Mummy coming?’ Katie asked. She went up to Jane and slipped a hand into hers.
‘I expect she’s been delayed,’ Roy said easily.
In the car Jane chatted to the children about their day at school. They answered briefly and flatly. Roy scarcely spoke and after a few minutes all four lapsed into silence.
They reached the edge of town and Roy headed the car towards Foxwell Common. It was a fine, sunny afternoon with a little thin, high cloud. The landscape looked serene and peaceful. Along the hedgerows the hawthorns were in full snowy blossom, the common was bright with yellow gorse, the grass thickly studded with golden dandelions.
The hamlet consisted of half a dozen dwellings. Roy drove past a black and white thatched cottage owned by a widow who used the parlour as a little general store, past a farmhouse, a pair of old dwellings modernized for letting out to holidaymakers but empty now, so early in the season. He turned the car in through the open gates of Foxwell Cottage.
‘It’s all right! Mummy’s back!’ Katie cried out on a note of relief. She had caught sight of her mother’s car over on the right, on the far side of the house.
Simon frowned. ‘Why didn’t she drive straight to school to pick us up?’ No one answered.
Roy came to a halt and switched off the engine. He opened his door and got out. Jane and the children made to follow but he stooped and put his head in at the rear window. ‘Stay where you are,’ he commanded the children. Jane’s head came sharply round and he flashed her a look. ‘You stay with them.’ She said nothing. All three sat upright and alert, looking out at him in silence.
He walked over the gravel to the front door and pressed the bell; it rang sharp and clear. There was no response. He glanced about. The cottage windows were open, upstairs and down. He tried the front door. It yielded to his touch and he went inside. On the floor of the hall lay a couple of envelopes, a picture postcard, a scatter of leaflets. He went in and out of the ground-floor rooms, calling out Venetia’s name. There was no stir of movement, no whisper of sound. Nothing out of order in the sitting room or dining room.
He went upstairs, glanced in at the children’s rooms, the bathroom. In Venetia’s bedroom an overnight bag and vanity case stood packed at the foot of the bed. A summer dress, crisply laundered, had been carefully laid out on the coverlet. A shoulder-bag lay on top of the chest of drawers.
By now he had given up calling out. He went down to the kitchen. On the table in the centre of the room was a tray holding used tea-things, an open biscuit tin beside it.
The back door was propped open with an old firedog. He went out on to the paved terrace. A garden table stood beside a canvas sunlounger; on the table a couple of beakers and a jug that had held lemonade. A folded newspaper bearing Friday’s date stuck out from behind the cushions of the lounger.
He stood for a moment with his head back and his eyes closed. The only sounds were the twittering of birds and the distant hum of a mechanical saw. He went round the cottage to where Venetia’s car stood with its back to him, its front windows wound down. The boot wasn’t locked. He glanced inside; it was empty except for the spare tyre and a bag of tools.
He went round to the nearside front door of the car, opened it and stooped inside; the keys were in the ignition. On the rear window ledge lay some children’s comics and a rag doll. He knelt on the front seat, leaned over and glanced down–and there she was. Jammed into the space between the front and rear seats, facing him, her eyes closed. She lay on her back, in shirt and jeans, her knees drawn up. Her hair fell in disordered curls over her forehead. Her face was contused and contorted, with livid bruises, her lips swollen, her mouth wide open. Something had been rammed down her throat, some patterned stuff, brown and silky.
He remained staring down at her for several seconds, then he reached over and laid the back of his hand against her puffy, discoloured cheek. He drew a long quavering breath and got out of the car. He staggered over to the side of the cottage and stood leaning against the wall, his head in his hands. After a minute or two he roused himself and walked round to where Jane and the children still sat silent in the car.
They saw his face as he approached, white and shaken, his trembling, uncertain gait. They gazed dumbly out at him. He didn’t glance at the children but put his head in at the front window and without looking at Jane said in a low, unsteady voice, ‘You must take the children home at once and stay there with them.’ He put a hand up to his eyes. ‘There’s been an accident. I must ring the police.’
Jane said nothing but gave a single answering nod. She slid into the driver’s seat and switched on the engine. In the back the children had caught something of what he’d said. They sat in tremulous silence, their faces puzzled and uneasy.
Roy stepped back and watched as Jane turned the car and drove out through the gates, then he went slowly back to the cottage. All at once he began to shake violently. He couldn’t control the fierce tremors, he could scarcely discipline his fingers sufficiently to open the front door.
The phone stood on a small table in the sitting room. As he approached it the tremors increased. The receiver rattled against its rest as he tried to pick it up. Suddenly he began to cry. It was some minutes before he managed to dial the number and all the time the tears ran down his face.
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
