Max said, ‘Are you all right, sir?’ But as he laid a tentative hand on the man’s shoulder, he slumped forward across the table, almost spilling a mug half-full of coffee.
Rona instinctively leapt back, her heart in her mouth. After a moment’s startled surprise, Max placed his fingers against Franks’ neck, then his wrist. He looked back at her, his face suddenly white.
‘There’s no pulse, Rona. He’s – dead!’
Shock slammed into her. ‘He can’t be!’ she stammered.
‘There’s not much doubt; he feels quite cold, poor chap. Most probably a heart attack.’
‘Then where are the others?’ She looked about her wildly.
Together, they stared at the lifeless figure sprawled across the table, wondering what best to do. Max said, ‘It seems a bit presumptive, my phoning for an ambulance. Should we wait till they get back? It’s not as though anything can be done for him.’
Rona tried to marshal her thoughts. ‘Let’s have a quick look round; there may be some clue as to where they’ve gone.’
Glad to put some space between themselves and the late Mr Franks, they returned to the ground floor and glanced into the two rooms. Both were empty, though there were glasses on the sitting room table, containing the sticky remnants of alcohol.
They paused at the bottom of the stairs, wondering whether or not they were justified in looking further. Then Rona gave an exclamation.
‘What’s that?’ she asked sharply. On the bottom step were several drops of what looked suspiciously like blood. Her voice rose. ‘Max, I don’t like this.’
‘Nor do I, but we’ll have to investigate. Someone may be hurt up there. You wait here.’
‘Not on your life! I’m coming with you.’
She reached for his hand and, fearful now of what they might find, they went upstairs, carefully avoiding further splodges on the way.
Max cleared his throat. ‘Presumably the parents have the front room, and Louise the equivalent of your study?’
‘I should think so.’
He knocked on the door of the master bedroom, but by this time neither of them expected a reply. He pushed the door open, then stiffened. Rona, peering over his shoulder, saw Mrs Franks seated at the dressing table. She was wearing a pale pink dressing gown, and her back was towards them. But her head drooped, and the mirror reflected a white face and closed eyes.
‘Not both of them!’ Rona whispered.
Almost perfunctorily, Max went over and checked for a pulse. He shook his head, then scanned the floor around him. ‘The blood hasn’t come from here,’ he said, ‘and I didn’t see any in the kitchen.’
‘Louise!’
Before he could stop her, Rona had turned and flung open the door of the smaller bedroom. Though, thankfully, it contained no body, this was clearly the source of the blood. A metallic smell was emanating from a large stain on the floor, and beside it, crumpled and smeared with more blood, lay a discarded nightdress.
She held on to the door for support. ‘Oh God, Max,’ she whispered. ‘What has he done to her?’
‘Not to mention her parents,’ Max answered grimly. ‘One heart attack I could accept; two seems too much of a coincidence, especially in view of this.’
She stared at him, horrified. ‘You think they were murdered?’
‘It looks more than likely, wouldn’t you say?’
‘But – there was no sign of injury, was there, on either of them?’
‘Not at first glance, but that’s hardly the point. And now I really am going to phone the police.’
He took out his mobile, but Rona said faintly, ‘Could we go home and phone from there? I’ve had enough of this place!’
‘Of course. Sorry, darling.’
He took her arm and led her back downstairs and out of this suddenly sinister house. Gus was awaiting them in the hall, tail wagging. Neither of them noticed him. They went into the sitting room and Rona half-fell into one of the chairs.
‘You said, “What has he done to her?”’ Max commented. ‘Who were you referring to?’
Rona looked dazed. ‘I think I meant her father; she’d been afraid of him, and the stress of whatever happened could have brought on his heart attack.’ She looked up, her eyes widening. ‘But if the Franks were murdered, then surely it must have been the prowler?’
Max lifted his shoulders helplessly. ‘They’ll want a description of Louise,’ he said. ‘What does she look like?’
Stumblingly, Rona told him.
