Blind to the bones bcadf-4

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Anyway, they weren’t interested/ said Sarah. ‘They said she was an adult, and it was up to her what she did. Unless we had evidence that a crime had been committed, there was nothing they could do/

  ‘I don’t think that’s quite right/ said Fry. ‘She was a young woman under the age of twenty-one. Enquiries are always made in those circumstances/

  Mrs Renshaw shook her head briefly, as if bothered by a small fly. ‘So we went to the house ourselves. Number 360B, Darlaston Road, Bearwood. We had to get the landlord to open Emma’s room, because all the tenants have their own individual keys. One of Emma’s bags was gone, and some clothes she must have packed to bring home with her/

  ‘What about personal items? A purse? Car keys?’

  ‘She had a couple of shoulder bags, and those little rucksack things, so I couldn’t tell which she was planning to carry with her. But her purse wasn’t there with her credit cards, or her keys/

  ‘She has a car, but she decided not to take it to the West Midlands

  44

  with her/ said Howard. The car’s still in our garage. It’s an Audi.’ ‘It’s only two years old,’ said Sarah.

  ‘But if she had her purse, some money, her credit cards ‘

  ‘We know. The police said she could have gone away somewhere, if she had money with her.’

  ‘I’m afraid it happens all the time, Mrs Renshaw. In a city full of students, the police will have a lot of similar cases to deal with every year.’

  ‘Emma’s at the Birmingham School of Art and Design,’ said Sarah, as if that were somehow different being just a student. ‘She’s studying for a BA in Fine Art. She’s particularly interested in Marketing Design. In fact, she should have had a placement last year, but she’s missed it now. It’s going to be very difficult for her to catch up.’

  ‘Emma’s very talented, you know,’ said Howard. ‘You must see some of her work. We have all kinds of things in the house. Some of them are pieces we brought back home from her room at Bearwood - work she’d done during term time.’

  ‘She wouldn’t want those to be lost,’ said Sarah. ‘There are some pieces that she hasn’t finished yet.’

  Not finished yet? Diane Fry looked hard at the couple. Hope was one thing - but did the Renshaws genuinely believe their daughter would turn up tomorrow, or the day after, to finish her latest design project or take her Audi for a run?

  She watched Sarah Renshaw turn towards her husband. They exchanged a meaningful glance and a little private smile, as if there were no one else in the room.

  ‘We made our own posters,’ said Howard. ‘My brother had them done for us at his office. “Have you seen this girl?” they said. We put them up in newsagents and at the students union, and at all the places she went to in Birmingham and the Black Country. Some of them weren’t the nicest of places, you know - bars and clubs, not the sort of establishment we would go in normally, or expect Emma to, either. But she’s a student, and they live a different life. We understand that.’

  ‘She’s an art student, of course/ said Sarah. They’re allowed to be a little Bohemian, aren’t they?’

  ‘But no one had seen her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Renshaw, you know that the West Midlands police did make some enquiries at the time.’

  45

  ‘Oh, yes? But what sort of enquiries? We expected them to be going door to door, doing fingertip searches. Helicopters with thermal cameras. All the things we see on the TV news when other people’s children go missing. They didn’t do any of that. We kept complaining. We spoke to an inspector several times. We went to the local newspapers to expose the shortcomings of the police. But it didn’t do us any good. They just thought we were a nuisance.’

  Tor children, some of those things would be done. But Emma was nineteen. And, as I say …’

  ‘… it happens all the time. Yes, we know. Hundreds of young people go missing every year, and nearly all of them turn up again unharmed. We’ve been told that. But none of those are our daughter.’

  1 realize it must have been very difficult for you. A difficult thing to live with.’

  ‘Difficult? Do you know, we panic if we ever get separated in a crowd, or if it ever feels as though we’ve lost each other. Until it’s happened to you, it’s impossible to understand that sense of suddenly losing a person that belongs to you. It’s like being cut off from something you were part of. It’s the sort of fear that can take a hold on you completely, on your entire life. I don’t think we’ll ever lose that feeling, either of us. Not until we find Emma.’

