‘Mmm. Yeah.’
Cooper realized that she was avoiding his eye. There was more to her manner than just a harrowing session with bereaved parents.
‘What is it, Diane? What’s wrong?’
She looked at him properly for the first time since he had come into the room. Her eyes really did look weary. Weary, and baffled. Like someone who had thought the end was in sight, but now had to start all over again rolling the boulder back up the hill.
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‘We got the preliminary report from the pathologist/ she said. ‘On the remains Alton found in the churchyard.’
‘It’s going to take time to get a definite identification on the remains, I suppose.’
‘Yes, but we have some information.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘No.’
‘No - that was too much to hope for, I suppose. Maybe later, then. They can probably do some tests ‘
Fry pushed the report towards him impatiently. ‘You don’t need to read that far. Just take a look at the first section.’
Cooper started to read. There was some introductory stuff, then the initial assessment of the state of the remains - skeletalized, obviously. And a mention of a missing finger joint on the left hand, which made Cooper frown. Then there was a whole list of measurements - the cephalic index of the skull, its width and length, the dimensions of the nasal aperture. From the growing ends of bones and the gaps between the bones of the cranium, age had been estimated at twenty-four. Then the report moved on to a lot of stuff about pelvic width and something called the ischium-pubis index. It said the jawbone was pointed, the nasal aperture long and narrow, with rectangular eye orbits and a pronounced brow ridge.
He stopped reading. ‘Diane ‘
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It isn’t Emma Renshaw. The corpse from the vicar’s churchyard is male.’
‘But the Renshaws …’
‘I know,’ she said. The bloody Renshaws. Howard Renshaw held the skull in his own hands. He recognized the shape of it, he said. He knew the skull of his own daughter instantly. Oh yes, and all the stuff about drying her hair. I actually believed him.’
‘I’m sure he was sincere, Diane.’
‘Sincere? He’s certifiable. They both are.’
Cooper looked down at the report again. According to the pathologist, the remains were those of a male aged in his mid twenties, about five feet ten inches tall, give or take half an inch or so. Impossible to establish cause of death. There was minor postmortem damage to the skeleton - caused, no doubt, by the Reverend Derek Alton and Howard Renshaw. Not to mention anyone else who might have taken the chance of poking around
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in the poor bugger’s shallow grave before the first police officers arrived to secure the scene. The entire population of Withens might have been picking over the bones, for all anybody knew. In fact, Cooper could easily picture the Oxleys squatting in a circle around the grave, like a set of cannibals.
‘The Renshaws are going to be devastated all over again,’ he said.
‘Sod the bloody Renshaws,’ said Fry.
Cooper looked up then, but she’d already turned away. She got to her feet, with her back turned towards him. She paused only to flick a hand across her face, and strode out of the room.
Cooper hesitated a moment too long over what he should do. Then he hurried into the corridor after Fry, but was in time only to see the door of the ladies toilet swinging shut.
‘Damn.’
‘Problem, Ben?’
Liz Petty had been passing along the corridor towards the scenes of crime department. She had stopped, with her camera bag over her shoulder, and was looking at him curiously. No doubt she was wondering why he was staring at the door of the ladies as if he desperately wanted to go in. Petty looked closely at the sign on the door, to be sure.
‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘Everything’s fine.’
But it wasn’t fine. If he didn’t know Diane Fry better, Cooper would have sworn that Howard Renshaw had come closer to reducing her to tears than Fry was ever going to admit.
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33
The door of the double garage hummed as it rose and slid into place in the roof. Diane Fry looked at the number plate of the Audi parked next to the Renshaws’ Volvo Estate.
‘I thought you said this car was two years old, Mrs Renshaw?’
Sarah Renshaw looked confused and shook her head, as if she didn’t understand what she was being asked. Fry turned to Howard instead.
‘It’s a “The” registration,’ she said. That means it was registered in 1999.’
‘Yes.’
‘So it isn’t two years old.’
‘Well, it was …’
‘Of course it was,’ said Fry, irritated to have been given wrong information. ‘But it isn’t now, is it?’
‘No,’ said Howard, and began to flush slightly.
