Read No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) for Free Online Page A

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.

Chapter 6
    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 chuckled, glad for a moment of brightness in an otherwise bleak day.
    “Yeah. I think they make a sweet couple. I wonder how long it’ll be until they stop trying to hide it.”
    * * *
    Warren held the team meeting in the largest of the unit’s briefing rooms. Detective Superintendent John Grayson had formally delegated the lead investigator role to Warren; nevertheless he was present, since part of the agenda would be to discuss the upcoming press conference.
    Grayson was a small, dapper man, with a steel grey moustache, in his early fifties. Common consensus was that he was more interested in securing his next promotion and thus a more generous final-salary pension than actively heading up investigations. Whether that was a fair assessment or not, Warren had yet to decide, but it was certainly true that he spent more time meeting with senior colleagues at the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire Major Crime Unit in Welwyn Garden City than he did at his desk in Middlesbury CID.
    The