Читать книгу Final Moments - Emma Page - Страница 7

CHAPTER 2

Evening sunlight slanted in through the window of the kitchen at Foxwell Cottage. Detective Chief Inspector Kelsey stood leaning against the dresser. A big, solidly built man with a large face and craggy features; a freckled skin and shrewd green eyes, a head of thickly-springing carroty hair. At the table in the middle of the room Roy Franklin sat leaning forward, his arms crossed on the table top, his head resting on his arms.

Venetia’s body had gone off to the mortuary. Inside the cottage, upstairs and down, in the garden and on the common, men were busy searching, sifting, probing, examining.

Inquiries had been made at the neighbouring dwellings but no one had seen or heard anything unusual over the weekend, no one had noticed any car turning in through the cottage gates, no one had been seen hanging about the cottage or the common, behaving in any way suspiciously. The common was of no great size and was full of gorse bushes. As a consequence it was not in favour as a picnic spot or playground. Venetia had never been on close terms with any of the neighbours. Her acquaintance with them had always been pleasant enough but had never progressed beyond an exchange of minor civilities when their paths crossed.

Among the leaflets lying in the front hall of the cottage was one advertising a bazaar at a Cannonbridge church hall. A phone call to the organizers of the bazaar supplied the information that the leaflets had been delivered by Dorothy Pickard. A constable had been despatched to talk to Dorothy.

He had returned to say that she had pushed the leaflets in through the door of Foxwell Cottage at about ten o’clock on Saturday morning. She had seen no one about the place, had heard no sound from inside the dwelling. The cottage gates were standing open, fastened back, and she had left them as she had found them. She remembered noticing Mrs Franklin’s car parked at the far side of the cottage but she hadn’t gone near it.

In addition to delivering leaflets on Saturday Dorothy was also selling raffle tickets in aid of a charity. Mrs Franklin had often bought tickets from her so she rang the bell in order to speak to her. When there was no reply she walked round to the back door which stood propped open. She saw the sunlounger on the terrace, the table with the used jug and beakers. From this and from the fact that all the windows were open she judged that Mrs Franklin must be somewhere on the premises. She knocked loudly at the back door and when there was no answer she put her head in and called out, again without success. She looked down the garden but saw no one. She concluded that Mrs Franklin might have gone up to the little shop or walked across the fields to the farm for some eggs.

By the time the police arrived at the cottage Roy Franklin had drunk a couple of stiff whiskies from the sideboard and had managed to get some kind of grip on himself. He had immediately suggested to the police that the murder was clearly the work of a criminal psychopath, possibly someone from a local psychiatric institution–there were two in the area. The circumstances of the crime had at once prompted the same thought in the Chief Inspector. Both institutions were contacted by phone and officers were sent to begin inquiries.

Venetia had been wearing a certain amount of jewellery: a gold wristwatch, gold stud earrings, a gold chain round her neck. She also wore three rings, a diamond engagement ring, a wedding ring and the sapphire and diamond ring Franklin had given her after the birth of Simon. No attempt appeared to have been made to remove any of these items.

Nor, apparently, had there been any attempt to enter the cottage. There was no sign of disturbance nor, as far as Franklin could tell them, did anything appear to be missing. The cottage was well furnished and there were several ornaments and other items of value that could easily have been snatched up and thrust into a pocket. On the dressing table in Venetia’s bedroom was a jewel box containing several pieces of fair value. Inside the shoulder-bag on the chest of drawers was a wallet holding a sizeable sum of money, a chequebook and credit cards. Nothing apparently touched, nothing taken.

One of the buttons was missing from the shirt Venetia wore. The shirt was of fine cotton, striped in blue and white; the buttons were fancy, dark blue buttons of good quality, many-faceted. The missing button had been ripped from the shirt, tearing out a small piece of material. The search had so far failed to turn up the button.

According to Franklin he had called for the children, as arranged, at five o’clock on Friday afternoon. Venetia had given the children their tea on the terrace, as she often did in fine weather. He had exchanged a few words with her but they hadn’t stood about chatting; he knew that she was going away for the weekend. She hadn’t mentioned at what time she intended setting off but he had the impression that it would be as soon as she had tidied up and changed out of her shirt and jeans.

It had been agreed that he would take the children to school on Monday morning; Venetia would be back from her trip in time to pick them up at the school on Monday afternoon. This wasn’t the first time they had made such an arrangement.

