sorry. I’m the one that’s sorry, so sorry, for all the commotion. I did see Clive a few times, and I could tell he felt really uncomfortable. I don’t blame him, or you. It was a horrible situation.’
Jo smiled.
‘Well, good. Anyway, it’s over now, and I thought with all the shenanigans you probably haven’t had much time to cook. So here you go. It’s just a sausage stew but it generally goes down well when I’ve got friends round. Oh gosh – you’re not vegetarian, are you?’
‘I’m not. And it smells delicious. Honestly, this is so kind of you. And Albert clearly thinks so too. He doesn’t seem to want to stop eating at the moment.’
I pointed at my dog, who was staring eagerly up at the dish, tail wagging wildly. Jo smiled.
‘He’s a sweetie. I’m sure there’s enough there for him to have some too.’
I smiled back.
‘Oh, he’ll make sure of that. He has ways of making me do whatever he wants, trust me. But seriously, people are being so, so kind, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. And again, I’m so sorry you’ve had to put up with the press outside all this time. They’ve gone now, for good hopefully.’
Jo smiled again, her kind eyes wrinkling at the corners, and pushed an errant strand of hair back off her face. She was wearing it loose today, and it hung in a heavy grey curtain down her back.
‘No problem. And when you’re feeling up to it, come round for a drink. I’ll get Jenny and Clive round too. It would be nice to get to know you better.’
‘I’d love that, thank you. How do I heat this up?’
‘About half an hour at 170 should do it. Just make sure it’s piping hot. And now I must go, my friend Ally’s coming round in ten and I’ve got scones in the oven. Pop that in the fridge for now. I’ll let myself out. Take care, Gemma.’
She patted me on the arm and headed out of the kitchen door and down the hallway. As I opened the fridge with my elbow and carefully manoeuvred the large dish onto the middle shelf, I heard her calling.
‘Gemma? Another visitor for you! I’ve let him in, bye for now!’
A visitor? Clive maybe? I grabbed the towel that hung on a hook next to the sink and wiped my hands. Then I turned as I heard footsteps entering the room. A man was standing there, a tall man with a beard and glasses, his hair covered by a black beanie hat. Albert turned too, paused for a second, then yelped and launched himself at the visitor, yapping frantically, leaping in the air with joy, tail a frenetic blur.
‘What … who …?’ I stammered. I stared at the man.
It couldn’t be. Could it?
‘Hello, Gemma,’ the man said, and I gasped.
Danny. It was Danny. He’d come home.
Chapter 39
In the incident room, the air was thick with nervous tension, the low hum of excited conversation fading to a whisper and then to silence as Helena strode to the front of the room and raised a hand.
‘OK, listen up. We now have a suspect, as you all know. The forensic evidence is very clear – the person who was interrupted during the attack on Declan Bailey and ran off, dropping the hammer being used as a weapon, left DNA behind, as we hoped. And that DNA was a match for a profile on the National DNA Database. It’s a shock, yes, but our priority now is to find the suspect as soon as possible and see if we can tie that attack to our two unsolved murders here, and quite possibly to the two London killings as well. It looks very likely, given the similarities between the cases, that this perpetrator is indeed the one we’ve all been looking for, and that the press have been right with their speculation all along too.’
She took a deep breath.
‘What I’m saying is that we’re now officially on the hunt for a serial killer. And now we have a face and name too. Just not the face or name any of us were expecting, is it?’
Chapter 40
Danny and I sat at the kitchen table, Albert stretched out underneath it, just like old times. Except it wasn’t like old times at all, because my husband had just finished telling me exactly how he’d managed to disappear so completely. Eva and I had been right about that, after all. He had