remember what I ate. I probably cooked something, I wouldn’t normally order a takeaway if it was just me. Look, why are you asking me about that date? How is it relevant to Danny’s disappearance?’
The exasperated tone was back. Helena ignored the question, instead flipping to the next page of her notes to check the date of the Hounslow West tube station car park killing.
‘Just another few questions, if you don’t mind. Another date for you – can you remember what you were doing on the evening of Wednesday, the fourth of April last year? So that would have been a few weeks after you and your husband married.’
Gemma stared at her for a moment, then sank her face into her hands, letting out a little groan. She stayed like that for several moments, fingers clawing at her scalp, and Helena and Devon exchanged a brief glance. Then Gemma straightened up again.
‘Look, what’s going on? What’s this about? I don’t understand any of it,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to be looking for my husband. Yes, I know you clearly think I had something to do with his disappearance, but I didn’t, OK? You need to find him, you need to be out there looking for him. How is this helping, asking me about what I was doing a year ago? This is ridiculous.’
Her voice was becoming louder and louder as she spoke, a flush spreading across her cheeks.
‘I mean, how am I supposed to know what I was doing on a random Wednesday last April? Would you remember what you were doing? This is pointless, all of it, and in the meantime Danny is out there somewhere and he could be dead, or injured, and you’re wasting time with this … with this bollocks.’
She banged a fist on the table, and her eyes filled with tears. There was the usual box of tissues at the end of the table, and Devon pushed it towards her.
‘There’s no need to get upset, Gemma. This is all part of our investigation, I promise you. Please try to answer the question. The sooner you can do that, the sooner you can get out of here, OK?’
There was silence for a moment, then Gemma sighed.
‘Sorry,’ she said. She pulled a tissue from the box and wiped her eyes, then looked from Devon to Helena and back again.
‘I’m sorry. I just get so … so frustrated, you know? I don’t understand any of this, it’s like some sort of horrible nightmare and I’m just so scared about … about where Danny is and what’s happened to him. I shouldn’t take it out on you, I know you’re just doing your job, but it’s just … it’s just so hard, you know?’
‘Of course.’ Devon turned to Helena. ‘It was the fourth of April we wanted to know about, right?’
Helena nodded.
‘Yes, Gemma. I know it’s not easy, but if you could just cast your mind back. It would have been about, what? Two and a half weeks after you got married. Can you remember anything about that period?’
Gemma took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out. The flush in her cheeks had subsided but her eyes were still wet, and she dabbed at them again.
‘OK. Let me think. Can I see that calendar?’
Helena slid it across the table, and Gemma studied it, running a finger across the dates.
‘Right, well, we got married on the seventeenth of March as I said. We stayed in London until the Monday, the nineteenth, and then we flew to Paris for a week for our honeymoon, so we would have been back on the following Monday, the twenty-sixth. Danny took the rest of that week off work and I didn’t have much on so we just sort of hung out for a few days, kind of extended honeymoon but at home kind of thing. Then we both went back to work properly on the following Monday, the second of April. So that week you’re asking about would have just been a normal one. I remember Danny had a few late nights at work, catching up on stuff he’d got behind on while we were away, and I was busy again so pretty much chained to my desk. But we didn’t go out that week, as far as I can remember, because we’d spent a lot of money on the wedding and in Paris and everything, so we thought we’d better be good for a while. So, to answer