No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) (4 page)

“What did you do then?”

“I drove home and started phoning all of her friends. Cheryl and Sal’s mum came around about half-seven. By midnight we couldn’t think of anyone else to call and figured that if she had gone to the pub with some other mate, she’d be back by now. That’s when we called the police and reported her missing.”

By now, Warren’s gut was telling him that Blackheath was not their man. However, if his timing was to be believed, there was a ninety-minute window between Sally Evans leaving work and her mother and best friend arriving at the flat; potentially long enough for him to have taken Sally Evans to Beaconsfield Woods, raped her, dumped her body, then returned home. Warren made a note to check with neighbours what time Blackheath’s car had arrived back at the flat.

In order to eliminate him fully, Warren arranged for Blackheath to be escorted to the police station for fingerprinting, DNA typing and a formal statement. He also arranged for Forensics to go over his car and the flat.

With Blackheath dispatched to the station and a forensic unit on its way to look for evidence, Jones and Hardwick drove the short distance to the home of Cheryl Davenport, Sally Evans’ best friend.

The young woman that answered the door was a short, slightly plump girl with bottle-blonde, permed hair. Her make-up, though expertly applied, couldn’t conceal the dark rings under her eyes and their swollen redness. The tears came back within moments of the two police officers entering her small kitchen. She offered her visitors a coffee, which they both accepted, less to quench their thirst than to give the grieving woman a few moments to compose herself.

As she fiddled with the kettle Warren took stock of the tiny room. It was pretty much what he expected of a twenty-something, single woman. Tidy and compact, the sink was already full of mugs but no other cutlery; the overloaded ashtray spoke of a person whose world had been turned upside down and who had spent the past three days living on caffeine, nicotine and worry. The kitchen units were clearly the cheap MDF beloved of low-rent landlords. A washing machine took up the only space under the counter, forcing the tall, fridge-freezer to stand awkwardly in the corner, half hidden by the open door. Stuck to its white front were the usual Post-it notes and postcards. In pride of place were a half-dozen photographs of Cheryl and her best friend Sally, mostly arm in arm, taken on beaches or foreign-looking nightclubs.

Noticing his gaze, Cheryl started to cry again. “We’ve been going on holiday ever since we left school. The last couple of years we’ve been to Greece, Turkey, Egypt, you name it — Sally kept an eye out for cheap deals when she was at work and she usually managed to wangle us some sort of discount or upgrade.” She sniffed loudly. “Even when she started seeing Darren, we still went off on our girlie trips. That doesn’t always happen you know. Some girls get hooked up and that’s it, they only go away with their blokes. But Darren was all right about it — he was pretty cool. He said she could have her week in the sun with me, as long as he could go on his footie tour.”

It was another point in Blackheath’s favour, Warren decided. Men who killed their partners often turned out to be domineering and controlling types; hardly the sort of man who’d let his girlfriend disappear for a week of fun in the sun without him. Nevertheless, they needed to pursue every lead to its conclusion. He glanced at Karen Hardwick, who picked up on his subtle cue.

“We’re sorry to put you through this, Cheryl — it must be an awful time for you — but we need to ask some questions. Will you help us?”

Cheryl nodded; underneath the tears, Warren could see a strong resolve to help in any way that she could to find her best friend’s killer.

The story she told was much the same as that of Blackheath. She’d texted Evans at about six p.m., inviting herself over with a DVD and a bottle of wine. She hadn’t received a reply, but about six-thirty Darren had called asking if she’d seen her. After he’d hung up, she’d put it out of her mind as she made herself something to eat and got ready to go out. Apparently Sally could be a bit forgetful when it came to charging her mobile phone and so she hadn’t been worried. By seven-thirty, Sally hadn’t phoned or responded to her text message and she had been just about to try her landline when Darren had called, sounding worried.

Picking up her address book, she’d set off for their flat, arriving about the same time as Sally’s mother, who Darren had also called. At first they’d been a bit jokey, trying to convince Darren that it was nothing, but as they finished calling all of her usual friends the worry had set in. Finally, at about midnight, they’d called the police to report her missing.

