Just wanted to add my thoughts after that's turn of events. I think the police here are doing their best in exceptionally difficult circumstances. No one told them managing a viral outcry on social media would be in the job description, at least to this extent. The scrutiny must be very trying, but it is right too that we hold our powers to account. As others have said, I also think this case has triggered a very raw, unhealed wound in the public sphere following the Sarah Everard case, and others besides. The police is facing herculean public pressure.
That aside, I suspect the events of the night before NB's disappearance are related to her choices the following morning. What if she was having a crisis of confidence, or had to disclose something to her boss related to the recent domestic incident?
What if in the process of 'investigation', NB became too close for comfort to the realisation that perhaps social services would have to be involved, or her whole life was at risk of tumbling down? She has clearly presented a very wholesome, happy family profile online, which suggests to me that as an identity and indicator of personal success, this is hugely important to her. Backed up even further by PA's comments about her devotion to her children and dog.
Perhaps there was a hair trigger in that morning's Teams meeting. Perhaps, she and PA had had a disagreement the night before, triggering the meet up with her boss in fear of the ramifications or perhaps just to talk to someone a little at a distance from the family. It seems like a small company, so would not be unusual to have a very close relationship with a boss in that circumstance. Perhaps the threat of investigation was just too much, too much to bear, too much to process, and during that Teams call, she just made a sudden decision to go, walk away, leave it all .... rather than to face the horror and pain of dealing with the reality of the truth of things. If she already had an issue with alcohol, that in it itself - as others have identified, and some of us relate to so well - creates all sorts of issues of mind and perspective. Add to that any other number of variables such as mental health, social stigma pressures, menopause or any daily life pressures that most of us in the UK are experiencing, well..... it's not hard to see how it could all have got too much, all of a sudden.
Perhaps part of the police's strategy with today's presser and the release of the vulnerability detail (shocked as I am at them sharing such private data so publicly, on a moral level never mind legal) is to try to stop all the public speculation and outcry. Because if Nicola is still out there somewhere, she will no doubt be able to read everything that is traversing the social media platforms. I believe in freedom of speech but not to the detriment of the safety of others, physical AND psychological. That is after all, what Duty of Care is all about.
So perhaps, just perhaps, Nicola is still out there. And perhaps, just perhaps, if things quieten down a little, she will feel brave enough to come back to her family. That is, if she has not taken matters into her own hands.
One can only hope.
