With a coffee and a tea made, she returned to the interview room. Harrison was as she left him — hunched in his chair, still in his jacket, his body screaming tension at her. His glasses that he used for driving were on the table in front of him. Claudia placed his coffee next to the spectacles.
‘Thank you.’
She sat on the chair opposite. ‘You know I’m only here to help, don’t you?’ How could he believe otherwise?
‘That’s what you think, is it?’ He tipped his head to the side as he looked at her.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, genuinely interested in how he saw this. Surely her level of concern was obvious; she would do everything in her power to locate his wife.
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Like I said earlier, I don’t care as long as we find Ruth.’
Claudia crossed her legs, started to make herself comfortable. ‘But you don’t think my being here means we’re taking it seriously?’
‘That’s not what I said. I think it means they’re taking it very seriously, but in what way, I’m not sure. Help certainly doesn’t spring to mind.’
‘Why wouldn’t we help you, Dominic?’
‘Look, instead of going around in circles and dissecting what’s happening here, can we get to the meat of the matter, please? Can you start asking questions that are actually relevant?’
She could see that he was more worn out than she first thought. There was a hint of a salt-and-pepper, five o’clock shadow shading his cheeks and jawline and darkness smudged underneath his eyes.
‘You don’t think assessing our situation as you see it is relevant?’
‘For fuck’s sake, Claudia, do you have to answer everything with a question?’
‘It’s kind of why I’m here, and I’m interested in why you see me being here as such a threat.’
She was settling in now and was getting into her stride.
Harrison rubbed at his face, his large hands hiding his feelings from Claudia momentarily, before he spoke.
‘I don’t see you as a threat. Far from it. Why would I?’
She waited him out. It was one of the tools of interviewing; interviewees hated silence. They had a need to fill the void. But DS Dominic Harrison used this tactic as much as she did. He was good at his job, and he worked well when interviewing either witnesses, victims or offenders. She might not work with him now, but she’d worked with him in the past. She’d observed his techniques. She was here to help him but she was also here to get as much information out of him as possible and she would do her utmost to ensure that happened.
Harrison crossed his arms. ‘You know it’s likely to be something to do with the job, don’t you? That’s why they’re so twitchy. They’re afraid they’ve put her in a position where she’s at risk. One of their own and now she’s missing. It doesn’t look good.’
This was sensitive; she didn’t need telling. They wouldn’t have let her anywhere near it unless they were worried. The fact that they had thrown the rule book out of the window proved just how worried they were. It didn’t sit well with her. She liked the rules. Surely there could have been another way to do this without using her? She leaned forward, her voice quiet.
‘Tell me about last night, the night Ruth went missing, Dominic.’
He scratched at his head. Waited before he spoke. Used his own silence. Claudia didn’t know if he was even going to respond. Then, with a deep sigh, he began.
‘You know the case we’re working on, the one they’re calling the Sheffield Strangler?’
Claudia did. Everyone in the force knew the Sheffield Strangler case as more and more staff had been seconded onto it with each subsequent murder. It had consumed South Yorkshire Police for the last six months. She knew Dominic was a part of the investigation team. ‘You know I do.’
He continued. ‘It had been a long day. Management were stressing. There were more meetings about the case than I could count on my fingers. All we wanted to do was catch the bastard. Yesterday we were looking at a potential new witness around the latest abduction site. I’m responsible for a small team of four DCs and Rhys Evans had taken a statement from a guy who, though he hadn’t seen anything himself, said there was another man loitering on the street corner where the last victim was taken from. He was eating a bag of chips and trying to hold a conversation on his phone at the same time. It was the reason our witness remembered him. This is the closest we’ve come to the Strangler. We’re so close we can taste it. We’re exhausted after six months, but it feels like it’s in grabbing distance now. We just have to track down this unidentified guy eating chips. Ask him what he saw.’ The excitement and fatigue of the investigation lifted Dominic’s voice. He was connected to the case. ‘We were closing in on him but I told my team to go home in the end.’ He let out a sigh.
Claudia had been in this situation often enough with her own teams. Cops got tunnel vision when information started to come in; sometimes they forgot they had homes to go to and needed to be sent away. For all the flack the police received in the media, they really were good men and women, working around the clock to help the people who needed it.
‘It didn’t take long for me to get home. When I did, the house was in darkness. That in itself wasn’t unusual, we’re both working hard at the moment, but Ruth’s car was on the drive. I couldn’t remember whether she’d driven to work or if she’d been picked up by a colleague that morning.
‘I entered the house, flicked the lights on and closed the curtains. I quietly checked the bedroom to see if Ruth had gone to bed because it was late. She wasn’t there so I rang her mobile to see how long she’d be and if she fancied takeaway as I was too tired to cook and realised I was actually hungry. The phone went straight to voicemail, which I found unusual, and that’s when it started.’
Claudia raised an eyebrow.
‘A small niggle. It wasn’t like her. She could easily have turned it off because of a case she was working, but it seemed a little too late in the day to be doing something that would involve turning your phone off — and besides she would have texted me to let me know if she was going to be later than usual.
