that you were having some trouble with your phone, that some photographs and emails had gone missing, but … well, as well as no recent emails, you also don’t seem to have any photographs of your husband since the move, just photos from your time in London. And nobody we’ve spoken to so far – his friends, his former colleagues – have heard anything from him, also since the end of January. We’re planning to speak to his family today, but I strongly suspect that it will be the same story there.’
She paused, regarding me coolly.
‘Do you see a bit of a pattern developing here, Gemma?’
I swallowed. ‘Yes, but there are explanations for all that. I mean, the job thing, I still haven’t got to the bottom of that. Or the bank account. But he doesn’t have a phone at the moment, so that’s why he hasn’t been in touch with people much. And my phone’s just playing up, not saving stuff, I’m sure I’ll track those photos and emails down …’
DCI Dickens was holding up a slender hand. She wore a wedding ring, I noticed for the first time, a narrow gold band.
‘In addition, Danny seems to have vanished but taken absolutely nothing with him. His passport, clothes, everything is still there, correct?’
I nodded.
‘Yes. That’s why I’m so worried, so scared …’
‘Well, we’re worried too, Gemma. Very, very worried.’
DCI Dickens leaned towards me across the table, and I smelled a faint scent, a soft floral perfume.
‘We’re very worried indeed,’ she said. ‘Because, looking at all of the evidence, it does very much seem now that Danny has actually been off the scene for quite a few weeks. Since the end of January in fact. Since just before you packed your bags and moved to Bristol, Gemma. Did you discover his profile on that dating app, is that what happened? Because it can’t have been very nice, discovering that your husband was on the hunt for other women to have sex with. Not nice at all, is it, Devon?’
She leaned back in her seat again, turning to look at her colleague. He nodded slowly.
‘Not nice at all, boss. Nobody would blame you for losing your temper, Gemma, after discovering something like that. Is that what happened? Did you and Danny get into a fight, and it went too far?’
The humming in my head faded to a low buzz, and then stopped. Suddenly, with growing horror, I understood. I understood perfectly. They thought … they thought that Danny’s disappearance was down to me. Me. They thought I’d … what? Seriously injured him – killed him – in our London apartment, and then calmly moved to Bristol on my own? And then what? That I’d waited a few weeks, and then reported him missing, when all the time I knew exactly what had happened to him, because it had been me that had done it. That was what they thought, wasn’t it? It was … it was insane.
‘No,’ I said. ‘No.’
They both sat in silence, watching me, waiting. Waiting for what? A confession? I felt a sudden surge of anger. How could they think me capable of something like that?
‘NO.’ I practically shouted the word this time, banging both fists on the table. ‘That’s not true. None of it is true. Danny’s been here, in Bristol, living with me for the past few weeks. He was fine, everything was fine. Or I thought it was fine, until last week when I came home and he was gone. I know it looks bad, none of what you’ve told me makes sense and I don’t understand any of it either. But I’m telling you the truth …’
I paused for a moment, my voice suddenly thick with tears, my chest contracting, my breath coming in shallow gasps.
Then I said: ‘You have to believe me. Nothing can have happened to Danny in that room, not five weeks ago or whenever you said it did. Because he’s been here, with me. He’s been here with me …’
I stopped, unable to continue speaking, the tears pouring down my cheeks, my whole body starting to shudder. This couldn’t be real, could it? Could the police really think I’d hurt, I’d killed, Danny? It was like some sort of sick nightmare. And now DCI Dickens was leaning towards me across the table again, her voice low and hard.
‘He’s been here, with you? Here with you, since early February? OK. Prove it, Gemma.’
Chapter 14
The Friday morning papers bore the headlines Helena