AN: This is the first chapter I haven't rewritten or used in place of another one and I'm looking for opinions on it. It has important clues, but I am worried it may be a bit boring but I wanted a slow down from the action. I hope it works?

'Are you going up to Yorkshire tomorrow?' Rita said to Subeera as they were leaving the dessert lounge.

'I didn't book a ticket...I wanted to go. I love Heather and I'm happy for her. She's going to be a great DCI. But it's such a long way and I know there will be...too many coppers.' Subeera laughed guiltily. 'I think I need a few days where I don't think about work, if that's possible.' She sighed. 'Then I - I'll...have to make a decision.'

'Just give it some time to think about it. Do what's right for yourself,' Rita said, although the thought of another decent, conscientious officer being pushed out over corruption and racism made her despair. It was a cold night. She put her hands in her pockets. Everything was much chillier in the UK in this time of year.

'Thanks, love. Deep down, I think I know what I have to do.'

'Give it a few days, then see how you feel,' Rita said, feeling sad. 'No judgement either way.'

'Cheers. I'll try and have a chill day tomorrow. Catch up on Woodsbury Mansion.'

'What's that?' Rita said.

'Oh my goodness, you have to see it. It's a paranormal drama based on this family called the Daltons. It's like a soap, but set around a haunted house. They're always falling in and out of love based on prophecies from old books and stuff like that.' Subeera laughed. 'Oh yeah, and there are vampires.'

'Heather was talking about that,' Rita said as they reached the station.

'Heather introduced me to it,' Subeera said, taking out her purse so she could go through the ticket barrier. 'You have to start from the beginning. There's hundreds of episodes.' She glanced at the entrance and gave Rita a hug. 'Right. Thanks for the chat. You've made me feel much better.'

'Stay in touch, amiga,' Rita said.

Her mind reeled as she walked back towards the hotel, her steps on autopilot. What Subeera had told her had been so horrifying she wanted to cry. She wanted to throw that fucking book in the river, or burn it. It made her sick to the stomach that this man could have got away with destroying someone's life. She leaned against a wall just to take a moment to breathe, shut her eyes. A moment turned into ten minutes and then she realised it was raining. She ignored the rain and let it fall on her as she walked.

When she got back to the hotel Alfonso was sitting in bed. 'Buena seara, how was it? Did it go OK?'

'If you can call it that. She's having a bad time.' Rita hung up her coat and slung her bag on the radiator. 'Sorry I missed your calls. We were having a very deep discussion.' Her eyes turned to the book which was lying open, face down on the bed. The sight of it and the thought of its author filled her with rage she struggled to suppress.

'Are you still reading that book?' she said in what she hoped was a surprised tone.

'Kind of. The guy really loves himself,' Alfonso said. 'He has this pet theory of who it was, and he's cherry picking all sorts of evidence to suit it. Also, it's very graphic. He seems to linger a lot on certain details.'

'That figures.' Rita swallowed hard. 'Maybe I should make myself read it. After that - I don't know. I could give it to Heather. She's a senior officer after all, and someone we all trust.'

'Heather? Why - what's she done?' Alfonso said. 'The writing is bad. Listen to this -'

'I don't feel good keeping it lying around after what I've found out,' Rita said. She took a deep breath, her heart thumping in her chest. Then she repeated what Subeera had told her.

Alfonso listened, appalled. 'That's terrible,' he said when she was finished. 'What a bastard.'

'I don't know what to make of it,' Rita said. She tried never to talk about 'work' with him, but was this work or wasn't it? 'I know it sounds like a conspiracy. She's been treated very badly, it must seem like everyone is against her right now. But it's such a high profile murder. You'd have thought they'd want to get the right person. You'd hope so.' She sat on the bed. It creaked slightly. 'But I don't have the confidence I'd like that they'll investigate Jon Phillips properly.'

'Poor Subeera. What is she going to do?' Alfonso said.

