Read No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) Online
Authors: Paul Gitsham
So where did that leave them? The two next likeliest suspects both had some history of offending and both could be seen as having a motive. Again, Warren felt himself drawn back to the statistic that most murders were committed by people known to the victim.
* * *
Back at the station, time seemed to have slowed down to a crawl. Now that the exciting, obvious leads had dried up, it was down to basics and good old-fashioned detective work. After a brainstorming meeting with the team, Warren divided the detectives into smaller groups and assigned each of them specific tasks.
Sally Evans’ father, Bill Evans, was not yet out of the frame and so DC Willis and DS Johnson continued trying to track down his clandestine lover and verify his alibi. A small team from Traffic continued to study CCTV footage from around Far and Away. Now that a witness had confirmed that Blackheath’s distinctive car was outside the couple’s flat at the time of the murder, corroborating his story, he was no longer of interest to the team. However, Evans had disappeared during rush hour and the local surveillance and traffic cameras had picked up literally hundreds of different vehicles during the short window during which she was believed to have disappeared. With no direct coverage of the alleyway that Evans had been waiting in, the team was undertaking the tedious task of trying to piece together each vehicle’s journey from the many different cameras in the surrounding area, working out which of them would be realistically capable of kidnapping Evans from outside the rear entrance to her workplace.
Following Warren’s belief that stranger killings were the exception, rather than the rule, most of the rest of the team were busy turning Sally Evans’ life upside down. Friends, family, co-workers, ex-boyfriends, former neighbours, other students from her university days, all of them were scrutinised, sometimes even contacted.
In the meantime, Richard Cameron’s world was also probed. Everything the police and CPS had on the man from his original convictions, as well as more recent information gathered by the probation service, was scrutinised. The team looked for a link, no matter how small, between Cameron and Sally Evans.
By early evening, Warren could feel the enthusiasm in the office starting to wane as the team hit more and more dead ends. A phone call to Welwyn confirmed that it would be the next day before a report detailing the first results from the numerous outstanding forensic investigations was available. Warren tried to put a positive spin on it, by telling the investigators that what they were doing at that moment was preparing the ground so that they could act upon the next day’s evidence, but even to his ears it sounded like a meaningless platitude.
As he drove home that night, Warren felt low and dejected. Sally Evans had been killed almost a week ago and the investigation was already starting to lose momentum. The case needed an injection of something game-changing; it needed some sort of breakthrough, but at the moment Warren couldn’t see where that was going to come from. He grimaced in distaste, knowing what Det Supt Grayson would suggest: A press conference.
As Warren settled down in front of the TV with a glass of beer and brooded, on the other side of town Carolyn Patterson decided to take advantage of the relatively mild weather and walk the mile home from her weekly boxercise class. It was the last session before Christmas and Carolyn was feeling a little guilty. With the festive season approaching, she’d vowed not to put on any weight, in preparation for her younger sister’s forthcoming wedding. She knew of course that on the big day all eyes would be on the bride; nevertheless the beautiful bridesmaid’s dress hanging in her wardrobe was still a little too tight and she had no intention of appearing bloated in the wedding photos. She was maid of honour, newly single and determined that she was going to make an entrance that every single man in the room would remember.
She’d been doing really well, up until tonight, when the pre-Christmas atmosphere had meant that her normal, post-exercise glass of wine with the girls from class had somehow become three. This had then been followed by a slice of the fantastic chocolate cake on offer behind the sports centre’s bar. She pouted at the memory. It was hardly fair, she thought, offering such eye-catching treats to people who’d just spent an hour exercising — it was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Not only did they make a huge amount of money from charging three pounds a slice, they also ensured a return visit to their facilities by guilt-ridden dieters desperate to atone for their moment of weakness. With that in mind, she decided that her New Year’s resolution would be to bring a banana and a bottle of water with her to class and to steer clear of the centre’s bar. At least until after the wedding.
