Стивен Бут - Blind to the Bones

‘Thank you,’ said Kessen. ‘I want to make it clear that we’re going to limit the amount of information we release — particularly what we allow Neil Granger’s associates access to. So we should be circumspect.’

‘Yes, sir.’

DC Murfin leaned towards Cooper again. ‘What does that mean?’ he said. ‘I thought it was when you were Jewish, like.’

‘He means watch what you say.’

‘Ah. As if I’d do anything else.’

Cooper saw Diane Fry turn slightly to look at them over her shoulder, frowning as if she had caught a couple of pupils misbehaving in class.

‘Miss isn’t pleased,’ said Murfin.

‘Shhh.’

‘I can’t emphasize enough that we must be meticulous in preserving evidence,’ said Kessen. ‘This is going to be a real team effort, so we must work together and communicate fully. And remember, everybody — there’s no “i” in “team”.’

Cooper heard Gavin Murfin muttering under his breath.

‘There’s a “u” in bullshit, though,’ he said.

Before the briefing broke up, everyone seemed to need to take another look at the photographs of the victim from the scene. The colours looked so unreal, as if something had gone wrong with the film in the photographer’s camera. Granger’s face was streaked with blood from his head wounds, but it had dried blacker than normal where it lay against his skin. That was because it had streaked and mingled with the black make-up he wore everywhere but around his eyes.

‘If we can find out why and when Neil Granger had blackened his face with theatrical make-up, that might give us the lead we need,’ said DCI Kessen. ‘But at the moment, we keep this fact to ourselves, too.’

Gavin Murfin had arrived at the office armed with an enormous Peak pasty and a slab of dark, moist parkin. He’d left the parkin in its cellophane wrapper, but the gingery smell drifting across the office made Ben Cooper’s mouth water as soon as he walked in.

DI Hitchens approached them with Diane Fry. Hitchens sniffed at Murfin’s pasty with interest, while Fry tried not to look at it.

‘Cooper, what are you currently working on?’ said Hitchens. ‘The Oxley family, isn’t it? Excellent. We need to pin down Neil Granger’s closest associates, who he spent his time with. Maybe he was close to some of his cousins among the Oxleys.’

‘He moved out of Withens some time ago, sir, but we know he’s been back there. One of the residents saw him on Friday night, and he helped the vicar to clear up after his church was broken into and vandalized.’

‘Exactly. Keep on it.’

DI Hitchens drifted off to speak to Kessen. Cooper waited until he’d gone, and then he looked at Fry curiously.

‘You never mentioned the possibility of a connection with Emma Renshaw, Diane,’ he said. ‘I thought you would do.’

‘I’ve already talked to Mr Hitchens about it. It isn’t the main line of enquiry at the moment.’

‘It can’t be overlooked.’

‘No, it won’t be overlooked, Ben.’

‘I do remember the case. Granger was one of her housemates, too, and he’d known Emma all his life.’

‘He was also one of the last people to see her alive, as far as we know. But most of the activity was in the Black Country, where she was last seen. The mobile phone is the first indication we’ve had that she made it anywhere near home. Of course, there was no direct evidence at the time that any crime had been committed. Emma Renshaw simply disappeared. No body, no witnesses, no apparent motive. And no evidence.’

‘Until now. Now we have her phone.’

‘I suppose it’s still possible that she might have wanted to disappear. That was the conclusion at the time. But who knows what might have happened to her since then.’

Cooper hesitated. ‘There’s another reason I remember the Emma Renshaw case.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘We’ve been reminded of it fairly regularly during the last two years. There have been several minor incidents that officers have had to deal with. Advice has been given. An informal warning once, I think.’

Fry looked up from the file. ‘You mean the parents? Yes, I know about that. But thanks for telling me.’

‘And Neil Granger lived in Withens. So he was a near neighbour of the Renshaws, too.’

‘Like you say, he and Emma were old schoolfriends.’

‘Childhood sweethearts maybe?’

‘If they were, it sounds as though they’d cooled off. By all appearances, they were no more than acquaintances in Bearwood.’

‘But sharing a house.’

‘The general agreement is that it was a matter of convenience, splitting the cost.’

‘Childhood relationships never survive adolescence anyway,’ said Cooper. ‘Girls mature earlier, so boys of the same age suddenly look like children. And the girls develop an interest in the bigger boys.’

‘Possibly. We weren’t able to prove that they were more than just friends, anyway. But they’d known each other for a long time, so it was quite natural they should share a house.’

‘What sort of state are the Renshaws in these days?’

‘The state of Cloud Cuckoo Land,’ said Fry.

‘Right.’

‘Don’t forget our meeting, Ben.’

‘What?’

‘We’re supposed to be arranging a meeting. I take it you’ve forgotten?’

‘Well, in the circumstances...’

Fry nodded. ‘OK. But let’s not forget about it altogether, eh? I think we have some talking to do.’

A couple of hours later, Ben Cooper was watching PC Tracy Udall check her duty belt. She was painstaking in her routine, even as she continued talking to him. But a patrol officer’s safety could depend on carrying out this routine properly at the start of every shift. Udall shook her head and tutted when Cooper told her about Lucas Oxley and his dog.

‘It was my own fault,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I identified myself clearly enough. He seemed to be a bit deaf or something. A uniform will make a difference, I’m sure.’

‘Perhaps it was rather rash, going on your own,’ said Udall. ‘But you hadn’t got the full picture about Waterloo Terrace.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But you’ll be all right with me. I can subdue any savage dog with a single glance. My kids take no notice of me, but other than that, I’m mustard.’

Udall unfastened the four keepers on her uniform belt and clipped her duty belt over it. Cooper could see that she was right-handed — she positioned her rigid handcuffs on her right hip and her baton on the left, her weak side. She drew the handcuffs out of their holster, pushing the single bar through the double bar and pulling it back to the pre-load position before re-holstering them carefully.

‘Is your son behaving no better?’ said Cooper.

‘He had another tantrum this morning about me going to work.’ Udall sighed. ‘These duty rosters don’t help. He doesn’t understand the shift system.’

‘Does anybody?’

Udall laughed. ‘He needs a routine at that age. He needs to know exactly when his mum is going to be at home and when she isn’t. A regular routine provides a bit of security in itself. But that’s what I can’t give him at the moment. Quite honestly, I could do without going through a major guilt trip every time I set off for work.’

‘You’re not thinking of leaving the force, Tracy?’

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘But it’s difficult sometimes.’

After a hastily called briefing at Glossop section station to gather resources, Cooper was about to find himself on his way back to Withens. It was almost as if the body of Neil Granger hadn’t been found at the air shaft in the interval since his last visit. Or that he had been in the right place yesterday, but not asking the right questions. Granger was related to the Oxleys, and the Reverend Derek Alton had been expecting to see him the day he died. Cooper had cornered his own line of enquiry, and it centred on Waterloo Terrace.