No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) by Paul Gitsham Page A

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,