The Perfect Couple

by Jackie Kabler

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ I threw the phone hard onto the carpet, and sat back, covering my face with my hands, the tears flowing freely now. I needed to read Danny’s last email, I needed to. What was wrong with my phone? Or was it my email provider? Was it having some sort of problem? I’d have to phone, ask …

  I jumped as a sharp ringing sound interrupted my frantic thoughts. The doorbell. Danny? Could it be Danny, back home, keys lost somewhere? From the kitchen, an excited yelp seemed to imply that Albert was hopeful too.

  ‘Danny!’ I rushed from the room, pounding down the hallway, almost tripping over Albert who was suddenly scampering past me, my fingers fumbling with the keys, my heart thumping painfully against the wall of my chest.

  ‘Dann— oh!’

  ‘Mrs O’Connor, we’re sorry to disturb you … are you OK?’

  DS Devon Clarke was standing on the doorstep, broad-shouldered in a black coat, his brow creasing as he looked at me quizzically. Beside him, a smaller, younger man with a sharp nose and small rectangular glasses was also staring at me. I took a step backwards, catching a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror, suddenly aware that I was still crying, yesterday’s un-washed-off mascara streaking my cheeks, my hair wild and unbrushed.

  ‘Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry. I thought … I thought you might be Danny. I still haven’t heard anything, and I was getting myself into a state … and oh no, please, please don’t tell me you’re here with bad news, please …’

  I suddenly realized that two police officers on my doorstep was probably not a good thing, and the panic began to rise again.

  ‘Please …’

  DS Clarke was shaking his head, stepping into the hall and reaching out a hand towards me, patting me on the shoulder.

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. Don’t worry, OK? We’ve just been making some enquiries and discovered something a little odd we need to talk to you about, and we thought it would be easier to chat face to face. But it’s nothing to panic about, so calm down, all right? Come on, let’s go and sit down. This is DC Stevens …’ he gestured behind him at the smaller man, who nodded, giving me a hint of a smile, ‘and if you point him in the direction of the kitchen he’ll go and make us a nice cup of tea and then we’ll have a chat, OK? Is your dog all right with strangers, by the way?’

  I looked down at Albert, who was standing protectively in front of me, gulped in some air and nodded.

  ‘Sorry, I’m just … yes, he’s fine. Albert, go to your bed. It’s not Danny. Go, Albert. Kitchen’s down there, just follow the dog. I was just in the sitting room, I’ll show you.’

  After a moment’s hesitation Albert obeyed and trotted off down the corridor, his head low, his disappointment clear. DC Stevens followed him as instructed, and I staggered back into the lounge and slumped onto the sofa again, my legs feeling weak and wobbly. DS Clarke perched on the chair opposite, and for a couple of minutes made small talk, asking me if I’d heard anything at all from Danny, then changing the subject entirely, admiring the large bay windows, commenting on the bronze sculpture that sat on a side table and asking me to remind him how long we’d lived in Bristol. But when DC Stevens reappeared, bearing three steaming mugs balanced on the tray we kept on the kitchen counter, the mood suddenly changed.

  ‘Mrs O’Connor, we’ve been making some enquiries this morning, into your husband’s disappearance, as promised. We started by visiting his workplace, ACR Security?’

  His tone was suddenly serious, and a chill ran through me. I nodded.

  ‘OK? And?’

  He paused. ‘Well, this is the weird thing. It’s not his workplace.’

  I stared at him, not understanding.

  ‘What do you mean? Of course it is. I mean, he hasn’t been there long, but certainly a few weeks. He would have started on the …’ I thought for a moment, trying to remember the exact date. ‘Well, I actually moved down to Bristol a week before Danny did, because he had stuff to finish up in London; I can’t remember if I told you that? But he came to join me on the evening of the eighth of February, that was a Friday. He started at ACR on the Monday, so that would have been the eleventh. I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean by it not being his workplace?’

  DS Clarke glanced at his colleague for a moment, and then both turned back to look at me.

