That was the story: the beginning, the middle and the end. But trawling through the Internet, I came across what might have been a coda to the whole affair had it not actually predated everything that had occurred.
Campaign: 12 MAY 2008
LAST CALL FOR SYDNEY-BASED SUNDOWNER
Sundowner, the Sydney-based advertising agency set up by former McCann Erickson supremo Frank Parris, has gone out of business. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission – the country’s official financial watchdog – confirmed that after just three years the agency has ceased to trade.
Parris, who began his career as a copywriter, was a well-known figure in the London advertising scene for more than two decades, winning awards for his work on Barclay’s Bank and Domino’s pizza. He created the controversial Action Fag campaign for Stonewall in 1997, promoting gay rights in the armed forces.
He was himself completely open about his sexuality and was well known for his extravagant and flamboyant parties. It has been suggested that his move to Australia was prompted by a decision to tone down his public image.
In its first month, Sundowner picked up some significant accounts, including Von Zipper sunglasses, Wagon Wheels and Kustom footwear. However, its early success took place against a subdued market that led to a significant shrinkage in consumer and advertising spending. Internet advertising and online videos are the fastest growing areas in Australia and it’s clear that Sundowner, with its emphasis on traditional rather than digital media, had arrived too quickly at the last chance saloon.
So what was I to make of all this information?
Well, I suppose it was the editor in me that noticed that every single one of the reports had described the murder as brutal, as if anyone was ever murdered gently or with affection. The journalists had managed to sketch in the character of Frank Parris with what few details they had – award-winning, gay, extrovert, ultimately a failure. That hadn’t stopped the Mail from characterising him as ‘a brilliant creative mind’, but then they would have been prepared to forgive him for almost anything. He had, after all, been murdered by a Romanian. Had Stefan Codrescu really been involved in gangs trading passports and credit cards, etc? There was no evidence of it and the fact that the police had been investigating Romanian gangs could have been entirely coincidental. He had, after all, been arrested for burglary.
As for the brilliant Frank Parris, there was something almost bizarre about his turning up in a hotel in Suffolk, particularly on the night of a wedding to which he had not been invited. Pauline Treherne had told me he was visiting relatives so why hadn’t he stayed with them?
The mention of Detective Superintendent Richard Locke worried me. We had met following the death of Alan Conway and I think it’s fair to say we had not got on. I remembered him – a big, angry police officer who had swept into a coffee shop on the outskirts of Ipswich, shouted at me for fifteen minutes and then left again. Alan had based a character on him and Locke had decided to blame me. It had taken him less than a week to identify Stefan as the culprit, arrest him and then charge him. Was he wrong? According to the newspaper stories and, for that matter, what the Trehernes had told me, the whole thing could hardly be more straightforward.
But eight years later, Cecily Treherne had thought otherwise. And she had disappeared.
There wasn’t much more to do in London. It seemed obvious to me that I would have to talk to Stefan Codrescu, which meant visiting him in prison, but I didn’t even know where he was being held and the Trehernes had been unable to help. How was I supposed to find out? I went back on the Internet but I didn’t find anything there. Then I remembered an author I knew: Craig Andrews. He had come to writing late and I had published his first novel, a thriller set in the prison system. On first reading I had been impressed by the violence of his writing but also by its authenticity. He had done a lot of research.
Of course, he had another publisher now. Cloverleaf Books had rather let him down by going out of business and burning to the ground, but on the other hand the book had been a success and I had noticed a good review of his latest in the Mail on Sunday. I had nothing to lose so I sent him an email telling him that I was back in England and asking him if he could help me track down Stefan. I wasn’t confident that he would reply.
After that, I packed up my laptop, grabbed my suitcase and rescued my MG from the car park, where it had already been charged a ridiculous sum of money for the grim, dusty corner where it had been housed. It still made me happy to see it. I got in and moments later I was roaring down the exit ramp and out onto the Farringdon Road, on my way to Suffolk.
Branlow Hall
I could have stayed with my sister while I was in Suffolk but the Trehernes had offered me free accommodation at their hotel and I had decided to accept. The truth was that I felt uncomfortable about spending too much time with Katie. She was two years younger than me and with her two adorable children, her lovely home, her successful husband and her circle of close friends, she could make me feel painfully inadequate, particularly when I looked at the haphazardness of my own life. After everything that had happened at Cloverleaf Books she had been delighted that I had flown off to Crete for what she saw as some sort of domestic normality and I didn’t want to explain to her why I was back. It wasn’t that she would judge me. It was more that I would feel myself being judged.
Anyway, it made more sense to base myself at the scene of the crime where so many of the witnesses would still be gathered. So I skirted Ipswich and made my way up the A12, passing the right turn that would have brought me into Woodbridge. Instead, I continued another five miles until I came to an expensive-looking sign (black paint, gold lettering) and a narrow lane that took me between hedgerows and bright red flecks of wild poppies to a stone gate and, on the other side, the ancestral home of the Branlow family, standing in a fair old slice of the Suffolk countryside.
So much of what I have to write about had either taken place or would take place here that I must describe it carefully.
It was a beautiful place, something between a country house, a castle and a French chateau, very square, surrounded by lawns dotted with ornamental trees and thicker woodland beyond. At some time in its history it might have been swivelled round because the gravel drive came in from the wrong direction, heading rather confusingly towards a side elevation with several windows but no door, while the actual entrance was round the corner, facing the other way.
It was when you stood here, in front of the house, that you appreciated its magnificence: the main door with its arched portico, the Gothic towers and crenellations, the coats of arms, and the stone chimneys that must have been connected to a multitude of fireplaces. The windows were double height with plaster heads of long-forgotten lords and ladies poking out of the corners. A number of stone birds perched high up on the very edge of the roof, with an eagle at each corner, and above the front door there was a rather fine owl with its wings outstretched. Now that I thought about it, I had seen an owl painted on the sign outside. It was the hotel logo, printed on the menus and the notepaper too.
A low wall ran all around the building with a ha-ha on the other side and this gave it a sense of imperturbability, as if it had chosen to set itself apart from the real world. On the left, which is to say on the side opposite the drive, a set of discreet, more modern doors opened from the bar onto a very flat, beautifully maintained lawn, and this was where, eight years previously, the wedding lunch had taken place. On the right, set slightly back, were two miniature versions of the main house. One was a chapel and the other a granary that had been converted into a health spa, with a conservatory and indoor swimming pool attached.