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.
