problems for someone somewhere.’
You could never be one hundred per cent sure over the phone, but his annoyance sounded genuine, and the way he’d spoken about Franks backed up everything Craw had told me already: her father had never had a case through from the Cold Case Review Unit because Clark was waiting for his involvement to be signed off higher up the chain.
I thanked him and ended the call.
Now it was time to speak to Ellie Franks.
10
Craw lived in a big house on the edge of Wimbledon Park, set back from the road behind solid oak gates. I’d never asked her what her husband did for a living, but as I approached in the car, I doubted the Met were paying her anywhere near enough for a place like this.
Built from red brick, it had gables at either end, with windows in a line under each roof. From the gates, the driveway split. A short left fork dropped away to an open garage door on the lower-ground floor, with the Frankses’ Audi A3 inside. On the right, it curved up to where a Mini sat parked. I’d seen the same one on the DVD that morning.
I pulled up at the gates in my creaking seventeen-year-old BMW 3 Series and pushed the intercom. It buzzed once. Ten seconds later, without any response, the gate squealed loudly and began to fan out. I could see Craw standing in a window at the front of the house, directing a remote control at the gate. I parked behind her Mini.
Grabbing my pad and pen, I headed for the front door. It opened as I was about to knock, Craw standing in the doorway in a pair of white leggings and a pink long-sleeved sports top. I couldn’t help but be surprised at how she looked. I hadn’t ever seen her in anything other than the muted colours of a Met detective: greys, blacks, blues; a procession of identical trouser-suits notable only for their incremental colour changes.
‘How are you today?’ she asked.
I stepped past her, into the house.
‘I’m fine. You?’
‘Fine.’
It still felt odd seeing her like this, and talking to her in this way, even after processing it for a day: eighteen months ago we’d been at each other’s throats; now I was being invited around for coffee.
She closed the door behind me.
Immediately inside was a sunken living room. Around its edges were bookcases and storage cabinets, coat stands and pot plants; in the middle, three tan leather sofas and a fifty-inch TV. Photographs were conspicuous by their absence, of Craw, of her family, but I didn’t read anything into it. This was who she was, and now I understood where she got it from: she was inviting me into her life, but clearly she wanted some of it to remain off-limits. Like her father, she was drawing a clear distinction between work and home.
The only place where she’d had to concede ground was on an oak coffee table in the space between the sofas: she’d left a pile of photographs there, all of her father.
‘Can I get you something to drink?’ Craw asked.
‘Coffee would be great.’
She nodded. ‘Take a seat. I’ll go and get Mum.’
I sat and started going through the pictures of Leonard Franks. In one of them, he was in running gear at the start of a half-marathon, and above his head, on a banner, I could see a date: 18 September 2006. He didn’t look that different from the photo of him I’d already seen in his missing persons file. Maybe the seven years in between had brought a little more wear and tear – a few more lines around the eyes, his grey hair a little thinner – but otherwise time had been pretty kind to him.
When I moved through the others, I found him on a beach somewhere, with a salt-and-pepper beard, his grandchildren around him; in another, he was in uniform at a police ceremony, clean-shaven, arm around his wife. In another, he and Craw were smiling for the camera, beers in their hands and a barbecue smoking in the background. They were both on the veranda of the Frankses’ house on Dartmoor.
A moment later, I heard voices behind me and turned and
You could never be one hundred per cent sure over the phone, but his annoyance sounded genuine, and the way he’d spoken about Franks backed up everything Craw had told me already: her father had never had a case through from the Cold Case Review Unit because Clark was waiting for his involvement to be signed off higher up the chain.
I thanked him and ended the call.
Now it was time to speak to Ellie Franks.
10
Craw lived in a big house on the edge of Wimbledon Park, set back from the road behind solid oak gates. I’d never asked her what her husband did for a living, but as I approached in the car, I doubted the Met were paying her anywhere near enough for a place like this.
Built from red brick, it had gables at either end, with windows in a line under each roof. From the gates, the driveway split. A short left fork dropped away to an open garage door on the lower-ground floor, with the Frankses’ Audi A3 inside. On the right, it curved up to where a Mini sat parked. I’d seen the same one on the DVD that morning.
I pulled up at the gates in my creaking seventeen-year-old BMW 3 Series and pushed the intercom. It buzzed once. Ten seconds later, without any response, the gate squealed loudly and began to fan out. I could see Craw standing in a window at the front of the house, directing a remote control at the gate. I parked behind her Mini.
Grabbing my pad and pen, I headed for the front door. It opened as I was about to knock, Craw standing in the doorway in a pair of white leggings and a pink long-sleeved sports top. I couldn’t help but be surprised at how she looked. I hadn’t ever seen her in anything other than the muted colours of a Met detective: greys, blacks, blues; a procession of identical trouser-suits notable only for their incremental colour changes.
‘How are you today?’ she asked.
I stepped past her, into the house.
‘I’m fine. You?’
‘Fine.’
It still felt odd seeing her like this, and talking to her in this way, even after processing it for a day: eighteen months ago we’d been at each other’s throats; now I was being invited around for coffee.
She closed the door behind me.
Immediately inside was a sunken living room. Around its edges were bookcases and storage cabinets, coat stands and pot plants; in the middle, three tan leather sofas and a fifty-inch TV. Photographs were conspicuous by their absence, of Craw, of her family, but I didn’t read anything into it. This was who she was, and now I understood where she got it from: she was inviting me into her life, but clearly she wanted some of it to remain off-limits. Like her father, she was drawing a clear distinction between work and home.
The only place where she’d had to concede ground was on an oak coffee table in the space between the sofas: she’d left a pile of photographs there, all of her father.
‘Can I get you something to drink?’ Craw asked.
‘Coffee would be great.’
She nodded. ‘Take a seat. I’ll go and get Mum.’
I sat and started going through the pictures of Leonard Franks. In one of them, he was in running gear at the start of a half-marathon, and above his head, on a banner, I could see a date: 18 September 2006. He didn’t look that different from the photo of him I’d already seen in his missing persons file. Maybe the seven years in between had brought a little more wear and tear – a few more lines around the eyes, his grey hair a little thinner – but otherwise time had been pretty kind to him.
When I moved through the others, I found him on a beach somewhere, with a salt-and-pepper beard, his grandchildren around him; in another, he was in uniform at a police ceremony, clean-shaven, arm around his wife. In another, he and Craw were smiling for the camera, beers in their hands and a barbecue smoking in the background. They were both on the veranda of the Frankses’ house on Dartmoor.
A moment later, I heard voices behind me and turned and
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