The Perfect Couple (ARC)

by Jackie Kabler

  to hold someone suspected of a serious crime without charge, they still had until the following

  evening before they’d need to charge or release him. During the entire time they’d been in the

  209

  interview room, Dolan had continued to sneer and belittle the dead men, while still giving no

  real reason for killing them other than that he ‘didn’t like the look of them’ and ‘they were a

  fucking type; poncy looking wastes of space’. His words and attitude towards his alleged

  victims had chilled and disgusted them both; at one point, Helena had had to ask for a break,

  rushing to the toilets down the corridor feeling physically sick.

  ‘How can there be people in the world like him?’ she’d hissed at Devon, who had followed

  her out, concerned.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to care at all that these men are dead, that their families are distraught.

  He’s laughing about it. What’s wrong with him? Jesus …’

  Devon had nodded, face tight, mouth set in a grim line.

  ‘I know. He’s scum, pure and simple.’

  Earlier, when Dolan had requested his own comfort break, Frankie had popped his head

  into the interview room. He’d been watching proceedings from the viewing room, along with

  some of the others.

  ‘Sick, sick bastard,’ he said. ‘You’re doing a great job. Well done, both of you.’

  Helena had nodded, suddenly unable to speak, a lump forming in her throat. But after the

  initial thrill of Dolan’s confession, it hadn’t been long before the doubts had begun to creep in.

  She’d felt the first niggle when they’d started to drill down into each murder separately,

  deciding not to begin with the earlier, London killings they were less familiar with but with

  that of Mervin Elliott, the man found dead on Clifton Down in February.

  ‘Fucking smarmy bastard. Worked in a poncy clothes shop, probably only because he

  liked touching up all the poor fuckers who came in to try the gear on,’ Dolan had spat. ‘I

  followed him up to The Downs and gave him a good kicking.’

  ‘A good kicking? Could you elaborate, Mr Dolan? How exactly did you kill Mervin

  Elliott?’

  210

  Dolan had stared back at her, a pale pink tongue snaking between his lips and moving

  slowly across them. Helena’s stomach had rolled, but she’d forced herself to keep her eyes on

  his.

  ‘Battered him. A few kicks, a few good hard punches. Didn’t take long,’ Dolan said, then

  leaned back in his chair, which creaked ominously.

  Helena felt Devon’s elbow press ever so gently against hers, and she nudged him back.

  Mervin Elliott had died from a blow to the head, and no other significant injuries had been

  found on his body. Battered? A few kicks, a few good hard punches? That didn’t tally, and a

  little knot began to form somewhere deep within Helena’s chest.

  ‘OK, let’s move on to Ryan Jones, whose body was found on the morning of the twenty-

  eighth of February. You claim you also killed him, Mr Dolan. Can you tell me how you did

  that?’

  ‘Same way,’ he said immediately, and with satisfaction. ‘Good battering. Kicked his ass

  into the middle of next week. Nice quiet lane that was, nobody to disturb me. Took my time.

  Enjoyed every minute.’

  He leaned his bulk back heavily once again, and the chair creaked loudly in protest. And

  so it had continued. When they’d asked him about Danny O’Connor, he’d told them he too had

  died after a ‘good beating’ and had simply shrugged when asked where the man’s body was.

  ‘You’ll find it. Eventually,’ he said, with a sly grin.

  After two hours, they had taken a break. Helena and Devon had walked quickly and in

  silence down the corridor away from the interview room. When they reached an empty

  conference room at the far end, Helena marched in, Devon following and closing the door

  behind them.

  ‘You’re clearly thinking what I’m thinking,’ she said.

  211

  He nodded. ‘He’s a bloody fantasist, isn’t he? He’s told us absolutely nothing that’s not

  been in the public domain for weeks, and when we do ask for more detail he’s getting it wrong.

  The way he claims he killed them – it’s just not what the post-mortems showed. Those two

  murders on The Downs, for example, were quick and clean. He’s describing frenzied attacks,

  beatings. And as for Danny O’Connor, all that blood – his reply to that didn’t match the facts

  either. He’s making it up, boss, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I know. Shit. SHIT. ’

  She groaned and thumped a fist against the nearest wall. Then she turned back to Devon.

  ‘I just don’t know. My gut’s telling me this isn’t our man after all. His motive just doesn’t

  make any sense. I mean, who kills people because they just don’t like the look of them? And

  how did he manage to track down people who all look so similar – luck? It doesn’t add up. But

  … what if we’re wrong? What if he did kill them, and he’s just embellishing his story? Maybe

  he’d liked to have given them a good kicking as he described it, but they died too quickly for

  him to do that? And we let him go and he goes straight back out there and kills someone else?

  And then goes to ground, and we lose him? The press …’

  ‘Don’t. Just don’t.’