  ‘What I mean, Mrs O’Connor, is that ACR say your husband was offered and did accept a job with them, which he was indeed due to start on the eleventh of February. But a couple of weeks before that date, he emailed them to say that he wouldn’t be taking up the position after all, due to a change in circumstances. Needless to say they weren’t very happy about him changing his mind, especially at such short notice, but there wasn’t much they could do about it. Therefore, you see, ACR Security was not your husband’s workplace. So … can you help us out with that, at all?’

  Chapter 6

  ‘And she had no explanation for it whatsoever? She really didn’t know?’

  Helena, sitting on the edge of Devon’s desk, looked down at him and frowned. He swallowed a mouthful of tea, grimaced, and put his mug down carefully on the coaster next to his computer keyboard.

  ‘Nope. She looked absolutely gobsmacked, to be honest. She said as far as she knew he was excited about the new job and really enjoying it. Left for work early every morning, came home usually after six, sometimes a lot later. Been doing it every weekday since they moved. Which begs the question, if he wasn’t going to work at ACR Security, what was he doing?’

  Helena nodded slowly.

  ‘Another job somewhere, that for some reason he didn’t tell his wife about? Or was he doing something else entirely? We need to check his bank account, Devon. See if he was being paid by someone else? Although if he’d only been working in Bristol for three weeks, he may not have had a payday yet, I suppose. It would probably be end of the month, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Probably. But I’m already on it – well, Frankie is, anyway. We should have his bank records this afternoon.’

  He gestured at the neighbouring desk, where DC Frankie Stevens was chatting animatedly on the phone.

  ‘OK, good. Did we get hold of a more recent photo of him, by the way?’

  Devon nodded.

  ‘She’s emailed one over, yes. Couldn’t find any from the past few weeks – says her phone’s playing up, her recent emails and pictures haven’t saved or something. But it’s only a couple of months old. I’ve printed a few copies off. Should be fine.’

  ‘OK. All right, well, stay on it for a little bit longer, and keep me posted, OK? And I want this kept quiet for now – no missing person appeals in the papers or on social media or anything. This possible connection to our other two cases is still worrying me, and I don’t want any more speculation out there. Today was bad enough.’

  She glanced at the front-page splash on the copy of that morning’s Bristol Post, which was lying on Devon’s desk, and sighed. It had been just as she’d feared.

  SERIAL KILLER FEARS AFTER DOUBLE MURDER ON THE DOWNS

  ‘Bloody reporters. So hush, hush, right? And I know you’re working really long hours at the moment, Devon. I do appreciate it, thank you.’

  ‘Sure boss. Got nothing better to do these days, so that’s fine by me. Joys of being young, free and single, eh?’

  Helena gave him a sympathetic smile, pushed herself off the desk and straightened her jacket. Poor old Devon had been dumped by his girlfriend of the past year just weeks ago, and while he didn’t seem outwardly broken-hearted, she had the sense he was feeling the loss far more keenly than he was letting on. She’d take him aside, maybe for a drink, at some point and have a chat, but there was too much work to be done at the moment, and now with this added complication … she shook her head slightly as she crossed the room, weaving her way between the desks piled high with scruffy stacks of paperwork. She was starting to get a feeling that there was something strange about the disappearance of Danny O’Connor, especially with the revelation about the job that n
ever was, but without a body he was still just a missing person, and right now she had more important things on her mind, namely two actually dead men whose murders may or may not be connected, and a distinct paucity of leads. With a sigh, she reached her own desk and sat down, pushing aside a plastic container of half-eaten mozzarella and tomato salad and tapping her keyboard to wake up her computer screen.

  The files for both sets of forensic results were open on her desktop and she flicked backwards and forwards disconsolately between them for the tenth time. There was nothing there, basically; the killer had either been very careful or very lucky, leaving no trace of his identity on either of the victims. Or her identity, Helena thought. No assumptions, not at this stage, even though right now her money was on a male killer. Although no murder weapon had been found in either case, both Mervin Elliott and Ryan Jones had been attacked with some considerable force with some sort of heavy object – both, it had now been confirmed, had died from their head injuries. Both were young, fit men, and it seemed unlikely that a woman would have been able to take either of them down so easily. Although … Helena thought about some of the women she saw at her local gym, on the rare occasions when she chose indoor exercise over running. Those bodybuilder types, the ones who entered those Miss Bikini Fitness contests or whatever they were called – they’d definitely be able to take a man down if they wanted to. So, don’t rule anybody out, she thought. It was far too early in the investigation to start doing that. Keep an open mind, about all of it.

