No Smoke Without Fire. Paul Gitsham

blushed. “She was. Kim meant nothing to me. I was just panicking. Getting married seemed to be the right thing to do. Fortunately, Kim turned me down. Called me a bloody idiot. Either way, we knew we had to tell our parents, which neither of us was looking forward to.

      “So she went home to tell her old man…” Blackheath’s voice started to shake “…but I was too scared to go with her. I wish I had now, then maybe she wouldn’t have done what she did.

      “I knew I should tell Mum and Dad, but I couldn’t figure out how to, so I went to bed, praying the phone wouldn’t ring, promising myself I’d tell them in the morning.

      “I never got the chance. Two a.m., the doorbell rang. It was the police.”

      Blackheath’s voice was getting quieter and quieter. “They arrested me on suspicion of rape. I’ll never forget it. Mum was in tears and Dad was demanding to know who I was supposed to have done it with.”

      Blackheath’s eyes were looking watery again, but this time his voice was tight with anger. “They took me straight down the police station. I was fingerprinted and a DNA sample taken, then I was strip-searched and they photographed me.” His lip curled in disgust. “It was the most humiliating experience of my life.”

      Warren ignored the faint feeling of sympathy, knowing that whatever indignities Blackheath had suffered were nothing compared to the violations heaped upon rape victims.

      “Anyway, I was charged and spent the weekend in jail before being bailed on the Monday morning, pending trial in six months.”

      “It says in the file that the case was dropped. The prosecution changed their case at the last moment. What happened?”

      Blackheath shook his head, slowly as if he still couldn’t believe it.

      “It was all part of the plan. It’s obvious now. She got what she wanted. If her old man knew she was pregnant because of a drunken one-night stand he’d have disowned her. As things stood, she was the victim. The fact was, the prosecution case was really weak. We had a really strong defence and we knew that we were going to win. There were holes in her story and her credibility was poor. We had the texts that she sent to me the morning after the night we did it and the text she sent me asking to meet up when she told me about the pregnancy. If I really had raped her, why would she have wanted to meet me again?”

      The question was clearly rhetorical and Blackheath continued without prompting. “Anyway, you know how this country works. Rape victims are granted anonymity, of course, but the accused is dragged through the mud, his life laid out for everyone to see. Obviously I lost my job, I couldn’t carry on working for Kim’s dad, and college suspended me indefinitely — in reality they kicked me out. I couldn’t continue there.

      “And the anonymity thing is a joke. They couldn’t report Kim’s story in the papers obviously, but she made sure that everyone in the community knew. And her old man made sure every business in the area knew the story. I couldn’t go for a pint without people pointing or staring. Some places wouldn’t even let me through the door. I was attacked twice and my parents’ house was spray-painted and the tyres slashed on their car.

      “Anyway, finally the day comes for her to testify. It was a Monday and I turn up and after hanging around all day I’m told that the prosecution have requested a delay because Kim is ill.

      “The next day I turn up and she isn’t there. I’m told that the prosecution case has been dropped and I’m free to go.”

      “Well, surely that was a good thing?” Karen Hardwick looked confused. Warren said nothing, letting Blackheath explain.

      “No! That was the worst thing that could happen, other than being convicted of something I didn’t do. I wasn’t acquitted or cleared of any wrongdoing. Everyone reckons I ‘got away with it’. The story Bradshaw and her family put out was that the stress was so bad she had a miscarriage and they decided that it wasn’t worth putting her through the ordeal and dropped the case.

      “It’s bollocks, of course. Everyone knows that she got a late abortion and that her case was so weak it shouldn’t have made it to court. But you lot are under pressure to solve more rapes. They must have figured they were going to lose this one, so they didn’t raise a stink when she said she wanted to drop it.” The bitterness was strong in his voice and he stared the three police officers straight in the eyes, as if he held them personally responsible for his ordeal.

      “So what happened next?”

      Blackheath snorted derisively. “Well, you know what they say — ‘no smoke without fire’. Obviously I couldn’t get my job back and those bastards in the college admissions department refused to enrol me again, so I spent the next nine months on the dole. Nobody was interested in employing me.

      “Eventually, I got a call from Jack Bradley.” Here, Blackheath’s expression softened slightly. “He’s a good bloke. He needed a tyre fitter and he knew I had enough training for the job. He’s a Methodist preacher and he believes in giving people a second chance. He said that in the eyes of the law I’m an innocent man and if Jesus could forgive convicted criminals, then the least he could do was give someone like me a helping hand.” Blackheath shook his head. “Twelve months previously, I’d have called him a patronising bastard and told him to stick his job, but I was desperate.”

      He paused for a moment. “He really is a good man. Everyone who works for him has been in trouble of some kind. Two lads have been in jail and Joe is a recovering alcoholic. Ken, our store man, had a nervous breakdown when his wife left him and ended up on the street. Jack took him in, gave him a job and ten years later he’s got a new wife and two kids.”

      “Sounds as if it all worked out, then,” said Sutton crassly, still playing the role of ‘bad cop’.

      Blackheath’s eyes flashed. “Well, I was getting by. I had a job at least and over time people were starting to forget about the court case.”

      “Is all this why you don’t speak to your parents?” Hardwick asked softly.

      Blackheath glared at her for a few seconds, then sighed. “Yeah. They stood by me and all that and I know they don’t believe I did it, but it cost them. Dad said I had been bloody stupid to get mixed up with the boss’ daughter, let alone get her pregnant. They said they thought I’d been better brought up than that.”

      “What do you mean it cost them?”

      “Kim Bradshaw’s old man is a big name in the local community. My dad was a painter and decorator with a really good reputation. He never had to advertise — he had more work than he needed just by word of mouth. That all dried up. He had to let his three lads go. They’d worked with him for over twenty years. They were like family. We stopped going to church. Mum couldn’t stand the whispering and the pointing. And then Nan died. She took the court case really hard. She was terrified I’d go to prison. She had a heart attack just before the trial. I know Mum and Dad blame me.

      “Anyway, I couldn’t afford to move out and Mum and Dad wouldn’t let their son go homeless, so I moved into the annexe where Nan used to live.”

      The tears were back and Blackheath did nothing to stop them. “I hated it. Even though I’d emptied it all out, it was still Nan’s flat. It had its own separate entrance, so I locked the connecting door and that was it. I never set foot in Mum and Dad’s house again. I spent Christmas at a mate’s.”

      “And then you met Sally?”

      Blackheath nodded. “She was the best thing that happened to me.”

      “And she knew about the Bradshaw affair?”

      “Who bloody didn’t? Her father certainly did. At first I think she was attracted by the bad-boy image — she was going through a bit of a rebellious streak — but pretty soon she got over it and we fell in love. At least living with Mum and Dad was free. I got a pay rise at work after Jack arranged for me to qualify to do MOTs and we managed to scrape together enough to rent the flat and start saving for the future.”