Стивен Бут - Blind to the Bones

‘The Black Country, though,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s where you’re from, isn’t it?’

‘Of course it is. You know that.’

‘It’s where you were living when you were stationed... When you decided you had to leave.’

‘Yes. This has nothing to do with you, Ben.’

‘Is Bearwood near where you lived as a child?’

‘Ben—’

‘You were living with foster parents there when your sister Angie left home.’

‘I could really regret ever having told you any of this. It isn’t some kind of soap opera that I expect you to keep track of. It’s just my life, that’s all. And it’s in the past now.’

‘Not entirely,’ said Cooper.

‘What do you mean? I’ve barely even seen my foster parents since I moved from the West Midlands. I had a Christmas card from them last year, and they write occasionally. Apart from that, the rest of it is history. It’s over. I’ve forgotten all about it.’

Cooper shook his head. ‘You haven’t forgotten Angie.’

The windows of the car were starting to steam up. Maybe it had turned a bit colder outside since the shower started. Or maybe it was the fact that Cooper was starting to sweat. He felt like Daniel entering the lion’s den.

‘You know, I definitely think I could regret ever telling you anything about my life.’

‘But you wouldn’t give up on trying to find Angie, would you?’

‘Have you never noticed,’ said Fry, ‘that the world is full of people who’ve given up trying, in one way or another?’

‘No, I hadn’t noticed that.’

‘Well, take a look around. You can’t miss them.’

‘It’s only because I’m concerned about you, Diane.’

‘I don’t need anybody to be concerned about me.’

‘I just—’

‘Ben, drop it.’

‘But—’

‘I don’t ever want to hear you mention my sister again. Got it?’

Cooper stared out of the windscreen. He couldn’t see much outside because of the condensation. But he knew that Withens was out there, waiting for him to have another go at getting into Waterloo Terrace.

‘Got it,’ he said.

‘Now go and try the Oxleys again.’

‘Diane, you don’t know what they’re like.’

‘I’m sure you can get something out of them. Use your charm, Ben. Talk their language.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Diane, you try — see how you get on!’

Fry leaned a little closer to him.

‘I don’t have the charm,’ she said. ‘Or so they tell me. And I certainly don’t have the language. Not like you do, Ben.’

‘It doesn’t work in this case,’ said Cooper. ‘I don’t get near enough to use the charm. They don’t listen to me long enough for me to start speaking their language. So maybe I should start doing it your way.’

‘That would be a first.’

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘Well, I suppose we might need to try someone else with the Oxleys. Amazing as the idea seems, it’s possible they just don’t like you, Ben.’

‘Really? I thought you were in a minority of one there.’

Fry looked at him coldly, but didn’t reply. Cooper could see the tired edges of her eyes and the tense lines around her mouth. He sighed.

‘I mean it, Diane. Trying to talk to the Oxleys is like drawing teeth. And I never had any ambitions to be a dentist.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Fry. ‘I couldn’t imagine that job. All those people with decaying teeth. Some people should just keep their mouths firmly shut.’

Fry gathered the files together as Cooper got out of the car and walked across the road. He was glad of the cool air, and let out a deep breath that he had been holding.

Something odd and surprising had struck Cooper while Fry had been tearing him off a strip. While the Renshaws were convinced that their missing daughter was alive and well, and would be found very soon, Diane Fry might be living in the opposite fantasy. Despite the effort she was putting in to track down her sister, Cooper was beginning to get the feeling that deep down she actually believed that Angie was dead.

Ben Cooper met PC Tracy Udall outside St Asaph’s church. Withens was starting to get him down, but he wasn’t in a position to complain. Diane Fry had to enter the fantasy world of the Renshaws, and he didn’t envy her. Yet his own role wasn’t going to be simple, either. To pull apart the Oxley family, he had to get a chance of speaking to each member of the family separately. And that was easier said than done. The Oxleys seemed to cling together, and hardly wanted to let each other out of sight. It was an admirable closeness in a family. Or was it something else?

Perhaps it was time for a change of strategy. He’d tried to be friendly and polite, and it hadn’t worked. It had been too much to hope that it would, with the Oxleys. A bit of subtlety was called for. An oblique approach, so that they didn’t see him coming quite so easily.

Udall looked a bit tired today, too. Cooper wondered if her son had been causing her problems. For a moment, he was on the point of asking her, but it occurred to him that he didn’t know whether Udall welcomed his interest in her private life any more than Diane Fry did.

A group of boys were hanging around near the bus stop again. Two of the lads were the fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds he had seen before, but now with Sheffield Wednesday football shorts over their jeans. The third was the smaller boy with close-cropped hair, but a distinct family resemblance.

Cooper thought he was at least starting to get an angle on the names now — the two teenagers he reckoned were Ryan and Sean, of which at least one was Lucas Oxley’s son. The smaller one was undoubtedly Jake, the Tiny Terror.

Each of them seemed to be wearing a personal stereo, with the wires of their earpieces trailing into the pockets of their jackets. No doubt they were enjoying their personal choice of pop, which seemed to dominate everyone’s life as a teenager. Ben Cooper’s father had called it ‘puberty set to music’.

But there was something a little strange about the Oxley boys. They were each plugged in to their own world of sound, yet they seemed to be able to communicate with each other by using their eyes and their body language. They turned to watch Cooper drive down the road. The Oxleys seemed the sort of family who were close enough to be able to send their thoughts to each other in some mysterious fashion. Perhaps Lucas Oxley had already been alerted by some psychic means to his approach. Cooper wondered if a telepathic communication from the Oxley boys would be accompanied by a hip-hop backing track.

At Waterloo Terrace itself, the children had been building a sort of fort on the waste ground in front of the gardens. They had dragged lumps of wood from the yard behind the terrace to make the walls, with sections of drainage pipe standing on end at each corner like little towers. The wood had been stacked only three feet high or so, but it looked pretty unstable. It certainly wouldn’t meet with the approval of the council if it had been an official play area.

‘I understand the landlords sent some of their workmen to dismantle this once,’ said Udall. ‘But the kids just built another one.’

‘It looks almost as though they’re expecting a siege,’ said Cooper.

The sound of chainsaws seemed to provide a constant background accompaniment whenever he visited Waterloo Terrace. He pictured the muscular Scott and his cousin, Glen, cutting up the heavy railway sleepers he’d glimpsed in the yard. But what would they use them for? Building an even bigger fort?

‘You know, it reminds me a bit of the place up at Townhead,’ said Udall. ‘I don’t suppose you know it? It’s a kind of commune, I think. They converted a couple of terraces of railwaymen’s houses.’