previous day, he knew she was almost ready to take a chance and charge Gemma O’Connor, and would be just as surprised as he was to see the woman already in the station when she got in, which should be very shortly. He decided to humour Gemma.
‘Look, let me take the phone and check the number of the sender of the message against the number we have for Quinn, OK? Take a seat for a moment. I’ll send someone in with a coffee, and I’ll be back down in a few minutes.’
She glanced at the chair he was gesturing at, looking uncertain, then nodded.
‘All right. Thank you,’ she said.
***
He left her and headed back up to the incident room, where he found Helena slipping her coat off and hanging it on the overloaded rack on the back wall.
‘Morning. Little lie-in today, boss?’
She turned and scowled at him.
‘Oh, shut up. It’s only eight thirty and I have a feeling this might be a long day. Any news?’
‘A bit, yes.’
He updated her on the latest visit by Gemma O’Connor, and her eyes widened.
‘And she’s still here?’
‘Yep. Drinking coffee in interview room number three. How do you want to play this?’
She rubbed her eyes. She looked tired, Devon thought.
‘Well, what do you make of these messages? If they are from Quinn O’Connor, does that change anything? I’m almost too tired to think straight.’
He shrugged.
‘Well, if they are from him, he clearly shouldn’t be sending threatening messages like that whatever the circumstances, and we’ll have to have a word with him. I’ve checked his record, by the way. A handful of minor misdemeanours in his youth in Ireland, nothing for years though and nothing in this country. But the content of those messages is interesting, isn’t it? It sounds like he’s backing up what he told us when he came in – that he believes she’s responsible for Danny’s disappearance, death, whatever, and wants her to confess to it. In the meantime, she’s now trying to claim he might have done something to Danny and is trying to frame her. But that doesn’t ring true to me; would he really have come here of his own accord to speak to us if he was the killer?’
Helena shook her head.
‘Unlikely. If I’d killed someone, the last thing I’d do is go to the police and put myself on their radar. So what do we think? That she’s running scared now and is trying to shift the blame onto him to save her own skin?’
He thought for a moment, then sighed.
‘Maybe. I just don’t know. As I keep saying, boss, I just can’t call this one. But even I can’t deny there’s a ton of evidence pointing squarely in her direction.’
‘SHIT! Boss, Devon, come here, quick! You need to see this!’
They both jumped. Across the room, DC Frankie Stevens was waving frantically at them, and pointing at his computer screen. They exchanged puzzled glances and went over to see what he wanted.
‘What’s up, Frankie?’ asked Helena, and he gestured wildly at the screen with one hand, pushing his little glasses further up his nose with the other.
‘This,’ he said, his voice high with excitement. ‘It’s just come in from our contact at the Met. It’s a serious assault – an attempted murder, they believe, in London early last Thursday evening. A man called Declan Bailey was attacked in a side street off Vauxhall Bridge Road, but somebody came along and interrupted the attacker, who fled. It all happened too fast for the witness to get a look at the attacker – he says he was too concerned about the man bleeding on the ground in front of him, but wait for it … two things. First, the EHU app was found on his phone, which may or may not be important, but worth noting. And … and this is the most exciting bit … the assailant dropped the weapon he or she was using. It was a small, heavy hammer apparently. So …’
‘Hang on, hang on. OK, last Thursday. Isn’t that when …?’
The dozen or so people in the room were all moving closer now, listening to the excited conversation. Frankie nodded, his eyes bright.
‘It’s the day Gemma O’Connor went to London, to visit Quinn O’Connor in a pub in Victoria.’
‘And you said a side street off Vauxhall Bridge Road?’ Helena was leaning closer, peering at the screen.
‘I know that area. That’s literally yards from Victoria station,’ said Devon. His heart rate had suddenly increased. ‘Bloody