‘Right. I’ll make the call, then I’ll get us a stiff drink. God knows we need it.’
He went into the hall and she heard him speaking on the phone. She was finding it hard to process what she’d just seen, the sheer enormity of it. What could possibly have triggered such carnage? And, overlaying all the horror, came the urgent, all-important question: what had happened to Louise?
Max came back into the room, carrying a tray with two glasses. ‘OK, they’ll be over here as soon as. In the meantime, get this down you. It should help.’
She nodded, continuing her line of thought. ‘They were in their night clothes and the beds were unmade, in both rooms. They’d been slept in, but not made this morning; which seems to imply that whatever it was happened during the night.’
She shuddered. ‘Suppose they heard a noise downstairs; they could have gone down to investigate. Whoever it was heard them coming, hid somewhere, and they thought it was a false alarm. Mr Franks made some coffee, and then, from wherever he’d been hiding . . .’
‘Have another drink,’ Max said gently.
Shying away from the picture she’d painted, Rona back-tracked. ‘I’ve not heard from Louise since Tuesday, when she phoned about the stalker. The last thing I said to her was that I’d be in touch. And I haven’t been, Max. If I’d gone round, I might have been able to prevent this.’
‘And how exactly do you work that out? Listen, darling, there’s no way this is anything to do with you.’
‘If Archie Duncan hadn’t been so dismissive—’
‘And you can’t blame him, either. With what we had, none of us could have foreseen this. It’s a ghastly mess, but you can stop worrying about it; it’s up to the police now to sort it out.’
Within minutes, it seemed, there was the sound of cars drawing up outside, and their doorbell sounded. Max went to answer it, to find two uniformed officers on the step.
‘Mr Allerdyce?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sergeant Jacobs and Constable Manning, Marsborough Police.’ They held up their warrant cards. ‘You rang in to report an incident, sir?’
‘That’s right; next door.’ Max nodded towards number seventeen. ‘I left the door on the latch for you.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’ll have to ask you to make a brief statement, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh. Yes, of course. Come in.’
The policemen removed their hats and followed Max into the sitting room, where Max introduced them to Rona.
‘They want a statement,’ he explained, waving Jacobs to a sofa while the constable seated himself on an upright chair and took out his notebook.
‘We have to begin with your full names, address, and dates of birth.’
They supplied them.
‘Occupations?’
‘I’m an artist, and I also teach art. My wife’s a writer.’
Jacobs glanced at Rona. ‘You were with your husband when he found the deceased, ma’am?’
‘I was, yes.’
‘Then we’ll treat this as a joint statement.’ He turned to Max. ‘You stated on the phone, sir, that the deceased are a Mr and Mrs Franks?’
‘That’s right, yes.’
‘First names?’
Max glanced at Rona, who supplied, ‘Keith and Barbara.’
The constable wrote it down.
‘And you say their daughter is missing; was she also resident in the house?’
‘Yes,’ Rona confirmed. ‘And we’re very worried about her.’
‘What age would she be, ma’am?’
‘Mid-thirties, I’d say; but she’s very vulnerable, because she has amnesia.’
Under his prompting, Rona recounted what she knew about Louise, which seemed depressingly little.
Jacobs then turned to Max. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have an address for their next of kin, sir?’
‘No, I’m sorry; we hardly knew them.’
‘We’ll need formal identification,’ Jacobs went on speculatively. ‘Would you be prepared to step in?’
Max shook his head quickly. ‘As I said, we hardly knew them. Surely there’s someone more qualified—?’
‘We’ll come back to that, sir. So exactly how did you come to find them?’
Max detailed the day’s happenings, with periodic interruptions for clarification: the time he’d first seen the open door, where they’d been in the interim before noticing it again.
When the account had been brought up to date, Manning passed his notebook to Jacobs, who glanced at it before handing it on to Max. ‘I’d like you both to read this carefully, and if you agree it’s a true record of what you’ve told us, please sign it.’
They did so.
