the subject of the Renshaws. ‘If there were just one of them, it might be different. But the Renshaws are encouraging each other in their fantasies.’
‘Somebody’s encouraging Sarah Renshaw, certainly.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Cooper. ‘You’re thinking of Howard?’
Fry nodded. ‘Yes, Howard.’
‘Do you think he’s deliberately encouraging his wife to believe Emma isn’t dead?’
‘I can see that she’s gone completely off the rails with this obsession. The poor bloody woman has had more than two years of it now. No wonder she doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t. But as for Howard - don’t you think he lays it on a bit thick?’
‘He handles it differently,’ said Cooper cautiously.
Fry snorted. ‘Differently? At one time I just thought he was sad and pathetic, like his wife. But that business with the skull was altogether too gothic and stagy. It was like something out of one of those Jacobean tragedies we had to read at school. All overblown melodrama and dead bodies lying around.’
‘John Webster? The Duchess of Malfi7
‘Yeah, that stuff.’
‘“Cover her face, mine eyes dazzle.”’
‘What?’
‘It’s a line from the play.’
‘Right.’
Fry let it pass her by, as if English Literature classes had been one more interruption in her progress towards whatever goal she’d had her eye on in those days.
‘But I’ll tell you what, Ben/ she said. ‘If it turns out Howard Renshaw killed Emma himself, I’m going to tear him apart with my bare hands.’
‘I think he’d have to be a damn good actor/ said Cooper.
‘OK. I’ll present him with an Oscar first - and then I’ll tear him apart with my bare hands.’
404
‘Fair enough. But what about Sarah?’
Fry leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling of the CID room as she thought about Sarah.
‘Sarah Renshaw isn’t acting,’ she said. ‘Sarah Renshaw is gone from the real world.’
‘Yes.’
But Cooper thought he probably had clearer recollections of reading The Duchess ofMalfi than Fry had. The lines about covering her face had popped into his mind unbidden, thanks to an enthusiastic English teacher and a memorable reading in his sixth-form literature class.
‘But that was her brother/ he said.
‘What?’
‘“Cover her face, mine eyes dazzle.” In The Duchess of Malfi it’s not her father who kills the duchess. It’s her brother.’
But Fry just stared at Cooper as if he, too, were gone from the real world.
‘Diane, I think we should take a look at Trafalgar Terrace/ he said after a moment.
Take a look where?’
The houses behind where the Oxleys live. There’s another terrace of houses there - the same as Waterloo Terrace, but derelict. No one has lived there for years, and the houses are in quite a state. But they’re not boarded up, and I’m sure the Oxleys must have access to them.’
‘A great place to hide something?’
‘Definitely.’
‘A great place to hide a body? Or what?’
‘Let’s see.’
‘What about a search warrant?’
‘We don’t need one. The property belongs to Peak Water. I’ve already got their permission.’
‘We need it in writing, Ben.’
‘No problem. I’ll call Mr Venables, and we can visit him on the way there.’
Cooper folded an Ordnance Survey map over several times until he had a small rectangle showing the area of upper Longdendale he wanted.
‘How do you do that?’ said Fry.
‘What?’
‘Never mind. I guess I’m just fated to fold creases the wrong way.’
405
Cooper shrugged. ‘If you look at the map, you’ll see that we can approach Trafalgar Terrace without going past the Oxleys’ houses. If we park down on this farm road here, there’ll be a couple of fields to cross, and then we might have to climb over a fence or a wall. But we should be out of sight all the way, because there’s a thick screen of trees.’
