gently from a polished metal sphere perched on top of a stone plinth, next to which sat a huge
glass-topped table, six wrought iron chairs tucked underneath it. The outdoor dining area had
been given an exotic, tropical feel more reminiscent of Bali than Bristol thanks to artfully
planted bamboo, phormiums and tree ferns, the space illuminated at night by hundreds of tiny
lights dotted among the foliage. At the front of the top terrace, steps led down to the lower
level, where on either side of the back gate bay trees swayed gently in the wind in tall graphite
pots, and raised herb beds lined the walls; our very own kitchen garden in the heart of the city.
Even on a wet Saturday in March, and even when I was feeling so utterly miserable, a tiny
shiver of pleasure ran through me.
‘A fountain! There’s a fountain, Danny!’ I’d squeaked when we’d first walked in through
the back gate, and he’d laughed and squeezed my hand. We’d wondered why the letting agent
had suggested meeting at the back of the house instead of at the front door, but it suddenly
made perfect sense. It was stunning.
11
‘It’s more of a water feature, but OK. You and your fancy courtyard fetish,’ Danny had
whispered as we were led indoors, both of us knowing instantly that no matter what the interior
was like, this place already had me hooked. He was right; I’d always yearned for a courtyard
garden. A peaceful place to entertain friends, to sit in the sun with a glass of wine on a summer
evening, to lounge with a book on a Sunday afternoon, and no lawn to mow? Pretty damn
perfect in my book.
We’d had a lovely home in London, but as so often in the capital, a place in a central
location with any sort of decent outside space was hard to find. We’d made the small roof
terrace of our apartment as beautiful as we could, but the Bristol courtyard had seemed huge in
comparison.
‘There’s even a proper bicycle shed, look, down there in the corner of that lower level. I
can finally stop having to chain my gorgeous bike to the front railings and you can finally quit
moaning about how it lowers the tone,’ Danny had said, and I’d clapped my hands and done a
little happy dance, making him laugh.
That Saturday though, as I stared out of the window, I could see that, just as it had been
since I came back from my trip, the smart wooden lean-to where his beloved bike usually stood
was empty. I looked at the blank space for a few more seconds, my vision blurring, then jumped
as a cold, damp nose nuzzled my hand.
‘Hey, Albert. Where’s Danny then, eh?’ I whispered, and he cocked his head, eyes fixed
on mine, and whimpered. I didn’t blame him; I felt like whimpering myself. My stomach
churning, my eyes dry and scratchy from crying and lack of sleep, I glanced at the empty
courtyard one more time then turned from the window and started pacing again. Albert stood
watching me for a moment, then whined softly and trotted off to his bed in the corner of the
kitchen.
12
On Friday night I’d finally ordered pizzas, picking at mine as I constantly refreshed my
emails, expecting an apologetic message from Danny to pop into my inbox at any moment.
When nothing came, I’d finally, grumpily, assumed he was pulling an all-nighter, and had gone
to bed, noticing as I crawled under the duvet that he’d even changed the bedding while I was
away, the pillow case fresh and crisp against my cheek. His bloody job, I thought. He loved it,
but I wasn’t always so keen. Danny was an IT security specialist, analysing and fixing systems
breaches, defending companies against online hacking.
‘I fight cybercrime. I’m basically a security superhero,’ he’d announced with a theatrical
wave of his arms on our first date, and I’d rolled my eyes, grinning and, if I was honest, not
quite understanding what he did at all, while still being secretly impressed.
What the job meant in reality though was long hours and frequent emergency call-outs,
and although this would be the first such occasion in this new job, it wasn’t that unusual for
computer system. When we first met he’d been working for a company in Chiswick, in west
London, earning a healthy six-figure salary. When we’d talked about leaving the capital, I’d
assumed it would mean Danny accepting a lower wage, but that hadn’t been the case,
something that had surprised me until I realized that his new firm, ACR Security, had itself
relocated from central London a couple of years back, taking advantage of the lower rents in
the UK’s eleventh biggest city.
‘Makes sense,’ Danny had said, when he’d first floated the idea of us moving out of
London. ‘There’s a great job up for grabs in Bristol, and the internet’s the internet, my job’s
going to be the same anywhere, same pay too. And think how much further our money will go
without London prices, you know? And you can do your job from anywhere too, can’t you,
Gem? You’d love it, I know you would, the quality of life would be so much better. Bristol’s
a lovely city, and you’ve got Devon and Cornwall just a few hours down the road, and the
13
Cotswolds not far in the other direction, and it’s a uni city so there are plenty of good bars and
restaurants, and the architecture’s gorgeous …’
‘OK, OK, you’ve sold it to me, let’s do it!’
