The Perfect Couple. Jackie Kabler
out in the evenings when Danny was back from work. I’d met up with Clare and Tai – a beautiful, petite Chinese woman with an infectious laugh, who’d moved to the UK to attend university and never gone home – several times for drinks or coffee though, and I could already sense a solid friendship beginning to form. They were my kind of women, feisty and strong, kind and funny, and I could tell they liked me too. But it was still early days, and to call them and land something like this on them, to tell them my husband had suddenly gone missing and ask for their support? No, I just couldn’t.
I groaned. Where was he? And how soon could you officially report somebody, an adult, missing? Wasn’t there some rule? I dragged myself off the bed and back down to the lounge and grabbed my iPad, checking my email inbox again – empty – before doing a Google search.
No, there wasn’t a rule.
It’s a common belief that you have to wait 24 hours before reporting, but this is not true. You can make a report to the police as soon as you think a person is missing. Most people who go missing return or are found within 48 hours, with only around 1% still remaining missing after a year …
A year? Fear swirled in my stomach. But most people came back within forty-eight hours. I checked the time. Nine o’clock. That was forty-six hours then. Forty-six hours since I’d last heard from my husband.
Come on, Danny. You’ve got two hours. Be like most people. Come home. Please, Danny.
And if he wasn’t, if he didn’t come home? What then? I’d have to do it, wouldn’t I? Yes, I thought. I’d do it, first thing in the morning. I’d go to the police and report him missing.
‘Boss, sorry to disturb but there’s somebody just called in downstairs you might want to have a quick chat with.’
Helena dragged her eyes reluctantly from her computer screen, where she was once again reading through the latest on the two murder cases. The usual incident room buzz had dulled to a low hum on this grey Sunday morning, and she suspected that she wasn’t the only one feeling disheartened and exhausted. It had been a long, and largely fruitless, weekend, and she’d slept badly the previous night, waking every hour, her mind racing. In the end she’d crawled out of bed at 5 a.m. and gone for a long run on The Downs, making sure her route took her past the scenes of both murders, hoping for some flash of inspiration, some inkling as to why on earth two young men had been bludgeoned to death for no apparent reason. She rubbed the aching small of her back – I really need to go and see an osteopath or someone if I’m going to be able to keep running, she thought – and sighed. Forensics had come up with nothing on the latest killing, and while she still didn’t know for sure if the two deaths were linked, the similarities between the two men were just so damn striking …
She knew it wouldn’t be long before the papers picked up on it too, and she was dreading the possible Monday morning headlines:
TWO SLAIN – TERROR ON THE DOWNS
DOUBLE MURDER: THE LOOKALIKE VICTIMS OF THE DOWNS KILLER
She shuddered. She needed sleep, and a decent cup of tea, but neither seemed to be forthcoming any time soon.
‘What is it, Devon?’
She turned to her DS, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice.
‘It’s a woman who wants to report her husband missing. She says—’
‘A missing person? Shit, Devon, I’ve got a double murder on my hands here. Why the hell would I be interested in a missing person? Give me a break.’
She saw him flinch, and immediately felt guilty.
‘Oh, mate, I’m sorry. Knackered, you know. Go on, tell me.’
He gave her a small smile.
‘No worries, I had the same reaction when the front desk called me. But I’ve had a quick chat, and honestly, there’s something … look, can you just trust me on this, and come down and have a quick word? It’ll take five minutes, tops.’
Helena stared at him for a moment and then sighed. He was a good copper, Devon – a good friend too – and she trusted his judgement. He’d been through a bit of a tough time in his personal life recently, but not once had it affected his work, and she wondered if he realized how much she appreciated that, and him. Probably not. She’d have to tell him, one of these days. For now though, if he thought she needed to see this bloody woman, then fine. It would do her good to get out of the overheated incident room for a few minutes, if nothing else. She pushed her chair back from her desk and stood up.
‘OK, you win. But you’re buying me a large mug of the canteen’s finest on the way back up.’
He grinned, his teeth white and even.
‘Deal.’
***
The woman, waiting in an interview room, was probably in her early thirties, slender with shoulder-length, wavy brown hair, her pretty face pale and drawn. She shook hands nervously, her palm clammy, and introduced herself as Gemma O’Connor.
Across the table, Helena smiled, trying to put the woman at ease, noticing that despite her obvious distress she’d made an effort with her appearance, a slick of crimson lipstick matching the oversized red leather bag on her knee, her smart black wool coat accessorised with a leopard print scarf draped around the neck.
‘And you want to report a missing person? Your husband?’ she said.
Gemma nodded.
‘Yes. His name is Danny. Full name Daniel Ignatius O’Connor.’ She grimaced slightly. ‘His parents are Irish, Catholic. Ignatius is some obscure saint, apparently.’
Helena smiled again.
‘I got Muriel as my middle name, after my grandmother. I feel his pain. Go on.’
Gemma gave her a small smile back, then took a deep breath.
‘Right, well, I was away on a business trip on Thursday night; we had breakfast together that morning, and last thing that night he emailed me to say goodnight. When I got home on Friday evening he wasn’t there, and I thought at first he’d just had to work late, because he sometimes does, you know? Has to pull an all-nighter. But I couldn’t get hold of him, and when I woke up on Saturday morning, yesterday, and he still wasn’t home and I still couldn’t contact him I started to panic. I spent all day calling everyone I could think of, his work, the hospitals, friends … even took Albert out and we walked along his route to work, to see if I could find him, in case something had happened. That sounds silly, I know, but he cycles to work, and this is just not like him, not at all, and he hasn’t taken anything with him, just his bike and his laptop and the usual stuff he’d go to work with, and now it’s Sunday and I still can’t get hold of him and I’m just … I’m just so scared …’ Her voice cracked, and her eyes filled with tears.
Helena, feeling for the woman but still wondering why Devon had asked her to leave her double murder investigation for this, looked around for tissues, saw a box on a side table and got up to retrieve it.
Offering it to Gemma, she said gently: ‘OK, try not to get upset. We’ll need to take some more details, if that’s all right, and then we can start looking into it for you. But there’s every chance he’ll turn up in a day or so, most missing people do, OK? So take a breath, and then we’ll do a bit of paperwork. Who’s Albert, by the way? Your son?’
Gemma, who’d ignored the proffered tissues and had started fumbling in her handbag, looked up with a surprised expression and shook her head.
‘Oh, sorry, no! We don’t have kids yet, we’ve only been married less than a year. Albert’s our dog. He’s a black Miniature Schnauzer. Bit like a child though, I suppose. They’re super clever.’