No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) (9 page)

The two more junior officers glanced at each other before Sutton took the lead, clearing his throat. “Well, sometimes. You know, certain words and phrases.”

“It’s more of a general West Midlands twang,” supplied Karen Hardwick helpfully from the back seat. “You know, a bit like Lenny Henry.”

“Lenny Henry! He’s from bloody Dudley! No way do I sound like that.” Warren was amazed, how could they not hear the difference?

“It’s just a regional thing, guv,” Sutton interjected quickly. “You know the way most English folks can’t tell the difference between Northern and Southern Irish, or different parts of the North East. You have to live somewhere ages to tell the difference.”

“I imagine the local accents down here are a bit difficult to distinguish for you as well, sir.”

A fair point, Warren acknowledged grudgingly. He had lived here for six months and, although he was slowly starting to recognise the difference between Eastern accents and London, this whole corner of England sounded remarkably homogenous. He was sure that there must be a difference between an Essex and a Hertfordshire accent, but he had yet to figure it out. He admitted as much, even letting slip that he couldn’t distinguish between the Cockney accents on
Eastenders
and Essex accents. His two colleagues shook their heads in disbelief.

Warren grunted and scowled. Truth be told, though, he was enjoying the banter. The atmosphere had been heavy the previous twenty-four hours, with only the darkest humour glimmering. He was confident that details of the conversation would circulate the office in record time. Hopefully a little good-natured teasing would improve morale and even make him seem a bit more human.

The time for levity soon passed though, as the car pulled into the customer parking bay of the tyre fitters that Darren Blackheath worked for. The three officers made their way into the small, glass-walled customer waiting area. At one end of the room was a small desk with a computer. A middle-aged man with greying hair was busy pecking away, two fingers at a time, on a battered keyboard, as he grunted and ‘uh-huh’ed into the mouthpiece of the phone clamped between his shoulder and ear. A small name badge identified him as ‘Jack Bradley — Manager’.

As they waited they gazed through the window into the garage beyond. Blue-overalled mechanics worked away on four different vehicles, Along the far side of the space were literally hundreds of different tyres, forming an almost seamless wall of black, shiny rubber, broken only by brightly coloured advertising posters urging customers to ready their car for winter. Warren counted four mechanics, but no Darren Blackheath.

Finally, the man on the phone finished. Looking up, his eyes narrowed. It was clear that the three visitors weren’t customers. Nevertheless, Warren showed his warrant card and asked if Blackheath was working.

The man nodded his head, wearily. “Yeah, out the back in the stockroom for all the good he’s doing, poor sod. He turned up yesterday morning unexpectedly.” He gestured towards the garage. “I’d already covered his shift and promised the overtime to somebody else, but I couldn’t turn him away. He clearly needs the company. Of course, he’s not said two words to anyone since he turned up, but what can you do?”

Warren nodded sympathetically and asked if they could speak to him.

“Sure, you can use the kitchen. I’ll tell the lads to give you some privacy.” Rounding the desk, the man led them through a door marked ‘Staff Only’. “He’s a liability at the moment,” the man whispered quietly. “I don’t trust him to do MOTs or change tyres — he’s too distracted. I don’t want to think about what would happen if he accidentally forgot to tighten something… Fortunately, we’ve just received a big parts delivery that needs putting away and Ken our store man is off with a bad back. Worst that’ll happen is we spend a bit longer than usual trying to find things.”

He glanced over at Warren, unable to contain his curiosity.

“Have you any idea who did it? She was a lovely girl, and Darren was well loved-up. He’d be out the door six on the dot every day to collect her. Had to get permission to come out for a pint, you know. Some of the boys used to take the piss a bit, like. Said he was under the thumb. He just smiled and said she had lovely thumbs.”

Warren smiled politely.

“We’re actively pursuing a number of lines of enquiry, but as you can appreciate we aren’t in a position to elaborate.” So Sally Evans wore the trousers in that relationship, then. Was that significant? He wouldn’t be the first man to snap under the pressure of a domineering woman — or was he truly as smitten as everyone, her father aside, seemed to think? A brief image of his own in-laws leapt to mind and he quickly suppressed it.

