The Perfect Couple. Jackie Kabler
and he cocked his head, eyes fixed on mine, and whimpered. I didn’t blame him; I felt like whimpering myself. My stomach churning, my eyes dry and scratchy from crying and lack of sleep, I glanced at the empty courtyard one more time then turned from the window and started pacing again. Albert stood watching me for a moment, then whined softly and trotted off to his bed in the corner of the kitchen.
On Friday night I’d finally ordered pizzas, picking at mine as I constantly refreshed my emails, expecting an apologetic message from Danny to pop into my inbox at any moment. When nothing came, I’d finally, grumpily, assumed he was pulling an all-nighter, and had gone to bed, noticing as I crawled under the duvet that he’d even changed the bedding while I was away, the pillow case fresh and crisp against my cheek. His bloody job, I thought. He loved it, but I wasn’t always so keen. Danny was an IT security specialist, analysing and fixing systems breaches, defending companies against online hacking.
‘I fight cybercrime. I’m basically a security superhero,’ he’d announced with a theatrical wave of his arms on our first date, and I’d rolled my eyes, grinning and, if I was honest, not quite understanding what he did at all, while still being secretly impressed.
What the job meant in reality though was long hours and frequent emergency call-outs, and although this would be the first such occasion in this new job, it wasn’t that unusual for him to have to work through the night if something had gone wrong with an important client’s computer system. When we first met he’d been working for a company in Chiswick, in west London, earning a healthy six-figure salary. When we’d talked about leaving the capital, I’d assumed it would mean Danny accepting a lower wage, but that hadn’t been the case, something that had surprised me until I realized that his new firm, ACR Security, had itself relocated from central London a couple of years back, taking advantage of the lower rents in the UK’s eleventh biggest city.
‘Makes sense,’ Danny had said, when he’d first floated the idea of us moving out of London. ‘There’s a great job up for grabs in Bristol, and the internet’s the internet, my job’s going to be the same anywhere, same pay too. And think how much further our money will go without London prices, you know? And you can do your job from anywhere too, can’t you, Gem? You’d love it, I know you would, the quality of life would be so much better. Bristol’s a lovely city, and you’ve got Devon and Cornwall just a few hours down the road, and the Cotswolds not far in the other direction, and it’s a uni city so there are plenty of good bars and restaurants, and the architecture’s gorgeous …’
‘OK, OK, you’ve sold it to me, let’s do it!’
In truth, he hadn’t really had to work very hard to convince me. He was right that as a freelance journalist, I could pretty much work from wherever I wanted to, and London didn’t have any great hold on me anymore. It was too busy, too stressful, and in recent years I’d often craved a gentler life, more greenery, less noise. And so he took the job he’d been offered, and we’d packed up our modern apartment just off Chiswick High Road and moved into this lovely, high-ceilinged Victorian semi with the wonderful courtyard in the leafy Bristol suburb of Clifton. We’d only been married a year, and had still been renting in London, not wanting to commit to a huge mortgage until we’d decided where we wanted to settle. Even though Bristol felt right to both of us, we didn’t want to jump into buying there too soon either, wanting to give ourselves time to make sure we were both still happy with our jobs and the Bristol lifestyle and to find the perfect forever home.
‘We’ll rent, just for a year or so. Somewhere nice though. Best part of town,’ Danny had said as we’d scrolled excitedly through the property listings online, amazed at how low the rents seemed compared with what we’d been paying in Chiswick. And so it all came together perfectly, and after just a few days, I knew I was home. Danny appeared to feel the same, even if his working hours were just as long as they’d been in London, something I hated but had grown to accept.
Even so, I’d been so looking forward to seeing him on Friday night that I’d felt miserable, sleeping badly, waking every hour to see if the empty space in the bed next to me had been filled by his warm, weary body.
When he still hadn’t called by nine o’clock on Saturday morning I’d started to really worry. This wasn’t right. Pushing aside my reluctance to appear the nagging wife, I’d looked up the switchboard number for his company and dialled it. It had gone straight to voicemail, informing me that ACR Security was now closed and would reopen at 9 a.m. on Monday, and advising that clients with an urgent issue should call the emergency number on their contract.
‘What about wives with an urgent issue?’ I’d shouted down the phone, then ended the call, my heart beginning to pound. If his office was closed, where the hell was Danny? Had he had an accident on his way home? That flipping bike. I’d always thought it odd that he didn’t drive, but he’d shrugged cheerily when I’d asked him about it.
‘Never needed to. Plenty of good public transport in Dublin when I was a student. And then London … I mean, who drives in London? Congestion charge, parking is ridiculous … ah, bike’s the way to go, Gem. And we’ve got your car, haven’t we, when we need it? No point wasting money on two.’
He had a point. But I still worried about him commuting on that thing. And so when I couldn’t track him down at his office, and after I’d tried to Skype him half a dozen times only to find he was offline every time, I started to ring the hospitals. There seemed to be only a few in Bristol with accident and emergency departments, and after I’d ruled out the children’s and eye hospitals there were only two left, Southmead and Bristol Royal Infirmary. My hands shaking, I called both, but neither had any record of a male with Danny’s date of birth or fitting his description being admitted in the past twenty-four hours. For a minute, a wave of relief washed over me, before fear gripped me again. If he wasn’t at work, or hurt, where else could he be? If he’d decided on a last-minute trip to see a friend, he’d have called me, wouldn’t he? But that was just so unlikely, when he’d promised to be there when I got home, cooking dinner for me. So maybe he was at work, after all, and the office switchboard had just been left in weekend mode. But why hadn’t he answered my email, or contacted me to let me know where he was? Surely, however busy he was, he’d have had time to do that? He’d know how worried I’d be.
Breathing deeply, trying to keep on top of the anxiety which was threatening to overwhelm me, I tapped out another email.
Danny, where are you? I’m seriously worried now. I’ve tried your office but it’s just going to voicemail. PLEASE let me know you’re OK? Gxx
I pressed send and checked the time. Midday, on Saturday. I hadn’t heard from him since the goodnight email he’d sent me at about eleven on Thursday night, the one I’d read in my hotel room. Just over thirty-six hours. It just wasn’t right, wasn’t normal, not for us. Should I call the police? But what if he really was just frantically busy at work, trying to fix some sort of online disaster for a major client, totally losing track of time? Imagine his mortification if the police suddenly turned up at his office, the sniggers of his new work mates, the mutterings about neurotic wives. No, I couldn’t call the police; it was too soon. I was being silly. He’d reply to this latest email any minute now, and everything would be fine, I told myself. By this evening we’ll be snuggled on the sofa drinking wine and laughing at me and my stupid over-reaction.
I’d gone out briefly to collect Albert from the nearby kennels – I’d dropped him off on Wednesday night before I left on Thursday morning – Danny’s long and unpredictable working hours not compatible with dog care – desperately hoping that by the time we arrived home, my husband would be back, wearily brewing coffee in the kitchen or sprawled, exhausted, on the sofa after a long night in the office. But he wasn’t, and so at lunchtime, and uncharacteristically for me, because doing it too often made me feel fearful and anxious, I turned on the BBC Radio Bristol news. I’d worked in newsrooms for years before going freelance, covering so many stories that had shocked and sickened me, and although I’d become harder and tougher as time had gone on, more able to handle the horror of reporting on yet another stabbing, yet another senseless murder, there had come a point when the life I’d led back then had all