The Perfect Couple

by Jackie Kabler

  ‘I was an idiot, wasn’t I? He lied to me about everything. What the hell is wrong with me? Why didn’t I notice, why didn’t I realize something was wrong?’

  There were tears in my eyes now, but DC Stevens was shaking his head. He moved a step closer to the table and briefly laid a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Please, don’t blame yourself, Mrs O’Connor. We’re at a very early stage of our enquiry here, and none of us know what’s behind all this. I mean, yes, there are certainly some … well, some peculiarities. But please, try to stay calm. Sit tight. We’re going to try to get to the bottom of it all as soon as we possibly can, OK? Are you still here alone, or is somebody coming to be with you?’

  I took a deep breath and pushed a strand of hair off my forehead. I felt clammy now, my armpits damp. I needed to get these people out of my house, needed to be alone, needed to sleep, needed to think. I forced myself to look back up at him.

  ‘I saw some friends this morning, and they can be here in minutes if I need them. And my friend Eva’s coming to stay. She’s coming down from London for a few days. She should be here in an hour or so.’

  He nodded his approval.

  ‘Good. It’ll help, having some moral support. And we’ll probably have to think about telling your husband’s family soon too, OK, if he doesn’t turn up? And maybe you should think about telling yours as well. But we’ll leave that for now. Look, we’ll get out of your way. Thank you for being so cooperative. As I said, we’re going to go and take a look at your old apartment, tomorrow I hope. We’ll keep you posted, OK?’

  ‘Thank you. Thanks so much.’

  When they were gone, I moved slowly from room to room, smoothing the Indian cotton bedding – they’d even checked under the mattress, it seemed – straightening cushions, checking that the contents of wardrobes and drawers hadn’t been too badly messed up. Somehow the act of methodically restoring order to my home calmed me, my racing heartbeat slowing, my mind clearing a little. OK, so the facts around Danny’s disappearance were getting weirder by the hour, but for some reason I still didn’t think he was dead, murdered like the two other men. I’d know, deep down, if he was, I was sure of it, and therefore there had to be a logical explanation for what had happened, what was still happening. And Eva was coming. The thought buoyed me and, finally satisfied that the police search had done no lasting damage, I headed for the kitchen to check the contents of the freezer. I hadn’t been shopping in days and we were all but out of fresh food, but there were a couple of pizzas and wine in the wine rack. We’d manage, for tonight. And Eva … surely Eva would help me work it out?

  We’d been friends for years, since early in my newspaper reporter days, and even when I’d quit hard news, we’d remained close. Eva was still in the job, now a crime reporter for The Independent, and she’d covered some hugely complex stories in her time. She’d think of something, wouldn’t she? Because there was clearly something, some huge something, that I was missing. Something I hadn’t thought of yet, something that would explain why Danny had lied to me about his new job, explain why he’d gone away. Explain all of it.

  I picked up my phone, checking once again for a text or email from Danny – nothing, of course – then looked at the time. Nearly five. Eva’s train was due in at Temple Meads station at seven, and she’d told me she could probably stay until Thursday or Friday, having just finished a major story and being due a few days off. Two hours – what was I going to do for two hours? Go to bed, try to catch up on some sleep? But I was feeling more awake suddenly, more alert. I put the phone down on the kitchen table and wandered restlessly into the hall, then stopped, horrified, as I caught a glimpse of myself in the big wall mirror. When had I last actually looked at myself properly? My hair, normally falling to my shoulders in soft, natural waves, looked greasy, flat; my skin, free of any make-up, looked deathly pale, except for dark circles like angry purple bruises under my eyes. I looked dreadful and, suddenly knowing exactly how to fill the time until Eva arrived, I headed for the bathroom.

  I stood under the blissfully hot water for a long time, letting it massage my painfully tense shoulders, my eyes closed, mind wandering. For some reason, the trip Danny and I had made to Ireland to visit his parents a couple of weeks after we’d got engaged drifted into my thoughts, and for a moment I was back there, in the old farmhouse in Sligo, overlooking the shores of Lough Gill. Always a W. B. Yeats fan, I’d been thrilled to discover that not just the lake, but its tiny island of Innisfree, little more than a rocky outcrop, were visible from our cramped little room under the eaves, Danny’s childhood bedroom.

