"Night Frost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wingfield R D)

9.30?’

‘No. My wife’s parents were here. They’d travelled down from Berwick for the funeral and stayed with me overnight.’

‘Oh.’ Frost tried not to sound disappointed. ‘They’d confirm this, of course?’

‘I think you’ll find they’re already given statements to Inspector Allen.’

Frost groaned inwardly. Why the hell hadn’t he done his homework? ‘I’ve only just skimmed through the files, sir. Skimmed! He hadn’t even opened them. ‘Your morning paper hadn’t arrived by the time you left for the funeral. Didn’t that worry you? Didn’t you wonder why?’

‘I didn’t give it a thought, Inspector. The only thing on my mind was the funeral.’

‘Of course, sir.’ Damn, thought Frost. There goes my best suspect. All he was left with now was the plumber. Which reminded him. ‘Did it rain during the funeral?’

‘There was a sudden cloudburst,’ said Bell. ‘We all got drenched.’

And damn again, thought Frost. Now I haven’t even got the plumber. He poked another cigarette in his mouth and lit up. The smoke curled and drifted and he followed it with his eyes, watching as it was drawn to the fireplace, some of it wafting up to the mantelpiece. In the centre of the mantel piece a clock in Chinese black lacquer, long unwound, had stopped at ten past eight. Something poked out from behind it. A light blue envelope, the address typed. It looked very similar to the one sent to old Mr Wardley.

A sharp cough to catch Gilmore’s attention and a jerk of the head to direct him to the clock. Silently, Gilmore sidled over and pulled out the envelope. He raised his eyebrows and nodded. The typing was identical.

Bell, staring out at the rain-soaked garden, saw nothing of this extended mime show.

‘One final thing,’ said Frost casually. ‘What did the poison pen letter say?’

Bell stiffened, then slowly turned. He saw the envelope in Gilmore’s hand and snatched it from him. ‘You’ve no right…’

‘We’ve every bloody right,’ snapped Frost, standing and holding out his hand. ‘The letter, please, sir.’

Bell stared at him, knuckles white, body stiff with fury. He almost threw the envelope at the inspector. ‘You bastard!’ he hissed. ‘You lousy bastard.’

‘Sticks and stones,’ reproved Frost, mildly. He unfolded the sheet of cheap typing paper. The typed message said, simply, Fornicator.

‘Terse,’ murmured Frost, passing the message to Gilmore. ‘Why should anyone accuse you of that, sir?’

‘It’s none of your damn business.’

‘In a murder enquiry, sir, everything is my damn business.’

Bell walked back to the window and again stared at the puddled garden blurred out of focus by the curtain of rain crawling down the pane. He wouldn’t look at Frost. He spoke to the glass. ‘If you must know, my wife had been ill for a very long time. We were not able to live together as husband and wife. There was a woman in Denton…’

‘Do you mean a tart?’ asked Frost, bluntly.

His back stiffened. ‘Yes, she was a prostitute. Someone must have been spying on us, hence the letters. Filthy letters. I burnt the others. This one came on the day of the funeral.’ He covered his face with his hands and his body shook. ‘The day of her funeral.’

On the way back to the car they detoured. There was the remains of an old bonfire at the end of the garden. Quite a large bonfire. Frost poked at the rain-sodden ashes with his foot. Bits of twigs, stalks and dried leaves. No burnt remains of buttons or the charred remnants of clothes stripped from a schoolgirl’s body. He added his cigarette end to the heap.

‘We’re wasting our time here,’ said Gilmore.

‘Maybe,’ muttered Frost, looking back to the house where a thin, bearded figure was watching them from the patio window. ‘But my philosophy in life is never to trust bastards with thin straggly beards.’

Burton started the engine as Frost slid into the passenger seat beside him. ‘Back to the station, Inspector?’

‘One more call, son. Let’s check with the headmaster of Bell’s school. I want to find out if there’s been any corn plaints of Hairy-chin teaching advanced anatomy to the senior girls.

‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ protested Gilmore from the back seat. ‘You’re forgetting – Mr Mullett said we should drop this case and concentrate on the stabbings.’

‘Mr Mullett says lots of stupid things, son. The kindest thing to do is ignore him.’

As Gilmore had predicted, calling on the headmaster was a waste of time. The man, stout and pompous, was outraged that such an accusation could be levelled at any member of his staff. Mr Bell had an excellent record, was highly regarded, and didn’t the inspector realize that the poor devil had recently lost his wife?

Frost felt like retorting, didn’t the headmaster know that while his wife was dying, his excellent schoolmaster was having it away with a tart in Denton? But he held his tongue and took his leave.

‘Yes, son,’ he said, before Burton could ask. ‘Back to the station.’ And they nearly made it. Another couple of minutes and they would have been in the car-park when Control called.

‘Calling all units,’ said the radio. ‘Anyone in the vicinity of Selwood Road? Over.’

Before Frost could restrain him, Burton had snatched up the handset. They were a minute away from Selwood Road.

‘Eleven Selwood Road. Old-age pensioner living on her own. Neighbour reports she hasn’t been seen all day, her newspaper’s still in the letter-box and her milk is still on the step.’

The neighbour who made the phone call, a sharp-faced little busybody of a man wearing a too-big plastic mac, was hovering in the street and scurried over to the car as they pulled up. ‘Are you the police?’

‘More or less,’ grunted Frost.

‘I live next door,’ said the man, darting in front of them like an over-enthusiastic terrier as they made their way across to the house. ‘She always goes out during the day. I watch her through the window. She didn’t today. And none of her lights are on, her milk is on the doorstep. She’s an old-age pensioner, you know.’

‘Thanks,’ muttered Frost, wishing the man would go away.

‘I’m an old-age pensioner too, but you’d never think it, would you?’

‘No,’ said Frost unconvincingly. ‘Never in a million years.’ The old sod looked at least eighty. They were now at the door, which was painted a vivid green.

‘Are you going to break in?’ asked the neighbour, pushing between them. ‘Only the council have just repainted these doors.’

Frost leant on the bell push.

‘No use ringing if she’s dead!’

‘Nothing good on telly?’ asked Frost pointedly, hammering at the door with the flat of his hand.

‘You could get over my garden fence if you liked,’ offered the man, ‘but she always keeps her back door locked.’

Frost moved the man out of the way so he could have a look through the letter-box.

‘You won’t see anything. Her morning paper’s stuck in there.’

Frost tugged at the paper, but it was wedged fast.

‘You won’t shift it, I’ve tried.’

Frost gave a savage yank and the newspaper came free.

‘You’ve torn it,’ reproved the man pointing to a thin corrugated tongue of paper that had caught on the side of the letter-box.

‘If she’s dead, she won’t mind,’ said Frost, peering through the flap. All he could see was solid dark. He sent Burton for the torch.

‘I’ve got a torch,’ said the neighbour, ‘but it doesn’t work.’

Burton returned from the car with the flashlight. Frost shone it through the letter-box. He caught his breath. The beam had picked out a crumpled heap at the foot of the stairs. A woman. And there seemed to be blood. Lots of blood.

‘Kick the door in, son… quick!’

At the second kick there was a pistol shot of splintering wood and the door crashed inwards. Frost found the light switch as they charged in. She was lying face down, her head in a pool of blood. He touched her neck. There was a pulse. She was still alive. Burton dashed back to the car to radio for an ambulance. Gilmore helped Frost turn her on her back, while the neighbour brought a blanket from the upstairs bedroom to cover her.

Her eyes fluttered, then opened. She seemed unable to focus. Frost knelt beside her. ‘What happened, love? Who did it?’ He turned his head away as the stale gin fumes hit him.

‘I fell down the bleeding stairs,’ she said.

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Tuesday night shift (1)

Liz was in bed asleep when Gilmore arrived home late in the afternoon and was still asleep at eight o’clock when he staggered out of bed, tired and irritable, ready for the evening shift of Mullett’s revised rota. He was clattering about in the kitchen, frying himself an egg and. Liz came eagerly down stairs. She thought he had just come home and was furious to learn he’d been working when he should have been off duty and was now starting on another night shift.

‘You said it would all be different when they made you a sergeant. You said you’d be able to spend more time with me. It’s Cressford all over again.’

‘It won’t always be like this,’ said Gilmore, wearily, cursing as the yolk broke and spread itself all over the frying pan.

‘How many times have I heard that before? It’s never been any damn different.’ She moved out of the way so he could reach a plate, not helping him by passing one over.

Gilmore buttered a slice of bread. ‘Could you give it a rest? I’ve had a lousy day.’

‘And what sort of a day do you think I’ve had? Stuck in this stinking little room.’

‘You can always go out.’

She gave a mocking laugh. ‘Where to? What is there to do in this one-eyed morgue of a town?’

‘You could mix… make friends.’

‘Who with?’

‘Well – some of the other police wives…’

‘Like his wife… that old tramp – the one who’s supposed to be an inspector?’

‘His wife is dead.’

‘What did she die of – boredom?’

Gilmore rubbed a weary hand over his face. ‘That old tramp, as you call him, has got the George Cross.’

‘So he should. You deserve strings of bloody medals for living in this dump!’

He opened his mouth to reply, but the door slammed and she was back in the bedroom. He pushed the egg to one side, he couldn’t eat it. He was pouring his tea when a horn sounded outside. Frost had arrived to pick him up.

Outside the rain had stopped and a diamond-hard moon shone down from a clear sky. Frost shivered as Gilmore opened the car door to enter. ‘It’s going to- be a cold night tonight, soil.’ He turned the heater up full blast and checked that all the windows were tightly closed.

‘Yes,’ agreed Gilmore. ‘A bloody cold night.’

Bill Wells tugged another tissue from the Kleenex box and blew his sore, streaming nose. His throat was raw and he kept having shivering and sweating fits. And the damn doctor had the gall to say it was just a cold and he hadn’t got the flu virus. A couple of aspirins and a hot drink and he’d be as right as rain in a day or so. His pen crawled over the page as he logged the last trivial phone call which was from a woman who had nothing better to do than to report two strange cats in her garden.

The log book page fluttered as the main door opened. ‘Without raising his eyes, Wells finished the entry, blotted it, then forced a polite expression to greet the caller. Then his jaw dropped. ‘Bleeding hell!’ he croaked.

A small, bespectacled man wearing a plastic raincoat stood in the centre of the lobby. ‘When he had Wells’ attention, he parted the raincoat. He was wearing nothing underneath it.

‘Oh, push off,’ groaned Wells, slamming his pen down. ‘We’re too bloody busy.’

Defiantly, the man stood his ground, holding the mac open even wider. Another groan from Wells ‘Collier,’ he yelled. ‘Come and arrest this gentleman.’

The lobby door swung open again as Frost bounded in, a disgruntled-looking Gilmore at his heels. He glanced casually at the man, did a double take and stared hard. ‘No thanks, I’ve got one,’ he said.

‘When you want a flasher,’ moaned Wells, ‘you can’t find one. When you don’t want one, they come and stick it under your nose.’

There were extra staff in the Murder Incident Room where the phones were constantly ringing.

Frost looked around in surprise. ‘What’s going on?’

Burton, a phone to his ear, noted down a few details, murmured his thanks and hung up. ‘It’s the response to the Paula Bartlett video. It went out on television again tonight. We’re flooded out with calls from people who reckon they saw her.’

‘After two months they reckon they saw her,’ grunted Frost. ‘When the video went out the day she went missing, no-one could remember a damn thing.’ He picked up one of the phone messages from a filing basket. A woman reporting seeing Paula in the town two days ago. Frost flicked it back in the basket. ‘A waste of bloody time.’

‘Excellent response to the video,’ boomed Mullett, sailing in and beaming at all the activity.

‘Just what I was saying, Super,’ lied Frost. ‘How did the press conference go?’

‘Very well,’ smirked Mullett. ‘I recorded an interview for BBC radio. They hope to repeat it in Pick of the Week.’

‘Are you sure they said “pick”?’ Frost enquired innocently.

There was the sound of stifled laughter and people in the room seemed desperate to avoid Mullett’s eye. One of the WPCs had a lit of the giggles and was stuffing a handkerchief in her mouth. Mullett frowned, uneasily aware he was missing out on something, and not sure what. He didn’t see the joke, but he smiled anyway. He remembered the messages he had to deliver. ‘Who’s been telexing the Metropolitan Police about someone called Bradbury?’

‘Simon Bradbury?’ asked Gilmore eagerly. ‘That was me.’

‘Who’s Simon Bradbury?’ Frost asked.

‘The computer salesman. The bloke who picked the fight with Mark Compton. I thought he might be the one who’s been sending the death threats.’

‘You could be on to something, Sergeant,’ said Mullett, handing Gilmore the telex. ‘The Metropolitan Police know Bradbury. He’s a nasty piece of work and he’s got form.’

Bradbury had been involved in drunken brawls, had served two prison sentences for assault and had been fined and disqualified for drunken driving. There was an arrest warrant out on him for beating up a barman who refused to serve him. He had defaulted on police bail and was no longer at his last known address. Full details and a photograph were following.

Gilmore rubbed his hands. ‘Sounds like our man, Super. I could have a result on this case very soon.’

‘Excellent,’ beamed Mullett. ‘Results are something we are very short of at the moment.’ He glared significantly at Frost then looked around the room where the phones were still ringing non-stop. ‘Anything interesting on the Paula Bartlett video?’

‘Yes,’ sniffed Frost. ‘Proof there’s life after death. She was still being seen delivering papers up to last week.’

Mullett forced a smile. ‘Ah well. Carry on with the good work.’ He turned to leave and was nearly hit by the door as Sergeant Wells burst in.

‘Urgent message for Mr Frost from Fingerprints,’ panted Wells. ‘The senior citizen killing… Mary Haynes. One of the prints in the bedroom. It’s someone with previous.’

‘Who?’ asked Frost, pushing Mullett to one side.

‘Dean Ronald Hoskins. Collier’s pulling out his file.’

On cue, a panting Collier rushed in waving a buff folder. Wells snatched it and skimmed through the details. ‘Dean Ronald Hoskins, aged twenty-four. Three previous – burglary, breaking and entering and assault with a knife.’

‘A knife,’ hissed Mullett, snatching the file from Wells. ‘By God, we’ve got him.’ He was so excited he could hardly hold the file still. He couldn’t wait to phone the Chief Constable… ‘Sorry to disturb you at your home, sir,’ he would begin modestly, ‘but a bit of good news I thought you’d like to know… Denton Division triumph yet again another murder solved within twenty-four hours watertight case… prints… full confession…’

His soaring flights of fancy were abruptly grounded by Frost who had rudely snatched the file and was now staring at it, a cigarette sagging from his mouth. ‘Bloody hell! He didn’t have to travel far to kill her. He lives next door.’

‘I interviewed him,’ said Burton. ‘It was Hoskins who told us about the key under the mat.’

Mullett was now bubbling with excitement. ‘Bring him in. Take all the men you need.’ He pulled open the door. ‘I want a result on this one, Inspector. Let’s see if we can’t give the Chief Constable some good news for a change.’

The patrol car followed Frost’s Cortina as far as the road adjoining Mannington Crescent. Two uniformed men got out and sprinted to the rear of number 44 where they climbed the back fence into the garden, blocking Hoskins’ retreat that way.

Gilmore coasted the Cortina around the corner, parking it at the end of the street where he switched off the lights and waited for the uniformed men to radio that they were in position. Next to Gilmore sat Burton. In the rear seat were Frost and WPC Helen Ridley, the beefy little blonde, who had changed into plain clothes and was spoiling for a fight.

Most houses in the street showed lights, the exception being number 46, the murder house with its drawn curtains and a heavy padlock securing the front door. From next door, number 44, an overloud hi-fl belted out heavy metal.

‘Jordan to Inspector Frost,’ whispered the radio. ‘We are in position – over.’

‘Right,’ grunted Frost. ‘We’re moving in.’

They climbed out of the car and casually sauntered up to the front door of number 44 which seemed to be pulsating as the wham of an electronic bass boomed from inside. Frost lifted the knocker and beat out a rhythmic rat-tat-tat. The others pressed tight against the shadow of the porch. The music blared out louder as an inside door was opened. Foot steps along the passage and a man’s shadow against the frosted glass of the front door.

‘Yeah? Who is it?’

Frost muttered something unintelligible.

‘What?’ yelled the voice from inside.

Frost muttered again.

‘Just a minute… can’t hear a bloody word you’re saying.’ The latch clicked. As the front door opened, Frost moved quickly out of the way and Gilmore pounced, pinning to the wall a man in patched jeans and a washed-out red vest. A potted plant on a stand toppled and crashed to the floor, spilling earth all over the lino. Gilmore tried to yell ‘Police!’, but the man suddenly sprang forward, his palm clamped under the detective’s chin, fingers clawing for his eyes. Gilmore swung him round and crashed him against the opposite wall.

‘Let him go, you bastard.’ A girl wearing a black T-shirt and very little else raced down the passage slashing at the air with a kitchen knife.

‘Police,’ spluttered Gilmore, trying to hold Hoskins with one hand and ward the girl off with the other. He had done it all wrong. The knife blade was whistling perilously close to his ear, but the hallway was so narrow, it prevented Burton and the WPC getting past to the girl.

Snorting like a stallion on heat, the little WPC charged into the fray, sending the men crashing to the floor and leaping over them to grab the girl, spin her round and jerk her wrist up high into the small of her back. The WPC’s foot hooked round the girl’s ankle and sent her toppling.

Frost stepped back and lit a cigarette. As usual, he was superfluous.

‘Get this bloody dyke off of me,’ screamed the girl, face down in earth and potted plant with the WPC kneeling on her back and twisting her knife arm to near breaking point.

‘Drop the knife,’ hissed the WPC.

‘I’ve dropped, it, I’ve dropped it,’ screeched the girl.

‘I’ve got it,’ said Frost, picking it up.

Reluctantly, the WPC relaxed her grip and dragged the girl to her feet. Gilmore, panting away, now had Hoskins facing the wall in an arm lock. With his free hand he fumbled in his pocket for his warrant card. He stuck it under the man’s nose. ‘Police. Are you Dean Ronald Hoskins?’

‘Yes. How many of you are there?’

‘There’s two more of the sods in the garden,’ the girl told him. ‘Who are we supposed to be – Bonnie and bleeding Clyde?’

‘Well, you’re certainly not Di and bleeding Charles,’ said Frost. ‘Can we go somewhere comfortable?’

‘There’s nowhere comfortable in this bloody shithouse,’ said the girl.

‘You don’t have to live here,’ Hoskins snarled at her. ‘You can pack your carrier bag and go whenever you like.’ He nodded towards the far door. ‘In there.’

The room housed a settee that doubled as a bed, a hi-fl unit with two shaking, throbbing speakers spewing out heavy metal, a black and white television set and a motor bike which was leaking oil on to bare floorboards.

Frost kicked at the hi-fl flex, yanking the plug from the power point. The music died abruptly and the resulting silence took some adjusting to. He opened the window to the garden and yelled for Jordan and the other uniformed man to come in. ‘Search this place from top to bottom. Bag all clothing for forensic examination.’

‘Have you got a warrant?’ demanded the girl.

Frost smiled sweetly. ‘I don’t understand these technical terms, love.’ He found himself a chair, shook off the dubious pair of underpants it contained and sat down. He pointed to the settee, indicating they too should sit. ‘With an energetic shove the WPC helped them comply.

Frost drew on his cigarette. Their heads moved simultaneously, watching his every move like a rabbit watching a snake. Smoke dribbled from his nostrils. He fanned it away. ‘My colleague thinks you might be able to help him with his enquiries.’ He nodded for Gilmore to take over.

Gilmore stared at each of them in turn, holding their gaze and forcing them to break away. ‘You know why we’re here.’

‘I’ve got no bleeding idea,’ snapped the man. ‘You come bursting in here with that bloody lesbian…’

‘A woman’s been murdered next door and you don’t know why we’re here.’ Gilmore thrust his face to within, an inch of Hoskins’. ‘Why did you knife her? A poor old lady who never did anyone any harm.’

‘Knife her?’ exclaimed Hoskins incredulously. ‘Me?’

‘Don’t give me that innocent crap. You’ve used a knife before.’

‘Only in self-defence.’

‘This was in self-defence,’ snapped Gilmore. ‘She caught you robbing her house. She would have gone to the police. So, in self-defence, she had to be silenced.’

‘Oh, marvellous,’ sneered the girl. ‘The police are bleeding baffled so they arrest the poor sod next door just because he’s got a police record.’

‘Not just because he’s got a police record, love,’ said Frost. ‘It’s because the poor sod next door left his fingerprints all over the murdered woman’s bedroom.’

The girl’s head snapped round to Hoskins. ‘You stupid bastard! You never told me you touched anything.’

‘That’s right, you mouthy cow!’ snarled Hoskins. ‘Sign my bleeding death warrant!’

Gilmore gave a yell of triumph. ‘Caution them,’ said Frost, ‘and take them down to the station.’ He went out to see how the search for the knife and for bloodstained clothing was getting on. The bedroom was a pigsty. Jordan and WPC Ridley were stuffing unwashed clothing into a black plastic dustbin sack, the same type of sack Paula Bartlett’s body was found in.

‘Nothing yet,’ Jordan told him. Frost nodded glumly. Outside through the window, he could see two police officers sifting through the contents of the dustbin. Something told him that this wasn’t going to be as easy as Gilmore seemed to think.

The interview room was cold. The heating engineers had managed to restore heat to the basement cells, but wouldn’t get round to this floor until the morning. So it was cold. But Hoskins was sweating. The girl, now wearing a thick sweater, sat by his side. Gilmore had wanted the pair questioned separately, but Frost favoured having them together.

Gilmore switched on the tape recorder, announced the details of the time and who was present, then dragged a chair across and sat facing them.

‘I want to make a statement,’ said Hoskins.

‘You’re on the air, so go ahead.’

‘I never touched her. Like I told the other cop, the old girl knocked at our door moaning that someone had got into her house with the spare key, but when I looked, the key was there all the time, so I left her to it. After a while, I got worried about her, so I went back and knocked, but got no answer. I thought I’d better check, just in case, so I used her spare key from under the mat to get in. I called, “Are you all right, Mrs Haynes?” Dead silence. Funny, I thought. I called again. Nothing. So I nipped upstairs just to make sure she’s all right and, Christ! There she was on the bed and blood everywhere. I couldn’t get down them bleeding stairs fast enough.’ He turned to the girl to verify his story.

‘Dean was as white as a sheet when he came in,’ she confirmed, ‘and he was sick as a bloody parrot down the sink.’

‘What time was this?’ Gilmore asked.

‘About eleven o’clock Sunday night.’

‘And you didn’t think of calling an ambulance, or the police?’

‘Ambulance? She was dead – I could see that.’

‘Police then?’

‘What – a bloke with a record inside a dead woman’s house? That’s as good as a signed confession to you lot. I’d have been in Death bleeding Row within the hour.’

Gilmore flicked through his notes. ‘You told the other officer it was five o’clock Sunday when Mrs Haynes rang your bell.’

'That’s right.’

‘And you were so worried about her, you waited six hours before knocking to see if she’s all right?’

‘Well, at least I did go and knock. Other people wouldn’t have bothered.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Gilmore.

‘I don’t expect you to,’ said Hoskins, loud and clear to the microphone. ‘But it’s the gospel truth.’

Gilmore frowned as the door opened and the little blonde WPC hovered, waving something – a large brown envelope. He’d give her a mouthful for interrupting at a crucial moment. It was Frost who spoke to her, keeping his voice low, then he called Gilmore over. Murmurs of excited conversation while Hoskins looked on worried, straining his ears in vain, wondering what it was about.

The two detectives returned, Gilmore carrying the envelope which he shook over the table. Five banknotes fluttered out, a?20 note, a?10 note and three?5 notes, all crisp and brand new. Hoskins tried to look puzzled. ‘Guess what we found hidden behind one of your chair cushions,’ said Gilmore. He picked up one of the notes and sniffed delicately, then smiled. ‘Smell it. Lavender!’ He looked across to the girl. ‘Hardly your style, is it, love?’ He waggled the note under Hoskins’ nose. ‘The old girl’s purse reeked of it!’

Hoskins pushed Gilmore’s hand away. ‘It’s my giro money,’ he muttered.

‘Of course it is,’ said Gilmore, ‘but just in case you’re telling me a porky, I’ll check the numbers with the post office where Mrs Haynes drew her pension. If they tally, Sonny Jim, you’re for the high jump.’ He pushed the money back into the envelope. He felt much happier now. Hoskins was beginning to squirm and the girl looked worried. Frost seemed fidgety, no doubt annoyed that the new boy was scoring all the goals.

Hoskins took a deep breath. ‘All right, I’ll tell you the truth. It is her money, but she lent it to me. I needed some spares for my motorbike.’

‘Lent it?’ scoffed Gilmore. ‘She wouldn’t have lent you forty-five pence, let alone forty-five quid.’

‘She bloody, lent it to me,’ insisted Hoskins. ‘And I was very grateful, that’s why I went in later to check she was all right.’

Frost leant forward. ‘She gave you everything she had in her purse. How was the poor cow going to manage?’

‘I intended paying her back in a couple of days. She said she could wait.’

‘When did you borrow it?’ asked Frost.

‘When she thought she’d lost her spare key. I saw her purse in her hand so I asked her.’

‘Do you mind if I continue, sir?’ asked Gilmore with an edge to his voice that would slice through tempered steel. He didn’t want Frost taking over just when victory was within grasp.

Frost’s hand waved him to silence. ‘Indulge me, Sergeant.’ He puffed cigarette smoke down over the seated man. ‘All right, Hoskins, let’s pretend she lent you the money. And let’s pretend you were so full of gratitude that you were worried about her and decided to see if she was all right at eleven o’clock at night. When you knocked, were the lights on in her house?’

Hoskins paused for a moment. ‘No.’

‘So when you got no reply, from a house with all the lights out, you thought it was your duty to investigate it – to use her spare key and nose around inside?’

‘That’s right.’

‘It never occurred to you that at eleven o’clock at night the most obvious answer was that this seventy-eight-year-old woman might be in bed, asleep?’

Hoskins’ mouth opened and shut, then he shook his head. ‘No. It didn’t occur to me at the time.’

Frost gave a weary sigh. ‘Don’t waste my time, son. Of course it occurred to you. You were banking on it. You wanted her to be in bed and asleep.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Hoskins muttered to the floor.

‘You stupid little git. You’re going to talk yourself into a life sentence.’ He stood up and started to button his mac. ‘I don’t think you killed her, but if you’re sticking to that story I’m charging you with murder and your girlfriend as an accessory.’

Hoskins, his face set, stared stubbornly down at the ground.

‘If you don’t tell them the bleeding truth, then I will,’ said the girl. ‘They’re not nicking me for something I didn’t do.’

Hoskins took a deep breath. ‘All right… scrub every thing I said. This is now the gospel…’

Frost sat down again and waited. Gilmore was scowling, arms folded, itching to take over the reins of the questioning.

‘Yes, I was going to do the place over – nip in, grab what I could and get out quick. I knew where the spare key was, so I waited until eleven o’clock when I thought the old girl would be asleep. I let myself in. Her bag was on the hall table, so I nicked the money from her purse. Then I crept upstairs. The first door I tried was her bedroom. Christ, when I saw her smothered in blood, it frightened the shit out of me. My feet never touched the flaming stairs as I came down. I took the money, but I never bleeding killed her.’

‘I believe him,’ said Frost when they were back in the office.

‘Well, I don’t,’ said Gilmore. He was furious. He’d have got a bloody confession to murder if the old fool hadn’t butted in.

‘Mind you,’ added Frost, ‘if Forensic find her blood all over his clothes, I’m prepared to change my mind.’

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Tuesday night shift (2)

‘Woman on the phone for you,’ yelled Wells as they crossed the lobby. ‘A Mrs Compton.’

‘Old Mother Rigid Nipples!’ exclaimed Frost, as Gilmore took the phone.

‘Mr Mullett wasn’t too pleased you’re only charging Hoskins with petty theft,’ Wells told him.

‘Mr Mullett’s happiness is rather low on my list o priorities,’ grunted Frost, pushing through the swing doors and nearly bumping into an irritable-looking Mullett on his way out.

‘Car expenses,’ barked Mullett.

‘Be on your desk first thing tomorrow, Super,’ called Frost, instantly regretting his folly. The expenses, much scribbled on, were still in his pocket and there wasn’t a hope in hell of getting the amended receipts by the morning. Ah well, he philosophized, a lot could happen between now and then. Mullett could get injured in a car crash and break both his legs. But he popped the bubble of this optimistic fantasy. The bastard would hobble in on crutches if it meant catching him out.

A quick look in at his office. Exactly as he had left it, cold and untidy. Protruding from under an empty, unwashed mug was a memo headed From The Office Of The Divisional Commander. It bore the single word Inventory??? ringed in red and underlined several times in Royal Blue by Mullett’s Parker pen. He ferreted through his in-tray and dug out the inventory return, hoping it wouldn’t look so complicated as at first sight. It looked even worse, so he reburied it even deeper.

The door slammed to punctuate an angry Gilmore’s return. ‘That damn Sergeant Wells!’ He flung himself into his chair.

Frost stifled a groan. He had enough troubles of his own. “What’s the matter now, son?’

‘That phone call from Mrs Compton. Her husband’s away and she’s alone in the house.’

‘It sounds a bloody good offer,’ said Frost. ‘We’ll flip a coin to see who has the first nibble.’

Gilmore’s scowl cut even deeper. ‘It’s not funny. She’s had another threatening phone call. The bastard told her tonight will be her last night on earth. She’s frightened out of her wits. I’ve told Sergeant Wells I want a watch kept on the house tonight and he says he can’t spare anyone.’

Frost picked up the internal phone. ‘I’ll have a word with him.’

At first Wells dug his heels in. He wasn’t going to let any jumped-up, know-nothing, aftershave-smelling detective sergeant tell him how to organize his own men. And did the inspector know how many men he had available to cover the whole of Denton – the whole of bloody Denton? Four! Two in cars, two on foot. The others had to be kept in to answer the flaming phones which were ringing non-stop after that stupid Paula Bartlett video on television. Frost put the phone down on the desk and let Wells rant on, while he lit up another cigarette. ‘When the whining from the ear-piece stopped, he picked up the receiver and made a few sympathetic sounds with the result that Wells now grudgingly admitted that perhaps he could spare one man and one car to keep a spasmodic watch on The Old Mill, but he couldn’t guarantee one hundred per cent coverage.

‘You’re a prince, Bill,’ said Frost. ‘Your generosity is exceeded only by the size of your dick.’ He hung up quickly before Wells could change his mind then twisted his chair round to tell his sergeant the good news, but if he expected thanks, he was disappointed.

‘What a bloody way to run a station,’ snarled Gilmore, stamping out of the room.

The office was too cold to stay in for long so Frost sauntered along to the Murder Incident Room where the temperature wasn’t much better. Two WPCs and one uniformed man, all well wrapped up against the cold, were beavering through the senior citizen burglary files and answering the spasmodic phone calls that were still coming in following the TV broadcast. Another WPC was slowly working through the vast computer print-out of light vans and estate cars, either blue or of a colour which could be mistaken for blue under street lamps. ‘Mr Mullett’s orders,’ she explained.

‘You don’t need to tell me,’ sniffed Frost. ‘Anything stupid and useless, it’s always Mr Mullett’s orders.’ Even if a blue van was involved, it could well have been repainted but still be registered under its original colour.

He dipped into the filing tray and read a couple of the messages. Paula was still being sighted. A woman had spotted her in France, and a man was positive that Paula was the same girl who had delivered his paper that very morning.

At a corner desk, DC Burton, a sandwich in his hand, was reading the Sun. He stuffed it away hastily as Frost approached and busied himself with the senior citizen files ‘On my refreshment break, sir,’ he explained. He accepted a cigarette. ‘Hoskins and the girl have been charged. We’re holding them in the cells overnight pending the result of the forensic examination.’

Frost nodded and plonked himself down on a chair. ‘I want to get filled in on the Paula Bartlett case, but I’m too bleeding lazy to read through the file. Start right from the beginning.’

‘September 14th,’ said Burton. ‘She was on her paper round. Left the shop at 7.05.’

‘Hold it,’ interrupted Frost. ‘Five past seven? Her parents said she usually started her round at half-past seven.’

‘That was when her teacher gave her the lift. She would have had to cycle to school that day, so she gave herself more time.’

Frost blew an enormous smoke ring and watched it wriggle lazily around the room. ‘I’m still listening.’

‘At five o’clock her parents are expecting her home from school. By half-past five they’re phoning around and are told she hadn’t been to school at all that day. At ten past six they phone us.’

‘And two months later, we found her,’ commented Frost, wryly.

