Blind to the Bones Page 22

  The expectation was so strong inside the room that Fry felt obliged to get out of her chair to look out of the window. She half-expected to see Emma herself standing in the drive, two years older than her photos, but restored to living flesh and still wearing the blue jacket and jeans that Fry had so often seen mentioned in interview reports. But it wasn’t Emma Renshaw. Instead, it was a pale woman in a green jacket.

  ‘Who was that?’ she said, when Howard returned.

  ‘Gail Dearden. She had some news.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Another sighting.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of who,’ Sarah corrected her with a smile. ‘Gail helps us to collect cuttings for the album.’

  ‘What album is this?’ said Fry, with a sinking feeling.

  The album was sitting right there on a bookshelf. It was a thick volume with heavy blue covers that had been well-thumbed. Howard picked it up almost reverentially and passed it to her, with a glance at Sarah for her approval.

  Reluctantly, Fry opened the album and glanced at the first few pages. She had been right to be apprehensive. A few minutes ago, she had casually remarked that the Renshaws couldn’t keep up with every single missing or homeless girl in the world. Mrs Renshaw had said that they could try. And boy, how they were trying.

  ‘Take it away with you for a while,’ said Sarah. ‘There are plenty of possibilities for you there, I think.’

  Back at the station in West Street, DC Gavin Murfin was watching the TV news with two other detective constables. They were waiting to see an interview with DCI Kessen about the Neil Granger enquiry.

  ‘What’s all the interest?’ said Ben Cooper, draping his jacket over a chair.

  ‘We’ve got a bet on about how many times he states the bleedin’ obvious,’ said Murfin. ‘I’m backing him for a full half-dozen.’

  ‘Oh. Well, for goodness’ sake, don’t let Diane catch you.’

  ‘Nah. She’s miles away. She’s gone to see the Renshaws again. They’ll be skipping happily through Wonderland together for a while yet.’

  ‘Well, be discreet, Gavin.’

  ‘Hey, here he comes,’ said Murfin. ‘Somebody get a notebook out and write them down.’

  ‘The murder of a young man is totally unacceptable,’ said DCI Kessen from the screen.

  ‘There you go!’ said Murfin. ‘That’s a cracking start. In fact, I think it should count as two.’

  ‘No way,’ said one of the other DCs.

  ‘Well, no worries. He’s got plenty of time, like.’

  ‘The police will be taking measures to identify the person responsible for this crime.’

  ‘Two!’

  ‘And we’re hoping to get the full co-operation of the public in this matter.’

  ‘Three!’

  ‘Hold on.’

  ‘That’s obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not to the public.’

  ‘True, my son. But we’re not the public, are we? If I was having a bet with the general public, it’d be different, like.’

  ‘Make it half a point.’

  ‘Give over.’

  ‘Shh!’

  ‘Neil Granger’s family and friends are very distressed,’ DCI Kessen was saying, ‘and everyone who knew him will be saddened by what has happened.’

  ‘Four. And five,’ said Murfin. ‘That’s my boy. Now see him go for the big finish.’

  ‘We’re keeping an open mind on the motive for this crime.’

  ‘No,’ said the DC. ‘Not that one.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘But we’d very much like to hear from anyone who was in the vicinity of Withens Moor on Friday night or early Saturday morning.’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to let me down, sir,’ said Murfin. ‘There’s a pint of beer riding on this.’

  ‘He’s not going to do it,’ said the DC. ‘Start getting your money out, Gavin.’

  ‘A young man is dead.’

  ‘Yes! I knew you could do it. You beauty! What a finish! Here’s Detective Chief Inspector Oliver Kessen to talk about the progress the police are making in the enquiry into the murder of twenty-two-year-old Neil Granger, “A young man is dead,” says Mr Kessen. What a genius!’

  ‘And we believe we are seeking an individual who is prepared to resort to violence.’

  ‘Just a minute, that’s seven.’

  ‘Oh, damn. The daft bastard. Why couldn’t he have stopped when he was winning?’

  ‘When you were winning, you mean.’

  ‘Seven. Who had seven?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘No one had enough confidence in the lad. Who’d have thought he could manage seven statements of the bleedin’ obvious in one minute?’

  ‘Has he done much media work before?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘I dunno, Ben. But he won’t be doing much more, if he performs like that. The one thing HQ like in their senior officers is a good media image.’

  ‘What about the media liaison officer?’

  ‘Dan Simmonds?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Murfin sighed. ‘Ah, well. Better get back to work on this murder enquiry, I suppose. I believe we’re seeking an individual who’s prepared to resort to violence, like.’

  The rest of the CID team were already starting to drift away home for the night by the time Diane Fry got back to her desk. She barely noticed them leaving as she logged on to the website of the National Missing Persons Helpline and looked through the photos of missing people. Ironically, Emma Renshaw was one of the most recent additions. The other cases made Fry very depressed, but there was no denying that they were compulsive reading.

  There was Kevin, who had vanished in 1986, aged sixteen. He had left his home to buy some eggs for a cookery exam at school the next day. Before he went out, he’d had a bath and emptied his pockets, so he took only £1 with him to pay for the eggs, and nothing else. Kevin hadn’t been seen since.