  ‘“I will arise and go now, go to Innisfree”,’ I’d chanted, as Danny, unpacking his suitcase, frowned, bemused.

  ‘“And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made”,’ I continued, then sighed dramatically. ‘Honestly, Danny, you’re the one who grew up here! How can you not know one of Yeats’s most famous poems? ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’? Come on!’

  He’d grinned at my exasperation.

  ‘I do know it, of course I do. We did it at school. I just don’t remember the words, not to just reel them off like you do. I haven’t got that sort of brain.’

  ‘You haven’t got much of any sort of brain,’ I’d muttered, and then squealed as he’d dragged me onto the bed and tickled me until I was helpless with laughter.

  The laughter had been in short supply for most of the trip however, and I’d been glad we’d only decided to stay for two nights, citing work we needed to get back to. Danny didn’t talk about his childhood much, but I’d definitely got the impression it wasn’t the happiest time of his life.

  ‘I don’t get on great with my parents,’ was all he would ever say, and I hadn’t pushed it. If he wanted to tell me about it one day, I’d be there for him, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about it then and that was fine. And when I finally met his parents, the animosity between them and their son was immediately obvious. Bridget, a thin, downtrodden-looking woman with a deeply lined face and white hair tied back tightly in a low bun at the nape of her neck, gave me a quick peck on the cheek and a half smile when we arrived, but merely nodded at Danny, her face stiffening again as she looked him up and down. Donal, visually an older version of Danny with thinning grey hair, simply waved at both of us from his armchair, eyes barely moving from the hurling game he was watching on the small television that sat on the sideboard next to him. He was frail from a recent string of illnesses, but nonetheless was a brusque, stern man, a cold look in his eyes as he snapped orders from his corner of the farmhouse kitchen, his wife jumping to do his bidding, her expression hard, as if she was permanently angry at everything and everyone. I’d felt sorry for her, and taken an instant dislike to him, at the same time feeling guilty for feeling like that about my fiancé’s elderly, clearly unwell father.

  At dinner on our first evening both parents engaged in a little stilted conversation with us, but after that they paid us scant attention; Danny, meanwhile, while virtually ignoring his father and being equally ignored in return, seemed almost pathetically eager to please his mother, repeatedly offering to help her with meal preparation or washing up, and looking crestfallen when she told him she didn’t need his assistance. The look on his face at each rejection hurt my heart and made me even more eager to leave the farmhouse at the earliest opportunity.

  They were a staunch Catholic family, although Danny had told me not long after we’d met that he had lapsed years ago, and had made me giggle when he’d explained the reason for his rather unusual middle name.

  ‘It’s after Saint Ignatius,’ he’d said. ‘He was wounded in some battle and while he was in bed recovering he wanted to read adventure stories, but the only thing available in the hospital was religious stuff and books about saints. So he read those instead, and decided he wanted to do what they had done. Bloody git. Means me and thousands of other poor sods got lumbered with his stupid name.’

  The O’Connor family house, spotlessly clean
and cosy enough with its dated furniture, sagging sofas and the big old Aga in the kitchen, didn’t have a picture of Saint Ignatius that I could find, but it was certainly full of religious imagery. In the hallway, a plaster statue of Jesus, arms outstretched, greeted visitors, while the rest of the house was dominated by paintings and figurines depicting the Madonna and Child, Saint Bernadette (‘patron saint of illness’, Danny had hissed, one eyebrow raised, as he’d given me the tour), Saint Jude (‘he’s for desperate causes’) and Saint Clare (‘eye diseases. And, weirdly, patron saint of laundry and television,’ he’d said). Wildly sceptical, I’d googled Saint Clare at the first available opportunity, only to find out he’d been absolutely right. Laundry? Why did laundry need a patron saint?

  The reason for the choice of saints soon, however, became clear – Liam. Danny’s kid brother was twenty-eight, partially sighted, and suffered from learning difficulties.

  ‘They had kids late; Mam was well into her forties when Liam was born, although maybe that had nothing to do with his problems, who knows,’ Danny had told me on one of those early, getting-to-know-you dates. ‘He’s always lived at home – he’s not able to work; he can’t even look after himself, not really. I mean, he’s a good lad, and he tries – he can just about make a cup of tea, but he can’t be trusted with the cooker or anything. Combination of his learning difficulties and his eyesight. I worry, you know, about what will happen to him when Mam and Dad die. I suppose it will work itself out though. Maybe I’ll be in a position to look after him by then, or there are some good residential units nowadays. It’s not like the old days in Ireland, when those places were like the kind of prisons you’d see in your worst nightmares.’

