Blind to the Bones. Stephen Booth

Chapel-en-le-Frith. The phone was one of hundreds of bits of rubbish they picked up. If it hadn’t been wrapped up tight in a plastic carrier bag, there might not have been anything recognizable left to be found.’

      Despite its condition, the mobile phone had still contained its SIM card when it was found. It had been traced via the network operators, Vodafone, to the ownership of Miss Emma Renshaw, the Old Rectory, Main Street, Withens.

      Fry opened the file that Hitchens had given her. As soon as she saw the first photograph, she thought she knew what had triggered the fear. Emma Renshaw was standing in a garden, wearing a white sweater with leaping dolphins across the chest. Her hair was fair and straight, hanging almost to her shoulders, and she looked happy, but shy, and a little nervous too.

      The second photograph was slightly more recent. A note said it had been taken while Emma was on a study trip in Italy. Not Venice or Florence, or even Rome – the places where everyone was supposed to go to look at art. She was in Milan, visiting contemporary design houses. But the weather had been warm and sunny in Milan. The photo showed her standing in front of a café with another girl, of Asian appearance. Emma’s hair was pulled back, revealing good cheekbones and delicate ears, which made her look more vulnerable, despite the increased confidence in her smile. She was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, and the skin of her arms and neck was bare and pink.

      ‘Emma Renshaw disappeared just over two years ago,’ said Hitchens. ‘She was a student in Birmingham, where she attended the University of Central England’s School of Art and Design. She was last seen by the young people she shared a house with in Bearwood, about three miles from the art school. Bearwood is in the area called the Black Country.’

      ‘Yes, I know,’ said Fry.

      ‘Oh, of course you do.’

      Fry could see the information from her personnel file gradually being dredged up into her DI’s mind. The expression on his face changed as he remembered the awful details, became embarrassed for a moment, then resumed his professional manner.

      ‘You’re from the Black Country yourself, aren’t you, Diane?’

      ‘Yes, sir. That’s where I’m from.’

      The Black Country was the name given to the urban sprawl west of the city of Birmingham. Old industrial towns like Wolverhampton, West Bromwich, Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall were in the Black Country. And many smaller communities, too – like Warley, where Fry had lived with her foster parents, a string of housing estates tucked between Birmingham and the M5 motorway. Right next door to Bearwood.

      ‘Anyway, the house the young people shared is in Darlaston Road, Bearwood. Emma’s housemates say they left her in the house getting ready to travel home by train to Derbyshire for the Easter holidays. At least, that’s what Emma told them she was doing, and they had no reason to doubt her.’

      ‘The housemates being Alex Dearden, Debbie Stark and Neil Granger,’ said Fry, consulting the file.

      ‘They were all old friends, it seems. The two young men grew up in the same village as Emma, in Withens. Debbie Stark is from Mottram, a few miles away, but she was Emma’s best friend at high school.’

      West Midlands Police had sent copies of all their files to Derbyshire – there were reports of interviews conducted with Dearden, Stark and Granger, and with several others among Emma Renshaw’s friends, neighbours, and classmates and teachers at the art school. Fry noted that the officer assigned to the missing person case had been based at the local Operational Command Unit headquarters in Smethwick – a place she knew well.

      In fact, Fry could picture Darlaston Road, Bearwood, but wasn’t sure at which end of the road she would find 360B, the address Emma Renshaw had shared. Bearwood possessed most of the local shops for the Warley area. She had been there many times.

      ‘I’m not clear on Emma’s last-known movements,’ she said. ‘Who was individually the last to see her? Or did the young people leave the house together?’

      ‘Neil Granger was the last to leave, by a matter of some minutes. He was on his way to work, but had overslept. He said he had been drinking the night before.’

      ‘Did Granger arrive at work on time?’

      ‘A few minutes late,’ said Hitchens. ‘He had a car, which he drove into Birmingham. He claimed the traffic was heavy that morning, and it delayed him even more. The foreman at the site said it was unusual for Granger to be late for work, and he was normally very reliable. So he believed what Granger said, and didn’t think anything of it. He said he had a lot more to worry about with his other employees.’

      Emma had been nineteen when she disappeared, and the guidelines said that immediate enquiries should be made in the case of a missing female under twenty-one. They were considered vulnerable, and, if they went missing, statistically more likely to have been the victim of a crime.

      So the police officer in Smethwick who had taken the case had followed the proper procedures. Mostly. He had enquired whether Emma had done anything similar previously, and had checked the information her parents had given him against the missing person files. He had confirmed that Emma wasn’t involved in current criminal proceedings, in case she had left home to avoid prosecution for something her parents didn’t know about. He had collected all the identifying details. He had recorded her full name, age, address and description, along with the two photographs provided by the Renshaws.

      ‘But if Emma was going home by train, how was she planning to get to the railway station?’ said Fry.

      ‘By taxi – or so she told her housemates. West Midlands were unable to trace any taxi driver who picked her up from the house at Darlaston Road, or anywhere nearby. Nor was there a booking for that area where the passenger failed to appear. But I suppose she might have hailed a cab in the street.’

      ‘It’s unlikely, in that neighbourhood.’

      Hitchens nodded. ‘But West Midlands checked that, too.’

      ‘I wonder why Neil Granger didn’t offer to give her a lift to the station, if he had a car?’

      ‘He said it was because he was already late for work, and he was afraid of getting in trouble. And Emma assured him she didn’t need a lift.’

      ‘So he said.’

      Fry turned back to the reports. Enquiries had been made at several pubs and clubs that Emma had been known to visit. Friends and classmates had been spoken to. The university had no indication that Emma had been having problems with her work, or emotional or financial difficulties, or had any intention of leaving the course. There was a note on the bottom of the officer’s report that the parents of the missing person had agreed to any publicity.

      It looked fairly comprehensive, at first glance. There was certainly a shortage of leads for West Midlands to have followed up, but all the usual enquiries had been gone through. No one had been able to suggest any reason why Emma should have decided to disappear, or anything she might have been worried about. No one had any idea where she might have gone – except back home to Withens.

      ‘So we need to talk to all the housemates again,’ said Hitchens. ‘Alex Dearden lives and works here, in Edendale. Neil Granger moved out of Withens, too, but not very far – he’s a few miles further down the Longdendale valley, in Tintwistle. Debbie Stark, I’m afraid, is still in the West Midlands. She got herself a job there after she graduated.’

      ‘Well, they could have scattered a lot further than that,’ said Fry. ‘So we should think ourselves lucky.’

      But to Fry’s critical eye, the West Midlands reports had something missing. There seemed to be no air of urgency to them. Enquiries had taken place over a long period – several weeks, in fact. It was as if the officer assigned the case had been fitting it in between other jobs, when it was most convenient. And there was no mention of assistance being brought in from the local CID. No detective’s name was appended to any of the enquiry reports.

      It didn’t really surprise her. In a huge metropolitan area,