The Perfect Couple

by Jackie Kabler

  And then they asked, again, about the other men, the two killed in London, the two in Bristol. And about somebody else, somebody I’d never heard of, a man called Declan who’d apparently been attacked in London on the afternoon I’d been there to meet Quinn. I stared at them in disbelief at that, my mind racing.

  ‘Well … maybe it was him. Quinn. I told you I think it might have been him who’s behind Danny’s disappearance. Maybe it wasn’t just Danny he hurt, maybe Quinn’s your man for all of these murders; I don’t know, I’m not a bloody detective. Maybe it was him who attacked this guy, if it was near where we met … because it wasn’t me, it wasn’t, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t hurt anyone, this is ridiculous, you’ve got it all wrong …’

  I’d finally broken down then, huge sobs wracking my body, and they’d said we could take a break. I’d still, up until that point, declined the services of a solicitor; I was innocent, so why would I need legal representation? But as I’d been led back to my cell once again, it suddenly hit me. This had gone too far. It was real now. I’d been arrested, and the police thought I was lying, lying about everything, and that meant I was in big trouble, huge trouble, and I had absolutely no idea how to deal with it. And so I’d told them I’d changed my mind, and asked if I could call my father. Dad had been aghast, almost speechless with shock and fury, when I’d phoned to tell him what had happened, but I’d somehow got it through to him that I needed a solicitor, someone good, and he’d promised to sort it, his voice cracking with emotion as he said goodbye.

  So I was waiting, waiting in my cold cell, and a day and a night seemed to somehow have passed, and I sat there, shivering, with nothing to look at but the four dirty walls and the toilet in one corner, a smell of bleach and urine in the air. They’d brought me some food earlier – a polystyrene cup of weak tea and a cardboard carton with some sort of microwaved stew – but my stomach had turned at the sight of it and I’d pushed it aside, watching a layer of grease slowly forming on top of the meat as it cooled. I sat there, huddled in my rough blanket, my whole body shaking, and a weird sensation began to creep over me, as if the coldness of my body had finally reached my brain, slowly shutting it down, rendering it incapable of thought, incapable of anything except trying to survive one more minute of this hell, and then another, and another.

  And then, something so bizarre and remarkable happened that when it did, all I could do was sit there, motionless, staring at the man who’d just opened my cell door. It was the custody sergeant, and he was smiling.

  ‘Hey Gemma. You’re free to go. They’ve found your husband. Alive,’ he said.

  Chapter 35

  Devon wrapped his hands around the warm mug of tea that had just been placed on the table in front of him and stared at Danny O’Connor. After weeks of looking at the man’s picture pinned to the board back in the incident room it was just so – so peculiar – seeing him bustling around the grubby kitchen of the small flat they were now sitting in, making hot drinks, offering ginger nut biscuits from a half-empty packet. Seeing him alive, instead of finding him dead.

  This is surreal, Devon thought. And Helena is going to do her frigging nut. The amount of time we’ve wasted, searching for him, questioning his wife about his murder, when all the time …

  Finally, Danny sat down, the three of them close together around a table designed for two, one of those bistro-style tables more usually seen on a terrace or balcony, with two matching chairs and a small, wobbly looking stool on which Mike was perched uncomfortably. He looked as shocked as Devon felt, shaking his head every minute or so as if in awe.

  ‘I won’t ask how you found me,’ Danny said. ‘Pretty obvious really. Quinn, yeah? I should have known, after the stupid git told me he’d gone to see you after he met with Gemma, put himself on your radar, showing you those photos of the bruises. But he said you seemed to think I was dead, you know, weren’t looking for me alive, so I thought I’d be safe here, for a few more days anyway …’

  He sighed. He had a soft Irish accent, his thick dark hair longer and even more curly and unruly than it had appeared in the photographs Devon had seen.

  ‘Safe? Safe from what?’ Devon said.

  Danny shifted on his chair. He looked from Devon to Mike and then dropped his gaze to the table in front of him.

  ‘I’d … I’d rather not say. It’s … it’s difficult. Hard to explain.’

  ‘Well, we’re certainly going to need some sort of explanation, Mr O’Connor. Let’s take it slowly, shall we? You mentioned the pictures of the bruises just now – the bruises your cousin Quinn said your wife caused by beating you up? She said they were from a bike accident. Which account was true, Danny?’ Devon asked.

