Стивен Бут - Blind to the Bones

‘That’s not to say it didn’t happen, of course. It’s still open as an option.’

When the meeting broke up, Cooper watched Diane Fry walk over to speak to DI Hitchens. Perhaps she was pressing her case for Emma Renshaw not to be forgotten. Or maybe she just wanted to be seen to be with the senior officers, and not part of the crowd now squeezing their way towards the door. He waited, and after a few minutes, Fry came towards him.

‘OK, I’ve fixed it, Ben,’ said Fry.

‘Fixed what?’

‘I’ve fixed it for you to come to see the Renshaws with me. I want to get your view on them. Then you can go on to the Oxleys later.’

‘Oh, great.’

‘Have you thought of a new approach?’

‘Yes, I’d thought I’d just take a pile of interview forms and fill in the answers myself right now.’

On the way into Withens, Ben Cooper and Diane Fry saw a youth walking along the side of the road. He was wearing cargo pants, a parka jacket and a black woollen hat pulled down over his ears.

‘Would that be one of the Oxley boys?’ said Fry.

‘Where?’

‘Walking along the road up ahead.’

‘It could be. Sean? Ryan? One of the two.’

‘And they’re what age?’

‘Fourteen, fifteen.’

Fry looked at her watch. ‘Why don’t we ask him why he isn’t at school? If he doesn’t actually have a note from his teacher on him, we could insist on giving him a lift home, then talking to his parents.’

‘It’s worth a try, I suppose.’

The youth glanced over his shoulder when he heard the car approaching. Maybe he had been intending to thumb a lift, but he didn’t bother when he saw them. He just carried on walking at the same pace, plodding along the narrow grass verge with his shoulders hunched inside his parka.

Fry slowed, indicated and pulled into the side of the road in front of him. The boy didn’t look up, but waited until the car had stopped, then suddenly turned and raced off across the heather away from the road.

‘Watch out, he’s legging it!’ said Fry.

‘Damn.’

By the time Cooper had released his seat belt and got out of the car, the youth was a couple of hundred yards away, his arms and legs flailing as he weaved and splashed across the boggy ground towards the nearest clough, where he would soon be out of sight.

Cooper sighed, recognizing the futility of a chase on foot.

‘Was it Ryan or Sean?’ said Fry.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, great.’

‘It was a good idea,’ said Cooper. ‘Just not good enough.’

‘Ben, what do you think of this antiques angle?’ said Fry as they got under way again.

‘It’s not for me to say, really.’

‘That’s cautious.’

‘But if there are some potential suspects...’

‘You’re thinking you might be wasting your time with the Oxleys?’

‘I know I’m wasting my time with the Oxleys, Diane. They’re never going to talk to me. It’s starting to make me feel like a leper.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Fry. ‘The Renshaws will be happy to talk to you. But only about one subject.’

Fry introduced Cooper to Howard and Sarah Renshaw, and he was allowed to sit on the settee next to Edgar the teddy.

‘Can I ask you something that may not appear very relevant?’ said Fry.

Howard Renshaw smiled faintly. ‘We’ve been asked so many questions that we’re hardly in a position to know what’s relevant and what isn’t any more. So go ahead.’

‘You’ve told me about your house in Marple, and how much you liked living there...’

‘Yes.’

‘From what I’ve heard, it sounds a very pleasant area. Nice neighbours, good schools, close to the countryside but near enough to get into Manchester or Sheffield easily. And you said you made lots of friends in the neighbourhood.’

‘That’s right. So what did you want to ask?’

‘What on earth,’ said Fry, ‘made you move to Withens?’

Sarah laughed. ‘Well, first of all, you have to realize that it was over twenty years ago, when Emma was very small. We were different people then.’

‘We were twenty years younger ourselves,’ said Howard. ‘I think that had a lot to do with it.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’

Howard perched on the arm of Sarah’s chair. Fry expected her to touch his arm or even hold his hand. Previously, it would have been the sort of gesture she would have noticed between them. But Sarah didn’t do that. Instead, she rearranged her skirt and held her hands in her lap.

‘The thing about Withens,’ she said, ‘is that it’s a kind of separate world on its own. When we saw it, we realized it was nothing like all those nice commuter villages we’d known before. It was much more real . Do you know what I mean?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘There was something rather spiritual about it. To us, then, it seemed like the sort of place we wanted to bring up a child.’

Fry sneaked a glance at Cooper. His expression told her what she wanted to know. Maybe he was thinking of the Oxleys and having difficulty locating the spirituality.

‘We fell in love with Withens almost as soon as we saw it,’ said Howard.

‘Did you?’

‘It was summer when we first came,’ said Sarah.

‘Yes?’

‘It can be a little difficult in the winter.’

Sarah laughed at her husband. ‘We were so innocent, weren’t we? One of the first things we did was take down a big stone wall at the back of the house. It must have been ten feet high, and we couldn’t understand why anybody had built it there. It didn’t seem to have any purpose at all — not something of that height.’

‘We made jokes about how high those nineteenth-century sheep must have been able to jump.’

‘Well, you made jokes,’ said Sarah.

‘As far as we were concerned, a wall that height was just blocking the view up the valley from the house. So we took it down.’

‘We had a much better view,’ said Sarah. ‘For a while.’

‘What happened?’

‘Winter came. And it snowed.’

‘We realized why they had built a wall ten feet high,’ said Howard. ‘It was because that was the height of the snow drifts. The snow came down the valley on the north winds, and we were the first place to get snowed in that winter. And since we’d taken the wall down, it drifted against the side of the house instead of being stopped by the wall.’

‘The first morning, we had to dig our way out of the door.’

‘That was a particularly bad winter,’ said Howard. ‘But that’s one of the things about Withens — you get the feeling that something like that could happen at any time. It’s as if nature is waiting to give you a sharp little nudge whenever you seem likely to forget about her.’

‘And that’s what makes Withens seem real?’ asked Fry.

‘It’s one of the things,’ said Howard. ‘It seemed to us that a child should grow up knowing about nature and the seasons. And I think we were right. Emma is the sort of girl who belongs in the countryside. She has a special relationship with nature.’

‘You said one of the things. What else?’

‘There are the people, of course. They’re wonderful.’

Fry stared at him. ‘Sorry. Are we still talking about Withens?’

‘Don’t you think they’re wonderful?’

‘Detective Constable Cooper knows the people here better than I do.’

‘They’re interesting,’ said Cooper. ‘No doubt about it. And some of them I can’t imagine living anywhere else.’

Both the Renshaws looked at him as if he had said something very profound.

‘I’ve been trying to persuade Sergeant Fry to come to our Emma Day,’ Howard told him. ‘You’re going to come, aren’t you, Sergeant?’