‘Number 11’ said Cooper, surprised.
‘Yeah, why?’
‘For some reason, I thought it must have been number 8. It’s the empty one.’
‘That house has been empty a while,’ said Granger. ‘But we lived at number 7. My uncle fixed all that up with the landlords.’
‘So Mrs Wallwin has only been there a few months.’
Granger looked puzzled. ‘Who?’
‘The lady who lives in number 7 now.’
‘Oh.’
DI Hitchens coughed impatiently.
‘I’m sure you have a lot you need to do, Mr Granger. But one more thing I must ask you about before you go is this.’
Hitchens produced the bronze bust in its evidence bag. Granger reached out a hand to straighten the clear plastic, but made no attempt to touch the bust itself.
‘Do you recognize it at all, sir?’
‘No. I’m sorry,’ said Granger.
‘Do you recall your brother possessing something like this?’
‘Not at all.’
‘But you’re familiar with the interior of his house? Have you been inside recently? Before his death, I mean.’
‘A few days ago, yes.’
‘Did you see anything resembling this?’
‘No, I’d have noticed it. It would be out of place.’
‘Might your brother have bought it as a gift for someone, do you think? A girlfriend? Is there someone in his life who likes antiques?’
‘I’m sure there isn’t. It certainly doesn’t belong to Neil. It isn’t the sort of thing he would have in the house. I don’t remember seeing it when I was there yesterday ‘
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‘No, sir.’ Kitchens put the bag aside with a satisfied air. ‘It was in your brother’s car.’
Granger shook his head. ‘Could Neil have found it? Or I suppose somebody could have given it to him.’
‘Unlikely, sir, don’t you think? We understand it could be rather valuable.’
‘I can’t help you, then.’
Kitchens stood up and shook Philip Granger’s hand. ‘On the contrary, sir,’ he said. ‘You’ve been very helpful indeed.’
Diane Fry looked at the photographs of the crime scene. In particular, she studied the pictures showing the body lying at the base of the air shaft.
Neil Granger’s skull had been split open like a clay plant pot, according to Mrs Van Boon. Or maybe like one of those chocolate Easter eggs all the children had been eating a couple of weeks ago. Part of his scalp had peeled away, and the bone underneath had been shattered, ripping the membrane that covered the brain. His cerebrospinal fluid had leaked from the tear on to the stones stones that were already covered in blood that was spreading from his scalp wound.
In the photos, Fry could see that the blood had matted his hair and trickled in rivulets down his face and neck until it touched the stones and ran into the ground, his life seeping away into the peat.
In a way, Neil had been lucky. He had never recovered consciousness after the first blow to his head. He would not have known what happened later. He would never have seen the crows landing and hopping closer to his face, or felt the stab of their beaks in his eyes. He would not have experienced the slow deterioration of his body as his tissues decomposed and gases forced out the contents of his stomach and bowels on to the peat.
Fry wondered whether he would have been able to see the steam in the dark. The photographs taken at the scene showed the stearn clearly. It looked almost as if the old trains were still running in the tunnels two hundred feet below Withens Moor. But the trains hadn’t run for more than twenty years.
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18
Carl was in his twenties. He lived at home with his elderly mother, worked in the family business, and led a prosperous life. One morning he answered a phone call, told his mother he had to go to Newcastle - and failed to return. He took neither his car, money or credit cards. Fifteen months later, when police were notified, he was still missing.
After enquiries drew a blank, the case was referred to the National Missing Persons Helpline, who distributed posters and checked their usual sources, but found no official records of Carl. So they appealed for news of him on their weekly page in the Big Issue magazine. Nearly twenty people called after seeing Carl’s photo, to say. ‘That’s the chap I buy the magazine from!’
The NMPH faxed a letter for him to the Big Issue, and Carl called. He knew the photo was of himself, but didn’t recognize the name: he had invented one for himself. All he could remember, he said, was being chased through the streets of Newcastle and then getting a lift from a truck driver. When they stopped for coffee, the driver said: ‘You’d better wash your face.’ In the mirror, Carl saw blood from a head injury he hadn ‘t been aware of.
The driver dropped him off in Manchester, where Carl wandered the streets for three weeks, still not knowing who he was. His sole possessions were a St Christopher medal and a keyring holding a snap of himself with a woman. Eventually he sought help from the Citizens Advice Bureau, who told him of a hostel in Stockport and gave him the bus fare. He lived there for a year, started selling the Big Issue under his alias, found a flat, began to build a life for himself-but was haunted by the fear that something terrible had happened in Newcastle. What had he done?
