‘He never really went back home after he graduated/ said Sarah. ‘He got a job with a computer company in Edendale, and he moved to live there. I don’t think Michael and Gail see as much of him as they’d like. But he has a girlfriend, and it seems serious, so he has other things to think about than his mum and dad.’
‘Unfortunately, I never did get the chance to speak to Neil Granger about Emma.’
That’s a shame. Do you think he might have known where she is? We’ve never asked him, not since we went down to Bearwood two years ago.’
‘You’ve asked Alex Dearden often, he says.’
‘Yes, but that’s different. The Granger boys weren’t people we talked to very much.’
Fry sighed. It didn’t make sense to her. It seemed the fact that Sarah Renshaw had pestered Alex Dearden for news of Emma, but not Neil Granger, didn’t actually mean she thought Alex was more likely to know something.
‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to go over that last day again with you,’ she said.
‘Last day?’
The day Emma went missing.’
‘Ah.’
‘As I understand it, she was planning to get a taxi from the house at 360B Darlaston Road, Bearwood, to New Street railway station in Birmingham.’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you certain she was getting a taxi? It’s only a few miles. Might she have caught a bus, as she did when she went in to college?’
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‘I don’t think so, do you?’ said Sarah.
‘Well, I don’t know, Mrs Renshaw. Emma was a student - she might have decided she couldn’t afford a taxi. If she was a fit girl, she might have preferred to walk to the hus stop, even with her bags/
‘But the others said she was getting a taxi.’
‘But did Emma tell you that herself?’
Sarah looked at her husband for guidance, but he shook his head. ‘Well, I don’t think so. Not in so many words.’
‘OK, thank you. Now, we believe Emma was due to catch a train from New Street station a few minutes before eleven o’clock that morning, and she would have to change at Manchester Piccadilly to get to Glossop, where you were supposed to collect her at twenty past one.’
That’s right. We tried to call her mobile phone, but we only got the message service.’
‘Mrs Renshaw, would you have expected Emma to have phoned you at some stage?’
‘Well, if her train was late, or she missed one …’
‘But before that? Wouldn’t you have expected her to phone to tell you she was setting off? Or to call you from the train? Or to let you know she’d arrived at Manchester?’
‘Well, perhaps. But she might not have been able to reach us,’ said Sarah. ‘I think I was in and out of the house all morning. I had some shopping to do, because we were having a dinner party to celebrate Emma coming home, and there were a few things I had to get.’
‘No messages? You have an answering machine?’
‘Call Minder. But there were no messages. Anyway, I think Emma would have been more likely to ring Howard’s mobile, since she knew he was driving to collect her at Glossop. But Howard was out on business all morning. You had some meetings, didn’t you, dear?’
‘Yes. I was trying to pack everything into the morning, so I was very busy.’
‘No voice mails?’
Howard shook his head.
‘In fact, it was a bit of a rush for Howard to get back here and pick up me up before he drove to Glossop,’ said Sarah, with a smile. ‘He arrived a bit stressed, poor man, because he’d been battling through the traffic in Sheffield and he thought he was
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going to be late. He said it would have been easier for him to have gone to Glossop on his own, but I wanted so much to be there to meet Emma.’
Fry wanted to stare at Howard Renshaw to see what she could read in his face, but she resisted the temptation.
‘So you both went to Glossop to meet your daughter. You hadn’t heard from her, so you assumed she was arriving on the twenty past one train. And when she didn’t get off the train, you waited for the next one.’
‘Yes.’
Fry had a painful image of Sarah standing on the station platform at Glossop, getting excited as the diesel units pulled in from Manchester, her hand already half-raised, ready to wave the moment she set eyes on her daughter. And when Emma didn’t arrive? Had Howard reassured his wife, checked the time of the next train, and taken her across the road for a coffee while they waited? How had he coped as the hours dragged on, and Emma still hadn’t appeared? How had Sarah herself coped?
But Fry didn’t need to wonder about that. Sarah had remained hopeful. Her hope had never died - it still shone from her face now, as she was obliged to go over the story for the umpteenth time.
Every time she spoke to the Renshaws, Fry found their air of belief palpable, even contagious. A few minutes later, as she was sitting in their lounge talking about Emma, someone rang the doorbell. Both the Renshaws gave a sharp intake of breath, and Sarah looked immediately at the clock. While Howard jumped up and went to the door,
