The Perfect Couple (ARC)

by Jackie Kabler

  know where he is. I’ll let you know if I hear from him.’

  He nodded at me, then turned and walked quickly away.

  ‘But Quinn …’

  He was already gone, the pub door swinging shut behind him. Shit, I thought. SHIT. Did

  he really not know anything? Why had he left as soon as I’d mentioned Bridget? And what had

  he said about what he’d do if Danny had been ‘messing around’? I’d batter him for that? A

  chill ran down my back, as if someone was running a cold hand slowly along my spine. There’d

  been something else too, something which was only now dawning on me as I remembered the

  garbled explanation I’d given him when he’d first sat down. When I’d mentioned Danny using

  a dating app, Quinn had looked visibly shocked. But earlier, when I’d told him one of the other

  things that the press didn’t know, one of the other things that had been kept out of the public

  domain, the thing about the blood in the Chiswick apartment, he hadn’t reacted at all. No

  reaction, no questions. It had almost been as if he already knew all about it.

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  ‘His name is Quinn O’Connor. Says he’s Danny O’Connor’s first cousin and he wants to come

  in and talk to us about Danny’s disappearance. He’s getting on a train from London now, says

  he’ll be in Bristol by midday.’

  ‘And he didn’t want to just tell us whatever it is he wants to tell us on the phone?’ Helena

  looked up at DC Mike Slater, who’d just appeared at her desk to tell her the news.

  ‘Nope. Says he has some photos to show us and he’d rather talk in person. Sounded quite

  anxious.’

  Helena frowned. ‘We spoke to him, right, when we were contacting Danny’s friends and

  family after he vanished? He said he hadn’t heard from him?’

  ‘Yep. I checked, he says he still hasn’t. But he was pretty keen to talk to us today. He

  wouldn’t tell me anything else, boss, sorry.’

  ‘OK, fine. Let me know when he arrives. Devon’s off today so you can come and see him

  with me.’

  ‘Sure.’ Mike wandered off, and Helena broke off another piece from the Twix she’d been

  eating and popped it in her mouth. She tried her hardest to keep away from chocolate but she’d

  been so despondent earlier about the events of the past few days that she’d succumbed on her

  way in to work that morning, stopping at the local corner shop to stock up. Charlotte wouldn’t

  allow chocolate in the house, one of the very few things Helena found annoying about her wife.

  ‘You’re so bloody saintly when it comes to food. It’s beyond irritating. A bit of sugar

  won’t kill us. Dark chocolate’s actually good for you. For your heart or something, same as red

  wine,’ she’d snapped a few days previously, when she’d reached for a packet of dark chocolate

  digestives in the supermarket and Charlotte had practically slapped them out of her hand.

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  ‘Well fine, we’ll get a bar of organic seventy per cent cacao then. But you won’t eat it,

  will you?’ Charlotte had snapped back, so loudly that an elderly woman who’d just stopped

  next to them and was perusing the shortbread section actually jumped.

  Charlotte lowered her voice.

  ‘You just want to eat that shitty cheap chocolate crap which is full of fat and sugar. Fine,

  go ahead. But don’t blame me when all your teeth fall out and your arteries are all clogged up.’

  The old woman backed slowly away from the biscuit shelf and hurried away down the

  aisle, and Helena glared at her wife.

  ‘Well, I pity our kids,’ she hissed. ‘Great fun they’ll have at Easter, when all the other

  kids are stuffing down the chocolate eggs. What are you going to give them instead? Brussels

  sprouts dipped in bloody couscous?’

  She’d instantly regretted the remark, but the damage had been done, and the shopping trip

  had been completed in stony silence. They’d made up since, but the row had left Helena feeling

  guilty and low. Work was tough enough at the moment without strife at home too. Now, she

  suddenly felt a little cheerier.

  ‘Just when you think all your leads have dried up, along comes another one. Maybe,’ she

  said out loud to nobody.

  ***

  When Quinn O’Connor arrived in reception at twelve thirty he was shown into a side room and

  given a cup of tea. When Helena and Mike entered the room three minutes later, they saw a

  pale-faced, stocky man in a tight black T-shirt, a large skull tattoo visible on his neck. A black

  jacket lay balled up on the floor next to his chair. He stood up quickly as the two police officers

  approached him and offered a hand.

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  ‘Thanks for seeing me, appreciated,’ he said. He sounded Irish, but Helena wasn’t familiar

  enough with the country’s regional accents to know what part of the country his came from.

  ‘I thought I needed to see ya as soon as possible, so I took the day off work,’ he continued.

  ‘My cousin Danny … well, I thought I might have some information that might help.’

  ‘Great.’ Helena sat down on the chair opposite him, and Mike slid into the seat beside

  her. ‘So, what have you got for us, Mr O’Connor?’

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘Well, yesterday Gemma came to see me.’

  ‘Gemma O’Connor? She came to London?’ Helena was immediately interested.

