The Perfect Couple Read online

  I wonder …?

  Halfway to her desk Helena suddenly stopped dead as an idea struck her. Devon, who was coming the other way carrying a fresh tea, stopped too just in time to avoid walking straight into her, and groaned as the hot liquid slopped over the edge of his mug, splashing his pristine white shirt.

  ‘Ahhh, shit! What’s up, boss?’

  He dabbed ineffectually at the spreading brown stain with a paper napkin he held in his other hand, looking quizzically at Helena.

  ‘Oh Devon, I’m so sorry. It’s just … I just had a thought. A random one, and probably a stupid one, but …’

  She turned on her heel, scanning the busy room.

  ‘Mike?’

  At his desk near the window, DC Slater raised his head.

  She gestured at him. ‘Can you come over here for a minute?’

  She turned back to her DS.

  ‘And Devon, can you give Mike a copy of that new photo of Danny O’Connor, the one Gemma sent across earlier? It’s just an idea, but …’ she looked at the eager face of Mike Slater, who had joined them, ‘Mike, DS Clarke is going to give you a photograph. It’s of a man called Danny O’Connor, who seems to have gone missing in slightly strange circumstances. He’s very, very similar in physical appearance to our two murder victims which is just making us slightly nervous, and he’s not single, he’s fairly recently married, but it’s just a thought, something I’d like to rule out … could you just humour me and have a look to see if he’s on that EHU site too? I mean, I’m sure he won’t be, but can you access it to search it, without paying to join?’

  Mike nodded.

  ‘Yes, the general public can’t, but they gave me a code so I could look at Mervin’s and Ryan’s profiles, and it gives me access to the search facility. I’ll give it a go.’

  They didn’t have to wait long. Ten minutes later there was an elated yell from across the room. Helena and Devon stood simultaneously, and in seconds were peering over Mike’s shoulder, Helena aware her heart had started beating uncomfortably quickly.

  ‘Well … what have you found?’ she asked. On Mike’s screen was a search page, where he’d clearly been filling in details of Danny’s physical appearance, hair colour and so on.

  ‘OK, well I searched for his name and nothing that matched him came up, although that’s not unusual, lots of people use nicknames and so on, on sites like this. So I put in all the basic info from his missing person report instead. And when I hit search …’

  He clicked on the red search button at the bottom of the screen. Immediately the screen changed, a dozen or so photographs of dark-haired young men flashing up. Helena scanned them, looking for a familiar face, and then gasped.

  ‘There! Middle of the second row. Is that …?’

  Devon leaned closer to the screen, hand on Mike’s shoulder. Mike was grinning widely.

  ‘That’s him. That’s bloody him. Holy cow,’ Devon said slowly.

  ‘I think it is too. He’s on there under a different name, calling himself Sean, look. Not much personal info in the profile, but it does say he works in IT. I’m pretty sure it’s him too, from comparing the two photos. What do you think, boss?’

  Mike looked up at Helena. Her eyes were glued to the image on the screen, her brain trying to process what she was seeing and what it could possibly mean. It had only been a stab in the dark, a wild hunch. She hadn’t expected to actually be right. She cleared her throat.

  ‘I think, Mike, that you’re bang on. I have no idea what’s going on here, or why on earth an apparently happily married man has a profile on a trendy dating site, but that’s definitely Danny O’Connor.’

  Chapter 7

  I was slumped on the sofa, shivering violently despite the warmth of the room. What was going on? My head throbbed, and I felt disorientated, dizzy, as if I’d had too much to drink, although not a drop or morsel had passed my lips since the police had left that morning. The thought of food made me feel ill. How could I prepare a meal, sit down and eat it like a normal person, when everything I thought of as normal seemed to be crumbling around me? Danny hadn’t been going to work, hadn’t even started his new job. How was that even possible? For three weeks, he’d been leaving the house in the morning, dressed for the office, heading off on his bike and returning long after dark in the evening. He’d seemed to be enjoying his new role enormously, seemed so happy, so … so Danny. Nothing different about him whatsoever. And now I’d been informed that all of it, all of it, had been a lie. Why? Why would he make something like that up, pretend to be going to work when he wasn’t? And if he wasn’t working at ACR Security, where I thought he was, where he said he was, then where the hell had he been spending his days? The police had asked me that too, and I’d simply gaped at them, shaking my head, unable to think of anything, anywhere he could possibly have been going. Of course, now that I was alone again, I’d managed to come up with all sorts of wild scenarios in the past few horrible hours – he’d taken another job, some sort of top secret one he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about. He was sick, suffering from some terrible illness, and had been having clandestine daily treatment, not wanting to worry me. He had another family, a second wife, children maybe, who lived in Bristol, and that’s why he’d been so excited about moving here, finally able to spend time with them. But as each theory slammed into my brain, and was then instantly dismissed as ludicrous, my fear grew. I had no idea, no clue at all.

  Danny, what have you done? Why would you do this to me? I love you, Danny, and you love me. Don’t you?

  But suddenly, the doubts were creeping in.

  If he’s lied to me about this, what else might he have lied about?

