How his bank account had remained untouched since the end of January, fuelling the police view that something had happened to him back then, and how none of his friends or family had heard a word from him since January either.
‘Have you, Quinn?’ I asked. ‘When did you last hear from him, can you remember?’
He took a few moments to answer, eyes flitting around the bar again. Then he shrugged.
‘Dunno. It’s been a while though. Probably January, yeah.’
He was looking down at his pint as he spoke, running a finger around the rim of the glass. I suddenly felt uneasy – is he telling me the truth? I wondered – but I ignored the feeling and carried on talking, telling him next about what the police had told me about Danny appearing on EHU, the same dating app as the two Bristol murder victims. I knew that, like the stuff about the blood in our old apartment, this information hadn’t been made public, so I wasn’t surprised when Quinn’s face twisted, his eyes widening.
‘Do you … do you know if he was seeing other women, Quinn? I’m struggling with it, but it might explain some of—’
‘I don’t know,’ he said sharply. ‘And he probably wouldn’t have told me if he was. I don’t agree with that sort of messing around. You’re either with someone or you’re not. Danny was brought up Catholic, and adultery’s a sin. He’d know I’d hold no truck with that.’
I couldn’t hide my surprise at his answer.
‘Well, yes … I mean, I agree with you, but most people don’t think like that nowadays, do they? But, well … look, he was definitely using that EHU dating app. Whether he actually went through with any actual dating, I don’t know.’
I suddenly felt a tiny bit better. Surely if Danny had been seeing other people, he’d have shared that with Quinn, his closest confidant? OK, so he’d flirted with that woman at that party, and made a pass at Eva, but maybe that was as far as it had gone …
‘He saved my life, you know.’ He said the unexpected words loudly, almost angrily, his face suddenly flushing, and at the closest inhabited table an elderly man with a small dog stretched out on the floor by his feet turned and frowned.
‘He … what?’
Quinn looked down at the table, one bitten fingernail scratching at a spot of dried paint on the antique wood. Then he looked at me again.
‘He saved my life. It was when we were kids, messing around in the lake at home. It was summer, hot, and we were in and out of the water all day long. I was showing off, holding my breath underwater, and I went too deep, got my foot stuck in something, dunno what, and suddenly I was drowning, panicking …’ He paused, an anguished look in his eyes, as if he was back there again, reliving the horror. ‘I thought I was a goner, you know? Thought it was all over. And then, just when everything was going black, and my lungs were bursting, and I thought that was it, I was going to die, there was Danny, like some sort of miracle. There he was, divin’ down and pulling my foot free, and draggin’ me back up to the surface, and I was alive and … well, that was it. That’s the story. He saved my life. I’d have died that day, if it wasn’t for him.’
His tone had softened, and I stared at him, a lump in my throat, strangely moved.
‘I … I didn’t know. He never told me,’ I said.
He shrugged.
‘So, you know, I owe him. I’d defend the man to me grave. But if he was messing around on ya, Gemma, that’s bad. I’d batter him for that.’
I didn’t know what to say. He was a strange man, I thought.
‘Thanks … thanks, Quinn. Look, another thing. Bridget … you don’t think she could possibly know where he is, do you? Every time I’ve spoken to her, well … as I said to you on the phone, she doesn’t seem that bothered. By Danny being missing, I mean. Is there any chance that’s because she knows he’s alive and well somewhere?’
Another odd expression crossed his face, his eyes widening, then he stood up abruptly.
‘No, I don’t think that. No way. Look, I need to go now. Sorry I can’t help you. I don’t know where he is. I’ll let you know if I hear from him.’