The Perfect Couple (ARC)

by Jackie Kabler

  would they actually have been able to see him, in the dark? There was outdoor lighting, which

  would be lovely in the summer when we were sitting outside in the evenings, but we hadn’t

  used it since we’d moved in, apart from switching it on once to check it was all working. And,

  as Jo had pointed out, there were no streetlights in the lane that ran behind the houses, and even

  if the kitchen lights were on, they cast just a faint glow into the back yard. So maybe not

  surprising then, that none of our close neighbours had seen him come and go. As I stood there,

  thinking, a movement from up above caught my eye, a shape at one of the upstairs windows

  next door, Jenny and Clive’s house. Clive? I lifted a hand to wave at him, but the shape moved

  abruptly away from the window again, and seconds later the light in the room was turned off.

  I stared at the dark rectangle for a moment – had he been watching me? – then turned my

  thoughts back to Danny.

  What about weekends? Wouldn’t somebody have seen him then? I walked back inside,

  locking the door behind me . Although, thinking about it, Danny’s only been here for three

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  weekends so far, hasn’t he? I thought. And most of that time we had spent indoors, emptying

  boxes, arranging furniture, painting walls. It had been me who had gone out to do the weekly

  Saturday morning supermarket run, and we hadn’t even been out for dinner since we’d moved

  in, instead trying out the local food delivery services – Mexican, Indian, Thai.

  ‘Once this place is sorted, we’ll have more time. I’ll treat you to a massive blow-out in

  the fanciest place in Bristol,’ Danny had said.

  So, I reasoned, checking my phone to see if Eva had messaged again, wondering what

  time she’d finally arrive … so, maybe it wasn’t so peculiar at all that the neighbours had never

  laid eyes on Danny. And what difference did it make, really? He was missing. He was gone.

  When Eva had finally appeared, practically falling out of her taxi outside the house in her

  efforts to haul her bag out of it with one hand and pull me in for a hug with the other, she’d

  been exhausted, worn out by the stress of getting her latest big story finished before her

  deadline and by her long, frustrating journey from London. I’d bundled her off to bed in the

  spare room, telling her to get a good night’s sleep and that I’d fill her in on everything that had

  been going on in the morning, and she’d reluctantly agreed.

  ‘We’ll get to the bottom of it, Gem. I promise we will, OK?’ she’d said, squeezing my

  hands and planting a kiss on my forehead.

  After a solid eight hours’ sleep, she looked refreshed, her hair still damp from the shower,

  cheeks glowing, her curves wrapped in a black velvet dressing gown. I handed her the steaming

  mug of coffee and sat down opposite her, reaching for a coaster and putting my own mug of

  peppermint tea down on it. I’d had so much caffeine in recent days I was starting to feel jittery.

  ‘God, it’s good to see you, Eva Hawton,’ I said. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Missed you too, buddy. Can’t believe you’ve moved to the wilds of the West Country.

  Still, it’s a nice place to escape to at weekends. That’s if the frigging trains are working, of

  course,’ she said, and reached across the table to touch my hand.

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  ‘How’ve you been? Bloody hell, for all this to happen when you’ve just moved here and

  don’t even know anyone yet, the timing is shit. Are you OK, really?’

  ‘I’m OK. Well, hanging on in there and all the better now for seeing you. And I’ve

  somehow managed to make a couple of friends already, actually. Clare and Tai. They’re nice,

  you’d like them.’

  ‘Oh, great! How did you meet them?’

  I told her the story; about meeting Clare and Winnie the Poodle while I was out with

  Albert, and about Clare inviting me to come to yoga with her. At my first session Tai, who’d

  been Clare’s friend for years, had been warned I was coming and had saved us both a place at

  the back of the room. It had been an interesting first meeting; the class had only been underway

  for about ten minutes, all of us easing into the downward facing dog pose, when there was a

  loud PFFFFT somewhere in front of us.

  ‘Oh God, somebody’s farted!’ hissed Clare, who was on my left.

  To my right Tai snorted.

  ‘Shhhh!’ Clare hissed again, but I glanced at her and she was grinning broadly. I turned

  my head to look at Tai, whose shoulders were shaking, lips pressed tightly together. I felt a

  bubble of laughter threatening to escape my own lips and took a deep breath. Nobody else in

  the room seemed to have heard the cause of our mirth, or if they had they were studiously

  ignoring it. Tai snorted again, and next to me Clare tried to stifle a giggle. Unable to help

  myself, I giggled too, and suddenly all three of us were tittering away like a group of naughty

  schoolgirls.

  ‘Will you PLEASE be quiet at the back?’

  The booming voice of the yoga teacher, a tall, powerfully built woman with a shock of

  auburn hair, brought us to our senses, but we’d started giggling again as soon as the class

  finished.

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  ‘I knew right then that I’d get on with them,’ I said to Eva, and she rolled her eyes.