  There were little white lies in every relationship, of course there were. But you didn’t lie to somebody you loved about the big things, did you? Not the huge, massively important things like your work, your life. The job, the daily routine, the annoyance he’d shown at the delay of his new work phone’s arrival when, in reality, it appeared now, there was no work, no imminent phone. Lies, lies, lies. And then to just vanish, leaving me so confused, so frightened … who would treat someone they loved like that?

  A little sob escaped me and, at my feet on the carpet, Albert, who was curled up, asleep, opened his eyes briefly, looked up at me, glanced around the room as if to check if Danny was back yet, then shut his eyes again with a heavy sigh. There was a faux fur throw on the back of the sofa and I dragged it off, wrapping it around my legs and pulling it up to my chin, trying to stop the shivering. We’d snuggled under this velvety softness so many times, Danny and me, watching films, talking, kissing. The flash of memory made my eyes sting with sudden tears. This made no sense. None of it made any sense. And yet, I thought, had increasingly been thinking in the past few hours, how well did I really know my husband, when you looked at the facts? We’d met on Tinder only eighteen months ago, as I’d told the police officers when I’d gone to the station. We’d liked the look of each other, exchanged a few flirty messages, then it was phone calls, long and late into the night. His soft Irish burr had enthralled me, and I’d found myself opening up to him before we’d even met in person, telling him about my work, the anxiety that had led to me packing in my newspaper career, the emotional trauma it had left me with. He’d been so kind, so supportive, so understanding, right from the start. And then, when we’d finally had our first date, when I’d looked into those chocolatey brown eyes, there’d been a connection so immediate, so deep that it had almost frightened me. I’d had boyfriends before, even a few serious ones over the years, but not for a while and not like that. Not like Danny. That was September; on Christmas Eve, he dropped to one knee in our favourite little Italian restaurant and proposed, amid the whoops and cheers of the waiters and other diners. We got married just three months later, on the seventeenth of March, St Patrick’s Day.

  ‘Always a day for celebrating. And I can’t think of a better reason for celebrating than marrying you,’ he’d said, as we left Marylebone
register office, holding hands, grinning crazily. We’d kept it small, simple, just us and a few friends, plus my parents and, representing the O’Connors, Danny’s cousin Quinn, his only relative who lived in London. His mum hadn’t flown over from County Sligo for the wedding – Donal, Danny’s father, had died just six weeks or so earlier, at the beginning of February, after being ill on and off for years, and his mum was full-time carer for their other, disabled, son, Liam, Danny’s younger brother.

  ‘Mum hates travel, and Liam isn’t good with changes to his routine, it freaks him out. Even before Dad died, they’d rarely left the county for years, never mind the country,’ Danny had told me. ‘It’s a shame, but I’ll send her pictures and videos. She’s not that bothered anyway, you know what she’s like. And I’ve told her it’s just a modest do, and she’s not missing much.’

  I’d only met Bridget once, but I knew what he meant. Danny had told me he’d never really got on well with either of his parents, and I had seen why when I’d met them. Bridget was definitely an odd one, and I hadn’t warmed to his father at all. And he was right, it wasn’t much, our wedding reception, but it was perfect for us and I loved it: a knees-up at the local pub, champagne and fish and chips, photos snapped on friends’ phones, to be collated and put into an album later. It was really how Danny had wanted it – he hated fuss, as he called it – but I’d been happy to go along with it, as long as a few key people were there: Mum, Dad, my closest friends. I still wore white though, a beautiful Chanel sheath, and insisted he wear a suit and cut his wild locks into something resembling a hair style. He’d moaned, but he’d complied, and I’d never seen him look more gorgeous than he did that day. I’d never felt more in love, or happier. Never dreamt that just a year later …

  There was a lump in my throat, and I swallowed hard, feeling the nausea rising again. We’d been happy, we had. We fitted. And I hadn’t lied when I’d told the police we’d been virtually inseparable most of the time. OK, so Danny, very occasionally, would become a little withdrawn, wanted to be alone, would head off on his bike for a couple of hours, but that was natural; he loved cycling, and he had a stressful job, cooped up in a stuffy office, staring at a screen. It was a bit like that for me too, with my writing, and I’d always understood his need for a bit of solitude. He’d always come back a few hours later, smiling, relaxed, rejuvenated. So this, this complete disappearance – this wasn’t Danny. Or not the Danny I thought I knew, certainly.

  He lied to me, I thought again. He lied. And not just a little white lie, a massive one.

  And if Danny had lied to me about something as huge as his job, hadn’t told me what was really going on in his life, it suddenly seemed to me that it was much more likely that he had just left me, just walked out, despite my previous insistence that he wouldn’t do that. Could he have been having an affair? Were those solitary cycle rides not what I thought they were – had he been meeting up with somebody after all? Had he now gone off to be with her, whoever she was? And yet, I thought, rubbing my throbbing temples, even that didn’t make much sense, for why had he taken nothing with him? His passport, toiletries, clothes – everything was still here. If you were leaving your partner, and wanted to do it quickly while they were away for a night, surely you’d still take the basics? One bag, with a few clothes, bits and pieces to keep you going until you could come back and collect the rest? I would. Why leave with nothing …?