  ‘What sort of mood had Emma seemed to be in up to that point?’

  ‘Mood? Well, her usual sort of mood, I suppose.’

  ‘We all know there are a lot of pressures on young people at university,’ said Fry. ‘Sometimes it’s very difficult for them, being away from home, and worrying about being short of money, as well as having all the exams and things. I wondered if you thought she might have been worried or depressed about anything?’

  ‘Nothing in particular. Not that you could put your finger on.’

  ‘I see. But being away from home, being short of money, doing exams … You’re right, it is a lot for them to cope with. Sometimes an emotional complication can be the last straw.’

  The Renshaws looked at her in slight puzzlement.

  ‘A boyfriend,’ said Fry. ‘I wonder if she had a problem with a boyfriend?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Perhaps there was somebody she was due to meet that night, that Thursday. Something could have happened to upset her. She

  46

  could have had an argument with a boyfriend. Don’t her housemates know who she might have been seeing?’

  Mrs Renshaw shook her head. ‘Her friends say there was nobody special - just a group of college friends. Both male and female, we gather. They used to meet up for a drink at a local pub, or go into Birmingham for the evening, that kind of thing. Unless Emma had a headache and didn’t feel like going out.’

  ‘Did she suffer from headaches a lot?’

  ‘Now and then. She said it was stress. She found some of the assignments and exams a bit stressful.’

  ‘Did she ever see a doctor about her headaches?’

  ‘Not so far as we know.’

  ‘Or about the stress?’

  ‘We don’t think so.’

  ‘Stress can be a difficult thing to cope with, for young people living away from home. It isn’t a good idea to bottle it up.’

  Even as she said it, Fry knew it was a particularly useless piece of advice. Not bottling it up involved having someone you could talk to about things like that. She couldn’t follow the advice herself, and wouldn’t have appreciated being given it. But the Renshaws took it well.

  ‘She wouldn’t talk to us about it much, but there was another girl in the house, Debbie. They were very friendly.’

  ‘How many people shared this house?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘So the other two were boys?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you happy with that arrangement?’

  ‘We trust Emma,’ said Sarah. ‘Besides, we know Alex Dearden. He’s a nice boy - we had no worries on that score.’

  Fry waited for one of them to say the same about Neil Granger, but they didn’t. Instead, the Renshaws glanced at each other again, passing some hidden message.

  ‘I understand Emma knew both of the boys from an early age,’ said Fry.

  They both lived in Withens as children, so they went to the same school.’

  ‘So both Alex Dearden and Neil Granger were old friends of Emma’s. You knew them both well, and you were happy for your daughter to be sharing a house with them.’

  ‘We know them both,’ said Howard.

  47

  ‘A set-up like that could be enough to cause stress in itself, in some circumstances.’

  ‘I don’t think Emma found it a problem. She is a very well balance
d girl.’

  ‘Apart from the stress she suffered because of the work and the exams.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mr Renshaw had been listening to his wife carefully. Now he looked at Fry. ‘She isn’t the sort of girl to kill herself/ he said. ‘We’re quite sure of that.’

  ‘Oh, quite sure/ agreed his wife.

  ‘Thank you.’ Fry sighed. She had noticed that every time she slipped up and used the past tense in referring to Emma, one of the Renshaws corrected her gently.

  ‘You realize there’s no reason why she shouldn’t come back/ said Sarah.

  ‘It’s been over two years now, Mrs Renshaw.’

  ‘But there’s no reason why she shouldn’t come back.’

  Howard Renshaw leaned forward with a smile, trying to look like a helpful intermediary, ready to calm the situation and smooth over the sudden tension.

  ‘There are plenty of young people who go missing for long periods of time/ he said helpfully.

  ‘Yes, I know, Mr Renshaw/ said Fry.

