he was nursing a hidden injury? Danny had always liked to look after himself. In London he’d been a member of a local gym in Chiswick and had worked out several mornings a week, squeezing in an early session on his way to work. I often told him he put me to shame – forever thankful that I was naturally lean, I’d always said I got enough exercise walking Albert, and although I enjoyed my yoga or Pilates sessions, that was only once or twice a week maximum. Working out really wasn’t a big priority in my life, but Danny loved it.
I reached for my iPad again, pulling up a map of Bristol, then zooming in on our street. Then I slowly zoomed out again until I had an area of about one square mile of the house on my screen. Something told me that if Danny was trying to keep a low profile, had essentially been hiding in plain sight, he wouldn’t have wanted to travel too far. Were there any gyms that close to the house? I typed ‘gym near’ into the search box and added our postcode. Yes! Two pins appeared on the map, one just a couple of streets away, one about half a mile to the south. I clicked on the first one, then clicked again to open its website.
Fit4U Gym – a small, friendly independent gym in Clifton, Bristol.
I scrolled through the photographs; a compact but well-equipped gym, a steam room, a spin class, a small café. Would Danny have felt comfortable there? Or was it too small? I wasn’t sure, so I clicked onto the second pin.
GYMCITY. A big city gym at small town prices.
This one looked huge – a spa with hydrotherapy pool, personal trainers, an Olympics standard weights room. Shit. If Danny had to choose one of these, which would he go for? I wasn’t sure. I’d have to try both of them.
***
Assuming dogs weren’t allowed in gyms, I left Albert behind, muttering apologies as I slipped out of the front door, and headed for the big one first, bracing myself for the barrage of questions from the reporters as I left the house, only to find that they’d suddenly disappeared. Called to a press conference, maybe, I thought, then realized I didn’t care. As long as they weren’t bothering me, they could go where they liked. In the reception area of GymCity, a harassed-looking man with a shaven head and a dark, bushy beard glanced at the photographs of Danny I was holding and shrugged.
‘Don’t recognize him. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been here though. We get hundreds of people coming in every day and I’m only part-time. There are eight of us on this desk, we work shifts … hang on.’
The phone on his desk was ringing and he picked it up.
‘GymCity. Can you hold please?’
He looked back at me.
‘Look, I’m really busy, sorry. If you want to leave a photo and your number, I’ll stick them on the desk here with a note, see if any of the others remember him. We’ll call you.’
I thanked him and left, a now-familiar feeling of hopelessness creeping over me. This was a waste of time. My legs felt heavy as I trudged slowly to Fit4U, wondering why I was bothering.
There was somebody already chatting to the man on the desk when I walked in, so I wandered around the small lobby, reading the posters advertising ‘cardioblast’ and ‘bodypump’ classes, studio cycling and body balance sessions.
‘Hi, can I help?’
I turned to see the receptionist smiling at me.
‘Yes, sorry. I was just wondering … well, the thing is, my husband has gone missing. And I was just wondering if you might have seen him in here, any time over the past few weeks? It’s been tricky, trying to track his recent movements, and well, I brought a photo, just in case. You probably won’t have seen him, I know how busy these places always are, but I was just hoping that maybe if you could take a look at this picture …’
I was gabbling, already feeling embarrassed for wasting his time. The young man, who had cropped dark hair and was wearing a very tight, white T-shirt, looked at me quizzically.
‘Missing? Sorry to hear that. Sure, let me see.’
I pushed the photograph across the desk.
‘His name is Danny. Danny O’Connor. He’s thirty-three, six foot one. Do you recognize him at all?’
The man – he wore a name badge which said ‘Gerry’ – was