‘Did one of the Deardens knock him down?’
‘Yes, it was Michael, in his four-wheel drive. It wasn’t his fault, by all accounts. Jake seems to have run out of the entrance to Waterloo Terrace, right in front of him. Michael wasn’t even speeding, but he couldn’t stop in time. In fact, Jake was lucky the car only caught him a glancing blow, but his leg was shattered. Because his bones are growing, they haven’t healed properly, I think/
‘The Oxleys must have been very upset/
‘Oh, yes. But so was Michael. He was never charged with any offence, but guilt can be a terrible thing, all the same/
Cooper looked up the road towards Shepley Head Lodge. ‘Is that why Mr Dearden tries to avoid driving through Withens?’.
‘Well, wouldn’t you? He has to drive past the same spot every time. And the Oxley children are always out playing by the side of the road, including Jake. Michael would rather go out of his way to avoid seeing Jake every day/
‘Thank you, Mr Alton/
‘Have I been of some help?’
‘Yes, I think so/
‘I’ll leave you to your work, then/
Alton walked across the car park and went into the pub through the same side door that Jake Oxley had used. He was carrying a long bag over his shoulder, like a cricket bag or a soft case for a musical instrument of some kind.
Cooper watched him go. Maybe it was time to pay a visit to the pub. If he was lucky, he might be able fit it in after his drive into Sheffield.
‘Well? Did you find out anything from the boy?’ asked the Ranger, as Cooper struggled back to the car.
‘Oh yes/ said Cooper. ‘I found out he’s only nine/
The house in Darlaston Road was occupied by another group of students now, of course. As far as they were concerned, Neil
270
Granger, Alex Dearden and Debbie Stark might as well never have existed, let alone Emma Renshaw.
But Diane Fry found it helped her just to stand outside the house and look up the road towards Birmingham, to note that the nearest bus stop was only about fifty yards away and to imagine Emma walking along the pavement towards the stop.
Emma could easily have walked that distance with her luggage. But did she? Or had Neil Granger or someone else given her a lift? How could she ever know? No witnesses to Emma’s last journey had been found at the time, let alone more than two years later.
Nevertheless, Fry had to make the attempt. She and Gavin Murfin took a side of the road each and tried desperately to jog people’s memories, with the help of the photographs of Emma.
‘Most of them weren’t even living around here then,’ said Murfin, crossing the street to speak to Fry in between houses. ‘Even those who were in the area two years ago look at me as though I’m round the twist.’
‘I know.’
Fry looked at the fifty yards of pavement between 360B Darlaston Road and the bus stop, as if it might tell her something. She found it as difficult picturing Emma here as she had in the area where the mobile phone was discovered.
‘I think Emma was picked up by someone,’ she said. ‘But it had to be someone she knew. So why didn’t she tell any of the others that’s what she was doing, Gavin?’
Murfin shrugged. ‘Maybe the person picking her up was somebody she didn’t want them to know about.’
As Fry watched, a cream-and-blue double-decker bus slowed down and stopped, blocking her view of the house completely.
‘But who?’ she said.
271
25
Ben Cooper had to steer the car carefully to avoid scraping his paintwork on the boulders as he drove into the entrance of the Quiet Shepherd’s car park. He was already in a bad mood. For a start, he was convinced the antiques dealer in Crookes had simply wanted a bit of attention, and that the leads he’d offered would turn out to be useless when they were checked out. After he had finally escaped from the dealer, Cooper had realized how hungry he was. He had no idea whether the pub in Withens served food, so he had grabbed a cheese sandwich from a corner shop on his way out of Sheffield. The cheese had been greasy and unidentifiable, and it lay uncomfortably on his stomach by the time he arrived at the Quiet Shepherd.
Inside, the pub was gloomy. The lower parts of the walls were dark wood panelling, with even darker wallpaper above it in a deep, sombre blue. Black-and-white photographs hung in frames on the walls, some of them showing views of an old railway station with steam trains standing at the platforms and dark tunnel mouths visible behind them. Either Woodhead or Dunford Bridge, he supposed.
But the first thing Cooper noticed was that a lot of noise was coming from the room above the bar. An awful lot of noise. In fact, it sounded as though several people were kicking their way through the floorboards, screaming at each other while they did it. There were other noises, too, like someone smashing up wooden furniture. The lights in the middle of the bar were swinging under the vibration.
Cooper looked at the landlord behind the counter. He was polishing glasses, apparently unconcerned that his pub was being
273
demolished over his head. Cooper thought he could detect some kind of music behind the noise, too, so perhaps he had just happened to walk in while the local thrash metal band was practising. It might explain why there was no one else in the bar.
‘We don’t get much custom on a Wednesday night,’ said the landlord, as if reading his mind. He put his towel down and smiled at Cooper. He had a couple of amalgam fillings on either side of his lower jaw that had gone black with age.
‘So what’s going on upstairs?’ said Cooper.