  The man nodded. ‘Yes. She said she was worried about Danny and how the cops … sorry,

  you, the police …’ He coloured slightly but carried on. ‘How you seemed to think she might

  have done somethin’ to him. To Danny. And she wanted my help, to persuade you that she’d

  never do anythin’ like that.’

  He paused and licked his lips.

  ‘Go on.’ Helena smiled encouragingly, realizing that he was nervous.

  ‘The thing is, she says she’d never hurt him, she said it again to me yesterday, but she has

  a history, you see. Of hurting him. And he never went to the police about it, well you wouldn’t

  would you, as a man, it’s embarrassing, telling anyone a woman’s been beating you, but he

  told me. But that’s why you probably don’t know about this, because he never got her charged,

  so I thought I’d better tell you … I have pictures, look.’

  He bent down to lift his jacket from the floor and fumbled in the inside pocket, pulling

  out an envelope.

  ‘Hang on, do you mean domestic violence? Gemma O’Connor was violent towards her

  husband?’ said Helena. She could hear the excitement in her own voice.

  ‘Yeah. Look.’

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  Quinn opened the envelope and removed two photos from it, sliding them across the table.

  Helena and Mike leaned forwards simultaneously. The pictures were of a man they both

  instantly recognized as Danny O’Connor, standing shirtless against a white wall. In one shot

  he was facing the camera, in the other facing away. In both pictures, a large area of livid

  bruising could be seen across the right side of his torso, stretching from just under his arm to

  below his ribs.

  ‘Ouch. Looks painful,’ said Mike. ‘What happened?’

  ‘That was just a couple of months before they were planning to leave London,’ Quinn

  said. ‘He said she started kicking him in the ribs for absolutely no reason when he was lying in

  bed one night. Well, they’d had some sort of mino
r row a few hours earlier, but he didn’t think

  it was a big deal, like. She obviously thought differently. The next time I saw him he asked me

  to take photos, just so he had the evidence, like, if he ever decided to use it. But he always said

  he could handle it, and he didn’t want to go to the cops … sorry, to you guys. Embarrassing,

  like I said.’

  ‘And this would happen how often?’ asked Helena, eyes still on the photographs. ‘Are

  there any other pictures?’

  Quinn shook his head.

  ‘Happened every now and again. But those are the only pictures to prove it, as far as I

  know.’

  ‘OK.’ Helena looked at Mike, who raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us about this before, Mr O’Connor?’ he said.

  Quinn hesitated. ‘Well, as I said, it made Danny sound a bit soft. If he’d just gone off on

  a jolly, and he was going to come back, I didn’t want to go back on my promise to him to keep

  my mouth shut about it. But it’s been a while now, and maybe he’s not coming back, and after

  yesterday, well, I just thought …’

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  Helena nodded.

  ‘I understand, but there’s no shame in it, Mr O’Connor. Domestic violence is domestic

  violence, no matter who the victim is. But thank you very much for bringing this to our

  attention.’

  She paused.

  ‘Can I just ask you one more thing? In your opinion, would Gemma O’Connor be capable

  of more than punching or kicking her husband? Do you think she’d have the capacity to hurt

  him badly? To actually inflict fatal injuries?’

  Quinn sat up very straight in his chair and looked her straight in the eye.

  ‘Do you mean kill him?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well then yes, I do. I think she’d be very capable of that.’

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  27

  I spent Friday at home, cleaning the house, making up the spare bedroom for Eva’s return,

  baking some bread for Saturday morning’s breakfast, sweeping the front porch. As I’d emptied

  the dustpan into the bin by the front gate, Clive had emerged from next door, shouting a ‘bye,

  Jenny’, over his shoulder, then stopping abruptly halfway down the path as he spotted me.

  ‘Err … hi, Clive,’ I said awkwardly.

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again, his face reddening. Then he grunted something

  unintelligible and turned away, stumbling and almost tripping over an uneven flagstone in his

  apparent rush to make it down his path and into his car, revving the engine loudly and speeding

  off down the street.

  Shit. I’m the neighbour from hell, aren’t I? They just don’t want to know me, and why

  would they? I’ve turned their nice quiet street into a circus over the past couple of weeks.

  And so I went back inside and carried on cleaning and baking and tidying. I needed to

  keep busy, because if I stopped, even for a minute, the thoughts came crowding in, thoughts

  which even I was no longer sure were logical or rational. Thoughts about Quinn, the man who

  was Danny’s only relative in the UK, and one of his closest friends. The man who I, after our

  meeting the previous day, had increasingly begun to think might know more than he was

  admitting about Danny’s disappearance.

  I kept replaying our conversation in my head.

  They think that whatever happened to him happened weeks ago … they found blood, you

  see, in our old apartment in London, lots of blood …

  The blood in our Chiswick apartment, and the fact that it had been identified as Danny’s

  blood, was something the police had never told the press about, something that had never

  appeared in the newspapers. I didn’t think Bridget knew about it either; she’d certainly never

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  mentioned it to me during our phone calls. So why had Quinn not reacted to that, in any way,

  when I’d told him about it? Why hadn’t he asked me to elaborate, to explain? Instead, he’d just

  watched me as I spoke, with that slightly odd expression on his face which I still couldn’t quite

  work out. And then there had been the surprise and distaste on his face when I’d asked him if

  he thought Danny might be cheating on me. What had he said?