  BRRRRR.

  I jumped as the doorbell rang, Albert instantly awake and on his feet, running across the room, yelping excitedly. I groaned. Now what? Police, again, with news this time maybe? Had they found him? I pushed the throw off and followed my dog to the front door. I was right. It was them again, DS Clarke and DC Stevens and, feeling suddenly shaky, I showed them into the sitting room, sending Albert to the kitchen again. We sat down in the same positions we’d been in that morning, me on the sofa, DS Clarke on the armchair opposite, his colleague remaining standing, hovering. I had the sudden, almost irresistible urge to cover my ears with my hands and sing ‘la la la’ like a child. The police officers’ faces were serious, and whatever they were about to say, I could already tell I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t think I could take much more.

  ‘Mrs O’Connor, Gemma … is it OK, if I call you Gemma?’

  DS Clarke’s voice was gentle, his eyes kind, and I nodded.

  ‘Yes, fine. Please … is there any news?’ My voice sounded shrill, reedy, not like me at all.

  He paused, glanced at DC Stevens, then looked back at me.

  ‘Well, sorry to disturb you twice in one day, but there is news of sorts, yes. We haven’t found your husband though, not yet. I’m sorry.’

  I nodded again, feeling tears pricking my eyes once more.

  ‘OK. So – what’s the latest?’

  DS Clarke looked down at the notebook he had pulled from his pocket and placed on his lap when he’d sat down.

  ‘Well, we’ve done a little more digging, since discovering that Danny hadn’t started his new job in Bristol after all. Checked out his finances a little. His final salary payment from his previous company, Hanfield Solutions, went into his bank account at the end of January, as it seems to have done every month for the past few years – correct?’

  ‘Yes. He’d worked there for, I don’t know, four years maybe?’

  At least that hadn’t been a lie, I thought.

  ‘Right.’ DS Clarke cleared his throat then continued. ‘So that money went in as usual. And we noticed some other big payments into the account too, a few times a year over the past few years, also from Hanfield Solutions. Would that have been bonuses, maybe?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Yes, he got bonuses every few months. A few thousand at a time, they were pretty generous. The company was doing well and they shared the profits with their staff.’

  ‘OK, well that’s all fine then.’

  The DS paused for a moment.

  ‘The thing is, since that last salary payment at the end of January, there’ve been no further payments into his account of any kind. And – and this is the really interesting bit – no money taken out either. Other than a direct debit to a letting agency, which we’ve assumed is the rent payment on this house … actually, can I confirm that? It’s rented via Pritchards?’

  My head was starting to spin again, but I blinked and replied.

  ‘Pritchards Lettings Agency, yes. Danny was covering the rent and I was doing the bills, electricity and so on. But what do you mean, no money’s been taken out? Do you mean since Friday, when he went missing?’

  DS Clarke shook his head.

  ‘No, Gemma. I mean no money’s been taken out of his account for weeks. Since …’ he looked back down at his notes, running a finger across the page, ‘since Thursday the thirty-first of January. So that’s, what? Four, four and a half weeks ago. Does that make sense to you?’

  I stared at him. What? Of course it doesn’t make sense. That can’t be right.

  ‘No. No, that’s not possible. He took money out, of course he did … he paid for lots of things since we moved in.’

  I looked around the room, starting to feel frantic.

  ‘That, look.’ I pointed to the coffee table in front of the sofa, its dark oak top piled high with interiors magazines. ‘He paid for that, for example. I saw it in an antiques shop in Clifton Village a couple of weeks ago. I took a photo of it and showed it to him when he came home from work that night …’ I paused, realizing what I’d said. ‘Well, when he came home from wherever he’d been. And he said he’d buy it for me, if I liked it that much, told me to order it, get them to deliver it. I mean, I could have bought it myself, but he insisted. He gave me the cash right there and then. It was a hundred and fifty pounds, but he said he’d just been to the cash machine.’

  DS Clarke was listening carefully.

  ‘There haven’t been any cash withdrawals, Gemma, not for weeks as I said. No debit card purchases either. Not a single one, not from his current accou
nt. He has a savings account too, and we’ve checked that, but it’s empty …’

  ‘Well, yes. We both emptied our savings accounts to pay for the move, and buy new furniture, stuff like that. We haven’t really saved that much up until now, we spent Danny’s bonuses on trips away and nice dinners and stuff, treated ourselves, but we were going to start saving seriously from now on, get a deposit together to buy a house. Look, Danny must have been using his bank account. I don’t understand. He paid for loads of stuff …’

  I raked my fingers through my hair, my mind racing, aware of two pairs of eyes fixed on my face.

  ‘I mean, takeaways. He always paid for those with cash when we had them. And he came home with a new cycle helmet he’d bought only last week. He was making withdrawals, paying for things, of course he was. The bank must have made a mistake. I’m sorry, but you’re wrong, DS Clarke.’

  His dark eyes were still glued to my face, and for a moment we just stared at each other, my brow furrowed with fear and confusion, his expression calm, unreadable. Then he turned to DC Stevens again.

  ‘Can you show Gemma the app, Frankie?’