  ‘Bike,’ said Danny. ‘Sorry. We took the photos at the time because I was going to report the accident to the police, and then I didn’t bother, didn’t see the point. I didn’t know Quinn was going to do that with them, make up that story about Gemma. He didn’t tell me until he was back in London … look, do I really have to tell you everything? I mean, no crime’s been committed here, has it? I’m alive and well, Gemma’s done nothing wrong. Can’t we just leave it at that?’

  He spread his hands in a placatory manner and smiled sheepishly.

  Devon frowned. Is he serious?

  ‘No, we can’t. Do you realize how much trouble you’ve caused, Mr O’Connor? You do realize we thought you were possibly the victim of a serial killer, don’t you? I mean, it’s not an offence for an adult to vanish and not tell anyone, you’re entitled to do what you want and go where you please, but you must have seen the papers, heard the news? You must have known that we thought you were a murder victim? Why didn’t you at least call, text, send someone a message to let your friends and family know you were OK? They’ve been going through hell, Danny. And we suspected Gemma. We suspected Gemma, your wife, of killing you. Did you know that? We didn’t believe a word she said, and it appears now that she was telling us the truth all along.’

  Danny lowered his head, sighed, then lifted his gaze to Devon’s again.

  ‘I did see the news, yes. And I know you did, and I’m so, so sorry about that. It just seemed like the only way …’

  ‘The only way to what? Look, Mr O’Connor, you could be in trouble here, maybe even facing charges. But if you explain, at least try to help us understand what’s gone on over the past few weeks, well, it can only help, OK? So please, start talking.’

  Danny remained silent for several seconds, then nodded slowly, as if making a decision.

  ‘OK, I get it. I’ll try to explain. I don’t know if you’ll understand, but I’m going to try. And … well, if I’m going to do this I suppose I’d better start right from the beginning.’

  Finally, thought Devon. Finally.

  Danny paused, shifted in his chair again, then took a deep breath.

  ‘I’ve got myself in a bit of bother,’ he said. ‘Well, quite a lot of bother, actually. I’m an IT security specialist – well, I’m sure you know that already. A few months back, I was approached by someone to take on a private job. I wasn’t supposed to take on outside work – I was working for a company called Hanfield Solutions at the time, and they had a pretty strict policy about it. But the fella who approached me was very … very persuasive, shall we say. The money he was offering was insane, you know? I mean, a really massive amount. It would have set us up for life. The only problem was, to earn that money I had to do something … something illegal. Something pretty bad.’

  Mike and Devon exchanged glances.

  Gemma was right, Devon thought. This was her theory – that Danny had somehow got himself into some sort of serious trouble. Why didn’t we listen to her?

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  Danny looked from one of them to the other and then inhaled again and let the breath out slowly.

  ‘Look, I can’t tell you everything, I can’t name names or anything, it’s too dangerous. But I’ve spent my working life defending companies against online hacking and
they were asking me to do the exact opposite. To hack into the system of a major company, and … well, in the simplest of terms, to basically move some money around. To steal it, essentially. A lot of money. I thought about it for a while, really thought about it. I mean, it was fraud, major league fraud, and if I was caught I knew I’d go down for years. It was a huge risk, but the money was so good. So feckin’ good. And so I said I’d do it. Just the once, take the money and be set for life, as I said. I was an eejit, I know that now. But how often does a chance like that come along, a chance to change your whole life? It was like winning the lottery. So I started the process. And then, I don’t know why, one day a few weeks later I suddenly came to my senses, just like that. I think it was Gemma, chatting to me about babies, about our future, one day. I wanted all that, wanted a family, and I suddenly realized it wasn’t the money that was important after all, it was her and our future together. I’d be throwing all that away if things went wrong, if I got caught. I’d ruin everything. So I got hold of the guy and told him I was pulling out of the job. Except, well it wasn’t that easy.’

  He picked up his mug, swallowed a mouthful of tea. Then he smiled briefly, his dark brown eyes crinkling at the corners, before his expression became serious again.

  ‘I bet. How did he react?’ asked Devon.