'I hope she gets herself a decent lawyer.' Rita reached for the book and turned it over in disgust, then thumped it down on Alfonso's bedside table before climbing under the covers beside him. 'Beyond that, I don't know. I wouldn't blame her for getting out. She's not in a good place.' Switching on the kettle to make some tea, she said, 'Speaking of which, what has happened with Matteo?'

'They've let him go,' Alfonso muttered. 'Federico rang me just after you left. It was quite sudden. I'm not sure what's going on.'

She put a hand on his arm, the muscles in her stomach tightening. 'Oh. Will you be OK tomorrow?'

'Yeah, I'll be fine. I'm taking a trip with Lina to Oxford. Just us two,' Alfonso said. Rita felt reassured, her heart warmed.

Better than going to that house.

'That will be nice for you both,' she said, squeezing his shoulder. 'If you can, get me a model of one of those red telephone boxes.' He laughed and she leaned in to kiss him. She could tell he had just brushed his teeth. When she drew back they looked deeply into each other's eyes. She felt his breath on her cheek as he parted his lips again. She was going to miss him.

'I love you,' he said. Those words made everything better, they always did.

'I love you too.' Rita hugged him tight.

*

Alfonso had given Rita a set of noise cancelling headphones for her birthday but they were a little used luxury. The train up to Leeds, where Heather lived with her wife Aimee and until recently, their adopted son Martin, was the rare opportunity to try them out. She queued up a few of the most recent Case Report episodes, hung her coat against the window and leaned back in her seat. Then she pressed play on an unsolved case she vaguely knew about. A Spanish TV show she watched late at night sometimes had covered it, but she couldn't remember much.

'Hello my lovelies!' came Erica's cheerful voice, and Rita felt a lump in her throat. 'I'm Erica!'

'And I'm Donna. Welcome to Case Report.' Donna sounded like a completely different person to the pushy, wired woman she'd encountered on her first night at the convention, let alone the one who had been in crisis, screaming and crying after finding her cousin's body. She seemed confident, funny and professional. Happy even.

'Have we got a strange story for you today!' Erica said in the same bubbly tone, while quiet, mysterious music played in the background. A big man came to sit beside Rita as Erica's voice filled her ears. 'It is a disappearance that has gone down as one of the most notorious in the annals of British true crime. Despite the hundreds of thousands of pounds that were expended on this case, no body was ever found, and nobody was ever convicted.'

'If you go on Reddit and YouTube, this case has countless theories surrounding it,' Donna said. 'Some of them are plausible, some of them are less plausible. In this episode, we're going to go over the main ones, and give an alternative view of what we think really happened.'

'It is, of course, the disappearance of Elizabeta Krasovskaya.' Erica spoke in a dramatic whisper. 'In 2006, Elizabeta was working part time as a cleaner and studying maths at the prestigious Imperial College, part of the University of London. She was an international student from St Petersburg.'

'Elizabeta had been in London for a year. Back home, at School No. 3, St Petersburg, she was known as a maths prodigy. When she was 7, her IQ test had been one of the top ten highest in Russia. Yet she was also outgoing, opinionated and had lots of friends and hobbies,' Donna said. 'So when she came to study in the UK, it seemed like a perfect opportunity.'

'Although 21-year old Elizabeta liked to party, she was always on time for her lectures and never missed a single one, even when she was ill,' Erica said. It was eerie listening to her. 'Until the 20th of November 2006, when she didn't turn up to her 10am lecture. She was due to cook dinner with her flatmates, but she wasn't home that night either. On the 22nd, she was reported missing.'

'Elizabeta had not seemed depressed or unstable at all,' Donna said brightly, and again Rita was struck by the stark contrast between her demeanour and words then and now. 'There was no reason for her to go missing. From time to time, it's been suggested that Elizabeta's disappearance was orchestrated by none other than Vladimir Putin. She was gay, and the disappearance had occurred weeks after the Litvinenko poisoning. But according to her friends and girlfriend, she was not interested in politics at all, so that angle was swiftly ruled out.'

