‘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 redundant, 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
