desk, where it landed with a plop in the handle-less mug which doubled as a pen holder.
‘Nice shot.’ Devon sounded impressed.
Helena grunted and flung herself petulantly into her chair.
‘That’s meant to be a stress ball. Charlotte gave it to me. I’m going to tell her to demand her money back, because it doesn’t bloody work.’
Devon laughed. ‘I feel sorry for your poor wife. Agreed though, it hasn’t been the best of Mondays.’
He walked a few steps closer and leaned against the edge of her desk.
‘It was grim, wasn’t it?’ he said.
She nodded, closing her eyes briefly. It really had been. After the on-call press officer had been forced to deal with numerous and increasingly demanding calls from journalists over the weekend about the so-called ‘Bristol serial killer’, Detective Chief Superintendent Anna Miller had been on the phone to Helena at seven that morning, ordering her to call a press conference.
‘If you can’t make any arrests, if you really don’t have enough evidence, knock this serial killer nonsense on the head,’ she demanded in her broad Tyneside accent. ‘Tell them there’s no proven link even between the Bristol cases, never mind the London ones. But give them something. Anything. We’re being accused of doing nothing and getting nowhere, Dickens, and I won’t have it. Sort it out.’
And so, with the greatest reluctance, Helena had called a press conference for midday. She hated press conferences with a passion; not normally a shy person, she always wanted to curl up under a rock when forced to endure the glare of television lights, the flash of cameras and the volley of questions being fired from the press pack. It wasn’t that she wanted to be obstructive; she totally understood the need for the public to be kept informed, especially with rumours of serial killers floating around.
‘They’re just so … so relentless,’ she said, opening her eyes again and looking up at Devon. ‘And if they don’t get what they want, they just make stuff up half the time. Or speculate and exaggerate at least, and dress that up as fact. It drives me mad.’
‘I know.’ He sighed. ‘They’re totally fixated on this serial killer thing now though, aren’t they? No talking them out of it, no matter what we say. And their fascination with Gemma O’Connor seems to have grown too. Plenty of questions about her and whether we think she’s involved.’
Helena’s eyes widened. ‘Well, I can’t blame them for that. They know she’s the only one we’ve called in for questioning so far. And I still think she might have done it, Devon. Killed Danny, at least. Even if I did insist rather firmly this morning that she’s only ever been questioned with regards to background information about her missing husband. I don’t want them focussing on her too much, not right now. I know they’ve been hanging around outside her house, and we can’t stop them doing that, but I don’t want to give them anything more than we have to on her for now. She’ll clam up, and at the moment she’s still talking to us. Talking bollocks, but still talking. And I still think one of these days she’ll talk too much, let something slip.’
Devon shrugged. ‘Maybe. I still can’t make up my mind on that one.’
PRRRR.
There was a low purr from the breast pocket of his shirt. He slid his mobile phone out of it, looked at the screen and gave a short laugh.
‘Talk of the devil,’ he said, and answered the call.
‘Mrs O’Connor? How can I help you?’ he asked.
Helena sat up straight, suddenly feeling a little less gloomy. Gemma O’Connor, calling Devon direct? What did she want then? To confess, maybe, finally? She leaned a little closer to Devon, but he was giving little away.
‘Really? OK. OK. Well, I suppose it won’t hurt to take a look. Sure. OK. I’ll try to get someone down there tomorrow morning. Around 10 o’clock? OK. Someone will meet you there unless you hear otherwise. Great. Bye.’
He ended the call then grabbed a pen and a pad from Helena’s desk and scribbled down an address.
‘Well?’ she said impatiently. ‘What was all that about?’
He put the pen down and ripped the page from the notepad.
‘Not sure, really. She says she’s seen some CCTV footage from a gym in Clifton and she thinks it’s Danny. Apparently she decided to try and find out where he’d been spending his days while he was apparently here in Bristol …’