Burton grinned patiently. ‘Anyway, we sent an area car. They got details of her delivery route from the paper shop and followed it through with the customers. As you know, she never made the last two houses.’ He heaved himself from his chair and crossed to the large-scale wall map. ‘Her last delivery was here at around 8.15.’ His finger jabbed the map. ‘Her next delivery should have been Brook Cottage… here. She never made it,’

Frost joined him at the map which was studded with yellow thumb tacks marking Paula’s progress. ‘She was doing her round half an hour earlier than usual?’

Burton nodded.

‘Then unless the bloke who abducted her knew that, it must have happened by chance – he saw her, acted on impulse and grabbed her.’

Burton destroyed that theory. ‘She’d been doing it half an hour earlier for the previous four days, sir. Mr Bell stayed away from school when his wife died, so Paula didn’t get her lift in.’

'Whoever it was, he must have had a car. He either bundled her in and dumped the bike, or it was someone she knew and trusted. Someone, perhaps, with a wispy beard who offered her a lift. The bike went in the boot and he dumped it later.’

A tolerant smile from Burton. Inspector Allen had reasoned all this out months ago. ‘If she was picked up in a car, sir, it couldn’t have been by Mr Bell. He never left the house before the funeral. His wife’s parents confirm it.’

‘He’s still got a wispy beard,’ said Frost, ‘and I don’t trust the sod.’ He returned to his desk. ‘Right. She’s reported missing. ‘What happened from there?’

‘Mr Allen took over the case at 20.15. The area between Grove Road and Brook Cottage was searched. At 23.32 we found her bike and her newspaper bag with the two undelivered papers, dumped in the ditch. The ditch was dragged in case the girl was there as well. It was then too dark to continue so it was resumed at first light with the search area extended to include part of the woods. Mr Allen had all known sex offenders, child molesters, flashers and the like brought in for questioning.’ He pulled open a filing cabinet drawer jam-packed with bulging file folders – the results of the questionings.

Frost regarded them gloomily. Far too many for him to read through.

‘There’s more,’ said Burton, tugging open a second drawer.

Frost winced and kneed them both shut. ‘Say what you like about Mr Allen, but he’s an industrious bastard. I take it he cleared them all?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then that’s good enough for me.’ He struck a match down the side of the filing cabinet and lit up another cigarette. “Where’s the bike?’

Burton led him to the freezing cold evidence shed in the car-park and unlocked the door.

The bike, swathed in dimpled polythene, was leaning against the wall. Burton pulled off the covering and stood back. A neat little foldable bike in light grey stove-enamel with dark grey handle-grips and pedals. Frost stared at it, but it told him nothing. He waited while Burton replaced the dimpled polythene, then followed him back to the Incident Room.

‘Let’s see the physical evidence.’

Unlocking a metal cupboard Burton took out a large cardboard box that had once held a gross of toilet rolls and dumped it on the desk. Then he pulled a bulging box-file down from the shelf and handed it to the inspector. ‘The main file.’

Frost opened it. From the top of a heap of papers a serious-looking Paula Bartlett regarded him solemnly through dark-rimmed glasses. The school photograph provided by the parents when she first went missing, which was used for the ‘Have You Seen This Girl?’ poster. There were many more photographs, including those taken at the crypt and at the post-mortem. Frost shuddered and dug deeper, pausing to examine the flashlight enlargements showing the handlebar of the bike poking through the green scum of the ditch. ‘Any prints on the bike?’

‘You’ve already asked me, sir. Just the girl’s and the schoolmaster’s.’

Frost paused. Why did little buzzes of intuition whisper in his ear every time the schoolmaster was mentioned?

The rest of the file consisted of negative forensic reports on the bike and the canvas newspaper bag, plus statements from Paula’s school friends – no, she had never talked of running away; no, she wasn’t worried or unhappy about any thing no, she had no boyfriends. In the early days of the investigations, as no body was found, it was hoped that she had dumped her bike and, like so many kids of her age, run away from home. There were reports from various police forces who had followed up sightings of Paula look-alikes, teenage girls on the game or sleeping rough. A few missing teenage girls were restored to their families, but the Bartletts just waited, and hoped, and kept her room ready exactly as she left it.

He closed the file and handed it back to Burton, then pulled the cardboard box towards him. Inside it, loosely folded in a large transparent resealable bag, was the black, mould-speckled plastic rubbish sack, Paula’s shroud, ripped where the knife had cut through to reveal her face.

‘A rubbish sack,’ commented Burton. ‘Millions of them made. No clue there.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ gloomed Frost, taking the next item from the box. A canvas bag which had held the newspapers. The stagnant smell of the scummy ditch in which it had been immersed wafted up as he examined it. He slipped his arm through the shoulder strap. The bag was too high and uncomfortable. Paula was much smaller than he was. What the hell does that prove? he thought. He shrugged off the strap and put the bag on top of the rubbish sack. Next were the brown, fiat-heeled shoes, the stained laces still tied in a neat double bow.

‘Naked, raped and murdered, but still wearing shoes,’ muttered Frost. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘What’s going on?’ Gilmore was staring pointedly at Burton. ‘I thought I told you to go through the senior citizen files.’

‘He’s helping me,’ said Frost. He held up the shoes. ‘Why was she wearing shoes and sod all else?’

‘She tried to get away,’ offered Gilmore, not very interested. Mullett had told them to forget the Paula Bartlett case. ‘She put on her shoes so she could make a run for it, but he came back and caught her.’

‘She’d been raped,’ said Frost. ‘She was terrified. If she wanted to run, she’d bloody well run barefoot. She wouldn’t waste time putting on shoes and tying them both with a double bow.’

‘Then I don’t know,’ grunted Gilmore, moving away and busying himself with the senior citizen files, making it clear that he knew where his priorities were, even if others didn’t.

The brown shoes refused to yield up their secrets, so Frost put them to one side and took out the last item in the box, a large plastic envelope which held the two undelivered newspapers, the Sun and the Daily Telegraph, each folded in two so they would fit the canvas bag.

Frost slipped them from the envelope. The same stagnant smell as the bag, both papers yellowed and tinged with green from their immersion. With great care he unfolded the Sun which the soaking in the ditch had made slightly brittle. Scrawled above the masthead in the newsagent’s writing was the customer’s address, Brook Ctg. He turned to page three and studied the nude dispassionately. She too was stained green. ‘There’s a green-tinged pair of nipples to the north of Kathmandu,’ he intoned, closing the paper, careful to ensure it settled along its original folds.

He nearly missed it. It caught the light as he was returning it to the envelope. A quarter of the way down the back page, running across the width of the paper. A roughened, corrugated tongue-shaped tear an eighth of an inch wide and barely a quarter of an inch long. He pulled out the school master’s Telegraph and scrutinized the back and front pages. Nothing on that, so back to the Sun. It was telling him something, but he didn’t know what. ‘What do you make of this, Burton?’

Burton made nothing of it.

‘Come and look at this, Gilmore,’ called Frost.

Making clear his resentment at being dragged away from more important work, Gilmore took the newspaper, gave it a cursory glance and handed it back. ‘A bit of damage in the handling,’ he said.

No, thought Frost. Not damage in the handling. It was more than that. A faint bell began to tinkle right at the back of his brain. The drunken fat woman earlier that day. Her paper was jammed tight in the letter-box. He’d had to pull it out and he’d torn it. A very similar tear to that on the back page of the undelivered Sun. Or was it undelivered? Hands trembling, he took up the newspaper and gave it a second, loose fold. The rough corrugated tongue ran exactly down the line of the new fold.

Frost felt his excitement rising. ‘Did Mr Allen notice this?’

‘I don’t know, sir. ‘Why, is it important?’

‘It could be bloody important, son. The papers are folded once so the girl can fit them in the canvas bag. But they have to be folded again so they can be poked through the letter- box.’ Frost pointed to the tear. ‘I’d stake my virginity that this paper has been pushed through a letter-box and then pulled out again.’

The DC took the paper and twisted it in the light to examine the abrasion. It was possible. Just about possible. ‘But we know it wasn’t delivered,’ he said.

'Who lives at Brook Cottage?’

Burton pulled the details from the folder and read them aloud. ‘Harold Edward Greenway, aged 47. Self-employed van driver. Lives on his own. His wife walked out on him a couple of years ago.’

This was getting better and better. Frost rubbed his hands with delight. ‘Has he got an alibi for the day the girl went missing?’

Burton turned a page. ‘According to his statement he had no jobs lined up, so he stayed in bed until gone eleven, then pottered about the cottage for the rest of the day. He never saw the girl and he didn’t get a paper.’

‘And we believed him?’

‘We had no reason to doubt him, especially when we found her bike and the papers in the ditch.’

Frost sat on the corner of the desk and shook out three cigarettes. ‘OK. Try this out for a scenario. Harry boy lives all on his own. Wife’s been gone for two years and his dick’s getting rusty through lack of use. One morning, what should come cycling up his path but a nice, fresh, unopened packet of 15-year-old nooky with his copy of the Sun. She rolls it up and pokes it through the door. The sexual symbolism of this act hits him smack in the groin. He invites her in, or drags her in, or whatever. She can scream if she wants to, there’s no-one for miles to hear. Afterwards, when all passion’s spent and she’s screaming rape, he panics, and strangles her.’

Burton, caught up with Frost’s enthusiasm, could see where the plot was leading. ‘Greenway puts the newspaper back in the bag, dumps it with the bike in a ditch and we all think she never made the delivery.’

Even Gilmore looked impressed. ‘It’s possible,’ he decided reluctantly, ‘but it still doesn’t explain the shoes.’

‘Sod the shoes,’ said Frost, hopping down from the desk. ‘Let’s get our killer first, then get explanations.’ He stuffed the papers back into the plastic envelope and handed it to Burton. ‘Tell you what you do, son. Send both newspapers over to Forensic. Tell them our brilliant theory and get them to drop everything and make tests.’

‘And then come back and get down to these bloody files,’ called Gilmore. ‘We’re never going to get through them at this rate.’

The stack of folders didn’t seem to be getting any lower. Gilmore ticked off the squares on the roneoed form and dropped it into the filing basket ready for the girl on the computer. Something sailed past his nose. It was a paper aeroplane which attempted to soar upwards before losing heart and nose-diving with a thud to the ground at his feet. He bent down and picked it up. The paper looked familiar. He unfolded it. One of the roneoed forms. He turned suspiciously to Frost who grinned back sheepishly.

‘Sorry, son.’

Frost was bored. He’d been staring at the same robbery folder for the past forty minutes. He was dying for an excuse to get out of the station, but the phone stubbornly remained quiet. ‘About time Forensic came back to us on those news papers.’

‘They’ve only had them five minutes,’ said Gilmore.

‘How long does it bloody take?’ asked Frost peevishly, pulling the phone towards him and dialling the lab.

‘Give us a chance, Inspector,’ replied Forensic testily. ‘We’ve got half our staff down with this flu virus thing. We’re still working on the clothing and other items collected from 44 Manningron Crescent. Negative so far.’

‘That old rubbish can wait,’ said Frost. ‘It’s not important. Get cracking on those newspapers.’

A scowling Gilmore looked up. ‘We’re supposed to be concentrating on the senior citizen murders and you’re telling Forensic it can wait?’

Frost was saved from answering by the phone. WPC Ridley from Intensive Care, Denton Hospital. Alice Ryder, the old lady with the fractured skull, had regained consciousness.

The moon, floating in a clear sky, kept pace with the car as they raced to the hospital. Frost, puffing away nervously in the passenger seat, was willing the old dear to stay alive until they could question her. A detailed description of her attacker would be worth a thousand of those lousy forms they had been filling in for the computer. A detailed description! He was kidding himself. She was eighty-one, concussed and dying. The bastard had attacked her in the dark. The poor cow would tell them sod all.

The dark sprawl of the hospital loomed up ahead. ‘Park there, son.’ He pointed to a ‘Hospital – No Waiting’ sign by the main entrance and was out of the car and charging up the corridor before Gilmore had a chance to switch off the ignition.

Gilmore pushed through the swing doors in time to see the maroon blur of Frost’s scarf as he darted down a side corridor. With a burst of speed, he caught up with him. ‘Straight ahead,’ panted Frost, indicating a small flickering green neon sign reading ‘Intensive Care’.

The night sister looked up angrily and glared them to silence. She nodded grimly at Frost’s warrant card. ‘Mrs Ryder is over there.’ A jerk of her head indicated a curtained-off corner.

‘How is she?’ asked Frost.

‘She’s dying, otherwise I wouldn’t let you near her.’ As they moved across, she added, ‘Not too many of you. Send the WPC out.’

They slipped through the curtains. A concerned WPC Ridley was bending over the bed talking quietly. She looked up with relief at Frost’s appearance. ‘Her eyes are open, sir, but I don’t think she’s really with us.’

‘Take a break, love,’ said Frost flopping down in the chair alongside the bed. Gilmore stood behind him. The old lady, a small frail figure, seemed unaware of their presence. She lay still, her head barely creasing the plumped hospital pillow, an irregular bubbling sob marking her shallow breathing. Her face was a dull grey against the starkness of the turban of bandages around her head. Taped to her cheek, a thin, transparent tube ran into her left nostril. Another tube descended from a half-filled plastic bag on an iron stand and dripped fluids through a hollow needle to a vein on her wrist. Her hand, a yellow claw, was trembling and making tiny scratching noises on the bed-cover.

Everything was clean and white and sterile and Frost felt gritty and dirty and out of place. He leant forward. ‘Mrs Ryder?’

Her red-rimmed eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling. She gave no sign that she had heard him. Her head was twitching slightly as if trying to shake off the tube fastened to her nose which was clearly uncomfortable and worrying her.

Why can’t they let the poor cow die in comfort, thought Frost. He brought his face close to hers. ‘Mrs Ryder, I’m a police officer. If I’m to get the bastard who did this to you, I need your help.’ No response.

‘A description, Mrs Ryder – anything. If you can’t talk, blink. A blink means yes. Do you understand?’

If she understood, she didn’t respond.

Undeterred, Frost plunged on. ‘The man who attacked you. Was he tall?’ He waited. No response. ‘Short? Fat? Thin?’

Her breath bubbled. Her fingers drummed. Her eyes, unblinking, were fixed on the ceiling.

Frost slumped back in his chair. Why was he hassling her? She wasn’t going to tell him anything, so why not let the poor cow die in peace. He dug his hands in his pocket and felt his cigarettes. No chance of a smoke in here. The night sister would have him out on his ear.

‘Let me try,’ said Gilmore, but before Frost could answer the old lady made a choking sound. ‘I’ll get the sister,’ said Gilmore, trying to open the curtains.

‘No!’ hissed Frost, grabbing his arm. ‘Wait!’

The old lady was attempting to raise her head, but the effort was too much. Her eyes fluttered wildly and her lips quivered. She was trying to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Frost brought his ear right down to her mouth and felt the hot rasp of her faint breath on his face.

‘Try again, love. I’m listening.’

One word. Very faint. It sounded like ‘stab’ but he wasn’t sure if he heard it correctly. ‘I know what he did, love. Can you describe him? Did you get a good look at him?’ He kept his voice down. He didn’t want the sister running in to order him out.

She nodded.

‘Was he taller than me?’

Her lips moved, then her eyes widened and there was a choking noise at the back of her throat. And then she was still… dead still, the fingers no longer drumming.

The old girl was dead. Damn and sodding blast. She’d told him nothing, He dragged back the curtains. ‘Nurse!’

He signalled for WPC Ridley to take over and hustled Gilmore out of the ward.

In the corridor outside he fumbled in his inside pocket to make a note of what the old lady had said and found he had pulled out those damn car expenses, the ones he had promised Mullett he would hand in tomorrow morning. Well, he’d have to think of yet another excuse for the Divisional Commander to disbelieve. Something was scribbled on one of the phoney petrol receipts. The name ‘Wardley’. He racked his brains, but it meant nothing. ‘Who’s Wardley?’

Doesn’t the old fool remember anything, thought Gilmore. ‘He’s the old boy who attempted suicide after he got the poison pen letter.’

Frost grinned. Something else to delay their return to the cold, dreary station. ‘I promised the doc I’d have a word with him. Come on, son.’

Gilmore almost lost Frost in the labyrinth of corridors. Denton General Hospital was originally an old Victorian workhouse, but had been added to and rebuilt over the years. Frost darted up dark little passages, across storage areas and up clanking iron staircases to get to the ward where Wardley was lying. The staff nurse in her little cubicle with the shaded lamp greeted Frost as an old friend. She wasn’t too keen on the idea of waking Wardley up, but Frost assured her it was essential.

Wardley, a little man of around seventy-five, his thinning hair snow white, was sleeping uneasily, turning and twitching and muttering. Frost shook his shoulder gently. Wardley woke with a start, mouth agape. He looked concerned as Frost introduced himself.

‘Have you come to arrest me?’ he croaked in a quavering voice.

‘Attempted suicide isn’t a crime any more,’ said Frost, dragging chair over to the bed. ‘Besides, for all we know, it was an accident.’

Wardley frowned. ‘You know it was suicide. I left a note.’

‘Did you? We couldn’t find it.’

The old man pulled himself up. ‘It was on the bedside cabinet. My note… and that letter. How could you miss them?’

Frost scratched his head. ‘They might have fallen under the bed. We’ll look again later. Suppose you tell me what the letter said?’

The old man shook his head and his hands gripped and released the bedclothes. ‘Terrible things. I’m too ashamed.’

‘Blimey,’ said Frost, ‘I hope I can do things I’m ashamed of at your age.’

‘It happened a long time ago, Inspector.’

‘Then it doesn’t bloody matter,’ said Frost. ‘Tell me what it said.’

A long pause. Someone further down the ward moaned in his sleep. A trolley rumbled by outside.

‘All right,’ said Wardley at last. ‘It goes back thirty years – before I came to Denton. I lived in a little village. It was miles away from here, but I’m not telling you its name. I ran one of the classes in the Sunday school.’ He paused.

‘Not much sex and violence, so far,’ murmured Frost. ‘I hope it warms up.’

Wardley pushed out a polite, insincere smile and immediately switched it off. ‘There were these two boys in my class. One was twelve, the other thirteen. After the class they would come back with me to my house. We would chat, watch television. All innocent stuff.’ His voice rose. ‘As God is my witness, Inspector, that’s all it was.’

‘What else would it be?’ soothed Frost, thinking to him self, You dirty old bastard!

‘One of the boys told lies about me. Filthy lies. I was called up before the Sunday school superintendent. I swore my innocence on the Bible, but he didn’t believe me. I was forced to resign.’ He stopped and studied the inspector’s face, trying to read signs that he was being believed now.

‘Go on,’ murmured Frost.

‘I couldn’t stay in the village. People whispered and pointed. I had to move. So I came to Denton. After thirty years I thought it was all over and done with. And then I received that awful letter.’

'What did it say, Mr Wardley?’

‘Something like “What will the church say when I tell them what you did to those boys?” I’m a churchwarden, Inspector. It’s my life. I couldn’t face it happening all over again. If it gets out, I won’t fail next time.’

Gilmore asked, ‘Is there anyone in Denton, or locally, who could have known about your past?’ Wardley shook his head.

‘These two boys you messed about with,’ Frost began, stopping abruptly as Wardley, quivering with rage, thrust his face forward and almost shouted.

‘I never touched them. It was all lies. I swore on the Bible.’ So loud did he protest that the staff nurse hurried anxiously towards the bed, only turning back when Frost gave her a reassuring wave.

He rephrased his question. ‘The boys who lied, Mr Wardley. I want their names. And the name of the Sunday school superintendent, and all the people from your old village who would have known about this. We’ve got to check and see if any of them have moved to Denton.’

He left Gilmore to take down the details and went down to the car where he could smoke and think. Why on earth was he wasting time on this poison pen thing when he was way out of his depth with more important cases?

The car lurched to one side as Gilmore climbed in. ‘Where to?’ he asked, trying to get comfortable in the sagging driving seat.

His reply should have been ‘Back to the station,’ but he couldn’t face going back to that cold Incident Room and wading through those endless, monotonous robbery files. ‘Wardley’s cottage. Let’s have another look for that letter.’

‘We shouldn’t be wasting time on this,’ moaned Gilmore. ‘And how are we going to get in?’

‘Dr Maltby will have a key,’ said Frost, hoping this was true.

Frost was in luck. Maltby did have the key. He sat them in his surgery while he went upstairs to fetch it. ‘Watch the door,’ hissed Frost, darting for the doctor’s desk.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Gilmore, horrified, watching the inspector methodically opening and closing drawers.

‘Looking for something,’ grunted Frost, busily opening a locked drawer with one of his own keys.

A creak of a floorboard above, then footsteps on the stairs.

‘He’s coming,’ croaked Gilmore, wishing he could run and leave Frost to face the music.

‘Got it,’ crowed Frost, waving a blue envelope. He glanced at it and stuffed it back, quickly locked the drawer, then slid back into his seat just as the door opened and Maltby came in with the key to Wardley’s cottage.

‘What the hell was that about?’ asked Gilmore when they were outside.

‘The poison pen letter the doc gave us yesterday. He wouldn’t tell us who it was sent to, so I sneaked a look at the envelope. Sorry to involve you, son, but you’ve got to grab your chances when they come.’

‘So who was it addressed to… anyone we know?’ Frost grinned. ‘Mark Compton. Mr Rigid Nipples.’ Gilmore’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What?’

‘Doesn’t it make you hate the swine even more… married to that cracking wife and having it off every Wednesday with a female contortionist in Denton?’ He halted outside the door of a small, dark cottage, pushed the key in the lock and they went in.

They started in the bedroom, with its iron-framed single bed, and worked downwards. Everything inside the bedside cabinet was taken out. Frost showed mild interest in some loose tablets he found in the drawer, then seemed to lose interest. The cabinet was pulled away from the wall in case the note and the letter had fallen behind it. The bed likewise was moved, exposing a rectangular patch of fluffy dust. Even the bedclothes were stripped and shaken.

Gilmore, watched by Frost from the doorway, crawled all over the room on his hands and knees, looking in corners, behind curtains. He even stood on a chair and looked on top of the wardrobe. ‘Nothing here,’ he said, brushing dust from his jacket.

A quick poke around in the bathroom and then downstairs. Again Frost didn’t seem inclined to join in the search, but let Gilmore do it while he sat on the arm of a chair, smoking and flipping through some bird-watching magazines he’d found in the magazine rack then looking all the way across the room at some nail holes in the wallpaper through a pair of high-powered binoculars he’d taken from a shelf.

‘It would be quicker with two,’ said Gilmore.

'When you get fed up, we’ll go,’ said Frost. ‘The letters aren’t here. I’m only staying because you seem so keen.’

Gilmore glowered. ‘All right,’ he admitted. ‘I’m fed up.’

‘We’ll have a word with Ada next door,’ said Frost.

You’re messing me about, thought Gilmore as he followed the inspector to the adjoining cottage with its black-painted door and shining, well-polished brasswork. A quick rat-tat- tat at the brass knocker and the door was opened by Ada Perkins, her sharp pointed chin thrust forward belligerently. ‘Oh, it’s you, Jack Frost. I thought I could hear heavy feet plonking about next door.’

‘And we thought we could hear the sound of an ear-hole pressed against the wall,’ replied Frost. ‘We’d like a couple of words… preferably not “piss off’.’

With a loud sniff of disapproval she showed them into a spotlessly clean, cosy little room where a coal fire glowed cherry red in a black-leaded grate and where chintz curtains hid the damp and depressing weather outside. In the centre of the room stood a solid oak refectory table draped in a green baize cloth on which was a quantity of different coloured wine bottles bearing white, hand-written labels.

‘Not interrupting an orgy, are we?’ asked Frost.

She ignored the question and pointed to the high-backed wooden chairs by the table. ‘Sit down!’

While Gilmore fidgeted, and kept consulting his watch, anxious to get back to his files, Frost settled down comfort ably and warmed his hands at the fire. He picked up one of the bottles and pretended to read the label. “What’s this? “Cow’s Dung and Dandelion. A thick brown wine, sticky to the palate.” That sounds good, Ada.’

She snatched the bottle. ‘It’s Cowslip and Dandelion, as well you know. I’m sorting out my home-made wine.’ She turned to Gilmore, who was drumming his fingers impatiently. ‘Would you like to try some?’

Gilmore shook his head curtly. ‘We’re not allowed to drink while we’re on duty.’

‘This isn’t alcoholic,’ Frost assured him. ‘This is home made.’ He beamed at Ada. ‘Perhaps just a little sip – to keep out the cold.’

From the top of the matching solid oak sideboard, she produced two of the largest wine glasses Gilmore had ever seen, and after giving them a quick blow inside to shift the dust, banged them down on the green baize. She filled them to the brim, and slid them across. ‘Try that.’

Gilmore lifted his glass and eyed the cloudy contents with apprehension. ‘That’s more than a sip.’

Frost told him, ‘You’ve got to have a lot to get the full benefit,’ and raised his glass in salute to Ada who waited, arms folded, for their verdict. ‘Cheers!’ The wine tiptoed down his throat as smooth as silk, tasting of nothing in particular, then, suddenly, the pin slipped from the hand grenade and something exploded inside him, punching him in the stomach, making him gasp for breath and firing little star shells in front of his eyes. ‘Gawd help us!’ he spluttered as soon as the fit of coughing stopped.

‘What’s it like?’ whispered Gilmore who hadn’t plucked up the courage to try his yet.

‘Delicious,’ croaked Frost, his throat raw and stinging as if he had swallowed a glass of hot creosote. Quickly he covered his glass as Ada offered a second helping. ‘If you’re trying to get us drunk so you can have your way with us, Ada, forget it. I lust after your body, but all I want at the moment is the letters.’

Her expression hardly changed as she rammed the cork home in the bottle. ‘What letters?’

Pausing only to slap the coughing, red-faced Gilmore on the back, Frost said, ‘The poison pen letter and the suicide note.’

She stared blankly, as if mystified.

‘You don’t have to be a bleeding Sherlock Holmes to deduce you’ve got them, Ada. Wardley left them on his bedside cabinet. You were the first one in. They were gone by the time the doc arrived a couple of minutes later. Don’t sod me about. I want them.’

Her lips tightened stubbornly. ‘Did Mr Wardley say you could have them?’

‘Yes, Ada. And he also said if you didn’t hand them over, I was to give you a clout round the ear-hole.’ He held out his hand. She hesitated, then took a folded sheet of notepaper from her apron pocket and thrust it at him.

Frost was slowly becoming aware that he was beginning to feel a trifle light-headed. Everything in the room was starting to blur slightly round the edge. It took a great deal of effort to bring the typed letter into focus. Thank God he’d refused a second glass of Cowslip and Dandelion.

‘Give it to me,’ said Gilmore impatiently. He unfolded the note and read it aloud. ‘“Dear Lecher. What would the church say if I told them about you and the things the boys said you did?”’

‘Is that it?’ asked Frost, sounding disappointed.

Gilmore nodded. ‘Typed on the same machine as the others. The “a” and the “s” are out of alignment.’

‘It all looks out of alignment to me,’ muttered Frost, wishing he hadn’t made such a pig of himself on Ada’s lethal brew. He squinted up at the blurred outline of the woman. ‘And where’s his suicide note, Ada?’

Stubbornly, she folded her arms. ‘I burnt it.’ At Frost’s angry exclamation, she explained, ‘Suicide is a mortal sin. Mr Wardley is a churchwarden. I wanted people to think the overdose was an accident.’

Frost pulled himself to his feet and waited to give the room a chance to steady itself. ‘I wish you hadn’t done that, Ada.’

She walked with them to the front door. ‘Think yourself lucky I kept the poison pen letter. I was in two minds whether to burn that as well.’

‘Thanks for the wine,’ said Frost. ‘I only felt sick for a little while.’ A cold, swirling mist was waiting for them out side. Its chill dampness embraced them, sobering Frost instantly and making him shiver.

Gilmore edged the car out of the village and headed for Denton. Up on the hill, looking down on them, The Old Mill, a dark blur in the mist. No lights showed. ‘Old Mother Rigid Nipples has gone to bed,’ Frost murmured. ‘Her husband’s probably got one of them stuck up his nose right now.’

‘Her husband’s away,’ grunted Gilmore, trying to spot the area car that was supposed to be watching the place, but there was no sign of it.

As they drove back, the radio was pleading for all available patrols to help break up a fight between two gangs of youths outside one of the town’s less reputable pubs. ‘Steer clear of there,’ said Frost, not wanting to get involved.

And then the radio was calling them. ‘Can you get over to The Old Mill right away?’ asked a harassed-sounding Bill Wells. ‘I had to call Charlie Alpha away to help with this pub fight. Mrs Compton’s seen someone prowling about the grounds.’

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Tuesday night shift (3)

The smell of burning oil from Frost’s clapped-out Cortina grew stronger as Gilmore roared the car up the hill. ‘I can see the sod!’ yelled Frost. A hunched shape was moving across the lawn towards the house. Gilmore braked violently, slewing the car across the gravel driveway, and flung open the door. The sound of breaking glass shivered the silence, followed by the shrill urgency of an alarm bell.

‘There he goes!’ said Gilmore as something darted back across the lawn and was swallowed by shadow. ‘I’ll cut across that field, round to the side of the house. You nip that way to the end of the lane and cut him off as I flush him out.’ Frost, his running days long past, listened without enthusiasm, and was still fumbling with his seat belt as Gilmore streaked away into the darkness.

The radio called to report that the alarm at The Old Mill was ringing. ‘Yes, we know,’ said Frost.

Gilmore, out of breath, was clinging to a tree, sucking in air for dear life as Frost eventually ambled over. Frost lit a cigarette and pushed a mouthful of smoke in the sergeant’s direction. Gilmore fanned it away and, at last, between gasps, was able to croak, ‘Where were you?’

Frost ignored the question. ‘Did you see him?’

Gilmore’s head shook in tempo with his panting. ‘No. I told you to head him off.’

‘I must have misheard you,’ said Frost. ‘Let’s go to the house and see what he’s done.’ He spun round abruptly as a figure crashed towards them out of the black. ‘Who the hell’s this?’

‘Did you get him?’ It was Mark Compton, flourishing a heavy walking stick.

‘He was too fast,’ panted Gilmore. ‘We thought your wife would be here on her own.’

‘That’s probably what that swine thought,’ snapped Compton. ‘I changed my schedule. I’ve just got in.’ He led them back to the house and through to the lounge where curtains billowed from a jagged hole in the centre of the large patio window. Glass slivers glinted on the carpet. The cause of the damage, a muddied brick, probably from the garden, lay next to what looked like a bunch of flowers. Frost picked it up. It wasn’t a bunch of flowers.

‘My God!’ croaked Compton.

It was a funeral wreath of white lilies, yellow chrysanthemums and evergreen leaves. Attached to it was an ivory-coloured card, edged in black. A handwritten message neatly inscribed in black ink read simply, and chillingly, Goodbye.

‘The sod doesn’t waste words, does he?’ muttered Frost, passing the wreath to Gilmore. He stared out at the empty, dead garden, then pulled the curtains together. The night air had crept into the room and that, or the wreath, was making him feel shivery. ‘Did you see anything of the bloke who did it?’

‘No. Jill said she’d heard someone prowling around, but I couldn’t spot anyone. I thought she’d imagined it, then the glass smashed, then the damned alarm. I saw someone running away, but that was all.’

‘And you’ve no idea who it might be?’

‘I’ve already told you, no.’

Frost scuffed a splinter of glass with his shoe. ‘He’s going to a great deal of trouble to make his point. He must really hate you.. . or your wife.’

‘There’s no motive behind this, Inspector,’ insisted Compton. ‘We’re dealing with a nut-case.’

‘Mark!’ His wife calling from upstairs.

‘I’m down here with the police.’

Gilmore pushed himself in front of the inspector. ‘A quick question before your wife comes in, sir. Simon Bradbury – the man you had the fight with in London…’

‘Hardly a fight, Sergeant,’ protested Compton.

‘Well, whatever, sir. It seems he’s got a record for drunkenness and violence… and now we learn that his wife – the lady you obliged with a light – has given him the elbow. Any reason why he might believe you were the cause of her leaving him?’

Compton’s face was a picture of incredulity. ‘Me? And Bradbury’s wife? I lit her damn cigarette over four weeks ago and that is the sum total of our relationship. You surely don’t think Bradbury’s responsible for what’s been happening here? It’s ridiculous!’

‘The whole thing’s bloody ridiculous,’ began Frost gloomily, quickly cheering up as the door opened and Jill Compton entered in a cloud of erotic perfume and an inch or so of nightdress. Her hair hung loosely over her shoulders and while Frost didn’t know how breasts could be called ‘pouting’, pouting seemed a good word to describe Jill Compton’s breasts as they nosed their way through near-transparent wisps of silk.