  Having heard so much about him, I’d been looking forward to meeting Liam, but it seemed that Danny was the only O’Connor blessed with warmth and a sense of humour. Liam was definitely more like his parents in personality, and although he threw his arms around his brother, clearly delighted to see him, he barely acknowledged me, grunting a sullen ‘Hiya,’ when Danny insisted he say hello to his new sister-in-law-to-be. I noticed, though, that Liam was the only family member who seemed to actually like his father, patting Donal’s hair as he passed him, Donal yelling: ‘Will ya STOP!’ but with a hint of a smile.

  ‘Yeah, they’ve always got on,’ Danny said when I remarked on the fact as we’d snuggled together in bed later that night, trying to get comfortable in rough cotton sheets and scratchy blankets. ‘Dad’s a miserable bastard, but he’s always had a soft spot for Liam. About his only redeeming feature.’

  I didn’t ask any more questions. Donal was, it seemed to me, simply an unpleasant man who ruled the house with an iron fist, and Bridget, while clearly unhappy, seemed to have a heart of stone. But if Danny didn’t want to rake up the past, which he very obviously didn’t, then that was fine. Some things were better left alone, I thought, and if Danny had had a tough time at home growing up, well, that was a long time ago and he seemed happy enough now. It wasn’t as if we’d be seeing his family regularly, and it was all about the future now, about me and him. That was all that mattered.

  Even so, a few weeks later when the news came in the early hours of a cold February morning that Donal had died from a massive stroke, it seemed to hit Danny hard. For weeks afterwards, in the run up to our wedding, he seemed grief-stricken. I never saw him cry – that wasn’t Danny’s style – but he was quieter, sadder, needing more time alone or, when we were together, regularly becoming lost in thought, his face rigid, fists clenched, relaxing only when I wrapped my arms around him, muttering soothing words. That was why I’d been so surprised when he’d announced that we wouldn’t be going back to Ireland for the funeral.

  ‘No point,’ he said. ‘I said goodbye to him when we were there last month. I don’t need to go back again just to see his body being put in the ground. And Mam will be OK, she’s got Liam, plenty of extended family. And you know how things are between us, she’d probably prefer it if I wasn’t there anyway. I’d be a hypocrite if I went and cried at his funeral, Gem. He’s no big loss.’

  And so we didn’t go, but despite Danny’s cold words I could see that the loss of his father had affected him deeply and that it continued to do so, even more than a year on, the same anguish still flashing across his face at odd moments. They’re complicated sometimes, family relationships, aren’t they? Love and hate, hate and love, so tightly entwined that they almost become one.

  None of this was helping me work out where Danny was now though, and with a sudden new sense of resolve I climbed out of the shower and started to towel myself dry. I’d blow-dry my hair, maybe even put on a little make-up, some clean clothes, and then Eva would be here. Two of us, two investigative reporters, even if one of us was somewhat out of the swing of things. Two heads, focused on one problem. Danny hadn’t just vanished into thin air, and we could work this out. We had to work this out. Somehow, somehow, we were going to get to the bottom of it.

  Chapter 10

  ‘Should be there in about twenty minutes. Traffic permitting, of course. Might get a bit heavier as we get nearer to junction two.’

  DC Frankie Stevens, who was driving, turned his head briefly to glance at Devon, then fixed his eyes on the motorway again.

  ‘Quite possibly,’ Devon replied. The M4 had been remarkably quiet, and although they hadn’t left Bristol until just before nine, they now expected to arrive at the O’Connors’ former home in Chiswick before eleven fifteen, traffic permitting, as Frankie had said. The easy journey had been the one bright spot in a so-far frustrating morning. Before they’d even left police headquarters, the team checking all the private CCTV camera footage from around Gemma and Danny’s Bristol home had finally reported their findings.

  ‘Nothing. We’ve checked the entire forty-eight-hour period around him going missing and we can’t see a single person who looks like him, either on a bike or on foot. Although of course that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Loads of routes he could have taken that have no cameras on them at all.’

