In the Frame - By Dick Francis Page 0,6

suggested instead that Donald should prepare a short statement to read to the hungry reporters still waiting outside, so that they could go away and print it.

‘No,’ Don said.

‘Just a short statement,’ Frost said reasonably. ‘We can prepare it here and now, if you like.’

He wrote it himself, more or less, and I guessed it was as much for his own sake as Donald’s that he wanted the Press to depart, as it was he who had to push through them every time. He repeated the statement aloud when he had finished. It sounded like a police account, full of jargon, but because of that so distant from Donald’s own raw grief that my cousin agreed in the end to read it out.

‘But no photographs,’ he said anxiously, and Frost said he would see to it.

They crowded into the hall, a collection of dry-eyed fact-finders, all near the top of their digging profession and inured from sensitivity by a hundred similar intrusions into tragedy. Sure, they were sorry for the guy whose wife had been bashed, but news was news and bad news sold papers, and if they didn’t produce the goods they’d lose their jobs to others more tenacious. The Press Council had stopped the brutal bullying of the past, but the leeway still allowed could be a great deal too much for the afflicted.

Donald stood on the stairs, with Frost and myself at the foot, and read without expression, as if the words applied to someone else.

‘… I returned to the house at approximately five p.m. and observed that during my absence a considerable number of valuable objects had been removed… I telephoned immediately for assistance… My wife, who was normally absent from the house on Fridays, returned unexpectedly… and, it is presumed, disturbed the intruders.’

He stopped. The reporters dutifully wrote down the stilted words and looked disillusioned. One of them, clearly elected by pre-arrangement, started asking questions for them all, in a gentle, coaxing, sympathetic tone of voice.

‘Could you tell us which of these closed doors is the one to the room where your wife…’

Donald’s eyes slid briefly despite himself towards the sittingroom. All the heads turned, the eyes studied the uninformative white painted panels, the pencils wrote.

‘And could you tell us what exactly was stolen?’

‘Silver. Paintings.’

‘Who were the paintings by?’

Donald shook his head and began to look even paler.

‘Could you tell us how much they were worth?’

After a pause Don said ‘I don’t know.’

‘Were they insured?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many bedrooms are there in your house?’

‘What?’

‘How many bedrooms?’

Donald looked bewildered. ‘I suppose… five.’

‘Do you think you could tell us anything about your wife? About her character, and about her job? And could you let us have a photograph?’

Donald couldn’t. He shook his head and said ‘I’m sorry,’ and turned and walked steadily away upstairs.

‘That’s all,’ Frost said with finality.

‘It’s not much,’ they grumbled.

‘What do you want? Blood?’ Frost said, opening the front door and encouraging them out. ‘Put yourselves in his position.’

‘Yeah,’ they said cynically; but they went.

‘Did you see their eyes?’ I said. ‘Sucking it all in?’

Frost smiled faintly. ‘They’ll all write long stories from that little lot.’

The interview, however, produced to a great extent the desired results. Most of the cars departed, and the rest, I supposed, would follow as soon as fresher news broke.

‘Why did they ask about the bedrooms?’ I said.

‘To estimate the value of the house.’

‘Good grief.’

‘They’ll all get it different.’ Frost was near to amusement. ‘They always do.’ He looked up the stairs in the direction Donald had taken, and, almost casually, said ‘Is your cousin in financial difficulties?’

I knew his catch-them-off-guard technique by now.

‘I wouldn’t think so,’ I said unhurriedly. ‘You’d better ask him.’

‘I will, sir.’ He switched his gaze sharply to my face and studied my lack of expression. ‘What do you know?’

I said calmly, ‘Only that the police have suspicious minds.’

He disregarded that. ‘Is Mr Stuart worried about his business?’

‘He’s never said so.’

‘A great many middle-sized private companies are going bankrupt these days.’

‘So I believe.’

‘Because of cash flow problems,’ he added.

‘I can’t help you. You’ll have to look at his company’s books.’

‘We will, sir.’

‘And even if the firm turns out to be bust, it doesn’t follow that Donald would fake a robbery.’

‘It’s been done before,’ Frost said dryly.

‘If he needed money he could simply have sold the stuff,’ I pointed out.

‘Maybe he had. Some of it. Most of it, maybe.’

I took a slow breath and said nothing.

‘That wine, sir. As you said yourself, it would have taken a long time