The Silent Girls

by Dylan Young

  * * *

  At HQ, Rainsford met Anna as she made her the way to the squad room a little before eight.

  ‘Quick word, Anna.’

  Rainsford’s office was a minimalist’s dream. One photograph of the family – a wife and two children – an open laptop, a filing cabinet and a whiteboard with pinned-up sheets of monthly statistics.

  He offered her a seat and she sat.

  ‘First, I have to apologise for the way I railroaded you into the inspector’s role. We haven’t talked about it much.’

  ‘You don’t need to apologise, sir. I appreciate it.’

  ‘Ted wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s a big fan.’

  Anna nodded, secretly pleased. Even when not physically present, Shipwright had her back.

  ‘Your impression of the situation re the missing girl?’

  Anna sighed. ‘Difficult to say, sir. Obviously, Cooper is on the investigating team’s radar. Why wouldn’t he be?’

  ‘But no hard evidence?’

  Anna shook her head.

  Rainsford nodded. ‘Bring me up to speed with Emily Risman.’

  ‘We’re about to start interviewing suspects who were in the frame at the time, beginning with Richard Osbourne.’

  ‘Good.’ Rainsford nodded encouragement.

  ‘Sir, Chief Inspector Harris—’

  ‘Is resentful and cantankerous. I know. And there’s bound to be more of that. But you have your brief, Anna. All I need to know is that you can handle it.’

  Can you, Anna?

  ‘Yes, sir. I only wanted to let you know that Harris sees it as interference. His words, sir.’

  ‘They messed up badly the first time with this. I want to make sure that we, and they, don’t mess up again.’

  * * *

  The biography that Trisha provided told Anna that Richard Osbourne had left the village of Millend, where Emily Risman too had lived, when he was twenty-four. He’d drifted around the southwest as a jobbing carpenter on a succession of building sites, until he’d settled near Banbury to set up a business venture. There was no arrest record.

  She took her car and Khosa as company.

  They drove towards Banbury, eventually leaving the A361 at Bloxham and heading up a lane to an open gateway and a rutted and stony single-track road that meandered for a quarter of a mile before opening out into a sawdust-strewn yard. On a post at the entrance hung a sign reading ‘Osbourne Oak’.

  The drone of a saw cut through the air. It came from a dilapidated wooden barn on the far side of the yard. Next to it, a light burned in a Portakabin. At right angles to the barn hunkered a stone cottage, which appeared to be in the middle of major refurbishment. Plastic sheeting covered two windows, and a quarter of the roof was bereft of tiles.

  Anna parked the car in the yard and then she and Khosa got out and headed for the Portakabin. By the look of the yard, either the business needed to expand or was in a severe decline. The bio had said that Richard Osbourne built cruck barns. Anna was ashamed to admit that she had no idea what that meant.

  Inside the barn were three people, two of whom wore goggles and worked at feeding huge pieces of wood, supported by chains, into a massive beam saw. The third man stood apart from the rest, marking the sawn beams with yellow chalk. He looked up at their entry, wiped his sawdust-coated arms on a rag, and walked towards them. His expression, under a dusty tangle of brown hair, was one of muted surprise at the sight of visitors.

  Anna began the introductions, but the buzz of the saw drowned out her voice and the man gestured towards a small office at the rear. Inside it, an oil stove hissed out heat from the corner, and filled the room with a musty, stifling, atmosphere. The air was redolent with the smell of wood and engine oil that was carried on the sawdust pervading every surface. Khosa did the introductions again and Osbourne’s face gave way to nervous suspicion.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ he asked in a voice like gravel over zinc.

  ‘Some routine questions, sir,’ Khosa said.

  ‘We won’t take up much of your time, Mr Osbourne,’ Anna added. ‘You’re obviously very busy.’

  ‘We’ve been lucky enough to get some orders recently.’

