Hill with Effie and went into the dining room, one of the rooms that had been left untouched. We sat at the table, looking at each other helplessly. Neve, who seemed to want to
be with Reece, came with us. Reece lifted her on to his lap and put his arms around her, murmuring something into her ear. Neve rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. It was a bit
weird to see them in cuddle mode. Reece was usually so flippant about everything that when I was reminded that he had a soft side it unsettled me.

‘Amateurs.’ Reece broke the silence. ‘Almost insulting we didn’t get the real thing.’

‘D’you think they’ll be back?’ I mouthed. I didn’t want Neve to hear; poor kid was scared enough already. ‘Hill seemed to think they might.’

‘If they’ve any sense they will be. Funny they took your stuff though.’

‘The oddest thing is Edith,’ I said. ‘Why bother? I mean – seriously?’

‘Wonder if they got the wrong house? If I was a burglar, I’d’ve gone for the Carters’ next door. They’ve got a flipping Mercedes, plus they’re away on
holiday. Nothing about this burglary makes sense.’

We ordered a takeaway for dinner – Effie said she was too upset to bother with cooking. At one point she said to Reece, ‘If only your dad was here!’

Reece’s response surprised me a little – he slung an arm around her shoulder and said, ‘
I’m
here. Before we go to bed tonight, Ill go round and lock up and check
no one’s outside.

Suddenly I felt like I was intruding.

‘Would it be best if I left?’ I asked as Reece flattened the pizza boxes to put in the recycling bin.

‘Remember why you’re here in the first place?’ he said. ‘Aiden’s not going to stop stalking your house just cos we had the world’s crappest burglars
round.’

I frowned. Reece’s words were making me think. When he came back from taking the boxes out, I said, ‘Reece . . . d’you think this maybe isn’t a coincidence?’

‘The burglary? What d’you mean?’

‘I’m just thinking that strange stuff has happened recently – specifically to, well, me – and as soon as I come here, this happens.’

‘Everything always has to be about you,’ Reece sighed, but he didn’t sound annoyed. ‘How could it be? They didn’t take anything important. Just a necklace and your
cousin’s old laptop . . .’

Reece trailed off. For a moment neither of us spoke. I said, ‘D’you think . . . that possibly . . . Aiden did this?’

‘How would he know you were here? Unless he followed us over.’

‘He has been watching my house – he must have realized I wasn’t there. A friend’s is the most likely place I’d be.’

‘It’s not a totally far-out idea,’ Reece said after a long pause. ‘Maybe it was the laptop he wanted the whole time. Could be why he was hanging round yours, waiting for
the right moment to break in, which I bet never came cos of all the people going in and out. Hey!’ His eyes glowed. ‘Did Edith have any of Danielle’s old files on her,
Soph?’

I knew exactly what he was thinking; I felt a little jitter of excitement. ‘There were some old folders in My Documents. I looked at them ages ago – didn’t seem to be anything
interesting, but I could have been wrong.’

‘Not that we’ll ever know now,’ Reece said glumly.

‘Oh, but we will. My files are all backed up!’

Reece’s face lit up. ‘You’re kidding. No one backs up their files these days!’

‘You mean
you
don’t – I’m more careful. Well, Julie is; way back before I arrived one of her foster-kids lost his coursework when the computer died, so now she backs up all our files.
We’ve got an external hard drive. Everything on the laptop will be on that.

‘Brilliant! Thank you, Julie’s paranoia! And hey –’ Reece grinned briefly – ‘who knows, maybe this is going to tell us more about Danielle? Who needs the
police, eh? Let’s go – oh, wait, crap. Can’t.’

He didn’t need to say that tonight his place was here. I understood; it wouldn’t be appreciated – in fact it would be downright hurtful – if Reece went running off with
me when his mum and sister were scared.

‘I suppose it can wait till tomorrow,’ I said, trying not to look disappointed.

The next day we set off back to Julie’s, talking the whole way about what might be on Danielle’s files. Reece seemed less enthusiastic now, but he was a bit tired
and not quite awake – Neve had been scared about burglars in the night and had kept him up. It was silly of me to feel nervous, but as
not
looking wasn’t an option, I’d just have to deal
with whatever we found. Not that there would be anything. Danielle wouldn’t have got involved in anything upsetting to me. But if Aiden had stolen Edith, this proved there was something to my
suspicion that there was more to Dani’s death than we knew.

The house was noisy when we arrived. Julie stuck her head around the living-room door.

‘Hello, you two,’ she said. ‘Nice time away?’

I nodded. I should have mentioned the burglary, but confiding in Julie wasn’t really a priority. ‘All OK here?’

‘Nothing interesting.’ Julie waved her hand dismissively. ‘We went to see that new film at the Vue – you know, the one about the talking piano. Not recommended; even the
kids were bored. You seem brighter.’

‘It’s cos of my brightening company,’ Reece said. ‘I’m the alternative to Prozac.’

Julie raised an eyebrow; she’s always taken Reece with a very large pinch of salt. ‘Well, you keep being brightening company. This girl could do with cheering up.’