‘Something didn’t feel right but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I tried Ruth again and her phone was still off.’
The fear that Dominic was describing started to knot in the pit of Claudia’s stomach. They were talking about Ruth here and the fear nearly froze her, but she ground her teeth and nodded for him to carry on.
‘We know the twenty-four-hour rule people tend to believe is a fallacy built up by television dramas. The reality is I could report Ruth missing as soon as I felt she was. But I needed to make some enquiries of my own first before I sent the balloon up.
‘First, though, I tried to calm myself. Told myself I was being irrational. She was as much a workaholic as I was. She would laugh at me if she knew how paranoid I was being.
‘I called Ruth’s sister. Had she seen her, had she popped round to have a glass of wine and unwind, maybe to moan about my dirty socks on the floor. You know how it is. We all need to let off steam about our relationships somewhere. But she hadn’t seen Ruth and my call only served to worry her.
‘The next call I made was to Ruth’s office. It was possible she was working and her phone had died. Which only served to concern me considering what she’d been dragged into. There was no answer. It appeared they’d all left for the night. I tried her phone again, and again it went straight to answerphone.
‘I’d been home three hours. It was plenty of time for her to have either walked through the door or sent me a message to let me know where she was. After all, it was one in the morning. Yes, I’d worked that late before, we all had, and later, but not without a message home to say so.
‘Something wasn’t right. It was time to call it in.
‘My wife was officially missing.’
Chapter 3
Claudia
Her tea was cold. She hadn’t touched it. When she had offered to get drinks it
had been more of a stalling tactic than a need for one. She had needed a minute to gather herself after seeing him in that interview room.
Sharpe had given her all the information they had before sending Claudia into the room. They were prepared for this.
An officer was missing. Ruth was missing.
‘Have you slept at all?’ she asked Harrison.
He let out a long sigh. ‘Does it matter if I’ve slept or not?’
‘I’m wondering how much help you can be if you’re at breaking point.’
‘Don’t worry about me. You need to worry about Ruth. I’ve been told no one has seen her since she left work yesterday. That means she went missing between work and home.’
‘Or from home.’
‘What?’
‘You said she went missing between—’
‘I know what I said.’ Harrison raised his voice. ‘What I want to know is what you’re implying?’
Claudia kept her own voice even.
‘I’m not implying anything. I’m working with facts. The other option is she made it home and went missing from there.’
Harrison glared at her, his face rigid, locked tight, eyes hardened in Claudia’s direction.
She waited him out, understanding that his emotions would be all over the place. She had a job to do and the best way to find Ruth was to work Dominic as she would work anyone else. Ruth was her priority here, not how Dominic was feeling.
‘You know we’ve started the investigation, don’t you?’
He broke the lock he had on her, looked towards the door, then back to her.
‘Of course. I’d expect nothing less.’
‘Is there anything you want to tell us before we find it out?’ she asked.
‘Like?’
‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
He sighed.
‘There’s nothing. I told you what happened. All I want is for you to find my wife. For you to do your job to the best of your ability—’ he stared hard at her — ‘which I know is particularly good. And for you to find her. Do you think you can do that?’
She picked up her cold tea and took a sip, then scowled at the cup as though she hadn’t known it was going to taste disgusting.
‘That’s why I’m in here. They could have sent anyone in but they sent me. They think it will unsettle you and if there is anything to tell then you’ll let it slip, whereas you would be a tighter drum with anyone else.’
He twisted his lips, thought for a second.
‘It’s not a bad plan. It would work if I had anything to tell you, but I don’t. I told you how it is. I told you what happened.’
‘Do you think there’s a possibility she’s simply left you?’
He shook his head.
‘No, I don’t. There’s no reason to leave. We have a good marriage. Yes, we have our bad days, but doesn’t everyone? It’s the way marriages work.’
Claudia stood, lifted her arms over her head and stretched out her back. She hated sitting for long periods of time and yet interviewing was a part of the job that she loved. A contradiction if ever there was one.
‘Are you sure about that?’ she asked.
‘What the hell are you getting at? First you suggest she may have gone missing from the house and then you query our marriage.’
‘Why should it be dismissed that she went missing from the house? Maybe she got home before you and did go missing from there. We can’t discount anything at this stage. And while we’re talking about that, can I have your house key so officers can go and do a search?’
‘You want to do a search of the house?’
‘It’s protocol, you know this.’
‘Yeah, for little kids who may be hiding in the house and their parents haven’t realised.’
Claudia raised an eyebrow at him.
‘Oh yeah, and in case I’ve killed her and have her locked in a trunk in the bedroom.’ He pulled a bunch of keys out of his pocket, unhooked one from the bundle and placed it on the table. He pushed it over towards Claudia. ‘You won’t find anything. It’s a waste of your time.’
Claudia picked up the key.
‘I won’t be a minute.’
She left the room and went to the uniform sergeant on duty, asking him to send someone round to do a missing person search.
‘Don’t leave any stone unturned, this is for a missing cop. Pull out all the stops.’
Back in the interview room, Dominic was on his phone. As Claudia entered he put the phone down.
