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

nose. ‘There’s something but it’s not relevant at all. It’s not even worth mentioning, but now you’ve put it like that you’re not leaving me with any choice.’

Kane tapped his foot in the air. ‘It’s best to let it out.’

Claudia looked at Kane, concerned. There was a minute shake of his head as he tried to reassure her this would not be what she was afraid of. Did Kane know something about this? Why hadn’t he told her?

She had no idea what was coming but fear ran the gauntlet inside of her. ‘Tell us what it is you’re hiding.’ It took all her strength to keep her voice on an even keel.

‘I lied to you.’ He paused, putting off the moment of truth. ‘More an omission than a lie.’

Claudia didn’t care about semantics. She just wanted him to spit it out. Her patience was wearing thin. If whatever he was hiding could help with their investigation into Ruth’s disappearance, then he needed to speak.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s about Ruth.’

Claudia’s blood ran cold. Her mind began to spiral. She gripped the edge of the table, her fingers turning white.

‘I’ve been seeing Hayley behind Ruth’s back.’

Chapter 48

Claudia

The silence stretched out between them. She didn’t care about how it would be perceived this time. That silence on an interview recording is seen as oppressive, but it didn’t bother her. Claudia didn’t speak and allowed the silence to play out. She would not be the first person to speak. The fact was that at this time she didn’t have the words. She was so let down by him. She’d been through this situation with him before. She thought that was the one and only time he would tear a family, her family, apart.

Now he was doing it again.

She had grown to love Ruth. At first it had been uncomfortable — she’d been the other woman, after all — but Ruth had taken her time with Claudia and had not pushed or asked for anything from her. She’d accepted the cold shoulders Claudia had doled out until eventually she had thawed and they started to talk.

Claudia had come to realise what it was her dad saw in Ruth, how well matched they were. It was much easier once her mum was okay and settled but Ruth had made the transition something that Claudia controlled and Claudia had never been more grateful to her. She could see how much Ruth loved her dad and now here he was telling her this.

She stared at him.

He started to twitch.

‘I didn’t mean it to happen.’ Eventually he broke. As she knew he would. They all did. They couldn’t sit there when they were guilty and had words to say if the room was filled with silence. It was one of the reasons silence was seen as oppression. It really did make an interviewee talk.

‘You’re a grown man. How can you not mean it to happen?’ Claudia hissed at him. ‘Did you lose control of your faculties? Did you get some kind of virus where you lost your mind? Do we need to go through your jobs in that case to check you haven’t screwed them up?’

‘Don’t be like that, Claudia.’ He talked to her like a father to a daughter who was reprimanding a child. Short and sharp.

Impatient.

She glared at him. ‘Do not speak to me like that. It is you who is under caution and is being interviewed for murder here. You have absolutely no right to talk to me like I’m a child.’

He bent his head.

‘This is a professional interview. I don’t care how you see me. You will answer the questions properly. Do you understand?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So how did you not mean for it to happen?’

‘We were working late all the time. We went for the occasional drink after work together. A relationship built up. It doesn’t mean anything. It should never have happened. I was exhausted with the case, it started to mean more to me than anything else, being at work was more important than being at home with Ruth. The job consumed me and Hayley understood that, we leaned on each other. But I can see that it’s nothing, that it was just easy and that’s why it happened.’

‘You’re unbelievable, do you know that?’

He hadn’t yet looked up. His shame obvious.

Kane stayed out of it. This was now something between Claudia and Dominic. It was too personal for him to ask questions about.

‘This was exactly the same thing you did to Mum with Ruth. You cheated on Mum with Ruth, who by the way was far too young for you. It was as though you were going through a mid-life crisis. But you were adamant she was the love of your life and you had found your soulmate. Because you stayed with her and married her I accepted her into my life and grew to know and love her and now you’re doing exactly the same goddamn thing to her?’ Her voice was rising a little and she had to rein it in. This was still an interview and not a family argument.

Dominic looked beaten. ‘I’m sorry, Claudia. This thing with Hayley, it’s been a mistake. I promise. It’s Ruth I love. Can you imagine how I feel knowing that sick fuck has her and what she’s going through? It’s tearing me apart. I’ve made a huge mistake. I want Ruth back and when I get her back I’ll never let her out of my sight again. You’ll need to tear us apart with a crowbar.’ He leaned forward. ‘I promise you. I want her back.’

Kane was making notes in his pad as he had been doing throughout the whole of the interview process. Claudia looked at it, hated that her personal life, that of her parents, was recorded this way. But