The Perfect Couple (ARC)

by Jackie Kabler

  been questioned, not just about him but about four other murders? That I’d been humiliated,

  stalked by the press, photographed? If he was alive, he knew it, he knew all of it. How could

  he not, when it had been front page news for days? And still, to do nothing?

  ‘Bastard. FUCKING BASTARD.’

  I was on my feet now, and I kicked the waste bin next to the basin so hard that it flew into

  the air, landing with a clatter on the tiled floor, disgorging its contents. I stared at the plastic

  wrapping, toilet roll tubes and cotton wool balls stained with mascara scattered across the floor

  for a moment, then turned and walked out of the room. I thought Danny had loved me. I would

  have sworn it on my life, on my mother’s life. We had spent days, weeks, months, planning

  our future, totally wrapped up in each other. Could he have been that good an actor? Was I

  really that stupid, to have let him fool me for so long? And then, just as quickly, the anger

  subsided. Because however he felt about me, however much he’d lied to me, the simple truth

  was that I loved Danny. And, regardless of what he’d done to me, I was scared for him, so

  terribly, horribly scared.

  I don’t care if you’re in trouble, or what you’ve done. I don’t even care about what you’ve

  done to me. I just want to know where you are, Danny. I just want you to be alive and well and

  safe and here .

  And so I sat down at the kitchen table, taking deep breaths to clear my head, and I began

  to think. Danny had been here, with me, for three weeks, but for hours every day he’d been

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  going somewhere. Somewhere, presumably, that he felt safe. Where? Where would he go?

  Where can you spend hours, every day, without anyone questioning you? Somewhere you can

  just do your own thing, and be left alone? A park? But it had been February and freezing. No,

  somewhere indoors. A library? Maybe. People sat all day and worked in libraries, didn’t they,

  without anyone thinking it was weird? But Danny, in a library? I couldn’t see it. He wasn’t a

  reader, and I’d never known him to even contemplate walking into a library. So what else?

  What about a gym? You could spend all day in a gym, couldn’t you? The big ones nowadays

  had pools, saunas, coffee shops – was that a possibility, even if he was nursing a hidden injury?

  Danny had always liked to look after himself. In London he’d been a member of a local gym

  in Chiswick and had worked out several mornings a week, squeezing in an early session on his

  way to work. I often told him he put me to shame – forever thankful that I was naturally lean,

  I’d always said I got enough exercise walking Albert, and although I enjoyed my yoga or Pilates

  sessions, that was only once or twice a week maximum. Working out really wasn’t a big priority

  in my life, but Danny loved it.

  I reached for my iPad again, pulling up a map of Bristol, then zooming in on our street.

  Then I slowly zoomed out again until I had an area of about one square mile of the house on

  my screen. Something told me that if Danny was trying to keep a low profile, had essentially

  been hiding in plain sight, he wouldn’t have wanted to travel too far. Were there any gyms that

  close to the house? I typed ‘gym near’ into the search box and added our postcode. Yes! Two

  pins appeared on the map, one just a couple of streets away, one about half a mile to the south.

  I clicked on the first one, then clicked again to open its website.

  Fit4U Gym – a small, friendly independent gym in Clifton, Bristol.

  I scrolled through the photographs; a compact but well-equipped gym, a steam room, a

  spin class, a small café. Would Danny have felt comfortable there? Or was it too small? I wasn’t

  sure, so I clicked onto the second pin.

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  GYMCITY. A big city gym at smal town prices.

  This one looked huge – a spa with hydrotherapy pool, personal trainers, an Olympics

  standard weights room. Shit. If Danny had to choose one of these, which would he go for? I

  wasn’t sure. I’d have to try both of them.

  ***

  Assuming dogs weren’t allowed in gyms, I left Albert behind, muttering apologies as I slipped

  out of the front door, and headed for the big one first, bracing myself for the barrage of

  questions from the reporters as I left the house, only to find that they’d suddenly disappeared.

  Called to a press conference, maybe, I thought, then realized I didn’t care. As long as they

  weren’t bothering me, they could go where they liked. In the reception area of GymCity, a

  harassed-looking man with a shaven head and a dark, bushy beard glanced at the photographs

  of Danny I was holding and shrugged.

  ‘Don’t recognize him. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been here though. We get hundreds

  of people coming in every day and I’m only part-time. There are eight of us on this desk, we

  work shifts … hang on.’

  The phone on his desk was ringing and he picked it up.

  ‘GymCity. Can you hold please?’

  He looked back at me.

  ‘Look, I’m really busy, sorry. If you want to leave a photo and your number, I’ll stick

  them on the desk here with a note, see if any of the others remember him. We’ll call you.’

  I thanked him and left, a now-familiar feeling of hopelessness creeping over me. This was

  a waste of time. My legs felt heavy as I trudged slowly to Fit4U, wondering why I was

  bothering.

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  There was somebody already chatting to the man on the desk when I walked in, so I

  wandered around the small lobby, reading the posters advertising ‘cardioblast’ and ‘bodypump’

  classes, studio cycling and body balance sessions.

  ‘Hi, can I help?’

  I turned to see the receptionist smiling at me.