Pulling her collar up to shield her face from the slight breeze and setting her iPod to shuffle, she set off towards her flat at a determined march. A fifteen-minute walk home, even at a brisk pace, wasn’t nearly enough to compensate for three glasses of sweet white wine and a slab of double-chocolate cake, oozing with chocolate icing, but it was a start, she decided. Tomorrow was her day off and she was planning on doing some Christmas shopping; if she walked into town instead of catching the bus and went for a swim at lunchtime, then maybe tonight wouldn’t be a complete disaster.
As she strode along the darkened side street connecting the main road housing Middlesbury Sports and Leisure Centre to the busy thoroughfare that led eventually to her housing estate, she was suddenly bathed in the bright white lights of a vehicle behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she was a little surprised; it was unusual to see one at this time of night. Then she remembered that she was walking home at least an hour later than usual.
Mentally dismissing it, she turned her attention back to her music. Lady Gaga was describing how she was stuck in a bad romance. Carolyn smiled to herself; twelve months ago she could have related. All over now though, she thought. She’d finally seen sense and given that creep the boot. It would be the first Christmas she had celebrated on her own in four years; as daunting as that was, it would also be the first New Year’s Eve and who knew what might happen as Big Ben rang out?
Turning the music up slightly, she fought the urge to sing along. Steady on, girl, she admonished herself. Don’t want to wake the neighbours up!
The song ended and she realised that the glowing lights behind her had stopped moving some time ago, yet in the silence before the next track started she could still hear the growl of the engine.
It was the sudden change in her pace as she turned instinctively that threw her attacker off balance. She caught a glimpse of the man as he stumbled past. He was dressed in a dark hoodie with the lower half of his face covered in a scarf; the rest of his face looked strangely rubbery in the gloomy glow of a distant street light.
Time seemed to slow for Carolyn, her senses taking in information from all directions. The rational part of her brain had no idea what was going on; the next song on her iPod had started, distracting her. Fight or flight? The question that would for ever seal her fate. Adrenaline surged around her body and her muscles tensed. Her attacker had recovered quickly and he turned on the spot. In his hand he held what seemed to be a white cloth. Carolyn’s nostrils flared at the pungent, chemical smell.
Chocolate cake and Riesling notwithstanding, Carolyn was a fit woman in her twenties. She was wearing training shoes and still dressed in her loose, casual gym clothes. If she’d chosen flight, she might well have made it to the well-lit main road before her attacker. Would he have followed? Disguised as he was, he might have chosen to risk exposure by bringing her down and dragging her back into the murky shadows. More likely, he would have given up, slinking away, back into the darkness.
Neither of them would ever know.
After an hour spent hitting punchbags in the gym, Carolyn followed her instincts and struck out at her assailant. It was a good blow, her fist catching him squarely on the jaw, rocking him backward. He had yet to get his feet under him and for a moment his arms pin-wheeled as he stumbled backwards off the kerb.
Had she turned and run at this point, she might still have made it to safety. Unfortunately, there was one thing that they neglected to tell you in boxercise classes — hitting somebody hurt; and hitting somebody on the jaw really hard hurt even more. Carolyn felt as though she had shattered every bone in her hand. Not even alcohol and adrenaline could mask the pain. The shock was so unexpected, she just stood there.
And then he hit back. A short, vicious jab to the abdomen that drove the air from her lungs. Carolyn doubled up in pain, gasping as her diaphragm spasmed. With no air she couldn’t make so much as a squeak, let alone scream for help. And she was powerless to resist as the white cloth was forced over her face. Whatever chemical the cloth had been soaked in smelt oddly sweet. She clawed wildly at the cloth as the portion of her mind still working rationally warned her not to breathe, to hold her breath, to avoid inhaling the toxic fumes. But it was useless; her lungs weren’t listening. With a choking sob, she finally drew breath. Immediately, she started to feel light-headed and the rushing noise in her ears grew louder and louder. A wave of nausea passed over her for a brief second, before finally the world started fading away, even the pain in her fist becoming muted. Her last thought before everything finally disappeared was one of sadness. I’m going to miss your wedding, little sis…
Friday 9
th
and Saturday 10
th
December
The next two days passed slowly, filling Warren with a sense of mounting frustration. One by one potential leads petered out. His team made endless phone calls and arranged countless interviews with Sally Evans’ acquaintances, both old and new. Each person contacted had an alibi and none of them could suggest a reason why the apparently popular young woman had been killed.
