The Perfect Couple. Jackie Kabler
only been working in Bristol for three weeks, he may not have had a payday yet, I suppose. It would probably be end of the month, wouldn’t it?’
‘Probably. But I’m already on it – well, Frankie is, anyway. We should have his bank records this afternoon.’
He gestured at the neighbouring desk, where DC Frankie Stevens was chatting animatedly on the phone.
‘OK, good. Did we get hold of a more recent photo of him, by the way?’
Devon nodded.
‘She’s emailed one over, yes. Couldn’t find any from the past few weeks – says her phone’s playing up, her recent emails and pictures haven’t saved or something. But it’s only a couple of months old. I’ve printed a few copies off. Should be fine.’
‘OK. All right, well, stay on it for a little bit longer, and keep me posted, OK? And I want this kept quiet for now – no missing person appeals in the papers or on social media or anything. This possible connection to our other two cases is still worrying me, and I don’t want any more speculation out there. Today was bad enough.’
She glanced at the front-page splash on the copy of that morning’s Bristol Post, which was lying on Devon’s desk, and sighed. It had been just as she’d feared.
SERIAL KILLER FEARS AFTER DOUBLE MURDER ON THE DOWNS
‘Bloody reporters. So hush, hush, right? And I know you’re working really long hours at the moment, Devon. I do appreciate it, thank you.’
‘Sure boss. Got nothing better to do these days, so that’s fine by me. Joys of being young, free and single, eh?’
Helena gave him a sympathetic smile, pushed herself off the desk and straightened her jacket. Poor old Devon had been dumped by his girlfriend of the past year just weeks ago, and while he didn’t seem outwardly broken-hearted, she had the sense he was feeling the loss far more keenly than he was letting on. She’d take him aside, maybe for a drink, at some point and have a chat, but there was too much work to be done at the moment, and now with this added complication … she shook her head slightly as she crossed the room, weaving her way between the desks piled high with scruffy stacks of paperwork. She was starting to get a feeling that there was something strange about the disappearance of Danny O’Connor, especially with the revelation about the job that never was, but without a body he was still just a missing person, and right now she had more important things on her mind, namely two actually dead men whose murders may or may not be connected, and a distinct paucity of leads. With a sigh, she reached her own desk and sat down, pushing aside a plastic container of half-eaten mozzarella and tomato salad and tapping her keyboard to wake up her computer screen.
The files for both sets of forensic results were open on her desktop and she flicked backwards and forwards disconsolately between them for the tenth time. There was nothing there, basically; the killer had either been very careful or very lucky, leaving no trace of his identity on either of the victims. Or her identity, Helena thought. No assumptions, not at this stage, even though right now her money was on a male killer. Although no murder weapon had been found in either case, both Mervin Elliott and Ryan Jones had been attacked with some considerable force with some sort of heavy object – both, it had now been confirmed, had died from their head injuries. Both were young, fit men, and it seemed unlikely that a woman would have been able to take either of them down so easily. Although … Helena thought about some of the women she saw at her local gym, on the rare occasions when she chose indoor exercise over running. Those bodybuilder types, the ones who entered those Miss Bikini Fitness contests or whatever they were called – they’d definitely be able to take a man down if they wanted to. So, don’t rule anybody out, she thought. It was far too early in the investigation to start doing that. Keep an open mind, about all of it.
She stood up again and crossed the room to the incident board, hands massaging the aching small of her back as she walked. Maybe she’d ask Charlotte to give her a back rub later, if she was still awake when she got home, she thought, then smiled wryly to herself, realizing how unlikely that was. Her wife, head teacher of a fairly challenging city centre secondary school, came home from work as exhausted as she did.
‘Will you be home for dinner? Or is that a stupid question?’ she’d asked sleepily as Helena had tried to slip noiselessly out of bed at six that morning, wanting to get a run in before what would undoubtedly be another long, frustrating day. She’d leaned across and kissed Charlotte softly on the forehead. She smelled of rose oil and sleep.
‘Sorry, did I wake you? And honestly … I don’t think so. This is a tough one, and I’ve got nothing to go on, Char, nothing. Probably better to assume I won’t be home for dinner for the foreseeable. I’ll make it up to you when it’s all over, promise.’
‘Yeah yeah. Heard that before.’
Charlotte had squeezed her arm and rolled over, eyes closing again, and Helena had dressed quickly and headed out into the dark, frosty morning, guilt nibbling at her guts. Charlotte was patience personified, but sometimes she wondered how long that would last. The job, as poor Devon had recently discovered, was a relationship killer. And Charlotte wanted children – well, they both did, really, but with them both being so busy …
Helena sighed. Charlotte would never put pressure on her, she knew that. But there’d been a few comments recently, a few occasions when babies had suddenly come up in an unrelated conversation. She’d changed the subject, dodged the discussion, but she couldn’t do that forever, she knew that. Maybe, when this was all over …
She sighed again and stared at the incident board. They had had one breakthrough that morning – after struggling for days to find any connection whatsoever between the two victims, a young detective constable had come to her a couple of hours ago, pink with excitement, to announce his discovery that both Mervin Elliott and Ryan Jones had used the same dating app.
‘It’s one of the new trendy ones, nowhere near as big as Tinder and so on, but getting more and more popular among people wanting something a bit more discreet,’ he’d said, his words tumbling over each other in his eagerness to share his news. ‘It’s called EHU – it stands for Elite Hook Ups. It’s not cheap – you have to pay quite a lot even for the basic version. A lot of the others allow you to use them for free at a basic level, and then have a subscription fee for the premium service. This one, well, you have to pay a hefty monthly fee up front to use it at all. Hence the “elite” bit, I suppose.’
The breathless DC – his name was Mike Slater, Helena remembered – had paused for a moment, turning the pages of his notebook, then looked up at her again, eyes bright.
‘But they’d both subscribed to it, and what was really interesting, ma’am, is that for some reason the app had actually been deleted from both victims’ phones. I started looking into it because both Mervin’s and Ryan’s friends said they definitely used a dating app – they didn’t know which one – to meet women, yet there was no sign of one on their mobiles when their bodies were found. I didn’t really know where to start, I’m married, so I’m not an expert, but I asked around, did a straw poll of all the singles in the office,’ he gestured vaguely around the room, ‘asked them which dating apps were big at the moment, and almost all of them mentioned this EHU one as being really popular. It only launched about a year and a half ago, and lots of people have apparently left the old favourites and joined it instead. Well, not everyone – Frankie sticks to Grindr; he’s addicted, says it’s the one with the hottest men and he’s not switching for anyone …’ He grinned and glanced across to where DC Stevens was sitting, then looked back at Helena. ‘Sorry. Anyway, I made a list of the top five apps everyone seems to be using, including this EHU one. I knew it was a massive long shot, but, well, I got lucky.
‘I started contacting the various companies and asked if there was any way I could find out if Mervin and Ryan had signed up to them. The first few wouldn’t play ball, even when I explained that the two men had been murdered, but then I called EHU and they had a think about it and then came back to me and agreed to release some very basic data. And it turns out they were both signed up to it. Mervin