“If only we’d called sooner, maybe they’d have found her before…before…” Finally she dissolved in a flood of tears, her carefully constructed façade collapsing completely.

Hardwick leant over and took her hands and Warren was again glad that he’d decided to bring the young detective constable along with him. The two women were roughly the same age and some jobs needed a special touch that Warren, try as he might, would never possess.

“You don’t know that. It’s unlikely that we’d have found her any sooner — we wouldn’t have known where to start looking.” Karen didn’t mention, of course, that with no evidence of foul play a young woman missing for less than six hours — before the clubs even closed — wouldn’t merit much more than a few details in the duty log and a sympathetic, but firm, ‘wait and see if she turns up in the morning, then call again’.

After a few moments, the young woman regained her composure. Warren took over now. “Tell me about Darren. I believe they’d been together a while?”

Cheryl nodded. “Nearly three years. They’d been in the flat for almost a year. He’s been good to her. He has a heart of gold.” For the first time since they arrived, she smiled. “I teased her when they first started dating. He’s a right skinny one is Darren and he isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but he really loves her and he’d do anything for you. He’s never really been one for nightclubbing or that, he prefers a quiet night in, but he always insists on picking us up if we’ve been out on the town. ‘No smoking and no puking’, he always says whenever he turns up in that car of his. Sally used to joke that she never worried about him having an affair, because, between looking after her and polishing his car, he hasn’t got enough energy.” The smile faded as the reality of the past few days came flooding back.

“So you would say that they had a strong relationship?”

Cheryl nodded vigorously, before her expression turned conspiratorial. “He was going to ask her to marry him.”

Warren blinked. It seemed a little odd that he would share his intentions with his girlfriend’s best friend. He said as much.

Cheryl laughed slightly. “Oh, he never said a word. Sal told me. The silly sod hid the ring in his underwear drawer — she found it one day when she was hunting for a missing sock. She knew exactly what he was planning but didn’t have the heart to let him know the cat was out of the bag. She was going to act all surprised when he asked her. She swore me to secrecy.” The brief moment of happiness passed and Cheryl’s face crumpled again. “I don’t suppose it matters now.”

The feeling in Warren’s gut was even stronger. Mentally he crossed Sally Evans’ boyfriend off his suspect list. Moving on, he asked Cheryl if Sally had mentioned anything strange over the past few days. Had any ex-boyfriends turned up on the scene or had she mentioned any disagreements with friends or co-workers?

To every question, Cheryl shook her head firmly, insisting that Sally told her everything.

“She didn’t have much of a history before Darren. He was her first really serious boyfriend. She dated a couple of lads at university, but never for more than a few months and I think they are all happy and married now.” She blushed slightly. “She wasn’t…inexperienced before she met Darren, you know, but she didn’t put it about and she’s been faithful to Darren ever since she met him — I’m absolutely sure of that.”

“What about co-workers? Is there anybody who could have perhaps mistaken friendliness for a bit more and got jealous?” Warren was grasping at straws now. The statistics showed that so-called ‘stranger attacks’ were far rarer than the public feared. Almost all victims had had some prior contact with their murderer, no matter how slight. Attacks by a total stranger were not only rare, they were also inherently more difficult to solve, because so many of the leads that the police would normally follow were absent.

In answer to his question, Cheryl was again equally firm. Almost the entire company was composed of females, varying in age from twenty-something to late fifties. Warren wasn’t quite ready to dismiss them yet; he’d interview them first. He couldn’t rule out that they were working a partnership with a male accomplice, but he knew it was unlikely, given that Sally Evans had probably been sexually assaulted as well as murdered.

The two male employees were added to the interview list, but again Warren’s instinct told him that, based on Cheryl’s description, Kevin the seventeen-year-old Saturday boy and Angus the openly gay former flight attendant, who lived in a civil partnership and took care of his elderly mother, were unlikely to be responsible.

Finally, Warren could think of no more questions. As they left he heard the sound of the kettle being filled again and smelt the first wisps of tobacco smoke, as Sally Evans’ best friend settled down again with her grief.