  Osbourne got up and pointed out through a rear window to an area of gravelled yard not visible from where they’d parked. He was thin under his clothes. Hard work and cigarettes keeping his bones lean. Anna moved forward and stared out at two huge wooden frames with curved beams from floor to apex.

  ‘These are cruck as opposed to box frames. Originally, they used the halves of crooked trees as blades to support roofs. There are a variety of styles – we build the frames in oak then take them down again before delivering to buyers to assemble, either by us or as self-build.’

  ‘These are houses, are they?’ asked Khosa, who had joined Anna.

  ‘Houses, barns, summer retreats.’ They turned back into the room and Osbourne added, ‘But you’re not here to talk to me about barns.’

  ‘Emily Risman,’ Anna said.

  Osbourne’s face clouded in annoyance before a sour smile appeared. ‘I knew it would only be a matter of time…’

  ‘You are aware of Neville Cooper’s release then, sir?’ Khosa asked.

  Osbourne snorted. ‘You here to try and get a confession out of me, is that it?’

  ‘Just a few routine questions, sir.’

  ‘I’ve answered them a hundred times already.’

  ‘We have the facts of the case, Mr Osbourne, of course,’ Anna said. ‘And we’re not here to try to catch you out. We’re coming at this investigation afresh and I don’t have to remind you that, as of this moment, the murderer remains at large.’

  Osbourne glared at her before dropping his eyes and nodding, grudgingly.

  ‘Tell me about your relationship with Emily Risman.’

  Osbourne stared out of the window into the yard for a long moment before answering. ‘We were kids. She was up for it.’

  ‘You had a sexual relationship, yes?’

  ‘Yeah, we did.’

  ‘And would you describe Emily Risman as promiscuous?’

  Osbourne swung his gaze back towards Anna. ‘You know she was. That was the main attraction. Most of the girls of her age were scared stiff of sex. Emily was into it. But always made me use a condom.’

  ‘You began your relationship when she was what, fifteen?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Realising what he’d said he added, ‘But no sex until she was sixteen.’

  ‘But she did go out with other boys?’

  ‘After the first year, yes. I mean neither of us wanted to get married and have kids, for God’s sake. We both wanted other things, other experiences.’

  ‘But you never severed the relationship entirely?’

  ‘No. We still met up occasionally.’

  ‘For sex?’

  ‘Sometimes. Sometimes just for a drink and a laugh.’

  ‘How did you feel about her seeing other men?’

  Osbourne shrugged. ‘It wasn’t an issue.’

  Khosa took out her notebook. ‘Sir, there was some talk at the time that Emily Risman took money for sex, is that true?’

  ‘She never asked me for any.’ Osbourne’s mouth set in a thin, defiant line. Khosa tilted her head, allowing him space in which to finish. Finally, he sighed and said, ‘Look, she was from a rough background, but she looked after herself. She was young, sure, but she knew what she was doing. At least I thought she did.’

  ‘You were surprised when you heard she was pregnant?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Osbourne nodded. ‘She took precautions. Always.’

  ‘With you?’

  Osbourne nodded.

  ‘But not with Roger Willis?’

  ‘Maybe that was a slip-up.’

  ‘So, she wasn’t trying to get him to commit where you wouldn’t?’

  ‘There was never a question of commitment. Not for me and Emily. She liked blokes too much.’

  ‘You never encouraged her to ask for mo
ney at any time?’ Khosa persisted.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘It’s a simple question, sir.’

  ‘Like I was her pimp you mean?’ Osbourne rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. ‘It wasn’t like that. She was easy-going, that’s all. Maybe some blokes gave her presents, I don’t know. Maybe they were grateful.’

  Khosa scribbled something down in her notebook. Anna held back a smile. Khosa knew the drill. Nothing like seeing your words written down to instil a little edge.

  ‘What about Neville Cooper. Did you know him?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Knew him to say hello to and to avoid. He was younger than me by a good couple of years. Bit of a nutter, always had been.’

  ‘When they arrested and charged him, did you think that he was capable?’

