like his wife, to be in his early thirties. A man called Danny O’Connor. But a man who, at a quick glance, could quite easily have been Mervin Elliott. Or Ryan Jones. Or their brother, at least. The same build, the same colouring, the same look. Christ, what’s going on here? She took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. No point in jumping the gun, she thought. Danny O’Connor was, according to his wife, missing. Not dead. There was no body, no evidence he’d come to any harm. So, treat this as a standard missing person, then. For now, anyway. She pushed the photo aside and turned to Devon, nodding slowly.
‘Thanks for calling me down, Devon. OK, Gemma, let’s get some details. You said you last saw him on Thursday morning, the twenty-eighth? What time did you leave?’
Gemma took a deep breath.
‘About seven. We had breakfast together at six, got up extra-early to make it a special one, before we both went off to work … Danny cooked a fry-up. I had to go on a press trip, to a new spa hotel in the Cotswolds. I’m a journalist, a feature writer, freelance. I used to do hard news, but I prefer mostly lifestyle stuff nowadays. You know, fashion and beauty and travel, that sort of thing? I have a monthly column in Camille magazine but I do other bits and pieces too. It’s mostly from home but a few times a month I get a chance to get out for a bit, go away for a night, so I’d really been looking forward …’ Her voice tailed off, and the animated expression that had appeared briefly on her face as she talked about her work faded, the anguished look back in her eyes.
‘OK, great. So you said goodbye and headed off and then what? When did you next speak to Danny?’
Helena was scribbling in her notebook.
‘Well, I didn’t speak to him, not exactly. We only moved into our new place a few weeks ago, we just moved down here from London, and we haven’t got a landline phone, and there was a delay with Danny’s new company getting him a mobile, so he hasn’t got a phone at all at the moment. So we’ve been communicating by email for the past few weeks. Bit of a pain, but it works most of the time. He emailed me late on Thursday night, about eleven, just to say goodnight. Reminded me he’d be cooking dinner when I got home on Friday, that sort of thing. Just a normal email. I replied, told him I loved him, and that was it. I haven’t … haven’t heard from him since.’
The tears were back. She reached for a tissue, her hand shaking.
Helena nodded.
‘Right. So you came home on Friday night, that’s the first of March, and there was no sign of him? And you said as far as you know he hasn’t taken anything with him? Passport, clothes? Nothing he wouldn’t normally take on a work day? No note left or anything, I presume?’
Gemma shook her head.
‘No note. And yes, everything’s still there, passport, clothes, the lot. So he probably hasn’t skipped the country at least.’
She smiled weakly.
‘And you said you’ve called his office, his friends, family? And the hospitals too?’
Gemma nodded.
‘Yes, everyone I could think of. I couldn’t get hold of anyone at his office, it’s closed, and I don’t have numbers for all his friends, but I called all the ones I had. Nobody’s seen or heard from him. I didn’t call his family though. Most of them live in Ireland and his mum’s elderly and … well, I didn’t want to worry them, not yet.’
‘Yes, probably a good idea not to panic his family, for now at least.’
Helena gave the woman a brief smile.
‘I’ll get a list of the hospitals you’ve tried and Danny’s work address from you in a moment, Gemma, and we’ll need his date of birth, what he was wearing when you last saw him, your current address and where you recently moved from, some specifics like that, OK? But first just a few more general questions, if you can bear it? Did Danny’s behaviour change at all recently? I mean, did he seem worried about anything, distracted, anything like that? Was he having any problems – medical, financial, that sort of thing? Was he misusing drugs, or alcohol?’
Gemma was shaking her head and frowning.
‘No, nothing like that at all. We’ve been really happy – it was