When the children finished their tea they ran into the cottage to wash their hands and faces. He went inside and brought out their cases. Venetia fetched a tray from the kitchen and began to clear the tea-things. When the children came out they said goodbye to her and got into the car. He immediately drove off, leaving the gates open, fastened back, as they had been when he arrived. That was the last time he had seen Venetia alive. He had had no further contact of any kind with her.

He didn’t take the children straight to his flat. His wife Jane was at work and wouldn’t be in till around six. Jane had never met Venetia; she had never wanted to and the necessity had never arisen. It had always been he who had picked up the children. It had been settled between himself and Jane that he was to take the children to the fair on the common by the railway, bringing them home at about seven, by which time Jane would have prepared supper. At the fairground he had seen various people he knew and there were other children from Sunnycroft School there with their mothers. He had spoken briefly to one of the mothers who was a customer at his shop.

At seven o’clock he had duly taken the children back to the flat. Jane was there and they all had supper and then watched television. The children went to bed at about nine and he spent the next hour or so in his workshop. He and Jane went to bed around half past ten. On Saturday morning he busied himself as usual in the shop and workshop. Simon spent the morning with him. Katie went out shopping with Jane and afterwards stayed with her while she attended to the housework and cooking.

On Saturday afternoon he left his assistant and one of the repairmen in charge while he and Jane took the children to a nearby safari park. Again they saw and spoke to other children and parents known to them from school. They returned to the flat at about eight. On Sunday they all four spent the day in a riverside town fifteen miles away. They took a boat out on the river, ate a picnic lunch and tea on the river bank, returning home around half past seven.

It seemed highly probable that Venetia had died very shortly after Roy drove away from the cottage with the children on Friday afternoon and the preliminary medical examination tended to support this impression. A short distance from the cottage, on the common, they had found a spot on a small rise, beneath the overhanging branches of a hawthorn, where the grass had recently been flattened. Someone standing under the branches could look down unobserved on the cottage and garden.

Chief Inspector Kelsey had asked Franklin if he had ever before seen the silky brown scarf that had been stuffed down Venetia’s throat but Franklin had shaken his head.

The Chief Inspector stood now looking down at Franklin as he sat at the table with his head on his arms. ‘Have you no idea where your wife–your ex-wife–might have been intending to spend the weekend?’ he asked suddenly.

Franklin raised his head and sat slowly up. His face was flushed, he had an air of immense fatigue. ‘No idea at all. She never used to say where she was going when I went to collect the children. She never even used to tell the children where she was going.’ Making sure they would be in no position to reveal information about her private life, Kelsey reflected, however skilfully Roy or Jane might try to pump them.

‘Can you tell me about any men friends she may have had?’ he asked. ‘Do you know if she was thinking of marrying again?’

Again Franklin shook his head. ‘I’m sure she did have men friends but she never mentioned them to me. I wouldn’t have expected her to. She certainly never said anything about marrying again.’

‘Did you ever make any attempt to find out about men friends?’

He frowned. ‘I certainly did not. It was none of my business.’ The divorce had come about because of his own infidelity, not that of his wife. He had never been jealous of her, had never been given cause to be jealous during their marriage, he didn’t consider himself a jealous man.

‘Would you have objected to her marrying again?’

He began to look angry. ‘No, of course I would not. Why on earth should I object? I married again myself, I’m very happily married.’

‘Did Venetia bear you any resentment over the divorce?’

‘She did not,’ Franklin said brusquely. ‘We were on good terms. She was never a trouble-maker, she was always easy-going, never aggressive, never the sort to make unnecessary difficulties.’

The Chief asked if Venetia had had any kind of job.

‘No,’ Franklin told him. ‘She never worked after we were married. She wasn’t the type to want a career.’

‘Do you know of any close women friends?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ He supplied the Chief with patchy details of various women Venetia had been friendly with during their marriage but the friendships had never been close. ‘I’ve no idea if she still saw any of them,’ he added. He had been able to identify the picture postcard in the hall at the cottage–sent from Italy on holiday–as being from a married couple they had both known slightly during their marriage; he hadn’t seen anything of them since the divorce.

‘What about her family?’

Franklin looked thunderstruck. ‘Her mother! I’d forgotten about her. I’ll have to tell her.’ He looked appalled at the notion. ‘She’s a widow,’ he told Kelsey. ‘Venetia’s father died some years ago, not long after we were married. Her mother sold the house and went back to Wychford, that was where she’d lived as a girl.’ Wychford was a small town ten miles to the west of Cannonbridge. ‘She can’t get about much, she suffers badly from arthritis. She moved into sheltered accommodation a few years ago, one of those places with a warden. I haven’t seen her since the divorce.’ He grimaced. ‘She was pretty upset about all that–even though she’d never thought me good enough for her daughter.’ Venetia had been an only child and he knew of no other relatives.