  ‘I didn’t know what to think. I mean, he confessed, didn’t he? The whole village was simmering, crazy like. Everyone had a theory. Then they arrested Neville Cooper and suddenly that was the answer that had been staring everyone in the face for weeks. People were ready to accept it.’

  ‘Roger Willis, was he a friend of yours?’

  ‘Not a friend, as such. We’d been to the same school, but he stayed on and I left early.’

  ‘Did you know he’d been seeing Emily?’

  ‘Only afterwards.’

  ‘It didn’t bother you?’

  ‘I’ve already told you it didn’t.’

  ‘They had already broken up, hadn’t they?’

  ‘That’s what I was told.’

  Anna nodded and glanced down at her own notes. The heat in the room pressed down on her and she took a deep inhalation of musty, warm, resin-laden air.

  Osbourne said, ‘Look, I didn’t keep tabs on Emily. We weren’t an item when all this happened.’

  Anna nodded and glanced over at Khosa. ‘Just a few more questions, sir.’

  Anna left them to it and walked out into the yard that held the huge cruck frames and gulped in clean fresh air. A cool wind fanned the moist sweat that prickled her neck and she arched her back to straighten out the kinks. Her thoughts were full of guilt. Not her own. Someone else’s.

  It was possible that someone had enjoyed seventeen years of freedom at the expense of an innocent man. She tried to imagine how anyone could live with that. She chided herself. No, that was far too easy a trap to fall into. Someone capable of the brutal murder of a young girl was not going to worry about a miscarriage of justice. And yet it was something that couldn’t be dismissed altogether.

  She let her fingers run over the rough-cut surface of a massive nine-inch wooden beam. There was something about the wood that made her want to touch it. Under her hand it felt solid and strong. More than could be said about the case against Neville Cooper.

  She turned back to the office. Inside, Osbourne was sitting and the truculent expression on his face was back in place.

  When Anna entered the room, Khosa stood and snapped closed her pocket book. ‘You have children, Mr Osbourne?’

  ‘No, we’re trying, but…’

  Khosa moved towards the door but Anna hesitated. ‘There is just one more thing I’m not clear on, sir. On the day Emily Risman was killed, you were working in Gloucester?’

  ‘That’s right. They were putting up a new estate in Hucclecote. I was hanging doors all day.’

  ‘Did you work on your own?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Hanging doors is a one-man job, is it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So, were there other people working in the house at the same time?’

  ‘Sometimes. It depended how far along the plasterers and electricians were.’

  ‘Statements from the foreman on the estate say that you were given a free hand. He would come along in the afternoons to check how many doors you’d hung, is that right?’

  ‘Look, people saw me that day. The police took statements.’

  ‘You drove to work, sir?’

  ‘Yes. I drove.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Osbourne. We’ll be in touch.’

  Osbourne looked confused, his face flushed. ‘I know what happened to Neville was awful and I’m sorry he’s been inside, but I’ve really tried to put all of this behind me. I didn’t like being a suspect then and I don’t like it now.’

  ‘Is that what you consider yourself to be, Mr Osbourne? A suspect?’

  ‘Christ, no. It’s just that you lot coming here after all this time… I’ve got a partner.’

  ‘And the Rismans still have a dead daughter, sir.’

  * * *

  Anna drove back. She liked the way that driving freed her mind, letting it meander along diverse trails of thought until something stopped it in its tracks. This time the obstacle was all about arrogance.

  ‘Why didn’t he do this again?’

  Khosa looked across, alarmed. ‘Who? Osbourne?’

  ‘Perhaps Osbourne, who knows. But I’m referring to the killer. He got away with it. Emily was attacked and killed in a frenzy. Or what turned into a frenzy. Either way, he believed he’d got away with it. It feeds a need and empowers arrogance. Even if he hadn’t planned to kill, he’d always be wondering if he could do it again.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t do it because he was locked away in prison, ma’am?’

