politician or a paedophile, desperate to get that shot, that interview. I’d barely given a thought to how awful it must be for those trapped inside their homes. Well, I knew now, didn’t I?
We’d turned on the radio as we’d eaten breakfast in the kitchen first thing, tuning in to the Saturday morning news show on BBC Radio Bristol. They’d talked about me of course. I was all over the front of the papers, and not just the local ones. The nationals were reporting the story too.
WIFE QUESTIONED IN BRISTOL SERIAL KILLER MYSTERY
THIRD MAN MISSING – WIFE ‘HELPING’ POLICE ENQUIRY
No mention of the London murders yet, but surely that was only a matter of time, I thought. My phone, which had been buzzing with messages for the past couple of days, and which I’d largely ignored, had started ringing again at 8 a.m. Friends, former colleagues, of both Danny’s and mine. And finally, Danny’s mother, as well as my own parents. I’d answered each call this time, each message, fobbing them all off, telling them, as I later told Tai and Clare, that the press had put two and two together and come up with seventeen, that I was simply giving them more background information about Danny in an effort to help them track him down. My friends, many of them journalists themselves, were aggrieved that I’d found myself in the papers, sympathizing and offering help if I needed it. Our families though were a different matter. Bridget had been icily polite, weirdly so, as if she was ringing to enquire about something mundane like the times of a theatre performance, not about her eldest son who’d seemingly vanished into the ether.
‘And have the police any theories as to where he might be?’ she said.
Clearly whoever had called her from the police station hadn’t given her many details.
‘Not yet, Bridget,’ I said. ‘I’m just hoping he’ll come back, and all this will be over. It’s just been so awful.’
There was a pause on the line, then she said coldly: ‘Right. Well, fine. Goodbye, Gemma.’
The line had gone dead, leaving me staring at the phone feeling slightly stunned. What sort of reaction had that been, from a woman whose son was missing, possibly dead? OK, so she and Danny didn’t get on well, weren’t close, but even so. She was his mother. What the hell was wrong with her? Why wasn’t she in tears, in a panic, offering to come over here to support me, to help find him? I shook my head in bewilderment, but then a thought struck me. Was there any way … could she possibly be so casual about it because she wasn’t actually worried at all? Because she knew where Danny was? Was there any chance at all that he might have gone home to Ireland? But no, he couldn’t have, could he? His passport was still upstairs in the bedroom. Was there any way of getting to Ireland without a passport? I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure, but I didn’t think so. And anyway, surely however bad things were, whatever trouble Danny might be in, his mother would be the last person he’d turn to. And so I dismissed the theory, beginning to feel too overwhelmed by the barrage of callers and messages to think about Bridget for too long. It was my own parents I was more concerned about. Moments before I’d spoken to Bridget they’d been on the phone too, both of them together, my mother sobbing quietly, my dad’s voice wobbly with emotion.
‘Darling, your mother and I can’t understand it. If Danny has walked out on you, why are you the one who’s in trouble now, being dragged into the police station? Why didn’t you mention it when you called last time? You haven’t done anything wrong, have you Gemma, please tell us you haven’t? And what about these murders, these men who look like Danny? Your mother’s in a terrible state about this, she’s had the neighbours knocking on the door and the WI women phoning, and she doesn’t know what to tell them, neither of us do …’
‘Dad … Dad, it’s OK, I promise.’
I’d tried to explain that I hadn’t been arrested, that the police had simply invited me to come in for routine questioning, but when I finally ended the call I could tell he was still distressed, uncomprehending. I felt a sudden fresh wave of anger. It wasn’t just me under siege now, my parents were too.