tear rolled slowly down my already-damp cheek. The rain had grown heavier, running down under my collar, drops clumping on my lashes. I blinked and looked up. An elderly woman was approaching, white hair peeking out from under a bright red headscarf, rheumy eyes looking at me curiously.
‘Come on, Albert. Let’s go,’ I whispered.
I pushed myself back to a fully upright position and walked on, suddenly desperate to get home, away from people, out of the rain.
As soon as we got indoors I called Eva.
‘Shit, Gemma. And you’re sure the footage is of Danny?’
‘I’m pretty sure. The police officer just didn’t seem interested though. He asked for a copy, to keep in their files, but it was like he couldn’t wait to get out of there. I just don’t know what to do next, Eva. I’m out of ideas, and I feel like I’m going mad. What am I going to do? What am I going to fucking do?’
I was crying again, my voice cracking.
‘Oh darling, stay strong. I’ll be back down there on Friday evening, OK? Keep thinking. There’s something you’ve missed, something we’ve both missed, there has to be. Don’t give up. We’ll find a way to prove you didn’t hurt Danny, OK? We will, Gem. That’s all we need to do. The rest of it, working out who killed those other men and whether Danny’s case is connected or not, is down to the police, so forget all that. Just concentrate on this one thing, OK? We can do it.’
Her words were reassuring, but when I put the phone down I sat very still for a long time, the rain pounding against the window, the sky darkening, the room growing cold around me. What was it? What were we missing? I had a horrible feeling time was running out, and I still had simply no idea. No idea at all.
Chapter 22
The incident room was quiet, but the air crackled with tension. DC Frankie Stevens, who’d just returned from meeting Gemma O’Connor at a gym in Clifton, was briefing Helena on what had happened there, but she could tell even he wasn’t particularly interested in what he was saying, and she was having a hard time forcing herself to listen. They had bigger fish to fry, and the interview room was being readied for the man who could well turn out to be the biggest catch of her career so far. George Dolan, the man who’d walked in the previous day claiming to have killed five men, had told officers he was originally from Bristol but had moved around a lot and was currently of no fixed abode, sleeping on friends’ sofas and picking up occasional shifts as a bar and club bouncer. He had been fairly seriously intoxicated when he’d arrived, stumbling and mumbling, and had been put in a cell to spend the night sleeping it off. When they’d checked his record, they’d found a history of arrests for violent behaviour, including a six-month prison sentence for common assault ten years previously following a brawl outside a nightclub. When, after breakfast, a by-then-sober Dolan had stuck to his story about committing the murders, the news had raced around the building like a greyhound around a track, and Helena’s insides hadn’t stopped churning since.
‘So I asked the bloke at the gym – quite cute, actually – to send us a copy of it anyway. But honestly, I’m pretty sure it’s of no use whatsoever. Too unclear to be admissible, in my view,’ Frankie was saying.
‘Err … cute? Mind on the job please, DC Stevens!’ Helena said, but she smiled. ‘Look, thanks for doing that, it’s a box ticked. But Gemma O’Connor has strangely suddenly stopped seeming like such a high priority. Christ, Frankie, I’m nervous.’
‘You? Really?’
He looked genuinely surprised, and she raised her eyebrows.
‘Yes, me, really! I am actually human, you know. And if this Dolan guy is the real deal, well …’
‘I know. Massive,’ he said. ‘Good luck, boss. You’ll smash it. DS Clarke doing it with you?’
She nodded.
‘Yep. Think he’s on his sixteenth builders’ tea of the day over there. I’ve been drinking herbal tea, some sort of calming mix Charlotte brought home for me last night, thought I might need it. Smells vile and tastes worse and hasn’t worked at all. And Devon, who should be wired to the moon after all that caffeine, seems calm as you like.’
She gestured with a hand, and Frankie turned to look at Devon, who was sitting at