The Perfect Couple. Jackie Kabler
last September, and Ryan since November. So a bit weird that the app wasn’t on either of their phones when their bodies were found. I can’t explain that. I mean, obviously this all might just be a coincidence and not get us anywhere, but I asked EHU if there was any way they could give us details of anyone either of our victims hooked up with via the app. Then we’d have a list of new people to talk to, seeing as none of their mates were much help. Neither Mervin nor Ryan had introduced a woman to their friends in months, none of their dates had got serious enough for that. So I just thought, maybe if we could find any of the women they were in contact with through the app, it might just give us a new angle, and you never know, one of them might have some information that might help us. Or they might not, of course, but …’
Helena, who’d been sitting in her chair and listening with increasing interest, stood up suddenly and clapped her hands.
‘Amazing work, Mike! So will they do that, then? The app people? Can we get that information?’
The DC shuffled his feet, looked down at them for a moment, then back at her, the smile fading from his face.
‘Ah, well, that’s where the problem started. Because it’s an expensive, paid for app, it works in a bit of a different way. There’s none of this “swipe right if you fancy me” or anything. Each person who registers has to provide an email address, which is listed on his or her profile. Users are advised to set up a new email address specifically for the site, and not to use their personal address, but that’s up to them. Then you just search for people with traits you’re interested in – profession, body type, age, hobbies and so on, the usual – and if you find someone you like the look of, you just drop them an email, effectively taking the app out of the picture. It’s a feature of the site – it ensures much more privacy than most, because only the two people emailing each other know they’ve decided to take it further. In other words, the people who run the app have no knowledge of who contacts who. They just provide a private, discreet platform for people to find people they might be interested in meeting.’
Helena felt her heart sinking. Damn. Bugger it.
‘OK, well that’s a massive shame. But still, excellent work, Mike.’
She paused for a moment, thinking rapidly, her brow furrowed.
‘Look, what about their phone and email accounts? Mervin’s and Ryan’s, I mean? If these dates were arranged by email, initially anyway, can’t we just find the women they dated that way?’
Mike was nodding rapidly.
‘The IT guys are having another look. I mean, they looked at emails and phone records straight away, for both victims, but didn’t find anything that seemed significant, though I suppose they were looking for threats and stuff like that, not stuff about making dates. They’re looking again in the light of this app thing. And yes, I’ll get back to EHU, see if they can help any further. They might have some sort of search data that could at least help us narrow the field – like, I don’t know, say Mervin had a thing for tall redheads and searched for women fitting that description a lot, that might help us track down some of his dates. Or not. I mean, I could be totally wrong about this, it probably doesn’t mean anything at all.’
‘But it might, it just might. Thank you, Mike. You’ve done a great job. It’s finally something our two murder victims have in common, and it’s about the only lead we have at the moment, so it’s definitely worth following up. Send me anything else you can on this as soon as humanly possible, OK?’
That had been a few hours earlier, and there’d been no updates since. Helena stared at the board for another moment, then wandered back to her desk, thinking. Dating apps. It seemed to be the way everyone met their partners now. In her day, you met people on nights out, in bars, clubs; she’d met Charlotte in a gay bar in Bristol a decade ago. But times had changed, and as far as murder investigations were concerned, the fact that everything was online now was often a good thing, making the movements of victims and suspects so much more traceable. The fact that the two victims had been registered with the same dating site didn’t necessarily mean anything, she knew that. If it was as popular as Mike had said, thousands of people would be using it, which probably made the coincidence meaningless. And how likely was it, after all, that they’d both somehow had the enormous misfortune to fix a date with the same female psychopath, who’d then proceeded to batter them both to death? No, the deaths might not be linked at all, but at least it was something, a lead they could investigate, and that made a pleasant change after days with nothing at all to go on.
I wonder …?
Halfway to her desk Helena suddenly stopped dead as an idea struck her. Devon, who was coming the other way carrying a fresh tea, stopped too just in time to avoid walking straight into her, and groaned as the hot liquid slopped over the edge of his mug, splashing his pristine white shirt.
‘Ahhh, shit! What’s up, boss?’
He dabbed ineffectually at the spreading brown stain with a paper napkin he held in his other hand, looking quizzically at Helena.
‘Oh Devon, I’m so sorry. It’s just … I just had a thought. A random one, and probably a stupid one, but …’
She turned on her heel, scanning the busy room.
‘Mike?’
At his desk near the window, DC Slater raised his head.
She gestured at him. ‘Can you come over here for a minute?’
She turned back to her DS.
‘And Devon, can you give Mike a copy of that new photo of Danny O’Connor, the one Gemma sent across earlier? It’s just an idea, but …’ she looked at the eager face of Mike Slater, who had joined them, ‘Mike, DS Clarke is going to give you a photograph. It’s of a man called Danny O’Connor, who seems to have gone missing in slightly strange circumstances. He’s very, very similar in physical appearance to our two murder victims which is just making us slightly nervous, and he’s not single, he’s fairly recently married, but it’s just a thought, something I’d like to rule out … could you just humour me and have a look to see if he’s on that EHU site too? I mean, I’m sure he won’t be, but can you access it to search it, without paying to join?’
Mike nodded.
‘Yes, the general public can’t, but they gave me a code so I could look at Mervin’s and Ryan’s profiles, and it gives me access to the search facility. I’ll give it a go.’
They didn’t have to wait long. Ten minutes later there was an elated yell from across the room. Helena and Devon stood simultaneously, and in seconds were peering over Mike’s shoulder, Helena aware her heart had started beating uncomfortably quickly.
‘Well … what have you found?’ she asked. On Mike’s screen was a search page, where he’d clearly been filling in details of Danny’s physical appearance, hair colour and so on.
‘OK, well I searched for his name and nothing that matched him came up, although that’s not unusual, lots of people use nicknames and so on, on sites like this. So I put in all the basic info from his missing person report instead. And when I hit search …’
He clicked on the red search button at the bottom of the screen. Immediately the screen changed, a dozen or so photographs of dark-haired young men flashing up. Helena scanned them, looking for a familiar face, and then gasped.
‘There! Middle of the second row. Is that …?’
Devon leaned closer to the screen, hand on Mike’s shoulder. Mike was grinning widely.
‘That’s him. That’s bloody him. Holy cow,’ Devon said slowly.
‘I think it is too. He’s on there under a different name, calling himself Sean, look. Not much personal info in the profile, but it does say he works in IT. I’m pretty sure it’s him too, from comparing the two photos. What do you think, boss?’
Mike looked up at Helena. Her eyes were glued to the image on the screen,