  ‘You always have had a juvenile sense of humour,’ she said. ‘But I love you for it. And

  I’m glad you’ve met some nice people. Sounds like you need them at the moment. Anyway …

  Danny. Let’s do this. Tell me everything.’

  And so I did. I told her about the last email I’d had from him on the Thursday night when

  I’d been away, and how I’d come home on Friday evening to find the house empty. How I’d

  called friends and former colleagues, asking if they’d heard from him, how I’d gone out

  searching for him, called the hospitals, emailed Danny repeatedly, and eventually gone to the

  police. And then I’d told her about the bombshells that had been dropped upon me – that Danny

  hadn’t been working at ACR Security at all, how he’d accepted the job and then apparently

  changed his mind, but had still been heading out every morning, coming home every evening,

  lying through his teeth to me. How he hadn’t been using his bank account, not for weeks, and

  yet still had money in his pocket whenever it was needed. How my neighbours had told the

  police that they’d thought I lived here alone. How his profile was currently on a dating app,

  and how I had no idea if he’d registered himself or if someone had put him on there as a joke.

  And, finally, my eyes prickling with tears, I told her about the two men whose profiles had

  been on the same dating app, the men who looked so similar to Danny, and who were now

  dead.

  Eva, who’d been listening intently, gasped at that.

  ‘Shit, Gemma. I’d heard about those murders, obviously, but I didn’t connect the …’

  She sank her head into her hands for a moment, rubbing her eyes. Then she straightened

  up and reached towards me again, patting my arm.

  ‘I’m so sorry, and I totally get why you’re so upset. This is crazy.’

  She took a deep breath.

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  ‘OK, there’s a lot to take in here. So I’m going to try to look at this objectively, OK?

  Pretend I don’t know Danny, or you. Just look at the f
acts, as if it’s a news story. And for now,

  we’re going to assume that those murders are just a coincidence, and that Danny’s still alive.

  Is that all right?’

  I nodded, wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands, then picked up my mug and took a

  gulp. The tea had gone cold, and I grimaced as I swallowed.

  ‘Of course. The police have already done a quick search of the house to see if they could

  find anything that might help – they didn’t. And they’re going to Chiswick today for a look

  around our old place, although I can’t imagine they’ll find anything of any use there either. So

  if you can think of anything, Eva, anything at all … because honestly, I’m stumped here. I just

  can’t think of anything that would explain any of this.’

  ‘Well, I’ll certainly give it a try.’

  She’d put a notebook and pen on the table when she’d sat down, and she reached for them.

  ‘OK, let’s brainstorm. First, the job thing. Why would somebody do that, lie to their wife

  about something like that? Have you come up with anything so far?’

  ‘A few things, but they’re all a bit mad.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘OK. Well …’

  I told her about the crazy theories I’d come up with – Danny had some sort of top-secret

  job he couldn’t tell me about; he was secretly ill and having daily treatment somewhere in

  Bristol; he had another wife and family nearby and was spending his days with them, returning

  to me at night. She wrote them all down, an increasingly sceptical expression on her face.

  ‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘Top-secret job, unlikely. Although very, very vaguely possible I

  suppose, given his line of work. Ill? Did he look or seem ill?’

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  I shook my head. ‘No. He’s looked great recently, actually. Really fit. I don’t really think

  he’s ill. I was just desperately coming up with theories, you know?’

  ‘OK. And another wife? And kids? Seriously?’

  The wide-eyed, disbelieving look on her face almost made me laugh.

  ‘No, I don’t really think that either. But what else, Eva? I can’t think of any other reasons

  he’d lie about where he was going every day.’

  Eva was nodding slowly, looking at her notes. She stared at the page for a few seconds,

  then looked back at me.

  ‘Well, I can think of one more possibility. Look what we have here. A man who doesn’t

  start the new job he was supposed to start, but still disappears every morning and comes home

  every evening. A man who isn’t using his bank account. A man whose new neighbours have

  never seen him. And now, a man who’s disappeared without trace, overnight. Sounds like a

  man who’s laying low, to me. A man who’s in trouble. A man who’s trying to keep a very,

  very low profile. A man who’s scared of somebody or something. A man with a secret. A man

  who doesn’t want to be traced, so he lies about where he’s working, goes and hides away

  somewhere every day instead, even hides where his money is being kept? Moves house, and

  makes sure even his new neighbours don’t know he lives here?’

  I stared at her. Bizarre as it sounded, what she was saying made some sort of sense.

  ‘OK, but … but who, Eva? What? Who would he be scared of, who would he be hiding

  from? I mean, I’ve never had the slightest inkling that he’s in any sort of trouble. He seemed

  totally normal at home, surely he wouldn’t be so relaxed if something like that was going on?

  At the same time, well, it’s a good theory – better than any of mine, that’s for sure.’