As he’d predicted, Det Supt Grayson had recommended enlisting the help of the public and on Friday evening called another press conference to update the media with the progress so far, including an account of Sally Evans’ last known movements and a detailed description of what she had been wearing that day. He also confirmed that she had been raped; an indisputable fact that needed to be part of the public record, but also one that might just engender enough revulsion in somebody protecting the perpetrator to step forward.
With the case now several days old, it had slipped down the news agenda somewhat and so the conference was more of a briefing and recorded footage of the event didn’t make it any further than the local, late-night news. The next day’s newspapers chose to use stock photos of Sally Evans and the spot where she had been found, rather than Superintendent Grayson in his dress uniform with Warren sitting uncomfortably beside him.
There was limited success to the appeal, the most promising call from a worker in the building next door to Far and Away, who claimed to have seen Sally being picked up by Darren Blackheath the evening she disappeared. Unfortunately, deeper questioning revealed that the well-meaning member of the public had got his dates confused and was describing the previous evening. At least it confirmed that Darren Blackheath did regularly pick her up.
There was also a full confession; however Caller ID had identified the phone used as that of a local crank who over the years had confessed to everything from shoplifting to 9/11. His inability to describe Sally Evans’ hair colour, despite her photo being splashed everywhere, ruled him out in seconds.
So far, the team was left with three possibilities: her father, Richard Cameron or a complete stranger.
Something wasn’t quite right about Bill Evans, Warren felt. As yet, no evidence of the existence of his clandestine lover had been uncovered. The dating site, run by an overseas company, was reluctant to disclose any details to the team and so Welwyn’s legal experts were busy drafting a case for court orders; unfortunately, the mobile-phone number was an anonymous Pay As You Go.
Late on Friday, forensic analysis of Bill Evans’ car came back. As expected, evidence existed of Sally Evans’ presence in the vehicle — particularly the passenger seat, but nothing in the boot nor any traces of blood. The results were consistent with Bill Evans’ story about meeting Sally the day before her disappearance. In addition, the team working the traffic cameras had placed Bill Evans’ car near to Sally Evans’ workplace at lunchtime the day before her disappearance. The lack of cameras immediately adjacent to the scene meant that they couldn’t say with certainty that he’d met her there, but it was a reasonable explanation.
None of the evidence so far ruled out Bill Evans as a suspect — but then, as Warren had pointed out to his team on more than one occasion, it was up to the police to provide evidence in favour of his guilt; it wasn’t up to him to provide evidence for his innocence.
Richard Cameron was proving difficult to rule out or in. The only leads that the police had to go on were the similarity of Sally Evans’ attack to Cameron’s attacks over a decade before, plus the huge coincidence that he had only recently been released from prison into the immediate area. The Crown Prosecution Service would laugh Warren out of the room if he tried to raise an arrest warrant and charge Cameron based on such flimsy evidence. They’d argue, quite rightly, that one couldn’t really claim that a similar
lack
of forensic evidence in two cases was as strong a link between the crimes as finding similar positive evidence at both scenes.
Furthermore the first argument about similar methods could equally well apply to the other two, unrelated, unsolved attacks in Reading and Bristol. He’d had long conference calls with both local forces about what was known and they had agreed to send their files over for him to examine.
It was looking increasingly likely to Warren that the murder was a random, stranger killing. The hardest kind to solve. Reasoning that Sally Evans almost certainly must have been removed from the scene in some sort of vehicle, it was decided to increase attention on the CCTV surrounding the alleyway. Assuming that she was taken within the fifteen-minute window between her leaving work and Darren Blackheath arriving to pick her up, a total of one hundred and fifty-four different vehicles had been identified as within the vicinity. This rather daunting number had been whittled down to a more manageable forty-eight, when each vehicle’s possible routes and timings through the camera-free zones were calculated and the practicalities of them being involved in Sally Evans’ kidnap determined.