No Smoke Without Fire. Paul Gitsham

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 tapped a pencil thoughtfully. “So it seems that this witness, what CCTV we have and the forensics back up his story of what took place. I’d suggest that he’s no longer a suspect.” Heads nodded around the briefing table.

      “OK, next up, where are we on Bill Evans’ alibi?”

      DC Annabel Willis, a new probationary constable who had been assigned to follow up on that lead, spoke up. “Not much yet, I’m afraid. Travelodge have been very helpful. They confirm that his credit card was used in the Cambridge branch that evening. We’re looking at CCTV to see if we can piece together his comings and goings, but by their own admission it’d be easy enough to leave the hotel for a few hours without being picked up if you really wanted to.”

      “What about this mysterious woman he claims to be having an affair with?”

      This time it was DS Johnson who addressed the team. “Not a lot yet. As he suggested, her mobile phone is switched off. They aren’t due to meet up for another month — more if they skip the New Year weekend. We’re trying to trace ownership of her phone, but it doesn’t look helpful. We contacted the dating agency to see if she paid by credit card and to ask what records they have on the two of them, but they’ve insisted on a court order. However, the woman I spoke to hinted that they hold very little useful data. They might not even use credit cards, rather an Internet-based payment system that isn’t located in this country.”

      “So verifying his alibi is going to be very difficult,” summarised Sutton.

      “Well, keep at him. Something about him doesn’t quite ring true.” The two officers nodded their assent.

      “With those two out of the way, perhaps we should turn our attention to new suspects. Gary, why don’t you take us through what you and DS Kent have found?”

      Hastings removed the picture of Blackheath’s car from the screen.

      “DS Kent and I have been putting all of the forensic and scene evidence into the HOLMES database to see what comes up. It’s been quite tricky as the most striking characteristic of this case has been the lack of evidence at the scene. Anyhow, we finally figured out the correct search terms to use, uploaded what information we had and we’ve started getting interesting results.”

      He clicked on the screen.

      “We have five potential hits. Rapes where very little forensic evidence was gathered and the CSIs speculate that the perpetrator went to great lengths to avoid leaving trace behind. In all five cases the victims followed a very set routine and were kidnapped, subdued with solvent, bound then taken to a secluded spot to be raped. They were then left and found by a member of the public. However,