a brother or sister who could share this load with me. At least Danny had Liam – if not someone he could share his troubles with, at least someone to distract his mother from what was going on. I couldn’t bring myself to ring Bridget though, and I hadn’t heard from her, even though I assumed the police would be calling her any time now, if they hadn’t already. Would she even care that Danny was missing? She didn’t seem to even like her son very much. The thought of speaking to her about Danny’s disappearance … I didn’t think I could, couldn’t face it, and I couldn’t read the article in the newspaper Eva had handed me either, and so I didn’t. Instead, I pushed the paper aside, and I started to talk, telling Eva everything the police had said to me. Told her about the pictures, the blood. Danny’s blood, in our old bedroom.
‘Blood that’s five weeks old? Five? But that doesn’t make any sense.’
Eva was wide-eyed, gaping at me as I recounted the story.
‘I mean, you’d have noticed if he had any injuries that severe, wouldn’t you? Surely?’
‘Of course I would. He was absolutely fine when he arrived in Bristol. Shit, Eva, what’s going on? I feel like I’m stuck in one of those horrible dreams where everything’s back to front and upside down and nothing makes sense. And that’s not all. Apparently our landlord said we both moved out on the first of February, because the keys were left at his office that day with a note. That’s the day I moved down here, but Danny stayed on in London for a week to finish up his final project for Hanfield Solutions. Or at least, that’s what he said he was doing. He certainly didn’t stay in the apartment though, it seems now. So where the hell did he go?’
Eva shook her head slowly, eyes even wider.
‘Whaaat?’
‘I know. And it gets worse. They accused me, Eva. They think I hurt Danny, attacked him, even killed him maybe. In our bedroom, back at the end of January. And they think I’m making it up about him moving down here. They don’t believe he was ever here, because the neighbours never saw him, and he hasn’t used his bank account, and he didn’t start his new job, and all the other stuff. But he was here, Eva. He was fucking here, until last week …’
I stood up, feeling panic rising, my heartrate speeding up. Eva stood up too, reaching a hand out towards me.
‘Gemma … Gemma, calm down, come on. We can sort this, this is ridiculous. How can they think that? There’ll be loads of ways of proving it, there must be. I mean, it was three weeks, wasn’t it, that he was here? There must have been heaps of people who saw him and can vouch for the fact that he was fine. Sit down, come on.’
Her tone was soothing, and I took a deep breath, trying to regain control. Slowly, I lowered myself onto my chair again, and nodded.
‘OK. But I need you to help me make sense of this. My brain is all … muddled. The stress … I can’t think properly. They’ve got no real evidence, not against me, not yet, otherwise they’d have arrested me, charged me. I’ve been released on bail, and they haven’t put any restrictions on me or anything, for now. But they’re coming here again later, to do forensic stuff or something, and I’m just so scared, Eva. What the hell is Danny playing at? Where is he? And all that blood? What’s that all about? I just can’t …’
Hot tears were burning their way down my cold cheeks, and Eva grabbed my hands, rubbing them hard.
‘I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it any more than you do. And the blood thing is weird, bloody weird, no pun intended. But you know he was OK when he moved to Bristol, so don’t think about that for now. Go and get your diary. We need to go through every day, every single day, from the day Danny moved down here to the day he disappeared. Because he didn’t have an invisibility cloak, Gem. This isn’t some sort of Harry Potter fantasy story, it’s the real world. And he was out of this house all day every day, pretending to go to work, and you must have had things delivered to the house, and done lots of stuff