I sat down again, picked up my phone and started scrolling through the address book. I’d had a sudden thought earlier – Quinn, Danny’s cousin. Having now accepted that I hadn’t really known my husband at all, I’d lain in bed that morning wondering if there was anyone out there who really did, someone who might be able to shed some light on his recent behaviour, someone who might even know the truth behind some of the secrets he had clearly been keeping. His mother? No, definitely not. His brother Liam? Danny was probably far closer to him than he was to his mother, but Liam would clearly not be capable of being a reliable source of information. And then it had come to me – Quinn. As his first cousin, son of his late dad’s brother Michael, and of a similar age to Danny, they’d known each other all their lives. Quinn had moved to London from Ireland around the same time as Danny had, and although their careers and lifestyles had been very different – Quinn worked on building sites and spent most of his spare time drinking in west London pubs – the two had remained close. Quinn had been on Danny’s stag night and had been the only one of his family to attend our small register office wedding. If anyone knew Danny, he did.
It had struck me, once or twice, especially after Danny’s family had finally heard about his disappearance, that it was slightly odd that Quinn hadn’t been in touch with me. Living in London, surely he would have seen the newspaper headlines? Then I’d realized that although he obviously had Danny’s old mobile number, and our old apartment landline, he wouldn’t have had a number for me. He could have got hold of it if he’d tried, through Danny’s mother, but maybe the family were keeping him up to date with developments, I’d thought, and let him slip from my mind. I probably should have called him myself, really, but I’d never been a hundred per cent sure what to make of Quinn. I knew, from Danny, that he’d regularly got himself into trouble with the police growing up, minor stuff like vandalism and pilfering from shops, although he’d apparently grown out of that in his late teens, training as a bricklayer, moving to the UK when work in Ireland proved hard to come by. He was currently single, as far as I knew, having split with a girl he’d been seeing for a while the previous summer, and although Danny had always described him as ‘great craic’ and ‘a real decent fella, deep down’, on the few occasions we’d met he’d seemed pleasant enough but always a little reserved, chatting mainly to Danny and seemingly reluctant to engage in any form of lengthy conversation with me.
‘He’s a bit intimidated, I think,’ Danny had said, as we’d walked to the tube hand in hand after an evening spent with Quinn at a pub near Victoria station a few months before we’d decided to leave London. ‘He left school with no qualifications, failed all his Leaving Cert exams. He doesn’t really hang out with brain boxes like you. He doesn’t know what to say.’
I’d squeezed his hand, laughing.
‘But you’re even more of a brain box than I am, and he chats away to you! How does that work then?’
‘Ahh, sure we’ve known each other since we were kids, it’s different. We’re family. He’s like a second brother to me. He likes you fine though, don’t be worrying about that.’
I hadn’t been worried, not really. You can’t get on brilliantly with everyone in life, I reasoned, and Quinn was just a very different sort of guy to the ones I was friendly with – a gruff, macho in an old-fashioned-sort-of-way bloke, who had four sugars in his tea and had looked slightly horrified at the sight of the pink rose buttonholes I’d organized for the male guests at our wedding. But he’d always been there for Danny, a link to his past, a solid, hardworking, loyal presence, and that was fine by me.
I had his number in my phone – I’d asked Danny for it before the wedding, wanting to make sure I had contact details for all of the guests, just in case of any last-minute changes – and, after a moment’s hesitation (What if he has seen all the press coverage, and thinks I’m responsible for Danny’s disappearance? What if he just puts the phone down on me?) I hit the call button.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi – Quinn? It’s Gemma. Danny’s Gemma.’
For a few seconds … three, four … there was silence on the line. But just as I’d opened my mouth to speak again, he said:
‘Gemma. Howah ya?’
‘I’m … well, I’m not sure how I am, really, to be honest. I presume you’ve heard, about Danny?’
Another couple of seconds’ silence.
‘I have, yeah. I was sorry to hear … Bridget told me da, he’s been keepin’ me up to date. I was going to call, but I didn’t know what … well, you know, it’s hard, isn’t it?’
‘It is, yes.’ I paused for a moment. ‘Although Bridget didn’t seem too bothered when I spoke to her. She was acting a bit weird, like she just wasn’t very interested.’
There was another silence, a longer one this time.
‘Quinn? Quinn, are you there?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. Look, you know what Bridget’s like. I wouldn’t worry about her.’
He sounded gruff, an edge to his voice suddenly.
‘I’m not, really. Just thought it was strange,’ I said. Was he being short with me because he thought I had something to do with Danny’s disappearance, as I’d feared he might, I wondered?
‘Look, Quinn, whatever the papers have been saying, you know I have nothing to do with this, right? I’m heartbroken, I miss him so much, and I have no idea what’s happened to him.’
‘Yeah. No, I’m sure it must be shite. Listen, I need to go in a minute, I’m at work.’
