by K. J. Frost
The door opens again and the receptionist steps back out. “Mr McAndrew says it’ll be alright,” she murmurs, coming around her desk and sidestepping me. “I’ll go and fetch him for you.”
“Thank you.”
We follow her out into the foyer again – mainly because I don’t wish to conduct my interview with him in her office. She’s disappeared through a set of double doors and a few minutes later, they open again, revealing Mr Cole, who holds the door for the receptionist. While it’s open, I glance through and notice the familiar features of Kate Pendry. She’s standing, her attention focused on her work, which appears to be sorting through objects that are passing in front of her on a sort of conveyor system. Well, that’s a coincidence.
“Thank you, Miss Rumbold,” Cole says, with an unusually deferential tone, as the door closes again.
She nods her head and goes back into her own office.
Once she’s gone, he turns to me, a scowl settling on his face. “What do you want?” he says.
“To ask you where you were last night at between five-thirty and six o’clock.”
“At home,” he replies blankly.
“Your wife can confirm this?”
“Yes.” He fixes me with a stare, defying me to contradict him and, although I don’t believe him for a moment, I can’t prove that what he’s saying is untrue.
“I’d like to see Miss Pendry,” I say.
He frowns, seemingly confused. “Why?” he asks.
“That’s none of your business, Mr Cole.”
He pauses, and I wonder if he’s going to refuse. Then he takes a breath and turns around, opening the double doors, and I can see that Miss Pendry is no longer standing where she was before, and Cole glances around, then calls out, “Ken?” He waits until a man comes over and stands in front of him. There’s something vaguely familiar about this man, but I can’t place the likeness, which isn’t surprising as I don’t have a clear view of him, being as Cole is standing in the way. “Do me a favour,” Cole continues, speaking to the newcomer. “Ask Kate Pendry to step out here, would you? The police want a word with her.”
The other man nods and disappears back into the factory, while Cole closes the door again.
“Who was that man?” I ask, intrigued.
“Ken, you mean?” Cole replies, although I don’t know who else he thinks I might be talking about. I nod my head and he folds his arms across his chest. “Well, his name’s not really Ken,” he says.
“What is it?” Thompson asks, taking a step forward.
“It’s David.”
My skin prickles with anticipation. “Not David Franklin?”
“Yes,” Cole says slowly. “Don’t tell me you’re planning on victimising him too?”
I take a deep breath to avoid saying what I’m really thinking, but am rescued by the opening of the doors and the appearance of Kate Pendry, who startles when she sees me.
“Has something happened?” she asks.
“No.” I keep my voice as soft as I can, even though my heart is racing. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She shakes her head, but doesn’t say anything.
“I just needed to ask you where you were yesterday evening at approximately six o’clock, or just before.”
“I was at home,” she replies, her voice barely audible above the noise of the machines in the room behind her.
“Alone?” I ask.
She nods her head this time and I’m struck once more by the change in her.
“Thank you, Miss Pendry,” I say.
“Is that it?”
“Yes. Except it would be useful if we could have your home address. I should have asked you for it when we met before, but…” I leave my sentence open, not wishing to remind her of her reaction when we last spoke, although judging from her reddening cheeks, I think I may have already done that.
“I live here, in Central Avenue,” she says. “Number 11b.”
“Thank you.”
Without saying another word, she turns and goes back through the double doors, and Cole steps forward. “You didn’t actually think Kate Pendry could have been responsible for…” He stops talking at the same time as he pales, obviously remembering that I didn’t tell him why we’re here.
“For what?” I’m trying very hard not to smile at his mistake.
“For whatever it is you’ve come here about,” he blusters.
“No, I didn’t,” I reply. “But I have to ask.” He goes to turn away. “Mr Cole,” I say sharply, and he swings back. “I’d like to see David Franklin.”
“You would?” He’s surprised.
“Yes.”
He looks at me for a moment, then shrugs his shoulders and goes back through the doors.
Once Thompson and I are alone, I turn to him.
“Do you think it’s him?” he asks, his eyes alight.
“It’s got to be. A man called David Franklin, who’s known as ‘Ken’? How many of those are there in the world?”
“Not too many hopefully,” he replies.
It seems quite remarkable that, after Thompson spent so long looking for this man when we were investigating the Ellis case, he should turn up now. And that he might have been under our noses the whole time.
Chapter Ten
There’s nothing more disturbing than having the police turn up at work, when you’re least expecting it. Well, I suppose having them knock on the door in the early hours of the morning while I was entertaining a young lady friend could be worse, but this comes a very close second, and when I saw them standing in the hallway outside the factory doors, I felt my blood run cold, and my mouth turn dry. I was sure everyone was looking at me, but when I glanced around, I realised that was just my imagination.