  She stood up again and crossed the room to the incident board, hands massaging the aching small of her back as she walked. Maybe she’d ask Charlotte to give her a back rub later, if she was still awake when she got home, she thought, then smiled wryly to herself, realizing how unlikely that was. Her wife, head teacher of a fairly challenging city centre secondary school, came home from work as exhausted as she did.

  ‘Will you be home for dinner? Or is that a stupid question?’ she’d asked sleepily as Helena had tried to slip noiselessly out of bed at six that morning, wanting to get a run in before what would undoubtedly be another long, frustrating day. She’d leaned across and kissed Charlotte softly on the forehead. She smelled of rose oil and sleep.

  ‘Sorry, did I wake you? And honestly … I don’t think so. This is a tough one, and I’ve got nothing to go on, Char, nothing. Probably better to assume I won’t be home for dinner for the foreseeable. I’ll make it up to you when it’s all over, promise.’

  ‘Yeah yeah. Heard that before.’

  Charlotte had squeezed her arm and rolled over, eyes closing again, and Helena had dressed quickly and headed out into the dark, frosty morning, guilt nibbling at her guts. Charlotte was patience personified, but sometimes she wondered how long that would last. The job, as poor Devon had recently discovered, was a relationship killer. And Charlotte wanted children – well, they both did, really, but with them both being so busy …

  Helena sighed. Charlotte would never put pressure on her, she knew that. But there’d been a few comments recently, a few occasions when babies had suddenly come up in an unrelated conversation. She’d changed the subject, dodged the discussion, but she couldn’t do that forever, she knew that. Maybe, when this was all over …

  She sighed again and stared at the incident board. They had had one breakthrough that morning – after struggling for days to find any connection whatsoever between the two victims, a young detective constable had come to her a couple of hours ago, pink with excitement, to announce his discovery that both Mervin Elliott and Ryan Jones had used the same dating app.

  ‘It’s one of the new trendy ones, nowhere near as big as Tinder and so on, but getting more and more popular among people wanting something a bit more discreet,’ he’d said, his words tumbling over each other in his eagerness to share his news. ‘It’s called EHU – it stands for Elite Hook Ups. It’s not cheap – you have to pay quite a lot even for the basic version. A lot of the others allow you to use them for free at a basic level, and then have a subscription fee for the premium service. This one, well, you have to pay a hefty monthly fee up front to use it at all. Hence the “elite” bit, I suppose.’

  The breathless DC – his name was Mike Slater, Helena remembered – had paused for a moment, turning the pages of his notebook, then looked up at her again, eyes bright.

  ‘But they’d both subscribed to it, and what was really interesting, ma’am, is that for some reason the app had actually been deleted from both victims’ phones. I started looking into it because both Mervin’s and Ryan’s friends said they definitely used a dating app – they didn’t know which one – to meet women, yet there was no sign of one on their mobiles when their bodies were found. I didn’t really know where to start, I’m married, so I’m not an expert, but I asked around, did a straw poll of all the singles in the office,’ he gestured vaguely around the room, ‘asked them which dating apps were big at the moment, and almost all of them mentioned this EHU one as being really popular. It only launched about a year and a half ago, and lots of people have apparently left the old favourites and joined it instead. Well, not everyone – Frankie sticks to Grindr; he’s addicted, says it’s the one with the hottest men and he’s not switching for anyone …’ He grinned and glanced across to where DC Stevens was sitting, then looked back at Helena. ‘Sorry. Anyway, I made a list of the top five apps everyone seems to be using, including this EHU one. I knew it was a massive long shot, but, well, I got lucky.

