No Smoke Without Fire. Paul Gitsham

Within a minute, the young man was out on the street, breathing in the icy December air.

      * * *

      Back in the interview room, Warren polled his fellow officers. “Thoughts?”

      “I think he’s genuine. I rattled his cage good and hard but his story never changed. My gut tells me he didn’t do it.” Sutton shrugged apologetically as if sorry that he hadn’t been able to wring a confession out of the young man.

      “I have to agree with DI Sutton, sir. He seemed genuine when we saw him yesterday and he hasn’t changed a single detail since then. I think he really did love her. I also think her father was wrong and that she was going to marry him.”

      Warren agreed with both Sutton and Hardwick. “My gut feeling is exactly the same. But we can’t completely rule him out without eyewitness evidence or forensics—” he glanced at his watch “—which I am expecting any minute. Tell you what, why don’t you two go and have an early lunch? We’ll get the rest of the team together and have a meeting at one p.m.”

      “Yes, sir,” both officers replied as Warren left the room.

      Karen Hardwick turned to Sutton. “How do you do it, sir?”

      Sutton knew what she was asking about. “You just have to put aside your feelings. It doesn’t matter if you feel sorry for them or not. Policing isn’t a popularity contest. Sometimes you have to be harsh and nasty, because it’s a harsh and nasty world.” He grimaced slightly. “Even if it does leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth.”

      “Well, when we find the real killer, hopefully he’ll understand.”

      Sutton shrugged. “Time will tell.”

      Suddenly the door opened again and the desk sergeant poked his head around the door. “DCI Jones says don’t be late back from lunch. Blackheath’s off the hook and you’ve got a new suspect.”

Chapter 15

      After a revelation like that, lunch was the last thing on Sutton’s and Hardwick’s minds and both raced upstairs to the CID main office. One p.m. was nearly an hour away and detectives by their very nature were insatiably curious; there was no way that the two officers were going to wait to find out what had been discovered. Unfortunately, the door to Warren’s office was closed. The DCI’s rules were very clear — if the door was open, they could knock and enter. If the door was closed, they shouldn’t knock unless it was an emergency. Sutton looked at Carol, Warren’s unofficial PA. She shrugged apologetically and pointed at the highly complex telephone unit that sat on her desk. “He’s in there with DC Hastings on a conference call.”

      “Any idea who he’s talking to?” blurted Karen Hardwick, without thinking.

      Carol pursed her lips in disapproval. “I’m sure that if DCI Jones wants you to know who he is talking to on his private line, he will tell you himself, Detective Constable.”

      Hardwick blushed and stared at her shoes.

      Sutton thanked Carol for her assistance and led the embarrassed constable away.

      “OK, plan B. When Gary comes out of there and you two disappear off for lunch together, you find out what he’s got.”

      Hardwick turned even redder. “What do you mean ‘disappear off for lunch together’?”

      Sutton looked at her in amusement. “You’re working with a team of trained observers, Karen. How long did you two think you’d keep it quiet?”

      Karen covered her face with her hands. “Oh, no. We were so careful, trying to be professional at work.”

      Belatedly Sutton realised why she was so uncomfortable. “Don’t worry, lass. Nobody thinks otherwise. So long as you keep your private life at home, nobody cares.” He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “If anything, the guv thinks you make a sweet couple.”

      Karen moaned as if in pain.

      “I’m not really helping, am I?” asked Sutton.

      “No, sir, not really.”

      * * *

      The briefing room was packed with team members, all eager to hear the latest developments. Warren called for quiet and the buzz of conversation settled down. Neither Karen nor Tony Sutton had managed to speak to DCI Jones or DC Hastings, so they were still in the dark about the new suspect.

      Warren decided to address the question of Darren Blackheath first, handing over to Gary Hastings.

      The DC shuffled the piece of paper in front of him. “I have the remaining results from the house-to-house inquiries conducted with Sally Evans’ neighbours. We’ve finally spoken to everyone on the estate. It’s the usual story: half the neighbours didn’t recognise her photo and most of the rest couldn’t remember what they were doing that evening. Those that knew the couple said that they seemed ‘nice enough’ and never had any bother. There was no evidence that there were any problems.

      “The night she went missing, most couldn’t recall if Blackheath’s car had been present earlier in the evening, before her mother and Cheryl came around. However, we finally found one eyewitness who claims to be certain that he saw Blackheath’s car about six-thirty, before he went out to join his wife at the local bingo hall. I showed him a picture of the car and he said he recognised it immediately.” He gestured towards a picture of the car projected on the far wall. “Let’s face it, he’s hardly going to be mistaken.”

      A polite titter went around the room. Darren Blackheath’s pride and joy was nothing if not distinctive. It had started life as a dark purple Vauxhall Astra. Its year of manufacture was unclear as the personalised number plate suggested the owner was a ‘Bad Boy’, rather than giving a registration date.

      The vanity plate was the least personalised element of the car. The car’s tyres had been replaced with what appeared to be little more than black elastic bands wrapped around gold alloy disks. The suspension was lowered to make anything higher than a few centimetres a hazard to the fat, twin exhaust pipes that protruded from the rear, and graffiti-style electric-blue decals covered the vehicle, contrasting jarringly with the paint job. An unnecessarily large spoiler on the back made the whole thing look like a toy. The blacked-out windows, fluorescent-pink windscreen wipers and double bank of headlamps completed the whole garish ensemble.

      “Thanks, Gary. Anything from Forensics?”

      “No evidence of any foul play in either Blackheath’s car or their apartment. The car has been cleaned very thoroughly recently, which may have removed traces of mud, but that in itself isn’t suspicious. Blackheath is known to be obsessive about his car and he polished it most weekends. There is plenty of Sally Evans’ DNA inside the car and some fibres matching the coat she was wearing the night she was killed, but that is to be expected. She didn’t drive so Blackheath ferried her around a lot. However, there was none in the boot, or the back seat where you’d expect him to have forced her to sit.”

      “He could have propped her up in the passenger seat. It was dark,” suggested Sutton, although he was clearly playing devil’s advocate.

      Hastings shrugged. “Anything’s possible, I suppose.” He didn’t sound convinced.

      “What about traffic and surveillance?” Warren asked, eager to move the conversation on.

      “There are no surveillance or traffic cameras near the back alley where she was presumably abducted from. However, traffic cameras a couple of junctions away caught his licence number both just before six, when he should have been about to arrive and pick her up, and about fifteen minutes later when he claims to have left. We can’t tell what he did in that fifteen-minute window, but the timings are consistent with his version of events. Unfortunately, we have no other sightings of the car, so only the eyewitness report ties him to the apartment and rules out him driving her to the woods.”

      Warren