No Smoke Without Fire. Paul Gitsham

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      The old woman burst out laughing, before subsiding into a coughing fit. She leant forward and patted Karen Hardwick’s knee and winked.

      “I can’t say he was the finest specimen I’ve ever seen — boy needs a good feeding — but when you get to my age you take what you can.”

      Warren couldn’t help smiling; the old woman’s good cheer was infectious. Sutton was grinning from ear to ear.

      “Do you have any idea why her father disliked Darren so much?”

      The old lady paused, thinking. “Obviously, I can only tell as what I hear down the club, but Mr Evans is a bit of a snob. He looks down on us working-class types. He forgets that a generation ago his parents worked in the factory. Then there was the whole Kim Bradshaw incident. He figured his little girl was better than all that.”

      She shook her head. “But they were in love. And they were happy. Seems a shame he couldn’t deal with that.”

      After a few more questions, it soon became obvious that Maeve Cunningham had little more to say. Besides which, she kept on glancing at her cigarettes. Finally, standing up, the three detectives took their leave of the elderly lady.

      “Thank you very much for your time, Mrs Cunningham. Can I leave you my card in case you remember anything else?”

      “Of course. But it’s Miss Cunningham. Why did you think I was married?”

      Warren blinked, completely nonplussed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed. You mentioned how lonely you were after Stan died and, well, you know, I thought he was your husband.”

      “Well, I’d heard about how strange folks were in Birmingham, but I didn’t realise they married their dogs.”

      The three officers could still hear her laughter as they turned the corner of the corridor.

Chapter 14

      Back in the car, Hardwick and Sutton unsuccessfully tried to hide their smirks.

      Warren sighed. “OK, you two, be honest, do I really sound like a Brummie? I’m from Coventry and I only worked in Birmingham for a few years.”

      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.

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