Blind to the bones bcadf-4

by Stephen Booth

  ‘These are the pictures on her desk, here.’

  ‘Do you mind if I take a look?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  Fry flipped through the pictures. Some were pencil or charcoal drawings; some were done in watercolours or gouache. There were landscapes and abstract designs, and some of them seemed to be sketches of fashion models in bizarre clothes, or simply fancy typefaces with 3D effects. Others were computer graphics in odd colours, like photographic negatives. Fry didn’t consider herself any kind of expert, but she saw very little that she would have considered talent.

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  ‘Those are the best ones/ said Howard. ‘We’ve been sorting them out ready for bank holiday Monday. We’re holding an Emma Day.’

  ‘You’re doing what?’

  ‘We’re holding an Emma Day. We’ve found all Emma’s drawings and her poems, and we’re going to display them for everyone to see, so they’ll know what she is like. We want to share her with people. Share her talent. We’ve advertised it in the local paper, and in the shops, and we’ve put posters up in the village hall and at the pub. We’ve phoned all our friends and sent invitations out. We’re going to make all Emma’s favourite food, and play her favourite music, so that it will be a complete experience. And then people will be able to know her, almost as we do. It’ll be wonderful.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Fry, cringing inwardly and trying not to show it. She stared at a drawing of a hillside with a full moon coming up behind it. In the middle foreground was a figure in a floaty dress and with floaty hair, walking up a long, winding path towards the top of the hill. The picture was done in watercolours, with carefully toned blues and greys. But it looked as though it hadn’t quite been finished, as if the artist might, perhaps, have lost interest in the idea. The journey towards the rising moon had never quite been completed.

  Fry saw that there were poems too, written out carefully on pages taken from an exercise book and mounted on coloured card. She took in a few lines, felt her stomach clench in reaction to their sentimentality, and couldn’t bring herself to read any more.

  But Mr Renshaw had picked one up and was reading it himself. As he read it, the tears were already starting to form in his eyes.

  ‘It’ll be wonderful/ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  He turned to Fry. ‘Will you be here on Monday?’

  ‘Er, no, I don’t expect to be on duty next Monday/ said Fry.

  ‘If you aren’t working, you can come. You will come, won’t you? The house will be open all day.’

  Howard handed her a hardback diary, of A5 size. Fry glanced inside and saw it was a day to a page, and Emma had found a lot to say.

  ‘Thank you. You’ll have it back safely.’

  Although the bedroom contained so much of Emma’s, it was obvious that there were also things of hers dispersed all around the house. A pair of her shoes stood next to one of the chairs in the

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  sitting room. Another of Emma’s teddy bears sat on one of the spare chairs at the kitchen table, where the Renshaws usually ate breakfast. And as they walked from the sitting room to the dining room, they passed a bookcase, full of books in perfectly neat rows.

  ‘These are Emma’s books,’ said Howard, though it was unnecessary by now.

  Fry was starting to see the way the Renshaws’ minds were working. They were trying to convince themselves that Emma still lived with them, every moment of the day. For them, each teddy bear contained a lingering fragment of Emma’s personality, just like the shoes and the books, and the scent bottles on her bedside table. And perhaps they were right. Perhaps each of their daughter’s possessions retained faint strands of her spirit, her essence and her memories, locked inside their plain physical reality. And no doubt the Renshaws prayed that all these small parts of Emma might one day be brought together to re-create her, in the same way that scientists could bring extinct animals to life from the DNA traces in their bones. Fry felt sure that Sarah Renshaw believed it could happen. She believed with all her heart that it could happen.

  ‘Mrs Renshaw, do you really still believe Emma is going to come home one day?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And you, sir?

  Howard laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder again. ‘No one has shown us any proof otherwise,’ he said.

  Sarah nodded. ‘People seem to think that we should give up hope. But how can we? We’d be letting Emma down, if we did that. We have to do everything we can for her. We have to keep trying all the ways we can think of. Because if we stopped trying, we might miss the one little thing that would lead us to her. I couldn’t bear the thought of that.’

  Gavin Murfin had been very still for a while. Fry looked at him to make sure he was awake. She was amazed to see that he was surreptitiously trying to wipe moisture from his eyes with his finger. Sarah Renshaw had noticed, too, and passed him a box of tissues from the side table without a word.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Renshaw,’ said Fry, ‘I know you’ve gone over all this many times before, but I have to ask what Emma’s exact relationship was with Alex Dearden and Neil Granger.’

  ‘The only relationship Emma had with Neil Granger was that he was a fellow sufferer,’ said Howard.

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  ‘Sufferer?’

  ‘Migraines. Granger has them, too. Apparently, his are so severe that he can black out completely.’

  ‘I see. And Alex Dearden?’

  ‘We had hopes of Alex. But he has another girlfriend now.’

  ‘Oh? Someone he met at university, or since he came back?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  But Fry remembered Alex Dearden complaining that Mrs Renshaw rang him every week. What was she really trying to find out from him? Did she really think he might hear from Emma? Wouldn’t she ask him about his new girlfriend? Or was that another thing she didn’t want to face - another indication that life had moved on and left Emma behind?

