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

‘There’s her grandmother but she lives in Leicester. It’s a huge upheaval for her. She can stay with me if she wants to. Vicky wouldn’t have minded that.’

‘How old is Amelia? Social Care will be involved in sorting that side of things. It’s not our area, I’m afraid.’

Kalisha dropped the now soggy tissue in her bag and started fishing around for another, frustration obviously building inside her as it became clear there were no more.

‘I’ll get whoever comes down to take your statement to bring some tissues with them.’

‘Thank you.’

He left her wiping her nose on her sleeve as she continued to sob for her lost friend.

Dominic’s earlier despondent mood felt slightly lessened by the fact that they could potentially prevent further deaths by releasing the image he now had his hands on. What had started as a bad day had been lifted by this turn of events.

The incident room was buzzing with activity. Dominic went straight to his desk and turned on his computer. As he waited for it to wake he turned to Krish. ‘Can you go and take the statement from the woman downstairs, please, Krish. You’ll need tissues, she’s devastated. They were best friends and ran a business together. A florists they started a couple of years ago that seemed to be doing well from what I can gather. Apparently our victim had a knack for it.’

Krish picked up statement paper and his pen. ‘Absolutely.’ He strode across the room and out the door.

The computer monitor was awake and Dominic went straight to his emails. The one from Kalisha was there. He opened it up and the image of the Sheffield Strangler was staring back at him. ‘I’ve got the photograph of our killer,’ he told the room. Silence fell and all eyes turned to him. ‘I’ve also got an ID on the victim, she’s Victoria Ryan aged forty-two. Picked up on the same dating app as the others. Only this time her best friend Kalisha Abebe took a photograph of the image he put on the app in case something happened to her friend.’

‘Shit,’ Hayley blurted out.

‘Exactly,’ he agreed.

‘Any good?’ asked Paul excited.

‘Not for identifying him, but we can use it to warn other women off him. We’ll get it out to the press immediately. We may be able to save someone’s life this way. I’ve got the image on my email. I’ll forward it on to our press department and they can disseminate it. I’ll also forward it to the digital crime department, to see if they can clear the image any.’

‘Is it the one with the sun glaring behind him that’s been described to us?’ Hayley asked.

‘That’s the one. Once he’s aware the image is out there he could change it. But if he’s currently charming someone using this photograph and we save one life because that woman sees it, then it’s worth doing.’

Rhys shook his head. ‘Clever bastard.’

‘We’re further ahead than we were this morning.’ Dominic was determined they would look on the bright side of this. Their spirits needed lifting. His certainly did and he could only imagine his team’s did as well.

‘Saving a life is better than a kick in the teeth,’ admitted Hayley.

‘Now we need to catch the nasty little fucker,’ muttered Paul.

Dominic stood. ‘I need to go and tell Kapoor what we have. That this is going straight out to the press. He needs to be kept up to date.’

‘This feels positive,’ said Hayley. ‘Even if we can’t work from it, we’re scuppering him and I like that.’

He placed a hand on her shoulder as he passed and squeezed. He was pretty buzzed himself.

Chapter 45

Claudia

Twenty-four hours since Ruth’s attack

Claudia rubbed at her eyes. ‘Talking of press conferences, I think I’m going to do one this evening.’

‘Saying what?’ Dominic asked.

‘I’m going to appeal to the killer and ask him to release Ruth. I’m going to appeal to his better side and see if he’ll let us have her back.’

Dominic scoffed. ‘You think that’ll work?’

‘You think it’ll hurt?’ she countered.

He went quiet.

‘No, I didn’t think so. Why would you suggest we don’t do it?’

Dominic stared at the floor. His mouth moved as if to speak but nothing came out.

‘What is it?’ Claudia asked. ‘Why are you against a press conference?’

At last his mouth worked again. ‘I’m not, it’s just we have no evidence it’s him, other than my gut feeling. Isn’t putting it into the public domain, the fact that he’s brave enough to take a cop, going to—’ he waved a hand in the air as if trying to grab for a reason — ‘upset the public. They won’t feel safe at all.’

‘Have you forgotten already that we have the lipstick from your garage he left behind? Though I do think it’s odd he left it at the scene of the abduction rather than where he dumps the body.’ Claudia clamped her mouth shut as she said the last sentence, gutted she herself was classing Ruth as a body rather than someone they were searching for as a missing person. Ruth was an attractive, vibrant, intelligent woman. They’d only been out for drinks the night before last. Ruth had been pushing Claudia to put in for her exams, to go for promotion again and Claudia was fighting her, telling her she was happy where she was for now. That she had plenty of time to progress. And here they now were, classing Ruth as a body, just two days later. Where was Ruth’s time? Where was her opportunity to do what she wanted in the force and with her life? Claudia pushed her hair behind her ears.

‘It’s okay,’ Dominic said. ‘I know the facts of the case