be here. Two of us, two investigative reporters, even if one of us was somewhat out of the swing of things. Two heads, focused on one problem. Danny hadn’t just vanished into thin air, and we could work this out. We had to work this out. Somehow, somehow, we were going to get to the bottom of it.
Chapter 10
‘Should be there in about twenty minutes. Traffic permitting, of course. Might get a bit heavier as we get nearer to junction two.’
DC Frankie Stevens, who was driving, turned his head briefly to glance at Devon, then fixed his eyes on the motorway again.
‘Quite possibly,’ Devon replied. The M4 had been remarkably quiet, and although they hadn’t left Bristol until just before nine, they now expected to arrive at the O’Connors’ former home in Chiswick before eleven fifteen, traffic permitting, as Frankie had said. The easy journey had been the one bright spot in a so-far frustrating morning. Before they’d even left police headquarters, the team checking all the private CCTV camera footage from around Gemma and Danny’s Bristol home had finally reported their findings.
‘Nothing. We’ve checked the entire forty-eight-hour period around him going missing and we can’t see a single person who looks like him, either on a bike or on foot. Although of course that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Loads of routes he could have taken that have no cameras on them at all.’
Even so, it had been a blow. The fact that Danny’s immediate neighbours had never laid eyes on him had been frustrating enough, but maybe not that surprising in the modern age – Devon didn’t think he’d recognize his own next-door neighbours if they came up and punched him. It was another small oddity to add to the growing list of oddities in the Danny O’Connor case though, and another possible lead which had drawn a blank. Devon had been desperately hoping for something, anything to come of the CCTV search, and now that had led them down a dead end too.
Is it too much to ask for one little lucky break in this bloody case? he had thought, as he and Frankie left the incident room and headed out to the parking bay where the pool cars were kept. Seemingly, it was far too much to ask, as they’d barely reached the Bath junction of the M4 when Devon’s mobile trilled. It was DC Mike Slater, who’d been tasked with accessing the search data from the EHU dating app.
‘Remember they said their system had been crashing recently?’ he’d asked. ‘Well, it’s back up and running again. But they’ve lost all their search data. Can’t get it back. They’ve apologized, but it looks like there’s no way of retrieving it. So that’s that. No way of finding who might have searched for men who look like Mervin, Ryan or Danny. Really sorry.’
‘Shit!’ Devon had replied. Then: ‘Sorry, Mike. Not your fault. Thanks for trying anyway. We’ll just have to come at this from another angle, although don’t ask me what that is right now.’
‘OK. Oh, and the tech guys can’t find any EHU date related emails on either of the victims’ phones either. Must have been deleted, which is bloody annoying, but I suppose people do delete old emails. I know I do. I also checked out the email address on Danny’s profile. It doesn’t exist, seems to be a fake one, or maybe one that’s since been closed down. So maybe adds weight to the theory that his profile was put up on the site as some sort of weird joke?’
‘Maybe. Anything else?’
‘Oh yes … Tara checked into the bank account thing. Couldn’t find any other accounts in his name with any UK bank. Plenty of Daniel O’Connors but no Daniel Ignatius O’Connor, pretty unusual name. She had a closer look at his NatWest account too to see if there’ve been any unusual transactions or anything in recent months but nothing stood out. No big withdrawals or deposits. Dead end on that too, for now. Sorry.’
Devon had hung up feeling despondent. The investigations into the murders of Mervin Elliott and Ryan Jones had now completely stalled, with no new witnesses or evidence emerging. And now with Danny O’Connor still missing, the whole team was starting to feel helpless. He sighed. Maybe he needed a good night out, a few drinks to take his mind off things, maybe even a date. He thought about that for a few seconds, then changed his mind. He was still in