  They’d carried on questioning Dolan for another couple of hours before returning him to

  his cell, by which time the gnawing doubts had grown into fully fledged disbelief. George

  Dolan, Helena was now convinced, was telling them an elaborate lie. Why, she had no idea,

  other than he was currently unemployed and homeless, and maybe a couple of days in a warm

  police cell with all meals provided was a better option than trying to find somewhere to sleep

  and scrabbling around for work. It had happened before; there were many in his position who

  were happy to be charged with wasting police time and suffer its maximum penalty of a

  six-month prison sentence if it meant guaranteed accommodation for a while.

  212

  At her desk, Helena suddenly made her decision. Her gut feeling had rarely let her down,

  and right then it was telling her that George Dolan was not their killer. They could release him

  on bail on the murder charges, pending further investigation. They could keep tabs on him,

  make him surrender his passport if he had one, make him report to the station daily. It was a

  risk, possibly, but only a small one. He wasn’t their man, she was almost certain of it. It just

  didn’t fit, and Dolan had been a distraction, someone who’d taken her eye off the investigation

  for too many hours. She needed to focus. And despite the lack of hard evidence, she still felt

  that focus pulling her in only one direction. Towards Gemma O’Connor.

  213

  25

  I emerged from Victoria Underground Station feeling hot and anxious. The tube had been

  packed, and I’d been forced to stand, hands clammy as I clutched onto the overhead rail, body

  pressed between a tall, bearded man who smelled strongly of cigarettes and an equally tall

  woman who was wearing far too much perfume. The combination made me feel ill, and out on

  the street I took huge gulps of the traffic-polluted air, trying to steady myself. It was already

  ten to one, but the pub I was due to meet Quinn in was just around the corner, and I found i
t

  easily. It was small and half-empty, a dark little bar with a beer-stained, seventies-style swirly

  carpet and mismatched wooden tables and chairs, the ceiling and paintwork – clearly not

  redecorated since long before the smoking ban – nicotine yellow. A quick glance around

  showed me that I was the first to arrive, so I ordered a diet Coke and found a corner table from

  where I could see the door. I sipped my drink, wondering why I was feeling so nervous. It was

  only Quinn, and it had been me who’d requested this meeting, after all, I reasoned, but the

  anxiety remained.

  Maybe it was because I’d finally caught up with the news on the train on my way to

  London. Flicking between the websites of Sky and BBC News, I’d discovered that for the past

  two days the police had been questioning a man who’d walked into the police station of his

  own accord, claiming to be the serial killer. That would explain the sudden disappearance of

  the press from my front door, I thought, my chest tightening as I’d speed-read the articles. Then

  I’d groaned quietly in frustration as I clicked on the latest update.

  At midday, the suspect was released without charge, pending further enquiries. A

  spokesman for Avon Police said that the investigation into the murders of Mervin Elliott

  and Ryan Jones remained their highest priority, alongside that of establishing the

  whereabouts of missing man Danny O’Connor, who vanished from his home in Bristol

  two weeks ago.

  214

  ‘Gemma? Howah ya?’

  I jumped as a man suddenly sat down in the chair opposite me, pint in hand.

  ‘Quinn! Sorry, I was miles away. How are you? Thanks so much for coming.’

  I leaned across the table, and we exchanged awkward pecks on the cheek.

  ‘No hassle. Haven’t got long though, as I said. Big job on today and the boss is a right

  bastard.’

  I smiled and told him I wouldn’t keep him long. He looked tired, I thought; a short,

  muscular man with closely cropped dark hair slightly receding at the temples, he was normally

  clean-shaven but had a couple of days’ worth of patchy stubble on his chin, and his denim shirt

  was faded and creased, the large tattoo of a skull and crossbones on the right side of his neck

  creeping above the grubby collar.

  ‘So, you’re worried about Danny?’ He asked the question and then looked away, eyes

  flitting around the bar before returning to mine.

  ‘I’m worried sick, Quinn. I just know he’d never deliberately go off without telling me

  where he was, even if he was in terrible trouble. He just wouldn’t. And that’s why I’m so

  scared. The police think he’s dead, and I’m starting to think he might be too. But they think I

  had something to do with it – I mean you know I’ve been questioned, don’t you, you’ve seen

  the papers? And this hasn’t been made public yet, but Quinn they also think that whatever

  happened to him happened weeks ago … they found blood, you see, in our old apartment in

  London, lots of blood, and I have no idea what happened there, he seemed fine when he moved

  down to Bristol, but the police think he never made it to Bristol at all. They think I’m lying

  about everything, and I’m not, they’re looking in completely the wrong direction, and if they

  keep looking at me they’re never going to find him, because I don’t know where he is. The

  whole thing is just ludicrous, that they could even think I was capable of killing my husband,

  215

  and maybe the others too, it’s just insane, but that’s why I need to try and find Danny, or find

  out what might have happened to him, not just for his sake but for mine too.’

  The words had spilled out of me in a torrent, and I stopped talking suddenly, aware that

  Quinn was sitting in silence, staring at me, an odd look on his face.

  ‘You don’t … you don’t think I had anything to do with it, please tell me you don’t?’ I

  said desperately. ‘I mean, you know how much I love him, right?’