  I’d batter him for that …

  It was a pretty extreme thing to say, wasn’t it? Surely, even if Quinn didn’t agree with

  ‘adultery’ as he put it, he wouldn’t actually beat Danny up over it? It wasn’t as if Quinn was

  particularly fond of me, and would feel affronted on my behalf. But even so, the fact that he’d

  said it, and the fact that he hadn’t reacted at all when I’d told him about the blood, was making

  me think. Could it have been Quinn who had attacked Danny in our old apartment? Could

  Danny have hidden his injuries from me because he didn’t want me to know that his cousin,

  his friend, had turned on him, and the reason why he’d done so? And … another thought

  suddenly struck me. Quinn had acted oddly, had left immediately, when I’d mentioned Bridget.

  Could she somehow be involved in all this after all, but maybe not in the way I’d first

  considered? I’d originally wondered if she was protecting Danny, helping him to hide away in

  Ireland possibly. But what if it was Quinn she was actually trying to protect? If he had attacked

  Danny, did she know about it? Is that why she’d asked me about the police investigation when

  I’d spoken to her, trying to find out if they might be on to Quinn? But why would she protect

  Quinn if he’d hurt her son – did she dislike Danny that much? Or was all this in my

  imagination?

  Even if I was right, it still didn’t explain where Danny was now or why he’d disappeared,

  I thought, as I kneaded the dough, mechanically pummelling it, flipping it back and forth on

  the flour-covered table. But if I went to the police, told them about my fears about Quinn, that

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  might at least divert their attention away from me, and help them get closer to the truth of all

  this.

  I needed to talk it all through with Eva first, I thought. And would the police even listen

  to me this time? They certainly hadn’t seemed to have given my previous theory any serious

  consideration; they still appeared to think every word I said to them was a lie, an attempt to

  mislead them and stop them looking at me as prime suspect. Maybe if Eva came with me though

  … she was a respected crime reporter, surely they’d listen to her?

  BEEP.

  I jumped at the sound of my mobile phone text alert. Wiping my floury hands on my

  jumper, I leaned across to the worktop and picked the phone up, tapping the screen to open the

  message. I read it, and a chill ran through me. What? WHAT?

  It was from a withheld number, and the message was short and to the point.

  I know what you’ve done. Time to confess. Or else.

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  28

  On Saturday morning Devon was in the process of dialling Gemma O’Connor’s number to ask

  her to attend the police station yet again for further questioning following the visit from Quinn

  O’Connor when, across the room, somebody called his name and told him the woman had just

  walked into reception downstairs and had asked to speak to him.

  Weird, he thought, as he headed down to meet her. She just keeps on turning up, doesn’t

  she? Is she here to tell us where her husband is, or where she�
�s buried the body?

  He snorted. Chance would be a fine thing. He needed to confront her about the domestic

  abuse allegations made by her husband’s cousin, and Helena would be joining him shortly to

  carry out that interview, but he’d see what Gemma wanted first, he decided. Despite the

  increasing quantities of circumstantial evidence, he still couldn’t quite make his mind up about

  her. Helena was out for her blood, more and more convinced that she was responsible for

  Danny’s disappearance at the very least, and very possibly for all four murders too, and while

  he could definitely see why she thought that, despite the lack of any logical motive, he was still

  clinging on to the fence he’d been half-sitting on, reluctant to entirely give up on other

  possibilities just yet. The evidence against her was becoming increasingly compelling though,

  he thought, no doubt about that, and if she really was the perpetrator of domestic violence on

  top of everything else …

  Gemma was waiting in reception, bundled up in a black wool coat, her face pale and tired

  looking. Unexpectedly, she wasn’t alone, accompanied by a woman with long red hair and

  arresting green-brown eyes who she introduced as: ‘My friend and former colleague, Eva

  Hawton. Eva’s the crime reporter for The Independent I mentioned to you before. Is it OK if

  she comes in with me?’

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  Devon had shrugged and nodded, seeing no reason to refuse the request and, if he was

  being honest with himself, feeling for the first time in months a small flip of the stomach – that

  undeniable sign that he was physically attracted to someone – when he looked at Eva Hawton.

  She’d looked back with a cool gaze and then given him the smallest of smiles, and his insides

  had somersaulted.

  Wow. She’s gorgeous, he thought, as he led the two women into the interview room. Was

  this a good sign? Did it mean he was finally starting to get over Jasmine? He certainly hadn’t

  even looked at another woman with the slightest stirring of interest since his relationship had

  ended, so he hoped it was, and he began to wonder how he could discreetly find out if she was

  single. Then his heart sank a little. After such a long dry spell, trust him to suddenly find his

  interest sparked by a woman who was best friends with a possible serial killer.