Blind to the Bones Read online

  ‘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.

  ‘I’m 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 the briefing in the morning, and you’ll see that there are some 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 Doon 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 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.

  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-iro
n 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 ladies 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 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.’

  ‘Yes. Whatever.’

  The house was sparsely furnished, without much effort to make everything match perfectly – but it was no more than he would have expected from a man living on his own. There was a stereo with sizeable speakers in the sitting room, and a TV in the other corner, with a remote sitting on an arm of the settee.

  ‘Did you help Neil move in?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Yeah. The furniture is a bit of a mixture. Some of it he was given, some he bought second hand. There were some new things. The stereo is new.’

  Cooper walked over to the stereo and popped open the caddy of the CD. Nirvana. For some reason, he was surprised. But he didn’t really know much about Neil Granger yet. He turned back to Philip, who was standing staring vaguely at the remote control on the settee.

  ‘Are you sure there’s no one you’d like to call, who can be with you? We could get a doctor, if you’re not feeling well.’

  ‘No, I’m OK.’ But Granger sat down suddenly in one of the armchairs, as if his legs had failed him. ‘Actually, I could do with a stiff drink.’

  ‘We’ll try not to keep you too long.’

  ‘It’s all right. You want a statement, you said?’

  ‘Tomorrow. A formal statement tomorrow. But anything you can tell us right now to help us catch your brother’s killer quickly would be very helpful.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Had your brother lived here long?’

  ‘He only moved in last summer. He’d been working away for a while to save up for a deposit.’

  ‘It can be hard getting on the property ladder these days. Did he have a good job?’

  ‘He worked at Lancashire Chemicals after he came back to this area. They thought a lot of him there. He was earning more than me, anyway.’

  ‘Do you know how much he paid for this house?’

  ‘No, I can’t remember. Is it important?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  It was something they could find out. Also what Neil Granger’s mortgage payments had been, in relation to his wages at the chemicals factory. Cooper wasn’t sure whether his curiosity on this was personally influenced. He knew all too well how difficult it was to get enough money together for a deposit on a house in Derbyshire and feel able to meet the mortgage commitment. It was taking him a long time on a detective constable’s salary, even after ten years in the force. But perhaps house prices in Tintwistle were lower than in desirable Edendale.

  Cooper looked into the kitchen. Surprisingly clean and neat. Carpeted stairs started near the back door. He wondered where he should go about finding a diary, letters or an address book.

  ‘How many bedrooms are there?’

  ‘Oh, two,’ said Philip. ‘Neil has his computer set up in the small one.’

  ‘I see.’

  It wasn’t a bad little house. It had been kept in good condition inside. It would be ideal for one or two people setting up for the first time.

  Cooper went out into the back garden to look at the area where Philip said his brother had kept his car. There were distinct wheel marks in the ground, which the SOCOs could compare to the VW’s tyres, if it was thought useful. But there had been showers since Friday and the outline of the car had vanished.

  The stone cladding on the front of the terrace had been only a façade. The cladding ended suddenly, presumably because it hadn’t been worth the expense of covering the back of the houses. It had been all about outward appearance.

  Cooper went back into the house and found Philip Granger sitting on a chair in the kitchen.

  ‘And there’s no girlfriend around?’ he said.

  Philip had already been prompted for the names of anyone in a close relationship who might need to be contacted before news of his brother’s death began to leak out. But it was surprising what important details slipped the minds of bereaved relatives, only to be remembered at the second or third time of asking.

  ‘Neil had a lot of girlfriends, on and off,’ said Philip. ‘I don’t think there was anyone particular recently. I suppose I’ll have to do some phoning round.’

  ‘Please let us have any names and phone numbers, too. We’ll need to speak to them. Also to any other friends or associates.’

  ‘Associates?’

  ‘Work colleagues, perhaps. I don’t know. Anyone your brother had connections with. Particularly anyone he might have fallen out with.’

  Granger looked up from his feet and tried to focus on Cooper. ‘Who do you think did it, then?’

  ‘We don’t know at the moment, sir. That’s why we need any leads you can give us.’

  ‘You think it was someone Neil knew?’

  ‘Yes, it seems likely in the circumstances.’

  ‘Somehow, that makes it even worse,’ said Granger.

  ‘Yes, it always does. Are you older than your brother?’

  ‘Yes, by three years. It isn’t much, but it always seemed a lot between us. He was always my little brother. I felt quite responsible for him after our mum died. She had cancer of the stomach, you know.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  ‘He was sent down for burglary when we were teenagers, and we never saw him again. He was let out a few years ago, but he didn’t bother coming home. Mum wasn’t too upset about that.’

  ‘Did he come to her funeral?’

  ‘No. We’ve never heard anything from him, and we haven’t tried to find him either.’

  ‘So you don’t even know whether he’s still alive?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘He ought to be told about Neil, if we can trace him.’


  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t help there.’

  Cooper caught sight of himself in a mirror on the wall near the front door. He looked more at home here than Philip Granger did. Briefly, the thought crossed his mind that the house would be coming on the market. He pushed it away guiltily.

  ‘When did you last speak to your brother, Mr Granger?’

  ‘A few days ago. I’m not sure exactly when.’

  ‘During the last week?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The beginning of the week?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  Granger was starting to flag a bit. He probably wouldn’t be able to provide any more useful information at the moment.

  ‘But you said earlier that Neil was in Withens on Friday evening, is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Philip. ‘He was at a rehearsal.’

  ‘You weren’t there yourself?’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t speak to your brother at the rehearsal?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Not really. It was kind of busy. And, you know – noisy.’

  ‘This was a rehearsal for …?’

  ‘The Border Rats.’

  Philip looked around the room with a puzzled frown, cocking his head as if listening for a voice that wasn’t there.

  ‘They’ll have a vacancy now,’ he said.

  Ben Cooper was glad to get back to his flat in Welbeck Street that night. Withens and all the people connected with it had started to depress him, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe it was the air of distrust he had met from everyone he had spoken to. They had been suspicious either of the police, or of each other, or even of the world in general. A police officer lived with suspicion, of course. But when it was unjustified, it was peculiarly depressing.

  Cooper knew he was due to get a new neighbour in the upstairs flat. The previous tenant had been there for years, but had started to get a bit frail and had taken the chance of sheltered housing when she received an offer. Cooper expected his landlady, Mrs Shelley, to advertise the vacancy, as she had done with the ground-floor flat. ‘Reliable and trustworthy professional people only’. That’s what the advert had said in the bookshop that day, when he had seen it by sheer chance.

  But Mrs Shelley showed no signs of advertising the flat, or even getting any maintenance work or decorating done when the old tenant’s belongings had been moved out. Cooper was curious to know what was going on. He had heard almost no noise from the old lady, but if someone less quiet moved in upstairs, it could have an impact on his life.