The Perfect Couple (ARC)

by Jackie Kabler

  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.

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  ‘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.’

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  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

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  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 people to find people they might be interested in meeting.’

  Helena felt her heart sinking. Damn. Bugger it.

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  ‘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 thin
g. 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

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  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.

  I wonder …?

  Halfway to her desk Helena suddenly stopped dead as an idea struck her. Devon, who

  was coming the other way carrying a fresh tea, stopped too just in time to avoid walking straight

  into her, and groaned as the hot liquid slopped over the edge of his mug, splashing his pristine

  white shirt.

  ‘Ahhh, shit! What’s up, boss?’

  He dabbed ineffectually at the spreading brown stain with a paper napkin he held in his

  other hand, looking quizzically at Helena.

  ‘Oh Devon, I’m so sorry. It’s just … I just had a thought. A random one, and probably a

  stupid one, but …’

  She turned on her heel, scanning the busy room.

  ‘Mike?’

  At his desk near the window, DC Slater raised his head.

  She gestured at him. ‘Can you come over here for a minute?’

  She turned back to her DS.

  ‘And Devon, can you give Mike a copy of that new photo of Danny O’Connor, the one

  Gemma sent across earlier? It’s just an idea, but …’ she looked at the eager face of Mike Slater,

  who had joined them, ‘Mike, DS Clarke is going to give you a photograph. It’s of a man called

  Danny O’Connor, who seems to have gone missing in slightly strange circumstances. He’s

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  very, very similar in physical appearance to our two murder victims which is just making us

  slightly nervous, and he’s not single, he’s fairly recently married, but it’s just a thought,

  something I’d like to rule out … could you just humour me and have a look to see if he’s on

  that EHU site too? I mean, I’m sure he won’t be, but can you access it to search it, without

  paying to join?’

  Mike nodded.

  ‘Yes, the general public can’t, but they gave me a code so I could look at Mervin’s and

  Ryan’s profiles, and it gives me access to the search facility. I’ll give it a go.’

  They didn’t have to wait long. Ten minutes later there was an elated yell from across the

  room. Helena and Devon stood simultaneously, and in seconds were peering over Mike’s

  shoulder, Helena aware her heart had started beating uncomfortably quickly.

  ‘Well … what have you found?’ she asked. On Mike’s screen was a search page, where

  he’d clearly been filling in details of Danny’s physical appearance, hair colour and so on.

  ‘OK, well I searched for his name and nothing that matched him came up, although that’s

  not unusual, lots of people use nicknames and so on, on sites like this. So I put in all the basic

  info from his missing person report instead. And when I hit search …’

  He clicked on the red search button at the bottom of the screen. Immediately the screen

  changed, a dozen or so photographs of dark-haired young men flashing up. Helena scanned

  them, looking for a familiar face, and then gasped.

  ‘There! Middle of the second row. Is that …?’

  Devon leaned closer to the screen, hand on Mike’s shoulder. Mike was grinning widely.

  ‘That’s him. That’s bloody him. Holy cow,’ Devon said slowly.

  ‘I think it is too. He’s on there under a different name, calling himself Sean, look. Not

  much personal info in the profile, but it does say he works in IT. I’m pretty sure it’s him too,

  from comparing the two photos. What do you think, boss?’

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  Mike looked up at Helena. Her eyes were glued to the image on the screen, her brain

  trying to process what she was seeing and what it could possibly mean. It had only been a stab

  in the dark, a wild hunch. She hadn’t expected to actually be right. She cleared her throat.

  ‘I think, Mike, that you’re bang on. I have no idea what’s going on here, or why on earth

  an apparently happily married man has a profile on a trendy dating site, but that’s definitely

  Danny O’Connor.’

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  7

  I was slumped on the sofa, shivering violently despite the warmth of the room. What was going

  on? My head throbbed, and I felt disorientated, dizzy, as if I’d had too much to drink, although

  not a drop or morsel had passed my lips since the police had left that morning. The thought of

  food made me feel ill. How could I prepare a meal, sit down and eat it like a normal person,

  when everything I thought of as normal seemed to be crumbling around me? Danny hadn’t

  been going to work, hadn’t even started his new job. How was that even possible? For three

  weeks, he’d been leaving the house in the morning, dressed for the office, heading off on his

  bike and returning long after dark in the evening. He’d seemed to be enjoying his new role

  enormously, seemed so happy, so … so Danny. Nothing different about him whatsoever. And

  now I’d been informed that all of it, all of it, had been a lie. Why? Why would he make

  something like that up, pretend to be going to work when he wasn’t? And if he wasn’t working

  at ACR Security, where I thought he was, where he said he was, then where the hell had he

  been spending his days? The police had asked me that too, and I’d simply gaped at them,

  shaking my head, unable to think of anything, anywhere he could possibly have been going.

  Of course, now that I was alone again, I’d managed to come up with all sorts of wild scenarios

  in the past few horrible hours – he’d taken another job, some sort of top secret one he wasn’t

  allowed to tell anyone about. He was sick, suffering from some terrible illness, and had been

  having clandestine daily tre
atment, not wanting to worry me. He had another family, a second

  wife, children maybe, who lived in Bristol, and that’s why he’d been so excited about moving

  here, finally able to spend time with them. But as each theory slammed into my brain, and was

  then instantly dismissed as ludicrous, my fear grew. I had no idea, no clue at all.

  Danny, what have you done? Why would you do this to me? I love you, Danny, and you

  love me. Don’t you?

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  But suddenly, the doubts were creeping in.

  If he’s lied to me about this, what else might he have lied about?

  There were little white lies in every relationship, of course there were. But you didn’t lie

  to somebody you loved about the big things, did you? Not the huge, massively important things

  like your work, your life. The job, the daily routine, the annoyance he’d shown at the delay of

  his new work phone’s arrival when, in reality, it appeared now, there was no work, no imminent

  phone. Lies, lies, lies. And then to just vanish, leaving me so confused, so frightened … who

  would treat someone they loved like that?

  A little sob escaped me and, at my feet on the carpet, Albert, who was curled up, asleep,

  opened his eyes briefly, looked up at me, glanced around the room as if to check if Danny was

  back yet, then shut his eyes again with a heavy sigh. There was a faux fur throw on the back of

  the sofa and I dragged it off, wrapping it around my legs and pulling it up to my chin, trying to

  stop the shivering. We’d snuggled under this velvety softness so many times, Danny and me,

  watching films, talking, kissing. The flash of memory made my eyes sting with sudden tears.

  This made no sense. None of it made any sense. And yet, I thought, had increasingly been

  thinking in the past few hours, how well did I really know my husband, when you looked at

  the facts? We’d met on Tinder only eighteen months ago, as I’d told the police officers when

  I’d gone to the station. We’d liked the look of each other, exchanged a few flirty messages,

  then it was phone calls, long and late into the night. His soft Irish burr had enthralled me, and

  I’d found myself opening up to him before we’d even met in person, telling him about my

  work, the anxiety that had led to me packing in my newspaper career, the emotional trauma it