In truth, he hadn’t really had to work very hard to convince me. He was right that as a
freelance journalist, I could pretty much work from wherever I wanted to, and London didn’t
have any great hold on me anymore. It was too busy, too stressful, and in recent years I’d often
craved a gentler life, more greenery, less noise. And so he took the job he’d been offered, and
we’d packed up our modern apartment just off Chiswick High Road and moved into this lovely,
high-ceilinged Victorian semi with the wonderful courtyard in the leafy Bristol suburb of
Clifton. We’d only been married a year, and had still been renting in London, not wanting to
commit to a huge mortgage until we’d decided where we wanted to settle. Even though Bristol
felt right to both of us, we didn’t want to jump into buying there too soon either, wanting to
give ourselves time to make sure we were both still happy with our jobs and the Bristol lifestyle
and to find the perfect forever home.
‘We’ll rent, just for a year or so. Somewhere nice though. Best part of town,’ Danny had
said as we’d scrolled excitedly through the property listings online, amazed at how low the
rents seemed compared with what we’d been paying in Chiswick. And so it all came together
perfectly, and after just a few days, I knew I was home. Danny appeared to feel the same, even
if his working hours were just as long as they’d been in London, something I hated but had
grown to accept.
Even so, I’d been so looking forward to seeing him on Friday night that I’d felt miserable,
sleeping badly, waking every hour to see if the empty space in the bed next to me had been
filled by his warm, weary body.
When he still hadn’t called by nine o’clock on Saturday morning I’d started to really
worry. This wasn’t right. Pushing aside my reluctance to appear the na
gging wife, I’d looked
14
up the switchboard number for his company and dialled it. It had gone straight to voicemail,
informing me that ACR Security was now closed and would reopen at 9 a.m. on Monday, and
advising that clients with an urgent issue should call the emergency number on their contract.
‘What about wives with an urgent issue?’ I’d shouted down the phone, then ended the
call, my heart beginning to pound. If his office was closed, where the hell was Danny? Had he
had an accident on his way home? That flipping bike. I’d always thought it odd that he didn’t
drive, but he’d shrugged cheerily when I’d asked him about it.
‘Never needed to. Plenty of good public transport in Dublin when I was a student. And
then London … I mean, who drives in London? Congestion charge, parking is ridiculous …
ah, bike’s the way to go, Gem. And we’ve got your car, haven’t we, when we need it? No point
wasting money on two.’
He had a point. But I still worried about him commuting on that thing. And so when I
couldn’t track him down at his office, and after I’d tried to Skype him half a dozen times only
to find he was offline every time, I started to ring the hospitals. There seemed to be only a few
in Bristol with accident and emergency departments, and after I’d ruled out the children’s and
eye hospitals there were only two left, Southmead and Bristol Royal Infirmary. My hands
shaking, I called both, but neither had any record of a male with Danny’s date of birth or fitting
his description being admitted in the past twenty-four hours. For a minute, a wave of relief
washed over me, before fear gripped me again. If he wasn’t at work, or hurt, where else could
he be? If he’d decided on a last-minute trip to see a friend, he’d have called me, wouldn’t he?
But that was just so unlikely, when he’d promised to be there when I got home, cooking dinner
for me. So maybe he was at work, after all, and the office switchboard had just been left in
weekend mode. But why hadn’t he answered my email, or contacted me to let me know where
he was? Surely, however busy he was, he’d have had time to do that? He’d know how worried
I’d be.
15
Breathing deeply, trying to keep on top of the anxiety which was threatening to
overwhelm me, I tapped out another email.
Danny, where are you? I’m seriously worried now. I’ve tried your office but it’s just
going to voicemail. PLEASE let me know you’re OK? Gxx
I pressed send and checked the time. Midday, on Saturday. I hadn’t heard from him since
the goodnight email he’d sent me at about eleven on Thursday night, the one I’d read in my
hotel room. Just over thirty-six hours. It just wasn’t right, wasn’t normal, not for us. Should I
call the police? But what if he really was just frantically busy at work, trying to fix some sort
of online disaster for a major client, totally losing track of time? Imagine his mortification if
the police suddenly turned up at his office, the sniggers of his new work mates, the mutterings
about neurotic wives. No, I couldn’t call the police; it was too soon. I was being silly. He’d
reply to this latest email any minute now, and everything would be fine, I told myself. By this
evening we’ll be snuggled on the sofa drinking wine and laughing at me and my stupid over-
reaction.