  ‘I understand you’ve had counselling,’ said Fry.

  Sarah laughed. ‘Oh, yes. We learned phrases like “Letting go”, “Moving on”, and “Closure”. But all the time I kept asking myself: “How could I have allowed it to happen?”’

  ‘We’ve talked about it a lot,’ said Howard. ‘We thought it was important to talk. We decided it isn’t about letting go, but about getting a new perspective on your life. It’s more like turning over a piece of earth. Everything on the surface disappears, and new things appear in their place. But it’s still the same piece of earth, isn’t it? It’s still the same life.’

  Fry had been told different. She had been advised that sometimes people felt the need to clutch their suffering to them, fearing that if they ‘let it go’, they would themselves vanish. Their suffering began to define them.

  But Sarah Renshaw was right - commemoration was important. A person you had lost could touch you sometimes, in unexpected ways. You might glance into a room and see her sitting on her bed, or catch a fleeting trace of her familiar scent passing along the corridor. You could hear her voice in the silence at night, or her footsteps crossing the floor above your head as you watched television in the evening. Commemoration was an important thing. It was like reaching out to let her know you were there for her. Commemoration was like returning the touch.

  On their way back through Withens from the Renshaws’ house, Diane Fry and Gavin Murfin noticed the police Vauxhall immediately.

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  ‘Anyone we know?’ said Murfin.

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. Who’s that coming across the road?’

  Fry stared. ‘What the hell’s Ben Cooper doing here?’

  ‘Not sightseeing, that’s for certain,’ said Murfin. This place looks like something the cat ate and sicked up again.’

  ‘Pull up in front of the pub, Gavin.’

  ‘Ah. Now you’re talking.’

  Fry wound down the window of the car as Cooper came across.

  ‘Well, well. I
thought we’d lost you,’ she said.

  ‘It’s wonderful how people worry about me.’

  ‘No such luck, though, eh?’

  ‘No such luck. This is Tracy Udall, by the way, from the Rural Crime Team.’

  Fry looked her up and down. Confident, capable-looking. Pretty much as she had been herself once, before she joined CID.

  ‘Hello.’

  Gavin Murfin gave a cheerful wave from behind the steering wheel.

  ‘Hi,’ said Udall. ‘Withens hasn’t seen so much police activity for years. Folks round here will be getting paranoid.’

  ‘Some already are,’ said Fry.

  ‘Where have you been?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘To see the Renshaws.’

  ‘Ah/ said Udall. ‘I see what you mean. Though paranoid isn’t quite the right word.’

  ‘Emma Renshaw’s parents,’ said Cooper. ‘I’d forgotten they lived in Withens. What’s happening with that? Have I missed anything?’

  ‘Well, that’s what happens when you get promoted to the Rural Crime Team.’

  ‘Has Emma been found? It can’t be a murder enquiry, I would have heard. Wouldn’t I, Diane?’

  ‘Well, I expect so.’ Then Fry took pity on him. ‘Of course you would have heard, Ben. I’d have been kicking up all kinds of stink to get you back, no matter what the Rural Crime Team said.’

  She didn’t look at PC Udall, but Udall seemed to get the message.

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll see you back at the car, Ben/ she said. ‘I’ve got some calls to make/

  Fry watched her walk away, giving a hitch to her duty belt. Full of confidence, totally unfazed.

  ‘She’s a good officer/ said Cooper.

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  Tin sure.’

  Fry saw the stubborn set of his face and suppressed an urge to wind him up some more. She had promised herself she was going to be nice to him. Besides, loyalty was one of his strong points, as she well knew.

  ‘So it isn’t a murder enquiry?’

  ‘Not until we get the bloodstains analysed/ said Fry. ‘And then we’ll let you know.’

  ‘Where are you heading now?’

  “Tintwistle. To see if we can track down one of Emma Renshaw’s housemates. A young man by the name of Neil Granger, who we can’t seem to catch at home.’

  Cooper put his hand on the car to stop them driving away.

  ‘Don’t be in too much of a rush/ he said. ‘Somebody’s already found him for you/

  DI Paul Hitchens was in the incident room at Edendale, where a team was being set up for the enquiry into Neil Granger’s death. No decision had yet been taken to activate the HOLMES procedures. If an obvious suspect presented himself during the initial enquiries, there wouldn’t be any need for the drain on staff and resources that was involved in a major enquiry. If E Division had too many major enquiries, it would miss its annual targets for house burglary and street crime.

  Diane Fry thought Hitchens seemed a bit distracted these days. Maybe the new DCI was giving him a hard time. There were changes in the air around E Division, but then things didn’t stay the same in the police service very long. Hitchens might be feeling the draught a bit.

  ‘Well, if there’s a link with the Emma Renshaw case, I’m sure we’ll find it, Diane/ he said.

  ‘Neil Granger was next on my list for interview/ said Fry.

  ‘I’m aware of that. But who could possibly have known that there was a new line of enquiry in the Renshaw case?’

  ‘Her parents. And I’ve already spoken to Alex Dearden as well, sir.’

  ‘But Diane, Neil Granger has been dead since Friday night or the early hours of Saturday morning - before you talked to the Renshaws or Dearden.’

