LITMIR.BIZ

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was a twenty-four-year-old tyre fitter with no previous convictions. A Middlesbury resident all of his life, he’d lived with his parents until moving in with Sally Evans. Similarly, Sally was also in her first serious relationship, although she had shared flats with housemates and lived in student accommodation when studying for a degree in tourism management.

      The couple had met in a bar one night, exchanged phone numbers and started dating ‘officially’, as he put it, a month later. A bit of delicate probing revealed that the relationship had been going well, according to Blackheath. So well in fact that he had been planning on proposing to her on Christmas morning. With reddened eyes, he had shown the two police officers the diamond ring with which he had hoped to seal the deal.

      The night that Sally had disappeared had been unremarkable. He’d left work at his usual time, sending her a text message to let her know that he was on his way. Crossing town had taken no longer than normal and he’d pulled up outside the rear entrance to her workplace at a few minutes past six. As usual the street was deserted, but unusually his girlfriend was not waiting for him.

      “She usually comes out on the dot of six and has a fag whilst she’s waiting for me to pick her up. I don’t mind her smoking in the flat, but I draw the line at me car.” His eyes grew moist again. “She promised she were going to quit in the new year. It’s one of the reasons I decided to propose. She always said she’d quit before she got married, ’cos she wanted a white wedding and she said there were nothing worse than a bride with a fag in ’er mouth. Nearly as bad as tattoos.” He looked embarrassed for a moment. “No offence if you have tattoos. But I figured it would give her an extra incentive, you know?”

      “So what happened then, Darren?”

      “Well, I checked me mobile, but there was no message. Normally she’s out the door on the dot, so she doesn’t bother replying. But if she’s going to be late she always texts me so I don’t worry.

      “I waited for about five minutes before I rang her mobile but it rang out and went to voicemail. So I locked the car and tried the back door to her place, but it’s a fire door and it was locked from the inside. So I walked around the front and saw that the shop was closed. The front door was locked and no one was in.”

      “Was that unusual? It was only just after six.”

      “No, not really. The shop actually closes at five-thirty. They spend the last half an hour cashing up and finishing the paperwork. They all leave together at six o’clock. Most of them leave by the front door. Sal is the only one to leave by the back. The manager checks the door locks behind Sal then bolts the front door and I guess sets the alarm.”

      Warren jotted this down. So far the story matched that given by Blackheath four days before when he reported her missing. Now, however, it was important to make certain that no details were missing or different — no matter how small they might seem.

      “Do you know who was working that night?”

      Blackheath recited a list of office staff that matched the list already supplied to the missing persons team. The office was small and on a typical weekday four of the six permanent members of staff would be in. Warren made a note to have them all questioned again to make sure their stories corroborated Blackheath’s.

      “What did you do next?”

      “I went back to the car, to see if she’d reappeared, and tried her mobile again. Then I phoned her boss Kelli. She said that Sal had left at the usual time and that she’d locked the door behind her.

      “I was getting worried, so I phoned her mum and her best friend, Cheryl. Neither had seen her. Cheryl had sent a text message just after six saying that she was coming around for a girlie night, but Sal didn’t reply.” His voice broke slightly.

      “What did you do then?”

      “I drove home and started phoning all of her friends. Cheryl and Sal’s mum came around about half-seven. By midnight we couldn’t think of anyone else to call and figured that if she had gone to the pub with some other mate, she’d be back by now. That’s when we called the police and reported her missing.”

      By now, Warren’s gut was telling him that Blackheath was not their man. However, if his timing was to be believed, there was a ninety-minute window between Sally Evans leaving work and her mother and best friend arriving at the flat; potentially long enough for him to have taken Sally Evans to Beaconsfield Woods, raped her, dumped her body, then returned home. Warren made a note to check with neighbours what time Blackheath’s car had arrived back at the flat.

      In order to eliminate him fully, Warren arranged for Blackheath to be escorted to the police station for fingerprinting, DNA typing and a formal statement. He also arranged for Forensics to go over his car and the flat.

      With Blackheath dispatched to the station and a forensic unit on its way to look for evidence, Jones and Hardwick drove the short distance to the home of Cheryl Davenport, Sally Evans’ best friend.

      The young woman that answered the door was a short, slightly plump girl with bottle-blonde, permed hair. Her make-up, though expertly applied, couldn’t conceal the dark rings under her eyes and their swollen redness. The tears came back within moments of the two police officers entering her small kitchen. She offered her visitors a coffee, which they both accepted, less to quench their thirst than to give the grieving woman a few moments to compose herself.

      As she fiddled with the kettle Warren took stock of the tiny room. It was pretty much what he expected of a twenty-something, single woman. Tidy and compact, the sink was already full of mugs but no other cutlery; the overloaded ashtray spoke of a person whose world had been turned upside down and who had spent the past three days living on caffeine, nicotine and worry. The kitchen units were clearly the cheap MDF beloved of low-rent landlords. A washing machine took up the only space under the counter, forcing the tall, fridge-freezer to stand awkwardly in the corner, half hidden by the open door. Stuck to its white front were the usual Post-it notes and postcards. In pride of place were a half-dozen photographs of Cheryl and her best friend Sally, mostly arm in arm, taken on beaches or foreign-looking nightclubs.

      Noticing his gaze, Cheryl started to cry again. “We’ve been going on holiday ever since we left school. The last couple of years we’ve been to Greece, Turkey, Egypt, you name it — Sally kept an eye out for cheap deals when she was at work and she usually managed to wangle us some sort of discount or upgrade.” She sniffed loudly. “Even when she started seeing Darren, we still went off on our girlie trips. That doesn’t always happen you know. Some girls get hooked up and that’s it, they only go away with their blokes. But Darren was all right about it — he was pretty cool. He said she could have her week in the sun with me, as long as he could go on his footie tour.”

      It was another point in Blackheath’s favour, Warren decided. Men who killed their partners often turned out to be domineering and controlling types; hardly the sort of man who’d let his girlfriend disappear for a week of fun in the sun without him. Nevertheless, they needed to pursue every lead to its conclusion. He glanced at Karen Hardwick, who picked up on his subtle cue.

      “We’re sorry to put you through this, Cheryl — it must be an awful time for you — but we need to ask some questions. Will you help us?”

      Cheryl nodded; underneath the tears, Warren could see a strong resolve to help in any way that she could to find her best friend’s killer.

      The story she told was much the same as that of Blackheath. She’d texted Evans at about six p.m., inviting herself over with a DVD and a bottle of wine. She hadn’t received a reply, but about six-thirty Darren had called asking if she’d seen her. After he’d hung up, she’d put it out of her mind as she made herself something to eat and got ready to go out. Apparently Sally could be a bit forgetful when it came to charging her mobile phone and so she hadn’t been worried. By seven-thirty, Sally hadn’t phoned or responded to her text message and she had been just about to try her landline when Darren had called, sounding worried.

      Picking up her address book, she’d set off for their flat, arriving about the same time as Sally’s mother, who Darren

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