She smiled to greet Frost then she caught her breath. ‘Oh my God!’ She had seen the wreath. Her entire body began to tremble. Mark put his arms round her and held her tight. ‘I can’t take much more of this,’ she sobbed.

‘You won’t have to, love,’ he soothed. ‘We’ll sell up and move.’

‘But the business…’

‘You’re more important than the bloody business.’ He was squeezing her close to him, his hands cupping and stroking her buttocks, and Frost hated and envied him more and more by the second.

From somewhere in the house a phone rang. It was 00.39 in the morning. Everyone tensed. The woman trembled violently. ‘It’s him!’ she whispered. Her husband held her tighter.

‘I’ll take it,’ Frost barked. ‘Where’s the phone?’

Mark pointed up the stairs. ‘In the bedroom. We switched it through.’

Frost and Gilmore galloped up the stairs, two at a time. The bedroom door was ajar. Inside, the room held the sensual smell of Mrs Compton. Frost snatched up the onyx phone from the bedside table and listened. A faint rapid tapping in the background. It was the sound of typing. At this hour of the morning? And indistinct murmurs of distant voices. Frost strained to listen, trying to make out what was said. There was something familiar… Then a man s voice said, ‘Hello.. . is there anyone there?’ and he flopped down on the bed in disappointment. The caller was Sergeant Wells.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ replied Frost. ‘Sorry if I’m out of breath. I’m in a lady’s bed at the moment.’

‘Got a treat for you, Jack. Another body.’

‘Shit!’ said Frost. The only body he was interested in just now was Mrs Compton’s. ‘What’s the address?’ He snapped his fingers for Gilmore to take it down.

‘The body’s out in the open. It was dumped in a lane at the rear of the corporation rubbish tip.’

‘Ah,’ said Frost. ‘Sounds like a job for Mr Mullett. I’ll give you his home phone number.’

‘Don’t mess about, Jack. Jordan and Collier are waiting there for you. Could be foul play, but I’ve got my doubts.’

‘Collier? You’re pushing that poor little sod in at the deep end?’

‘I had no-one else to send. Both area cars are ferrying the wounded down to Denton Casualty after the pub punch-up. There’s blood and teeth all over the floor down here.’

‘Excuses, excuses,’ said Frost, hanging up quickly. ‘Why do I always get the shitty locations? Rubbish tips, public urinals… I never get knocking shops and harems.’ Well, he was in no hurry for this one. He stretched himself out on the bed and inhaled Jill Compton’s perfume. ‘Nip down and tell the lady of the house I’m ready for her now,’ he murmured to Gilmore. ‘And ask her to wash her behind. I don’t fancy it with her husband’s sticky finger-marks all over it.’

‘Don’t you think we should hurry?’ asked Gilmore.

‘I can’t work up much enthusiasm about a body in a rubbish dump.’ Reluctantly, he hauled himself up from the soft, still warm bed and had a quick nose around. Other people’s bedrooms fascinated him. His own was cold, cheerless and strictly functional, a place for crawling into bed, dead tired, in the small hours, and out again in the morning to face a new day’s horrors. But here was a bedroom for padding about, half-undressed, on the soft wool carpeting, and for making love on the wide divan bed with its beige velvet headboard. By the side of the bed, a twin-mirrored, low-level dressing table where pouting-breasted Jill Compton would splash perfume over her red-hot, naked body, before sprawling on the bed, her hair tumbled across the pillow, awaiting the entrance of her rampant, adulterous sod of a husband.

He shook his head to erase the fantasy and walked across to the wide window to look out, across the moonlit garden. The wind had dropped and everything was quiet and still. ‘Any chance the bloke we saw could have been the husband?’

‘The husband?’ Gilmore’s eyebrows shot up. What was the idiot on about now? ‘Smashing his own window? Scaring the hell out of his own wife?’

‘I just get the feeling there’s something phoney about this.’

‘I don’t share your opinion,’ sniffed Gilmore. ‘And in any case, there was no way it could have been the husband. He was with his wife when the window was smashed.’

‘Then I’m wrong again,’ shrugged Frost.

Downstairs, husband and wife were in close embrace, the shortie nightdress had ridden up to pouting breast level and hands were crawling everywhere.

Frost scooped up the wreath and passed it over to Gilmore. ‘We’ll see ourselves out,’ he called.

They didn’t hear him.

Police Constable Ken Jordan, his greatcoat collar turned up against the damp chill, was waiting for them at the lane at the rear of the sprawling rubbish dump. The lane was little more than a footpath with rain-heavy, waist-high grass flourishing on each side. In the background the night sky glowed a misty orange.

‘Blimey, Jordan, what’s that pong?’ sniffed Frost, inhaling the sour breath of the town’s decaying rubbish. ‘It’s not you, I hope?’

Jordan grinned. He liked working with Frost. ‘Pretty nasty one this time, sir. The body’s a bit of a mess.’

‘I only get the nasty ones,’ said Frost. ‘Let’s take a look at him.’

They followed Jordan, stumbling in the dark, as he led them down the narrow path, the wet grass on each side slap ping at their legs, ‘The old lady died, sir – at the hospital. I suppose you know.’

‘Yes,’ said Frost. ‘I know.’

The lane curved. Ahead of them sodium lamps gleamed and flickering flames of something burning bloodied the haze. The tip was perimetered by 9-foot high chain link fencing, giving it the appearance of a wartime German prisoner of war camp.

Behind the wire fence, towering proud through streamers of mist, rose mountains of black plastic rubbish sacks and chugging between them, pushing, scooping and rearranging the landscape, a yellow-painted corporation bulldozer splashed through slime-coated pools of filthy water. As it demolished heaps of rubbish, rats scampered and scurried, their paws making loud scratching sounds on the plastic sacking. The smell was stale and sickly sweet like unwashed, rotting bodies.

Frost wound his scarf around his mouth and nose as he nodded towards the bulldozer. ‘I didn’t know they worked nights.’

‘It’s this flu virus,’ explained Jordan. ‘Half of the work-force are off sick and the rest have to do overtime to keep ahead. It was the bulldozer driver who spotted the body.’

‘Then sod him for a start,’ said Frost.

‘This way, sir.’ Jordan led them off the path, trampling a trail through the lush, sodden grass to where a pasty-faced PC Collier stood uneasily on guard over rusting tin cans and a tarpaulin-covered huddle.

Frost lit up a cigarette and passed around the packet. Everyone took one, even Collier who didn’t usually smoke. Frost looked down at the tarpaulin and prodded it with his foot. ‘I can’t delay the treat any more.’ He nodded to Collier. ‘Let’s have a look at him.’

Collier hesitated and didn’t seem to want to comply.

‘You heard the inspector,’ snapped Gilmore. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Keeping his head turned well away, Collier fumbled for the tarpaulin and pulled it back.

Even Frost had to gasp when he saw the face. The cigarette dropped from his lips on to the chest of the corpse. He bent hurriedly to retrieve it, trying not to look too closely at the face as he did so.

Jordan, who had seen it before, stared straight ahead. Gilmore’s stomach was churning and churning. He bit his lip until it hurt and tried to think of anything but that face. He wasn’t going to show himself up in front of the others.

The body was of an old man in his late seventies. There were no eyes and parts of the face were eaten away with bloodied chunks torn from the cheeks and the lips.

‘The rats have had a go at him,’ said Jordan.

‘I didn’t think they were love bites,’ said Frost. He straightened up. ‘Still, we’re lucky the weather’s cold. Did I ever tell you about that decomposing tramp in the heat-wave?

‘Yes,’ said Jordan hurriedly. Frost was fond of trotting out that ghastly anecdote.

‘Did I tell you, son?’ said Frost, turning to Gilmore. ‘The hottest bloody summer on record. I can still taste the smell of him.’

‘Yes, you told me,’ lied Gilmore.

The dead man, the exposed flesh yellow in the over-spill of the sodium lamps, lay on his back, lipless mouth agape, staring eyeless into the night sky. He wore an unbuttoned black overcoat, heavy with rain, which flapped open to reveal a blue-striped, flannelette pyjama jacket which bore the bloodied paw marks of the feeding rats. The pyjama jacket was tucked inside dark grey trousers which were fastened by a leather belt.

‘Do we know who he is?’

‘Yes, Inspector.’ Collier came forward. ‘It’s that old boy whose daughter-in-law reported him missing from home last week. He was always walking out and sleeping rough.’

‘I bet the poor sod has never slept as rough as this,’ observed Frost. ‘Sergeant Wells said you think it’s foul play?’

‘His face looked battered, sir,’ said Collier, pointing, but not looking where he was pointing.

Frost haunched down, slipped a hand beneath the head of the corpse and lifted it slightly. He dribbled smoke as he stared long and hard at the mutilated face, then stood up, wiping his palm down the front of his mac. ‘That’s just where the rats have been tucking in, son. There’s no other marks… see for yourself.’

‘I’ll take your word for it, sir, if you don’t mind,’ said Collier.

Jordan’s personal radio squawked. He pulled it from his pocket. Sergeant Wells wanted to speak to Inspector Frost urgently.

Frost took the radio. ‘Everything’s bloody urgent,’ he moaned.

‘Fifteen Roman Road, Denton,’ said Wells tersely. ‘Mrs Betty Winters, an old lady living on her own. A neighbour’s phoned. He reckons he saw a man breaking in through the front door. The intruder is still in the house. Sorry about this, but I’ve got no-one else to send.’

‘On our way,’ said Frost, stuffing the radio back in Jordan’s pocket. ‘Jordan, come with us. Collier, stay here and wait for the police surgeon.’ At the young PC’s look of dismay at being left alone with the body, he added, ‘You can handle it, son. If death isn’t due to natural causes, let me know right away.’

With Jordan driving they made it to Roman Road in three minutes, coasting past number 15 and stopping outside the public telephone box where a middle-aged man emerged and hurried over to them. ‘It was me who phoned,’ he announced. ‘I knew he was up to no good the minute I saw him. I thought he was going to pee in the porch. They do that, you know – dirty sods. You put your empty milk bottles out…’

‘What did he look like?’ cut in Frost as the man drew a breath.

‘A big, ugly-looking sod. I couldn’t get to that phone quick enough. Stinks of urine in that phone box. When they’re not peeing in your porch or your milk bottles they’re peeing in the phone box…’

‘Are you sure he’s still inside?’ asked Gilmore.

‘Positive.’

‘Is there a back way out?’

‘Through the gardens and over the rear wall. But I don’t think he’s got out that way. You’d hear next-door’s bloody dog barking… bark, bark, bark, all bleeding night.’

‘Go with the gentleman, Jordan,’ said Frost, anxious to get rid of the verbose neighbour. ‘Get into the garden over his fence and block the escape route.’

As soon as Jordan radioed through that he was in position, Frost did his letter-box squinting act. Utter blackness. A quick examination of the front door. No sign of a forced entry, so if there was an intruder, how did he get in? Hope fully he looked under the porch mat for a spare key. Nothing.

‘Shall I smash the glass panel?’ offered Gilmore.

‘No,’ grunted Frost, poking his hand through the letter- box and scrabbling about until his fingers touched some thing. A length of string looped at the end. He gave the string a tug. There was a click as the door knob was pulled back. Cautiously he pushed open the door, grabbing it as a sudden gust of wind threatened to send it crashing against the wall of the hall.

They tiptoed inside and Frost flicked the beam of his torch to show Gilmore how the string ran through staples and was tied round the door catch. ‘The burglar’s friend, son.’ If the tenant forgot his key, he just had to pull the string. But so could anyone else who wanted to gain entry.

They held their breaths and listened. The house stretched and creaked and breathed and sighed. Then an alien sound from upstairs made Frost grab at Gilmore’s sleeve, willing him to silence. A small click like a door closing. Signalling for the sergeant to stay by the front door, blocking that escape route, Frost padded along the passage and began creeping up the stairs.

Every stair seemed to creak no matter how carefully he placed his feet. At the top his torch picked out a small landing and two doors side by side. He clicked off the torch and slowly turned the handle of the nearest door.

Pitch black and a feeling of cold and damp. A hollow plop. Water slowly dripping from a tap. And a smell of sweat. Of fear. His thumb was on the button of the torch when he caught the metallic glint of a knife just as something hit him, sending his head smashing against the wall.

The torch dropped from his grasp as arms locked round him and dragged him down to the ground. Someone was on top of him, punching. There was hardly any room to move. His arm was trapped between his body and the wall, but he strained and wriggled frantically until he managed to free it. He reached up. Cloth. Flesh. Then a clawing hand clutched his face. He grabbed it trying to tear it away while his other hand scrabbled in the blackness over cold, wet lino. ‘Where was the damned torch?

He started to yell ‘Gilmore!’ when a fist crashed down on his face. He jerked up a knee, blindly. A scream of pain as his assailant fell back. His groping hand touched something metallic. The torch. Thankfully he grabbed it and swung it upwards like a club. A sharp crack and a groan as his attacker collapsed on top of him. Frost pushed and wriggled and managed to get on top.

Thudding footsteps up the stairs. ‘Are you all right, Inspector?’

‘No, I am bloody not!’ panted Frost. ‘I’m fighting for my bleeding life in here.’

Gilmore pushed in and fumbled for the light switch. They were in a small white-tiled bathroom. Frost, astride the intruder, was wedged between the wall and the bath. His tongue took a trip round his mouth, prodding at teeth, tasting salt.

He stood up to get a better look at the unconscious man on the floor. His attacker was around twenty, fresh complexion, his hair black and cut short, dressed in grey slacks, a grey polo-neck sweater and a windcheater. Gilmore searched his pockets. No wallet, no identification. No sign of a weapon but over the sweater a heavy silver crucifix on a chain glinted like the blade of a knife.

The man on the floor groaned and stirred slightly.

‘Hadn’t we better get him to a doctor?’ asked Gilmore.

Frost shook his head. ‘He’s only stunned.’ Then he remembered the old lady who should have heard all the noise and be screaming blue murder. ‘Let’s find the old girl.’

She was in the bedroom. In the bed, eyes staring upwards, mouth wide open and dribbling red. The bedclothes had been dragged back, exposing a nightdress drenched in blood from the multiple stab wounds in her stomach. On the pillow, by her head, was a browning smear where her killer had wiped the blade clean before leaving.

While the little house swarmed with more people than it had held in its lifetime, Frost and Gilmore closeted themselves in the bathroom with their prisoner, now securely handcuffed. He lay still, apparently unconscious. A dig from Frost’s foot resulted only in a slight moan. On the bath rack was an enormous sponge which Frost held under the cold tap until it was sodden and dripping, then he held it high over the man’s face and squeezed.

The head jerked, and twisted, the eyes fluttered, then opened wide. He blinked and tried to focus on the piece of white plastic bearing a coloured photograph.

‘Police,’ announced Frost.

A sigh of relief as the man struggled up to a sitting position. ‘In the bedroom – she’s dead…’ He winced and tried to touch his head and then saw the handcuffs. ‘What’s this? What’s going on?’

‘Suppose you tell us,’ snapped Frost. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Purley. Frederick Purley.’

‘Address?’

‘The Rectory, All Saints Church.’

‘Are you trying to be funny?’ snarled Gilmore.

Purley raised his dripping face to the sergeant. ‘I’m the curate at All Saints Church. Please remove these handcuffs.’ He tried to rise to his feet, but Gilmore pushed him down.

‘Since when do curates break into people’s houses in the middle of the night?’ asked Frost.

‘I only wanted to see if Mrs Winters was all right. I never dreamed…’ His head drooped.

‘Why did you think she wasn’t all right?’ asked Frost, dropping his cigarette end into the toilet pan and flushing it away.

‘I’d been sitting with one of my parishioners – an old man, terminally ill – giving his daughter a break from looking after him. As I walked back I saw Mrs Winters’ milk was still on the step. After that dreadful business with poor Mrs Haynes, I had to make sure she was all right.’

Gilmore’s head jerked up. ‘You knew Mrs Haynes?’

‘Yes, Sergeant. I was with her on Sunday. Her husband’s grave was vandalized. She was so upset.’

‘It wasn’t the poor cow’s day,’ said Frost. Then his eyes narrowed. ‘There was no milk on the step when we arrived.’

‘I brought it in with me. I put it in her fridge.’

Frost yelled down the stairs for the SOC man to check if there was an unopened bottle of milk in the fridge and if so, to go over it for prints. Back to Purley. ‘How did you get in?’

‘There’s a string connected to the front door catch. I’ve used it before… Mrs Winters is a cripple – she’s under the hospital, chronic arthritis. She can’t always get to the door.’

‘Right,’ nodded Frost. ‘So what did you do next?’

‘The hall was in darkness. I couldn’t find the light switch, but I made my way upstairs. I tapped on her bedroom door. No answer. I went in and switched on the light and…’ He shuddered and covered his face with his hands, ‘and I saw her. And then I heard the door click downstairs. I thought it was the killer coming back. I switched off the light and hid in the bathroom. You know the rest.’

A brisk tap at the door. The SOC man came in holding a full pint bottle of red-top milk, shrouded in a polythene bag.

‘This was in the fridge, Inspector. Two different dabs on the neck – neither of them the dead woman’s.’

Frost squinted at the bottle. ‘One should be the milkman, the other ought to be the padre here. Take his dabs and see if they match.’ He ordered Gilmore to remove the cuffs.

Another tap at the door. ‘The pathologist has finished,’ yelled Forensic.

‘Coming,’ called Frost.

It was cold in the tiny ice-box of a bedroom with its unfriendly brown lino and the windows rattling where the wind found all the gaps. Drysdale buttoned his overcoat and rubbed his hands briskly. ‘I estimate the time of death as approximately eleven o’clock last night, give or take half an hour or so either way.’ He pointed to bruising on each side of the dead woman’s mouth. ‘He clamped his hand over her face so she couldn’t utter a sound, then he jerked back the bedclothes and stabbed her repeatedly – three times in the stomach and lastly in the heart. The wounds are quite deep. To inflict them he would have raised the knife above his head and brought it down with considerable force.’ Drysdale gave a demonstration with his clenched fist. ‘As he raised his hand, some of the blood on the knife splashed on to the wall.’ He indicated red splatters staining the pale cream wall paper.

‘Would he have got any of that on himself?’

‘Without a doubt,’ said Drysdale, pulling on his gloves. ‘Considerable quantities of blood spurting from the wounds would have hit his right arm and blood from the blade would have spattered him as he raised his arm to deliver the next blow.’

‘No traces of blood in the bathroom waste-trap,’ offered the man from Forensic, who was measuring and marking blood splashes on the wall, ‘so he didn’t wash it off before he left.’

‘Dirty bastard!’ said Frost. ‘What can you tell us about the knife, doc?’

‘Extremely sharp, single-edged, rigid blade approximately six inches long and about an inch and a quarter wide, honed to a sharp point.’

‘The same knife that killed the other old girl – Mary Haynes?’

‘It’s possible,’ admitted Drysdale, grudgingly. ‘I’ll be more positive after the post-mortem – which will be at 10.30 tomorrow morning. You’ll be there?’

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ replied Frost.

Gilmore was waiting for him at the head of the stairs. The vicar of All Saints had been contacted and had confirmed that his curate, Frederick Purley, had gone out to visit a terminally ill parishioner, and the SOC officer had confirmed that one of the thumb prints on the milk bottle be longed to the man in the bathroom.

Frost groaned his disappointment. ‘The old lady died yesterday. So unless Purley killed her last night, then came back today just to put the milk in the fridge, we’ve lost our best hope for a suspect.’

He waited in the kitchen while Gilmore brought down the verified curate, who was vigorously rubbing his freed wrists, and who declined the offer of a doctor to look at his head on which a lump had formed nicely.

They sat round the kitchen table where the plates were already laid for the breakfast the old lady hadn’t lived to enjoy. Frost utilized the egg cup as an ashtray. A rap at the door as PC Jordan entered.

‘We’ve been all over the house, Inspector. No sign of forced entry anywhere. The back door’s locked and bolted and all windows are secure. He came in through the front door.’

Frost nodded, then turned to Purley. ‘Who else knew about instant entry with the old dear’s piece of string?’

‘Very few people, I should imagine. She wasn’t a very friendly or communicative woman.’

‘So how did you know her?’

‘She used to be a member of our church senior citizens’ club until her legs got too bad. I like to keep in touch.’

‘Anything about her that would make her attractive to a burglar, padre? Was she supposed to have money, or valuables in the house?’

Purley shook his head. ‘Not as far as I know.’

Frost scratched his chin. ‘Was Mrs Haynes a member of your church club?’

‘Yes, but an infrequent attender. She hasn’t been for months.’

‘What about a Mrs Alice Ryder?’

‘Ryder?’ His brow furrowed, then he shook his head. ‘No. I don’t recall the name.’

‘We believe the same bastard killed them all,’ said Frost. ‘There’s got to be a link.’

Purley gave a sad, apologetic smile. ‘Then I’m afraid I don’t know it.’

On the way back to the station they detoured to drop off the curate at the vicarage. As the car passed the churchyard Frost was reminded of the wreath dumped in the Comptons’ lounge. He couldn’t remember picking it up and was relieved when Gilmore jerked a thumb to the back seat where the wreath lay between a pair of mud-caked wellington boots.

‘You might as well take the Compton case over, son. I’m not going to have much time for it.’

‘Right,’ said Gilmore, trying to keep the delight from his voice. A case of his own. He’d show these yokels how to get a result.

‘You don’t buy wreaths off the peg – they have to be ordered specially,’ continued Frost. ‘If I were you I’d get Burton to check with every florist in Denton.’

‘That’s what I intend to do,’ said Gilmore.

As they crossed the lobby with the wreath, Sergeant Wells looked up from his log book. ‘Who’s dead?’ he asked.

‘Glenn Miller,’ grunted Frost. ‘It just came over on the radio.’ He was in no mood for Wells’ jokes.

‘I’ll tell you who is dead,’ said Wells, anxious to impart his news.

Frost groaned, and walked reluctantly across to the desk. More cheer from Wells. The man was a walking bloody obituary column. ‘If it isn’t Mullett, I don’t want to know.’

Wells paused for dramatic effect, then solemnly intoned, ‘George Harrison! Heart attack as he was going downstairs. Dead before he hit the bottom.’ He leant forward to observe the effect this had on the inspector.

Frost’s jaw dropped. Police inspector George Harrison had only retired a few weeks ago after twenty-four years ser vice. ‘Bloody hell!’

‘First you come round with the list for their retirement present,’ said Wells, dolefully, ‘next thing you know you’re going round with the list for their wreath. You might as well collect both at once and be done with it.’

‘Bloody hell!’ said Frost again. The force was his life and retirement was the one thing he dreaded. The thought made him depressed. He jerked his head to Gilmore and headed for the stairs. ‘Come on, son, let’s get something to eat.’

‘If you’re going to the canteen, don’t bother,’ said Wells, happy to be the bearer of more bad news. ‘It’s shut.’

‘Shut?’ echoed Frost in dismay.

‘The night staff are still down with flu. If you want any thing, you’ve got to bring it in from outside.’

‘And eat it in this ice-box?’ moaned Frost, giving the dead radiator a kick. ‘Sod that for a lark!’ Then a slow grin crawled across his face. Somewhere in the building there was a room with comfortable chairs, a carpet and a 3-kilowatt heater. He pulled the car expense sheet from his jacket pocket and licked the tip of a stubby pencil. ‘I’m taking orders for the all-night Chinky. Who wants curried chicken and chips?’

‘I don’t like this, Jack,’ said Wells. ‘If Mullett finds out.. .’

‘He’s not going to find out.’ retorted Frost, peeping inside a foil container. ‘Who ordered the sweet and sour?’

They were in the old log cabin, Mullett’s wood veneer-lined office, Gilmore, Burton, Wells, and the four members of the murder enquiry team, the heater going full pelt, the room hot and steamy and reeking of Chinese food. The top of the satin mahogany desk was littered with foil containers and soft drink cans. Frost, in Mullett’s chair, smoking one of Mullett’s special cigarettes, was sorting out the food orders. ‘Who wanted pancake rolls?’

Gilmore stood near the door, hovering nervously, his eye on the corridor, expecting any moment to see an irate Divisional Commander bursting through the swing doors.

‘Come on, Gilmore,’ called Frost. ‘The chop suey’s yours.’

Gilmore smiled uneasily and sat himself where he could still see down the corridor. He shuddered to think what discovery would do for his promotion chances.

‘All we want is a disco and a few birds,’ said Frost, spilling sweet and sour sauce on the carpet, ‘and this job would be just about tolerable.’ He swung round to Burton who was demolishing a double portion of sweet and sour lobster balls. ‘Mrs Ryder died in hospital. Any news from Forensic on that knife the killer dropped?’

Burton swallowed hard. ‘Nothing that helps much, Inspector. Their report’s on your desk.’

‘You know I don’t read reports,’ said Frost, dipping a chip in his curry sauce. ‘What did it say?’

‘An ordinary cheap kitchen knife of a standard pattern. No fingerprints, but traces of blood type 0.’

Frost sniffed disdainfully. ‘That’s a coincidence – the victim was type 0.’ He peered suspiciously into his foil dish. ‘This looks like stomach contents.’ He sniffed. ‘Smells like it, too.’

‘Oh God, Jack,’ shuddered Wells, pushing his food away from him.

Frost addressed the murder enquiry team. ‘Any joy from the neighbours?’

‘Most of them are in bed,’ Burton told him. ‘We’re going to have to go back first thing in the morning to catch the rest before they set off for work. Those we’ve spoken to hardly knew the old girl. She stayed in most of the time. No-one seemed aware of the string.’

‘And no-one saw anyone suspicious hanging about,’ added Jordan.

‘Suspicious?’ said Frost, pulling a piece of gristle from his mouth and flinging it in the vague vicinity of Mullett’s wastepaper bin. ‘This bastard isn’t going to mooch about looking suspicious. He won’t have a stocking mask on and a bleeding great knife poking out of his pocket. He’s going to be inconspicuous. I want to know about everyone who’s been seen going up and down the street – and that applies to the other two victims as well. I don’t care if it’s the road sweeper, the postman, doorstep piddlers or even a bleedin’ dog – I want to know. People, vans, cars, the lot. We can then start comparing – see if anyone’s been seen in all three streets.’

‘The computer…’ began Gilmore.

‘The computer’s a waste of time,’ cut in Frost. ‘I’m only going along with it to keep Hornrim Harry quiet. The only way to solve these cases is by good, solid detective work. By beating the hell out of some poor sod until he signs a fake confession.’

Gilmore faked a smile. ‘It will be quicker with the computer, I promise you.’

‘All right,’ said Frost. ‘I’ll leave it to you.’

‘What about a search team for the murder weapon?’ asked Burton, wiping his mouth. ‘He could well have chucked it.’

‘Put a couple of men on it, but don’t waste too much time. My gut feeling is that the bastard has kept it – ready for next time.’

The room went quiet. ‘Next time?’ said Wells.

‘Yes, Bill.’ He pushed the empty container away and fished out his cigarettes. ‘I’ve got a nasty feeling in my water that he’s going to kill again.’

Mullett’s phone rang. A collective gasp and all eating stopped in mid-chew.

‘It’s all right,’ assured Wells, ‘I had the main phone switched through here.’

Frost picked it up. ‘Mullett’s Dining Rooms,’ he said.

Wells’ eyes bulged with alarm until he realized the inspector had his hand over the mouthpiece.

The caller was a technician from Forensic reporting that he had extensively examined all the items removed from 46 Mannington Crescent, Denton and found nothing that would link them with the murder of Mrs Mary Haynes. As Frost listened he raised his eyes to the ceiling in despair. ‘Sod clearing the innocent – what about nailing the guilty for a change? I asked you to drop that and check on those two newspapers as a matter of priority. No, I don’t know who I spoke to. All right, all right.’ He banged the phone back on its rest. ‘He never got the message. Flaming Forensic. They’re about as bloody efficient as we are. They can’t start on the newspaper until tomorrow.’

‘Well, it is two o’clock in the morning,’ Wells reminded him.

‘Then I’m bloody going home,’ said Frost, not bothering to cover up a yawn. ‘I’ve had enough for today. The rest of you, go home too. Grab some sleep and be back here by six. You can pinch some men from the next shift and start knocking on doors before people go off to work.’

‘But Mr Mullett’s rota…’ began Wells.

‘Sod Mr Mullett’s rota. See you in the morning.’

He looked in his office on the way out. His in-tray was overflowing. He tugged the top paper from his tray. It was PC Collier’s report on the dead body outside the refuse tip. He had almost forgotten about it. Natural causes – heart attack. Well, that was a relief. Clipped to the report was the SOC’s photograph of the dead man in situ, sharp, clear and full of graphic detail. He showed it to Gilmore.

‘I shall dream about that damn face tonight,’ moaned Gilmore as they walked out to the car.

‘I hope I don’t,’ said Frost. ‘I want to dream of Mrs Compton.’

He did dream of Jill Compton. But she was eyeless and screaming and crawling with bloody-snouted rats. He woke up just before five in a cold sweat and couldn’t. get back to sleep again.

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Wednesday morning shift

Police Superintendent Mullett stamped up the corridor to his office. He was angry. His sleep had been continually disturbed by calls from the media, and then from County, the Chief Press Officer, demanding his comments on a possible serial murderer in Denton, the brutal killer of three old ladies. When he had phoned the station to try to get some information from Frost; he was informed that, despite the rota, the inspector and his team had left for the night and calls to Frost’s home indicated that the phone had deliberately been left off the hook. He finally managed to get the information required from Detective Sergeant Gilmore, but only after Gilmore’s wife had been extremely rude over the phone, asking why her husband was expected to be at everyone’s beck and call twenty-four hours a day.

Scooping up a fearsome stack of mail from his absent secretary’s desk, he unlocked his office door, then paused, nose twitching, testing the air. What was that smell? A stale, rancid oniony aroma which reminded him of curry. He dumped the post in his in-tray and flung open the window. The curtains flapped wildly as the wind roared and drove in the rain. Below, in Eagle Lane, the noise of traffic was deafening. He hastily closed the window and returned to his desk where he reached for the internal phone to ask the station sergeant to come in with his morning report.

While he waited he flicked through the post, shuddering at a photograph of a mutilated body found outside Denton rubbish tip, then frowning at the totally inadequate, scrawled report from Frost – Mrs Alice Ryder, victim of burglary assault, died in Denton Hospital – full report to follow. Mrs Betty Winters, aged 76, 15 Roman Rd Denton. Murder by stabbing – full report to follow. Mullett’s frown deepened. As he knew from bitter experience, Frost’s ‘further reports’ never materialized. The man’s paperwork was hopeless. Which reminded him, where were those car expenses? He rummaged through his tray but, as expected, they were not there.

He looked up as Sergeant Johnson came in with the morning report and the mail from County. He greeted him with a smile. ‘Good to see you back, Sergeant. Are you fit?’

‘Well, actually, sir…’ began Johnson, who was starting to feel a trifle light-headed and was wondering if he hadn’t reported back to work too soon.

‘Excellent,’ cut in Mullett hastily. He didn’t want a catalogue of the man’s ailments. He’d had enough of moans from Sergeant Wells. ‘Manning level?’

‘Three men back from sick leave,’ Johnson reported, ‘but two more off – injured in that pub punch-up last night.’

‘First class,’ snapped Mullett, concerned only with the plus side of the arithmetic. ‘We’re winning, Sergeant.’ He smiled as he signed the report and blotted it neatly. ‘We’ll soon be back to normal.’

‘We’re going to be very thin on the ground today as far as normal duties are concerned,’ warned the sergeant. ‘Mr Frost has commandeered most of my men for house-to-house enquiries – another old lady stabbed to death last night.’

‘I know,’ said Mullett bitterly. ‘The press phoned me at three o’clock in the morning to tell me – and Mr Frost kindly scribbled a note for my in-tray.’ He held aloft the piece of paper. ‘County want us to tread very carefully with this one, Sergeant. A serial killer at large in Denton – could cause panic. It’s vital I see the inspector the minute he comes in.’

‘Sir,’ said Johnson, taking the signed report.

The office door opened. Mullett hoped it was Frost, but it was his gum-chewing temporary secretary in a disturbing polo-necked sweater who wiggled in with the correspondence he had dictated yesterday. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, dumping the poorly typed, heavily corrected letters on his desk, ‘but we’ve run out of Snowpake. I had to buy some more. Oh – and this has just come.’ She dropped the Denton Echo in front of him.

He snatched up the paper from her and stared goggle-eyed, mouth dropping with dismay at the screaming banner headlines. Town of Terror – Granny Ripper Claims Third Victim!!! Terror spread like wild-fire amongst the senior citizens of Denton today as news of yet another brutal murder… The phone rang. Still staring at the paper he groped for it. ‘Yes?’ he croaked. He jerked to attention. ‘Good morning, sir… Yes, I’ve just seen the paper.’ He clapped a hand over the mouthpiece and bellowed at Johnson, ‘Find Frost. I want him here, now!’