  I stopped talking, thinking. Thinking again about the times over the past year or so that

  Danny would seem stressed and distracted, would say he needed to be on his own for a while,

  would head off for a few hours and come home looking better, behaving like himself again. It

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  had happened more frequently after his dad had died, but I’d put that down to grief, to him

  trying to handle his loss, even if he didn’t want to admit that his father’s death had hit him

  harder than he’d expected it to. But maybe I’d got that all wrong. I’d wondered over the past

  few days if he might, after all, been having an affair. But maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe he

  had been worried about something, something else. Maybe he had been in some sort of trouble.

  Could Eva be right?

  ‘Eva. The EHU app thing. How would that fit in?’

  Eva sat back in her chair, her smooth brow crinkling.

  ‘Mmm, good point. That doesn’t really fit with the rest of it, I suppose. A man who’s

  trying to keep a low profile isn’t very likely to put himself on a dating app.’ She sighed. ‘Damn.

  Thought I’d cracked it there for a minute. OK, let’s just look at that separately for a minute. As

  you said earlier, somebody could easily have stuck him on there for a silly joke, although I’m

  not sure who would think that was funny. Still, you know how childish men can be, especially

  after a few drinks maybe. And yes, it’s kind of freaky, very freaky in fact, that two other men

  who used the same app have been murdered. But that could just be a horrible coincidence.

  Billions of people use those apps. So, leaving that aside for a moment, well …’ she paused, her

  eyes fixing on mine, ‘well, I hate to ask this again, I really do, and I know you told me when

  he first went missing that there was absolutely no way he was seeing anyone else, but things

  have changed a bit now, so I’m going to ask you again. Could he have been seeing other

  women, Gem? I mean, how were things between you, really? How’s your sex life been?’

  I looked back at her, squirming slightly inwardly. How had our sex life been? It had

  started off fine, even great. And recently … well, we probably had sex less frequently than we

  had back in the early days, there was no doubt about that. But that was normal, wasn’t it?

  ‘Our sex life … it’s fine. I mean, we’ve been together a while now, we’re not tearing each

  other’s clothes off every ten minutes. But it’s OK, we’re still doing it. Now and again. I mean,

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  not so much recently, with the move and all the work we’ve been doing trying to sort this place

  out. But … oh, I just don’t know anymore, Eva. The police asked me this too. I’ve wracked my

  brains, I really have, trying to think of anything that should have made me suspicious. And

  other than him heading off on his bike every now and again, wanting some alone time … I

  mean, he could have been seeing someone. But I’ve never seen any real evidence …’

  My voice tailed off. I wasn’t being entirely truthful, was I? Because there had been one

  occasion, just one. It had been the previous summer, just a few months after we got married,

  when I – and, as my plus one, Danny – had been invited to a party thrown by the fashion editor

  of Camille magazine to mark her fortieth birthday. It had been during the heatwave, several

  weeks during July and August that year when the temperature in London had soared into the

  mid-thirties and stayed there, and even though the party hadn’t started until seven, the sun was

  still beating down, the ice cubes that clinked in our glasses melting within minutes, sweat

  beading on our brows. From the glass-roofed kitchen, guests drifted slowly into the shady

  garden at the back of the chic terraced house in Notting Hill, chatting and laughing, languid
in

  the heat. I’d been networking, of course, as usual – so many editors to chat to, from all of the

  big magazines! – but I never worried about Danny at parties, knowing he was happy to wander

  from group to group without me, sipping his drink, joining in easily with the varied

  conversations, letting me do my thing and waiting for me to re-join him. That night though, as

  I glanced around, looking for him, checking he was OK, I noticed that he seemed to be deep in

  conversation with a pretty, blue-eyed woman with dead straight, almost waist-length blonde

  hair. I vaguely recognized her from another event – a fashion stylist called Sylvie, I seemed to

  remember – and when I looked for Danny a second time twenty minutes later and he hadn’t

  moved, head bent towards her, her hand on his arm, the sound of his laughter floating through

  the humid air – a shiver of apprehension ran through me. What were they talking about, and

  why was he spending so much time with just her? When I looked again just a few minutes after

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  that the spot where they’d been standing, next to a slender silver birch tree, was empty. I’d

  excused myself from the conversation I’d been having with a group of art directors and weaved

  my way around the garden, between the women in their floaty, brightly coloured cocktail

  dresses, the men with shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, ties discarded. The music had been

  turned up as the light had faded, the air muggy and heavy with perfume, the bodies I brushed

  against hot and sticky. Unable to see Danny anywhere, I’d made my way back into the kitchen,

  where catering staff were laying out canapés on big platters, but he wasn’t there either, nor was

  he in the hallway where a small queue had formed for the downstairs loo, two gently swaying

  women in matching slinky jumpsuits leaning against each other for support as they waited.

  Uneasy about searching the house any further, I’d returned to the garden, accepting a glass of

  champagne from a waiter with a tray as I stepped outside, anxiety building. And then, suddenly,

  there he was, hands slipping round my waist from behind, lips soft on my neck.

  ‘Danny! Where did you go? I was worried!’

  ‘Work called. Went out the front to take the call, couldn’t hear myself think back here