‘Sure, of course, sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘Look, Quinn, I need to see you. Can we meet? I’m happy to hop on a train and come to you. It’s just that since Danny’s been gone I’ve found out a load of weird stuff that I didn’t know about him, and he was doing some kind of odd things in the weeks before he vanished. I need to speak to someone who’s known him for a long time, and you’re the only one I could really think of. Please, it won’t take much time. I could meet you for lunch maybe, or after work? Tomorrow?’
The silence again, and then the sound of muffled muttering. Is he talking to someone else? Then he said:
‘OK, well, I don’t know what I can tell you, but if you can come here … I’m busy in the evening but if you meet me at one, I get an hour for lunch. There’s a pub just down the road from the site, we can go there.’
He gave me the address and we ended the call. Good, I thought. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, I felt a pang of hunger. Had I eaten yet that day? Or even the previous night? I couldn’t remember. I’d even gone off wine in the past week or so, coffee about the only drink I’d been able to stomach, and I knew I’d lost weight; I’d had to look for a belt that morning, my jeans loose around my waist. Food, then. I needed to start looking after myself. The police were clearly still completely on the wrong track about Danny, and so it was down to me to get to the bottom of it, and quickly. I’d eat, and then I’d make a list of everything I wanted to ask Quinn. And maybe, just maybe, I thought, I’d be coming back from London with some answers.
Chapter 24
‘How much longer are we going to keep him?’
Devon’s question made Helena jump, even though she’d been quite aware he’d been standing next to her for a full minute.
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know. I think we’re right … but what if we’re wrong, Devon? Can you even imagine …?’
He grimaced and shook his head.
‘Don’t even want to think about it,’ he said.
They were both leaning on the sill of the window that ran the full length of the incident room. Outside the sky was grey, a light rain spattering the pavement three storeys below. It was rush hour, the traffic crawling past, pedestrians scurrying, umbrellas bobbing, the occasional irate blast of a horn penetrating the Victorian building’s ancient single glazing with its peeling wooden frames. For a moment, Helena wished she was out there, hurrying to work in a shop or an office, somewhere safe and easy, somewhere where her toughest decision of the day wo
uld be whether to have a cheese or a tuna sandwich for lunch, or whether to put the black dress or the red one in the window display. Or maybe that she’d chosen a career like Charlotte’s. Being a teacher wasn’t easy, she knew that. But at least Charlotte didn’t generally have to make life or death decisions during the working day. The decision she’d have to make today could, if she got it wrong, mean even more men could die.
She turned away from the window, arched her aching back and walked slowly back to her desk, leaving Devon still staring down at the street. They had questioned George Dolan for hours the previous day and, technically, having applied for the full ninety-six hours permitted to hold someone suspected of a serious crime without charge, they still had until the following evening before they’d need to charge or release him. During the entire time they’d been in the interview room, Dolan had continued to sneer and belittle the dead men, while still giving no real reason for killing them other than that he ‘didn’t like the look of them’ and ‘they were a fucking type; poncy looking wastes of space’. His words and attitude towards his alleged victims had chilled and disgusted them both; at one point, Helena had had to ask for a break, rushing to the toilets down the corridor feeling physically sick.
‘How can there be people in the world like him?’ she’d hissed at Devon, who had followed her out, concerned.
‘He doesn’t seem to care at all that these men are dead, that their families are distraught. He’s laughing about it. What’s wrong with him? Jesus …’
Devon had nodded, face tight, mouth set in a grim line.
‘I know. He’s scum, pure and simple.’
Earlier, when Dolan had requested his own comfort break, Frankie had popped his head into the interview room. He’d been watching proceedings from the viewing room, along with some of the others.
‘Sick, sick bastard,’ he said. ‘You’re doing a great job. Well done, both of you.’
Helena had nodded, suddenly unable to speak, a lump forming in her throat. But after the initial thrill of Dolan’s confession, it hadn’t been long before the doubts had begun to creep in. She’d felt the first niggle when they’d started to drill down into each murder separately, deciding not to begin with the earlier, London killings they were less familiar with but with that of Mervin Elliott, the man found dead on Clifton Down in February.
‘Fucking smarmy bastard. Worked in a poncy clothes shop, probably only because he liked touching up all the poor fuckers who came in to try the gear on,’ Dolan had spat. ‘I followed him up to The Downs and gave him a good kicking.’
‘A good kicking? Could you elaborate, Mr Dolan? How exactly did you kill Mervin Elliott?’
Dolan had stared back at her, a pale pink tongue snaking between his lips and moving slowly across them. Helena’s stomach had rolled, but she’d forced herself to keep her eyes on his.
‘Battered him. A few kicks, a few good hard punches. Didn’t take long,’ Dolan said, then leaned back in his chair, which creaked ominously.
Helena felt Devon’s elbow press ever so gently against hers, and she nudged him back. Mervin Elliott had died from a blow to the head, and no other significant injuries had been found on his body. Battered? A few kicks, a few good hard punches? That didn’t tally, and a little knot began to form somewhere deep within Helena’s chest.
