of your way. I’m sorry, again, that we’ve had to land all this on you. But we’re a little bit stuck on this one, Gemma, I don’t mind telling you. We simply can’t work out what’s happened to Danny, and what was going on in his life in the weeks before he vanished. The job, his bank account, this app … look, if you can think of anything, anything at all, that might explain some of it, please call, OK? Any time. And maybe, can I suggest, get someone to come and stay with you for a few days? A friend, a relative? It’s a lot to cope with on your own.’
Still a little stunned by his Alice in Wonderland reference, I gaped up at him. DC Stevens was on his feet now too, shuffling towards the door, seemingly anxious to leave now that he’d thrown a live grenade into my living room and let it explode, leaving me to deal with the agonizing aftermath. What the hell was I supposed to do now?
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think I might do that.’
Chapter 8
‘This is just getting more and more bizarre.’
Helena was standing in front of the incident board, cradling her second cup of tea of the morning and frowning. Next to her, Devon popped the final sliver of his pain au chocolat into his mouth and turned to put his plate down on the desk behind them.
‘And where did you get that anyway? Surely not downstairs? It actually looked edible. Although you eat far too much sugar, Devon. It’s not good for you, you know. Your diet’s gone to pot since Jasmine left you.’
He shrugged, swallowing.
‘Don’t care. Needed something to cheer me up. Picked it up on my way in. That little bakery round the corner? It opens at six. You should try it, instead of eating all those boring salads. Might help.’
Helena grimaced.
‘Charlotte makes them for me. I don’t like to say no. But even I might have to turn to comfort food one of these days, the way this is going.’
She rubbed the small of her back as she spoke, and winced.
‘And sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned Jasmine. I’m an idiot. Are you OK?’
He shrugged again.
‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back on the horse soon. And when are you going to see someone about that back?’
‘Soon. When this is all over.’
‘Yeah, yeah. And I just saw a cute little piggy flying past that window over there.’
He turned away and began picking up the sheaf of papers he’d dumped on the desk earlier, shuffling them into some sort of order, and Helena watched him, her heart twisting suddenly. For all his bravado, he was definitely hurting. He’d fallen hard for Jasmine, a bright, ambitious medical registrar he’d met while interviewing a stabbing victim at Southmead Hospital, and who he’d been dating for the past year or so; he’d even, when Helena had joined him and some of the other detectives for a rare night in the pub a few months back, confided in her after several vodkas that he was considering proposing, once Jasmine had completed her training.
‘Maybe on the day she qualifies, something like that. What do you think, guv? Think she’d say yes?’
Helena had smiled.
‘She’d be mad not to. Catch like you? Course she’ll say yes.’
What had actually happened was what so often happened in relationships between two people with such demanding jobs; the long hours, the constant weariness and the repeated enforced cancellation of plans to meet up that came as standard with both police and big city hospital work had taken their toll. Devon and Jasmine, it seemed, had simply drifted apart, until she had finally called time on the relationship.
‘Ready, guv?’
Devon had finished organizing his paperwork and was looking at her expectantly.
‘Ready, yes. Let’s take stock.’
She gestured at the board.
‘And we all need to get our thinking caps on, because this lot is doing my head in. Do we have a potential serial killer, or just two separate murders? Is someone targeting men who look alike and finding them by using a particular dating app, although I can’t for the life of me think why, or is that app irrelevant, just a coincidence? Why was the app not on either of our victims’ phones, even though they were both users of it? And is Danny O’Connor just a missing person, or a third victim? Frankly, I have no clue.’