  ‘I started contacting the various companies and asked if there was any way I could find out if Mervin and Ryan had signed up to them. The first few wouldn’t play ball, even when I explained that the two men had been murdered, but then I called EHU and they had a think about it and then came back to me and agreed to release some very basic data. And it turns out they were both signed up to it. Mervin and Ryan I mean.’

  He paused again.

  ‘Both had been registered with the site for a few months …’ He consulted his notes. ‘Mervin since last September, and Ryan since November. So a bit weird that the app wasn’t on either of their phones when their bodies were found. I can’t explain that. I mean, obviously this all might just be a coincidence and not get us anywhere, but I asked EHU if there was any way they could give us details of anyone either of our victims hooked up with via the app. Then we’d have a list of new people to talk to, seeing as none of their mates were much help. Neither Mervin nor Ryan had introduced a woman to their friends in months, none of their dates had got serious enough for that. So I just thought, maybe if we could find any of the women they were in contact with through the app, it might just give us a new angle, and you never know, one of them might have some information that might help us. Or they might not, of course, but …’

  Helena, who’d been sitting in her chair and listening with increasing interest, stood up suddenly and clapped her hands.

  ‘Amazing work, Mike! So will they do that, then? The app people? Can we get that information?’

  The DC shuffled his feet, looked down at them for a moment, then back at her, the smile fading from his face.

  ‘Ah, well, that’s where the problem started. Because it’s an expensive, paid for app, it works in a bit of a different way. There’s none of this “swipe right if you fancy me” or anything. Each person who registers has to provide an email address, which is listed on his or her profile. Users are advised to set up a new email address specifically for the site, and not to use their personal address, but that’s up to them. Then you just search for people with traits you’re interested in – profession, body type, age, hobbies and so on, the usual – and if you find someone you like the look of, you just drop them an email, effectively taking the app out of the picture. It’s a feature of the site – it ensures much more privacy than most, because only the two people emailing each other know they’ve decided to take it further. In other words, the people who run the app have no knowledge of who contacts who. They just provide a private, discreet platform for peo
ple to find people they might be interested in meeting.’

  Helena felt her heart sinking. Damn. Bugger it.

  ‘OK, well that’s a massive shame. But still, excellent work, Mike.’

  She paused for a moment, thinking rapidly, her brow furrowed.

  ‘Look, what about their phone and email accounts? Mervin’s and Ryan’s, I mean? If these dates were arranged by email, initially anyway, can’t we just find the women they dated that way?’

  Mike was nodding rapidly.

  ‘The IT guys are having another look. I mean, they looked at emails and phone records straight away, for both victims, but didn’t find anything that seemed significant, though I suppose they were looking for threats and stuff like that, not stuff about making dates. They’re looking again in the light of this app thing. And yes, I’ll get back to EHU, see if they can help any further. They might have some sort of search data that could at least help us narrow the field – like, I don’t know, say Mervin had a thing for tall redheads and searched for women fitting that description a lot, that might help us track down some of his dates. Or not. I mean, I could be totally wrong about this, it probably doesn’t mean anything at all.’

  ‘But it might, it just might. Thank you, Mike. You’ve done a great job. It’s finally something our two murder victims have in common, and it’s about the only lead we have at the moment, so it’s definitely worth following up. Send me anything else you can on this as soon as humanly possible, OK?’

  That had been a few hours earlier, and there’d been no updates since. Helena stared at the board for another moment, then wandered back to her desk, thinking. Dating apps. It seemed to be the way everyone met their partners now. In her day, you met people on nights out, in bars, clubs; she’d met Charlotte in a gay bar in Bristol a decade ago. But times had changed, and as far as murder investigations were concerned, the fact that everything was online now was often a good thing, making the movements of victims and suspects so much more traceable. The fact that the two victims had been registered with the same dating site didn’t necessarily mean anything, she knew that. If it was as popular as Mike had said, thousands of people would be using it, which probably made the coincidence meaningless. And how likely was it, after all, that they’d both somehow had the enormous misfortune to fix a date with the same female psychopath, who’d then proceeded to batter them both to death? No, the deaths might not be linked at all, but at least it was something, a lead they could investigate, and that made a pleasant change after days with nothing at all to go on.