He looked uneasily up at Kelsey. ‘I’ll have to go over to see Mrs Stacey–Venetia’s mother. I can’t very well tell her over the phone.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘I’d better get cracking.’

‘We can tell her if you like,’ Kelsey offered. ‘We’ll have to see her anyway.’

Detective Sergeant Lambert drove the chief over to Wychford. When they reached the apartment block Kelsey sought out the warden and explained his errand. She took them along to Mrs Stacey’s flat, going in first to prepare the ground, and staying in the room while the Chief broke the news.

Mrs Stacey was a small, slight woman in her late sixties, looking several years older. Her habitual manner appeared withdrawn and self-absorbed; she had a faded, desiccated air, a resigned and melancholy expression.

It seemed to Sergeant Lambert that she bore the news with a good deal more fortitude and self-control than might have been expected. As if she were walled off in her little flat from the happenings of the larger life outside and what filtered through to her restricted world could have no very profound or lasting effect on the small routines of her daily existence.

The warden brought in a tray of tea and waited till Mrs Stacey felt able to answer questions. When the door had finally closed behind the warden Kelsey began by asking Mrs Stacey if she had any idea where her daughter had intended going for the weekend.

‘No idea at all,’ she told him. ‘But then I wouldn’t expect to know.’ She spoke without any sign of emotion, she might have been talking of some chance acquaintance.

She hadn’t seen much of Venetia since she’d moved back to Wychford, she had seen even less of her after the divorce. ‘She brought the children over to see me once in a way. For my birthday or at Christmastime.’ She gestured with a knobby hand. ‘She had her own life. We were never close, I was almost forty when she was born. She was always a lot closer to her father.’

Kelsey asked when she had last seen her daughter. ‘The best part of two months ago,’ she said. ‘It was a Sunday, early in March, a beautiful sunny day. She just put the children in the car and brought them over. She could be like that sometimes, acted on impulse.’ She looked at Kelsey with no expression on her lined, withered face. ‘She didn’t let me know they were coming. I don’t have my own phone here but people can ring the warden.’ Her hands drooped in her lap. ‘I was having a nap after lunch when they came . . .’ Her voice trailed away. It’s beginning to get to her, Sergeant Lambert thought.

‘Did you notice anything in particular about her state of mind?’ Kelsey asked. ‘Did she appear worried in any way? Did she mention any difficulties?’

‘Do you mean difficulties about money? As far as I knew, she was all right for money. She never complained of being short and she always seemed able to afford what she wanted. She never discussed her financial affairs with me.’

‘Did she mention any other kind of worries? Of a personal kind, perhaps?’

She shook her head slowly. ‘She seemed perfectly all right, just as usual.’

‘Do you know of any men friends?’

‘She had men friends, of course. She was never short of boyfriends, right from when she was at school.’ She glanced across at a photograph of Venetia as a girl of sixteen or seventeen. It stood with a dozen others on a Victorian whatnot in the corner. She gave a long trembling sigh and fell silent.

‘Can you tell me the names of any of her men friends?’ Kelsey prompted when she showed no sign of continuing.

She shook her head again. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know any names. She’d just say something in passing, she’d been to a show or out to dinner, but she never mentioned any names.’

‘Do you know if she had any intention of marrying again?’

‘She did say once or twice that she’d never marry again, once was more than enough. She said it as if she meant it–but then another time she’d say something half-joking, as if she did think of marrying again.’ She paused and then added, ‘One day last year she said: “Do you remember how you always wanted me to marry someone respectable? A professional man of standing in the community?” She glanced up at Kelsey. ‘She was teasing me when she said that, of course. Years ago, when she was a girl, I used to say that sort of thing to her sometimes, that she mustn’t throw herself away on the first man that asked her, she ought to marry someone of substance.’ She drew a little sighing breath. ‘She laughed–this was that day last year–and said: “You never know, I might surprise you after all one of these days and do just that.”’

‘Do you think she had some particular man in mind when she said that?’

‘I’ve no idea. You never knew when to take her seriously.’ She closed her eyes and lowered her head. After a moment she fumbled in her pocket with her twisted fingers and took out a handkerchief; she dabbed clumsily at her eyes.

