‘You don’t believe anything that anybody says, do you?’ said Murfin.
Fry turned over a page, then turned over some more. ‘She’s repeated the same initials day after day.’
‘Perhaps they were something to do with the lectures she had to go to. Like a reminder.’
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I
‘But why the same every day?’
7 don’t know.’ IP
‘And another thing/ said Fry. ‘Emma wrote in her diary all the 8
time. So how come her parents found it in her room at Bearwood? ;p;
Why didn’t Emma take it with her when she went home for the T
Easter holiday? Surely she didn’t just forget it?’ II
‘Well, from what I’ve seen of Withens,’ said Murfin, ‘it was probably because she knew nothing could happen there that would be worth writing down.’
‘Maybe.’
Fry stopped turning pages. A memory was coming back to her of another diary, one not unlike this. It had been a teenage girl’s diary, though the girl had been a few years younger than Emma Renshaw. That girl had been living with foster parents in a semi-detached house in Warley. She had been an unhappy girl.
Suddenly, the letters made sense. It was almost as if Emma had spoken the words to her. There was no room for doubt in Fry’s mind.
‘Life Didn’t Begin Again Today,’ she said.
Murfin stared at her. ‘What did you say?’
‘LDBAT. It means Life Didn’t Begin Again Today.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I just do, OK?’
‘But -‘
‘Gavin, trust me for once, will you? She’s written it in her diary day after day. She didn’t need to spell it out, because she knew exactly what the letters stood for. It’s on page after page. It becomes a kind of mantra. Life Didn’t Begin Again Today. Life Didn’t Begin Again Today.’
‘OK, OK. I hear what you’re saying. I suppose it’s as likely as anything.’
‘Yes, it is. A bit immature, perhaps. But that’s the impression I have of Emma - too immature to be safe when she was away from home for the first time. She was brought up in Withens. f
Living in the Black Country must have come as a shock.’
‘OK, so what did she mean by it?’ 'l
‘Something didn’t happen that she wanted to. A man, I’d guess.’ ^
‘It usually is,’ said Murfin. ‘One of the boys? Neil Granger? Not Alex Dearden?’
‘Somebody she got a bit obsessed with, but who wasn’t interested
288
in her. It could have been one of her lecturers at the art school.’
‘You could be on to something there, Diane. They’re a funny lot, artists.’
‘Emma might have found one of them rather more interesting than the people she knew back in Withens anyway.’
Till grant you that/
‘Job for you tomorrow morning then, Gavin. Phone the art school again and get a list of all the staff who would have had contact with Emma. Some of them were spoken to at the time, but we’ll need a complete list. Their ages would be useful, too. Then you can contact Debbie Stark again and go through the list with her. She was on the same course.’
‘Waste of time, she is/ said Murfin.
‘See if you can’t jog her memory a bit/
‘I just hope there aren’t too many. It could take weeks/
That’s the way it goes, Gavin. But a couple of weeks won’t make any difference now/
It will to my ulcers/
‘I didn’t know you had ulcers, Gavin/
‘I haven’t. But I’m expecting them any day, like/
They were on the A6, and only a few minutes from Edendale now. Fry gazed at the White Peak scenery going past the windows with mixed feelings. She didn’t know where home was any more. But maybe she never had.
She turned the pages of Emma’s diary again.
‘She ought to have used his initials,’ she said. If she liked initials, she should have referred to him that way. Or at least the initial of his first name. That’s what I would have done/
