with those other murders too. They said that as I clearly didn’t kill Danny, the possibility that I’d killed the other men was no longer being considered either. I guess they’re back to square one on those now. Danny looking so like the murder victims was obviously just some sort of weird coincidence. But honestly, Eva, I don’t care. I’m just not interested anymore. Danny’s alive, and for now that’s enough. Everything else can wait.’
The article Eva had been asked to write about me – her ‘my friend, the suspected serial killer’ piece – had now been scrapped, and a peek through the lounge curtains early that morning had confirmed what I’d hoped, that the press no longer had any interest in me either. I’d flung the curtains open with a whoop, and as I sat eating my toasted sandwich the midday sunshine streamed in through the window, the clouds like fluffy white candyfloss, the sky cerulean blue.
I’d been taking, and making, calls all morning, updating friends and family on the rather extraordinary events of the past couple of days. My dad had cried with relief, my mum sobbing too in the background, and even though they, like me and all the others, had questions I couldn’t answer, they were happy to let the mystery remain for now.
‘As long as you’re OK, darling. That’s all that matters,’ Dad said.
I’d decided against ringing Bridget. The police had said they would be informing Danny’s family that he’d been found, and that was good enough for me. If she wanted to speak to me, she could call me, I thought, but I wasn’t expecting to hear from her. She hadn’t seemed to care that Danny was missing, and I was fairly sure she’d be equally disinterested in his reappearance. Strange, cold, horrible woman. When I turned the TV on to see the lunchtime news, there’d been just a brief mention of Danny.
Avon Police say Danny O’Connor, the thirty-three-year-old man who’d been missing for nearly three weeks, has been found safe and well. It had been feared he might have been another victim of a so-called ‘serial killer’, after two men were murdered in Bristol last month. Two other murders and a serious assault in London are also being linked to the Bristol killings. A woman who was being questioned has now been released without charge. A spokesman said that finding whoever was responsible for the murders remained the force’s highest priority.
I picked up the remote control and turned the television off. There was so much more I needed to know and, no doubt, so much more heartache still to come. But for now, I was content. Content to sit there, the sunlight pouring into the room, my belly full, my name cleared, my husband alive. It was over.
Chapter 37
‘When we find him, I’m going to throw the bloody book at him.’
Helena threw an apple core hard at the wastepaper bin next to her desk as if to illustrate that intention. It bounced off the rim and landed on the carpet, and she cursed softly under her breath and bent to pick it up. It was late on Wednesday afternoon, and the team had gathered for an update and to regroup, after the entirely unexpected discovery that Danny O’Connor was not, after all, a murder victim but had been the mastermind behind his own successful disappearance. Successful until the previous day, of course.
‘I want him done for perverting the course of justice, for a start.’
She was scowling, pacing up and down the narrow gap between two rows of desks in the incident room.
‘The blood in that bedroom, the little shit … fabricating evidence, letting us think Gemma was a killer … that alone could get him years. Wasting police time … and if he’s got false ID documents too … any news on his whereabouts yet? Or on the whereabouts of his cousin Quinn? I want him too. Coming in here, lying through his teeth to us about Gemma, helping Danny with the whole bloody deception … I want them both, and now. So – any news?’
‘No, sadly.’
‘Not yet boss.’
‘Maybe whoever’s after him’s finally caught up with him. Good riddance.’
The answers came from different parts of the room, and she sighed in frustration. They had an all-ports warning – the bulletin circulated to all international ports and airports which aimed to identify and apprehend a fleeing suspect – out on both Danny and Quinn O’Connor, but so far no sightings had been reported.