  ‘Yes, sorry. I was just wondering … well, the thing is, my husband has gone missing.

  And I was just wondering if you might have seen him in here, any time over the past few

  weeks? It’s been tricky, trying to track his recent movements, and well, I brought a photo, just

  in case. You probably won’t have seen him, I know how busy these places always are, but I

  was just hoping that maybe if you could take a look at this picture …’

  I was gabbling, already feeling embarrassed for wasting his time. The young man, who

  had cropped dark hair and was wearing a very tight, white T-shirt, looked at me quizzically.

  ‘Missing? Sorry to hear that. Sure, let me see.’

  I pushed the photograph across the desk.

  ‘His name is Danny. Danny O’Connor. He’s thirty-three, six foot one. Do you recognize

  him at all?’

  The man – he wore a name badge which said ‘Gerry’ – was staring at the picture, his eyes

  scrunched into narrow slits.

  ‘Well … I’m not sure actually. At first glance I’d have said no …’, he picked up the photo,

  angling it towards the light, ‘but … well, he does look a bit like someone who’s been coming

  in. His name isn’t Danny though. Hang on. Paul? PAUL!’

  A head poked out from behind a half-open door to the rear of the reception desk.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come here a minute, will you? Does this look like Patrick to you?’

  ‘The Patrick you had the hots for?’

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  Paul emerged fully from behind the door, grinning. He was short and muscular, biceps


  bulging.

  ‘Shut up!’ Gerry had turned pink. ‘Just look. Could that be him?’

  Paul glanced at me then at the photograph. He frowned.

  ‘Could be,’ he said, but he sounded unsure. ‘I mean, he definitely has the look of him. But

  Patrick has a beard and specs and he always wears that beanie, so I’ve never seen his hair.

  Could be though. Why?’

  ‘He’s this lady’s husband.’

  He gestured towards me.

  ‘He’s gone missing, and she wants to know if he’s been in here recently.’

  ‘Husband!’ Paul laughed, then looked apologetically at me.

  ‘Oh, sorry. I’m not laughing about him being missing, that’s shitty. Just laughing at Gerry

  here. He has the right hots for him.’

  ‘Shut up!’ hissed Gerry.

  Paul hooted and headed into the back room again.

  ‘Hope you find him,’ he called over his shoulder.

  Gerry rolled his eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, and tapped the photo of Danny with a manicured finger. ‘I do quite fancy

  him, if I’m honest. He is hot. Sorry.’

  I smiled and waved a hand dismissively. I needed to get this back on track.

  ‘So – you do think you might have seen him? In here? I’m confused.’

  Gerry looked back down at the picture, nodded slowly and then looked up again.

  ‘I think so. There’s a guy who started coming in about a month ago. Didn’t join as an

  annual member, just paid for a weekly pass and kept renewing it. His name … well, he said his

  name was Patrick, not Danny. Patrick Donnelly. He’s Irish?’

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  I nodded. ‘Danny’s Irish, yes.’

  ‘He said he was a freelance writer who’d just moved to Bristol and he was waiting for

  new office space, said it was being renovated or something. Asked if it was OK to use the gym

  in the morning and then hang out and do some work in the café in the afternoon. We were cool

  with that – as long as people pay for the pass they can use the facilities as long as they like,

  we’re open eighteen hours a day. And he was nice, no trouble, just got on with it. He started

  coming in Monday to Friday, just in the daytime. Stayed all day. Worked out for a couple of

  hours then had lunch and got his laptop out and sat in a corner of the café for the rest of the

  day. Did that for a few weeks. Then he just stopped coming. I presumed his new office was

  ready. Gutted.’

  He smiled sheepishly. My heartbeat had been quickening as I listened. Could this Patrick

  be Danny? The timescale fitted. The Monday to Friday fitted. It fitted.

  ‘Did he seem OK? I mean, did he look like he was injured at all, when he was in the

  gym?’

  Gerry frowned.

  ‘Not that I noticed. Looked fine to me.’

  ‘But … you said he had a beard? Danny didn’t have a beard. And glasses?’

  Gerry nodded.

  ‘Yes. And he always wore a little black beanie, even when he was working out.’ He

  paused. ‘Not that I was spying on him lifting weights or anything. But, you know, we’re always

  running about, in and out of the gym, and you notice,’ he added hurriedly, his face flushing

  again.

  I nodded distractedly, my mind racing. If Danny had been trying to keep a low profile, it

  might have made sense for him to try to disguise his appearance a bit when he was outside the

  house. Would it be outside the realms of possibility for him to have stuck on a hat, a pair of

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  glasses? A false beard seemed faintly ludicrous, but maybe, if he was that desperate to avoid

  being recognized …

  ‘You know, the more I look at this the more I think it is him,’ Gerry was saying. ‘His

  body shape, and those eyes – you can’t disguise eyes, even in glasses. I’m pretty sure that’s

  Patrick. Are you saying he was wearing a stick-on beard though? Why?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ I said honestly. ‘Do you know how he got here every day? Did he

  walk, or drive?’

  ‘Cycled,’ Gerry said immediately. ‘Always came in carrying a bike helmet.’

