‘SHIT,’ she said. ‘And where did they get that photo of Danny O’Connor? It’s not one we’ve seen before, is it?’
Devon, who’d been adding some notes to the incident board, put his marker pen down and turned to face her.
‘Nope. It looks as if it was taken at a party or a night out, so my guess is one of his mates got in touch with the press about him being missing, as we feared, and the journos have put two and two together and made … well, made their serial killer theory stand up even more.’
‘Probably. It’s so frigging frustrating. Just fuelling the fire when we don’t even know if any of these cases are connected yet. Or if Danny’s even bloody dead, although that does seem highly likely now. I wish we could find his body. Where the hell is it?’
She groaned and ran her hands over her hair. It was getting long, she thought distractedly, little curls beginning to snake over her ears. She needed to make an appointment at the salon, but who knew when she’d have the time to do that. She’d look like bloody Rapunzel before this case was solved at this rate. And her back was still killing her too. Another appointment she needed to make. She looked around the room. It was only just 8 a.m., and not everyone was at their desks yet, but she decided she couldn’t wait any longer. This enquiry needed to be stepped up, urgently.
‘Can everyone gather round please? Guys?’
When all the officers had shuffled themselves forward, some still in outdoor coats, others clutching coffee mugs, all with tense, weary expressions, she began.
‘OK, so as you all probably know we released Gemma O’Connor on bail late last night. Yes, there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence, and the quantity of blood in that Chiswick bedroom is extremely worrying. But at this point we have no body, and no proof that Gemma has done anything to harm her husband. There are a lot of things that don’t add up in her story though, so we’ll be keeping a very close eye on her and I’m ready to haul her in again if we find even the slightest …’
She took a breath.
‘However, what I do want to do now is stop thinking of Danny O’Connor as just a missing person. This is now significantly more likely to turn into another murder enquiry, which I want to run alongside our current two cases. The Met will probably want to get involved with the London end at some point, but for the moment I’m hoping we’ll be able to keep it ourselves as it does seem to tie in somewhat with what we have here.’
She turned to point at the board behind her, where the gruesome photographs of the Chiswick bedroom sat next to the image of Danny.
‘All the evidence we do have points to Danny either being very seriously injured or killed in that room approximately five weeks ago, which is a bit of a time gap but still doesn’t rule out it being linked to our other two cases. It looks to be a very different type of killing though – all that blood – but we need to keep an open mind on that. And, of course, we have the added complication of his wife claiming he was alive and well and living with her until a week ago. She also claims that she’s going to prove that to us, despite the fact that nobody else seems to have laid eyes on him in weeks, et cetera et cetera.’
She waved a hand at the board, and to the list of the things they’d discovered about Danny’s recent past.
‘We await that proof with interest,’ she continued. ‘But in the meantime, Danny O’Connor is still missing. Whether that disappearance has anything to do with his wife, is connected to our other two killings or is down to something else entirely, we don’t know yet. But there’s something not right about his wife’s story, that’s for sure.’
Devon, who’d been leaning against the wall to her right, stepped forward, a questioning look on his face. Helena nodded.
‘Go ahead, Devon.’
‘I just wanted to point out a few things that came out of our questioning of Gemma O’Connor,’ he said. ‘For the benefit of those who weren’t there.’
‘Of course.’
She moved aside, taking his place against the side wall,