Friends remember how, during evenings spent at The Nags Head in York, there would often come a point where she'd put the song on the pub jukebox and everyone would cheer. Your song? This was Claudia's song. Then she'd put it on again. Another cheer. And again. And again. Eventually, the song would be met by groans across the pub and a friendly intervention to prise any remaining pound coins from Claudia's hand. But there would be laughing and smiling. Everyone loved Claudia. Here, in the pub just a few doors away from her home in Melrosegate, Claudia was queen.
Ten years have passed since the most recent of those nights. The Nags Head is under new management now. Many of the regulars have moved on. You don't hear Elton John on the jukebox anywhere near as much as you used to. It's a different place. The journalists who decamped here in 2009 took something with them when they left.
Claudia hasn't been seen for ten years now, since the 18th of March, 2009 – the day she became the face of missing people within the British Isles. The 35-year-old York University chef who was there and then was not. Where she went remains a mystery. "We're still hoping that someone will give us some answers," says Claudia's father, Pete Lawrence.
Peter, 72, a solicitor until he retired last year, has put himself in the public eye constantly these last ten years, in order to keep his daughter's name out there. Earlier this year, after extensive campaigning, Peter succeeded in getting a new law passed – named in tribute to his daughter, "Claudia's Law" allows family to step in and manage the affairs of a loved one who has been missing for 90 days. "One less burden at a time when families are at their emotional lowest ebb," says Peter.
He sounds exhausted. "Every time there's something like this about Claudia, there's a response,” he says of a new documentary coming out about his daughter. "The police are expecting a good one, so hopefully there'll be a new lead that comes out of it…"
The questions remain endless. We know that Claudia made it to work on the 18th of March, 2009. CCTV at the University of York's Goodricke College captured her arrival at 5:57AM. Then, at 2:31PM, she was seen embarking on the three-mile walk back home. Claudia's car was in the garage for repairs at the time. She'd been walking to and from work that week. That particular afternoon, a female colleague picked her up and gave her a lift. Shortly after arriving home she left again and was seen posting a letter outside the parade of shops near her house. She had a conversation with a woman with a pram and passed The Nags Head, before her last confirmed sighting at 3.05PM. Then the speculation started.
We do know that later that night, at 8:10PM, Claudia called her dad. Then her mum. She texted a friend. At 9.12PM she received a text message from a friend in Cyprus, her favourite holiday spot – though it's not known whether she read the message or not.
Work the next day was due to start at 6AM. Claudia never clocked in. The following evening she was due to meet her friend Suzy Cooper at The Nags Head. Claudia didn't arrive. Suzy, feeling this was out of character for her friend, called Peter. Then Peter called North Yorkshire Police, before he and George Foreman – the pub landlord – entered Claudia’s flat.
"I think I thought I'd find her lying on the floor," said Peter. What they found instead was worryingly normal: slippers by the door; her handbag, containing money; her driving licence and bank card on her made-up bed. Jewellery on the chest of draws. Breakfast dishes in the sink. Gone was a rucksack containing her chef's whites. They have never been found.
Peter made an appeal for information at a press conference on the 23rd of March, describing his "living nightmare". Two days later, after the CCTV footage was released, Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway – who was leading the investigation – said he believed Claudia may have come to harm after meeting someone she knew.
On the 16th of April, police shared news of the alleged sighting of a man and a woman rowing besides a car on Claudia's route to work, early on the morning of the 19th of March. It's said that two men were seen trying the door to Claudia's house in the week before she disappeared. On the 6th of May, police said they had received more than 1,000 calls from the public. That they had taken 1,096 statements. That they had searched 1,270 properties.
On the 15th of May, police released footage of a man acting suspiciously on Lime Court, near Claudia's flat, in the early hours of the 19th of March. Later, it was revealed that additional footage appearing to show the same man exists, from the prior night, in the same location. And then everything became chaos.