  ‘And many of them turn up again, safe and sound - sometimes after several years.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you know perfectly well that the police enquiries at the time found no evidence of a crime.’

  ‘No/ said Fry.

  But Howard Renshaw was sharp enough to catch her hesitation.

  ‘At least, that’s what they told us/ he said, suddenly fixing her with an accusing stare.

  ‘There’s some new evidence/ said Fry.

  ‘Evidence?’

  ‘I’m afraid Emma’s mobile phone has been found/

  ‘Where?’ said Howard immediately.

  ‘In woodland a little way outside Chapel-enleFrith.’

  ‘Can you tell us exactly?’

  ‘I’d rather not at the moment, sir. Obviously, we want to

  48

  examine the area thoroughly before we come to any conclusions.’

  Sarah Renshaw was smiling. ‘Well, that explains why we were never able to contact her, if she had lost her mobile phone. I suppose it was stolen.’

  ‘Well, il’s possible/ said Fry. ‘But there could be other interpretations. We’re keeping our options open.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  Fry could hear the rising note in Sarah Renshaw’s voice, and she began to feel uneasy. She was aware of Gavin Murfin shuffling on his chair next to her, as if he wanted to get up and leave the room.

  ‘I’m not trying to upset you, Mrs Renshaw. It’s just that we’re going to have to look at the circumstances again, and ‘

  ‘And what!’

  Sarah Renshaw was getting flushed. Fry desperately cast around for something to calm her down. She looked at Mr Renshaw, hoping for his placatory intermediary act right now. It didn’t come. But Sarah calmed herself with her own thoughts.

  ‘I lit a candle the night she didn’t come home,’ she said. There’s been a candle burning for her ever since.’

  Fry nodded, not knowing what to say, and decided to say nothing.

  ‘I need to make some initial enquiries,’ she said, ‘but then I’d like to come and see you at home, if that’s all right. Perhaps tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon/ said Sarah. That would be fine.’

  ‘Will you be talking to Emma’s friends again?’ asked Howard.

  ‘Yes. I plan to start with Alex Dearden and Neil Granger.’

  ‘Alex is a nice young man/ said Sarah. ‘I hope that he and Emma might get together some day.’

  The Renshaws looked at the clock, and then at their watches.

  ‘We have to go/ said Howard.

  ‘We’re going to wait for Emma at the underpass/ said Sarah.

  Fry stared at her. ‘Sorry?’

  Sarah smiled and patted Fry’s sleeve as she stood up. ‘Don’t worry about it/ she said. ‘We’ve been getting guidance.’

  As soon as the Renshaws had left, Diane Fry got Gavin Murfin to pull out the files on them. Murfin had been right - it would have been helpful if she’d been warned beforehand. But everyone else in E Division seemed to know the whole story, so maybe they had

  49

  assumed that she knew it as well. It was just one of those little breakdowns in communication that made life so frustrating sometimes. Probably everyone but DI Hitchens had also forgotten that she was herself from Warley, near to where Emma Renshaw had last been seen. Fry had spoken to very few people here in Edendale about her past. One too many, perhaps. But very few.

  She supposed that Howard and Sarah Renshaw had been normal people once. Until that night two years ago, they had been a nice, middle-aged, middle-class couple living in their detached house in Withens. They probably had a barbecue patio and a holiday caravan at Abersoch, as well as a daughter studying for a degree in Fine Art in Birmingham.

  There were a few little facts about them that Fry was able to glean from the files. Apparently, Howard had already been thinking of taking early retirement from his job as director of a major construction company in Sheffield. Maybe he had been wondering every morning whether his bald patch had grown too big to bother combing his hair over it any more. As for Sarah, she had been due to start a year as president of the local Women’s Institute. Probably she had been busy planning a series of events for her presidency, and calculating how much money she could spend on a wardrobe of new clothes.

