he is, just not with her father.”
“Why is that?” Warren had been all but certain that Blackheath was in the clear, but obviously at least one person wasn’t so sure.
Jane Evans sighed and took a long sip of her tea.
“Sally has always been a Daddy’s girl and she was the apple of Bill’s eye. She’s our only child and he worshipped her from the moment she was born. Truth be told, I don’t think that any man would ever be good enough for her in his eyes, least of all Darren.”
Warren waited silently as she composed her thoughts.
“Sally was a slow developer at school and she was finally diagnosed as dyslexic. That was a real blow for Bill as he is dyslexic also. It’s silly, I know, but he always felt guilty that he’d passed on some gene. Anyway, the school were fantastic and, with lots of support from them and us, Sally started to pick up the ground that she’d lost. By secondary school, she was scoring average grades and her reading and writing was almost normal for her age. She worked so hard and when she finally got the A levels to go to university we were both so proud. Nobody in our family had ever been before.”
As the topic of conversation switched from her dead daughter to her husband, Jane Evans visibly softened. Warren wasn’t certain where her long, rambling tale about her husband’s achievements in spite of a disability that forty years previously had seen him dismissed as thick and lazy was headed, but he let her talk at her own pace.
“The thing is, Sally may have got the dyslexia from her father, but she also got his work ethic and determination. Despite joining the company straight from school, with no qualifications, Bill is now national sales manager. He’s based in Cambridge, but travels all over the country.”
As the conversation wound its way back to her murdered child, Jane Evans’ eyes filled with tears again. Nevertheless, she forced the words past her trembling lips.
“Sally graduated with a two-one from university. We were both so proud.” She smiled at the memory. “Bill can be a bit abrupt and stern if you don’t know him, but he cried all the way through her graduation ceremony. He truly believed that she could accomplish anything now and I think he wanted her to do all of the things he never got the chance to do. Anyway, she moved back here with us and got a job at the travel agents Far and Away.”
She paused for a moment, before continuing, “At first I think Bill was a little disappointed, but Sally convinced him it was only temporary — she wanted to learn the ropes somewhere small where she could get a lot of experience, before joining one of the big companies and maybe becoming senior management. That was the plan at least, but she’s been there for years now and seems comfortable. Lately, Bill has been pushing her to move on, but she claims that the time isn’t right with the recession. Bill thinks that this is exactly the time to move as he doesn’t think that there will be a future for small independents. They argued about it a lot.” She shrugged. “Sally says her dad doesn’t know anything about travel agents, since he’s only ever worked in sports clothing. Bill says that business is business and an outside perspective is important.” She wiped her eyes with another tissue. “Maybe they’re both right, but they kept on going around in circles and I stopped getting involved.”
“So where does Darren fit into this?”
Mrs Evans sighed. “He’s a tyre fitter and a lovely boy, he really is, but he has zero ambition and isn’t very well educated at all. Bill always felt that Sally should marry a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist — not a tyre fitter. It was something else to argue about.”
“So what was his reaction when Sally moved in with Darren?”
Mrs Evans looked even more sad. “He was really angry. He told her she was wasting her life and tried to make her feel guilty, claiming that she was throwing away all of her years of hard work. He implied that he wouldn’t contribute to any wedding plans and told her not to turn up on the doorstep pregnant and homeless.”
Warren could feel the pain in the room and struggled to find the words to ask her the questions he needed to without upsetting the poor woman further. Again, it was Karen Hardwick who saved the day.
“It sounds as if he really loved her and was afraid of losing her.”
Mrs Evans smiled through the tears. “That’s exactly right. He loves her to bits. I think that with a little more time he’d have come around and everything would have been all right.” Her voice choked slightly. “I guess we’ll never know.”
Taking over from Hardwick, Warren tried to be as sensitive as possible. “I imagine he was worried when she didn’t come home that night. Where was he?”
If Mrs Evans realised that the question was about establishing Bill Evans’ alibi, she gave no sign.
“I called Bill just before we called the police. He was working away in Leeds that night. He’s been doing that quite a bit lately. They have a new branch up there and Bill has been going up to iron out the teething troubles. He stays in a Travelodge hotel near the airport. He came back immediately, made it in record time — he was here by three a.m.”
Warren jotted down the company’s details and made a note to get his alibi checked out. It could just be that this wasn’t a stranger murder after all.
In the car on the way back to the station, Warren praised Hardwick’s questioning technique before asking her opinion on what they had heard so far.
“I can’t see Darren Blackheath being guilty. He doesn’t seem the type.”
“I tend to agree,” admitted Warren, “but we can’t rule him out just yet. It’s possible that he had a motive — what if he popped the question early and Sally decided to turn down his proposal because of her relationship with her father? Maybe he flew into a jealous rage and killed her?”
Hardwick looked doubtful. “Anything’s possible, sir, but again I don’t think he seems the type. And if her upcoming wedding was the catalyst, what about her father? Could he have had an argument with her about it?”
Warren shook his head slowly. “I don’t see how the timing would work. If, as Mrs Evans claims, her father loved her, then if he did kill her it would almost certainly be a crime of passion. The sequence of events as we know them suggests that Sally Evans left work at her usual time of six p.m. If Blackheath is in the clear and telling the truth, then she disappeared some time in the next ten minutes. Could her father have dropped by unexpectedly to offer her a lift home — and she forgot to text Blackheath — then they get into a row and he kills her and dumps her, before pretending to be all concerned when his wife phones late that night?”
Hardwick pursed her lips. “I agree, it seems a bit far-fetched. I guess we’ll just have to see if their alibis check out and what Forensics have to say.”
In other words, hurry up and wait — sometimes I think that should be the motto of the police, thought Warren ruefully.
By the time they returned to the station it was more or less lunchtime. Warren scheduled a team briefing in a half-hour, insisting his officers got at least a short break and something to eat. Warren’s gut told him that this investigation might run for some time and he wanted his team to take care of themselves.
Karen Hardwick stopped by her desk and picked up her lunch box, before heading out for some fresh air. Almost exactly a minute later, Gary Hastings grabbed his lunch and followed her out of the door.
Tony Sutton sidled up to Warren.
“Do you reckon they think nobody’s noticed?”
Warren nodded, a small smile forming on his lips.
“Yup. They haven’t a clue.”
Sutton sighed theatrically.
“Young love, eh, boss. Is there any better kind?”
Warren