'We're now going to play a 999 call from three days after Elizabeta disappeared. And this call is the main reason her disappearance is viewed as suspicious,' Erica announced. 'Well, that and the traces of her blood found in the abandoned office block that the call was traced to.'

'999. Police, fire or ambulance?' a woman said. The line was distorted and poor quality.

'Police,' came a sobbing voice. 'Help me please.' The woman sniffed, her voice trembling. There were footsteps in the background.

'Where are you?' the operator said. A door slammed.

'Ne znayu. Ne znayu. Ona ubit menya!' The desperation and terror in the young Russian woman's voice was palpable. Rita felt an involuntary shudder, a lurch of nausea as something thumped, the call disconnected. A green landscape sped past outside the train window.

Erica helpfully translated Elizabeta's words. 'I don't know. I don't know. She's gonna kill me.'

Straight after that, the podcast went to an ad break. The jaunty meal delivery promotion was too jarring after Elizabeta's haunting sobs and Rita hit pause. Idly, she searched for Elizabeta Krasovskaya on Google. Dozens of results came up. Most of them were trashy documentaries and conspiracy sites. 'Did Ukraine assassinate Elizabeta Krasovskaya?' 'Elizabeta Krasovskaya truth exposed!' The sensationalism left a poor taste in Rita's mouth. None of this did any good for Elizabeta's loved ones or provided any answers.

She hit play again, skipping through ads for car insurance, online therapy and home security systems, stopping when she heard Donna's voice. 'Now, there are some theories that Elizabeta's work might have led to her disappearance. Friends said that she was paid late and falsely accused of stealing.'

'But that is speculation,' Erica said, sighing. 'Sadly, it is all we've really got to go on, since no forensic evidence was ever found. If a list of her clients ever existed, it was, sadly, destroyed.'

As true crime went, Case Report wasn't terrible. The case was covered factually. Donna and Erica dissected the elaborate conspiracies people had concocted about Russian oligarchs and Ukrainian intelligence services. She didn't mind the banter. She'd been a cop too long to be precious about that. But Rita could see what angered people like Sandra so much about shows like that.

Playing on people's fears to sell products. Serving the worst days of people's lives up for entertainment.

The ticket officer came by her seat. They were now approaching Reading. She took her headphones off and showed the tickets to him on her phone. He nodded and moved on. As she thought of money based on tragedy, Jon Phillips's 507-page book lay in her bag like a brick. She had packed it, so she might as well try and read it, although downing a glass of cold sick seemed more appealing.

Rita pressed play again, and watched as a field of sheep zoomed by the window. Donna and Erica discussed the police investigation's failings in relaxing voices. Allegedly, they had messed up the crime scene and not interviewed crucial witnesses. They had allowed political bias to get in the way. But as she listened Rita focused on Erica herself rather than the killing in the episode.

Why had she got involved with Jon Phillips?

How much had she known about him? Had she been his victim too?

The train stopped and the man next to Rita got off, leaving an empty seat. She relaxed and found the episode that Subeera had been telling her about with Carly Hill. Looking at the thumbnail her suspicions were confirmed; Carly was the woman on the bus. When Rita played it, instead of the spooky theme music or another ad came Donna's voice.

'Hi my lovelies, Donna here,' she said in a strained, agitated tone, like the way she'd spoken to Rita when she'd met her. 'Erica and myself will be releasing a new episode soon with a huge update to this case. Let me tell you. There...is...some...drama. It's not pretty. But on Case Report, that's what we thrive on. In the mean time, here is the original episode. Check it out. Let us know what you think on our socials. Laters.' It was supposed to sound chirpy, but didn't. Donna sounded tense and angry.

As the theme tune began, Rita saw she had a message from Heather. 'All right love. What time you getting to ours?' As Rita started a reply she realised she had hardly thought about her friend since she had got her a bottle of wine on her way to the station. She was looking forward to tonight. She would enjoy it.

But Erica's murder was already getting under Rita's skin.

Until it was solved, she knew she couldn't let it go.