The short corridor that they stood in had four doors, not including the one that they had just walked through. Two doors on the left had signs bearing ‘Toilet’ and ‘Kitchen’ respectively. The single door on the right said ‘Parts’ and the door at the end labelled ‘Garage’ was covered in brightly coloured warning signs, including that for a fire exit.

Pushing open the door marked ‘Parts’, Bradley called out Blackheath’s name and stepped aside to let Jones enter the room. The room smelled of rubber, oil and lubricants and transported Warren back to childhood Saturdays waiting for his dad in Halfords as he picked up a replacement for whatever component had failed that week on his mother’s ageing Mini.

Blackheath was sitting on the floor, surrounded by small cardboard boxes, some empty, others still sealed. A plastic drawer marked ‘5 Watt bulbs — clear’ was half filled by individually packaged small bulbs. Warren winced; he’d once spent over two hours trying to change just such a bulb on his old Citroën. Finally admitting defeat, he’d eventually paid a small fortune for his local dealer to replace it for him. He still had the scars on his knuckles.

Looking at Blackheath, Warren could see that the man was not doing well. He looked gaunt, his skin a pale, sallow colour. His eyes were bloodshot and Warren was sure that he could smell the faintest whiff of alcohol over his strong aftershave.

“Darren? DCI Jones, we spoke yesterday.”

The young tyre fitter looked up and nodded slowly. “I remember. Have you any news?”

“We’re pursuing a number of different leads, but we need to clarify a few things with you. Would you be willing to accompany us to the police station?”

The young man’s eyes widened slightly. “Am I under arrest?” He looked nervous. Warren filed away the man’s reaction for future consideration; however, in his experience, most people were uncomfortable when asked to go to the police station. Furthermore, unless he was completely naïve and never watched TV, Blackheath had to know that the police routinely suspected the boyfriend in cases such as these. On the other hand, perhaps Blackheath had something to be afraid of?

“No, nothing like that. I’d just rather we got the facts down on tape. At this stage you are simply accompanying us voluntarily to help us with our enquiries.”

The young man nodded his agreement, clearly not registering the caveat that Warren had slipped into the start of the third sentence. As he got to his feet Warren reminded him who Karen Hardwick was and introduced Tony Sutton. As agreed, Hardwick was sympathetic and asked how he was coping; Sutton said nothing, remaining a dark, brooding presence.

* * *

Jack Bradley had been visibly relieved when Blackheath had asked to take a break and the three police officers and the grieving youth arrived back at the station barely twenty minutes later. After being reminded that he wasn’t under arrest and advised of his rights, Blackheath was given a cup of coffee and led into Interview Suite One.

The team of detectives knocking doors on Blackheath and Evans’ estate had yet to find a witness who could positively place Blackheath or his car outside his flat at the time he claimed and so Warren started the interview by confirming the timings claimed by Blackheath the previous day, looking for any discrepancies that might indicate the man was lying. He repeated everything precisely for the tape.

Now for the hard part.

“Darren, how would you describe your relationship with Sally’s father?”

Blackheath sighed. “Me and Bill never got on well. He doesn’t think I’m good enough for his little girl.” He shook his head bitterly. “Sally is…was a really bright girl. And ambitious. She went to university and dreamed of becoming a senior manager in one of the major travel companies one day. Whereas me… Well, you’ve seen where I work. I don’t even have a college certificate.”

“So that was it? He just thought you were a bit beneath her?”

“It was more than that. He thinks I’m lazy and lack ambition and he thinks I’ve made Sally the same way.” Blackheath’s eyes flashed; he was clearly angry about Evans’ perception of him.

“Why would he think that? From what we’ve heard, Sally was a strong, independently minded young woman, with lots of plans for the future.”