After checking what we were doing for the rest of the day and whether I was coming back tonight (I said yes, mostly because I felt I’d outstayed my welcome at Reece’s), Julie went
back to playing a board game with the kids. I couldn’t help feeling glad she was so laid back – as long as she knew where I was, who I was with and that I was OK, she didn’t
usually ask awkward questions. She had clearly decided that the police interview was history.

I explained to Julie that I was borrowing the external hard drive and promised to bring it back later. Then it was back to Reece’s – the computer at Julie’s was too public.
Once we were in his room, we linked up the drive to Reece’s computer. I located my files, and, with a rising sense of anticipation, opened the folder where I’d stored Danielle’s
stuff.

‘Sure this is it?’ Reece said. There were about eight files, mostly Word documents.

‘She got a new desktop just before she died.’ I clicked on the first, but it was just a letter to a rail company asking them to refund a ticket. We looked through the others. A job
application, a birthday card made for a friend, some copy-pasted information about travelling to Spain. Nothing I could imagine being worth Aiden nicking Edith for. Frustrated, I threw my empty
Coke can across the room. It missed the bin and rolled under Reece’s bed.

‘Waste of time!’

‘Maybe there were files on the laptop that weren’t in My Documents,’ said Reece.

I shook my head.

‘I’d have spotted them.’

‘Hey, cheer up. There are still two files we haven’t opened.’

‘Yes, but one of them is titled “Thank you letter” and the other one I can’t open. It’s got a weird file extension.’

Reece clicked on the thank-you letter – as I’d predicted it wasn’t worth reading – but I could tell his mind was elsewhere. He hovered the cursor over the last file.

‘You won’t get anywhere with it,’ I said. ‘Dunno what it is.’

‘Oh,
I
know what it is,’ Reece said. Just trying to remember where . . . aha!’

Mystified, I watched him get up and rifle through the drawers by his bed. Out of the bottom one he withdrew an iPhone.

‘That’s not yours, is it?’ I said.

‘Yeah, but I bought myself a new one for my birthday. This is its predecessor.’ Reece waved the phone, looking pleased with himself. ‘That file, Soph, is an iPhone
backup!’

I stared at him blankly. ‘What do you mean?’

He rolled his eyes at me. ‘God, it’s like you’re stuck in the Dark Ages! OK, so iPhones access the Internet, take photos, store emails and messages and so on. You can configure
it so that if you connect it to a computer, the iPhone backs up everything on it. Looks to me like that’s what Danielle did. If we load that file on to this old phone – we’re
in!’

I wasn’t sure how much sense this made, but then Reece had always been a lot more into technology than me. ‘Why do we need your old phone?’ I asked as Reece pulled out a lead
from the cabinet by the desk and connected the phone to the computer’s USB socket.

‘If I loaded Danielle’s file on to my current phone, it would replace my stuff with hers, and I’m not willing to do that. But it doesn’t matter on this old one.’ I
watched Reece as he clicked about on the screen, presumably configuring the file with the old phone. After a while he nodded.

‘It’s loading.’

‘Are you sure this will work?’ I asked.

‘Trust me! This phone will be a replica of your cousin’s the last time she backed it up on Edith.’

It seemed like an agonizing wait as everything transferred. But eventually everything was ready.

‘So,’ Reece said, ‘shall we have a look?’

The iPhone’s display didn’t just show texts from other people – it showed chains of messages, so we could see Danielle’s replies too. I began to realize just how basic my
mobile was.

The most recent text was from Aiden, dated two weeks before Dani died.

Hey Dan. Gotta speak to you, please tell me where you are. Hiding isn’t making this easier on either of us.

Danielle had responded,
Get lost! Never want 2 c u again! Wish id never got involved with anything and WISH ID NEVER MET U.

I reread the message a second, third, fourth time. ‘Involved with anything’ . . . what on earth could that mean? It had to be specific – the choice of words was too weird
otherwise.

Over the next hour we read through all Dani’s texts. Many were from Aiden. Most of them were affectionate and she often replied with loads of kisses, telling him she loved him. The only
other message between them that seemed less than friendly was one from Danielle that went,
Where r u? Its half past & u said ud b in by 10. just called Carl, said u
weren’t wiv him all nite. Where have u been? Who r u with?
Aiden hadnt replied.

There were a fair number of messages from me – texts were the main way we’d communicated – and also from a few other people I guessed were friends. The only name I recognized
was Cherie – she’d been a work colleague of Dani’s. Somehow, judging by how frequently Dani had texted me, I’d expected there to be more messages. Perhaps some had been
deleted.

‘Nothing!’ I said, frustrated. ‘This is driving me nuts!’

‘Her emails might tell us more,’ Reece said, scrolling to the email function. ‘If we’re lucky, this should log us in automatically.’

The iPhone took us straight into Danielle’s email account. A load of messages popped up. One – entitled ‘done and dusted’ – caught my eye.

‘Slip-ups?’ Reece exclaimed. ‘Smuggling out data? Doesn’t sound very above board, does it?’

My heart sank. ‘There’s got to be a simple explanation. Dani was a good person.’

Reece raised his eyebrows as he clicked on the next message.