  He said nothing for a moment, still looking at me with that odd expression, then his face

  cleared.

  ‘Course I don’t,’ he said. He picked up his pint and drank slowly, then put the glass down

  again and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

  ‘But what do you want me to do? I’m as gutted about him going AWOL as you are, but I

  don’t know where he is, Gemma. I don’t know anything.’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if you can help, but you know him so well, and you’ve known

  him for so long, and I just thought … look, there’s been a lot of weird stuff that’s emerged

  since he vanished, and I just wanted to run it past you, see if you can shed any light on it. Can

  I do that? I actually made a list, because there’s so much.’

  I rummaged in my bag which was lying on the table in front of me and pulled out my

  notebook, flicking through the pages until I found the list. Quinn looked vaguely amused for a

  moment, then nodded.

  ‘Sure. Shoot.’

  And so I told him. I told him how careful Danny had been not to bump into any of our

  neighbours after he moved to Bristol, how he never answered the front door, how he always

  seemed to make sure he left in the dark and came home in the dark, and how I’d realized, too

  late, that he must have been lying low, in some sort of serious trouble. I told him that Danny

  216

  had lied to me about starting his new job, and how I now thought he’d been hiding out in a

  local gym every day instead. How his bank account had remained untouched since the end of

  January, fuelling the police view that something had happened to him back then, and how none

  of his friends or family had heard a word from him since January either.

  ‘Have you, Quinn?’ I asked. ‘When did you last hear from him, can you remember?’

  He took a few moments to answer, eyes flitting around the bar again. Then he shrugged.

  ‘Dunno. It’s been a while though. Probably January, yeah.’

  He was looking down at his pint as he spoke, running a finger around the rim of the glass.

  I suddenly felt uneasy – is he telling me the truth? I wondered – but I ignored the feeling and

  carried on talking, telling him next about what the police had told me about Danny appearing

  on EHU, the same dating app as the two Bristol murder victims. I knew that, like the stuff about

  the blood in our old apartment, this information hadn’t been made public, so I wasn’t surprised

  when Quinn’s face twisted, his eyes widening.

  ‘Do you … do you know if he was seeing other women, Quinn? I’m struggling with it,

  but it might explain some of—’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said sharply. ‘And he probably wouldn’t have told me if he was. I don’t

  agree with that sort of messing around. You’re either with someone or you’re not. Danny was

  brought up Catholic, and adultery’s a sin. He’d know I’d hold no truck with that.’

  I couldn’t hide my surprise at his answer.

  ‘Well, yes … I mean, I agree with you, but most people don’t think like that nowadays,

  do they? But, well … look, he was definitely using that EHU dating app. Whether he actually

  went through with any actual dating, I don’t know.’

  I suddenly felt a tiny bit better. Surely if Danny had been seeing other people, he’d have

&n
bsp; shared that with Quinn, his closest confidant? OK, so he’d flirted with that woman at that party,

  and made a pass at Eva, but maybe that was as far as it had gone …

  217

  ‘He saved my life, you know.’ He said the unexpected words loudly, almost angrily, his

  face suddenly flushing, and at the closest inhabited table an elderly man with a small dog

  stretched out on the floor by his feet turned and frowned.

  ‘He … what?’

  Quinn looked down at the table, one bitten fingernail scratching at a spot of dried paint

  on the antique wood. Then he looked at me again.

  ‘He saved my life. It was when we were kids, messing around in the lake at home. It was

  summer, hot, and we were in and out of the water all day long. I was showing off, holding my

  breath underwater, and I went too deep, got my foot stuck in something, dunno what, and

  suddenly I was drowning, panicking …’ He paused, an anguished look in his eyes, as if he was

  back there again, reliving the horror. ‘I thought I was a goner, you know? Thought it was all

  over. And then, just when everything was going black, and my lungs were bursting, and I

  thought that was it, I was going to die, there was Danny, like some sort of miracle. There he

  was, divin’ down and pulling my foot free, and draggin’ me back up to the surface, and I was

  alive and … well, that was it. That’s the story. He saved my life. I’d have died that day, if it

  wasn’t for him.’

  His tone had softened, and I stared at him, a lump in my throat, strangely moved.

  ‘I … I didn’t know. He never told me,’ I said.

  He shrugged.

  ‘So, you know, I owe him. I’d defend the man to me grave. But if he was messing around

  on ya, Gemma, that’s bad. I’d batter him for that.’

  I didn’t know what to say. He was a strange man, I thought.

  ‘Thanks … thanks, Quinn. Look, another thing. Bridget … you don’t think she could

  possibly know where he is, do you? Every time I’ve spoken to her, well … as I said to you on

  218

  the phone, she doesn’t seem that bothered. By Danny being missing, I mean. Is there any chance

  that’s because she knows he’s alive and well somewhere?’

  Another odd expression crossed his face, his eyes widening, then he stood up abruptly.

  ‘No, I don’t think that. No way. Look, I need to go now. Sorry I can’t help you. I don’t