No Smoke Without Fire. Paul Gitsham

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      The vanity plate was the least personalised element of the car. The car’s tyres had been replaced with what appeared to be little more than black elastic bands wrapped around gold alloy disks. The suspension was lowered to make anything higher than a few centimetres a hazard to the fat, twin exhaust pipes that protruded from the rear, and graffiti-style electric-blue decals covered the vehicle, contrasting jarringly with the paint job. An unnecessarily large spoiler on the back made the whole thing look like a toy. The blacked-out windows, fluorescent-pink windscreen wipers and double bank of headlamps completed the whole garish ensemble.

      “Thanks, Gary. Anything from Forensics?”

      “No evidence of any foul play in either Blackheath’s car or their apartment. The car has been cleaned very thoroughly recently, which may have removed traces of mud, but that in itself isn’t suspicious. Blackheath is known to be obsessive about his car and he polished it most weekends. There is plenty of Sally Evans’ DNA inside the car and some fibres matching the coat she was wearing the night she was killed, but that is to be expected. She didn’t drive so Blackheath ferried her around a lot. However, there was none in the boot, or the back seat where you’d expect him to have forced her to sit.”

      “He could have propped her up in the passenger seat. It was dark,” suggested Sutton, although he was clearly playing devil’s advocate.

      Hastings shrugged. “Anything’s possible, I suppose.” He didn’t sound convinced.

      “What about traffic and surveillance?” Warren asked, eager to move the conversation on.

      “There are no surveillance or traffic cameras near the back alley where she was presumably abducted from. However, traffic cameras a couple of junctions away caught his licence number both just before six, when he should have been about to arrive and pick her up, and about fifteen minutes later when he claims to have left. We can’t tell what he did in that fifteen-minute window, but the timings are consistent with his version of events. Unfortunately, we have no other sightings of the car, so only the eyewitness report ties him to the apartment and rules out him driving her to the woods.”

      Warren tapped a pencil thoughtfully. “So it seems that this witness, what CCTV we have and the forensics back up his story of what took place. I’d suggest that he’s no longer a suspect.” Heads nodded around the briefing table.

      “OK, next up, where are we on Bill Evans’ alibi?”

      DC Annabel Willis, a new probationary constable who had been assigned to follow up on that lead, spoke up. “Not much yet, I’m afraid. Travelodge have been very helpful. They confirm that his credit card was used in the Cambridge branch that evening. We’re looking at CCTV to see if we can piece together his comings and goings, but by their own admission it’d be easy enough to leave the hotel for a few hours without being picked up if you really wanted to.”

      “What about this mysterious woman he claims to be having an affair with?”

      This time it was DS Johnson who addressed the team. “Not a lot yet. As he suggested, her mobile phone is switched off. They aren’t due to meet up for another month — more if they skip the New Year weekend. We’re trying to trace ownership of her phone, but it doesn’t look helpful. We contacted the dating agency to see if she paid by credit card and to ask what records they have on the two of them, but they’ve insisted on a court order. However, the woman I spoke to hinted that they hold very little useful data. They might not even use credit cards, rather an Internet-based payment system that isn’t located in this country.”

      “So verifying his alibi is going to be very difficult,” summarised Sutton.

      “Well, keep at him. Something about him doesn’t quite ring true.” The two officers nodded their assent.

      “With those two out of the way, perhaps we should turn our attention to new suspects. Gary, why don’t you take us through what you and DS Kent have found?”

      Hastings removed the picture of Blackheath’s car from the screen.

      “DS Kent and I have been putting all of the forensic and scene evidence into the HOLMES database to see what comes up. It’s been quite tricky as the most striking characteristic of this case has been the lack of evidence at the scene. Anyhow, we finally figured out the correct search terms to use, uploaded what information we had and we’ve started getting interesting results.”

      He clicked on the screen.

      “We have five potential hits. Rapes where very little forensic evidence was gathered and the CSIs speculate that the perpetrator went to great lengths to avoid leaving trace behind. In all five cases the victims followed a very set routine and were kidnapped, subdued with solvent, bound then taken to a secluded spot to be raped. They were then left and found by a member of the public. However, none of the five were killed. If it’s the same guy, either he’s changed his MO or Sally Evans’ death was an accident.

      “Working backwards in time, the most recent was that of a jogger in June 2006 in Reading. The case was unsolved. Four years earlier a similar attack took place in Bristol — again the case is unsolved. We know these two cases are separate to the first three cases, because those were solved and the attacker was behind bars when the later two took place.”

      “So we believe that the person responsible for the attacks in Bristol and Reading has struck again?” suggested Tony Sutton.

      “Actually, we suspect not. The other three attacks took place in June, August and November of 1997.”

      “It seems a long time between attacks. Why would he suddenly resurface?” asked Karen Hardwick.

      “The attacker was convicted in May 1998 and sent down for eighteen years. The attacks occurred in and around the village of Stennfield, a couple of miles north of here.”

      Tony Sutton, who had been at Middlesbury CID longer than anyone in the room, gasped audibly. “You’re kidding? You’re talking about Richard Cameron? That case was ongoing when I was a rookie DC. He’d be due parole pretty soon, I’d have thought.”

      Hastings nodded. “Released on licence this time last year. Bloody big coincidence, don’t you think?”

Chapter 16

      With the name of a potential suspect on the table a strategy was needed to bring the man in for questioning. Richard Cameron was a convicted serial rapist living on licence in a tiny village to the north of Middlesbury. Like all such ex-offenders he was required to report his current address to the police and maintain contact with a probation officer. Current police records on Cameron were sketchy and largely out of date, with the interest in him minimal in the almost thirteen years since he’d been sent to prison. Prior to his release, the files had been updated with a more recent mugshot and details of his current whereabouts, but for the most part he was the responsibility of the probation service.

      Sam Pargeter was a no-nonsense ex-submariner. A gruff, bullish Yorkshire man with a salt and pepper haircut, he was candid about why he’d joined the service as he helped himself to a cup of jet-black coffee from the CID urn.

      “I got meself a reputation in the Navy as a bit of a hard bastard. Hard but fair. They stuck me in charge of whipping the less responsive boys into shape. Some of them see it all as a bit of a laugh when they’re training. ’Course, as soon as they come СКАЧАТЬ