nodded at me, then turned and walked quickly away.
‘But Quinn …’
He was already gone, the pub door swinging shut behind him. Shit, I thought. SHIT. Did he really not know anything? Why had he left as soon as I’d mentioned Bridget? And what had he said about what he’d do if Danny had been ‘messing around’? I’d batter him for that? A chill ran down my back, as if someone was running a cold hand slowly along my spine. There’d been something else too, something which was only now dawning on me as I remembered the garbled explanation I’d given him when he’d first sat down. When I’d mentioned Danny using a dating app, Quinn had looked visibly shocked. But earlier, when I’d told him one of the other things that the press didn’t know, one of the other things that had been kept out of the public domain, the thing about the blood in the Chiswick apartment, he hadn’t reacted at all. No reaction, no questions. It had almost been as if he already knew all about it.
Chapter 26
‘His name is Quinn O’Connor. Says he’s Danny O’Connor’s first cousin and he wants to come in and talk to us about Danny’s disappearance. He’s getting on a train from London now, says he’ll be in Bristol by midday.’
‘And he didn’t want to just tell us whatever it is he wants to tell us on the phone?’ Helena looked up at DC Mike Slater, who’d just appeared at her desk to tell her the news.
‘Nope. Says he has some photos to show us and he’d rather talk in person. Sounded quite anxious.’
Helena frowned. ‘We spoke to him, right, when we were contacting Danny’s friends and family after he vanished? He said he hadn’t heard from him?’
‘Yep. I checked, he says he still hasn’t. But he was pretty keen to talk to us today. He wouldn’t tell me anything else, boss, sorry.’
‘OK, fine. Let me know when he arrives. Devon’s off today so you can come and see him with me.’
‘Sure.’ Mike wandered off, and Helena broke off another piece from the Twix she’d been eating and popped it in her mouth. She tried her hardest to keep away from chocolate but she’d been so despondent earlier about the events of the past few days that she’d succumbed on her way in to work that morning, stopping at the local corner shop to stock up. Charlotte wouldn’t allow chocolate in the house, one of the very few things Helena found annoying about her wife.
‘You’re so bloody saintly when it comes to food. It’s beyond irritating. A bit of sugar won’t kill us. Dark chocolate’s actually good for you. For your heart or something, same as red wine,’ she’d snapped a few days previously, when she’d reached for a packet of dark chocolate digestives in the supermarket and Charlotte had practically slapped them out of her hand.
‘Well fine, we’ll get a bar of organic seventy per cent cacao then. But you won’t eat it, will you?’ Charlotte had snapped back, so loudly that an elderly woman who’d just stopped next to them and was perusing the shortbread section actually jumped.
Charlotte lowered her voice.
‘You just want to eat that shitty cheap chocolate crap which is full of fat and sugar. Fine, go ahead. But don’t blame me when all your teeth fall out and your arteries are all clogged up.’
The old woman backed slowly away from the biscuit shelf and hurried away down the aisle, and Helena glared at her wife.
‘Well, I pity our kids,’ she hissed. ‘Great fun they’ll have at Easter, when all the other kids are stuffing down the chocolate eggs. What are you going to give them instead? Brussels sprouts dipped in bloody couscous?’
She’d instantly regretted the remark, but the damage had been done, and the shopping trip had been completed in stony silence. They’d made up since, but the row had left Helena feeling guilty and low. Work was tough enough at the moment without strife at home too. Now, she suddenly felt a little cheerier.
‘Just when you think all your leads have dried up, along comes another one. Maybe,’ she said out loud to nobody.
***
When Quinn O’Connor arrived in reception at twelve thirty he was shown into a side room and given a cup of tea. When Helena and Mike entered the room three minutes later, they saw a pale-faced, stocky man in a tight black T-shirt, a large skull tattoo visible on his neck. A black jacket