Stephen Booth - Blind to the Bones

‘And your other housemates – one was Neil Granger.’

‘Ah, well, he’s a bit of an odd character, is Neil.’

‘Odd?’

‘Well, don’t get me wrong. He’s OK really. But he didn’t mix with us so much back in Withens, you know, because he was one of the Oxleys.’

‘I’m sorry? Could you explain?’

Dearden shifted on his seat and his smile faded. He glanced at Gavin Murfin, unnerved by the silent one, as they always were.

‘You’ll have to find out about the Oxleys,’ said Dearden. ‘They’re a bit of a rough lot, always in trouble. We never normally had anything to do with them. Actually, I thought you would know of them already – they’ve all got criminal records, of course.’

He looked at Murfin again, who stared back at him blankly, in the way that only Murfin could. Holding his gaze, Murfin began to work his jaws a bit, as if he were chewing gum. But Fry knew that he hated gum. He said it was like going out with a prick-teaser – it promised to be food, but never was.

She looked down at the notes she’d brought. ‘I think I have heard the name Oxley, now you mention it,’ she said.

Dearden looked relieved. He was on safe ground again, talking to people who were on the same wavelength. He was uncomfortable about his attitude to the Oxleys, and he didn’t like having to justify himself. Fry filed away that piece of information for future reference.

‘Neil Granger is some kind of cousin of the Oxleys,’ said Dearden. ‘There’s Neil and his brother Philip, and they were brought up with the Oxleys. But he’s a decent enough bloke, Neil. When you’re talking to him, you can forget he’s an Oxley.’

‘He was at the same school with you and Emma? In the same class?’

‘Yes.’

‘And which university did he go to? Birmingham or Central England?’ She shuffled her papers. ‘I’m afraid I don’t seem to have that information, either.’

Fry looked at Alex Dearden with a hopeful expression, and was pleased to see the complacent smile was back.

‘Neither,’ he said. ‘Neil wasn’t at uni.’

‘But he shared this house with you in, where was it, Bearwood? Why did he go all that way to share a house? I don’t understand.’

‘It was a bit of a coincidence, really. At first, when we went down there, it was just the three of us – me, Emma and her friend Debbie, who was on the same course. The two girls were big pals, you know, and they went everywhere together. But there was a fourth bedroom in the house, and after a while we started to think we’d have to try to find someone else to share. To be honest, the rent was a bit of a struggle for the three of us. You don’t appreciate what expenses you’re going to have, you know – books and all that. Emma and Debbie had a lot of equipment to buy for their course work.’

‘And there would be socializing, I suppose?’ said Fry.

Dearden looked at her suspiciously. ‘Why do you suppose that?’

‘Well – student life. There’s a lot of socializing, isn’t there? Or so I’m told.’

‘A bit. But if you have any sense, you don’t go mad. Not if you want to get through your course with good grades, which we all did.’

‘I see. But life was proving a bit expensive, all the same?’

‘Yes. Things we hadn’t budgeted for – Council Tax, electricity, the phone bill. You know.’

‘Yes, I do know.’

‘Anyway, it was around then that Neil got in touch. He said he had a job to go to in Birmingham. It was a two-year contract on a development project on the inner ring road, as I remember. Neil wanted to know if we’d let him rent the other room in the house. Our parents weren’t too happy, but we talked about it between us, and we decided to go for it.’

‘Because he was somebody you knew, rather than a stranger?’

Dearden hesitated. ‘Well, the thing that really swung it was the salary he was earning. He was getting good money on this contract, and the rest of us were just students living on loans. So we thought he’d be useful.’

Fry wanted to do something to remove that smile now, but she needed to keep Alex Dearden on her side. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Murfin chewing more quickly, as if he had found something with an unpleasant taste in his mouth that he wanted to spit out.

‘Mr Dearden,’ said Fry, ‘did it ever occur to you that Neil Granger might have a particular reason for wanting to rent the room in your house?’

‘It was just convenience, I think. It can be quite hard to find reasonable rented accommodation, especially in a city with so many students.’

‘No, what I meant was – do you think he might have had an additional reason? A personal reason.’

Dearden still looked puzzled.

‘An interest in Emma Renshaw, perhaps?’

He raised his eyebrows then. ‘Good heavens. Neil? No, I think you’re wrong.’

He didn’t quite say ‘again’, but he might as well have done.

‘Thank you, sir. In that case, can you tell me about any boyfriends that Emma had during the time she was in the West Midlands? I’m sure she must have had some, despite what you said about the lack of socializing.’

Dearden shook his head. ‘There were a few boys Emma and Debbie talked about sometimes. I didn’t take any notice, really. When the two girls went out, they always seemed to go together. So I’m afraid I don’t know if there were any particular boys involved in their lives. Well, all right, I expect there were. But I’m sure Neil wasn’t one of them, Sergeant.’

‘Did Neil have his own friends while he was working in Birmingham?’

‘Yes, I expect so. Some of his workmates from the development project, I imagine.’

‘You don’t seem too sure.’

‘I didn’t ask him. I was busy. I was working hard for my degree. It wasn’t my concern where Neil Granger went in the evenings.’

‘Or Emma either?’

‘Well, no.’

‘Despite the fact that she’d been a friend of yours since you were very young?’

‘I don’t see what that has to do with it.’

‘I just thought you might have shown a bit more interest in what she was doing. A bit more concern for who she might have been getting involved with.’

‘Emma was OK,’ said Dearden confidently. ‘She was sensible enough.’

‘OK? A large city can be a dangerous place for a young woman away from home for the first time. There are all kinds of people she might have come into contact with.’

‘In Bearwood? The place was just boring, if you ask me. Not dangerous at all.’

‘But Mr Dearden,’ said Fry, ‘your friend Emma Renshaw never came home from Bearwood.’

Dearden stopped smiling and started to fidget in his chair. ‘I went through all this before, two years ago,’ he said. ‘I had the police on to me, and I had her parents after me about it constantly. I don’t know why Emma didn’t come home. I don’t know where she went.’

‘Are Emma’s parents still in touch with you?’

He laughed. ‘Every bloody week. One day, I’m going to take out an injunction against them for harassment. I mean it. I know they’re upset about Emma disappearing, and all that. But if you ask me, it’s turned their minds completely. They’re absolutely unreasonable.’

‘In what way, sir?’

‘Well, Mrs Renshaw phones me every single week to ask if I’ve seen Emma. And every time I talk to her, it’s as if she can’t remember having phoned me last week with the same question. And the week before, and the week before that. Every call she makes, it’s as if she thinks she’s asking me for the first time.’

Dearden leaned forward towards Fry. She could almost make out the designer logo on his T-shirt, but not quite.