‘Thank you. This will be typed out, and if you call in at the station on Monday, you can both sign that as well. In the meantime, we’ll run you down there now; there’s a car outside.’
Max frowned. ‘Is that necessary? You have our statement.’
‘CID need to interview you,’ Jacobs explained. ‘And if you’ve no objection, we’ll have a look round while you’re gone.’
‘Here, you mean?’ Max’s voice rose indignantly. ‘What on earth for?’
‘Just routine, sir.’ The man held his eye, and Max, remembering police series on TV, envisaged a search warrant should he refuse.
‘Feel free,’ he said with a touch of bitterness. ‘It didn’t occur to me that being a responsible citizen would result in being treated as a suspect. Short-sighted of me, no doubt.’
His sarcasm was wasted; Jacobs merely opened the front door, and nodded to some men waiting at the gate. ‘They’ll lock up when they’ve finished,’ he said.
Max, grim-faced, did not reply.
The next hour or so had an unreal quality. Rona, having been through similar procedures in the past, was less fazed than Max, and threw him an encouraging smile as they were led to separate interview rooms.
She took her place at a table, and minutes later two plain-clothes officers came into the room, introducing themselves as DS Curtis and DC Fowler. The sergeant was a red-faced man in his forties, with curly brown hair and a local accent. The constable, shifting about to get comfortable, was older and considerably heavier, and, from the beads of perspiration on his face, suffering the effects of the warm evening.
‘Now,’ Curtis began, ‘in your own words, exactly what happened this evening?’
So Rona told him about Max having noticed the open door earlier in the day, and their concern to find it still ajar on their return hours later.
‘You left your house at what time, Mrs Allerdyce?’
‘Twelve, twelve fifteen.’
‘To go where?’
‘To my mother’s, for lunch. She lives in Belmont.’ At his request, she gave Avril’s name and full address.
‘And you returned when?’
‘About six thirty.’
‘Right. So what action did you take?’
Bracing herself, Rona described their calling the Franks’ names, receiving no reply, and going downstairs to check the garden. There she stopped, closing her eyes as, in her mind’s eye, she saw Keith slump lifelessly across the table.
‘Would you like a glass of water, ma’am?’
‘Thank you, I think I should.’
Curtis nodded to Fowler, and the interview was suspended until he returned with it. Rona took a grateful sip, and continued with her account. When, having described the blood in Louise’s room, she came to a halt, Curtis asked, ‘Do you remember if you or your husband touched anything in the house?’
‘Well, the front door, of course, and the bedroom doors, which were both shut.’
‘We’ll need your fingerprints for elimination purposes.’
‘And my husband checked for a pulse in each case,’ Rona added, remembering.
‘He didn’t move the bodies?’ The question came sharply.
‘Not intentionally; but when we first saw Mr Franks, Max touched him on the shoulder, which is when he fell forward.’
Curtis tapped his pen on the table. ‘You’d have known them quite well, since you were neighbours?’
‘Actually, no. The house is rented, and they’ve only been there a few weeks.’
‘So they arrived when?’
‘About a month ago. I don’t know the exact date, but the letting agents could tell you. They came from Canada, and were looking to buy somewhere in the area.’
‘Do you know where in Canada, madam?’
‘Toronto, I think.’
‘Even so, you must have seen quite a lot of them, living so close?’
‘They were very reserved. I knew their daughter better.’ But not that well, she reflected sadly.
‘Ah yes, the daughter. What can you tell us about her?’
A little reluctantly, Rona repeated what she’d already told Jacobs, of Louise’s accident and subsequent loss of memory, her uncertainty about her identity, and Rona’s own research up in Harrogate, while the detectives listened attentively.
She went on to tell them of the mysterious stranger who’d stared in at her, and who Louise had claimed followed her round the town last Tuesday, finishing her account with the receipt of the note and phone call.
‘My husband did have a word with DS Duncan,’ she ended, half-accusingly, ‘but he didn’t think there was anything to worry about.’
