Jay read through the rest of the list as evening fell, but no names stood out. He pulled a ready-made pasta carbonara out of the freezer as he simultaneously called Steve and Ben on his pad.
“Hi Jay”
“Hey guys! Guess what.. I couldn’t find the girl from Norway anywhere on the list.. but on the other hand.. I may get arrested for harassing a poor innocent woman in Wimbledon”
“What? What have you done now Jay?” asked Steve.
“Did I miss something?” interjected Ben as he entered the conversation “Who’s getting arrested for doing what with a woman in Wimbledon?”
“I was just telling Steve that the list didn’t produce any results.. I went down to Wimbledon and ended up persuading an elderly lady not to send the police after me”
“Why on earth did you go to Wimbledon?”
“Coz Ben.. I thought that I’d found the girl!.. There weren’t any other names that looked plausible.. and I may have had a little too much wine last night.. God.. what a disaster!” Jay ran his fingers through his hair as he slammed the door shut on the microwave and pressed start. He walked into the living room area, away from the noise in the kitchen.
“Have you rechecked the list Jay?.. Maybe you’ve skipped over her?”
“No.. I haven’t Steve.. but I’m not doing that again.. I combed the list thoroughly last night.. I just know she’s not there” Jay sounded defeated.
“Well then.. you’re fucked ..or maybe not.. as the case may be!” laughed Ben.
“Are you sure we’ve got the right travel company?” asked Steve.
“Yes.. I saw the name quite clearly on her rucksack”
“Yes.. but she might have used an old rucksack.. you know.. one from a previous trip? Are you even sure that it was her you saw?”
“Yes.. I’m very sure.. And that wouldn’t explain why the others had exactly the same rucksack at the station.. It was quite distinctive”
“Ok.. Maybe we need to look in their database for customers from previous years?”
“Mmm.. yeah.. maybe.. I’m not sure I’ve got the energy to be honest.. or the nerve for that.. There could be thousands of records”
“Hey.. guys! What if she wasn’t a customer at all?” asked Ben.
“What do you mean?” Jay’s microwave beeped incessantly as Jay rushed back to the kitchen to pacify it “Are you suggesting that she stole the rucksack from a Globus Travel customer?”
“No.. I’m suggesting that she works for the company.. Bet you hadn’t thought of that, eh?”
“Bloody hell! You’re right Ben.. Why hadn’t I thought of that?”
“That’s coz you are stupid and I am a genius!”
“Thanks Ben!.. But seriously.. well done!.. I owe you one mate.. What do we do now? Any suggestions?” Jay peeled the lid off his steaming pasta dish trying not to burn his fingers in the process.
“Hmm.. I’d love to be able to help you out Jay.. but as they say.. you should never go back to the scene of a crime.. I can’t risk going in there again.. It’s too risky”
“I understand Steve”
“Me neither” followed Ben.
“No problem guys.. I wasn’t expecting you to take on any more risks.. you’ve both already done more than enough.. No.. I’ll just bite the bullet and take a look around myself.. Steve? ..Do you still have the login info?”
“Yeah.. I do.. but isn’t that going to be risky.. what with you being the person who’s going to contact her as well?”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take” replied Jay through a fork-full of pasta.
Jay sat down at the small table in his kitchen and finished off his dinner. He felt disheartened, without really understanding why. He cleared the table purposefully, placing things methodically in the dishwasher and pressed the start button. He was thankful that he had good friends like Ben and Steve who stood by him when everything else seemed to fall apart. Rain battered against the kitchen window as the dishwasher whirred into action. Jay sat down and began scribbling on a block of paper.
Wild is the rain..No, too used. Jay tore up the piece of paper and threw it in the bin. He wondered what to write as he sat, staring into space. The magical mystery of you.. No, too trite. Jay crossed through the sentence and started again.
Wild is this woman
My body’s new array
A thousand harnessed horses
Could not drag my love away
Wild is this wind
A swirling mistral blue
Our love will be our fortress;
An amalgamation, of me and you
Wild is this wilderness
Concealing hope and light
Our love will conquer darkness
And endure the passing of night
___________________
Jay had booked time on one of the computers at the local library for the following Saturday. As he sat in his little cubicle, surrounded by all the other library-goers, he scoured the room for librarians, cameras and other potentially annoying factors. He signed on as the systems administrator. This turned out to be a lot easier than he thought it would be, but getting the program installed proved to be a lot more tricky as the library had blocked all USB ports with a metal bar. A glance at the other PCs in the room confirmed that this was the same for all of them. Jay decided that he had no other option but to connect to one of his own servers over the Internet and download the software from there. This was risky as his actions could then be traced back to his server, but he had no other choice. Once the program had been installed on the library PC Jay began downloading Globus Travel’s personnel database. He then copied all the data back to his own server and deleted all the log files, history files and whatever else was necessary to cover his tracks.
Once home, Jay quickly downloaded the data to his USB dongle and deleted all the files from his server. He checked the data to see if it was useable and started scanning through the database immediately. Jay became so absorbed by the task that he forgot what time it was. Steve and Ben knocked at the front door.
“You ready Jay?” asked Steve, peering inside Jay’s living room as he stood in the hallway.
“Err.. what? ..Oh yes.. yeah.. right.. err the rugby match.. err.. damn!” Jay searched frantically for his shoes and jacket whilst Steve sat twiddling his thumbs on the edge of a bar stool in the kitchen. Ben helped himself to juice from the fridge.
“What’s this mate? Are you turning into some sort of poet?” Ben wafted the hand-written poem around in front of him.
“Erm.. Oh that.. No.. err.. It’s just a poem I remembered from.. err.. from school.. It just came back to me.. I just wanted to see if I could remember it” Jay’s face had reddened so much by this stage that Steve and Ben knew they had better not labour the point any more.
“Anyway Ben.. how was the juice?” asked Jay, pointing to the empty juice carton Ben held in his hand.
“Oh.. erm.. good thanks!
“Remember your keys” interjected Steve as he threw Jay’s car keys towards him.