To Johnson’s surprise, Frost was already in his office, a wad of blank petrol receipts in front of him which he was filling in with different coloured pens. Sitting in the other desk was the new detective sergeant, looking disgruntled and also scribbling out petrol receipts.

‘Hello, Johnny,’ greeted Frost. ‘Welcome back. We thought you were dying. We’ll have to send the bloody wreath back now.’ He indicated the withering floral tribute in his in-tray. ‘Talking of wreaths reminds me of a joke.’

‘Never mind jokes,’ said Johnson, ‘Mr Mullett wants to see you.’

‘Sod Mullett,’ said Frost. ‘There was this woman… He paused as DC Burton came in.

‘Got a minute, sir?’

‘Sure, son, but I’ve got a joke first. There was this woman.. .’ He paused again as Detective Sergeant Arthur Hanlon, nose red and sore, poked his head round the door.

‘Oh, if you’re busy, Jack…’

‘No come in, Arthur. I’ve got a joke for you.’

Hanlon pulled a face. ‘If it’s the one about the man drinking the spittoon for a bet, you’ve told it to me.’

‘A different one,’ said Frost, beckoning him in. ‘It’s about the funeral of a woman who’s had fifteen kids.’ He frowned as the phone rang. Burton answered it.

‘Forensic for you, Inspector. They say it’s urgent.’

‘Everything’s bloody urgent!’ He took the phone and in a strangulated voice said, ‘Mr Frost will be with you in a moment.’ He pressed the mouthpiece to his jacket. ‘Where was I?’

‘Fifteen kids,’ reminded Johnson, anxious to get the story over so Frost could report to Mullett.

‘Right. Funeral. Woman who’d had fifteen kids being buried. As the coffin’s being lowered down into the grave, the vicar turns to the husband and says, “Together at last!” The husband says, “What do you mean, together at last? I’m still alive.” “I wasn’t referring to you,” says the vicar. “I meant her legs.”

Gilmore sat stone-faced as Frost’s raucous roar of mirth almost drowned the others. Old women butchered and the fool was cracking jokes! Frost raised the phone, poking his finger in his ear to shut out the laughter. ‘Hello. Frost here. Sorry, I can’t hear you. I think the Divisional Commander’s throwing a party.’ He flapped a hand for silence. ‘That’s better, I’ve shut the door. You were saying?’ He listened. ‘That’s bloody marvellous. Check it out and let me know.’ He hung up and beamed happily at Gilmore and Burton. ‘Those newspapers we sent to Forensic. Nothing on the Daily Telegraph, but when they shoved the Sun under the microscope, not only were the Page Three girl’s tits enormous, but they spotted tiny flakes of black paint and rust on the outside page.’

‘Black paint and rust?’ frowned Burton.

‘If our luck’s in, it’s from Greenway’s letter-box,’ explained Frost. ‘It could have rubbed off as the paper went in and out. Forensic are sneaking someone round to his house to check. If the paint matches, we’ve got the bastard.’ He rubbed his hands with delight and passed his cigarettes round.

Johnson was getting fidgety. ‘Mr Mullett wants to see you, Jack.’

‘I’m not ready for him yet.’ He peeled off some blank petrol receipts. ‘Fill these in for me, Johnny. Disguise your writing. Six gallons, eight gallons and four gallons.’

The sergeant’s pen flew over the receipts. ‘What crime am I committing?’

‘Forgery,’ said Frost, giving three blanks to Burton. ‘Disguise your handwriting, son. Two lots of eight gallons and one of six.’ He pushed two more blanks across to Arthur Hanlon. ‘Five gallons and seven gallons, Arthur – and blow your nose, it’s starting to drip.’

‘Just tell me what I’ve done,’ said Johnson, handing the completed receipts back.

Frost collected the balance from Gilmore and Burton and riffled through them. ‘I lost all my receipts last month so I had to forge my car expenses. Some silly sod in County with nothing better to do spotted it. Mullett said I could get off the hook if I came up with the genuine ones.’ He waved the receipts. ‘These are them.’

‘But they’re still fakes,’ insisted Johnson.

‘But better fakes than the first lot. Besides, I didn’t have time to go round all the flaming petrol stations asking for copies.’ He turned to Hanlon. ‘What’s the latest on the house-to-house, Arthur?’

Hanlon handed over his two receipts. ‘We’ve almost finished. The first of the results are going through the computer now.’

‘Anything significant?’ asked Gilmore.

Hanlon shrugged. ‘One person thought they saw a blue van cruising down Roman Road late on the night of the murder, another saw a strange red car. I’ll check them out.’

After Hanlon squeezed out of the office, Frost remembered that Burton was still patiently waiting. ‘Sorry, son, I forgot about you. What was it?’

‘I’ve been checking all the florists about that wreath, sir. I traced the shop and found out who ordered it.’

Frost had to readjust his thoughts back to the Compton business. ‘Who?’ But before Burton could answer, Gilmore had leapt from his chair and was glowering angrily at the detective constable.

‘This is my case, Burton,’ he hissed. ‘You report to me, not to the inspector.’ He was in a lousy mood. Liz had been insufferably rude to the Divisional Commander when he’d phoned last night. Mullett was furious and it was pretty clear that his promotional chances were fast gurgling down the drain. How the hell could he report Frost’s misdemeanours when the inspector involved him in them all… eating in Mullett’s office, forging petrol vouchers. And now this cretin of a detective constable was going over his head.

Burton, taken aback by Gilmore’s outburst, looked from the sergeant to the inspector.

‘My fault,’ said Frost. ‘The sergeant is quite right. It is his case.’

‘So who ordered the damn thing?’ asked Gilmore, returning to his chair,.

Burton flipped open his notebook. ‘Mr Wilfred Blagden, 116 Merchants Barton, Denton.’

Gilmore smiled sarcastically. ‘I suppose if I wait long enough you’ll tell me who he is?’

The constable hesitated before deciding that the pleasure of smashing Gilmore’s face in was marginally outweighed by the need to retain his job.

‘He’s an old man, eighty-one years old. His wife, Audrey, died last week.’

Gilmore still appeared mystified, but the penny dropped for Frost. ‘The wreath was stolen from her grave?’

‘Yes, Inspector. The old boy’s very upset – wants to know what the police are doing about it.’

The police are sitting on their arses cracking dirty jokes, thought Gilmore. He waved Burton away with an irritated flap of the hand then skimmed through a report from Forensic reporting that the death threats to the Comptons had been cut from copies of Reader’s Digest.

The office door crashed open and a flustered-looking Johnny Johnson burst in. ‘Mr Mullett is screaming for you, Jack.’

Frost quickly checked through the newly forged car expenses, then stood up, moving the knot of his tie to some where near the centre of his collar. ‘I’m ready for him now. Do I look innocent and contrite?’

‘You never look innocent and contrite.’ Johnson replied.

As he breezed through the lobby on his way to the old log cabin, he passed an old man sitting hunched on the hard wooden bench by the front desk. The man looked familiar, but Frost couldn’t place him. He sidled over to Collier who was standing in for Johnny Johnson and jerked a thumb in query.

Collier leant forward, ‘His name’s Maskell.’

Frost clicked his fingers. ‘Jubilee Terrace -Tutankhamun’s tomb – mummified body?’

Collier nodded. ‘He refuses to accept that his wife is dead. He keeps coming in to report her missing.’

Sensing their attention, the old man looked up. ‘Her name’s Mary. I left her in bed, but she’s not there any more.’ He cupped a hand to his ear so he wouldn’t miss a word of their reply.

‘She’s dead, Mr Maskell,’ said Collier.

But the old man refused to hear what he didn’t want to hear. ‘Her name’s Mary Maskell – 76 Jubilee Terrace, Denton.’

Frost moved on hurriedly, leaving Collier to deal with him. He was half-way up the passage to Mullett’s office when… 76 Jubilee Terrace… Upstairs bedroom. The old girl’s dead… The tiny tape recorder at the back of his mind had been triggered into replaying, over and over, that mysterious phone call in the pub. How had the caller known about the old girl? Maskell wouldn’t have let him in. She was upstairs and the bedroom windows were heavily curtained. The only way in would have been through the same window Frost had used. Upstairs bedroom. The old girl’s dead. The voice. He knew that damned voice. He screwed up his face trying to squeeze his memory into action. Then it clicked. Wally Manson… Wally bloody Manson! He spun round and raced back to his office.

Johnny Johnson, gazing out of the window, saw Frost with the new bloke tagging behind, dashing across the car-park. The interview with Mr Mullett must have been a brief one, he thought. His internal phone rang. ‘Yes, Mr Mullett?’ His face froze. ‘You’re still waiting for him?’ Through the window the Cortina belched smoke as it roared towards the exit. ‘I think he’s just gone out, sir.’

The grey Vauxhall Cavalier bumped up a side lane, stopping well short of the cottage. Tony Harding, a junior technician with the Forensic Laboratory, climbed out of the car and walked purposefully up the garden path of the isolated building, a clipboard in his hand. He hammered loudly at the door and took a pen from his pocket as if ready to conduct a market survey. The knocking rumbled through an empty house and awakened a dog in the back garden and started it yapping. Harding waited, then, to play safe, knocked again and called, ‘Anyone in?’

With one last look around to make certain he was unobserved he knelt by the letter-box. The paint was black. Parts of it were flaking. With a pocket knife he gently scraped off a tiny portion into an envelope.

In half an hour he was back in the lab where the spectroscope was already set up.

‘Who’s Wally Manson?’ asked Gilmore, swerving to avoid a road-crossing dog.

‘Small-time villain who’s been in and out of the nick most of his life. Stealing cars, shop breaking, receiving stolen goods, assault with a dangerous weapon. Wally’s never turned his hand to burglary before, that’s why I never reckoned him for those senior citizen larks. But it was definitely him who phoned me at the pub.’

Gilmore slowed down at the traffic lights. ‘So what does that prove?’

‘How did Wally know there was a date-expired corpse on the bed? Even the bloody neighbours didn’t know. The only way he could have found out would be by doing what I did – climbing through the back window and sneaking into the bedroom.’

At last Gilmore twigged. ‘He was going to rob the place?’

‘That’s what I reckon, son… and I bet he ruined a perfectly good pair of underpants when he saw the sleeping bloody beauty. Round the corner, here.’

This was part of the newer section of Denton, modern two-storey houses with front lawns in a street lined with sapling trees. ‘Last but one on the right,’ said Frost. Then he leant back and almost purred with satisfaction.

Parked outside the house was a battered van. It was a dark blue colour.

Belle Manson, Wally’s wife, was a plump, bleached-haired woman of around forty with heavy ear-rings hanging, like tarnished brass curtain rings, from ear-lobes which looked as if they had been pierced with a 6-inch nail. She was on her knees, scrubbing the front doorstep, her over-sized breasts swinging in sympathy with the gyrations of her scrubbing brush. Without pausing in her labours, she scrutinized the two pairs of shoes plonked in front of her, one pair scruffy, unpolished, cracked and down at heel, the other so highly burnished she could see her fat face in them.

She didn’t need to look up to see who it was. She’d seen those broken-down shoes many times before. The scrubbing brush worked vigorously at a stubborn spot in the corner. ‘He’s out. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know when he’ll be back. I haven’t seen him for days.’

‘Thanks very much, Belle,’ said Frost, stepping over the wet patch into the hallway. ‘We’d love to come in.’ She snorted annoyance and straightened up, flinging the scrubbing brush into the bucket and splashing Gilmore’s trousers with dirty water in the process.

‘You got a warrant?’ she screamed.

‘Would I come in without one?’ asked Frost in a hurt voice, patting the forged car expenses in his inside pocket as he marched up the passage and into the kitchen.

‘Yes, you bloody would,’ she yelled, charging after him.

Frost drew a chair up to the formica-topped table and plonked himself down. He jerked his head for Gilmore to have a quick look round for a lurking Wally.

‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ she yelled as Gilmore clattered up the stairs.

‘He wants to use the toilet,’ Frost explained. ‘He had curry for breakfast and it’s given him the runs.’

Ear-rings and breasts quivering, Belle glowered. She flopped down in the chair opposite him. Frost gave her a friendly smile. ‘You’re looking well, Belle.’

‘You’re not,’ she snapped. ‘You’re looking old and scruffy.’ She waved away the offered cigarette. ‘I don’t smoke.’ Then her face softened. ‘Sorry to hear about your wife.’

‘Thanks,’ muttered Frost. An awkward silence. She’d thrown him off balance. He lit up and waited for Gilmore’s return.

A kettle on the gas-ring rattled its lid and whistled. Belle heaved herself up and turned off the gas.

‘Two sugars in mine,’ said Frost.

‘You’ve got the cheek of the bloody devil,’ she snapped, banging three mugs on the table and hurling a tea-bag in each. Gilmore came in, shaking his head. Wally wasn’t in the house. ‘What did I tell you? I haven’t seen him for days.’ smirked Belle, filling the mugs from the kettle and slopping in milk ‘Help yourselves to sugar.’ She slid the mugs over.

‘So where is he, Belle?’ said Frost, spooning out the dripping tea-bag and depositing it on the table.

‘I’ve told you, I don’t know.’ She leant back to reach an opened box of Marks and Spencer’s Continental chocolates from the dresser and wrenched off the lid. A chocolate truffle disappeared into her mouth and was washed down by a swig of tea.

‘When did you last see him?’ persisted Frost.

Her face contorted as she gave her impression of thinking deeply. ‘Last Friday. He goes away a lot on business. I hardly ever see him. He only comes back for you know what and that only lasts five minutes on a good day.’

Frost nodded sympathetically. ‘We’ve got him down in our files as a quick in and out merchant, Belle.’ His finger worried away at his scar. ‘He doesn’t take his van when he goes away, then?’

‘His van?’

‘The blue one outside.’

‘Oh that,’ sniffed Belle. ‘No. It’s broken down.’ As she spoke, the front door slammed. Her head jerked round. She looked worried. Quick footsteps along the passage. At a sign from Frost, Gilmore was up out of his chair, standing by the door, ready to grab the newcomer.

‘Mum, have you… Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were with clients.’ It was a young girl.

Belle forced a smile. ‘It’s the police, Diedree… I was just telling them we hadn’t seen your dad since Friday.’

Deidree Manson, fifteen years old, in a leather jacket and a short skirt, was a scaled-down replica of her plump mother, even down to small, curtain-ring ear pendants, but with sandy-coloured hair which had not yet made the acquaintance of the bleach bottle. She stared blankly at her mother. ‘Dad? Oh yes… of course. We haven’t seen him for days.’

Frost flicked ash into his tea mug. ‘Clients? Are you back on the game, Belle?’

‘Thank you very much!’ mouthed Belle to her daughter. To Frost she said airily, ‘I oblige the odd gentleman. Just for pin money.’

‘Yes. Some of your clients are bleeding odd,’ said Frost, pushing his mug away. ‘I hope you disinfect your crockery.’ He swung round to Deidree. ‘No school today?’

‘Half-term,’ she replied laconically, helping herself to a strawberry cream.

‘What school do you go to?’

‘Denton Modern.’

The same school as Paula Bartlett. Frost asked Deidree if she knew her.

Her tongue snaked out to catch a straying dribble of chocolate juice. ‘She was in my class. Bit of a drip. Nose always stuck in a book. Had no interest in boys or sex or pop music or anything.’

‘What about the teacher, Mr Bell?’ asked Frost casually. ‘What sort of a bloke is he?’

Deidree chomped and shrugged. ‘Boring. I think Paula had a crush on him. Two drips together.’

A brisk rat-tat-tat at the door made Belle frown and consult her wrist-watch. She beckoned Deidree over for an enigmatic message. ‘If it’s “you-know-who” for “you-know-what”, tell him it’s inconvenient at the moment. Can he call back later?’

Frost watched Deidree’s plump little bottom wriggle through the door and wondered how long it would be before she was invited to join the family business. ‘We’re going to have to search the place, Belle. Wally’s been naughty.’ He stood and signalled for Gilmore to follow.

Belle leapt up to block their path. ‘I want to see your warrant, first.’

He pulled his car expenses from his inside pocket and flashed them under her nose. ‘Satisfied?’ Before she had a chance to examine them, they were back in his pocket.

‘All right,’ she nodded reluctantly. ‘But don’t make a mess – and don’t pinch anything.’

A door in the hall led to the lounge. ‘We’ll start in here, son.’ They were about to enter when there was a sudden angry burst of protestations from the disappointed client at the front door. ‘If he won’t go away,’ called Frost, ‘tell him I’ll cut off his “you know what” and stuff it up his “he knows where”.’ Silence. The front door slammed.

It was a smallish room jam-packed with Belle’s pin-money purchases of new furniture and dominated by an enormous 28-inch twin-speakered colour TV and a stereo video both housed in a mahogany-veneered, Queen Anne style cabinet. Frost nudged Gilmore and pointed. On top of the cabinet lay a familiar-looking box holding a video cassette. The box was white with a typed label which read: Till The Blood Runs – Canings amp; Whippings. The same title as one of the porno graphic videos removed from the newsagent’s. ‘Belle!’ he yelled.

‘I know nothing about it,’ said Belle as she waddled in. ‘Something Wally brought home.’ She looked at the label. ‘Canings and Whippings? A bit too strong meat for my clients – it would give the poor old sods a heart attack. If you want to know about dirty videos, ask our Deidree. Some bloke wanted her to make one.’

The young girl was called in. ‘Pornographic videos,’ said Frost. ‘Your mother says you were approached. Tell me about it.’

Deidree leant against the door frame and eased some toffee away from her back teeth with her finger. ‘Nothing much to tell. We were coming out of a disco one night when this bloke came across from a posh car and asked me if I wanted to earn myself fifty quid posing in the nude with him for a video. I told him to stuff his video camera right up his arse.’

‘I’ve always brought her up to be a decent girl,’ said Belle proudly.

‘What did he look like?’ asked Frost. ‘Would you know him again?’

‘Old – about forty. Dressed to the nines – shirt and tie and all that stuff: Darkish hair. I might recognize him again, but I’m not sure.’

Frost dismissed them both with a flick of his hand. He couldn’t waste time on this – porno videos were very low on his list of priorities. A quick search of the lounge revealed nothing. ‘Right, son. Up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire.’

He sat on Belle’s soft-mattressed double bed with its plump purple eiderdown and watched Gilmore opening and shutting drawers. A packet of Hamlet cigars lay on the dressing table. Frost shook it hopefully. It rattled. There was one left. He lit it, stretched out on the bed and contentedly puffed smoke across to the detective sergeant.

‘Excuse me,’ said Gilmore huffily, annoyed that Frost wasn’t helping. He leant over to tug open the drawer of the bedside cabinet. Packets of contraceptives… small aerosol cans. He seized one of the cans and showed it to the inspector. ‘Look at this!’

Frost sat up and blinked at the label. ‘Nipple Hardening Spray! I don’t believe it.’ He examined the can from all angles. ‘This could make a man’s thumb obsolete.’

‘And this!’ Gilmore flourished another can.

‘Bloody hell, son, don’t point it at me. It’s the last thing I need at the moment. What else has she got?’ Happy now to join in, he was soon rummaging through the various sex aids and stimulants.

The bedroom yielded nothing else of interest. The bed room next door was Deidree’s with its pop posters and record player. ‘Leave it, son,’ said Frost. ‘Wally wouldn’t have stuck any bent gear in here.’

‘It still wouldn’t hurt to look,’ said Gilmore stubbornly, dragging out the wardrobe so he could see behind it.

‘Whatever turns you on, son,’ said Frost. He ambled over to the window and opened it so he could jettison the cigar. Below was the back yard, a miserable patch of concrete landscaped with oily rain-puddles, a couple of rusty, bottomless buckets, and two treadless car tires. Car tires! The blue van! He’d forgotten all about the bloody blue van. That was the next thing to search. He watched the cigar butt nose-dive to its death.

An excited shout from Gilmore had him spinning round.

Gilmore had found a crumpled bundle of blue cloth. He opened it out. A pair of men’s jeans, grubby and thickly spattered with dried blood.

‘Belle!’ roared Frost, his bellow echoing down the stairs.

‘Won’t be a minute.’ She was talking to someone, her voice low and urgent.

‘I want you now!’ he yelled.

‘Coming.’

The front door clicked shut and as it did a bell shrilled a warning deep in his subconscious. From outside, an engine coughed, then roared into life. A van engine.

‘Shit!’ cried Frost, galloping down the stairs two at a time, Gilmore hard on his heels. At the bottom of the stairs was Belle, lumbering up very slowly, deliberately blocking their way. Frost almost pushed her over as they charged for the front door. Outside an empty street. A patch of oil where the van had been standing.

‘Double shit!’ howled Frost.

‘There!’ pointed Gilmore. Something blue disappearing round the corner trailed by a billow of exhaust.

The Cortina shuddered as they hurled themselves in and roared off in pursuit. Round the corner, but no sign of the van. Up to the main road. ‘Which way?’ asked Gilmore.

‘Left,’ said Frost. He had seen something blue jumping the lights. Drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, Gilmore waited for the lights to change. The blue van ahead was getting smaller and smaller in the distance.

What a foul-up, thought Gilmore. The van was there when they arrived, but they’d ignored it. ‘That bloody fat cow,’ he muttered. ‘We ought to run her in for obstruction.’

‘He’s her husband, son,’ said Frost, mildly. ‘Your wife would have done the same to help you.’

Would she? thought Gilmore bitterly. She certainly didn’t help me last night when bloody Mullett phoned. Before he could follow the thought further, the traffic lights flickered. He jammed his foot down, passing car after car after car. The blue van was getting bigger.

‘Control to Mr Frost. Come in, please.’

Gilmore braked abruptly as an estate car shot out of a side turning right in their path.

‘Control to Mr Frost. Come in, please.’ repeated the radio.

‘Shut your bleeding row,’ said Frost to the radio as Gilmore swerved round the estate car. Frost twisted in his seat and jerked two fingers at the driver.

More traffic lights ahead. The blue van had stopped.

‘Control to Mr…’

Frost snatched up the handset. ‘Hold on, Control. We are… Shit!’

‘Say again?’ said Control.

‘I said, “Tut tut”,’ muttered Frost bitterly and feeling like banging his head against the windscreen. The blue van they had been chasing had the name of a dress shop written on the side and was being driven by a woman. Gilmore glared poison darts at the inspector as if it was all his fault. Frost was philosophical. ‘He’ll turn up. He’s got nowhere to go.’ He was much more used to cock-ups than the sergeant. He raised the handset to his ear. ‘Put out a call to all units. I want Wally Manson brought in. Last seen driving a blue Ford transit van about ten years old… I don’t know the registration number, but you should be able to get it from the computer.’

‘Will do,’ said Control. ‘Hold on, please. Sergeant John son wants to speak to you urgently.’

A rustling sound, then Johnson took over. ‘Jack. Forensic have matched up the paint on the newspaper. It definitely came from Greenway’s letter-box. Mr Mullett wants you back here right away.’

‘My one aim in life is to gratify Mr Mullett’s every whim,’ replied Frost. ‘We’re on our way.’

Mullett was almost dancing with excitement. He waved the Forensic report at Frost. ‘We’ve got him, Inspector. We’ve got him… and we can all take credit. A chance observa tion on your part, scientific skill and expertise from Forensic plus solid devoted team work under my supervision.’ He lowered himself down into his chair and swung from side to side in smug satisfaction. Frost thought this was a good time to hand over the forged car expenses.

‘Excellent,’ said Mullett, giving them barely a glance as he signed them with a flourish of his Parker and tossed them into his out-tray. ‘Things are really moving our way at last. How’s the inventory going?’

‘Almost finished it, Super,’ said Frost, trying to remember where he had hidden the damn thing.

‘Good,’ beamed Mullett. ‘I want this man Greenway picked up and brought in right now. How many men will you need?’

‘The fewer the better, Super. He lives out in the wilds. If he spots half the Denton police force converging on his cottage, he might do a runner.’

‘Very well, but don’t let there be any foul-ups.’ He was itching for Frost to go so he could pick up the phone and casually let drop to the Chief Constable that, despite the appalling manpower shortage, Denton Division had once again come up trumps. Then his euphoria crash-dived as he remembered what he had originally wanted to see Frost about. He snatched up the Denton Echo and jabbed at the headlines. ‘Have you seen this? “Granny Ripper! Town of Terror!” ‘What are we doing about it? The press are screaming for our blood and County are breathing down our necks.’

‘I might be able to give you a quick result,’ Frost said, filling him in on Wally Manson. ‘We’ve sent the jeans over to Forensic.’

Mullett could hardly contain himself. Wait until the Chief Constable heard about this. ‘I want Manson picked up and brought in,’ said Mullett, scooping up the telephone and dialling.

‘I’ll make a note of it,’ said Frost solemnly.

‘Chief Constable, please,’ said Mullett. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘That will be all, Inspector.’ As the door closed behind Frost, he straightened his tie and smoothed back his hair. ‘Oh, hello, sir.’ He put on his weary voice. ‘Sorry if I don’t sound all that brilliant… lack of sleep, you know…’ He gave a modest laugh. ‘Someone’s got to keep an eye on things, sir… Some double good news on the Paula Bartlett case and the senior citizen killings that I thought you should have right away…’

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Wednesday afternoon shift

Harry Greenway dropped a tea-bag into a mug and drowned it with boiling water from the kettle. He felt uneasy. He didn’t know why. On top of the fridge the portable radio was tuned into the local station where The Beatles were singing ‘Eleanor Rigby’. Greenway pulled a face and switched it off. A miserable, lonely song about death. He wasn’t in the mood for it. He was raising the mug to his mouth when his ears picked up the soft gentle click of a car door being carefully closed. Instantly, his hand shot out to the light switch. From the darkened kitchen he twitched back the curtains.

Two men were walking up the path, one middle-aged and scruff the other in his late twenties with the look of a thug. Greenway cupped his hand to the window pane to see better. The older man, a maroon scarf hanging unevenly round his neck had a scar of some kind on his cheek. He didn’t recognize either of them, but they spelled trouble.

A half-hearted knock at the front door which sounded almost too deliberately reassuring. The dog at his feet, a nine-month-old Dobermann, sprang up and started to growl, then to bark. He grabbed its collar and shut it in the lounge where it barked even louder. Another knock, a little stronger this time. Greenway reached for the heavy walking stick he kept on the hall table as he cautiously opened up. The scruffy man was smiling apologetically.

‘Mr Greenway? Sorry to bother you so late, sir. We called earlier, but you were out.’ He held something up. Greenway’s heart faltered and skipped a beat. It was a police warrant card.

‘Police?’ he stammered. God, how had they found out?

‘Routine enquiry,’ purred the man who he noted from the warrant card was Detective Inspector Frost. ‘All right if we come in?’ And without waiting to be asked, they were in the hall.

Routine enquiry? They don’t send detective inspectors on routine enquiries, not even rag-bags like this one. He felt his hands trembling. He forced a smile of unconcern. ‘I was just going to cook my dinner.’

‘This won’t take long, sir,’ said Frost.

Hearing strange voices, the dog was barking and frantically scratching at the lounge door.

Greenway smiled. ‘I’d better put Spike outside. He can get quite nasty with strangers.’ They stood well back as he opened the lounge door and grabbed the Dobermann’s collar as it leapt out. ‘Find yourselves seats,’ he called, dragging the snarling dog past them and into the kitchen.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Frost, giving the dog a wide berth and following Gilmore into the lounge, a grotty room with a well-worn and sagging three-piece suite and old newspapers heaped on every chair. The settee had been dragged in front of the television set, at the side of which a waste bin over flowed with empty lager cans. Frost strode around, prodding, poking.

‘Look at this!’ Gilmore was holding up a girlie magazine with a picture of a busty blonde dressed in school uniform on the front cover.

But Frost was beginning to feel uneasy. ‘He’s taking a bloody long time putting that dog out… Shit!’ He spat out the expletive at the growl of an engine starting up out side. Twice in the same flaming day ‘The bastard’s done a runner!’

They dashed to the back door where a snarling Dobermann barred their way. Back along the passage and out the front door, just in time to see the rear lights of a delivery van disappearing into the dark.

Back in the car, bumping and jolting in hot pursuit, Frost fumed and castigated himself for letting the sod walk out so easily. Why hadn’t he taken more men and posted someone at the back? If Greenway got away, he’d never hear the last of it from Mullett. ‘Faster, son,’ he urged Gilmore as the red rear-lights ahead shrunk to pinpricks.

‘This car’s not in the best of condition,’ Gilmore retorted as the Cortina shook and shuddered in protest at the unaccustomed increased speed. A warning light on the oil gauge kept flashing and there was a hot metal burning smell. ‘Hadn’t you better radio Control for some back-up?’

Frost hesitated. Of course they needed back-up, but he was hoping they could get by without the station knowing what a twat he had made of himself. A teeth-setting grinding noise from the engine made up his mind. He radioed for help.

‘Do you mean to say,’ howled Mullett, snatching the microphone from Sergeant Wells, ‘that you just let him drive off?’ He had been hovering in Control, awaiting confirmation of a successful arrest.

‘Just get me back-up – over and out,’ muttered Frost, banging down the handset, aware that he had only delayed a Grade A bollocking from his superintendent. ‘Where’s the bugger gone?’ The red lights had vanished. ‘Look out,’ he screamed as a dark shape loomed up in front of the wind screen.

Gilmore jammed on the brakes. The tires screeched and the car slewed to a halt, throwing Frost heavily against Gilmore who almost lost control of the wheel. They had pulled up within inches of Greenway’s delivery van.

‘What’s the silly bugger playing at?’ asked Frost, all fingers and thumbs as he tried to release his seat belt. He was answered by Greenway blurring into vision at the side of the Cortina, swinging what they later realized was a long-handled sledge-hammer. A clanging thud which shook the car and nearly deafened them, then a splintering and shattering as the windscreen crazed into an opaque honeycombed sheet. When Frost finally managed to release the seat belt and leap from the car he was just in time to see the rear lights of the van dwindling into the distance.

‘Shit!’ yelled Frost yet again, after they had knocked out enough of the shivered windscreen to see where they were going. They limped off after Greenway, eyes streaming, faces stinging from the ice-hard punch of cold gritty air. Control had advised them that area car Hotel Tango was on its way to afford them assistance.

But they had lost too much time. The road was dead straight ahead and the van was nowhere to be seen. Turning his head to one side for protection against the slip-stream, Frost groped for the handset. ‘We’ve lost him, I think. Last seen heading towards the motorway.’

‘Hotel Tango receiving,’ replied Simms. ‘We are in position by motorway exit. Will block.’

‘Bully for you, Hotel Tango,’ said Frost, turning up his coat collar and sinking low in his seat to try and escape the worst of the slip-stream. He attempted to light a cigarette but the match died in its battle against the wind.

A gargle of squelch from the radio, then Hotel Tango, very excited. ‘He’s spotted us. He’s skidded round. He’s heading back in your direction. Am in pursuit.’

‘There he is!’ yelled Gilmore. Fast-approaching headlights flared and blinded and a horn screamed for them to get out of the way.

‘Block him,’ shouted Frost.

Not too happy about this, Gilmore spun the wheel, turning the car side on to the oncoming vehicle.

The headlights got nearer and nearer, the van’s horn screaming and pleading. From behind came more headlights and the piercing wail of Hotel Tango’s siren in pursuit.

‘He’s not going to stop!’ screamed Gilmore, blinded by the dazzle of the headlights as he hit his seat belt release.

‘Jump,’ yelled Frost, thankful he hadn’t refastened his seat belt after the last incident. He pushed open the door and dived out on to the road, rolling over and just regaining his feet as the van impacted, smashing into the car and sending it spinning. Tires squealed and smoked. The van’s engine raced impotently, then it started to back away. But the approaching police car was too close and Hotel Tango skidded to a halt, siren still blaring, blocking the road right behind the van.

Car doors opened and slammed. Two uniformed men emerged from the area car and approached cautiously from the rear. Gilmore, rubbing grazed elbows, advanced from the front. The cab door jerked open and Greenway leapt out, tightly gripping the sledgehammer which he brandished threateningly.

Crouching slightly, ready to leap, Gilmore edged nearer. Greenway spun round, whirling the sledge-hammer above his head, his eyes wild and threatening.

‘Drop that, you silly sod!’ roared Frost. Momentarily distracted, Greenway jerked his head towards the inspector giving the two uniformed men the opportunity to risk a dash forward, but they were not quick enough. Greenway twisted round, swinging the hammer in a two-handed grip. As they backed away, Gilmore made his move, leaping on Greenway from behind, locking his arm tightly round the man’s neck in a strangulating grip making him drop the hammer as he tried to prise Gilmore’s arm away. A back elbow jab from Greenway almost paralysed Gilmore who cried in pain and slackened his hold which was enough for Greenway to dive to regain the hammer. He almost had it when he shrieked in agony as the heel of Frost’s shoe stamped down on his hand with the inspector’s full weight bearing down. ‘You bastard!!’