‘I tried Ruth again. The phone’s still off.’
Claudia sat opposite him again.
‘Thanks for the key. You know we have to do it.’
He didn’t comment.
‘I have to ask you about something,’ she said.
‘Go ahead, I have nothing to hide.’ He leaned back in his chair.
‘We have a statement from your neighbour.’
‘Okay. I’m a little surprised that you needed a statement. What exactly has she seen?’ Harrison leaned forward. ‘Do you have a lead? What’s happened?’
‘No, Dominic. We have a statement that says three weeks ago you and Ruth could be heard screaming at each other. Do you want to tell me what that was all about?’
Dominic rubbed both his hands through his hair and let out a sigh. ‘Ruth told me the job had come into the office. I wasn’t best pleased about it. That out of two females in an undercover unit she was the only one to fit the profile. I didn’t want her to do it. The case I’m working, the Sheffield Strangler, he’s dangerous.’
He rubbed at his hair again.
‘Let’s just say she was less than impressed I was trying to tell her what jobs she could and couldn’t take on.’
‘And how did the conversation play out?’
‘Not in violence if that’s what you’re thinking.’ Dominic bolted upright.
‘I never said that.’
‘You didn’t need to.’
‘Just tell me what happened.’
Another sigh.
‘She put me in my place. You know what she’s like. I had no choice but to back down. She laughed in my face and told me she couldn’t go to her boss and tell him her husband told her she couldn’t do it. I kind of got the message.’
‘But you weren’t happy?’
‘Because it wasn’t safe and now look where we are.’ He waved his arm around the interview room. ‘We’re in the fucking police station because she’s missing and you’re asking about something that happened three weeks ago when I want to know what happened last night.’
‘So it was an argument about work? About her joining the team on the case you’re working?’ Claudia leaned back in her chair.
‘Yes. Like I said, we’re both passionate about the job and if I try and get protective Ruth gets annoyed and gives me a piece of her mind. Tells me she’s as much a copper as I am and to back off. Which is what she did that night. Only we might have been a bit loud about it. You’ll have heard how bad this case has been. I was frustrated. I didn’t want her to go undercover on my case. The Sheffield Strangler is a brutal killer and he scares the crap out of me. And look, I have good reason to have been scared. Ruth hasn’t left me, Claudia. The Sheffield Strangler is responsible for this. She starts working my case and now she goes missing. It’s not a coincidence.’
Chapter 4
Dominic
Six months ago
The call came in about half an hour before the shift was due to end. Dominic was working on the Richards file — a domestic murder case. The husband had lashed out for the first time in his life and with one slap around the face had knocked his wife’s head into the door frame and killed her. It was one of those fluke impacts where any other time it would have been a simple assault, but a knock in the wrong place had resulted in her death and her husband was facing years in jail.
Though Dominic hated violence against women of any sort, he had a little sympathy for Richards. Prior to the assault he’d been made redunda
nt, they had lost their son to drugs two years previously and he was a man struggling to hold his life together. His wife had physically pushed him out of the kitchen. Pushed him three times, laying her own hands on his chest with force. Their marriage was imploding with the stress. One dreadful mistake, for which, in his opinion, the deserved punishment would have been his wife walking out on him, saw the vestiges of his family destroyed. In totality.
CPS were asking for everything to keep their case together and Dominic’s eyes were tired from looking at the screen. It was DC Paul Teague’s case but, as his supervisor, he was supporting him in making sure it got through the process. CPS were playing hardball. Because of the sympathetic details they wanted to pin it down hard so he couldn’t wriggle out of it. Every day they asked for something new. Paul was losing his shit with it and Dominic was trying to hold him and it all together.
Then the DI called him into his office, just as Dominic noted there was only half an hour until his shift ended. DI Adyant Kapoor was reading something on his computer monitor when Dominic walked in. His face was set, his jaw tense and his eyes dark. He waved Dominic into a seat as he finished reading what was in front of him.
Dominic liked Kapoor. He was a straight-laced officer but he was always fair. He’d worked hard to get to where he was — taken on the difficult jobs during his service. Dominic had crossed paths with him in the past when Kapoor had been a lowly DS himself. He had always volunteered for anything that came up. Anything to build up his portfolio ready for the promotion boards. There were rumours that he wasn’t a real copper, that all he wanted was to be top brass. But that could be said of any of the bosses. Dominic had his own suspicions of why Kapoor was targeted with such rumours and it made his stomach churn.
It wasn’t often that Dominic had seen his boss’s face look so serious.
‘A job has come in, Dom,’ Kapoor said, leaning back in his chair. ‘Uniform officers were called to the body of a woman found in Ecclesall Woods. A dog walker had stumbled upon it.’ He flicked an invisible piece of rubbish off the top of his desk. ‘Literally fallen over it, actually, likely damaging evidence. From what I’m being told it’s a nasty one and is going to need our best efforts. Are you free to go to the scene and take control while I take command here?’
BLOOD STAINED an unputdownable crime thriller with a breathtaking twist (Detective Claudia Nunn Book 1) Page 2