  ‘He told me he’d kill me,’ he said simply.

  He paused again, running a finger around the rim of his mug.

  ‘They said that if I didn’t do the job, they’d hunt me down and kill me. I knew too much, you see? I knew everything they were planning. And even though I promised, swore on my mother’s life that I’d never breathe a word to a living soul, that wasn’t enough. If I didn’t do the job, it would be curtains. They gave me a deadline – the end of January – and said I had to do the job by then or it would all be over. And that if I went to the police before that, they wouldn’t just kill me, they’d kill Gemma and my mum and my brother Liam, too. My brother. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, you know? Innocent as a five-year-old. I don’t even know how they knew about him, about my family, but they did, they knew everything. So I had no choice, did I? If I did the job, and got caught, my life would be over. If I didn’t, my life would be over too, and people I love would die alongside me. So I had no choice. I had to run, I had to disappear.’

  ‘Phew-eeeee.’ Mike let out a long, low whistle.

  ‘I know, right?’ Danny lifted his mug again, drank, then sat staring into the tea.

  ‘So, you made a plan, to make everyone think you were dead,’ said Devon.

  Danny nodded.

  ‘Look, I’m not proud of it, OK? Especially in the light of all the trouble I’ve caused now. But at the time … well, I couldn’t think of a better way. If everyone thought I was dead, the threat would be over, wouldn’t it? So that’s how it all started. Call me stupid.’

  ‘Well, maybe not your finest idea. But no point on dwelling on that now,’ said Devon. ‘Tell us about it.’

  Danny steepled his hands together, leaning his chin on his index fingers. He looked like a little boy about to explain his latest prank, Devon thought.

  ‘OK, here we go. I needed to disappear, overnight. And then move abroad, get a new identity, try to start my life again. It was too risky to bring Gemma or anyone else with me … if I got caught, they’d have killed us both. And yes, before you say it, I know what I’ve done was cruel, especially to Gemma. And to all of them, my family, my friends. But it would have made life so much easier, you know? Them thinking I was dead, and not just missing? It would have meant that after a while, nobody would have looked for me. Yes, I’d be alone. I’d never be able to see my friends and family again. I’d have missed Gemma so much, so bloody much. But at least I’d be free. And you know what … Gemma’s probably better off without me, anyway. I wasn’t a good husband, although I tried to be. I wasn’t always faithful to her. Anyway, that’s not important now.’

  Devon and Mike glanced at each other again.

  ‘OK, we’ll come back to that,’ said Devon. ‘Tell us about your plan.’

  ‘Right, here we go,’ he said, straightening up in his chair. ‘We’d already decided to move away from London, to Bristol, and that turned out to be a godsend. I’d be somewhere new, somewhere nobody knew me, somewhere I could hide in plain sight, almost. Practice disappearing, before I did it for good. And I needed to buy a bit more time too, to get new ID documents and so on made up. It takes a while, if you want good ones. So I had this idea. I decided to try to make it look like I’d never been in Bristol at all, that something had happened to me in London before the move. And … well, this is the bit I’m most ashamed of … I knew that the easiest way to do it, by far the easiest way, was to implicate Gemma. To make it look like she’d done something to me, something terrible, before she left. Then, when the day came and she reported me missing, the police would look into it and find no trace of me in Bristol, and well … think that she, or maybe somebody else, but most likely she, had killed me weeks before. Jesus, it sounds sick now, doesn’t it? I didn’t think it would go as far as it did, you know, there was no real evidence against her after all, because she didn’t do anything wrong, but it all seems to have got a bit out of hand. I’m so, so sorry about that.’

  He leaned back in his chair, rubbing both hands across his face.

  It does sound pretty sick, Devon thought. And criminal, too, as Danny would soon find out when they arrested him. How could anyone do that to his own wife, a woman who loved him? He kept his mouth shut, but it was an effort. Beside him, Mike was silent too, but Devon could hear him breathing deeply.

  He’s trying to control himself too. This bastard’s made fools of all of us, he thought.

  ‘I’m so sorry, about what I’ve done to her. I really am, and if I ever get the chance to see Gemma again I’ll tell her that too. But at the time …’ He picked up his mug, took another drink and grimaced. ‘Getting cold,’ he said.