‘Naughty, naughty!’ admonished Frost, only easing off his foot so Gilmore could pull Greenway’s wrists behind him and snap on the handcuffs.

Gilmore stood up and brushed dirt from his grey suit then yanked his prisoner to his feet. ‘You’ve broken my bloody hand,’ whimpered Greenway. ‘I want a doctor.’

‘You’ll want an undertaker if you don’t shut up,’ said Frost. ‘It’s police brutality week Now get in that bloody car.’ They all squeezed into the area car and drove back to the station. It was a silent drive. Greenway said nothing, just stared straight ahead. He didn’t even ask what the charge was.

‘Number 2 Interview Room,’ called Wells as they marched their prisoner through the lobby.

‘I want a doctor. The bastards have broken my hand,’ called Greenway, giving a good impersonation of a man in agony.

‘Get him a doctor,’ ordered Mullett, who was hovering excitedly in the background, grinning like a man with two dicks. ‘We’re going to play this one by the book.’ He called the inspector over. ‘The Chief Constable’s thrilled to bits about this, Frost.’

‘Then let’s hope we don’t disappoint the old git,’ replied Frost. ‘Our suspect’s playing the injured innocent at the moment.’

‘I’ve got a full Forensic team going over Greenway’s cottage, inch by inch,’ said Mullett. ‘As soon as they come up with something, I’ll let you know.’ He squeezed Frost’s shoulder. ‘I have every confidence in you, Inspector.’

Then you must be bloody mad, muttered Frost under his breath as Mullett returned to the old log cabin. Whenever people expressed confidence, the doubts welled up.

‘Shall I get a doctor?’ asked Wells.

‘Later,’ said Frost. ‘When I’ve finished with him. The odd jolt of pain might improve his concentration.’

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Wednesday night shift (1)

Greenway twisted his head round to look at the clock high on the wall behind him in Interview Room number 2. Half past nine. He resumed his sprawl in the chair and rubbed his injured hand. Opposite him, leaning against the mushroom emulsioned wall, the young thug of a detective sergeant scowled down at him. Unblinking, Greenway scowled back

‘How much longer?’ asked Greenway.

Gilmore said nothing.

‘As long as that?’ said Greenway in mock surprise. He turned to the little blonde WPC standing guard by the door. ‘How long have I got to waste my time here, darling?’

WPC Ridley stared through him and didn’t answer.

‘Natter, natter, natter,’ said Greenway. The door swung open and Frost breezed in, a bulging green case file under his arm. He chucked the file on the table, together with his matches and his cigarettes.

'Where’s the doctor?’ asked Greenway.

‘He’s putting someone’s cat down at the moment,’ said Frost, dropping into the vacant chair. ‘He’ll be along as soon as he can.’ He poked a cigarette in his mouth and dragged a match along the table top. He lit up, then pushed the packet towards the prisoner.

‘What’s this?’ asked Greenway with a sneer. ‘The good guy and the bad guy routine?’

‘No,’ said Frost, grinning sweetly. ‘We’re both the bad guys. We both hate your guts.’ He lit Greenway’s cigarette. ‘Make us hate you some more. Tell us all about it, blow by blow, thrust by thrust.’

Greenway spread his palms in mock bewilderment. ‘Tell you about what? I haven’t the faintest idea what this is all about.’

Frost puffed out a smoke ring and watched it drift up and curl around the green-shaded light bulb. ‘If you don’t know what it’s about, why did you do a runner?’

‘I panicked. I’m not used to the police barging into my house at night.’ He stood up. ‘If you’re going to charge me, charge me. If not, I’m walking out of here.’

Gilmore pushed him back in the chair. ‘The charge, as you bloody well know, is murder.’

A scornful laugh from Greenway. ‘Murder?’ His eyes flicked from Gilmore to Frost. ‘Who am I supposed to have murdered?’

A damn good act, thought Frost, grudgingly. If I didn’t have the forensic evidence I might start having doubts. He flipped open the folder and took out the photograph of Paula Bartlett, then steered it with his finger across to Greenway.

‘Only fifteen. Must have been easy meat for a great hulking bastard like you.’

Greenway stared at the colour photograph with an expression of utter disbelief. ‘The school kid? This is getting bloody farcical. I gave a statement to that other bloke… the miserable-faced git, Inspector Allen. She never even reached my place. I never got a paper that day.’

Gilmore moved his face forward close to Greenway’s. ‘Yes, you bloody did. She delivered the paper. On your own admission you were home that morning. You dragged her in… a fifteen-year-old kid, a virgin…’

‘A fifteen-year-old virgin? There’s no such thing!’ smirked Greenway.

The detective sergeant’s control snapped. He grabbed the man by the lapels, lifted him and slammed him against the wall. ‘Don’t come the funnies with me, you sod. I saw her body. I saw what you did to her.’

WPC Ridley coughed pointedly, reminding Gilmore that she was there to make notes of everything that happened between the detectives and the prisoner. Gilmore pushed Greenway away and wiped his hands down his jacket as if they were contaminated.

Greenway smouldered. ‘I’m not answering any more questions.’

‘Yes, you are,’ said Frost, ‘otherwise I might accidentally tread on your bad hand again.’ He leant back, balancing the chair on its rear legs, and shot a column of smoke at the yellow ceiling. ‘Let’s talk about mitigating circumstances. Perhaps you didn’t mean to kill her. What did she do – lead you on? Waggle it under your nose, then snatch it away?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ yawned Greenway, feigning boredom. ‘Whoever poked and killed that kid, it wasn’t me. I like them older with big knockers – like that little policewoman there – not flat-chested schoolgirls.’

Frost’s chair crashed down, the sudden noise almost making Greenway leap from his seat. ‘Flat-chested, was she? When you stripped her off you saw she was flat-chested.’ He jabbed a finger at Gilmore who was busy with his notebook. ‘Underline that, Sergeant.’

‘You don’t have to strip anyone off to see if they’re flat chested or not,’ sneered Greenway. ‘That kid used to deliver here in the summer wearing only a T-shirt. You could see she had nothing.’

‘You’re quite right,’ Frost agreed. ‘She didn’t have much to show when I saw her stretched out on the slab in the morgue. It didn’t stop you raping her, though, did it?’

‘Rape?’ He snorted a hollow laugh. ‘You must be bloody hard up for suspects.’

Frost pulled a sheet of typescript from the folder. ‘This is the statement you gave to my colleague, Inspector Allen, the miserable-faced git. You say you’re a self-employed van driver?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You were asked to account for your movements for September 14th, the day Paula went missing.’ He let his eyes run over the typed page. ‘You said you didn’t go out at all that day. Is that correct?’

‘Bang on! There was no work for me.’ Greenway flicked his ash on the floor and looked as if he was enjoying the questioning. His expression said, ‘Ask what you like, pigs, you’ll get nothing out of me!’

Frost scratched at his scar. ‘The girl usually delivered your paper – the Sun – around eight o’clock?’

‘Yes. But that day, she didn’t turn up.’

‘And you didn’t get a paper?’

‘Brilliant,’ said Greenway, sarcastically.

Frost produced the copy of the Sun in its transparent cover. ‘This is the paper you say wasn’t delivered. And this…’ He fluttered the forensic report, ‘is scientific evidence which proves you are a lying bastard.’

Greenway snatched the report, his head moving from side to side as he skimmed through it. He gave a scoffing laugh and handed it back. ‘A load of balls.’

Gilmore moved forward. ‘Solid scientific evidence. The court will love it.’

Greenway smiled disarmingly. ‘All right. Let’s pretend it’s genuine. So the newspaper was pushed through my letter-box and pulled out again. That doesn’t prove the girl was in my house and it doesn’t prove I bloody touched her.’

‘We’ll soon have all the proof we want,’ said Frost. ‘A Forensic team is going over your place inch by inch right now. One hair from her head… a thread of cotton from her clothes, and we’ve got you, you bastard.’

‘Tell you what then,’ smirked Greenway. ‘If you find any thing, I’ll give you a full, sworn confession. Now I can’t say fairer than that.’

Frost switched on his sweetest smile. ‘We’ll find it,’ he said, trying to sound convincing. But he was worried. Greenway was too damned cock-sure. He looked up with irritation as the door opened and Wells beckoned. The sergeant didn’t look the bearer of good news. ‘Just heard from the Forensic team, Jack. They’ve been all over the cottage and found nothing.’

Frost slumped against the wall. ‘There’s got to be something.’

‘It’s been over two months since she was there,’ said Wells. ‘Forensic are bringing in more men to go over the entire place again, but they’re not optimistic. Are you getting anything from Greenway?’

‘Only the bleeding run-around.’

Mullett’s office door opened. He saw Frost and hurried towards him. ‘What joy?’ he asked eagerly.

‘No joy, all bloody misery,’ replied Frost. ‘Unless Forensic can come up with something quick, the best I can charge Greenway with is dangerous driving.’

Mullett’s smile flickered and spluttered out. ‘I hope this is not going to be another of your foul-ups, Frost. I’ve really stuck my neck out with the Chief Constable on this one.’ He spun on his heel and marched back to his office.

‘Let’s hope the bastard chops it off for you,’ muttered Frost to the empty passage.

Back to the Interview Room where Greenway was making great play of nursing his injured hand. ‘I’m in agony. I want medical treatment and I want to go home. You’ve got nothing to hold me on.’

‘Lock the bastard up and get him a doctor,’ said Frost. He felt tired and miserable and even more incompetent than usual.

His office was a hostile dung-heap of bulging files, snarling memos, and complicated-looking returns. Rain splattered against the window and drummed on the roof. He stared out to the rain-swept car-park, and was puzzled be cause he couldn’t see his Cortina, then remembered it had been towed away for repairs after Greenway smashed into it. Gilmore poked his head round the door. He had his hat and coat on in the hope he could nip back home for an hour or so. He’d been on duty solidly since six and a busy night was still looming ahead. ‘Greenway wants to know what’s happening about his dog.’

‘A dog-handler’s on his way to pick it up and take it to kennels,’ Frost told him. ‘You off home then?’

‘Yes… only for an hour… if it’s all right with you.’ Gilmore’s tone implied that it had better be all right.

‘Drop me off on the way, would you, son. I haven’t got wheels.’

Gilmore readily agreed. It was only when he turned the car into the Market Square to take the short cut to the inspector’s house that Frost broke the news that he wanted to be dropped off at Greenway’s cottage. It was miles off Gilmore’s route, but all right, he’d dump Frost off and then get the hell out of there. Frost could find his own way back.

Lights were spilling from every room of the cottage. From the backyard the dog kept up its monotonous yapping. The Forensic team were busy. Hardly any surface was free of fingerprint powder, small vacuum cleaners whirled gulping up dust, hairs and fibres for analysis, men crawled over the car pet with tweezers. Tony Harding, in charge of the team, looked up wearily as Frost entered. Gilmore hovered impatiently behind, scowling at the inspector who had said he would be a couple of minutes at the most and wanted a lift back.

‘Still no joy,’ said Harding, ‘but we haven’t finished yet.’ Frost received the news gloomily. ‘Keep looking. Any clue – no matter how small. A pair of schoolgirl’s knickers, a confession, a half-eaten chicken and mushroom pie.’ He scuffed the carpet with his foot ‘At the moment, all we’ve got is the paint samples on the newspaper.’

‘Ah,’ said Harding, sounding shamefaced. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’ He took the inspector by the arm and led him to one side. ‘The paint sample evidence might not be as conclusive as we first thought. It might not have come from this letter-box.’

A cold shiver of apprehension trickled down Frost’s back. ‘What do you mean? You did a spectrograph analysis. You told me it was conclusive.’

‘Yes… well… it was… up to a point…’

Frost’s shoulders slumped. ‘Get to the bad bloody news. I don’t want the death of a thousand cuts.’

‘We did a spectrograph analysis of the paint sample from the newspaper. There were traces of three layers of paint, the bottom layer brown, the middle a grey undercoat, the top layer black. The spectrograph analysis of the sample taken from Greenway’s letter-box showed three identical paint layers, same colours, same chemical composition.’

‘Yes,’ nodded Frost. ‘That’s the point in the story where I started believing Forensic weren’t the big, useless twats I’d always thought them to be.’

Harding’s faint smile accepted the rebuke. ‘The test was fine as far as it went, but we should have tested other letter-boxes on the girl’s delivery route. This I’ve now done.’

‘And?’ asked Frost, ready to wince, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.

‘Quite a few letter-boxes came up with identical spectrograph readings.’

‘But how the hell…?’

‘Most of the properties on the girl’s route are owned by the Denton Development Corporation. Every four years their maintenance department repaint exteriors… standard colours, standard specification. What I hadn’t appreciated was that Greenway’s cottage is also owned by the Development Corporation. They bought the land some twenty-five years ago for a new housing estate, but haven’t yet found the money.’

‘So it’s received the same coats of identical paint every four years as all the other houses?’

Harding nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. And that means that the girl could have pushed the newspaper through any of those letter-boxes by mistake, then tugged it out again. It doesn’t have to be this cottage.’

‘Thank you very much,’ muttered Frost bitterly, knowing that Mullett would blame him for this. ‘So unless you can find evidence that the girl has actually been inside here, we’ve got sod all to hold Greenway on?’

‘Unfortunately, yes,’ agreed Harding.

Frost wandered across to the window and looked out on to the puddled, muddy back yard where a black shape prowled up and down like a caged wolf. At the end of the garden a sorry-looking shed crouched under pouring rain. ‘You done the shed yet?’

‘Not with the Hound of the Baskervilles out there,’ replied Harding. ‘We’re waiting for the dog-handler.’

As if answering his cue, the dog-handler’s van drew up outside and a short stocky man wearing a padded jacket and thick leather gloves came in, swinging a muzzle and a leash. “What sort of dog is it?’

‘A bloody man-eater,’ said Frost, leading him to the back door.

The dog-handler opened the door a fraction, squinted through the crack, then closed it firmly as the door bulged inwards when the dog hurled himself at it. He didn’t look very happy. ‘I hate Dobermanns. They’re vicious sods.’ He zipped up the padded jacket and pulled the gloves up over his wrists, then nodded. ‘Right. Here goes.’

‘Geronimo!’ said Frost, opening the door just wide enough for the handler to squeeze through. He then shut it quickly and listened to the noises off – several minutes of ill-tempered barking and a lot of swearing.

‘OK. I’ve got it!’

The bedraggled dog, muzzled and shaking with rage, snarled as it was pulled through by the leash. It charged at Gilmore then shook rain all over him as it was dragged off.

Frost beckoned to Gilmore who, frozen-faced, waited with ill-concealed impatience. ‘Let’s take a quick look in the shed, son.’

Shoulders hunched, they splashed to the end of the yard. The rusty padlock which secured the shed door yielded to the first key from Frost’s bunch.

The torch beam danced over rubbish. The shed was stacked roof-high with junk. The dirt-encrusted frame of a deck-chair rested against a rusting lawn-mower. Twisting, crumbling remains of old chicken wire strangled sodden strips of mouldering carpeting, rotting fence posts and jagged-edged sheets of warped plywood. The torch beam bounced from item to item. Junk. Stacks of half-empty paint tins, torn bags spewing damp fertilizer. Useless, hoarded rubbish. Frost tugged at the deck-chair, but this caused paint tins to topple and he had to jump back quickly.

‘Satisfied?’ asked Gilmore, smugly.

Frost’s shoulders drooped. ‘Yes, I’m satisfied, son. A quick poke around the house, then we’ll go.’

He really thought he had found something in the kitchen. On the work top, thawing from the freezer and ready to be popped into the microwave, was Greenway’s planned evening meal. A box of microwave crinkle-cut chips and a chicken and mushroom pie. ‘Stomach contents,’ exclaimed Frost delightedly. He yelled for Harding, who listened and shook his head.

‘They don’t help us, Mr Frost.’ He picked up one of the packets. ‘Both common brands… the market leaders. Even if we could prove the girl’s last meal was an identical product, the supermarkets sell tens of thousands of these every week.’

‘Damn!’ growled Frost.

‘You ready to go yet?’ asked Gilmore pointing yet again to his watch.

‘A quick sniff around the bedroom and then you can get off to your conjugals,’ Frost promised.

The bedroom reflected the state of the rest of the house with the bed and the floor strewn with dirty clothing and unwashed, food-congealed crockery. Was this where Greenway dragged her and raped her? Was this pigsty of a room the last thing that fifteen-year-old kid saw before he choked the life out of her?

One of the Forensic team pushed past him and began stripping the clothing from the bed. ‘We’re taking the bed clothes for further examination, Inspector, but I get the feeling they’ve been washed during the past four weeks or so.’

‘I only wash mine once a year,’ said Frost gloomily, ‘whether they need it or not.’

Another long, deep, irritating sigh from Gilmore.

‘All right, son,’ said Frost. ‘We’re going now.’

In the hall, Harding looked even gloomier than Frost. ‘We haven’t come up with a thing, Inspector. There’s no evidence at all that the girl was ever in the house.’ He plucked a Dobermann hair from his jacket. ‘There’s dog’s hairs all over the place. Would have been helpful if we’d found some on the girl, but we didn’t.’

‘Find me something, for Pete’s sake,’ pleaded Frost, ‘otherwise I’m in the brown and squishy up to my ear-holes.’

Gilmore put his foot down hard on the drive back in case the inspector thought of some other outlandish spot to visit. Frost slumped miserably down in the passenger seat, stared at the rain-blurred windscreen, smoked and said nothing. Gilmore could almost feel sorry for him.

Then Frost sat up straight, pulled the cigarette from his mouth and rammed it into the ashtray. ‘I’m a number one, Grade A twat!!’ he announced.

Tell me something I don’t know thought Gilmore, slowing down at the traffic lights in the Market Square.

‘Turn the car around,’ ordered Frost. We’re going back to the cottage.’

‘You’re kidding!’ gasped Gilmore, looking at Frost whose face was bathed red by the traffic signal.

‘Under my bloody nose and I missed it… All that junk in the shed. You’d expect it to be dry, but it was wet, dirty, muddy and rusty. It must have been out rotting in the open for months… so why gather it up and bung it in the shed?’

‘Perhaps he just wanted to tidy up his garden,’ said Gilmore.

‘Do me a favour. His place is a rubbish tip, just like mine. I’d never tidy up my garden and neither would he. That junk was dumped in his shed to hide something… so let’s go and find out what.’ Frost’s face was now bathed in green. Wearily, Gilmore spun the wheel round and headed back to the cottage.

The Forensic team had almost completed their work and Harding shook his head at them as they passed through. ‘Nothing. We’re now going to try the shed.’

‘Then you can give us a hand,’ Frost told him. ‘Bring a torch.’ Harding slipped on a plastic mac and followed them down to the bottom of the yard.

‘This would be easier in the morning,’ moaned Gilmore as rain trickled down his collar.

‘Shouldn’t take us long,’ said Frost dragging out the deck-chair frame and flinging it into the dark of the garden.

It took nearly half an hour. As one item of useless junk was removed more and more was revealed.

‘I can’t think why he bothered to keep this,’ grunted Harding, struggling with a muddy iron-framed bedspring, heavily corroded with rust.

It was not until the shed was nearly empty that they found what Greenway had been hiding. Stacked high against the far end of the shed, white cardboard boxes, piled almost to the roof. Frost moved back to let Gilmore reach up and drag one down. He tore open the stapled lid. Inside, tightly packed, were cartons of Benson and Hedges Silk Cut cigarettes. Gilmore took out a carton and tossed it over to Frost who ripped off the wrapping. No ‘Government Health Warning’ on the side of the packets. These cigarettes were made for export.

Frost stared at the packets, feeling even more depressed. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find, but certainly not this. This would effectively shoot his case against Green way right up the anal passage. He went to the shed door and swore bitterly into the rain and the wind and the dark.

The Interview Room now reeked strongly of stale shag tobacco smoke and cheese and onion crisps. There was a spit-soaked, thin hand-rolled cigarette end in the ashtray. Some one else had been interviewed since Frost’s questioning of Greenway.

‘All right, all right. Stop shoving.’ Greenway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with a neatly bandaged hand, stumbled into the room, urged roughly from behind by a foul-tempered Gilmore. Frost waited until the man was sitting down, then he pulled a packet of Benson and Hedges from his pocket and pushed it across. Greenway stared at it for a while, turned the packet gingerly with a finger so he could confirm the absence of the health warning. ‘You took your bloody time finding them,’ he grunted.

Frost retrieved the packet and shook out a cigarette. He lit up and sucked in smoke. ‘Feel like talking?’

Greenway helped himself to a cigarette and accepted a light from the inspector. ‘I take it I’m no longer being charged with killing the school kid?’

‘No. The bloke you coshed has identified your photograph.’

Greenway thought for a moment. ‘All right. I’ll give you a statement.’

But as Gilmore turned the pages of his notebook, Frost waved a hand for him to stop. ‘This isn’t our case. Detective Inspector Skinner from Shelwood Division is on his way over. You can give a statement to him.’

Gilmore snorted in exasperation. ‘Would someone mind telling me what this is about?’

‘Sorry, son,’ apologized Frost. ‘On the day Paula Bartlett went missing a van-load of Benson and Hedges king-size cigarettes for export was hijacked on its way to the docks. The driver was flagged down, coshed, and his load nicked. This happened on the motorway at Shelwood, miles outside Denton Division.’

‘But Greenway told Inspector Allen he never went out that day,’ protested Gilmore.

‘I think he was lying,’ said Frost. ‘People don’t always tell us the truth.’

‘Of course I was lying,’ said Greenway. ‘The bloody van, full of nicked fags, was standing outside my house when the other inspector called that evening. I thought he was on to me, so when he asked me, I said I hadn’t been out all day. But it was about the missing kid.. .’

‘Can you help us at all about the girl?’ asked Frost.

Greenway shook his head. ‘I left home at six in the morning.. . didn’t get back until nine o’clock at night. The paper hadn’t arrived when I left and it wasn’t there when I got back.’

A tap at the door. ‘Detective Inspector Skinner is here,’ announced Sergeant Wells.

Skinner, a burly man in a trench coat, looked exactly how a detective inspector should look, a contrast to the rag-bag Gilmore had to work with. His sergeant, lean and mean, looked like a detective sergeant who would always be in his boss’s shadow, not how Gilmore intended to end up. ‘Understand you’ve got a little present for us, Jack?’ said Skinner, his eyes on the prisoner.

‘He’s all yours,’ said Frost. ‘I can’t solve any of my own cases, but I solve other people’s.’ He offered his cigarettes around and Skinner nearly choked when he was told he was smoking some of the stolen property.

Wells returned with papers to be signed for the transfer of the prisoner and whispered to Frost that Mr Mullett would like to see him in his office.

‘Shit,’ muttered Frost. ‘It’s been a rotten enough day already.’

In fact Mullett was hovering outside in the corridor and was full of charm and smiles for the two detectives from Shelwood. ‘Delighted to have been able to help,’ he smarmed. But as soon as they had gone, his smile froze to death. ‘My office!’ he hissed and spun on his heel away.

Frost was dead tired, but he kept his eyes open to pretend he was listening as Mullett droned angrily on. ‘You’ve made me look a complete and utter fool in the eyes of the Chief Constable…’

He let his gaze drift around the old log cabin and noticed to his horror that there was a foil take-away food container, yellowed with cold curry sauce, poking from under Mullett’s desk. He moved forward, looking very contrite, and nudged it out of sight with his toe.

‘… and it wasn’t even our case. We’ve improved Shelwood’s crime figures, which made ours look sick anyway, and done nothing for our own. What on earth am I going to tell the Chief Constable?’

The drone of Mullett’s voice roared and faded and Frost had to jerk his head up to keep awake. He fought back a yawn. This was all his life seemed to be lately, making balls- ups, getting bollockings from Mullett, and then sent out to make a fresh balls-up.

‘… and, in any case, I had told you to concentrate on the senior citizen killings. So leave the Paula Bartlett case for Mr Allen and try and find that other suspect you let slip through your fingers. I want no more mess-ups.’ He leant across his desk, his chin thrust out. ‘Are you receiving me, Inspector?’

‘Loud and clear,’ said Frost. ‘Loud and bloody clear.’

1.15 a.m. The lobby had a sour smell. A mixture of stale beer and spilt whisky. Wells was shouting at PC Jordan who, helped by young PC Collier, was struggling with a man in evening dress. The man’s legs kept giving way and he seemed ready to collapse in the pool of vomit at his feet. At last they managed to sit him down safely on the bench.

‘Anything in from the Met on Simon Bradbury?’ asked Gilmore.

‘How the hell do I know?’ snapped Wells, irritably. ‘I don’t keep track of every bit of paper that comes in and out of this building. And another…’ He stopped short and yelled, ‘Take him outside! Quick!’ The drunk was being sick again. Jordan and Collier grabbed him, but too late. More vomit pumped out and they jumped back just in time as it splattered on the lobby floor. Eyes squinting, the drunk tried to make out what the mess was at his feet.

‘Bloody marvellous!’ cried Wells, and he looked around for someone to vent his anger on. PC Collier decided this was a good time to take a refreshment break and sidled out towards the rest room, but didn’t quite make it.

‘And where do you think you’re going, Collier?’

‘Refreshment break, Sergeant.’

Wells consulted his watch and found, to his disappointment, that Collier was entitled to his break. ‘Right. When you come back you can clean up this mess.’

‘That’s not my job, Sergeant,’ Collier protested, firmly.

‘Your job is to do what I bloody well tell you to do,’ yelled Wells as Collier stamped out, slamming the door behind him. Red-faced Wells charged, fists clenched, after him. ‘I’ll have you, Collier.’

Frost cut across to bar his way. ‘Hold it, Bill. Hold it,’ he said, soothingly. ‘We’re all tired and overworked.’ He poked a cigarette in the sergeant’s mouth and led him back to the desk. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’

‘There’s a kettle in the rest room,’ said Wells. ‘You might bring me one.’

The only occupant of the rest room was Collier who was huddled in a chair in front of a 14-inch colour TV set, warming his hands round a mug of instant coffee and brooding over the injustices of working under Sergeant Wells. On the screen, a young girl in pigtails who didn’t look much older than twelve was sprawled naked on some grass, sun bathing. The camera moved to show a man with a riding crop watching from the cover of some bushes. Behind the man a board read Trespassers Will Be Punished.

‘Where did you get that video?’ demanded Gilmore, sharply.

Snatched too abruptly from his morose meditation, Collier started, spilling instant coffee down the front of his uniform. He reached out to switch off the set, but Frost grabbed his wrist. ‘Leave it, son. Where did you get it?’

‘We only borrowed it, Inspector. We were going to put it back.’ He held up a video case which had the typed label A Thrashing For Fiona. It was one of the haul of pornographic videos removed from the newsagent’s.

On the screen the naked girl was on her knees, pleading with the man who was slapping the riding crop against his leg.

‘Go and fetch Sergeant Wells,’ ordered Frost, dragging another chair in front of the set.

Collier registered dismay. It was unlike the inspector to report people. ‘I only borrowed it, sir.’

Dragging his eyes from the TV set where the girl was across the man’s knees, being thrashed with the riding crop, Frost gave a reassuring grin. ‘Don’t worry, son. I’ll tell him I took it. Just send him in.’

Gilmore spooned instant coffee into three mugs and filled them with boiling water. He passed one to Frost and sat beside him in the, chair vacated by Collier.

A clatter of footsteps up the passage and Wells came in. ‘Look, Jack, I haven’t got time…’ He stopped dead as he caught sight of the screen. ‘Bloody-hell…!’ He grabbed the other chair and sat down.

Engrossed, Frost gulped down his coffee, unaware that he hadn’t added his usual three heaped teaspoons of sugar. The man was now using the riding crop to do something unspeakable. ‘He caught her trespassing,’ Frost told Wells, explaining the plot.

‘Serves her bloody right,’ said Wells. ‘She’ll think twice before she does it again.’

The video finished abruptly. Frost fed another one in. The title read Animal Passions. An interior scene this time. The same pigtailed girl, naked and with a dog, a large white and brown Great Dane with a torn left ear, its tail wagging furiously. The girl lay on her back. The dog, slowly and deliberately, was licking her.

‘I bet he prefers that to Pedigree Chum,’ croaked Wells.

‘Who wouldn’t,’ said Frost.

Gilmore looked at his watch. Nearly two o’clock. He’d told Liz he’d try and pop in during the shift, even if it was only for half an hour. He tried to catch Frost’s attention as the fool sat there, eyes bulging, like a schoolboy with a dirty book. ‘Do you mind if I take a break, Inspector? About half an hour or so? I’d like to pop home.’

‘Sure,’ muttered Frost, his eyes glued to the screen where the dog, tongue lolling, whites of eyes showing, was coupling with the girl.

This was too much for Gilmore who turned away in disgust. As he reached for the door handle it was abruptly snatched away from him as the door opened and there, framed in the doorway like an avenging angel, stood a furious and angry Mullett.

The internal phone rang.

Gilmore stared at Mullett, open-mouthed. Bloody Frost had dropped him in it again. He was sure the Divisional Commander had gone home.

Frost and Wells, eyes fixed rigidly on the screen, were blissfully ignorant of this visitation and Gilmore could do nothing to alert them.

Mullett pushed Gilmore to one side and strode into the rest room. He stood between the two men and the TV set and glowered down at them, his face thunder black.

Wells nearly had a heart attack.

‘Hello, Super. This is a pleasant surprise,’ said Frost, managing an unconvincing grin.

The phone kept on ringing. Glad of something to do, Gilmore answered it. It was Collier warning them that the Divisional Commander was on his way in.

‘Thank you,’ hissed Gilmore through clenched teeth, “but we know.’

‘What the devil is going on here?’ spluttered Mullett. ‘I look in on my way back from a function and what do I find? The lobby floor plastered with vomit, a junior officer left on his own to cope and the station sergeant and other officers in the rest room, watching…’ His eyes bulged as he looked over his shoulder to see just what they were watching, obscene, bestial videos.’

Wells was on his feet, his mouth opening and closing in the hope that his brain would provide him with something mitigating to say. Gilmore wished the ground would open and swallow him. At the first opportunity he would request an interview with Mullett to explain that he was not there from choice.

Frost didn’t appear to be paying his Divisional Commander much attention, but leant forward to study the antics on the screen more closely.

Mullett’s lips compressed as he bottled up his rage. This was the last straw. ‘Would you please wait outside,’ he asked the other two men. A mad scramble for the door as they raced to comply, leaving the inspector as hostage for the superintendent’s fury.

Frost dragged his chair closer to the TV set. Angrily, Mullett pushed in front of him, blocking his view. ‘If I might have your attention,’ he began icily then nearly burst a blood vessel as Frost had the temerity, the brazen-faced in subordinate impudence, to reach out and push his Divisional Commander to one side.

‘How dare you,’ he spluttered when the words finally came.

Flapping a hand for Mullett to be quiet, Frost roared out, ‘Gilmore… in here! Quick.’

The detective sergeant came back in the room, looking first at the purple-faced, rage-quivering Mullett, then at Frost who was on his knees operating the rewind button on the video recorder. Like a silent film in reverse, the naked girl and the dog moved jerkily backwards at high speed.

‘Watch,’ ordered Frost, releasing the rewind. The dog, panting with excitement, again approached and straddled the girl.

‘For the last time, Inspector…’ roared Mullett.

Curtly jerking his hand for silence, Frost jabbed the pause button. On the screen, in full close-up, the vacant face of the girl froze, quivering slightly as the video head passed over and over the same section of tape.

‘The pigtails and blonde hair are a wig, son,’ said Frost, his hands moving to block them out.

Gilmore stared hard at the girl’s face, her lips slack, eyes glazed and unseeing, tiny flecks of sweat on the forehead.

‘Recognize her, son?’

Gilmore nodded. Yes, he recognized her. The suicide. The Snoopy watch. The Mickey Mouse night-shirt. Fifteen-year-old Susan Bicknell. The marks of the beating were now explained.

Frost straightened up. ‘Come on, son. I think we should ask her stepfather a few questions.’

‘I demand to know what this is all about!’ shrieked Mullett. But they were gone, the door slamming firmly shut behind them, leaving him alone in the room. Behind him the dog had worked itself up into a frenzy. He tried to switch it off, but none of the buttons, seemed to work. He pushed the door open and thundered down the corridor. Tomorrow. He would see Frost tomorrow. And then it would be his turn. The lobby wall suddenly zipped upwards and the ceiling stared down at him as his back hit the floor. His feet had found a slippery patch of vomit.