I’d gone out briefly to collect Albert from the nearby kennels – I’d dropped him off on
Wednesday night before I left on Thursday morning – Danny’s long and unpredictable working
hours not compatible with dog care – desperately hoping that by the time we arrived home, my
husband would be back, wearily brewing coffee in the kitchen or sprawled, exhausted, on the
sofa after a long night in the office. But he wasn’t, and so at lunchtime, and uncharacteristically
for me, because doing it too often made me feel fearful and anxious, I turned on the BBC Radio
Bristol news. I’d worked in newsrooms for years before going freelance, covering so many
stories that had shocked and sickened me, and although I’d become harder and tougher as time
had gone on, more able to handle the horror of reporting on yet another stabbing, yet another
senseless murder, there had come a point when the life I’d led back then had all become too
much for me, and I’d simply walked out and left it all behind. I’d stopped watching the news
16
completely for months after I quit, stopped reading the papers, finding solace in my ignorance
about the true state of the world, switching to lifestyle journalism when I returned to work,
leaving crime and politics behind me. But now my husband had vanished, and so I turned the
radio on, feeling shaky as I listened for stories about accidents, car crashes, unidentified bodies.
There weren’t any, but in the afternoon, and feeling a little foolish, I slipped Albert’s lead
on and went out to walk Danny’s route to and from work, some vague idea in my head that
maybe he’d been knocked off his bike by a car and had been tossed, unconscious, into a hedge
or alleyway. Ridiculous, even I knew that, in a big city where he’d surely have been spotted
within minutes, but I did it anyway. I’d realized before we set out that I didn’t even know his
exact route to work, or even if he took the same route every day – as a cyclist, there were so
many options, so many shortcuts you could take. So I studied a map, picked what looked like
the two most likely routes, the most logical roads to take to travel between our house in
Monville Road and Danny’s office in Royal York Crescent, and did both, one one way, the
other on the return. His office was clearly closed when I got there, but I rang the doorbell
anyway, and peered in through the windows at unlit rooms empty of people, before turning
round and heading home again, my sense of desperation growing. I found nothing on either
route, of course. No bike, no helmet, no Danny.
I spent the rest of the afternoon pacing around the house, staring out of the windows,
yelling pointlessly at my absent spouse and intermittently bursting into tears. Finally, I checked
the time – almost six o’clock – and made myself sit down and start making some more calls. It
had been too long, and I needed help; I couldn’t handle this on my own, not any longer. I’d
met a few people in the short time we’d been in Bristol, a couple of whom I already felt could
potentially become good friends, but the relationships were too new, I thought, to burden with
something like this. In terms of old friends, most of the couples we hung out with had originally
been friends of mine, and I didn’t think that any of them would be able to help, not at that stage;
17
if Danny had gone away to visit someone without telling me, unlikely though that seemed, it
would probably have been one of his own mates. I didn’t have contact details for any of his
Irish friends, but I found numbers for two of the colleagues he’d been palliest with in his old
job in London, and for his former boss. They all sounded a little bemused – no, they hadn’t
heard from him since he’d left, but … you know what this job’s like, he probably has no idea
what time it is or how long he’s been head down at his desk, he’ll probably turn up in a couple
of hours, don’t worry, Gemma. Keep us posted though, OK?
I wished I had an out-of-hours number for Danny’s new boss, just in case, but I didn’t,
and I couldn’t even remember his name. So – family, then? Danny had a cousin in London, but
the rest of his family lived in the west of Ireland, and after some consideration I decided against
calling them, for a while at least. I’d never felt that comfortable around his cousin Quinn, and
his mum, Bridget, was tricky at the best of times. His dad, Donal, had died not long before we
got married, and Danny had never been close to either of his parents; there was no point in
sending Bridget into a panic if, in the end, there was nothing at all to worry about. I didn’t call
my parents either – they were nervy types, both of them, and I couldn’t handle their distress,
not on my own, not while I was feeling so horribly anxious myself. And so I kept dialling other
numbers, and when Danny’s friends couldn’t help, I decided to phone a few of my own after
all, not so much to ask if they’d heard from my missing husband but for advice, for comfort,
although I found little of the latter.
‘Shit, Gemma, that’s worrying. I’d be calling the police, if I were you.’
‘Oh Gem, darling, how awful! Do you want me to come down? Just say the word. But
I’m sure he’ll turn up soon, it probably is just a work thing …’
‘Bloody men. But Danny’s usually so reliable, isn’t he? I don’t know what to think, Gem.
Maybe give it until tomorrow and then report him missing? You don’t … well, I hate to ask,
but you don’t think he’s got another woman, do you?’
18
It was something that hadn’t crossed my mind until then, and when I’d put the phone
down after speaking to Eva, one of my closest friends, I swallowed hard, trying to consider the
possibility. No, it just couldn’t be true. Since we’d moved to Bristol we hadn’t had a night apart
until Thursday when I’d gone on my press trip, and we’d spent every second of every weekend
together too, sorting out our new home. When would he have had time? We’d been pretty much
inseparable most of the time before we moved too … we were still virtually newlyweds, after
all. Well, not entirely inseparable; we’d obviously had the odd night apart, work trips and ‘girls’