‘I never kept a diary,’ said Murfin. ‘It seems a bit sad to me/
‘It would have helped a lot,’ said Fry. ‘But I can’t see anywhere she’s done that/
‘Maybe she didn’t feel she had to. She knew who she was talking about, so why should she bother with initials?’
‘But when she first met him -‘
Murfin made the final turn into the Eden Valley and began the long descent towards Edendale.
‘That diary,’ he said. ‘When does it start?’
‘January, of course/
‘I just wondered. My lad has a diary for school, but it starts in September. They call it an academic year diary/
Fry stared at him. ‘Gavin - you’re a genius/
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‘Yeah, I know.’
‘If this is a member of staff we’re looking for, Emma would have met him in her first term at the art school - the previous October. Even if it was a student, the same applies.’ She slapped the diary. ‘We’ve only got the last four months here. We need the diary before this one.’
‘If she had one.’
‘Oh, she’ll have had one all right.’
LDBAT. Life Didn’t Begin Again Today. The more she looked at it, the more Fry was sure. Emma Renshaw had written it day after day, a sure sign of an obsession.
But on a Thursday two years ago, Emma’s diary entries had stopped completely. Life didn’t begin again that day, either. But had life ended, instead?
‘That’s another thing you can do, Gavin. Get on to the Renshaws and ask for a previous diary.’
‘Great. The rewards of genius, eh?’
Fry opened her file and looked at the photographs of Emma Renshaw for a long time. In particular, she studied the ones in which Emma was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt or shorts, displaying bare limbs and healthy skin. In one picture, she was posing in a bikini top against a background of sand and sunlit water, with her arms and shoulders an uncomfortable shade of pink. In every photograph, Emma was smiling and happy, a healthy teenager with the rest of her life before her.
Fry found a sentence running through her head. It was something really stupid that she’d heard on a BBC Radio 4 programme a few months ago. It might even have been You and Yours. The discussion had been about direct marketing, the posh expression for junk mail, and how it could be stopped - or ‘suppressed’, as one of the studio guests had insisted on putting it. The presenter had expressed astonishment that every year hundreds of thousands of people who’d died were still being targeted by firms sending them junk mail. The guest had made a statement that had given Fry a little shudder of apprehension. She had said ominously: ‘There are ways of suppressing people who’ve died.’
Fry wondered whether there was a direct-marketing technique she could use in the case of the Renshaws. Was there really a way of suppressing someone who’d died? Was there a way of putting away the ghost of Emma Renshaw?
Now, when she looked at the photographs, Fry began to see
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something different. Something that the photographer hadn’t captured on film. She had seen the blood in the poppies and the mould in the grass. Now she saw the bones under the skin of the girl.
The figures were moving. They swayed a little, and nodded their dark heads. They did it in unison and in unnatural silence. Ben Cooper wasn’t sure whether they had seen him. If he stood quite still, they might not notice him.
He tried to remember what was behind him, whether his outline would be visible. Of course, he was standing against the black bricks of Waterloo Terrace. But then he remembered the uncurtained windows and the light spilling out of two of the kitchens. And he knew that he might as well have advertised his presence.
The four figures suddenly jerked and leaped into the air. When they landed, they hit the ground with a thud of boots and clash of bells. Then they disappeared from Cooper’s view below the level of the pallets, and there was a tremendous clattering noise, wood pounding on wood, rhythmic blows coming steadily closer towards him.
Cooper began to back away, trying to make out what was in front of him while feeling for the opening in the fence behind him. The noise was deafening, surely enough to disturb the residents of Waterloo Terrace. The pounding came slowly nearer, mingled with bells and heavy breathing. But the figures were squatting now, and were no longer recognizable as human. They might just as easily be some kind of shaggy apes, all legs and arms, scuttling towards his feet. Cooper could smell the sweet scent of fresh wood as the edges of the pallets were splintered and bruised by whatever was hitting them.
Suddenly, Cooper came up hard against something metal. Had he misjudged the gap in the fence? Was it a foot or two to the left? But with his hand behind him, he could feel the hard, unforgiving edges of steel scaffolding pipes. A solid barrier, and the pipes were far too big for him to use to defend himself.
The noise changed and the earth vibrated as the weapons began to strike the ground near to his feet. Cooper caught the occasional glimpse of a reflection from a pair of mirrored sunglasses, or a dark, ragged silhouette as the figures came closer, still moving in rhythm, as if to some music only they could hear.
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Then the screaming began. It was one voice, but unnaturally high-pitched for a human voice, more like the sound of a pig being slaughtered. Cooper froze at the noise, feeling for the first time that he was seriously in danger. He felt something heavy whistle past his left leg and hit the ground, then the same on the right. A double thud like a jackhammer sent a quiver through his legs. Two more blows followed quickly, an inch or two nearer to his boots.
Cooper moved his feet, realizing he was going to have to fight back. This was the moment when he regretted not attending training sessions at his martial arts dojo, even though it was so conveniently close to his flat. The sessions had started to seem like a meaningless ritual. But now he felt clumsy and unfit, and wished he could summon some of the energy and suppleness that might get him out of trouble.
Because of the screaming, he felt, rather than heard, the next blow land almost on his toes. Desperately, knowing he was close to getting hurt, he kicked out at where he thought an arm might be and was rewarded with an impact and a startled grunt. Feeling the rhythm and knowing that two more blows would quickly follow, he