‘Whatever you do,’ hissed Frost to Wells, just before he darted out to the car-park, ‘don’t laugh.’

A cold black night, made blacker by purple rain clouds that covered the face of the moon. They didn’t have to drag anyone out of bed. A downstairs light was still on at the house and a shirt-sleeved Kenneth Duffy, tired and drawn, opened the door to them.

‘Remember me, Mr Duffy?’ asked Gilmore, showing his warrant card.

Duffy stared through the card and nodded.

‘We’d like to come in, please,’ said Gilmore. ‘Just a couple of questions.’

Duffy twisted his head. ‘It’s for me, love,’ he called, ushering the two detectives into an unheated lounge. ‘I don’t want my wife troubled,’ he explained. ‘She’s broken up about this. We both are.’ He dropped into a chair and stared at the drawn red curtains. He shivered. ‘Sorry there’s no heat.’

Frost sat down on the settee, facing Duffy. ‘You’re up late?’

‘My wife can’t sleep. I stay up with her. I don’t like leaving her alone.’

Frost gave a sympathetic nod and looked up for his sergeant to start the questions.

‘We’re worried at the absence of a suicide note,’ Gilmore said.

‘Oh?’ He tried to rub some warmth into a shirt-sleeved arm.

‘You’re quite sure there was no note?’

‘Positive.’

Silence, broken only by the measured ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Then another sound. Frost had taken something from his mac pocket and was tapping it on his knee. It snatched Duffy’s attention away from his study of the curtains.

The object was black, made of plastic, and Frost, a half-smile on his face, was tapping it slowly and regularly, again and again, on his knee.

At first Duffy couldn’t make out what it was. Then his eyes widened and he sucked in air. It was a video cassette.

‘Woof woof,’ said Frost, and grinned.

‘You bastard!’ With a howl of rage Duffy hurled himself across the room at the inspector, his fists swinging wildly. Gilmore leapt forward to grab his wrists and fling him back into the chair.

‘Was it something I said?’ asked Frost in pretended puzzlement.

‘You bastard,’ repeated Duffy, this time near to tears. He shrank down into the chair and covered his face with his hands and his body convulsed with the sobbing he was no longer able to hold back ‘Don’t tell my wife. It would kill her.’ His voice was muffled by his hands.

Gilmore turned away. Raw emotion embarrassed him. Frost dribbled smoke and tried to look as if he knew more than he did

Kenneth Duffy knuckled his eyes dry. ‘What do you want to know?’

Frost waved the video. ‘Tell me about it.’

Duffy bowed his head. ‘I watched a few seconds – that was enough.’

‘Where’s the suicide note?’

The man shivered again and folded his arms around him self. ‘I destroyed it.’

‘Why?’ snapped Gilmore who was standing behind him. ‘Because it incriminated you?’

He twisted his head round and looked up at the sergeant. ‘No. Because Susan asked me to. The note was addressed to me.’

Frost lit up a fresh cigarette from the stub of the old. ‘What did it say?’

‘It said, “The letter will explain. I can’t face mum after what I’ve done. Please help me. Destroy this. She must never know.”’

‘Letter? What letter?’

‘It was with Susan’s note. An anonymous letter.’

Anonymous letter! Frost started, as did Gilmore. ‘Tell us about it.’

Duffy paused to control his agitated breathing. ‘It was addressed to my wife. Susan must have known it was coming so she waited for the postman. She opened it, read it and…’ He shrugged as if referring to something trivial. ‘… and killed herself.’

‘I want that letter,’ said Frost grimly.

‘I’m sorry. I haven’t got it. I burnt it with the suicide note.’

‘Shit!’ said Frost vehemently. ‘Describe it. The notepaper, the handwriting.’

‘Is it important?’ asked Duffy wearily.

‘Yes, it bloody is.’

‘Blue notepaper. Typed. Posted in Denton.’

Frost nodded grimly to Gilmore. ‘What did it say?’

‘What do you bloody think it said?’ replied Duffy again near to tears. ‘It said, “Dear Mrs Duffy. Did you know that your dear darling, pure daughter Susan has taken part in depraved, bestial practices with men, with other women… even with animals, and is so proud of what she did that she allowed herself to be filmed. If you doubt me, I’m sending you a video.” ‘He paused and listened to the clock tick.

‘And did he send a video?’ prompted Frost.

‘Yes. It came the next morning… the day after Susan died. Imagine the effect on my wife if she’d received it. I waited for the postman, just like Susan must have done.’ He shuddered. ‘It was the one with the dog.’

All heads turned to the door as it clicked open. Mrs Duffy came in, a shrunken, stooped figure, face tired and lined, eyes red. Duffy rose from his chair. ‘It’s the police, love. Just asking a few questions.’

‘Routine,’ muttered Frost, avoiding her eyes. She’d have to know, but he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

She forced a smile. ‘I’ll make some tea.’

‘We can’t stop, I’m afraid,’ said Frost. ‘Lots of things to do.’

‘I won’t be long, love,’ said Duffy, helping his wife out of the room. ‘You go in the warm.’ When he came back he said, ‘How old does she look? Sixty?’ Not far short, thought Frost. ‘She was forty last month and she never looked her age. Losing her only daughter was bad enough, but when this other business comes out, it’ll kill her. You’ll have another death on your hands.’

‘You’ll have to tell her,’ said Frost.

‘You bloody tell her,’ said Duffy. He went to the side board and opened a drawer where he took out a small box. ‘You see these?’ He rattled it. ‘The bloody doctor’s put her back on the same tablets Susan took.’

Frost looked away. There was nothing to say.

Outside, in the car, Gilmore said, ‘That video. Did you notice Susan’s feet?’

‘Her feet were the last thing I thought of looking at,’ said Frost. ‘Why?’

‘The ground was rough so she was wearing shoes,’ said Gilmore. ‘Stark naked, but wearing shoes… just like Paula.’

Frost worried away at his scar, then shook his head. ‘Coincidence, son. No-one would want to make a porn video with Paula. The poor little bitch didn’t have the looks, or the figure.’ He salvaged a decent-sized butt from the ashtray and lit up. ‘The doc was right. He said that poison pen bastard would kill someone some day.’ He huddled down in his seat, suddenly feeling cold. ‘And I haven’t the faintest idea how to go about catching the sod.’

Gilmore started up the engine. ‘Where to?’

‘Drop me off at the station, then go home, son. You’ll be fit for sod all in the morning if you don’t get some kip.’

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Wednesday night shift (2)

Gilmore drew up outside the house and checked the windows. Despite the hour he half expected to see all the lights blazing and a still-smouldering Liz waiting for him. But the house seemed to be in darkness and he sighed with relief. He wasn’t ready for another slanging match. But as he quietly clicked the front door shut behind him he heard mumbled voices and a slit of light showed from under the lounge door.

He tiptoed down the hall and turned the handle. An old black and white film was playing on the television and Liz was curled up in the armchair, a couple of empty tonic water bottles on the table and a bottle of vodka on the floor by her side. She turned and held up a brim-full glass in a mock toast. ‘Home is the hunter!’ In one gulp she swigged it down, waving the empty glass triumphantly aloft.

‘It’s gone four o’clock,’ he said. ‘What are you doing up?’

She pouted. ‘You said you’d be in early. You promised me you’d be in bloody early.’

He shrugged off his jacket, loosened his tie and took a clean glass from the display cabinet. ‘I said I’d try. It just wasn’t possible.’ He flopped wearily into the other armchair and reached for the vodka bottle. It was empty. He held it up accusingly. ‘This was a full bottle on Saturday!’

‘So I bloody drank it. What else is there to do in this stinking town, sitting in this lousy room, waiting for you and you never bloody come.’

He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to wipe away the fatigue. ‘It won’t be long.’ None too hopefully he pushed himself from the chair and foraged through the display cabinet, looking for something alcoholic amongst the half-empty bitter lemon and Coke bottles. Defeated, he poured himself a glass of Coke. It was warm and flat. On the television screen Humphrey Bogart was slapping Peter Lorre around. He relaxed, rested his head against the back of the armchair and tried to fight off sleep.

‘You know what I thought,’ slurred Liz in a husky whisper, putting her empty glass on the table. ‘I thought I’d wait up for my randy, rampant, lover-boy husband and I thought we’d have some randy, rampant sex. How does that grab you, superstud?’

He was too tired. He wasn’t in the mood and he didn’t even think he was capable of making love. But he forced a grin. He didn’t want a row, a hurtful, scratching row, all in hoarse angry whispers to avoid disturbing the neighbours. ‘You’re on,’ he said, and held out his arms.

She slunk over and nestled in his lap. He kissed her. She tasted of vodka. Her body was hot and burning and her perfume was heady and erotic. Her hand crawled over him, tugging the shirt free from his trousers, her fingers exploring, caressing and lightly scratching his lower stomach. Then he wasn’t faking any more. Then he was unbuttoning and easing off her dress. Then he was biting and licking and groaning.

And then, jarring like a dentist’s drill, the door bell. A long, persistent ring. And someone banging on the door. And Frost’s voice yelling for him to open up. This is a nightmare, he thought. A bloody nightmare.

‘Sorry, son,’ said Frost, barging in as he opened the front door. ‘An emergency…’ He stopped dead as he saw Liz smouldering in the armchair, her dress unbuttoned down to the waist, making no attempt to cover her naked breasts. Frost made no attempt to hide his gaping admiration.

Gilmore made the unnecessary introduction. ‘My wife Liz.’

‘Sorry about this, love,’ apologized Frost. ‘You must hate my guts.’

‘Yes,’ she said simply.

‘I’m known as Coitus Interruptus in the trade,’ added Frost, hoping to warm up the atmosphere, but neither of them responded.

‘What do you want?’ asked Gilmore curtly.

‘Another arson attack at the Comptons’. I know it’s your case, but I’ll attend to it if you like.’

Gilmore hesitated.

‘Bloody go,’ snapped Liz. ‘Bugger off and go!’ The door slammed as she stormed out of the room.

‘I’ll wait outside,’ said Frost. ‘Be quick.’

‘I’m coming now,’ said Gilmore, grabbing his coat.

The rain had stopped, but a cold wind chased them to the car. ‘Sorry if I sodded things up for you, son,’ said Frost, settling into the passenger seat. Gilmore gave a noncommital grunt and slammed the car into gear. He looked back at the house, half hoping Liz would be at the window so he could give her a wave. A forlorn hope.

The road was clear so Gilmore was able to ignore traffic signals and speed limits and drove with his foot jammed down hard while Frost briefly outlined what he knew. ‘Compton phoned the station about half an hour ago. Someone was prowling about outside. A couple of minutes later the station alarm went off, so the prowler must have broken a window or forced a lock or something. Control sent an area car. It found the place in flames. The fire brigade’s on its way. That’s all I know so far.’ As they left the town and climbed the hill to skirt the woods an orange glow throbbed in the sky ahead. ‘Bloody hell, son,’ said Frost. ‘That’s one hell of a fire.’

Soon they could see the flashing electric-blue beacons of the fire trucks and hear the deep-throated roar of the burning wooden structure fanned to a frenzy by the wind. The scorching heat hit them as they climbed out of the car and stumbled over a spaghetti confusion of hoses.

‘Look out!’ someone yelled.

A long-drawn-out creaking screech of agony as the supporting timbers of the mill gave way, then a slow rumbling as the roof collapsed and whooshed up a tongue of flame which licked the night sky with thousands of red, dancing sequins. Firemen in yellow oilskins turned their backs as the dragon’s breath of scorched air and smoke blasted out at them.

With the roof down and the building open to the sky, the firemen were able to direct their hoses into the seething heart of the fire gradually damping down the flames and sending up clouds of steam and oily smoke.

‘Inspector! Over here.’ PC Jordan was waving to them from the side of a fire truck. There was something on the grass by his feet. Something covered by a crumpled sheet of grey plastic, dripping wet from the back-spray of the hoses.

‘Shit,’ said Frost. The plastic was draped over a dead body.

‘The firemen found him in the lounge,’ Jordan told them. ‘He’s burnt to buggery.’

Frost bent and carefully lifted the sheet, then turned his head away, but not before he had breathed in the sickening smell of burnt flesh. Gilmore, watching, felt his stomach start to churn. The dead face gawping up at him was blistered red raw and distorted by intense heat. ‘Where the hair should have been was grey powdery ash.

‘The firemen reckon he must have fallen into a pool of blazing petrol,’ explained Jordan, staring straight ahead, determined not to look down. ‘They dragged him out of the lounge.’

‘Poor bastard,’ muttered Frost. He pulled the plastic sheeting down further to see better. Welded into the bubbling black flesh, pieces of charred material. ‘Looks like pyjamas.’

‘Yes, sir. We presume he’s the householder.’

Frost forced himself to bend again and study the face closer. If it was Mark Compton it would require medical and dental records for a positive identification. Slowly, he straightened up. ‘So what happened?’

‘The place was well alight when we got here. Simms radioed for the fire brigade. No way of getting in at the front, so I tried the rear and found Mrs Compton, in her night clothes, unconscious on the lawn just outside the back door.’

'Where is she now?’

‘She’s with someone in the village, I think.’

Frost nodded for him to continue.

‘When the fire brigade got here they sent a couple of men with breathing apparatus into the house. The body was in the lounge. They dragged him out but he was already dead.’

‘I thought the sprinklers were supposed to stop this sort of fire,’ said Frost.

‘They’d been put out of action, Inspector. The water supply was turned of at the mains.’

Gilmore thought it was about time he reminded everyone that this was his case. ‘Radio through to Control,’ he snapped. ‘Tell all patrols that anyone out and about at this time of the morning, on foot or in a car, is a suspect and is to be detained for questioning.’

‘And advise all hospitals, chemists and doctors that we want to know immediately about anyone requesting treatment for burns,’ added Frost.

A car horn sounded and Dr Maltby’s Vauxhall crept into the side road. Maltby, wrapped up against the cold in a thick overcoat, climbed out and surveyed the smouldering wreck age of the once beautiful house. He spotted Frost and made his way across, stepping with exaggerated care over the hose-pipes.

‘He’s drunk again,’ hissed Gilmore.

‘Then arrest him,’ snapped Frost. ‘We need the extra work. Over here, doc!’

The doctor lurched over. ‘Terrible business, Jack.’ He nodded at the sheeted shape. ‘The husband?’

‘All that’s left of him, doc. He fell face first in some four star. What I want to know is, did he fall or was he pushed?’

Maltby pulled the sheet completely away from the body and arranged it over the wet grass so he could kneel down. He shook his head testily. ‘He’s too badly burnt. You’ll need a proper post-mortem.’ He lifted the head slightly, his fingers exploring the skull. ‘Hello…’ Carefully he moved the head so he could examine it more easily. ‘The back of the skull’s caved in.’

‘Where?’ asked Frost, squatting down beside the doctor. His nicotine-stained fingers probed. Yes, he could feel the pulpy fracture where the skull gave way under pressure. He wiped his hand on his mac and straightened up. ‘Damn, damn and double damn!’

‘Could it have happened when he fell?’ asked Gilmore.

Frost shook his head. ‘He fell face down, son… straight into the burning petrol.’

Maltby nodded his agreement. ‘I’d say he was struck from behind

… a heavy blow from a blunt instrument. If the blow didn’t kill him outright, then the fire finished him off.’

Frost’s shoulders sagged wearily. ‘It’s murder whichever way you look at it, doc.’ He shook water from the plastic sheeting and jerked it back over the body. ‘Where’s the poor sod’s wife?’

‘Ada’s looking after her,’ said Maltby. He turned to watch the firemen. The Old Mill was now a skeleton of blackened, smoking timbers which had to be continually dampened down as a malevolent wind kept fanning sparks into flames. ‘Get the bastard, Jack,’ he said, as he stumbled back to his car.

‘I’ll try,’ called Frost. He turned to Gilmore. ‘Come on, son. Let’s go and have a word with Old Mother Rigid Nipples.’

Gilmore exploded. He had had just about enough of Frost’s callous crudeness for one day. ‘Haven’t you got any bloody feeling? A man’s dead. His wife is a widow. Must everything be a cheap joke?’

Frost accepted the rebuke with a half-hearted shrug. ‘I see so many rotten things, son. If I dwelt on them, I’d probably go and chuck myself under a bus, which might make Mullett happy, but wouldn’t do the victim any good… so I joke. It makes the job a bit more tolerable… sorry if it upsets you, though.’

A concerned-looking Ada, a thick mouse-grey dressing gown over flannelette pyjamas, a man’s cap covering her curlers, led them through to the bedroom where Jill Compton, all respectable in one of Ada’s passion-killing high-necked winceyette nightdresses, lay with eyes closed, on Ada’s iron-framed single bed. Frost thought it was the most erotic sight he had ever seen and wished he wouldn’t keep thinking dirty thoughts at inopportune moments. Jill’s eyes fluttered, then opened wide in startled anxiety as Frost gently called her name She sat up Where s Mark? Is he all right?

Frost groaned inwardly. He hadn’t realized she hadn’t been told. ‘It’s bad news, I’m afraid, Mrs Compton.’

She stared at him, then at Gilmore, her eyes pleading to be told that what she feared, what she dreaded, wasn’t so. ‘No… no. .. please…’ And her head shook, rejecting what she knew they would tell her.

Frost knew of no way to deaden the hurt other than killing hope quickly. ‘Your husband is dead, Mrs Compton. The firemen got him out, but it was too late.’

At first she looked angry, as if her refusal to accept what they were telling her would make it untrue. Then her body shook as she buried her face in her hands, tears streaming between her fingers. ‘No

…’

Ada pushed forward to comfort her. ‘You’d better, go now,’ she ordered the two detectives.

‘No,’ said Frost, firmly. ‘She’s the only witness. The only person who can help us.’

Ada stood her ground, chin jutting defiantly, one arm protectively around her charge. ‘I’ve told you to go. This is neither the time nor the place.’

But, sniffing back her tears and biting hard on her lower lip, Jill spoke quietly. ‘It’s all right. I want to help. What do you want to know?’

Signalling Gilmore to get out his notebook, Frost dragged a wicker-seated chair to the side of the bed. ‘Tell us what happened.’

The detective sergeant gave a sharp cough and glared angrily. ‘This is my case,’ he reminded the inspector.

‘Sorry son,’ said Frost mildly, moving his chair back a little.

Gilmore gave the woman a sympathetic smile. ‘Tell us what happened, Mrs Compton.’

She fumbled under the pillow for a handkerchief, dabbed at her eyes, then, twisting the tiny scrap of cloth in her hands, related the course of events. ‘We went to bed just before midnight. I woke up suddenly. Mark was using the phone by the bed. He was calling the police. He had heard someone prowling about outside.’

‘Did you see who it was?’ asked Gilmore.

‘Not clearly. We looked out of the window and could see a shadow of someone moving about. Mark was angry. He grabbed a heavy torch and said he was going to teach who ever it was a lesson.’

‘He was going to use the torch as a weapon?’

She nodded. ‘I imagine so.’

‘You didn’t go downstairs with him?’

‘No. He insisted I stayed in the bedroom with the door locked. I waited. Suddenly I heard shouting and crashing, as if there was a fight. Then it went quiet. I waited, hoping Mark would come back I called him. No answer. Then I smelt burning so I unlocked the bedroom door. Thick black smoke. I could hardly see. I had to feel my way down the stairs. When I opened the lounge door, flames and smoke roared out. I could see Mark, face down on the floor. But the heat was intense. I couldn’t get to him.’

She paused, her face drawn and pained as she relived the moment. Frost started to say something, but Gilmore brusquely signalled him to be quiet.

‘I saw the lounge window was open, so I tried to get out into the garden through the back door. But the smoke was so thick. I was choking. When I found the bolts, they wouldn’t undo. I struggled and finally got them undone…’ She looked at her broken nails, then hid her hands under the bedclothes. ‘… but I must have passed out. That’s all I remember. There was a fireman… and then there was Ada.’ The effort of talking had exhausted her. Her eyes closed and her head dropped back on the pillow. ‘That’s all I remember,’ she repeated in a whisper.

‘The firemen found you collapsed just outside the back door,’ Gilmore told her. ‘Did you see anything more of the person who broke in?’

Eyes still closed, she shook her head. ‘No.’ Her body trembled with the reaction and she tried to sit up. ‘If only I could have got to Mark. He was so close. But the flames…’

Gilmore patted her arm. ‘There was nothing you have done, Mrs Compton. He was already dead when first saw him.’

She raised her face to the sergeant. ‘I pleaded with him to wait for the police. If only he had stayed with me…’ And then she threw back her head and howled in anguish, her sobs racking her body.

With a belligerent stride Ada pushed in front of Gilmore. ‘No more. She’s had enough.

Gilmore replaced the chair up against the forget-me-not patterned wallpaper. ‘Thanks for your help, Mrs Compton. And I really am most sorry.’

Ada wrapped her dressing gown around her spare frame. ‘I’ll stay with her for a while. There’s tea and biscuits in the kitchen if you want some.’

The kitchen, with the coal fire roaring away, was almost overpoweringly warm and Gilmore had to fight hard to keep his eyes open as he sipped Ada’s hot, sweet tea. Frost had twitched back the curtains to reveal the early morning sky, part-streaked with smudges of smoke from the lire. He was sprawled in the chair by the kitchen table, using a saucer as an ashtray. He too was tired. He’d have given anything to be able to climb into bed, preferably with the naked Jill Compton whose tear-stained, unmade-up face seemed to hold an erotic attraction.

His foot twitched and made contact with something under the table, something that swayed, then toppled heavily with a glassy clunk. Yawning, he lifted the tablecloth. Nudging his foot lay a wine bottle on its side. One of Ada’s home made brews. There were about twenty or so more bottles of wine bunched together under the table. ‘The stingy cow’s hiding it from us,’ he said, pulling the cork out with his teeth and taking a swig. The room shimmered, then jerked still. He replaced the cork and pushed the bottle back with the others under the table.

‘You know what I’ve been thinking?’ said Gilmore.

Frost shook his head to stop the fuzziness. ‘If it’s some thing rude, I’m all ears, son.’

‘If that poison pen letter was sent to Mark Compton, then who is the woman he’s been knocking off?’

‘I wish I knew,’ replied Frost. ‘I’d love to get some of what he’s been getting.’

‘He’s been going with another woman,’ said Gilmore. ‘There could be a jealous husband, or boyfriend.’

‘A good point, son,’ began Frost, then he stopped dead and looked under the table again as a nagging thought struck him. ‘Why has she dumped the bottles there? She’s usually so neat and tidy… everything in its place.’

‘I don’t know,’ muttered Gilmore, his tone implying he didn’t care either.

A wall cupboard in the corner caught Frost’s eye. ‘That’s where she usually keeps her wine. Quick, son. Take a look inside.’ Gilmore showed his astonishment. ‘It could be important, son.’

Anything to humour the old fool, thought Gilmore as he tugged at the handle. ‘It’s locked!’

‘Catch!’ Frost tossed him a bunch of keys. ‘Try one of these.’

The first key didn’t fit, so he tried another. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this without a search warrant.’

Frost raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. ‘You learn something new in this job every day. Someone was telling me you can’t plant false evidence any more, but I’m not that gullible.’ He lit up another cigarette. ‘Hurry it up, son.’

Another key. Still no joy. But the next glided in smooth as silk and the lock clicked. Gilmore pulled open the door then whistled softly. Inside the cupboard was a battered old Olympia typewriter. He was carrying it over to the table when a door slammed and an angry voice shrilled, ‘And just what do you think you’re doing?’

‘I tried to stop him, Ada,’ said Frost, ‘but he wouldn’t take any notice.’

‘I let you into my house. I give you tea. I give you biscuits. ..’

‘But you don’t give us your body, Ada. The one thing I’ve been lusting after.’

She wasn’t listening to Frost. Angry eyes stabbed at Gilmore who was ripping a blank page from the back of his notebook and feeding it into the roller. Her voice, shaking with rage, rose an octave. ‘Don’t you dare touch that!’ She plunged forward but Frost’s arm shot out to restrain her.

‘We’ve got to check it to make sure he hasn’t broken it, Ada. I want you to get every penny of compensation.’

The page in to his satisfaction, Gilmore pecked out a test sentence. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. He snatched the paper from the machine and studied it carefully, a grin of triumph creeping across his face. ‘The “s” and the “a” are out of alignment, Inspector. We’ve found the poison pen typewriter.’

Frost took the page from him and nodded. ‘He’s right, Ada. But I bet you’ve got a perfectly plausible explanation?’ He waited expectantly.

She folded her arms stubbornly and compressed her lips.

‘Can’t quite hear you, Ada,’ said Frost, cupping his hand to his ear.

Her eyes narrowed, but she remained silent.

Gilmore pushed himself between her and Frost. He was barely in control of himself. He kept seeing Susan Bicknell in her Mickey Mouse nightdress, stretched lifeless on the bed. ‘You don’t need to say anything, you evil-minded bitch. Because of you an old man tried to kill himself. Because of you a fifteen-year-old kid took her own life.’

She stared back at him, her eyes unflinching. ‘Then you’d better arrest me, hadn’t you?’

‘Stop fighting, you two,’ said Frost, flopping back in his chair. ‘You never wrote those bloody letters, Ada. The longest note you ever wrote said “No milk today, please, the cat’s got diarrhoea.”’ He shook an export Benson and Hedges from the packet. ‘That’s old Mr Wardley’s typewriter, isn’t it? He’s the sod who’s been sending the letters.’

Her expression didn’t change.

‘Wardley?’ exclaimed Gilmore. ‘That’s impossible. He got one of the letters. He tried to kill himself.’

‘He didn’t try very hard, did he, son? He didn’t try as hard as that poor cow Susan Bicknell.’ He folded the piece of paper into a spill and lit his cigarette from the fire. ‘I reckon Wardley didn’t swallow more than a couple of those tablets.’

‘The bottle was nearly empty,’ said Gilmore.

‘Only because he’d tipped most of the tablets out into the drawer of his bedside cabinet. He sent the poison pen letter to himself, then faked the suicide.’ He puffed smoke towards the woman. ‘I’m right, aren’t I, Ada? You can caress any part of my body if I’m wrong.’

Her lips twisted into a tight, bitter smile then she moved across to the table and started stacking the dirty cups and saucers on a tray. ‘How did you find out?’

‘Guesswork mainly, Ada. But I was bloody suspicious of that unfranked poison pen letter Wardley was supposed to have received. Everyone else’s letter went into juicy detail… every thrust, every withdrawal, each nibble of naked ear-hole all lovingly described. But there weren’t any juicy bits at all in his own letter. It was almost polite. “What would the church say if I told them what you did to those boys!” Not a mention of dick anywhere.’ He dragged hard at the cigarette. ‘And then there was the missing suicide note. It didn’t make sense you should destroy it. There was no point.’

Ada crossed the room to the sideboard. ‘I didn’t destroy it. I just didn’t want you to see it.’ From the drawer she took a sheet of blue notepaper. Frost glanced at it, then passed it over to Gilmore. ‘“A”s and “s”s out of line, son. The silly sod used the same machine for the suicide note and the poison pen letters.’

‘He thinks himself so clever, but he’s not all there,’ said Ada. ‘I found out about him last year. I went in to do his cleaning and there he was, bashing away at the typewriter, so engrossed in one of his nasty letters he never heard me.’

‘Then why didn’t you inform the police?’ asked Gilmore.

She dragged a chair to the fire and sat down. ‘He’s lived next door to me for years. I didn’t want to get him into trouble.’

‘So you just let him carry on writing his dirty letters?’

‘I made him promise he’d stop. I thought he had stopped.’ She stared into the fire then picked up the poker and shattered a lump of coal sending sparks shooting up the chimney.

‘What brought things to a head?’ asked Gilmore. ‘Why the letter to himself and the faked suicide attempt?’

She rubbed her hands as if she was cold and held them to the fire to warm them. ‘I was working up at The Mill when the post came. There was a letter addressed to Mr Compton. I recognized the blue envelope and the wonky typing right away, so I hid it in my pocket. I wasn’t going to let him cause trouble with the Comptons.’

‘Did you confront Wardley?’ Frost asked.

‘As soon as I finished work. I charged over to his cottage and told him I was going straight to the police. He said the police would never believe me. It would be his word against mine and he was a churchwarden and I was a charlady. Just then, in comes Dr Maltby with the sleeping tablets. I took the letter from my pocket and said, “Can I talk to you in private, doctor. I’ve got something to show you.” Mr Wardley went as white as a sheet. Of course, when we got outside, I gave the doctor the letter and explained how I’d got hold of it, but I didn’t tell him anything about Mr Wardley writing it. I only meant to frighten him. I can’t tell you how I felt when I went back later and it looked as if he’d killed himself.’

‘Like I said, he faked it to make you out a liar, Ada,’ said Frost, pushing himself out of his chair.

Gilmore gathered up the typewriter and followed Frost out into the cold, damp morning air where the smell of smoke and burning clung to the wind.

The Old Mill was a depressing blackened shell, dripping water which plopped mournfully into soot-filmed, debris-choked pools. The ground squelched under foot as firemen in yellow oilskins and blackened faces rolled up hoses and stowed away equipment while others, helped by members of the Forensic team, were picking through the sodden wreck age. DC Burton in an anorak over a polo-necked sweater spotted their car as they pulled up and hurried to meet them. ‘The pathologist has examined the body, Inspector. He thinks the blow on the head knocked Compton unconscious and death was due to smoke suffocation. He’ll be doing the autopsy at eleven this morning.’

‘I’ll be there,’ said Gilmore to remind everyone once again that this was his case.

‘Any joy with petrol- and smoke-smelling suspects?’ asked Frost.

‘No, sir. Charlie Alpha picked up a tramp on the Bath Road, but what he smelt of isn’t nice to say.’

‘Forensic turned anything up?’

‘Yes – those.’ Burton pointed to three heat-distorted metal petrol cans, bagged up for laboratory examination. ‘And this…’ He picked up a plastic bag containing a blackened cylinder of metal, caved in at one end. ‘They think this is the murder weapon.’

‘Compton’s torch!’ said Frost. He told Gilmore to get Mrs Compton to identify it as soon as Forensic had finished their tests.

‘That’s what I intended doing,’ hissed Gilmore through clenched teeth.

‘What’s the name of our one bloody suspect?’ asked Frost. ‘The one who picked the fight?’

‘Bradbury,’ Gilmore reminded him. The fool had a memory like a sieve.

‘That’s him! There’s an all-forces bulletin out on him. Find out if he’s been located yet.’

While Gilmore radioed through to the station, Frost peered through a smashed window at the remains of the lounge, which was now a miniature indoor lake of greasy water dotted with islands of ash and charred wood. He lit a cigarette, took one deep drag, then hurled it away. The smoke had the greasy taint of burnt flesh.

Gilmore returned, shaking his head. No joy yet on Bradbury. Frost took one last look round. Everyone seemed to be coping quite well without him. ‘We’re doing no good here, son,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s go to the hospital.’

‘The hospital?’ echoed Gilmore. ‘Why?’ Now that he had committed himself to attending the autopsy in six hours’ time, all he wanted to do was go home and get some sleep.

‘To question Wardley,’ explained Frost. ‘You said Mark Compton’s bit of spare might provide the motive for his death and Wardley knows who she is. I’ll do it on my own if you like.’

No way! thought Gilmore, slamming the car into gear. No bloody way.

At that hour of the morning Denton Hospital was a place of uneasy, muffled noises, whispers, coughs and groans. The very young probationer nurse in sole charge of the wheezing, snuffling ward wasn’t at all happy about Frost waking up one of the patients, but Frost breezily assured her that he had permission.

Wardley, deep in a trouble-free sleep, was rudely awakened by a rough shaking of his shoulder. His eyes flickered open as he tried to focus on the two strangers looking grimly down at him. One of them he recognized immediately and his heart-beat faltered before thudding away. It was that detective inspector, back again, in the middle of the night. And the look on his face. God, they knew. They had found out. He closed his eyes tightly and feigned sleep, but the renewed shaking of his shoulder nearly jerked him out of bed. ‘Yes?’ he asked in a quavery, weak, old man’s voice.

‘Get dressed,’ said Frost. ‘I’m arresting you.’

‘Arresting me?’ He pulled himself up. ‘It’s that woman next door telling lies about me, isn’t it? Don’t you believe her… she’s evil. She hates me.’

‘Not as much as I bloody hate you,’ said Frost. ‘And the only lies Ada told us was when she was covering up for you, you sod. She even hid your typewriter – the one you used for your suicide note – and for your poison pen letters.’

‘Poison pen?’ He tried to sound indignant. ‘The intention was to make people stop their filthy practices.’

‘You made Susan Bicknell stop hers,’ said Frost. ‘The poor cow killed herself.’