All I have to do now is keep my head, play it cool, and not give myself away…
*****
Cole comes out through the double doors, followed by another man – David Franklin. Now I can see him properly, I have to admit, I’m surprised. In my mind’s eye, I’d built up a picture of someone grubby and worm-like, but in reality, Franklin is a remarkably attractive man. Around six feet tall, he looks a good ten years younger than his age, which I know from his police record to be forty-six, and has dark brown hair, a neat moustache and very deep blue eyes, and I can easily imagine women falling at his feet. As the doors close behind him, his eyes settle on me and he almost recoils, which is odd, considering we’ve never met. However, he pulls himself together fairly quickly, and squares his shoulders, standing just slightly behind Cole.
“Is there an office we can use?” I say, addressing myself to Cole, rather than Franklin.
“No,” he replies and I glare at him. He’s being deliberately obtuse and we both know it. “But I suppose you can go up to the canteen,” he adds, after a moment’s pause.
“There’s a canteen?” I enquire.
“Yes.” He sounds confused.
“And yet you choose to go home for your lunch?”
He shrugs. “I’m the foreman here. I don’t think it’s right for me to socialise with the workers. Not that it’s any of your business.” He glances down at his watch. “You’ll have to be quick,” he says, “The first lunch sitting is in half an hour.”
“That’s fine. We won’t be long.”
He turns and opens a door to our right, beside the cloakroom. “Up there.” He nods through the doorway and Thompson moves ahead of me. I motion for Franklin to go next and I bring up the rear.
“Thank you, Mr Cole,” I say as I pass him, making sure he realises he’s being dismissed. He narrows his eyes, but turns away, letting the door close.
At the top of the stairs, there’s an entrance on the right, which leads into a canteen area. I notice that the wall behind us is completely taken up by a serving hatch, which is currently closed and protected by a wooden shutter, although I can hear the sound of voices from the other side, presumably the cooks preparing lunch for the workforce.
“Let�
��s go down here,” I suggest, nodding to the furthest end of the room. Again, Thompson leads the way and I make sure to keep Franklin between us.
The wall opposite the serving hatch is fully glazed and overlooks the front of the factory and the car park, while the other two are painted a pale green, and there are roughly fifteen or twenty tables set out, each one having four chairs around it.
“Shall we sit?” I stop by one of the tables, pulling out a chair for Franklin. He glances at me, then takes the chair, pulling it a little further away from the table, before sitting down. I take a seat opposite, while Thompson sits between us, at the side.
“What’s this about?” Franklin asks, eyeing us both warily.
“Is your name David Kenneth Franklin?” I ask, as Thompson gets out his notebook and lays it out before him, poised to write down anything salient.
“Yes,” the man replies. “What of it?”
“And your daughter was Ursula Franklin?”
He stares at me, his brow furrowing. “Yes,” he says slowly, still with an air of suspicion. “And while we’re on the subject of names, what’s yours?” he adds, although I’m fairly sure he already knows.
“Detective Inspector Stone,” I reply, anticipating his response.
“Which makes you the copper who… who worked alongside my girl’s killer for weeks,” he says, getting to his feet. “And didn’t bloody notice?” He shouts the last three words, his face contorting and reddening with anger.
Thompson stands too, and takes a step towards him. “Don’t do anything stupid, Mr Franklin.”
“Stupid?” he spits. “Me?” He points in my direction. “He’s the stupid one.”
“Sit down, Mr Franklin,” I say firmly.
He hesitates and I wonder if he’s going to argue, but then he seems to calm, and flops back down into his chair again. His temper is simmering under the surface, but that may not be a bad thing… He’s more likely to slip up and tell me the truth in this mood.
“Is the rumour true?” I ask him.
He glances up at me and seems to pale slightly. “What rumour?”
“That you were maybe a little more interested in your daughter than you should have been.”
He shifts in his seat and puts his middle fingertip in his mouth, chewing on a non-existent nail. “I take it you’ve been talking to my bitch of an ex-wife?” he asks, now examining his fingers with unnecessary attention.
“Just answer the question.”
He tilts his head to one side, as though summing up the situation. “I might have looked,” he says, turning and staring out of the window before fixing his gaze on me once more. “But you’ve seen Ursula. At least, you’ve seen her photographs, haven’t you?” I nod my head. “She was a stunner, wasn’t she?” I don’t give any indication either way, and eventually he continues, “What red blooded man wouldn’t look?”
“And that was all you did?” I ask. “Just look?”
“Might have been.” He shrugs his shoulders and I stare at him, taking note of the dark shadow behind his eyes. It’s clear he’s not going to incriminate himself any further though, and I wonder what he really did to his daughter and whether his wife found out, and that’s why he was forced to leave so suddenly – or whether he worked out that he’d gone too far all by himself, and fled before the police caught up with him. Either way, based on his furtive attitude, the way he won’t make eye contact, his suggestive comments and demeanour, I’m fairly convinced that Franklin and his daughter had some kind of physical relationship before he left his wife, at which time, Ursula Franklin would have been in her mid teens. With her now dead though, I can’t prove it, so there’s little point in dwelling on the subject. My stomach churns, but I hide my natural revulsion and tap my fingers gently on the table, hoping it will unnerve him still further.
“Where have you been for the last seven or eight years, Mr Franklin?”