  My heart was racing again. It was Danny, it had to be. But how could I prove it?

  ‘Look, you said he paid for a weekly pass. Did he use a credit card, a bank card, anything

  like that? I can’t really explain, but I need some sort of proof that he was here, that he’d been

  coming here for the past few weeks. Do you have anything like that?’

  Gerry was frowning, shaking his head.

  ‘As far as I can recall he always paid cash,’ he said. ‘I always work Mondays and that’s

  when we renew the weekly passes, and I remember him pulling out a wad of notes each time.

  I remember thinking he must be loaded, to carry that much cash. Made him even sexier. Oh

  shit, sorry.’

  He slapped himself on the forehead, and I smiled.

  ‘It’s fine, honestly. OK, so no credit card receipt …’

  I looked around, eyes searching for cameras. Yes! Two of them, one angled towards the

  gym’s front door, the other pointing at the desk we were standing at.

  ‘But you have CCTV, right?’

  I pointed at the closest camera, and Gerry nodded.

  ‘Just here in reception though. We’re a small, friendly place. Nobody wants to be watched

  when they’re working out or getting changed, so there aren’t any in the gym or exercise areas.’

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  ‘The café?’ I asked.

  Gerry shook his head.

  ‘Never felt the need. We’re well-staffed so if there’s ever any trouble or anyone gets

  injured on one of the machines or collapses or anything, there’s always someone around to deal

  with it. We only have cameras here, where we take the money, just in case, you know?’

  ‘OK. But if Dann … er this Patrick guy, was coming in here every day he’d be captured

  by these cameras here, right?’

  ‘Sure. We don’t keep the footage for long though. Gets wiped after two weeks if we don’t

  need it. Want me to look?’

  ‘Yes! Yes please.’ I thought quickly. Today was Monday, the eleventh of March. Two

  weeks would take us back to Monday, the twenty-fifth of February.

  ‘Can you look at the week of the twenty-fifth of last month?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said again. ‘I can get it up on this screen here. You’ll have to come round for a

  minute.’

  I made my way behind the reception desk and watched as he tapped various keys,

  suddenly feeling excited.

  ‘OK, so he usually came in quite early, around seven,’ Gerry was muttering. ‘So if I start

  it here …’ He moved the mouse a couple of times, then stood back. ‘There. That’s Patrick. I’ve

  zoomed in and frozen the image.’

  I leaned forwards. On the screen a man was standing at the front of the reception desk I

  was now behind. He was wearing, as Gerry had described earlier, a dark beanie hat and small

  round glasses, the outline of his jaw obscured by a fluffy beard. His jacket was dark,

  anonymous. But Danny had a black jacket, simple like this one. His shoulders were broad, like

  this man’s. If only I could see his face more clearly. I leaned even closer, squinting, but the

  picture just wasn’t clear enough. Was it him? I didn’t know. I just couldn’t tell.

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  ‘I don’t know if it’s him,’ I said. ‘Can you let it play for a minute? Maybe if I see a bit

  more …’

  Gerry
had already hit ‘play’. The man on screen was moving now, pulling something

  from his pocket – cash? – and as he lifted his arm again I saw a flash on his wrist.

  A watch.

  I stared at it, then gasped.

  ‘Can you zoom in? On his wrist, there?’

  I jabbed at the screen, and Gerry obliged. The picture froze, and I stared. Stared at the

  now surprisingly clear image of a square-faced, steel-cased watch with a bright red seconds

  hand. A sleek, elegant, very distinctive watch. The watch I’d bought Danny as a gift on our

  wedding day. The watch that had cost me the equivalent of a month’s salary but which I knew

  had been worth every penny when I’d seen the delight on his face when he opened the box and

  slipped it onto his wrist. That was Danny’s watch. That was Danny.

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  20

  ‘I bloody hate Mondays. I’ve always bloody hated Mondays, but today has been The. Shittiest.

  In. A. Long. Time.’

  Helena punctuated the words by throwing a small rubber ball hard at the wall. She caught

  it for the sixth time then flung it onto her desk, where it landed with a plop in the handle-less

  mug which doubled as a pen holder.

  ‘Nice shot.’ Devon sounded impressed.

  Helena grunted and flung herself petulantly into her chair.

  ‘That’s meant to be a stress ball. Charlotte gave it to me. I’m going to tell her to demand

  her money back, because it doesn’t bloody work.’

  Devon laughed. ‘I feel sorry for your poor wife. Agreed though, it hasn’t been the best of

  Mondays.’

  He walked a few steps closer and leaned against the edge of her desk.

  ‘It was grim, wasn’t it?’ he said.

  She nodded, closing her eyes briefly. It really had been. After the on-call press officer had

  been forced to deal with numerous and increasingly demanding calls from journalists over the

  weekend about the so-called ‘Bristol serial killer’, Detective Chief Superintendent Anna Miller

  had been on the phone to Helena at seven that morning, ordering her to call a press conference.

  ‘If you can’t make any arrests, if you really don’t have enough evidence, knock this serial

  killer nonsense on the head,’ she demanded in her broad Tyneside accent. ‘Tell them there’s

  no proven link even between the Bristol cases, never mind the London ones. But give them