BLOOD STAINED an unputdownable crime thriller with a breathtaking twist (Detective Claudia Nunn Book by Rebecca Bradley (whitelam books .txt) 📗

And then it came.

A blinding blow to the side of her head from a fist she didn’t see coming. The whole side of her vision went dark and a searing flash of red-hot pain slipped behind her eye. She lifted a hand to the spot where damp now trickled down the side of her cheek.

‘Stop fighting,’ he grunted, his voice hot on her face and raspy over his throat. The first words to be spoken.

It would not help her if she stopped fighting. She had known the minute she felt him behind her that this was a to-the-end confrontation. His weight was on her and she was pinned down, unable to do anything to save herself. But she would fight back the minute he gave her room to manoeuvre.

He raised himself up, pushing his elbow into her shoulder. ‘Stop fighting,’ he growled again.

‘Never,’ she said. And she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t give in. She would fight to the death.

Her death.

Chapter 1

Claudia

Nine hours since Ruth’s attack

DI Claudia Nunn tapped her foot on the grey patch of ground at Snig Hill police station in Sheffield and tried not to show her frustration. Her DCI, Maddison Sharpe, was not the kind of woman who would take kindly to a show of . . . what? What was it exactly she was feeling following Sharpe’s request? Frustration possibly.

They were standing outside in the roughly put together wooden smokers’ hut. Sharpe inhaled deeply, slim fingers gently caressing the disgusting tube she insisted on keeping a habit. Claudia hated cigarettes and in turn, hated being in the smokers’ hut, but Sharpe had wanted to speak to her urgently and was also in need of a smoke, so they had ended up here. The smell of the cigarette was burning a hole of annoyance in Claudia’s brain.

The shed was not exactly private. Anyone could come along and join them, though Sharpe would give them a stare and they would soon scuttle away. Sharpe reminded her of Cruella de Vil.

It was early April and the sky was mirroring the grey concrete below her feet, the very concrete she was tapping her foot against as she tried to think of a response to the request Sharpe had made.

‘Don’t you have anything to say, Claudia?’ Sharpe exhaled. The smoke drifted across Claudia’s eyeline.

She had the urge to wave her hand in the air to clear it away but restrained herself, instead shoving her hands deeper into her pockets.

‘I’m not sure I’m the best person for the job if I’m honest, ma’am.’

Sharpe flicked the cigarette and the ash dropped gently to the ground. Sharpe didn’t care if there were cigarette bins at the side of the shed they were standing in, if she wanted to drop her ash where she was standing then she would.

‘I wouldn’t have proposed you do it if I didn’t think you were the right person.’

Claudia tapped her foot again.

Sharpe looked at her.

‘It’s a sensitive job and there are those above me who are nervous about the whole thing. If anything goes wrong and they end up with mud on their faces they won’t be very happy. They seem to think that you will be the person best suited to do this.’

She paused. Sucked on the cigarette, inhaled, looked up at the leaden sky, exhaled and peered at Claudia.

‘I happen to agree with them. You’re a brilliant interviewer, Claudia. Please don’t sell yourself short.’

A short sharp laugh burst from Claudia’s lips before she could stop it. Sharpe narrowed her eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ Claudia said quickly. ‘It’s not that I don’t think I’m qualified for the job. I’m well aware of my qualities.’

Sharpe lifted an eyebrow.

‘I’m not going to be coy here. We both know I excel at my job, I’m not on the fast-track promotion scheme for nothing. That’s not what this is about and well you know it.’

Sharpe exhaled one last time and flicked her cigarette onto the ground. She stepped forward and twisted the tip of her pointed shoe onto the stub to put it out, her perfectly made-up face impassive.

‘That may well be,’ she said, ‘but qualifications aside, yes, we do think you are still the best person for the job. I think you’re the best person for the job. You’re close to him, you know him, if anything is amiss then you’ll be the one to unsettle him. He’ll not like being interviewed by you. But if nothing is amiss then it won’t faze him and you have nothing to worry about.’

‘You don’t really think he could be guilty here, do you? This is Dominic we’re talking about.’

‘It’s up to you to prove he’s innocent. Would you rather it was someone else?’

Claudia looked at the flattened stub end on the ground. ‘And if something is amiss, what then?’

‘Then, my dear Claudia, you will be the one who will be leading the charge and I’d imagine that’s where you would want to be.’

Sharpe let out a breath and paused before she spoke again. Claudia waited for her.

‘You’re a stickler for protocol and in an ideal situation you shouldn’t be the one going in there to interview him, but this is far from ideal. Let me be brutally honest with you — we want to get to the bottom of this, you know that. We need to know what has happened and in this case we feel it’s the best way to get results and fast.’ Sharpe looked her in the face. ‘And you want results, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘That’s settled. He’s waiting in the witness interview room for you.’

The air had a damp quality to it and Claudia shivered.

‘You are up to this, aren’t you,