horrible coincidence. Billions of people use those apps. So, leaving that aside for a moment, well …’ she paused, her eyes fixing on mine, ‘well, I hate to ask this again, I really do, and I know you told me when he first went missing that there was absolutely no way he was seeing anyone else, but things have changed a bit now, so I’m going to ask you again. Could he have been seeing other women, Gem? I mean, how were things between you, really? How’s your sex life been?’
I looked back at her, squirming slightly inwardly. How had our sex life been? It had started off fine, even great. And recently … well, we probably had sex less frequently than we had back in the early days, there was no doubt about that. But that was normal, wasn’t it?
‘Our sex life … it’s fine. I mean, we’ve been together a while now, we’re not tearing each other’s clothes off every ten minutes. But it’s OK, we’re still doing it. Now and again. I mean, not so much recently, with the move and all the work we’ve been doing trying to sort this place out. But … oh, I just don’t know anymore, Eva. The police asked me this too. I’ve wracked my brains, I really have, trying to think of anything that should have made me suspicious. And other than him heading off on his bike every now and again, wanting some alone time … I mean, he could have been seeing someone. But I’ve never seen any real evidence …’
My voice tailed off. I wasn’t being entirely truthful, was I? Because there had been one occasion, just one. It had been the previous summer, just a few months after we got married, when I – and, as my plus one, Danny – had been invited to a party thrown by the fashion editor of Camille magazine to mark her fortieth birthday. It had been during the heatwave, several weeks during July and August that year when the temperature in London had soared into the mid-thirties and stayed there, and even though the party hadn’t started until seven, the sun was still beating down, the ice cubes that clinked in our glasses melting within minutes, sweat beading on our brows. From the glass-roofed kitchen, guests drifted slowly into the shady garden at the back of the chic terraced house in Notting Hill, chatting and laughing, languid in the heat. I’d been networking, of course, as usual – so many editors to chat to, from all of the big magazines! – but I never worried about Danny at parties, knowing he was happy to wander from group to group without me, sipping his drink, joining in easily with the varied conversations, letting me do my thing and waiting for me to re-join him. That night though, as I glanced around, looking for him, checking he was OK, I noticed that he seemed to be deep in conversation with a pretty, blue-eyed woman with dead straight, almost waist-length blonde hair. I vaguely recognized her from another event – a fashion stylist called Sylvie, I seemed to remember – and when I looked for Danny a second time twenty minutes later and he hadn’t moved, head bent towards her, her hand on his arm, the sound of his laughter floating through the humid air – a shiver of apprehension ran through me. What were they talking about, and why was he spending so much time with just her? When I looked again just a few minutes after that the spot where they’d been standing, next to a slender silver birch tree, was empty. I’d excused myself from the conversation I’d been having with a group of art directors and weaved my way around the garden, between the women in their floaty, brightly coloured cocktail dresses, the men with shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, ties discarded. The music had been turned up as the light had faded, the air muggy and heavy with perfume, the bodies I brushed against hot and sticky. Unable to see Danny anywhere, I’d made my way back into the kitchen, where catering staff were laying out canapés on big platters, but he wasn’t there either, nor was he in the hallway where a small queue had formed for the downstairs loo, two gently swaying women in matching slinky jumpsuits leaning against each other for support as they waited. Uneasy about searching the house any further, I’d