A diving expert in the ongoing search for missing mother of two Nicola Bulley has said he asked her partner if she had any enemies or stalkers.
Bulley, 45, disappeared while walking her dog near the River Wyre in Lancashire on January 27, after having dropped her two daughters, aged six and nine, off at school.
She was last seen on Friday at around 9:15AM while walking down a footpath to a river. Lancashire Police confirmed that her phone was discovered on a bench with a work conference call still appearing on the screen.
As her disappearance nears two weeks, detectives have extended their search to the sea.
Joining in the search is forensic expert Peter Faulding, chief of Specialist Group International, as well as his team.
Faulding revealed that he enquired of Bulley's partner Paul Ansell if she'd had any enemies that might want to cause her harm.
He recalled to MailOnline: "I spoke to Paul last night and asked him if she had any enemies, any stalkers, the normal questions you would ask. And nothing, he said no. And she was totally normal that day when she left, nothing out the ordinary."
Police have since said in a press conference regarding the disappearance: "Throughout this investigation...we remain fully open to any information that is credible and factual to try and trace Nicola and bring answers for her family but it does remain our belief that Nicola sadly fell into the river and that this is a missing persons inquiry."
Lancashire Police Superintendent Sally Riley added: "Any information that comes in that indicates otherwise is being checked out all the time and negated as each inquiry comes up.
"We're not closed in any way to any particular line of inquiry and we remain genuinely open to that. All these extensive inquiries however have so far not found anything of note."
Faulding previously told MailOnline: "There is a possibility that she has been abducted, but there is no information on that."
However, Supt Riley said at the press briefing this afternoon: "Every single potential third party line of enquiry, suspicious or criminal activity has been looked at and discounted."
She added: "I do believe that we will find Nicola but nature is a powerful force that changes our parameters constantly."
"As I said on Friday, the river is a complex area to search, it's not a still water, it's a fast-flowing moving water that is tidal in parts, and as acknowledged by some of the many national search advisers and experts... this makes it particularly complex," she said.
"We have already discounted particular areas of the river but as they are tidal we have re-searched them to ensure that nothing has been washed back into those searched areas."
Faulding recently said he believes his team's sonar would have found Bulley in under an hour if she were in the river. He also said it is "unlikely" that the missing mom will be found in the sea.
He said: "We've been using the high frequency side scan sonar in this stretch today and it's so detailed I can even see every stone of it. She's not in this stretch.
"We also sonar-ed on the other side down yesterday in the tidal river. Now if you take a football on a tidal river…when the tide goes out the the ball will go down the stream and then as soon as the tide turns it will come back in again. It'll end up back at the same place.
"For Nicola to get out to the sea would be impossible, literally, it is such a long way."
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