Chapter 5

The final visit of the morning, before returning to the station to take stock, was to Sally Evans’ parents.

The small house where Sally Evans had spent most of her childhood was filled with mourners. Grandparents, aunts and uncles occupied every chair. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and every surface held an ashtray, a teacup or both. The atmosphere was one of grief but also mutual support. Warren couldn’t help contrast that with the loneliness of her boyfriend — why wasn’t he here?

Don’t judge, he chided himself. For all he knew, Blackheath could have spent the last two days here and only returned to the flat to get changed. He’d probably have found the smoky atmosphere hard going as well. Warren remembered that when the law changed to outlaw smoking in enclosed public spaces, some bright spark with more legal sense than common sense had noted that when a police officer visited a person in their house, it could be argued the house was now a ‘place of work’ and so the occupants should be asked to refrain from lighting up whilst the visitor was present. Needless to say, as much as Warren and his colleagues might dislike sitting in a cloud of fumes when they did their job, it would be regarded as rather poor taste to ask a grieving family if they’d mind stubbing out their cigarettes before the police could interview them.

After expressing their condolences to the many family members, Jones and Hardwick were led into the kitchen where Sally Evans’ parents were sitting. The similarity between mother and daughter was immediately apparent, even through the tears and running make-up. The two even sported a similar haircut, although Jane Evans’ hair was running to ash-blonde, rather than the dark blonde of her late daughter.

Bill Evans bore only the most superficial of similarities to his daughter. A tall, craggy man of late middle-age, he had steel-grey hair and a slight paunch. Behind rimless reading glasses, his eyes were also puffy.

After declining a cup of coffee — there was a limit to how much he could drink in one morning — Warren turned to the matter in hand. Focusing first on Mrs Evans, he asked her to recount the events of the night Sally went missing. Again, the details matched exactly those told to the missing persons team and most recently to Jones and Hardwick by Cheryl and Darren.

Moving on to the subject of Darren, Warren asked about the relationship between the two young lovers. Suddenly, Bill Evans surged to his feet, his face reddening. “Don’t speak to me about that man in this house — if it hadn’t been for him, our girl would be sitting here safe and sound, not dead and lying on some…” His voice choked off and, brushing away his wife’s hand, he raced out of the room.

* * *

Warren rocked back in surprise at the man’s sudden outburst. Everything they had heard about Darren Blackheath had been good so far, so why animosity from Sally Evans’ father?

He turned to Jane Evans, who looked as if she was about to start crying again. Visibly pulling herself together, she waved a hand in the air as if to ward off their concern.

“Don’t read too much into that, Detective,” she started. “He doesn’t mean it really. He’s just upset.”

“I’m a little surprised,” admitted Warren. “I thought Darren was popular with Sally’s friends and family?”

“Oh, he is, just not with her father.”

“Why is that?” Warren had been all but certain that Blackheath was in the clear, but obviously at least one person wasn’t so sure.

Jane Evans sighed and took a long sip of her tea.

“Sally has always been a Daddy’s girl and she was the apple of Bill’s eye. She’s our only child and he worshipped her from the moment she was born. Truth be told, I don’t think that any man would ever be good enough for her in his eyes, least of all Darren.”

Warren waited silently as she composed her thoughts.

“Sally was a slow developer at school and she was finally diagnosed as dyslexic. That was a real blow for Bill as he is dyslexic also. It’s silly, I know, but he always felt guilty that he’d passed on some gene. Anyway, the school were fantastic and, with lots of support from them and us, Sally started to pick up the ground that she’d lost. By secondary school, she was scoring average grades and her reading and writing was almost normal for her age. She worked so hard and when she finally got the A levels to go to university we were both so proud. Nobody in our family had ever been before.”

As the topic of conversation switched from her dead daughter to her husband, Jane Evans visibly softened. Warren wasn’t certain where her long, rambling tale about her husband’s achievements in spite of a disability that forty years previously had seen him dismissed as thick and lazy was headed, but he let her talk at her own pace.