  ‘Still …’

  ‘I know it’s frustrating that you’ve lost a witness. But come to

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  the briefing in the morning, and you’ll see that there are sonic important developments in other directions.’

  ‘I see. The link to Emma Renshaw is a low priority in the DCI’s thinking?’

  ‘Yes, but you’ll see why in the morning, Diane.’

  ‘I’d like to make one request then, sir.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’d like to attend the Neil Granger postmortem.’

  Hitchens paused. ‘Well, I don’t see why not. Mrs Van Door never objects to an audience. I’ll clear it with Mr Kessen.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘This theory isn’t actually set in stone, Diane,’ said Hitchens smugly. ‘But it involves something equally solid.’

  Fry waited for him to explain, but instead he smiled and changed tack.

  ‘You don’t remember the original Renshaw case yourself?’ he said.

  ‘No, sir. Why should I?’

  ‘West Midlands - that’s where you served before you came to Derbyshire, wasn’t it?’

  Fry watched him carefully, wondering what he was leading up to.

  ‘It’s a pretty big area, sir. I mean, we’re talking cities here, large populations, high-volume crime. Lots and lots of missing young people. Besides, I worked in Birmingham, not the Black Country, though that’s where I lived.’

  ‘Ah, well. It could still be useful.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m thinking that it might be helpful if someone went over the ground again in Bearwood. You know that ground, Fry. You’re from that area.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Fry reluctantly.

  ‘You don’t have a problem with that, do you? No personal problem, I mean.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mr Kessen has read your personnel file, so if you feel …’

  There’s no problem, sir.’

  ‘Good, good. Who will you take with you? We have Ben Cooper back with us. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it, Diane?’

  Fry looked at the face of her senior officer, and thought about taking Ben Cooper with her to her old childhood haunts. He was

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  the only one here who had any idea of what had happened to her during her childhood in Warley, or had any inkling of the existence of the sister she was still looking for after all this time. Cooper would be sympathetic. He would allow her time to visit places that had no relevance to the enquiry, without asking difficult questions. He would understand. He would be willing to listen, if she felt she wanted to talk about it. And he wouldn’t think any worse of her if she wasn’t able to maintain a professional exterior but showed her emotions, even broke down and cried. He would probably think better of her. He might even encourage her. All the things she didn’t want.

  I’ll take Gavin Murfin,’ she said, and sighed when she thought of the newly pristine state of her car.

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  13

  Neil Granger’s house was in the middle of a terraced row on the main road through Tintwistle. At one end was a small Congregational chapel, where some women in hats were just leaving from a side door, perhaps from an evening service or a ladies’ group meeting.

  The row of houses had been clad with stone and modernized piecemeal. Many of the upper windows had been replaced with modern aluminium-framed versions, yet one house still had a cluster of little mullioned windows. Someone had built a low wall to separate the house from the pavement. It achieved little else, being too narrow for anything but a bit of concrete and a plastic tub containing some dead geraniums. The wall had been constructed from imitation stone, topped by pre-cast concrete blocks that formed diamond shapes, and there was a black wrought-iron gate.

  Inside the gate, the flagstones were covered in a layer of dead leaves, which no one had bothered to clear away from the previous autumn. The house to the right had a neat garden and empty milk bottles left on the step for the milkman. To the left, there was a door painted in vibrant green and purple, while the windows had been edged in equally bright red. A small, yellow smiley face had been attached to the fanlight over the door. Ben Cooper wondered what sort of people lived there. Not one of the old l
adies from the chapel, surely?

  ‘I don’t know what to do. I suppose that I’m Neil’s next of kin.’

  Philip Granger looked pale and ill. But the impression was perhaps exaggerated by the blackness of his hair and the dark stubble on his cheeks. He gazed around him in a daze, as if he

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  wasn’t quite sure where he was, or who these people were that he was with.

  ‘Yes, sir/ said Cooper. ‘But there are people who will give you advice and support. There will have to be an inquest first, anyway.’

  Police officers had collected Granger from his job at an industrial insulation factory on the outskirts of Glossop, where he had been approaching the end of a long shift. Cooper could see that he was tired, and still in a state of shock from formally identifying his brother’s body. They had been lucky to get an ID confirmed so quickly, and to get access to his brother’s house. But Philip Granger wasn’t going to be much more use to them until the reality of Neil’s death had a chance to sink in properly.

  Cooper watched him pick up some letters that had been lying in a wire basket behind the letter box. He looked at his brother’s name and address typed on them, frowned, and put them down on the window ledge. Then he picked them up again, shuffled through them, and put them back in the wire basket with a guilty look, as if deciding that he shouldn’t have touched his brother’s mail.

  ‘Do you live nearby, sir?’

  ‘In Old Glossop, not far from the factory where I work.’

  ‘So I take it you’ll have visited this house sometimes, sir?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘And have you travelled in your brother’s car? The VW?”

  ‘Once or twice. Why?’

  ‘We’ll need to take your fingerprints, for elimination purposes.’

  Granger just stared at him blankly.

  ‘Tomorrow will do, sir. When we get a formal statement.’