‘She was only eighteen when she got married,’ she said as she put the handkerchief away again. ‘Roy was five or six years older. I was against it, I thought she was much too young. But her father never could stand out against her for long. And he thought Roy had a lot of go about him, he thought he’d do well in life.’ She sighed again and shook her head. ‘So I hoped for the best, I hoped it would work out all right.’ She moved a hand. ‘I can’t say I was very surprised when it ended in divorce, I never thought they were really suited.’

‘Were you surprised at the way the divorce came about?’

‘You mean that it was Roy who found someone else and not Venetia? No, not really. After a year or two, when the honeymoon days were over, Roy started going on at Venetia, finding fault with her. He thought she was extravagant, she should help in the business. He wanted her to serve in the shop–she used to work in a shop before she was married but it was a very different place from Franklin’s, very high-class. Youngjohn’s, the china and gift shop, I expect you know it. They have such lovely things there and of course Venetia always liked beautiful things, she had very good taste.’ Tears threatened again but she made a determined effort to blink them away. ‘She never paid much attention to Roy’s grumbles, she just went on in her own way. She used to laugh at him, say he took things too seriously, there was more to life than working every hour God sends.’

‘What kind of terms was she on with Roy and his second wife?’

“Very good,’ she said at once. ‘There was never anything spiteful about Venetia.’

‘Do you know of any particular woman friend? Someone she might have confided in?’

‘She wasn’t the kind to have close women friends.’ She pondered. ‘There’s Megan, Megan Brewster, I suppose she might have talked to her, though she hadn’t seen her for years until about six months ago. Megan was the nearest she ever had to a sister when they were young.’ The Brewsters had lived next door to them in Cannonbridge. The two girls were the same age, went to school together, sat next to each other in class. ‘They were really very different,’ Mrs Stacey said. ‘I suppose it was the attraction of opposites.’ She nodded over at the whatnot. ‘Megan’s in one of those photographs, with Venetia. On the second shelf.’

Kelsey went over and picked up the photograph. Venetia, eleven or twelve years old, very pretty in a short-sleeved cotton frock, her long curly fair hair tied up in a pony tail; she was smiling, posing theatrically for the camera. And Megan beside her, taller and thinner, with short, straight, black hair cut in a fringe. She stood erect and poised, her hands at her sides, her dark eyes looking squarely and unself-consciously out at the camera, her expression serious and thoughtful.

‘The Brewsters left Cannonbridge when Megan was fourteen,’ Mrs Stacey said as Kelsey sat down again. ‘Mr Brewster was transferred to the West Country. The girls wrote to each other at first but after a while they stopped. And then one day just before Christmas last year, when Venetia came over here with the children to see me, she told me she’d had a phone call from Megan. She was really pleased to hear from her again. Megan’s still single, she’s a real career girl. She works for a department store.’ She mentioned the name of a nationwide chain. ‘She’d been moved to the Martleigh branch.’ Martleigh was a good deal smaller than Cannonbridge and lay some twenty-two miles to the north-east of that town.

‘I know Venetia went over to Martleigh more than once to see Megan.’ Mrs Stacey broke off and put a hand up to her face. ‘Of course–Megan won’t know about Venetia. How dreadful–she’ll probably hear it on the radio or see it in the papers.’ All at once she began to cry, terribly and painfully, her head bent, her misshapen hands covering her face.

Kelsey waited in silence until she was again in command of herself. She sat up and gave him a level look from her faded blue eyes. ‘If you’ve any more questions to ask,’ she said, ‘don’t worry about me. Go right ahead and ask. I’ll be all right.’

‘Just two more points,’ Kelsey said gently. ‘Do you feel you can shed any kind of light on what’s happened?’

‘Living in that cottage,’ she said at once, with certainty. ‘It’s far too isolated. I never liked her living there alone, just with the children, after the divorce. I suggested to her more than once that she might think of moving into town but she said she liked it out at Foxwell, it was quiet and private. But I never thought it wise. So many unbalanced people about these days, people who’ll stop at nothing. A young woman on her own like that, unprotected, it seemed to me to be asking for trouble.’

‘I’m afraid this is going to be an ordeal for you,’ Kelsey said as he took out the brown scarf folded into its plastic wrapping. He did his best to prepare Mrs Stacey, to lessen the shock before he asked her if she would look at the scarf to see if she could recognize it. She braced herself and looked down with careful concentration at the silky material with its subdued, paisley-type pattern. The scarf was not of good quality and was far from new. She studied it for several moments before she shook her head decisively. She was quite certain she had never seen the scarf before. ‘I would be very surprised indeed if it had belonged to Venetia,’ she said with conviction. ‘It’s not at all the kind of thing she would wear.’