  One thing was for sure. Both of them had been looking forward to their daughter returning home from university for the Easter holidays, and they had invited their friends and neighbours Michael and Gail Dearden for dinner the following night to admire Emma’s achievements.

  Now, though, the Renshaws had both become a little strange. Fry had seen for herself that they were a bit too inclined to those sudden stares and meaningful glances, to raised voices and flushes of colour, and to odd bursts of excitement, followed by dejection and tears.

  But the files also recorded the fact that they had become a downright nuisance over the past twenty-four months, bombarding the police with theories and suggestions, pleas and demands, letters and phone calls, and dozens of personal visits to any officer whose name they could get hold of. They had repeatedly reported secondhand sightings of young women who vaguely resembled their daughter. Most worryingly, they had been picked up by traffic patrols several times after they had been found standing in the road, harassing motorists, asking questions that

  50

  people didn’t like being asked. Twice the Renshaws had been brought in to be given words of advice.

  And now they talked about getting guidance. It had turned out they meant guidance from some so-called psychic they’d been consulting, who was advising them where to look for Emma, and which roadsides to stand on at what time, in the hope of some miraculous encounter. Fry grimaced at the thought of the person who was taking advantage of the couple, ruthlessly exploiting their belief.

  She supposed that the Renshaws were still a nice, middle-aged, middle-class couple with the house and a caravan. The difference was they no longer had a daughter. Yet they seemed to be living in a sort of alternate reality, where Emma was not only still alive, but perhaps simply planning to catch a later train from Birmingham. Two years later.

  Diane Fry left the files open on her desk and walked to the window. From the upper floor of E Division’s West Street headquarters she could see part of the stand at the football ground and the roofs of houses running downhill towards Edendale town centre. Everything looked strangely clean and gleaming out there. But that was only because the slates of the roofs were still wet from the morning’s showers, and the dampness was reflecting the faintest vestige of sunlight penetrating the grey cloud cover. A bit of light could be so deceptive.

  Fry shuddered, but not at the view from her window. There was one question in her mind. Could fear be avoided by simply ignoring the reality? Perhaps it depended on whether you were ever forced to accept what that reality was. Howard and Sarah Renshaw seemed to be going to great lengths to avoid the
reality that their daughter was likely to be dead. Fry might have to be the one who forced them to face it.

  Yet who was she to talk about facing reality? For years, she’d been perfecting her own techniques for doing just the opposite burying the fear. Her own reality included a sister she hadn’t seen for fifteen years, ever since Angie had walked out of their foster home in the Black Country as a teenager, and the violent rape that had led her to transfer from the West Midlands to Derbyshire. And there were events in her more distant childhood that she didn’t even want to guess at. It was hard to pinpoint which of them caused the fear.

  51

  According to the therapist she had talked to, phobic behaviour was caused by fear conditioning, the need to avoid the triggers that had caused the fear in the first place. But it could be overcome by experiencing the triggers in a safe context - the process of cognitive behavioural therapy, a treatment for part of the brain the therapist called the medulla. He said new memories had to be created which would over-ride the fear. Extinction memories. A new life to replace the old one.

  Fry had begun to imagine this process as being like painting a new picture over a previously used canvas. As a child and a young teenager, she had liked to draw. It had been something she could do alone, absorbing herself in her pictures in her room at Warley. But sometimes a finished pencil drawing had bothered her, and she had rubbed it out with an eraser. That had never seemed enough, though, so she would draw over it again, trying to create a happier picture on paper that was already grubby and smeared with charcoal from the old one.

  Then a boyfriend had taken her into Birmingham City Art Gallery one wet Brum afternoon, to try to raise her cultural standards. There had been a special exhibition on, and it was there she had seen one of the visions of Hell painted by Breughel the Younger. There had been a lot of other stuff, too, but it had been the Breughel that impressed her. She had kept the memory of it for much longer than she had kept the boyfriend. He had lasted only a few weeks. But the vision of Hell was still with her twelve years later.