He nodded and let her continue to the interview room.
One additional day wasn’t a lot. It was a big ask for the guv to come back to them in that time. He just hoped he’d done enough.
FOUR
Stacey had regulated her breathing by the time she headed down the corridor towards interview room one. It was a conversation with Bryant she was sick of having.
Never once in almost seven years had she seriously considered transferring off the team, but right now she could think of little else.
It was fine for Bryant to keep urging her to wait but she didn’t know how much longer her mental health could take it. She couldn’t switch off at night, not from the investigating because she was doing precious little of that. It was her own anger. Her own anxiety, her own fear of the next day that kept her awake. She wanted to answer him back when he delegated all the admin and menial tasks to her. She was the lowest-ranking member of the team and now she felt it. At night her brain swarmed with all the things she wanted to say to DI Burns but couldn’t because he was her superior officer. In his opening speech he’d told them all that he took insubordination seriously and no one wanted that on their record. Whether justified or not, it was a black mark for other DIs looking at your file in the future.
The only option she could see was to get away from the man as quickly as possible, she thought as she opened the door to what was undoubtedly going to turn into another report-taking mission.
The woman at the table was slim with well-cut chestnut hair that almost reached her shoulders. Stacey guessed her to be late thirties, early forties.
‘Mrs Denton, DC Stacey Wood,’ she said, offering her hand across the table.
‘You’re a detective?’ the woman asked.
In name only, Stacey almost said but nodded instead as she flicked open her notebook.
‘I understand you’ve reported your husband missing.’
‘Yes, I called the police station last night. They told me if he hadn’t come back by this morning to come in and file a report.’
Standard practice, Stacey thought, if they were talking fully functioning adult gone AWOL for a couple of hours. Children and vulnerable people were actioned immediately.
‘Can you tell me what happened, Mrs Denton?’
‘Beth, please,’ she said, holding up a manicured hand. The only rings were her matching engagement ring and wedding band. ‘Gabriel left for work yesterday morning, same time as usual, eight fifteen on the dot. I left shortly afterwards. I was busy at lunchtime; a meeting ran over so we didn’t chat while—’
‘Is that something you normally do?’ Stacey asked. She and Devon rarely communicated throughout the working day, except for the occasional emoji-filled text message that required no response. There were no prescribed lunch breaks in either her work or Devon’s job as an immigration officer.
Beth nodded. ‘Yes, we usually check in with each other, either call or text but mainly call.’ She glanced at Stacey’s left hand. ‘You and your husband don’t do that?’
‘Wife,’ Stacey corrected.
‘Oh, my, I’m sorry. I don’t mean—’
‘It’s fine,’ Stacey said, waving away the apology. The poor woman looked mortified. ‘Please continue.’
‘So we never spoke during the day. I was home by six and had dinner cooking and a glass of wine ready by half past. Around seven I started calling him, but his phone went straight to voicemail. I contacted his work to be told he hadn’t been in, and they’d just assumed he’d been down with the flu.’
Stacey noticed that her words were coming faster.
‘I rang the local hospitals, checked news reports and then drove his route to work to check he hadn’t gone into a ditch somewhere.’
Stacey was sure that would have been noticed by someone, but she also understood the woman’s need to do something.
‘Friends?’ Stacey asked.
‘We don’t really have many of those. We’re quite self-sufficient,’ she said, almost apologetically.
‘Surely there’s someone – old college friends, drinking buddies?’ Stacey asked. She and Devon weren’t hugely sociable with large groups of friends, but there were people they both had in their lives from along the way: high school, college, part-time jobs.
‘Well, I suppose, if we went way back I could come up with a few names.’
‘Have a think about that and let me know,’ Stacey said, sliding a card across the table. ‘Any colleagues he was particularly close to?’ she asked. She had to consider that he’d just decided to take some time out, but who would he have told of his plans?