The skin on the old man’s knuckles stretched almost to blue transparency as he clutched at the sheet. ‘I didn’t mean that to happen. She over-reacted. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, you’re sorry?’ hissed Frost. ‘That makes it all right. We’ll dig the poor bitch up so you can apologize.’ He dragged a chair across the floor with such a loud, teeth-setting squeak that half the ward stirred uneasily. ‘Right,’ he said wearily. ‘I’m tired, my sergeant is tired, and we haven’t got time to sod about. I’m going to ask you questions, and I want answers.’

‘I’m saying nothing,’ whimpered Wardley. ‘I’m a sick man.’

The chair squeaked again as Frost stood up. ‘Arrest the bastard, Sergeant.’

‘Wait,’ said Wardley. ‘What do you want to know?’

Another squeak from the chair. Frost made himself comfortable, then shook the last export cigarette from the packet and lit up. ‘Let’s start with the pornographic video. Who’s been making them?’

‘A purveyor of filth. If I knew his name I’d tell you. I bought the video, Inspector. It wasn’t for enjoyment. I have to do these things to ferret out evil. When I screened it, I recognized the girl. Her mother goes to our church. I’ve no idea who makes and distributes them.’

‘Where did you buy it?’ Gilmore asked.

‘A newsagent’s in Catherine Street. I don’t know the name.’

‘We do,’ said Frost. ‘We’ve already arrested him.’ That part of Wardley’s story checked out anyway. ‘We’ll leave that for the moment. You sent one of your well-meaning letters to Mark Compton?’

The old man pulled himself upright, his eyes wild, his expression intense. ‘That lecher. All smug and high and mighty, but sneaking off behind his wife’s back for disgusting perversions with a prostitute.’

‘A prostitute?’ said Gilmore, glumly. This ruined his theory. If Compton’s bit of spare was a prostitute, a vengeful boyfriend or husband would have his work cut out.

‘Never mind, son,’ said Frost. ‘We’ll check her out any way.’ He asked Wardley where she lived.

‘Where all these high-priced harlots live. In Queen’s Court – those new flats at the back of the big supermarket… end flat, third floor.’

‘If they were up on the third floor, how could you see through the bedroom window?’

Wardley smiled. ‘The multi-storey car-park overlooks her flat. All you need is a strong pair of field-glasses.’

‘And a dirty vicious bastard to use them,’ said Frost.

PC Dave Simms tucked the area car into the lay-by off the Bath Road and reached for the thermos flask. His observer, PC Jordan, yawned and stretched his arms. ‘I’ll be damn glad when this shift is over,’ he sniffed. ‘I’m sure I’ve got this flu bug coming on.’

‘Don’t breathe over me then,’ replied Simms, slopping steaming hot coffee into a plastic cup and passing it over.

Jordan sipped at the cup, then his eyes narrowed. ‘Hello. What’s this?’

Headlights approaching. Coming from the opposite direction to the fire, but they had been given instructions to stop everyone. Anyone out and about at this time of the morning was a potential suspect.

It was a small black van which slowed down and stopped as they sounded the siren and cut in front of it. The driver, a short, sharp-featured man with long greasy hair, in his late forties, eyed them warily. ‘What’s the trouble, officer?’

Simms asked to see the man’s driving licence, his nose twitching, trying to detect the smell of smoke, or petrol, but smelling only fresh paint.

‘I haven’t got my licence with me. What’s this all about?’

‘Just routine, sir. Do you mind telling us what you are doing out at this time of night?’

Jordan was checking the van. The smell of new paint was strong. The vehicle had been freshly painted. A pretty ropey job, done with a paint brush, not a spray gun. He tried the rear doors. They opened.

‘Leave them alone!’ yelled the man, reaching forward to switch on the engine, but Simms’ hand clamped round his wrist.

The beam of Jordan’s torch found a stack of cardboard boxes. He pulled one forward and looked inside. Jewellery. Lots of jewellery. Mainly old-fashioned, but good quality – brooches, lockets, bangles, rings.

‘Well, well, well,’ smirked Jordan. ‘And what is your perfectly reasonable explanation for these, sir?’

The hospital was slowly waking up as they clattered down the stone stairs past the first shift of cleaners with mops and buckets. They could hear the car radio as they crossed the pavement.

‘Frost,’ he yawned into the handset.

‘We’ve got him, Jack,’ reported Sergeant Wells triumphantly.

‘You’ve got Bradbury?’ asked Frost, unable to believe his luck. ‘Is he dripping with petrol, smothered in blood and carrying a blunt instrument?’

‘Not Bradbury,’ replied Wells, testily. Frost was always joking at the wrong moment. ‘No joy with him yet. But we’ve got Wally Manson. Jordan and Simms picked him up. His van’s a bloody treasure trove – full of stolen gear from the senior citizen break-ins. Mr Mullett is cock-a-hoop.’

'What’s that about Mr Mullet’s cock?’ asked Frost innocently. ‘This is a very bad line.’ He replaced the handset. ‘The station, son.’

But Gilmore was already on the way.

Frost sank down in his seat again. He dug down in his pocket, but the Benson and Hedges packet was empty.

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Thursday morning shift

A quarter to six in the morning and Mullett, freshly shaven, highly polished, and immaculately dressed in his best tailored uniform, emerged from his office, mentally rehearsing the speech he would make to the press and the television cameras after they had charged Manson with the ‘Granny Ripper’ killings. He waylaid the dishevelled Frost and Gilmore, both looking tired and edgy, on their way to the Interview Room. ‘No doubts about the right man this time, Inspector. Hanlon has definitely identified an item of jewellery from Manson’s van as belonging to one of the murder victims and there’s a positive forensic report on those jeans.’

‘Great!’ muttered Frost, trying to share his commander’s enthusiasm. He always got worried when things appeared to be going too well.

They looked in on the exhibits store where Arthur Hanlon, his nose red and sore from repeated blowing, was hovering over a collection of cardboard boxes, the spoils from Wally Manson’s van. ‘Mr Mullett tells me it’s all cut and dried,’ said Frost. ‘Wally’s confessed and hanged himself to spare the state the cost of a trial.’

‘Not quite, Jack,’ giggled Hanlon, blowing his nose with a sodden handkerchief. ‘He’s denying everything at the moment – you know what a slimy little sod he is.’

‘Yes,’ nodded Frost. ‘I sometimes think he’s Mr Mullett’s illegitimate son. Anyway, what have we got?’

Hanlon pushed one of the boxes over and raised the flaps. ‘This was a surprise, Jack.’ The box was packed tight with pornographic videos. ‘Forty-nine in all,’ reported Hanlon. ‘The same titles as we got from the newsagent’s.’ Frost grunted and pulled the next box towards him. This one held assorted house-breaking tools – screwdrivers, jemmies, hammers, glass cutters. The last box, the smallest of the lot, contained various small plastic supermarket bags. Selecting one at random, Frost looked inside, then handed it over to Gilmore. Jewellery. Gold rings, chains, lockets, crucifixes. Another bag held necklaces and ear-rings. Yet another, old- fashioned cameo brooches, and heavy dress jewellery.

‘We’ve only positively identified this, so far,’ Hanlon told them, fishing out a pearl-studded crucifix on a silver chain. ‘But it’s the one that matters. This belonged to Mrs Alice Ryder.’

Frost held the crucifix in his open hand. It looked like silver, but it wasn’t and the pearls were false. It was worth a few pounds at the most and the old lady who fought to stop it being stolen had had her skull smashed in and had died in Demon Hospital. ‘Mullett was yapping about positive forensic evidence?’

‘The stains are definitely blood, the same group as the old lady, and there were small fragments of china which matched up to that vase he smashed getting through the window.’

‘What have you told Manson?’

‘I haven’t told him anything. I’ve only questioned him about being in possession of stolen property.’

‘You haven’t mentioned the killings?’

‘Good. Let’s keep the sod guessing. Bring him to Interview Room Number 1.’ Frost patted his pockets and realized he was out of cigarettes. He sent Gilmore back to the office to fetch a packet from his desk drawer.

Gritty, tired and irritated at being treated as a messenger boy, Gilmore yanked the drawer open. Underneath the camouflage of two ancient files were a couple of packs, each containing 200 Benson and Hedges export only cigarettes. He paused. A way to get back into his Divisional Commander’s good books. This was exactly the sort of thing Mullett had asked him to look out for. Evidence of Frost’s dubious practices. A quiet word in Mullett’s ear. ‘I don’t know if I ought to be saying this, sir, against a fellow officer, but…’ He could already see the Cheshire cat grin spreading over the Divisional Commander’s face. He stuffed a spare packet in his pocket as evidence. Then be noticed something protruding beneath one of the packs in the drawer. A battered, blue material-covered case. Something else Frost had helped himself to? He clicked it open. Snug on red plush a silver cross on a dark blue ribbon, the inscription in the centre reading For Gallantry. Frost’s famous medal. The George Gross. The civilian equivalent to the VC. Gilmore stared at it, then quickly clicked the case shut and replaced it at the bottom of the drawer together with the spare pack from his pocket. Frost would never know it, but yet again his medal had got him out of possible trouble.

‘Gentleman to see you, Inspector,’ announced Hanlon, pushing Wally Manson into the Interview Room.

Manson blinked as his eyes adjusted to the bright light after the shaded bulb of his cell. Through a haze of blue smoke he could see the unwelcome sight of Detective Inspector Jack Frost sprawled untidily in a chair, a cigarette dangling from his lips. On the table in front of him were a couple of the boxes taken from his van.

‘Nice of you to drop in, Wally,’ said Frost, waving a hand at the other chair by the table. ‘Sit down.’ Behind the inspector, leaning against the wall under the tiny window, was a younger man he didn’t recognize, in a smart suit. The younger man looked tired and frazzled and nasty.

Gilmore contemplated Manson with disgust. The man was a slob with his weasel-like face, lank greasy hair and eyes that kept shifting from side to side; a cornered rat looking for an escape route.

‘I don’t know what this is all about, Mr Frost,’ Manson said, shrinking down into the offered chair. ‘Like I told the other gentleman, I found those boxes dumped in a lay-by. I was on the way to the police station to hand them in when those two coppers picked me up.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Wally,’ said Frost, shaking ash all over the floor, ‘I was hoping you were guilty, because we’re going to frame you anyway.’

Wally grinned at the inspector’s joke, but Frost didn’t seem to be joking. He dipped into one of the cardboard boxes and pulled out a pearl crucifix which he swung by the chain under Wally’s nose.

‘She identified you, Wally.’

Manson jerked his head away. ‘Like I told the other officer, Mr Frost, I found these boxes in a lay-by…’

‘They’ll find you in a bleedin’ lay-by if you don’t stop sodding me about, Wally. You’ve been identified, we know you did it and we’re going to get a confession and a conviction by fair means or foul. So tell us about it.’

‘If only I knew what you’re talking about, Mr Frost,’ said Manson, giving his unconvincing impression of puzzled innocence, then nearly jumping out of his chair as the young thug behind him suddenly bellowed in his ear, ‘We’re talking about the woman whose skull you fractured, you scum-bag.’

‘There’s no need to raise your voice, Sergeant,’ reproved Frost mildly. ‘He’s going to give us everything we want with out bullying, aren’t you, Wally?’

‘I’ll help you if I can,’ said Manson, rubbing his ear.

Frost beamed a friendly smile that made the prisoner’s blood run cold. ‘Good. Then help me with Mrs Alice Ryder, the old lady from Clarendon Street who you put in hospital.’ At this stage he wasn’t going to let Manson know that she was dead.

Manson looked hurt. ‘Not me, Mr Frost. That’s not my style.’

Frost snorted a cloud of Benson and Hedges smoke. ‘Style! You haven’t got any bleeding style. If you’re going to sod me about, I can sod you about. Notebook, Sergeant.’ Gilmore took out his notebook and flipped it open.

‘Stand up,’ snapped Frost to Manson.

Manson hestiated so Gilmore yanked him to his feet.

‘Walter Richard Manson,’ droned Frost, ‘alias the Granny Ripper

…’

‘Granny Ripper?’ croaked Manson, his astonishment sounding genuine this time.

‘Shut up!’ barked Gilmore.

‘Alias the Granny Ripper,’ continued Frost, ‘I am arresting you on three counts of murder…’ To Gilmore he said, ‘Fill in the details – I forget the names and dates.’ Gilmore nodded, his pencil scribbling furiously. ‘You are not obliged to say anything – etc. etc., but anything you do say, blah, blah, blah. Take it as read, Wally – you know the words better than I do.’

‘I am totally innocent of these preposterous charges,’ said Manson smugly, twisting his head to make sure Gilmore was writing it all down.

Frost put his hand on Gilmore’s notebook to stop him writing. ‘Hold on, Sergeant. I’m sure we can do better than that.’ He scratched his scar thoughtfully. ‘Put… “The prisoner replied I didn’t mean to kill them. I’m terribly sorry for what I did. I deserve to be punished.” ’

The man’s jaw dropped. ‘I never said that.’

Frost lit up another export only. ‘What you actually said doesn’t matter, Wally. It’s what he puts down in his book that gets read out in court.’

Manson shrunk back in his chair. ‘I shall deny saying it. I shall say it’s all lies.’

‘Of course you will, Wally. And it will be the word of a cheap slimy little crook with a record against a detective inspector with a medal. Courts seem to think that people with George Crosses are incapable of telling lies.’

‘That’s not fair,’ said Manson, almost in tears.

‘Life’s not fair when some bastard breaks into your house and smashes your skull in,’ snapped Frost.

Wally’s tongue flicked snake-like across dried lips. ‘You wouldn’t perjure yourself, Mr Frost?’ he pleaded, but the expression on the inspector’s face said, ‘Yes, I bloody well would.’

Frost leant his head back and treated the ceiling to a squirt of smoke. ‘Not perjury, Wally – it’s called oiling the wheels of justice. Take him away, Sergeant, and charge him. We’ll have him in court first thing tomorrow.’

Hanlon stepped forward and took the man’s arm, but Wally shook him off. ‘What do I get if I co-operate?’

‘My undying gratitude, Wally – and perhaps a whisper to the judge about how helpful you were.’

Manson hesitated. ‘This old lady in Clarendon Street. You say she identified me?’

‘She described you perfectly, Wally. She said her attacker was an ugly little bastard with bad breath and dandruff. We showed her some photographs and she picked you out right away.’

Manson gnawed at his lower lip. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt her, Mr Frost. She came at me like a bloody tiger.’

‘An eighty-one-year-old tiger,’ said Frost. ‘What did she attack you with – her pension book?’

‘A knife, Mr Frost… a flaming great knife.’ He tugged the shirt from his trousers and lifted it to expose his stomach. ‘Look what she did to me!’ A thick pad of dirty red-mottled cotton wool, blood still weeping from the edges, was strapped to his stomach by strips of sticking plaster. ‘She’d have killed me. I had to hit her to defend myself.’ He fumbled at the dressing. ‘Do you want to see what it’s like underneath?’

Frost waved the offer away. ‘No, thanks, Wally. It’s a bit too near your dick and I haven’t had my breakfast yet. I’ll get the doctor to have a look at it.’ He slid from his chair and went to the door, making a small jerk of his head to signal Hanlon to follow.

Outside in the passage, Frost closed the door firmly and lowered his voice. ‘Here’s a turn-up for the bleedin’ book, Arthur. Did you check that knife to see if it matched up with any of the old girl’s cutlery?’

‘No, Jack. There were no prints on it and the damn thing had been honed razor sharp. I just assumed it came from her attacker.’

‘She was terrified of burglars. She probably kept a sharpened knife to protect herself. Check it out now – and find out what blood group Wally is. It should be on his prison file.’ He followed the worried-looking Hanlon down the corridor and asked Sergeant Wells to call the duty police surgeon.

The police surgeon dropped unused bandages into his bag and clicked it shut. ‘I don’t think there’s any danger, but just to be on the safe side, the hospital should check him over.’ He gave Frost his ‘Payment Request’ form to sign and checked it carefully before nodding his goodbye.

An agitated Arthur Hanlon was waiting outside the Interview Room. His shamefaced expression told Frost all.

‘The knife came from her cutlery drawer,’ Hanlon admitted. ‘She’s got a carving fork and a sharpening steel all in the same pattern to match. I’m sorry, Jack, I should have checked.’

‘Never mind, Arthur,’ said Frost. ‘It makes me feel better to know I’m not the only twat in the force.’

‘And Wally’s blood group is 0, the same as the dead woman’s, so the blood on the knife could well have come from him.’

‘Damn. The knife was the only thing that tied him to the other two killings and we haven’t got that now. Never mind, let’s do our best with what little we’ve got – as the bishop said to the actress.’

In the Interview Room, which now reeked of antiseptic, their prisoner was noisily drinking a cup of tea, watched by a sour-faced Gilmore. Frost dropped wearily into his chair. ‘Right, Wally. The doctor says you’re not going to die, but I’ve got over my disappointment. Tell me about the old dear at Clarendon Street – right from the beginning.’ He pushed a cigarette across the table and lit it for the man. ‘And cover up your stomach – it’s wobbling like a bloody blancmange.’

Manson sucked gratefully at the cigarette. ‘Thanks, Mr Frost.’ He tucked his shirt back in and readjusted his belt. ‘This was last Monday night – one of those nights when everything went wrong.’

Frost nodded in sympathy. He had many nights like that.

‘The first house I tried I thought was going to be easy. Up on the dustbin and through the back window. I could hear the old boy talking to his wife downstairs, so I thought the coast was clear. Straight in the bedroom and there’s this weird niff… I flashes my torch around and, bloody hell – there’s a decomposing corpse grinning at me. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I had to nip in the pub for some Dutch courage and who comes walking through the door but you and that bloke there with the fancy aftershave. This just ain’t my bloody night, I thought. But I phoned you. I told you about the body.’

‘I know, Wally,’ nodded Frost. ‘I recognized your voice.’

‘I should have packed it in, but I needed some readies – I owed the bookie a couple of hundred and he was screaming for it. I’d already marked out this house in Clarendon Street. It looked easy and they said this old lady had cash all over the place. It must have been well bloody hidden – I never found it. The bedroom was empty. She was in the other room watching the telly, then, just my flaming luck, I knocks this vase over and the next thing I know she’s charging in with the knife, stashing away. I lashed out in self-defence and she went out like a light.’ He took another drag at his cigarette. ‘It was all her fault, Mr Frost. I could have sued her for what she did to me. You know the law – you’re only supposed to use reasonable force in ejecting a burglar, and gouging chunks out of his gut with a carving knife ain’t reasonable force.’

‘Neither is smashing someone’s skull in,’ barked Gilmore from behind him.

‘A tap, Mr Frost, that’s all I gave her. A tap with me jemmy, just to discourage her. The bloody knife was stuck in my stomach and I had to pull it out. I’d tore my rubber gloves in the struggle, so I wiped the handle clean in case my prints were on it, then grabbed up a few bits of jewellery and got the hell out of there. When I read in the paper next day she was in Intensive Care, it frightened the shit out of me – if you’ll pardon the expression. I never did another job from that night to this. That’s the honest, gospel truth.’

Frost shook another cigarette out of the packet and tapped it on the table. ‘Tell me the honest gospel truth about the other poor cows, Wally. Did they all come at you with knives I and then commit hara-kiri?’ He watched the prisoner closely, but unless Manson was a brilliant actor, he didn’t seem to know what Frost was talking about.

‘Others? What are you trying to pin on me?’

Frost opened the file and spread out colour photographs of the two dead women showing their wounds in vivid close up, his eyes still locked on Manson’s face.

Wally shuddered and turned his head. ‘Bloody hell, Mr Frost. That’s horrible.’ He fumbled for a grubby handkerchief to mop his brow. ‘You ain’t suggesting they’re down to me? I’ve never killed anyone in my life.’

‘Yes, you have, Wally,’ said Frost, grimly. ‘The old girl you discouraged by caving in her skull died in hospital.’

‘Come off it, Inspector,’ said Wally, grinning to show that he had seen through Frost’s bluff. ‘There’s no way a little tap would.. .’ And then he saw Frost’s expression and knew he was serious. ‘Oh my God!’ The grin froze solid and his face drained of colour. ‘Dead?’

Frost nodded.

‘Bloody hell, Mr Frost. She came at me – with a knife. I had no choice – it was self-defence.’

‘Were these self-defence?’ asked Frost, smacking his hand on the photographs.

‘You’re not pinning them on me, Mr Frost. I’ll cough to the old girl, but that’s all.’

Frost gave him a disarming smile. ‘Fair enough, Wally. Tell you what – as we’re mates – cough to the others and I’ll give you self-defence on the first one.’

‘I never bleedin’ did the others. How can I make you believe me?’

‘I’d consider an alibi, Wally. Where were you Tuesday night?’

Manson looked appalled. ‘I can’t give you an alibi without incriminating myself. I was doing another job.’

‘Don’t be a twat, Wally. We’re talking murder and you’re talking petty burglary.’

Manson gave a hopeless shrug. ‘I can’t bloody win, can I? All right, on Tuesday night I did some cars over at Forest View – I got a CD player from one and a couple of cassette players from the others.’

‘What about Sunday?’

‘I did a house in Appleford Court. Got away with around?80. Then I tried a car round the back but the flaming alarm went off.’

Frost nodded. He knew about the Appleford Court burglary and he’d check on the cars. But this was Sunday night. Mary Haynes was killed in the afternoon. ‘What about Sunday afternoon?’

‘I stayed in. I had it away with Belle.’

‘Let’s say that took a minute – half a minute if you kept your boots on. What did you do with the rest of the time?’

‘I stayed in until six – Belle will vouch for me.’

Frost gave a snort. ‘She’s as big a liar as you are. You’ve got no alibi for the time of the killing, and we’ve found a pair of your jeans soaked in blood.

‘That was my blood, Mr Frost…’ Wally was almost in tears. ‘You’ve got to believe me.’

‘The court has got to believe you, Wally, not me.’ Frost scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Feel like doing a deal?’

Manson regarded Frost warily. ‘What sort of a deal?’

‘A bloody good one, Wally. We’ve got a whole stack of outstanding burglaries and car thefts on file. I want you to cough to every single one that’s down to you…’

‘Now hold on, Mr Frost,’ Manson protested.

‘Do yourself a favour and listen, Wally. Whatever sentences you get will run concurrently: one burglary or a hundred, you won’t even feel it. In return, I’m prepared to tell the court how helpful you’ve been and to recommend to the DPP that we accept your plea of manslaughter in the case of Alice Ryder. To help you make up your mind, if you say no, we’re going for murder.’

Manson chewed at his finger while he thought this over. ‘What about them two?’ He pointed to the photographs on the table.

‘Call me a sentimental old sod, Wally, but providing nothing happens to make me change my mind, I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt over them two.’

Wally sighed. ‘All right, Mr Frost. You win.’

‘Good boy,’ smiled Frost, scooping the photographs back into the file and standing.

Behind the prisoner, Gilmore’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. The inspector had given almost nothing away – the DPP would probably have settled for manslaughter anyway – and in return a whole stack of out-standings would be cleared in one go and Denton’s ‘Crime Return’ would start looking healthy again. Anxious to share the undoubted credit this would accrue, he dropped into Frost’s vacated chair, ready to start taking Manson’s statements. His scowl deepened when Frost informed him that the little fat slob, Hanlon, would be taking over from now and it was with the greatest reluctance he vacated the chair.

At the door, Frost stopped and smote his forehead with his palm. He had almost forgotten the videos. ‘Where did you get them?’

Wally hung his head. ‘I nicked them from a car. Wouldn’t have touched them had I known what they were like. Blimey, I like a bit of the old sex and violence as much as the next man, but I draw the line at dogs… they may be man’s best friend, but that one was being too bloody friendly.’

‘Details, Wally.’

‘I’m driving in the van the Saturday night before last, about ten o’clock, and I spots this big flash motor parked round the back of the Market Square.’

‘What sort of car?’ Gilmore asked. ‘What make?’

‘I don’t know. An expensive motor, all gleaming. Black, I think

… the seats looked like real leather. Anyway, I wasn’t there to admire it. I jemmied open the boot, grabbed this box and I’m back in my van before anyone spots me.’

Frost prodded Manson for more details, but there was nothing else he could tell them, only that it was an expensive set of wheels.

Outside in the corridor, Gilmore’s anger boiled over. ‘You’re letting Hanlon take his statement? We get a confession on the Ryder murder and Manson is going to cough on all his other jobs. We do all the work and you’re going to let Hanlon take all the credit!’

‘I can’t be sodded about with all that paperwork,’ said Frost. ‘We’ve got enough on our plates without having to take yards and yards of statement down.’ He yawned. ‘I don’t know about you, son, but I’m going home for some kip.’

Gilmore, still angry, watched the old cretin shuffle off down the corridor. Just his lousy luck to be stuck with that apology for a policeman. He was being associated with Frost’s many failures, but wasn’t getting the chance to be involved with his all too few successes. Just because the fool had killed all his own promotion prospects, there was no need to deny them to everyone else. Damn and blast the stupid burk. He stormed off to the car-park.

As he was settling down in bed, Frost remembered he hadn’t reported back to Mullett about Wally Manson. Ah well, he’d worry about that in the morning.

The jangling of a bell woke Gilmore up. He fumbled for the alarm, but the bell rang on. The bedside clock tried to tell him it was ten o’clock but he felt as if he had only been asleep a couple of minutes. The ringing went on and some one was banging at the front door. He pulled on his dressing gown and staggered downstairs.

A motor-cycle policeman holding a crash helmet asked him if he was Detective Sergeant Gilmore and told him to pick up Inspector Frost immediately.

There had been another Ripper killing.

‘Why knock me up?’ growled Gilmore. ‘Haven’t you heard of the telephone?’

‘Haven’t you heard of putting it back on the hook?’ called the policeman, kick-starting his bike and roaring off.

Yes, the damn handset was off. Mentally cursing Liz, Gilmore replaced it and dashed into the bathroom for a quick cold shower which he hoped would jar him into consciousness. He had finished dressing when the front door slammed and Liz returned from shopping, the bottles clinking in her carrier bag.

‘You’re going out again?’ she shrilled. ‘Out all night and now you’re going out again?’

He patted on aftershave, then knotted his tie and adjusted it in the bathroom mirror. ‘I’ve got to. There’s been another murder.’ His head was aching from not enough sleep and he could have done without any more aggro.

She pushed past him, her face ugly, not saying a word.

He slipped on his camel-hair overcoat and made sure he had his car keys. ‘I’ll get back as soon as I can – I promise.’

‘Don’t bloody bother,’ she snapped, slamming down the shopping. ‘Don’t bloody bother.’

Frost, looking as gritty and crumpled as he had done the night before, was waiting outside his house and he grunted thankfully as he slumped into the front passenger seat. ‘Another old girl slashed,’ he told Gilmore. ‘Haven’t got the full details yet.’

The address was Kitchener Mansions, a block of old people’s flats. The lift, its wet floor smelling of pine disinfectant, juddered them up to the third floor. DC Burton, waiting for them outside flat number 311, looked shattered. ‘It’s a messy one, Inspector.’

‘Tell me something new,’ muttered Frost gloomily, following Burton into the flat.

They walked into a tiny passage, squeezing past a small table holding a telephone and a plastic piano-key index, then on to a small living-room which seemed to be full of people, all keeping well back from the object in the centre of the floor. ‘Let the dog see the rabbit,’ said Frost, barging through.

The old lady, fully dressed, sat in an armchair, her head back, empty eyes staring at the ceiling. Her neck grinned with the blood-gummed lips of a cut throat. Her stomach had been slashed open so that her intestines bulged out on to her lap. At her feet the grey-carpeted floor was sodden with the blood pumped out by her panic-stricken heart as the knife ripped and tore. The tiny room had the smell of an abattoir.

‘Flaming hell!’ muttered Frost. He backed away. He had seen enough.

Even Ted Roberts, the SOC officer, no stranger to violent death, was shaken and had difficulty in keeping his hands steady as he adjusted his camera lens for close-ups of the neck wound.

Gilmore pulled his eyes away from the corpse, and looked around the room. He recognized the uniformed constable, PC Simms, who had arrested Manson the night before. He also recognized the two men from Forensic who had been at Greenway’s house. The duty police surgeon, a thin solemn-looking man busily engaged in filling in his Police Expense Claim form, he hadn’t seen before.

A light oak sideboard stood against the far wall. On it a cut-glass fruit bowl held some apples and a black leather purse. Gilmore nudged Frost and pointed it out to him.

Carefully stepping wide to avoid the puddles of blood, Frost picked up the purse with his handkerchief. It bulged with the pension money the old lady had drawn from the main Denton post office the previous morning. He counted it quickly. Nearly one hundred pounds. Gloomily he pushed it back into the purse. ‘How come the killer didn’t take this?’

‘Perhaps he was disturbed?’ suggested Gilmore. ‘He heard someone coming and legged it away.’

‘Perhaps,’ muttered Frost, who wasn’t convinced. He nosed through the other compartments of the purse. An uncollected prescription for some sleeping tablets, a hospital appointment card, a membership card for the Reef Bingo Club, and some ancient raffle tickets. In the last compartment he found two Yale keys; one was for the front door, but the other was a maverick. He clicked the purse shut and returned it to the fruit bowl. “What has been nicked?’

‘Nothing, as far as we can tell,’ answered Burton. ‘Nothing seems to be disturbed.’ He moved away so Frost could look into the bedroom where everything was as neat and tidy as the murdered woman had left it. Frost opened a couple of drawers. The contents clearly had not been touched.

‘Like I said,’ offered Gilmore, ‘he heard someone coming and legged it before he could nick anything.’

‘Perhaps,’ muttered Frost, still doubtful. Back to Burton. ‘All right, son. Let’s have some details.’

Burton flipped open his notebook. ‘Her name is Doris Watson, seventy-six. She’s a widow and has a son living in Denton.’

‘Anyone contacted him?’ interrupted Frost.

Burton shook his head. ‘We’ve been waiting for you, sir.’

Frost sent Gilmore to look the son up in the telephone index in the hall. ‘Ring him. Ask if he can come over. Don’t tell him what it’s about.’ He nodded for Burton to continue.

‘Her neighbour, Mrs Proctor, in the next flat saw her at eight o’clock last night when she called here to borrow a Daily Mirror to read. A little before ten she knocked again to return it, but got no answer.’

‘By ten, she was dead,’ called the police surgeon, picking up his bag ready to leave.

‘You’re bloody precise all of a sudden,’ commented Frost. ‘You usually won’t even pin yourself down to the day of the week. Are you certain she was dead by ten?’

The doctor shrugged. Nothing was certain in determining the time of death. ‘Give or take an hour each way,’ he hedged.

‘Thanks for sod all,’ sniffed Frost as the doctor took his leave. He raised his eyebrows at Gilmore who had finished phoning.

‘All I get is his answering machine,’ Gilmore told him. ‘I left a message for him to phone the station.’

Frost’s eyes travelled round the room. No sign of forcible entry. The killer must have come in through the front door.

They moved through the hall to take a look at the door which had additional bolts fitted and also a security chain, but not a very strong one. There was a peephole lens so any caller could be verified before the door was opened. She was nervous of callers, but when someone knocked some time after eight o’clock at night she had drawn the bolts, Unhooked the security chain and let them in. It had to be someone she knew. Someone she trusted.

‘Her son?’ offered Gilmore.

‘He’ll do for starters,’ grunted Frost. “Who found her?’

‘The old dear in the next flat – Mrs Proctor,’ Burton told him.

‘OK. Burton and Jordan – knock on doors. Find out if anyone saw or heard anything. Gilmore, come with me. We’ll chat up Old Mother Proctor.’

Mrs Proctor, her untidy grey hair in need of combing, squinted and blinked watery eyes at the warrant card held out for her inspection. ‘I’ll have to take you on trust,’ she finally decided. ‘My eyes aren’t too good this time of the morning.’ And to prove it, she bumped into the hall table as she unsteadily led them through to her untidy lounge. ‘The old dear’s pissed!’ hissed Frost to Gilmore.

‘Sit down,’ she mumbled, breathing gin fumes all over them. Frost sat on something hard. An empty gin bottle. He carefully stood it on the floor. She flopped down in the chair opposite and tried unsuccessfully to stop her body swaying from side to side.

A messy room with dirty underwear draped over chairs and unwashed glasses in abundance. The gas-fire was going full blast and the room was hot and close.

She hiccuped gin fumes and fanned them away. ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ Thinking she meant tea, Frost nodded, but she slopped gin into two dirty cups and handed one each to the detectives. ‘Get that down you!’ Frost eyed the tea-coloured gin swilling about in the cup with tea-leaves floating on its surface. It was a bit early in the morning, but what the hell. He downed it in one gulp.