  Anna looked at her. That was the most obvious conclusion, she agreed. The one Harris and Slack would no doubt have championed. The one that put Cooper right back on top of the list. The one she found most difficult to accept.

  ‘Maybe,’ Anna said, surprising herself, but troubled, too, at how unconvincing the word sounded in her ears.

  Eight

  He’d been patient. Watched them with their hi-vis tabards and long probing poles, crossing the landscape in a single line, searching for something they would never find, because he had not been ready to let them. Now the searchers had moved on and the woods were once more his.

  In between the scudding clouds, the moon hung silver and bright enough to navigate by as he exited a narrow path onto a wider track. There he halted, aware that he was not alone. Twenty yards away, something large lifted its snout and grunted; a lead sow and her sounder of wild boar. She watched him, assessing the danger. He turned his face up to reflect the light of the moon in response. The sow, huge at fifteen stone and six feet in length, observed in silence before turning away to disappear into the undergrowth.

  He read it as an acknowledgement. His right to be in the forest.

  His passenger moaned from where he’d slung her over his shoulders, her body warm against his neck. She was his prey and he was the predator, stalking the woods. His woods. He’d carried her off the ground so that the tracker dogs couldn’t trace her passage. The drugs were wearing off, but it didn’t matter now. If he wanted to, he could leave her by the pigs to be discovered. They would not have objected. But that was not his purpose. What he was about to do would trigger an upsurge of anger and hate and outrage after days of letting the anticipation build. He craved these monstrous approbations because they suited his purpose. Fed and validated his existence.

  He would make it to the designated spot in twenty minutes.

  He would be away and safe within forty. If there was any jot of feeling, it flickered like a guttering candle before sputtering to die completely. She was blameless. As blameless as calves before they became veal. Yet everyone had to eat. Such was the nature of the food chain.

  Purpose, as twisted and gnarled as the roots he stepped over, drove the Woodsman through the depths of the forest, the apex predator going about his business with silent efficiency.

  Nine

  Friday dawned bright and cold. There’d been no developments in the Hopkins Case overnight and no news from Shaw. Anna needed to get the Risman case interviews ticked off, so she took Holder and they headed west in his car.

  Beacon Cottage, Alburton, nestled on a knap hidden amidst the rolling Monmouthshire hills on the western reaches of the Forest of Dean. The roads had been excellent un
til the last two winding miles between the Severn Valley floor and the Wye. The cottage was whitewashed in the vernacular style and stood a good thirty yards off the narrow lane that led past it. They parked on a gravelled area adjacent to the wooden gate and got out, stretching their legs and taking in the freshly painted windows and doors, and the neat heather garden. The view looked out onto a green expanse that fell away and ended in the silver ribbon of the Severn with Gloucestershire beyond. The old bridge was just visible, and, in the foreground, a five-acre field was being turned over by a farmer driving a red tractor.

  Crunching their way to the front door, Anna again became acutely conscious of the unorthodoxy of this approach. She needed a point of focus. Her own mind remained muddled and unclear. The snippets she was getting were not gelling and if there was a pattern emerging, it was not immediately obvious to her.

  It was a still, grey day with little or no breeze. Adjacent to the cottage stood a garage full of everything but the two cars that were parked outside. She noted the new Isuzu jeep behind a beaten-up Astra, which looked very much on its last legs.

  A small porch framed by ivy led to the front door and, as they approached it, the air was suddenly pungent with the smell of fields freshly sprayed with slurry. It caught in Anna’s throat as Holder knocked. The woman who opened the door wore jeans, a fisherman’s smock and a warm smile. Her black hair was shorn close to her head with little wisps around her ears and down onto her neck. The face was devoid of make-up and belonged to someone in her late thirties. The only concession to any form of frivolity consisted of a pair of large parrot earrings and an incongruous smudge of yellow paint on one cheek. Glancing down, Anna registered the yellow smudge repeated on one forearm, where it joined an abstract collection of muted greens and blues.