He looks up, clearly confused by the change of subject. “I moved to Salisbury,” he replies. “But you probably know that, if you’ve spoken to Daphne.” I remember from our conversation with Bert Davies that Franklin’s ex-wife’s name is Daphne. “We stayed there for about five years,” he continues.
“We?” I query.
“Me and Freda.”
“Freda who?”
“Freda Hunt,” he replies. That would be the ‘young tart’ Mrs Franklin told us about, I imagine.
“What happened?” I ask.
“She left me a couple of years back,” he replies, smiling. “It was no great loss. She found someone nearer her own age.”
“And what age might that be?”
He frowns and I wonder what he’s thinking. “Well,” he replies eventually, grinning. “She was sixteen when we left Molesey… and that was just over seven years ago now… so you work it out.”
“You’re sure she was sixteen?” I ask.
He laughs, throwing his head back and opening his mouth wide to reveal surprisingly perfect white teeth. “She said she was. And who am I to argue? Besides, it’s a bit late to be worrying about that now, don’t you think?”
There’s something about this man that makes me want to wipe the smarmy grin from his face, but I manage to restrain myself.
I recall Thompson’s enquiries into Franklin’s background and wonder if I can unnerve him another way. “I understand you had a couple of run-ins with the local constabulary while you were living in Salisbury.” I make a statement, rather than asking a question, so he understands that I already know the answer.
“So what?” he replies, sneering.
“I’d like some detail.”
He sighs. “If you know they pulled me in, you must know what for, so why waste my time going over it? You’ve already made your mind up anyway.”
I sit forward, getting closer to him. “I want to hear your perspective, Mr Franklin.” I keep my eyes on him until he looks away, deflating.
“Alright. Some bloke in the pub got a bit too friendly with Freda, feeling her up when he thought I wasn’t looking, so I showed him who was boss.” He scowls. “Of course, the landlord went and called the coppers, and that’s how I ended up having my collar felt.” He smiles. “But once I explained what had happened, they just gave me a ticking off and let me go.”
“And the second time?”
“Pretty much the same thing,” he replies. “Only that time, Freda was giving him a lot more encouragement. Earned herself a slapping later on, she did.” He shakes his head. “Nothing but trouble, that Freda, from beginning to end.” He fixes me with a cold stare. “I wouldn’t have minded but she wasn’t worth the hassle, if you get what I mean. Never was. Not a patch on…” His voice fades and he looks away, and I’m left wondering what he was going to say next, and whether the end of that sentence had anything to do with his daughter.
“What happened then?” I ask, feeling sick again, but returning to the story.
“Freda left, and then a few weeks later, I lost my job,” he replies. “And I thought I might as well come back to my old home turf.” He looks around the room. “I did a bit of handyman work for a while, and then landed a job here, about eighteen months ago, I suppose.”
“And where are you living?”
“I’ve got a place above the shops just down the road,” he says, pointing out of the window. “It’s small, but it suits my purposes. And it’s handy for getting here in the morning.”
“And are you seeing anyone at the moment?” I ask him. “A woman, I mean.” I decide to make myself clear.
“No-one regular, no.” He sounds almost sulky, regretful.
“I take it you haven’t told your ex-wife about your return to the area?” If he has, she’s a very good actress.
“Good God, no. She’s the last person I’d tell. And luckily, I haven’t run into her either… not that I would, considering she never leaves the house. Too busy servicing her men friends, Daphne is. Always was. Still, she earned good money at it. Kept us very nicely, while it la
sted, so I wasn’t about to complain.”
“Did you renew your acquaintance with your daughter before she was killed?” I ask, marvelling at his last comment, and I notice him bridle at my question.
He pauses and purses his lips, then swallows hard, as though struggling with some strong emotion, before he says, “She’s dead now, thanks to you, so what does it matter?”
It matters, I think to myself, because it gives you a motive to want to kill Constable Harper, and throw a brick through my aunt’s window…
“Where were you on Tuesday evening at approximately seven-thirty?”
“At home,” he says a little too quickly.
“Was anyone with you?”
“No.” He smiles.
“And last night? At about six o’clock or just before?”
“I went for a walk last night,” he says. “Stopped in the pub for a drink.”
“Which pub?”
“The Lord Harry, if you must know.”
“Not the Queen’s Head? Surely that’s closer to you, isn’t it?”
He nods. “Yes, but I didn’t feel like going there.”
“Did you see anyone you know?” I ask, and he shakes his head. “Well, what time did you get there?”
He shrugs. “I can’t remember.” How convenient.
He may well have gone to the Lord Harry last night, but there’s nothing to say he couldn’t have thrown a brick through Aunt Dotty’s window first.
“Do you own a gun, Mr Franklin?”
“No,” he says. Strangely, although I think a lot of his answers have been fabrications, I believe that one.
Thompson and I leave Franklin in the canteen and make our way back outside. Once we’re settled in the police vehicle, he starts the engine.
“I’ll need to pick up my car,” I tell him as he pulls out of the car park.
“Okay. I’ll take you back home,” he replies and drives back through Molesey.
“That was interesting, don’t you think?” I turn to look at him.