arrived. ‘You know, you see it in Victorian-style gardens? When they plan the flower beds so that they form a beautiful pattern. It’s in keeping with the house, but sort of a modern interpretation.’
He’d frowned at me in an exaggerated fashion, clearly bemused, and I’d laughed and given up. To say that Danny wasn’t very interested in home décor was an understatement, but the upside of that was that I could basically do what I liked. He’d help, happily, if I asked him to, but I called the shots, and that was fine by me.
I sat there for a moment, gazing around the room, then remembered what I’d gone in there to do and pulled out my phone. I clicked onto the photos file and started to scroll, looking for a decent snap of Danny. He’d never really liked having his photo taken – for such a gorgeous man he was remarkably camera shy – but we’d taken a few pictures since we’d moved and I thought one of them would be perfect for the police: a close-up shot of Danny lost in thought, standing in the middle of the lounge, staring at the wall as he tried to help me work out which of our several large pieces of art would look just right above the fireplace. I’d taken the photo before he’d even noticed I was there, and he’d growled and leapt on me, pulling me down onto the Persian silk rug, telling me I was ‘worse than a bloody paparazzo’ and then kissing me so hard I could barely breathe.
Oh Danny, I miss you so much. Please come home.
I paused, finger resting on the screen of my phone. I’d gone back through a month’s worth of pictures without finding what I was looking for, and I frowned and started scrolling forwards again. Where was it? In fact, where were lots of the photos we’d taken since we’d come to Bristol? There were a few of my work ones from recent weeks, shots of pots of moisturisers and faded jeans and a vibrant pink orchid in a glass bowl. And there were a couple of the house, pictures of some of the rooms, images I’d taken to try to visualize the walls in different colours, to plan my decorating. But where were the photos of Danny gamely attempting DIY, putting up a decidedly wonky shelf? Or the selfies we’d taken, the two of us crashed out on our bed after a full day of trying to sort the bedrooms out and lugging boxes up and down the stairs, sweaty and exhausted but grinning ear to ear? The picture of us both cuddled up in one big armchair, clinking glasses of champagne? I tapped each photo in turn, slowly now. I must have been going too fast, missed them. But no – once again, I was back onto pictures from London, shots I’d taken before we moved. Where the hell were the photos I wanted, the ones from the past few weeks? And why were only some of the recent pictures missing, and not all of them? Some sort of blip with my camera app? They’d all be backed up though, on the cloud, wouldn’t they? I tapped the cloud storage app and started scrolling again, but it was the same photos, the ones I’d just gone through several times in my photos file.
‘What? This makes no sense,’ I said aloud. I put the phone down on the cushion beside me and sat still, thinking. They must be somewhere, but where? Had they been saved into a different file or something? But didn’t photos automatically get saved into the photos file? Something had clearly gone wrong, and while I wasn’t too bad with technology, I didn’t know enough to know where to look next. And the police had asked for a new photo today, if possible. What was I going to do? Give them one from our London days, I supposed. I had a few of those on my phone, and they’d be recent enough. I took a deep breath, trying to quell the anxiety, then picked up the phone again, checking for emails this time. Maybe, just maybe. But just like the previous twenty or fifty or a hundred times I’d checked, there were no new messages in my inbox. Tears suddenly sprang to my eyes. I couldn’t take this much longer. Four days. FOUR. Where was he? Was he lying injured somewhere, unable to get help? Had