‘OK, let’s move on to Ryan Jones, whose body was found on the morning of the twenty-eighth of February. You claim you also killed him, Mr Dolan. Can you tell me how you did that?’
‘Same way,’ he said immediately, and with satisfaction. ‘Good battering. Kicked his ass into the middle of next week. Nice quiet lane that was, nobody to disturb me. Took my time. Enjoyed every minute.’
He leaned his bulk back heavily once again, and the chair creaked loudly in protest. And so it had continued. When they’d asked him about Danny O’Connor, he’d told them he too had died after a ‘good beating’ and had simply shrugged when asked where the man’s body was.
‘You’ll find it. Eventually,’ he said, with a sly grin.
After two hours, they had taken a break. Helena and Devon had walked quickly and in silence down the corridor away from the interview room. When they reached an empty conference room at the far end, Helena marched in, Devon following and closing the door behind them.
‘You’re clearly thinking what I’m thinking,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘He’s a bloody fantasist, isn’t he? He’s told us absolutely nothing that’s not been in the public domain for weeks, and when we do ask for more detail he’s getting it wrong. The way he claims he killed them – it’s just not what the post-mortems showed. Those two murders on The Downs, for example, were quick and clean. He’s describing frenzied attacks, beatings. And as for Danny O’Connor, all that blood – his reply to that didn’t match the facts either. He’s making it up, boss, I’m sure of it.’
‘I know. Shit. SHIT.’
She groaned and thumped a fist against the nearest wall. Then she turned back to Devon.
‘I just don’t know. My gut’s telling me this isn’t our man after all. His motive just doesn’t make any sense. I mean, who kills people because they just don’t like the look of them? And how did he manage to track down people who all look so similar – luck? It doesn’t add up. But … what if we’re wrong? What if he did kill them, and he’s just embellishing his story? Maybe he’d liked to have given them a good kicking as he described it, but they died too quickly for him to do that? And we let him go and he goes straight back out there and kills someone else? And then goes to ground, and we lose him? The press …’
‘Don’t. Just don’t.’
They’d carried on questioning Dolan for another couple of hours before returning him to his cell, by which time the gnawing doubts had grown into fully fledged disbelief. George Dolan, Helena was now convinced, was telling them an elaborate lie. Why, she had no idea, other than he was currently unemployed and homeless, and maybe a couple of days in a warm police cell with all meals provided was a better option than trying to find somewhere to sleep and scrabbling around for work. It had happened before; there were many in his position who were happy to be charged with wasting police time and suffer its maximum penalty of a six-month prison sentence if it meant guaranteed accommodation for a while.
At her desk, Helena suddenly made her decision. Her gut feeling had rarely let her down, and right then it was telling her that George Dolan was not their killer. They could release him on bail on the murder charges, pending further investigation. They could keep tabs on him, make him surrender his passport if he had one, make him report to the station daily. It was a risk, possibly, but only a small one. He wasn’t their man, she was almost certain of it. It just didn’t fit, and Dolan had been a distraction, someone who’d taken her eye off the investigation for too many hours. She needed to focus. And despite the lack of hard evidence, she still felt that focus pulling her in only one direction. Towards Gemma O’Connor.
Chapter 25
I emerged from Victoria Underground Station feeling hot and anxious. The tube had been packed, and I’d been forced to stand, hands clammy as I clutched onto the overhead rail, body pressed between a tall, bearded man who smelled strongly of cigarettes and an equally tall woman who was wearing far too much perfume. The combination made me feel ill, and out on the street I took huge gulps of the traffic-polluted air, trying to steady myself. It was already ten to one, but the pub I was due to meet Quinn in was just around the corner, and I found it easily. It was small and half-empty, a dark little bar with a beer-stained, seventies-style swirly carpet and mismatched wooden tables and chairs, the ceiling and paintwork – clearly not redecorated since long before the smoking ban – nicotine yellow. A quick glance around showed me that I was the first to arrive, so I ordered a diet Coke and found a corner table from where I could see the door. I sipped my drink, wondering why I was feeling so nervous. It was only Quinn, and it had been me who’d requested this meeting, after all, I reasoned, but the anxiety rem
ained.
Maybe it was because I’d finally caught up with the news on the train on my way to London. Flicking between the websites of Sky and BBC News, I’d discovered that for the past two days the police had been questioning a man who’d walked into the police station of his own accord, claiming to be the serial killer. That would explain the sudden disappearance of the press from my front door, I thought, my chest tightening as I’d speed-read the articles. Then I’d groaned quietly in frustration as I clicked on the latest update.
At midday, the suspect was released without charge, pending further enquiries. A spokesman for Avon Police said that the investigation into the murders of Mervin Elliott and Ryan Jones remained their highest priority, alongside that of establishing the whereabouts of missing man Danny O’Connor, who vanished from his home in Bristol two weeks ago.
‘Gemma? Howah ya?’
I jumped as a man suddenly sat down in the chair opposite me, pint in hand.
‘Quinn! Sorry, I was miles away. How are you? Thanks so much for coming.’
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