“Exactly. The thing is, her old man never really understood what she did at Far and Away. He thought she was just sitting at the desk, checking the computers for cut-price deals. He thought she was stuck in a rut and needed to move on. But she did much more than that. She was unofficially deputy store manager. Kelli, her boss, took her under her wing and was letting her sit in on meetings and try her hand at running the business. Her dad wanted her to leave Far and Away and join one of the big companies as a trainee manager. But Sally reckoned she was getting more experience with Kelli than she’d have got in any of the bigger companies. Besides which, her job at Far and Away was secure — the company was bucking the trend and holding its own against the online companies. If she started fresh at one of the big travel agents, there’s no guarantee they wouldn’t sack her the moment they hit a tough patch.” He smiled sadly, clearly remembering a conversation. “She always said that she should be grateful to have a job in the current climate and she’d be mad to risk it. She planned to stay put until the economy picks up.”

“You were going to propose to Sally at Christmas. What do you think her father’s reaction would be? Were you going to ask his permission?”

Blackheath snorted, his face darkening.

“No way. He’d have turned me down flat. Me and Sally are grown adults. I’ve been putting away a little money and Sally had some savings. We were going to pay for the wedding ourselves, do it our own way.”

“You seem pretty confident, considering that you hadn’t yet proposed and she hadn’t accepted. How did you know she would say yes?”

Blackheath shrugged and his eyes turned moist. “I’ve known ever since we moved in together. We’ve talked about having kids but we’re both a little old-fashioned and wanted to get married first. We had plans for the future.” He sniffed loudly, wiping his eyes with the cuff of his overall. “It was never a question of if we’d get married, but when we’d get married.”

There was a few moments’ silence, whilst Blackheath composed himself.

“What about your parents? How did they feel about Sally? What did they think about you moving in with her?”

Blackheath’s face darkened. “I’d rather not talk about that. I haven’t spoken to my parents since before I met Sally.”

Warren raised an eyebrow as if surprised. “How is that so? I thought that you were living with your parents until you moved in with Sally? That was less than a year ago and you’d been dating for, what, two years before then? How can you live with your parents and not discuss Sally with them?”

“My parents’ house is very large and I had the use of the granny flat. It was quite possible to live day to day and not speak to them.”

“I see. Why don’t you get on with your parents, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I do mind you asking and I’d rather not talk about it.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Blackheath. I didn’t mean to intrude.” Warren backtracked slightly, careful not to upset the young man. That was Sutton’s job.

“I don’t see why you didn’t just move out if you weren’t speaking to your mum and dad.” Sutton spoke up, right on cue.

“I couldn’t afford to. Not on my own, with the money I earn. Mum and Dad let me have the granny flat for free. Felt guilty, I suppose.”

“What did they feel guilty about? Is it why you don’t talk?” Sutton pressed.

Blackheath scowled. “Like I said, it’s private. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s got nothing to do with Sally’s death.”

“I heard it was to do with the Kim Bradshaw affair.”

Blackheath stared at Sutton in stunned silence for a few seconds, before shaking his head slowly from side to side.

“It’s never going to leave me alone, is it?” he asked no one in particular. “Everywhere I go. Everything I do. It’s never going to be forgotten.” He sank forward, burying his head in his hands.

“Tell us what happened, Darren,” suggested Hardwick, kindly.

Blackheath’s voice was muffled, but nevertheless clear enough for the tape. He started slowly.

“The whole thing ruined my life. Just one foolish accident and that was it. I was happy until then; life was good.”

He sat up and looked the three officers squarely in the eyes, one at a time.

“You know, I never planned on working in a tyre fitters all my life. In fact if you’d asked when I was sixteen I’d have laughed at you. I wanted to be a mechanic, not a ‘technician’.” He mimed quote marks in the air. “I wanted to run my own garage. Do real repairs. I wanted customers to drive in with a weird noise under the bonnet first thing in the morning and drive out good as new that afternoon. Instead I spend all day changing fucking tyres and exhausts. If we do an MOT and the car fails on anything more complicated than a dodgy windscreen wiper, we have to get one of the local garages to fix it for us. It’s bloody embarrassing. They barely hide their contempt for us when we drop off the car. They write down what they did on a piece of paper so that we can read it to the customer, as if we don’t know one end of a spanner from the other.”

“So what happened?” Hardwick repeated softly.

“It was a few years ago. I was about halfway through a motor mechanics course at college, studying two days a week and working the rest of the week as an apprentice at my dad’s mate’s garage. Everything was going fantastic. Then I met Kim Bradshaw.”