Curtis frowned. ‘Do you still have the note, Mrs Allerdyce?’
‘Yes, I kept it. I’m not sure why.’
‘Would you hand it to the officer who drives you home? We might get something from it, though no doubt his mobile will be Pay As You Go and untraceable.’ He thought for a minute. ‘He didn’t give his name?’
‘No. He said it wouldn’t mean anything, and he’d prefer us to meet face to face.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Thirties, medium height, brown hair. He was wearing a pink shirt when I saw him.’
‘And he claimed, both on the phone and in the note, to know something about the Franks?’
She shook her head. ‘Not on the phone; he’d no time to claim anything. I hung up straight away.’
‘How about his voice? Any kind of accent? Canadian, for instance?’
‘No, nothing unusual.’
There were more questions, but to Rona it seemed they were going round in circles.
‘What’s happening about Louise?’ she interrupted at one stage. ‘She’s very vulnerable; she won’t be able to stand up for herself.’
‘Your husband gave her description when he phoned in. It’s been circulated, and a search is under way.’ Curtis paused. ‘When was the last time you saw or heard any of the Franks?’
Rona bit her lip. ‘Tuesday. I was expecting Louise to come round to discuss the stalker, but she didn’t.’
‘Did you try to contact her?’
‘No; I had to drive a friend to Farnbridge hospital, and it put everything else out of my head. I feel guilty now.’
You’re the only thing keeping me sane, Louise had said. How could she have let her down so badly?
Curtis pursed his lips. ‘It’s important to establish when they were last seen alive. We’re conducting a house-to-house, but if you remember seeing even a brief glimpse of them, it would be helpful to know where and when.’
He stood up. ‘That’s all for the moment, Mrs Allerdyce. Your fingerprints will be taken, then as soon as your husband’s interview’s over, you’ll be driven home. And it goes without saying that if this man contacts you ag
ain, you report it immediately.’
‘Of course.’ Rona hesitated. ‘If there’s any news of Louise, could you let us know?’
But the sergeant wasn’t to be drawn on that. He made some vague reply, and, motioning to the constable, left the room. A woman officer came to take Rona for her fingerprinting, then conducted her back to the foyer.
‘Can I get you a cup of coffee while you’re waiting?’ she offered.
‘That would be welcome,’ Rona said. She wondered how Max was faring, and hoped he was keeping his temper.
His interview, as she learned later, had followed similar lines, and he emerged from it as she was finishing her coffee. Once he too had been fingerprinted, they were driven home. A van and two police cars were still there, and a contraption like a tent had been set up, screening the front door of number seventeen. As they pulled in to the kerb, a couple of men shrouded in white hooded boiler suits emerged from it, and came down the path carrying what looked like black bin-liners, which they proceeded to load into the back of a van. Rona turned hastily away, closing her mind to what they might contain.
Their keys had been returned at the police station, and she ran up to the study for the note, handing it to one of the men who’d driven them home. He took it, she noticed, in a gloved hand, and dropped it into a transparent envelope, though her own prints would have been all over it. Then, with a nod of thanks, he went back down the path to the car.
As soon as they were alone, Max lost no time in checking the whole house to see if the police had left evidence of their presence, and, seeing none, was slightly mollified.
‘God knows what they thought they’d find,’ he said.
Rona shrugged. ‘For all they know, we could have killed them ourselves.’
It was still only eight thirty. She had seldom known a longer evening. She thought back to lunch at her mother’s, and Lindsey’s account of the Yarborough party. How normal life had seemed then, yet the Franks must already have been dead. Oh, why hadn’t she contacted Louise, as she’d promised?
‘This will be public news tomorrow,’ Max remarked. ‘It might be as well to warn Lindsey and your parents.’
‘I suppose so. The subject never came up with Mum, but we were discussing it at Catherine’s.’
‘Better get it over.’ He brought the cordless phone from the hall, and dropped it in her lap.
Next Door to Murder Page 19