  There was Dan, from a village near Southampton. He was only fourteen, but the eldest of five children. He was last seen in January 2002, after spending an evening fishing with some friends. An adult thought he had seen Dan in the village square later that night, but Dan never returned home.

  And then there was Carly, twenty-six, who vanished from Sheffield in November 2001. She had just returned from travelling abroad and was busy sorting out her things. When her mother came home, it looked as though Carly had popped out. She had taken her keys with her, but little else. She never came back.

  Fry sat back, staring at the windows of the CID room without seeing them. At one time, that gallery of missing children on the NMPH website would have included Angela Fry, aged sixteen, last seen in Warley, West Midlands.

  Diane had been fourteen in 1988, when Angie had left the foster home they were living in. It had been the year of the Lockerbie bomb, the year Salman Rushdie went into hiding and George Bush Senior had become president of the USA. But it had also been the year that Angie had left the foster home where they lived, and she was never seen again. Not by her sister, anyway.

  Other kids remembered that year for Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, for Cagney and Lacey, and the Goss brothers with their mascara and lip gloss. Some of Diane’s friends had been such huge Bros fans that they had worn black puffa jackets and ripped jeans, and Doc Martens with Grolsch bottle tops attached to the laces. But Diane had been fourteen then, and her foster parents hadn’t allowed her to wear ripped jeans. She had made do with a Garfield toy with sucker pads on its feet that she had stuck to the window of the car when they had gone anywhere. Garfield had been helping her look for Angie in the Black Country streets they drove through.

  But even Garfield had failed her. At nights, she had sat in her room and listened to pop music, wondering where Angie might have gone. Angie had mentioned Acid House raves, taking ecstasy and KLF. But Diane was listening to Belinda Carlisle ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’ and Bobby McFerrin – ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’. The wor
ld had seemed a grey place. School had lost any interest for a while. West Bromwich Albion had been swilling around in Division Two, changing managers nearly every year. Ron Atkinson was the manager the boys had been talking about.

  The small details were impressed on Fry’s mind as if they might have been immensely important for capturing the memory. The last memory that she had of her sister, unusually excited as she pulled on her jeans to go out that night. She was going to a rave somewhere. There was a boy who was picking her up. Diane had wanted to know where, but Angie had laughed and said it was a secret. Raves were always held in secret locations, otherwise the police would be there first and stop them. But they were doing no harm, just having fun. And Angie had gone out one night, with their foster parents making only a token attempt to find out where she was going. Angie had already been big trouble for them by then, and was getting out of control.

  Looking back, Fry knew she had worshipped her older sister, which was why she had been unable to believe anything bad of her. Every time they had been moved from one foster home to another, it had been their foster parents’ fault, not Angie’s.

  And when Angie had finally disappeared from her life, at the age of sixteen, the young Diane had been left clutching an idealized image of her, like a final, faded photograph.

  When he got home to 8 Welbeck Street that evening, Ben Cooper found Mrs Shelley standing in the tiny hallway shared by the two flats. She was clutching something in a paper bag with mauve stripes, and she looked a bit surprised to see him.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Ben.’

  ‘Yes, I still live here, Mrs Shelley. Were you waiting to see me?’

  ‘No. I’m going upstairs.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘She’s very nice. You’ll like her.’

  ‘Will I?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Who will I like?’

  ‘Peggy,’ said Mrs Shelley, raising her voice a bit, as if she thought he might have gone deaf.

  ‘I don’t know any Peggys. Wait a minute … is this somebody who’s moving into the upstairs flat?’

  ‘Of course. I told you it was all arranged.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Well, it’s all arranged anyway.’

  ‘Who is she, Mrs Shelley?’

  ‘Quite by chance, I have a friend who lives in Chicago. She emigrated to the USA with her family nearly thirty years ago.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘We’re old schoolfriends. I was very sad when she left. But her husband lost his job here during the seventies when the company he worked for went out of business, and they wanted to make a new life for themselves. I can’t blame them really. He’s in research.’

  ‘Very interesting.’

  Cooper had learned just to make neutral noises while Mrs Shelley was speaking. Eventually, she might get round to telling him what he wanted to know, with a bit of nudging. But it was best to let her talk and get there at her own speed, otherwise she felt harassed and got irritable.

  ‘And this is the lady who’s taking the upstairs flat?’

  ‘No, of course not. Peggy is her daughter.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Now, Ben, I don’t want you to be rude to her.’

  Cooper raised his hands. ‘Why on earth should I do that?’

  ‘Well, she’s American, you know.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with Americans.’

  Mrs Shelley looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure about that. She seems rather, well … exuberant.’

  Cooper smiled. ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem anything like my old friend, considering she’s her daughter. I don’t know what could have happened to her in Chicago. I suppose she must have got it from her father’s side. What do you think of this? I bought it in a craft gallery in Buxton, near the Crescent.’

  Mrs Shelley opened the striped bag and showed him the contents.

  ‘What on earth is it?’

