and hide it somewhere where it still hasn’t been found. And then she’d have had to calmly move to Bristol without even bothering to clean up after herself. Doesn’t quite add up, does it? Unless she’s totally psychotic, and hiding it very, very well. Which she could be, I suppose.’
‘Or maybe she had an accomplice, someone who helped her move the body? But yes, leaving that mess behind is a bit odd, to be fair.’
Helena had moved back across to join him as he was speaking.
‘Anyway, to extend that theory, she moves house, bringing all his stuff with her too, to make it look as if he’ll soon be moving in with her. Then she claims he joined her here a week later, and has been living with her ever since, until he vanished a week ago,’ she said. ‘That bothers me too. Why wait so long? Why not just wait until the day he was due to move to Bristol to join her, for instance, and then report him missing when he allegedly didn’t show, if that’s the route you want to go down? I’d love to be able to pin Danny’s disappearance on her, it would make our lives a lot easier. But I agree, there are definitely some things that don’t really add up.’
There was silence in the room. Then Devon spoke again.
‘We swabbed her yesterday, of course, and overnight the lab compared her DNA to that found in the Chiswick apartment. They say the only DNA found in the bedroom was hers and Danny’s, as you’d expect. But that doesn’t rule out somebody else being there, of course, if they were careful.’
‘Indeed. Hard to imagine whoever carried out that attack getting away without being covered in blood though, even if they did manage not to leave anything of themselves behind. We’re getting the forensic team into her house in Bristol today, by the way. We’ve already searched it, but now we’ve found what we’ve found in Chiswick, we need to tear her new place apart. If Gemma was responsible, there may well still be traces of blood on some of her clothing and so on, even if she’s tried to wash it off in the meantime.’
‘If it was me, I’d have dumped the clothes though,’ DC Mike Slater said from the back of the room.
‘I would too, Mike,’ Helena said. ‘But we also need forensics in there to check out Gemma’s claim that Danny has been living there for the past few weeks. They’ll know if he hasn’t.’
‘Good point,’ said Devon. ‘On that note, Frankie spoke to the letting agent, Pritchards, last night while we were interviewing Gemma – thanks Frankie.’
From his perch next to Tara, DC Stevens nodded.
‘They couldn’t tell us much of any use though. They said that Danny did come to Bristol with Gemma when they initially viewed the house, and that the two of them were here again in mid-January to pay the deposit, sign the rental agreement and pick up the keys. They brought a van with a few bits of furniture with them that time and stayed in the house overnight before returning to London the following day. But the agents haven’t been round to the house since Gemma moved in on February the first, so couldn’t say whether Danny has been there again or not.’
‘OK.’
Devon sighed.
‘Well, those enquiries continue,’ Helena said. ‘But let’s not forget that we have two other murders which still remain unsolved too. And interestingly …’ She moved closer to the board, studying Devon’s red timeline, then looked up at the photographs of Mervin Elliott and Ryan Jones. ‘Interestingly, both of our killings happened after Gemma O’Connor moved to Bristol. What do we think about that, then?’
A murmur ran round the room. She turned away from the board and shrugged.
‘Oh, highly unlikely, I know. Look, I know we don’t have a third body, not yet. And the first two murders were very similar – clean killings, with some sort of heavy weapon. The crime scene in Chiswick is totally different, as I said earlier. Speaks of a much more frenzied, passionate attack. But … could that be the difference between killing a relative stranger, and killing your own husband? I’m just saying. We can’t rule anything out.’
Devon was staring at her.
‘You seriously think Gemma O’Connor could have killed three men, boss?’
She shrugged again.
‘I don’t know. The thought’s only just occurred to me, if I’m honest. But I’m clutching at straws here, in the absence of anything