sending threatening text messages,’ Helena had said, while simultaneously scanning the front pages of Tuesday’s papers, all with excited headlines about Gemma’s arrest.
IS THIS THE FACE OF A FEMALE SERIAL KILLER?
WIFE ARRESTED – IS SHE THE BRISTOL MURDERER?
‘But also get a statement about last Thursday when he met up with Gemma,’ she said, and pushed the pile of papers aside.
‘We need details – exact timings, precise locations. We didn’t get those when he came in to talk to us because it wasn’t relevant then. It is now. There were no cameras in the side street Declan Bailey was attacked in but lots in the general area. Someone at the Met’s looking at CCTV footage from that afternoon to see if he can spot her, but it’s a massive job. We can help him a lot if we can give him more details about time and place.’
When numerous attempts to call Quinn to arrange another interview had failed, Devon and Mike decided to try his home address in Feltham, just west of Twickenham.
‘Pretty much on our way home, anyway,’ Mike had commented, as they’d battled through the evening traffic, heading west.
Finally parked outside the house, Devon swallowed the last of his tea.
‘Lights are on. Might be in luck,’ he said, as they got out of the car. They crossed the road and opened the rusty metal gate, which creaked loudly. At the front door, Devon studied the two unnamed bell pushes for a moment, then randomly pressed the top one. Silence. They waited a full minute. This close to the house they could smell a faint odour of greasy food and stale cigarette smoke. Devon pressed the bell again. This time there was a bang from somewhere inside the building and then the thud of feet on the stairs.
‘Jesus, Quinn. Did you forget your keys again?’ said a male voice. The accent was Irish, and the speaker sounded irate.
Seconds later the door was wrenched open.
‘Hello, we’re looking for—’
Then Devon looked properly at the man who was standing in the doorway, and his mouth dropped open.
‘What the …?’
Beside him, he heard Mike gasp.
‘Ahh, SHIT,’ said the man.
Devon stared at him, looked at Mike, who had suddenly turned pale, and then returned his gaze to the man. The man he had instantly recognized. The man who everyone thought was highly likely to be dead, but who was actually clearly very much alive. The man who’d opened the door was, without any shadow of doubt, Danny O’Connor.
Chapter 34
I sat on the edge of the thin, plastic mattress, shivering. I’d spent the past hour pacing up and down the tiny space trying to keep warm, but now I felt sick, exhausted, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I was terrified, I realized, as I pulled the tatty blanket the custody sergeant had given me tighter around my shoulders. I was terrified because it had finally happened, and I could see no way out of it. I’d been arrested and was sitting in a police cell. Me, Gemma O’Connor, journalist, magazine columnist, of previous excellent character – not even a parking ticket, for God’s sake – had been arrested, on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. It would have been absolutely hilarious if it hadn’t been so utterly horrifying. I’d lost track of how many questions I’d been asked, how many times I’d been walked to and from the small, overheated interview room, since that surreal moment when they’d suddenly appeared in the room I’d been waiting in and read me my rights, and I’d stood there, open-mouthed with shock, unable to believe what was happening. I hadn’t uttered a word as they emptied my pockets, took my bag and shoes from me, took my photograph from different angles, took my fingerprints. Processed me, they told me it was called. I’d been half expecting it, the arrest, for days, but when it finally happened it was overwhelming, unreal, and I seemed to have been struck dumb, unable to form words, mutely obedient. And then, after I’d been in my tiny cell for an hour, or maybe it was two, or ten, who knows, sitting there numb and shaking, they’d finally taken me to an interview room, and it had begun.
It had been the same old stuff all over again – the blood in the bedroom, the fact that nobody except me seemed to have seen Danny since the end of January, and so on and so on and so on. My voice returned, thin and reedy,