  ‘Mike, will you put the kettle on, top up these drinks?’ Devon asked. ‘Carry on, Danny.’

  ‘Sure.’ Mike stood up, his face expressionless.

  Danny smiled at him, gesturing towards the kettle on the worktop behind them, then turned back to Devon.

  ‘OK, so you want to know details, I assume? I started by opening a couple of foreign bank accounts, and slowly putting bits and pieces of cash into them. We never had a joint bank account, so that bit was easy; it was my money, and I just took little bits out here and there, no big withdrawals, nothing that would look odd if anyone ever checked. I had a couple of big bonuses I didn’t tell Gemma about too, and I asked for them as cheques, and stashed those away as well. I put most of it away for Gemma, so she’d have something to fall back on when I was gone, you know? I’d have found a way of letting her know where to find the money, eventually. And a bit for myself too, of course – I just wanted a bit of cash in the bank to start me off, but I didn’t need loads. I knew that wherever I ended up, I’d be able to find work. Beauty of my job. Everyone needs IT experts nowadays. Anyway, then the really important bit. I made sure Gemma moved to Bristol a week before I did, told her I had a job to finish up here. That bit was crucial, you see – I needed the time to stage the scene in London.’

  ‘Stage the scene? Do you mean the blood, in the bedroom?’

  Mike’s voice was cold as he asked the question, turning the tap on to refill the kettle as he spoke.

  Danny nodded, not seeming to notice.

  He’s enjoying telling his story, Devon thought.

  ‘Yes. You found that then? I wasn’t sure, but I hoped you would. OK, this sounds sick too, but I’ve started telling you now. No point in missing anything out. I bought this kit on the internet, needles and stuff. Started drawing off some of my blood a few times a week. A bit at a time, but it soon added up. I know, crazy right? Effective though. Quinn helped. Yes, he knew what was going on. He was the only one who did. He’s my best mate in the world, Quinn is. Well, that and the fact that he owed me a de
bt. Not a financial one – he owed me for something that happened years ago, when we were kids. Anyway, that’s not important. But he owed me, and so he agreed to help, with all of it.’

  Another one who wasted our time, then, thought Devon coldly.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Danny, ‘he helped me with the blood. We read online that blood is OK for up to about forty days in a fridge, you just need some specialist bits and pieces, but we got it all online and it was pretty easy. He stored it here in that fridge for me.’

  Mike, who had just opened the fridge to find the milk, visibly recoiled.

  ‘Anyway, as soon as Gemma left for Bristol, Quinn drove the blood over and I splashed it all over the bedroom. Copied some scene of crime photos we found online. Made a pretty good job of it. And then I dropped off the keys to the landlord, making sure nobody saw me, and moved in here with Quinn for the week, laid low. When I headed for Bristol a week later I wore a disguise – a beard, a hat, glasses – and made sure I arrived after dark and used the back gate. I’d already contacted my new employers in Bristol to tell them I’d changed my mind about the job, so all I had to do then was find somewhere to hang out every day, making sure I came and went while it was dark to reduce the chance of the neighbours seeing me. I used a local gym in the end, went in disguise every day, no sweat. Used the name Patrick and paid for everything in cash. Easy.’

  Gemma was right again, Devon thought, with a pang of guilt. She tried to tell us that, and yet again we didn’t listen. We thought she was lying, about everything.

  Danny was still talking.

  ‘I stopped using my UK bank account too, used my foreign bank card if I needed to make a big purchase; I just had to make sure Gemma didn’t see it,’ he said. ‘Otherwise I just paid cash for things, made sure I had enough stashed in my backpack for those last few weeks. And I made sure I never answered the door in the house, stuff like that. I thought Gemma would start to notice, but she didn’t. I suppose we had plenty to do around the place, having just moved in. Easy to stay in instead of going out. It would have got harder as time went on, but I only ever intended to do it for a few weeks. I made sure I didn’t contact anyone either, for those weeks – got rid of my phone, made up a story about a delay in my work getting me a new one. It was like a game. And it worked. My only concern was that Evans, our landlord, would find the blood in the bedroom too soon, and then I’d have to move before I was ready. But I knew he was going away, and I figured I’d have a few weeks. It all worked perfectly.’