  Even so, it had been a blow. The fact that Danny’s immediate neighbours had never laid eyes on him had been frustrating enough, but maybe not that surprising in the modern age – Devon didn’t think he’d recognize his own next-door neighbours if they came up and punched him. It was another small oddity to add to the growing list of oddities in the Danny O’Connor case though, and another possible lead which had drawn a blank. Devon had been desperately hoping for something, anything to come of the CCTV search, and now that had led them down a dead end too.

  Is it too much to ask for one little lucky break in this bloody case? he had thought, as he and Frankie left the incident room and headed out to the parking bay where the pool cars were kept. Seemingly, it was far too much to ask, as they’d barely reached the Bath junction of the M4 when Devon’s mobile trilled. It was DC Mike Slater, who’d been tasked with accessing the search data from the EHU dating app.

  ‘Remember they said their system had been crashing recently?’ he’d asked. ‘Well, it’s back up and running again. But they’ve lost all their search data. Can’t get it back. They’ve apologized, but it looks like there’s no way of retrieving it. So that’s that. No way of finding who might have searched for men who look like Mervin, Ryan or Danny. Really sorry.’

  ‘Shit!’ Devon had replied. Then: ‘Sorry, Mike. Not your fault. Thanks for trying anyway. We’ll just have to come at this from another angle, although don’t ask me what that is right now.’

  ‘OK. Oh, and the tech guys can’t find any EHU date related emails on either of the victims’ phones either. Must have been deleted, which is bloody annoying, but I suppose people do delete old emails. I know I do. I also checked out the email address on Danny’s profile. It doesn’t exist, seems to be a fake one, or maybe one that’s since been closed down. So maybe adds weight to the theory that his profile was put up on the site as some sort of weird joke?’

  ‘Maybe. Anything else?’

  ‘Oh ye
s … Tara checked into the bank account thing. Couldn’t find any other accounts in his name with any UK bank. Plenty of Daniel O’Connors but no Daniel Ignatius O’Connor, pretty unusual name. She had a closer look at his NatWest account too to see if there’ve been any unusual transactions or anything in recent months but nothing stood out. No big withdrawals or deposits. Dead end on that too, for now. Sorry.’

  Devon had hung up feeling despondent. The investigations into the murders of Mervin Elliott and Ryan Jones had now completely stalled, with no new witnesses or evidence emerging. And now with Danny O’Connor still missing, the whole team was starting to feel helpless. He sighed. Maybe he needed a good night out, a few drinks to take his mind off things, maybe even a date. He thought about that for a few seconds, then changed his mind. He was still in love with Jasmine, that was the problem. He couldn’t imagine being with somebody else, and even if some miracle happened and he did meet someone he was interested in, wouldn’t the same thing just happen again?

  The job isn’t getting any less demanding, the hours aren’t getting any shorter, he thought. How does anyone in this profession manage to hold down a relationship, when work’s so all-consuming? But they do, don’t they? Helena and her wife Charlotte are OK; Frankie’s not seeing anyone right now, but he’s had more than one long-term relationship over the years. Even Mike Slater’s managed to get married, and he seems happy …

  ‘Here we go,’ Frankie said suddenly, and Devon dragged his attention back to the situation at hand. Up ahead, red tail lights had suddenly flashed on and the traffic slowed.

  ‘Bugger,’ said Frankie, and braked.

  ‘Bugger,’ agreed Devon.

  He leaned back in his seat, trying to focus on the case again. He didn’t have time to think about relationships at the moment anyway, not if they really had a serial killer on their hands. The theory had definitely gained ground among the team since the discovery of all three men’s profiles on the EHU app; there’d been much talk of historical cases in recent days, and not just those from the UK. The classic serial killer was male, and targeted the vulnerable – the elderly, sex workers, hitchhikers, young women. But there was another, significant group of male serial killers too – those who targeted other men, although they tended to be homosexually motivated murders. Dennis Nilsen, who killed at least twelve men in the UK in the late seventies and early eighties, and the American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer who murdered seventeen men and boys, were two of the best-known examples. Although they only had two bodies so far, the thought that they might, just might, now have a serial killer on the loose in Bristol had sent a ripple of horror through the incident room, and the DCI had been quick to quash the theory.