  It looked like an empty wooden shuttle from a cotton mill, but with dozens of little openings along its length, like tiny mouths with pouting lips. There was something slightly obscene about it. But maybe that was just his own imagination.

  ‘It’s an Australian Banksia nut,’ said Mrs Shelley.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Well, that’s what the label said. An Australian Banksia nut. It cost me £4.’

  ‘A bargain.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll like it?’

  Cooper raised her eyebrows. ‘Is this for my new neighbour?’

  Mrs Shelley hesitated. ‘It’s a house-warming present. I thought it might make a talking point.’

  Cooper looked again at the object. The tiny mouths pouted and smirked, as if they were forming lewd words.

  ‘Well, I suppose that’ll work,’ he said.

  As soon as he had settled in at Welbeck Street, Ben Cooper had asked Mrs Shelley if he could have bolts put on the front and back doors of his flat. The locks were OK, but they didn’t give much security on their own. Diane Fry had warned him about living too close to the patch where he was so well known, and had advised him to have a spy-hole fitted on the front door, too, so that he could never be surprised by a caller. But that seemed to be going a bit too far; it was a little too paranoid. This was only Welbeck Street, Edendale, after all.

  When the ring came on his bell, Cooper almost jumped with surprise. He had not thought a spy-hole was necessary. Now, though, he experienced a strange reluctance to open the door without being able to see who was on the other side. He couldn’t call it foreboding exactly, more a need to be careful, a suspicion that opening the door could change his life.

  The woman who stood on the doorstep was a complete stranger. She was in her thirties, thin, with straight fair hair. A battered blue rucksack was slung over the shoulder of her cotton jacket.

  ‘Oh, I think you rang the wrong bell,’ said Cooper. ‘You’ll be for the upstairs flat, won’t you?’

  She looked confused. ‘Are you Ben? Ben Cooper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then, it’s you I’ve come to see.’

  ‘Aren’t you my new neighbour?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Sorry. You’re not Peggy, then?’

  The woman shook her head. With each moment that she stood on his doorstep, she was starting to look more and more familiar. Each movement rang a bell in the back of Cooper’s mind. Yet he was sure he had never met her before.

  ‘No, I’m not Peggy,’ she said, ‘whoever she is.’

  ‘I don’t really know who she is,’ said Cooper. ‘Just that she’s supposed to be moving into the flat upstairs. Are you sure you’re nothing to do with her?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘So you must be selling something?’

  ‘No, not that either. My name’s Angela. They call me Angie.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I really don’t know you.’

  She laughed. ‘Angie Fry. Does that help?’

  Gradually, Cooper began to recognize the resemblance around the eyes, the slim shoulders, and the way she stood, all the things that had rung so many bells. But he was still completely unprepared for the shock when she finally explained.

  ‘I’m Diane’s sister,’ she said.

  19

  Howard Renshaw turned off the TV set when the news had finished. He and Sarah sat in silence for a few moments.

  ‘That chief inspector seemed a very sincere sort of man,’ said Sarah. ‘He gives you the impression that he’ll get things done.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Howard.

  He played with the remote control for a while, switching the power on and off, so that the red light on the set blinked and the static hissed.

  ‘Perhaps we should have talked to Neil Granger,’ he said.

  ‘He’s dead. It’s too late.’

  ‘He might have mentioned Emma to someone.’

  Sarah lifted her head and looked at her husband with interest. ‘There’s L
ucas Oxley. That’s his uncle.’

  ‘I was thinking of the brother.’

  ‘Oh. Philip.’

  ‘That’s him. I’m not sure where he lives now, but I could find out.’

  ‘Why not?’ Sarah hesitated. ‘In fact, I’m surprised we haven’t thought of it before.’

  ‘It was just this business of him getting killed that put it into my mind.’

  Sarah stood up and moved towards the bookshelves, as if drawn by some force to caress the spines of the books, as she had so often.

  ‘I seem to remember you saying that the Grangers and the Oxleys weren’t people that Emma would have bothered with. You said she would never have kept in touch with Neil Granger.’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  Sarah frowned at one of the books, straightened a bookmark, then picked it up and held it to her face to smell it.

  ‘I’m sure you did.’

  ‘I might speak to this Philip anyway.’

  With a sigh, Sarah leaned to rest her forehead against the wood of the bookshelf, closing her eyes as if in meditation or to see an internal vision more clearly.

  ‘I wonder what Emma is doing now,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’

  Howard turned away when she couldn’t see him. He switched on the TV again, but turned the volume right down as he saw the adverts were still on.

  ‘I can’t picture it,’ he said.

  ‘I can. I picture it all the time, trying to see what she’s doing at each hour of the day.’

  ‘Sarah,’ said Howard, ‘have you ever thought it might be better if we knew that Emma wasn’t alive any longer?’

  His wife froze. Her eyes remained shut, but she was watching her internal vision shatter.

  ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘It was just that, listening to the chief inspector on the news talking about Neil Granger, it occurred to me that at least Granger’s family would know what had happened to him and could say, “That was where it ended, this is where we start the rest of our lives.”’

  ‘I don’t want to hear you talking like that again,’ said Sarah, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘You know as well as I do that Emma is alive.’