Paul Gitsham - No Smoke Without Fire

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.”