Page 47 of Good Girl, Bad Blood

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Incorrect Password.

‘What was your first cat called?’ asked Pip. ‘That ginger one?’

‘PeterPan,’ said Connor. ‘All one word.’

Pip tried it.Incorrect.

She’d entered it wrong three times and now the password hint popped up beneath. In it, Jamie had written:Get off my computer, Con.

Connor sniffed, reading it.

‘It’s really important we get in,’ Pip said. ‘Right now this is our strongest link to Jamie, and what he’s been up to.’

‘My maiden name?’ Joanna said. ‘Try Murphy.’

Incorrect Password.

‘Football team?’ asked Pip.

‘Liverpool.’

Incorrect. Even with numbers replacing some vowels and trying one and two at the end.

‘Can you keep trying?’ Joanna asked. ‘It won’t shut you out?’

‘No, there’s no limit on Windows. But guessing the exact password with correct placement of numbers and capitals is going to be tricky.’

‘Can’t we get around it some other way?’ said Connor. ‘Like reset the computer?’

‘If we reboot the system, we lose all the files. And most importantly, the cookies and saved passwords on his browser, for his email and social media accounts. Those are what we really need to get into. No chance you know the password to the email account Jamie’s Windows is linked to?’

‘No, I’m sorry.’ Joanna’s voice cracked. ‘I should know these things about him. Why don’t I know these things? He needs me and I’m no help to him.’

‘It’s OK.’ Pip turned to her. ‘We’ll keep trying until we get in. Failing that, I can try contact a computer expert who might be able to brute-force it.’

Joanna seemed to shrink again, hugging her own shoulders.

‘Joanna,’ said Pip, standing up, ‘why don’t you keep trying passwords while I carry on searching? Try think of Jamie’s favourite places, favourite foods, holidays you’ve been on. Anything like that. And try variations of each one, lower case, capitals, replacing letters with numbers, a one or two at the end.’

‘OK.’ Her face seemed to brighten just a little, at having something to do.

Pip moved on, checking the two desk drawers either side. One just had pens and a very old dried up glue-stick. The other, a pad of A4 paper and a faded folder labelledUni Work.

‘Anything?’ Connor asked.

She shook her head, dropping to her knees so she could reach the bin beneath the desk, leaning across Joanna’s legs and pulling it out. ‘Help me with this,’ she said to Connor, fishing out the contents of the bin one by one. An empty can of deodorant. A crumpled receipt: Pip unfolded it and saw it was for a chicken mayo sandwich on Tuesday 24th at 14:23 from the Co-op along the high street. Beneath that was a packet of Monster Munch: pickled onion flavour. Sticking to the grease on the outside of the packaging was a small slip of lined paper. Pip unpeeled it and spread it open. Written on it in a blue ballpoint pen were the words:Hillary F Weiseman left 11

She held it up to Connor. ‘Is this Jamie’s handwriting?’ Connor nodded. ‘Hillary Weiseman,’ Pip said. ‘Do you know her?’

‘No,’ Connor and Joanna said at the same time. ‘Never heard that name,’ Joanna added.

‘Well, Jamie must know her. Looks like this note was quite recent.’

‘Yes,’ Joanna said, ‘we have a cleaner, comes every fortnight. She’s coming on Wednesday so everything in that bin is from the last ten, eleven days.’

‘Let’s look up this Hillary, she might know something about Jamie.’ Pip pulled out her phone. On the screen was a text from Cara:Ready for stranger things soon??Shit. Pip quickly fired back:I’m so sorry, I can’t tonight, I’m at Connor’s house. Jamie’s gone missing. I’ll explain tomorrow. Sorry xxx. Pip pressed send and tried to ignore the guilt, clicking on the browser and bringing up 192.com to search the electoral register. She typed in Hillary Weiseman and Little Kilton and searched.

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