Stephen Booth - Blind to the Bones

‘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 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.

‘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-balanced 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-en-le-Frith.’

‘Can you tell us exactly?’

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