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

her father’s detention and get back to the custody suite to continue interviewing him. It was a good job the press hadn’t got hold of that information last night, that DS Dominic Harrison had been arrested for the murder of his own wife.

* * *

There was a message waiting for her when she got to the custody suite. The custody sergeant waved her and Russ over and then rummaged under the desk where Claudia couldn’t see what he was looking for.

‘It’s in here somewhere,’ he said, face pasty and grey looking. You never saw the light of day when you permanently worked Custody. It was a grim place. Claudia had worked it for six months when she had first been promoted to sergeant and she had hated every second of it and had been glad to get out of there, back into the real world. Some cops loved it, the ability to go to work and hand their jobs over to the next sergeant on the following shift when it was time to leave. No worrying about cases at home. Everything was left at work.

‘Ah-ha!’ He waved his arm in the air, a piece of paper in his hand. He looked pleased with himself. ‘So much crap down here.’

She smiled at him. Impatient to get started on the interview again, the expression tight on her face. If it was Sharpe she was surprised she hadn’t called on her mobile.

The custody sergeant looked at the note in his hand. ‘We took a call for you.’ He turned to her. ‘We’re not a bloody answering service though.’

She side-eyed Russ, they were known to be a little on the grumpy side in Custody. Probably due to the fact they never saw daylight.

‘Sorry about that,’ she said, for the sake of saying something.

He nodded, appeased, then looked back down at his note. ‘He said, he doesn’t have Ruth and you have your facts all wrong. Please don’t attribute all your shit—’ the custody sergeant looked back up at her — ‘yes, he said shit and it was written down. God knows why. We don’t take that shit on the street.’

Claudia smiled. He didn’t notice the irony of what he’d said.

‘Anyway . . .’ He went back to the note. ‘All your shit that you can’t detect onto him.’

Claudia was puzzled. She was sure she hadn’t heard him correctly. ‘I’m sorry, can you read that again?’

He rolled his eyes and read from the sheet again. ‘He doesn’t have Ruth and you have your facts all wrong. Please don’t attribute all your shit that you can’t detect onto him.’

They both looked at each other simultaneously.

‘He doesn’t mean . . . he’s not . . .’ The custody sergeant stammered, looking at the custody record in front of him. Seeing who Claudia had in custody and for what offence. The note wafting in his hand in front of him. ‘Oh shit.’

Claudia held out her own hand. ‘Can I read that, please?’

He handed it over. ‘Ruth is Ruth Harrison?’

She was reading the message again, with Russ peering over her shoulder. She nodded as her eyes skimmed the paper.

‘He’s the Sheffield Strangler?’ His voice was quiet, not to alert the rest of the custody suite what they had in front of them.

Claudia read the note a second time and then a third, trying to get the words to sink in and allow their meaning to gain some understanding in her head. ‘What time did you take this message?’ she asked, her voice brittle.

‘Not fifteen minutes ago. He was put through from the switchboard who had tried to locate you and someone had identified you were on your way here so he was put through.’

‘And it was you?’

He had managed to pale even more. ‘Yes, it was me.’ He bit at his lower lip. ‘When he said Ruth I didn’t think of Ruth Harrison. It didn’t cross my mind that the killer would phone up and talk like that.’

‘What did he sound like?’ Claudia didn’t have time to make the sergeant feel better for not taking any action sooner.

‘He didn’t have an accent I could place. Maybe a local lad? Not a strong Yorkshire accent though. Nothing about him stood out.’ He picked up the phone and dialled. ‘Hello, switchboard. A phone call was put through to this custody suite less than fifteen minutes ago, I want to know from what number it came from. Yes. Yes. It’s urgent. Thank you.’ He listened and waited.

‘Okay, that’s great, thank you.’ He scribbled onto a notepad and when he placed the receiver down he tore the sheet out of the pad and waved it at Claudia. ‘I have the number he dialled in from.’ He was pleased with himself.

Claudia was less happy. She didn’t expect it to be this easy. ‘Can I use your phone please?’

He handed her the phone from behind the desk and she dialled the number. The line was dead.

‘You think he used a burner?’

‘I do. This is time sensitive. Can I ask that you find me someone to submit the number, see who it belongs to? We need to get in to interview.’

If he hadn’t have missed such a big issue as talking to the killer and sitting on it for fifteen minutes, Claudia knew he’d have told her it wasn’t his job and to sort it out herself, but as it was, he’d be feeling pretty bad about that so agreed to get someone to sort it out for her and straight away.

Claudia turned to Russ — her stomach churned with the betrayal of what she was about to say. ‘We need to speak to Dominic. If the Sheffield Strangler is saying he doesn’t have Ruth then we need to break Dominic down and find out which parts of his story aren’t true, because I