throw up any leads. Was he meeting someone? He’s now vanished, so did that person hurt him in some way? Kill him? And maybe kill the others too? We need to find out … yes, what is it?’
Another hand had been raised, that of a short, ginger-haired officer whose name escaped Helena.
‘I was just thinking – I mean, we don’t want to panic anyone, obviously. But just assuming for now that the two murders are connected, and Danny O’Connor is a third victim, well … there were what, another nine, ten men on that EHU site who all came up in the same search, weren’t there? Isn’t it possible that they’re all at risk too, if someone really is bumping them off one by one for some weird reason? Should we be warning them?’
Helena ran a hand across her forehead. She could feel a headache starting.
‘It’s far too early for anything like that. We still don’t know what’s going on here, and if the dating app really has any link to the murders. So, no. If we made an announcement like that, there’d be mass hysteria … every man in Bristol with dark hair and dark eyes would be after police protection.’
There was silence in the room, and Helena sighed.
‘Look, I hope I’m not making the wrong call here. But there may be something else that connects our victims that we haven’t discovered yet, and of course we still don’t know if Danny is dead or alive. We could be barking up the wrong tree entirely, and until the picture becomes clearer I don’t think it would benefit anyone to start warning people about a potential serial killer who’s using a dating app to pick his, or her, victims. Everyone OK with that, for now?’
There was a murmur of assent, heads nodding. Helena turned to Devon again.
‘Go on, finish what we have so far on Danny.’
‘Right. So, there’s the non-job and the mystery about where he was spending his days, and his appearance on the EHU app. The other strange aspect is the financial one. No money’s gone into his bank account since his final pay check from his job in London, which is as expected as it seems now he probably wasn’t working in Bristol, so we wouldn’t expect any deposits. But no money has left his account either, not since the thirty-first of January. No cash withdrawals, no purchases, nothing. And yet his wife says he paid for any number of things since he joined her in Bristol – takeaways, furniture and so on. If he wasn’t taking money from his bank account, where was it coming from?’
There was silence for a moment, the assembled officers clearly thinking. Then:
‘Another bank account, a secret one his wife didn’t know about?’
‘Maybe he was working cash in hand for those three weeks? Something dodgy, off the books?’
Devon nodded, acknowledging the suggestions.
‘Yes, both possible. We can definitely look into the alternative bank account theory right now … Tara, do you want to take that on? Call around as many as you can? The current and savings accounts we know about are with NatWest, so try the others. Whether they’ll release confidential information at this stage though, I don’t know. Danny O’Connor isn’t a criminal – well, not as far as we know anyway – and we don’t have any evidence he’s actually in danger. Still, give it a go.’
Tara nodded, her ponytail bobbing.
Devon turned to Helena.
‘And that’s where we are, for now. We’re going to search the O’Connor house, this afternoon probably, just in case that throws up anything, and then—’
‘Boss!’
The door had just opened, and a young officer was striding across the room towards them, an excited expression on his face.
‘Yes, David? What is it?’
Devon and Helena took a simultaneous step forward.
‘Got something to tell you. Something very odd indeed.’ He was slightly out of breath, and he paused, gulping in air.
‘OK, go on.’ Helena moved closer.
‘Right. Well, we’ve been checking private CCTV footage for any sign of Danny O’Connor, as you know. There aren’t many cameras in the area, and nothing’s come up as yet, but we’re still working on it. But while we were at it, we thought we’d check out the neighbours, just to see if any of them had seen him cycling past every day, you know – if they noticed which direction he went in, help narrow it down?’
‘Good idea,’ said Devon. ‘And?’
David took another deep breath.
‘Well, that’s the thing. We managed to speak to the