Mrs Proctor nodded her approval and topped up her own cup from the bottle. ‘I don’t usually indulge this time of the morning, but after seeing her, in that chair and all that blood…’ The recollection required a quick swallow and a second helping.

Frost nodded sympathetically. He noticed a line of birthday cards on the mantelpiece. ‘Someone’s birthday?’

She suddenly burst into tears. ‘Mine – and not a very happy one. A bloody fine present, finding your next-door neighbour butchered.’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’ Tottering over to the mantelpiece she took down one of the cards with a picture of a basketful of kittens. ‘This is her card. The very last card she ever sent me.’

‘Very nice,’ said Frost, unenthusiastically.

She sniffed derisively. ‘I hate cats – they stink the bloody place out. Still, I expect she only bought it because it was cheap.’ She leant forward confidentially. ‘I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but she really was a tight-fisted old cow.’

‘You don’t say!’ said Frost.

‘I do say. Her purse always looked as if it was pregnant it was packed with notes, but you never saw her put her hand in her pocket to buy you a drink.’

Frost gave a disapproving shake of the head. Mrs Proctor started to say something else then burst into tears. ‘Here am I running the poor woman down and she’s lying dead in her chair.’ She raised a tear-streaked face. ‘It was awful when I went in there and saw all that blood…’

‘I know it’s upsetting,’ soothed Frost, ‘so I’ll get this over as soon as I can. You borrowed the Daily Mirror from her?’

‘I borrowed it at eight o’clock. I went to return it at ten, but she wouldn’t answer the door.’

‘Was that unusual?’ asked Gilmore, distastefully eyeing the gin slurping about in his sugar-encrusted cup.

‘Bloody unusual. She was such a mean old bitch, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I hadn’t returned her paper… afraid I might run off with it. I banged at the door. No reply. So I went to bed.’

‘Then what?’

‘This morning I expected her to send Interpol round to arrest me for hanging on to her lousy paper, so I tried her door again. Still no reply. I thought she might be ill with that flu virus thing, so I let myself in.’

‘How did you get into her flat?’

She fumbled in her apron pocket and produced a key. ‘I’ve got the spare key to her flat and she’s got the one to mine.’

Frost nodded. The maverick key explained.

‘I didn’t think I’d be able to get in with the key as she always put on the bolts and the chain. But it opened, and I went in and…’ Her body shook at the recollection.

He leant across and patted her hand. ‘I know it’s difficult, love. Just take your time.’ At last, after several false starts, she managed to stem the flow and bravely nodded her willingness to continue. ‘When you saw her last night to borrow the newspaper, did she say she was expecting anyone?’

‘No. She just gave me the paper like she always did bloody begrudgingly.’

‘After that, did you hear anything?’

She blinked at him. ‘Like what?’

Like a bloody woman being disembowelled, you stupid cow, thought Frost. ‘Anything at all that might help us?’ he asked sweetly.

‘No – I had the telly on. I like to read the paper with the telly on – it gives me something to occupy my mind.’ She shivered. ‘Poor Doris was terrified of something like this happening ever since she heard about this Granny Ripper maniac. She was going to get a stronger chain put on her door, but she left it too late.’

‘The chain wouldn’t have helped her,’ said Frost. ‘She let this bloke in like an old friend. Did she have many friends?’

‘Hardly any. She was such a tight-fisted cow, no-one liked her and she hardly ever went out – except to bingo and the club. The senior citizens’ club – it’s run by the church.’

‘Did you go to her club?’

‘No, but she used to get me to go to bingo with her – she was nervous of being out on her own – but I gave it up a year ago. I don’t approve of gambling. Besides, I never bloody won anything.’

Frost shook his head both in sympathy and to keep him self awake. The gas-fire, aided by the gin, was strongly soporific. ‘She only went to the daytime bingo sessions, I suppose?’

‘Yes. She didn’t even like coming back in the dark late afternoon, but that nice driver used to bring her right to her door – leave his coach and escort her right up to the flat.’

Frost’s drooping head suddenly snapped up. ‘What driver?’

‘Of the coach. They lay on this free coach for the bingo picks you up in the town and brings you back.’

‘Only back to the town centre, surely?’ asked Frost.

‘That’s all they’re supposed to do, but if you’ve got a nice driver and he passes your door, he’ll drop you off. It’s almost as good as getting a taxi.’

‘And this nice driver… would he go with you to your door, wait until you got safely inside, help you get the key out from under the mat, or pull the string through the letter- box, or something?’

‘Some of them do. Some just drop you off at the corner.’

‘Hmm.’ Frost spat out a tea-leaf. ‘Mrs Watson was nervous, even of coming home late afternoons, and yet she let someone into her flat at night. Any ideas on who that might be?’

‘The only person I can think of is her poncey son. He lives in Denton somewhere. He often came to see her.’

‘What is he like?’

‘A nasty piece of work. Do you know what he had the nerve to say to me? He said, “Why don’t you buy your own Daily Mirror instead of scrounging one from my poor mother?”

‘Sounds a real right bastard,’ Frost confided, rising from his chair. ‘Thanks for your help. An officer will be along soon to take a written statement. If you think of anything else – anything – that might help, let the officer know.’

Gilmore pushed his untasted cup of gin to one side and followed him out.

In the murder flat they had to flatten themselves against the wall as the body was manhandled out on a stretcher by two ambulance men who had difficulty getting it round the tight bend to the front door, the corner of the stretcher ripping a section of the floral wallpaper in the process. Immediately following the stretcher came the pathologist, looking like an undertaker in his long black overcoat. ‘I’ve given preliminary details to your detective constable. I’ll phone your office with a time for the autopsy.’

In the lounge the Forensic team were packing up. The chair and the bloodstained carpet had been removed and the blood which had soaked through to the exposed floorboards had been ringed in yellow chalk. The warm, sticky slaughter house smell still tainted the air. Moodily, Frost tore off the dangling strip of wallpaper. The poor cow. She’d have a fit if she saw the state of her little flat now.

From the bathroom door came grunting and a metallic clanging. He looked inside. Harding from Forensic was on his knees, swearing softly to himself as he tried to manoeuvre a long-handled spanner underneath the tiny wash-basin in an effort to remove the waste trap. ‘Blimey,’ Frost exclaimed, ‘isn’t there anything you won’t pinch?’

Harding grinned. ‘There’s traces of blood in the sink waste, Inspector.’

Frost showed surprise. ‘You mean he had a good wash afterwards?’

‘The way he sliced her he’d have been splattered with blood. He couldn’t go out like that.’

‘What about his clothes?’

Sucking barked knuckles, Harding gave the spanner one final push and sighed his relief as he felt something give. He looked up at the inspector.

‘I reckon his clothes are smothered in blood – unless he took them off before he butchered her.’

‘Oh,’ sniffed Frost. ‘And what is she doing while he strips off? Staring hypnotized at his John Thomas?’

Harding grinned. ‘Just a theory, Inspector.’ He dropped the spanner and found he could now turn the large nut by hand.

Frost stuck his head out of the bathroom. ‘Don’t forget to check all dry-cleaners.’

‘Already done!’ replied Burton. A waste of time. This killer was too smart.

Back to the bathroom where Harding was easing off the waste trap. ‘So, if he washed himself, the blood you’re going to find in the waste trap will be the old girl’s blood – right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do we need any more? We’re nearly swimming in the bleeding stuff out there as it is.’

Harding shrugged. ‘We’ve got to be thorough, sir.’

‘Smile when you say that,’ said Frost wandering out to the empty-looking lounge. ‘I might think you’re getting at me.’ Gilmore watched him meander about aimlessly, picking up pieces of bric-a-brac and putting them down again. The old fool had no idea what to do next.

PC Jordan and another uniformed officer returned from their door-to-door enquiries to report no joy. As usual, every one was shocked at what had happened, but no-one had heard or seen anything.

‘This bloke’s too bloody lucky.’ Frost dropped his cigarette end on the floor and ground it underfoot. He felt tired, useless and inadequate. Mrs Proctor’s gin was sloshing about in his stomach, he was beginning to feel sick and his head was starting to throb. He flopped into an armchair.

‘What do you want us to do now?’ asked Gilmore.

Just leave me alone, he wanted to answer, then sat up frowning at a burst of voices from outside. He groaned out loud as Mullett, bright and morning fresh, bounced into the room. He could have done without Hornrim Harry at this particular moment.

Mullett’s lips tightened. Typical. A serious murder enquiry. Forensic busy and conscientious as always in the next room and here was Frost, sprawled In an armchair, and – Mullett’s nose quivered to confirm his suspicion – reeking of drink. ‘Another body, Inspector?’ he said testily, his tone implying it was all Frost’s fault.

‘Where?’ said Frost, jumping up and pretending to look around the room. ‘I can’t see it, Super.’

Teeth gritted, Mullett raised his eyes to the artex ceiling and sighed loudly. Frost never knew when it was the wrong time to act the fool. ‘What progress have you made?’

‘So far, sod all. This bloke’s bloody lucky. No-one sees him, no-one hears him and he leaves no prints. Unless Forensic can come up with something spectacular we might have to wait for him to make a mistake. His bleeding luck’s bound to run out sometime.’

A derisive snort. ‘Wait? You mean until he kills again? No way! I want these killings stopped!’

‘Oh?’ muttered Frost. ‘And how do we achieve that, Super?’

‘By finding the killer and arresting him.’

‘Oh! Make a note of that, Gilmore,’ said Frost, the gin making him reckless. ‘Any other bright ideas, sir – I’m always ready to learn.’

Mullett glared angrily, his jaw twitching. The man’s insouciance always infuriated him. He jerked his head at Burton and Jordan. ‘Wait outside, would you, please.’ He waited until they had gone. ‘You made a damn fool of me last night, Inspector.’

‘Did I?’ asked Frost, sounding very interested. ‘How did I do that?’ His tone implied he would mark it down for future reference.

‘That Ripper suspect. You led me to believe you had a water-tight case against him, and I now understand that your big due, the knife, belonged to the victim all the time.’

‘I’m afraid so, Super,’ agreed Frost, ruefully.

‘And you left me dangling. You didn’t even come in and tell me what had happened. I was waiting for your report and the Chief Constable was waiting for my report.’

‘Sorry about that,’ mumbled Frost. ‘I forgot all about you.’

Mullett’s mouth opened and closed. He was almost speechless. ‘Forgot?’ he spluttered. ‘Forgot to inform your Divisional Commander about a suspect in a major murder investigation?’

‘I have got a lot on my plate,’ snapped Frost. ‘We’re going flat out, we’re working double shifts and we get lots of stupid interruptions.’ He hoped Mullett might take this subtle hint and go, but the superintendent hadn’t finished yet.

‘Detective Sergeant Hanlon works under the same conditions as you, Frost, but he managed to get results. He’s obtained a murder confession from Manson and confessions on at least thirty burglaries. Excellent work that will put us right at the top of the league for crime rate figures this month. It’s results that count, Inspector, not excuses. It seems to me,' and here his glare of displeasure clearly included Gilmore, ‘that you may not be up to the task, in which case I will have no hesitation in replacing you.’ With that he spun on his heel and marched out, oblivious to the near-audible raspberry that followed him out.

Now it was Gilmore’s turn to be angry. If he were to share in Frost’s failures, he wanted to share in his few triumphs. ‘Why didn’t you tell him about Hanlon? He was the one who sodded up the knife and Manson was our collar, not his.’

‘We’re supposed to be a team, son,’ said Frost, ‘not all fighting for Brownie points.’

Gilmore’s reply was stifled by the return of DC Burton and PC Jordan. But all right, he muttered to himself, if it takes Brownie points to get on, I’ll give the bastard Brownie points.

Desmond Watson scooped up the post from the mat and closed the front door behind him. He dumped his brief-case by the hall stand and checked through the letters on his way through to the living-room. Two bills, a bank statement and a commission cheque from his firm. Watson was the Northern Area Sales Representative for a double-glazing company. In the living-room the little green light on his telephone answering machine told him there were messages waiting. He fast-forwarded on cue and review, his ear able to recognize from the high-pitched gabble the girl from his firm passing on sales leads which he would note down later, and then the familiar sound of his mother’s voice. He released the button and listened as he opened up the envelope to check that his firm hadn’t yet again made a mistake with his commission payment.

Hello, son. It’s mother. You needn’t worry any more about… Just a moment, there’s someone at the door… A pause. A long pause. And then the automatic cut-off operated.

He raised his head from his checking of the commission payment and waited for the next message which should have been his mother phoning back. But it was a strange voice. A man’s voice. It asked him to ring the Denton Police Station. The commission cheque fluttered from his fingers. His stomach churning with foreboding, he reached for the phone.

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Thursday afternoon shift (1)

Gilmore spooned sugar into a cup of hot, strong tea and placed it in front of Watson who was still in a state of shock after formally identifying his mother’s body. The cup clattered on the saucer as his shaking hand raised it to his mouth. He tried to concentrate on what the scruffy inspector was saying.

‘I know it’s been an awful shock, sir, but if you could answer one or two questions.’

The cup was rattling against his teeth. He lowered it back to the saucer, the tea untasted, and pushed it away. ‘Yes… anything.’

‘We’ve been listening to a tape from your answering machine, your mother’s last message. You said she made the call at 9.35 p.m. If you weren’t at home, how do you know that?’

‘My answering machine logs the time and date of all calls.’

‘I see, sir. And where were you at 9.35 last night?’

‘Me?’ His head jerked up. ‘You suspect me?’

‘I’d be happy if I had anyone to suspect, sir,’ said Frost, wearily. ‘I just want to eliminate. Your mother was a nervous woman. She kept her front door chained and bolted and yet someone calls at 9.35 at night and she cheerfully lets them in. It had to be someone she knew and trusted… some one like you, sir. So where were you?’

‘I was in Birmingham. The Queensway Hotel.’ He pulled a receipt from his inside pocket and handed it across. ‘You’ll want to check, of course.’

Frost glanced at it and passed it to Gilmore who went out to phone.

‘I’d like it back,’ said Watson. ‘I need it for my expenses claim.’

Frost nodded. He knew all about expenses claims. ‘On the tape, sir, your mother starts by saying, “You needn’t worry any more about. ..” Any idea what she meant by that?’

‘I think she was referring to a new security chain. The one on her front door was inadequate. After hearing about those burglaries and then those two women killed, I’d been on to her to get a stronger one.’

‘Can you think of anyone your mother would be happy to admit into her flat at 9.35 at night?’

‘No-one. She was a very nervous woman.’ He looked up as Gilmore returned with the receipt and murmured some thing in the inspector’s ear.

‘The hotel confirm your visit, sir.’ Frost handed the receipt back and stood up. ‘Thank you for your help. We’ll let you know how our enquiries progress… and, of course, you have our deepest sympathy.’ As the door closed behind Watson, Frost’s solemn expression changed to a grin. ‘So he had a double room and a woman and he asked the hotel for a single room receipt?’

‘Yes,’ confirmed Gilmore.

‘The crafty bastard,’ said Frost, shaking his head in admiration. ‘He gets his firm to pay for his nookie. I wish I could wangle something like that. Anyway, Sonny Boy’s in the clear.’ He picked up the cassette from the answering machine. ‘Let’s find out if this can tell us what we want to know.’

The Murder Incident Room was swirled with a fog of duty-free cigarette smoke. Frost sat on the corner of the front desk watching Gilmore slot the tape into the Yamaha cassette deck. He clapped his hands for silence.

‘Right. As you know, we’ve had another Ripper murder.’ He held aloft some enlarged colour prints where red was the predominant colour. ‘We’ve got photos of the victim, but unless you get a kick out of steaming entrails, I suggest you take them as read. The bastard almost disembowelled her.’ He stood up, the cigarette waggling in his mouth as he spoke. ‘The victim is a Mrs Doris Watson, aged seventy-six, a widow with one son. She rarely went out, except to the twice-weekly senior citizens’ afternoon sessions at the Reef Bingo Club. The poor cow was terrified of being attacked so she had extra bolts, a spy-hole and a security chain fitted to her front door. Last night, at 9.35, she made a telephone call to her son. The son was out, but his answering machine picked up the call. This is it.’ He nodded for Gilmore to start the tape.

A bleep. Then, Hello, son. It’s mother. You needn’t worry anymore about… Just a moment, there’s someone at the door… Vague sounds as the tape continued, then another bleep. Gilmore jammed down the Stop control.

The room was dead quiet.

‘She put down the phone,’ continued Frost, ‘and went to the front door. She squints through the spy-hole, likes what she sees, so this nervous woman undoes the chain, draws the bolts and welcomes in the bastard who’s going to rip out her intestines.’ He took the cigarette from his mouth and spat out a shred of tobacco. ‘You’re all a lot smarter than I am, so let’s have some brilliant suggestions. Come on – you’re a nervous woman of seventy-six. Who would you let into your flat at night – apart from a toy-boy with his own teeth and a big dick?’

Burton raised his hand. ‘Something we’ve never considered, sir. She’d never let in a man – but what if the Ripper was a woman?’

Frost chewed on his lip as he thought this over. ‘It’s possible, son. It would explain a lot, but my gut reaction is against it. We’ll keep it in mind, though.’

WPC Jill Knight raised a hand. ‘If she’d phoned for a doctor, she’d let him in.’

A buzz of excitement.

‘You’re right,’ said Frost. ‘She’d let a doctor in.’

‘Or a priest,’ added Gilmore. Purley was still his number one suspect.

‘Or a priest,’ agreed Frost. ‘OK, son You can check on the curate. We want to know where he was last night. And you, Jill. Find out who her doctor was. See if she asked him to call last night and even if she didn’t, find out where he was at 9.35. Anything else?’

He waited. Nothing. He took out a fresh cigarette then threw the pack to Burton to offer around. ‘I’ll tell you some thing that worries me.’ He struck a match on the table leg. ‘This time he took no money. He didn’t ransack the bed room. Over a hundred quid in her purse in full view on the sideboard and it wasn’t touched. Now Sergeant Gilmore suggests something disturbed the Ripper and he had to hoof it off before he could nick anything.’ He blew out the match and let it drop to the floor. ‘But stupid sod that I am, I can’t buy that. This bloke is icy cold. Nothing panics him. I reckon money’s never been his motive.’

‘So what is his motive?’ asked Gilmore.

‘Killing,’ said Frost. ‘I reckon he gets his kicks out of cold, bloody killing.’

The room went quiet. Chillingly quiet. This had the ring of unpalatable truth.

‘Right.’ Frost slipped down from the desk. ‘Let’s play the tape again.’

It was played again, and again and again. Frost, smoking, chewing his knuckles, hunched in front of the loudspeaker. Just a moment, there’s someone at the door… Vague sounds. A bleep. Gilmore’s voice… Mr Watson, this is Denton Police

‘Again,’ snapped Frost. There was something there. Some thing his subconscious had caught but which kept slipping away. ‘This is no damn good,’ he moaned. ‘I want it louder.’

‘It won’t go any louder,’ said Gilmore.

‘We could use the hi-fl equipment in the rest room,’ suggested Burton.

They crowded into the rest room. Gilmore slotted in the cassette and turned the amplifier up almost to its maximum. He pressed Play and the hiss of raw tape crackled from the twin speakers.

The bleep screamed out like an alarm signal. Tape hiss. Hello, son. It’s mother, shouted the old lady, the sound almost hurting their ears.

‘Leave it,’ ordered Frost as Gilmore’s hand moved to turn down the volume. You needn’t worry any more about… Through the mush, a buzzing vibrating sound. Then an other.

‘The door bell,’ muttered Frost. At ordinary volume level it was inaudible.

Just a moment, there’s someone at the door… A rustling, then an echoing bang as if someone had hit a microphone. She had put the phone down. Fading footsteps as she padded up the hall to the front door, eager to let in her murderer. Now the tape background roar was paramount. Frost pressed his ear to the speaker. ‘Nothing. I imagine she’s giving him the eyeball through the peep-hole. Ah…’ He moved back. Just about audible, the sound of bolts being drawn and the chink of the chain being removed. The lock clicked. The door opened. The woman said something, but it was so faint and the background so loud, they couldn’t distinguish a word. Then a screaming bleep as the automatic cut-off operated.

‘Let me have a go,’ said Burton, elbowing Gilmore away and adjusting various controls on the hi-fl’s graphic equalizer which could cut and boost individual frequencies. ‘Now try it.’

By now, they almost knew every squeak, rustle and click off by heart. When the woman spoke after opening the door it was clearer, but tantalizingly not clear enough for them to make out a single word. ‘Again,’ ordered Frost. But Mrs Watson might have been talking in a foreign language for all the sense it made. God, thought Frost. She could be naming her killer – ‘Come in, Mr Ripper of 19 High Street, Denton’ – yet they couldn’t understand what she was saying.

‘Try the earphones,’ said Burton.

The earphones were better, but still not good enough.

‘Let me have a go,’ said Jill Knight, adjusting the earphones over her tightly curled hair. She listened and frowned. ‘Again,’ she said. The frown was deeper, but this time her lips were moving as if she was repeating what she heard. She took off the earphones. ‘She’s saying, “Oh, it’s you. I didn’t expect you so soon.” ’

They played it again through the speaker. The WPC was right. Oh, it’s you. I didn’t expect you so soon. Frost’s head bowed. He had been hoping for so much and this was nothing.

‘She knew him,’ said Burton.

‘And he came sooner than expected,’ muttered Frost. ‘I think that’s called premature ejaculation.’ The resulting laughter lifted his depression. ‘Let’s hear it again.’ He waved aside the moans that they knew it off by heart. ‘Indulge an old man’s whim. We might have missed something.’

Again they listened, but only half-heartedly. The tape had told them everything it could. There was nothing they had missed. Oh, it’s you. I didn’t expect you so soon. The thud of the door closing behind him, then the hiss and clanking as raw tape scraped past the replay heads when the automatic cut-out operated. A bleep.

Frost was sitting bolt upright in his chair, an unlit cigarette drooping in his mouth. ‘Again – just the end bit – and the volume as high as you bloody well like.’ Gilmore spun the volume control to its maximum. At first they didn’t spot it. ‘You must be stone bleeding deaf,’ roared Frost. ‘Again… and listen this time… There!’ And this time they heard it. A fraction of a second before the message switched off. The closing of the front door. The hiss, roar and crackle as the tape bumped past the heads then… a boxy, metallic chink.

Burton scratched his head. ‘Could be anything, Inspector. He could have bumped against the table as he came in.’

‘Even if he did,’ said Frost, ‘there was nothing on the hall table that would chink. That is definitely a metallic sound.’

‘There could have been something on the table – some thing valuable – but he took it away with him,’ suggested Gilmore, who was feeling left out of things.

‘I thought I heard something chinking as he came through the door,’ said the WPC.

‘Did you?’ exclaimed Frost excitedly and he was up on his feet, jamming his finger on the Rewind button and playing the tape through again. ‘Yes… there!’ And through the mush, as the man stepped through the door, a faint metallic chinking sound… then another.

They didn’t hear the door open. ‘What’s going on in here?’

‘Piss off!’ said Frost. ‘Oh, sorry, Super… didn’t know it was you.’ He played the tape through yet again for Mullett who tried to look as if he knew what Frost was driving at, but obviously didn’t.

‘That noise, sir. At first we thought he’d bumped into the hall table and jolted something on it, but we now reckon that whatever it was, he brought it in with him and dumped it on the hall table.’

Mullett considered this. ‘It might help if we knew what it was. But we don’t.’

‘I think I do,’ said Frost. He looked around the room to make sure he had everyone’s attention. “What about a new security chain?’

Mullett frowned. ‘A security chain?’

‘Old Mother Watson had arranged to have a stronger one fitted,’ Frost told him. ‘And that’s who she let in last night with open arms. .. the man who was going to fit the new security chain… so she would be safe from attack.’

‘It could be a chain,’ said Mullett doubtfully, ‘but we don’t know for sure.’

‘I know for bloody certain,’ announced Frost. ‘I’ve got a hunch.’

A thin smile from Mullett. ‘Hunches are all very well,’ he began, but Frost wasn’t listening, he was giving instructions to his team.

‘Knock on doors again. Go round to all the neighbours of the victims. Did the victims talk of having chains fitted? Has anyone been canvassing before, or since, offering to fit security chains? Don’t cause a panic, but get what gen you can. I want someone to contact all the local security system firms. Do they send salesmen around canvassing? Have their salesmen found that some bloody amateur has been undercutting their prices? Mrs Watson was supposed to be a tight old sod, so this would have to be a cheap job. One last thing – Burton. Mrs Watson talked to the old biddy in the next-door flat about having a new security chain. Chat her up, see if she can come up with names. OK – on your bikes, everyone. Chop chop.’

As the team scurried out he flipped a cigarette from his packet and tried to catch it in his mouth. It missed. Scooping it up from the floor, he lit up and inhaled deeply He felt happy. Things were now on the move. They were on the track of the killer, he felt sure of it.

The phone rang. Detective Sergeant Hanlon from the mortuary. ‘The pathologist has completed the autopsy on Mark Compton, Jack. Definitely murder. A heavy blow to the head from behind. That didn’t kill him, but the fire and the fumes finished him off – death from asphyxiation.’ Frost pushed Mullett to one side so he could yell for Gilmore, his voice echoing down the empty corridor.

Mullett cleared his throat pointedly. He wasn’t used to being ignored.

‘Sorry, Super,’ grunted Frost. ‘Be with you in a minute.’ As Gilmore appeared in the doorway, he told him about the autopsy findings.

Gilmore checked his watch. He’d forgotten all about the damn autopsy. Frost’s bad habits were contagious. ‘How come Hanlon attended it?’

‘I told him to, son. We’re far too busy.’

‘But it’s my case.’

‘Sorry, son, but we’ve too much work and not enough men to be able to specialize. It’s everyone’s case.’

But if I crack it, it’s my bloody case, thought Gilmore. ‘I want to see the woman that Compton was knocking off. She might know something.’

‘Right, son. We’ll do it now. Bring the car round to the front.’ Back to Mullett. ‘Anything I can do, Super… as long as it’s quick?’

Huffily, the Divisional Commander produced the curt memo he had received from County. ‘Still some discrepancy with your car expenses, Inspector. County are furious. They want an immediate reply.’

‘They want stuffing,’ corrected Frost, his mind elsewhere. ‘Stick it on my desk as you go out, would you, sir? I’ll deal with it later.’ And he dashed out of the rest room to the car.

Mullett was halfway down the corridor before he realized that Frost had ordered him about like an office boy. But it was too late to go back and protest.

The flats behind the supermarket were owned by a firm of property agents and were usually let out on short leases. The Denton Echo, in one of its bouts of outraged crusading, had exposed several of these tenancies as being taken up by high-class call girls and for a while many of the apartments remained empty, but slowly, and more discreetly, many of the old tenants returned.

In the carpeted foyer a lift purred down and the door opened with a barely audible hiss. They stepped inside and Gilmore pressed the button for the third floor. So different from the disinfectant-masking urine smell of the lift in the senior citizens’ flats, this lift was heady with the perfume of its previous passenger.

They walked over thick footstep-muffling grey carpet to the end flat. There was something outside the door. Four bulging rubbish sacks. Black plastic sacks, the sort Paula Bartlett’s body was in. Frost peeped inside one. Assorted packets, cartons and jars as if someone had been clearing out a cupboard. He fished out a detergent packet. It had been opened, but was almost brim-full. ‘The cow’s done a bunk,’ he said, jamming his thumb in the bell-push. He was surprised to hear footsteps from inside.

The woman who opened the door was around twenty-six years of age, and wore a tightly fitting knitted dress in emerald green. She was slightly plump, with red hennaed hair and breasts that could best be described as ample. Admiring their generosity, Frost had difficulty in locating his warrant card. Gilmore produced his.

‘Police. May we come in?’

She stared at Gilmore’s warrant card wide-eyed. ‘Police? What’s it about? That nosy old bitch downstairs hasn’t been complaining again, has she?’

‘Not to us,’ answered Gilmore curtly. ‘Can we come in?’ Pre-empting her reply he pushed forward into the hall.

Bristling slightly at his tone, she led them through to the lounge, a comfortable room with pale blue carpeting and dark blue upholstered furniture. The light grey walls were hung with aluminium-framed abstract prints. Frost shuffled across to the large picture window and looked down on to the sprawl of the supermarket. ‘Very nice,’ he murmured. ‘I bet you get a good view of the multi-storey car-park from your bedroom.’

Her lips shaped a brief, flat, non-understanding smile. ‘This won’t take long, will it? I’m in a hurry.’

‘Mind if I sit down?’ said Frost, sinking into one of the blue armchairs. He dug deep into his pocket for his cigarettes and frowned with disappointment. The packet was empty. He had been too generous in the Murder Incident Room. ‘Do you mind telling us your name?’

‘East. Jean East.’ She studied her watch. ‘Look – what is this all about?’

‘A few questions,’ said Frost, letting his eyes wander around the room. He imagined this was where clients waited while the bedroom was occupied. He straightened up. Two bulging suitcases stood side by side to the left of the lounge door. ‘Moving out?’

‘The lease is up. I can’t afford to renew it. I’m going back to London.’

‘Then we caught you just in time,’ beamed Frost. ‘Do you know a gentleman called Mark Compton?’

A barely perceptible pause. ‘No. Why – what is this about?’

‘He might not have told you his real name,’ said Gilmore, moving in front of Frost to remind him that this was his case. He showed her a photograph.

She studied the colour print briefly, shook her head, and handed it back. ‘Sorry. Never seen him before.’

‘Perhaps you don’t recognize him with his clothes on,’ Frost suggested.

Her face tightened and her eyes blazed. ‘You can get out right now.’ She flung open the door dramatically, her breasts heaving, straining the woollen dress to the limits.

Frost heaved himself from the chair. ‘We’re going, love, but you’re coming with us. Get her coat, Sergeant.’

She hesitated. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To the station. I want a policewoman to examine you.’

‘Examine me? Why?’

‘If you haven’t got a little strawberry birthmark on your lower stomach, my apologies will bring tears to your eyes.’

She closed the door and turned slowly. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘You should keep your blinds closed when you’re entertaining,’ sneered Gilmore.

‘You had an audience,’ added Frost. ‘An old boy with field-glasses watching from the car-park.’

Her hand covered her mouth. She looked horrified. ‘Watching us?’

‘From start to finish. And then he sent a poison pen letter to your client. It described you in graphic detail.’

Her face crimsoned to match her hair. ‘Let’s get one bloody thing straight. I’m not a tart. Yes, I knew Mark Compton. We were lovers. He came here and we made love and it was wonderful and if some dirty little snivelling shit in a filthy raincoat was watching, then sod him. I’m ashamed of nothing.’

‘Eat your heart out, Mills and Boon,’ said Frost. ‘But you said you knew him. You were lovers. Past tense?’

‘Yes – past tense, because the bastard threw me up last week. Came here, made love, then calmly told me it was all over. Look – what the hell is this all about?’

Gilmore raised his head from his notebook. He was content to let Frost ask the preliminary questions, but he would step in when the time was ripe. So she was a discarded lover. Not an uncommon motive for murder.

But Frost, digging fruitlessly through his pockets in the hope of finding a pinched-out butt, didn’t seem to have realized the significance. ‘Why did he chuck you?’ He watched enviously as she took a cigarette from a black lacquered box on a side table and lit it with a tiny, initialled, blue and gold enamelled lighter.

‘He was afraid his wife might find out.’ She flung her head back and laughed bitterly. ‘His bloody wife! He always told me he was going to divorce her and marry me… and like a fool I bloody believed him. Even when the bastard’s cheques bounced, I believed him.’

‘Cheques?’ queried Frost, tapping his empty Lambert and Butler packet hopefully, but she didn’t take the hint.

‘He was always borrowing money, and when I asked him to pay me back, his cheques bounced.’

‘How much money are we talking about?’

‘Getting on for?500, which I could ill afford.’

Frost scratched his chin. ‘He sounds a right charmer. How long have you known him?’

‘A couple of months. We met in London.’ She dropped down into the other chair and her breasts bounced like Mark Compton’s cheques. Do that again, Frost pleaded silently.

‘Does your husband know of this association?’ asked Gilmore who, unlike Frost whose gaze was directed higher, had noticed the wedding ring on her finger.

She gave a tight smile and shook her head. ‘No.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘My husband is a very violent and jealous man. That’s why I left him.’ Her hands travelled over her body and she winced in remembrance. ‘I could show you bruises…’ Yes please, pleaded Frost, again silently. ‘I changed my name so he couldn’t trace me. If he ever found out that Mark had been my lover, he would have killed us both.’

Frost’s head jerked up. ‘Changed your name?’

‘East is my maiden name. My married name is Bradbury. Mrs Jean Bradbury.’

Behind her, Gilmore choked back a gasp and slowly expelled air. He felt a warm glow inside. The equation was almost too good to be true… an unfaithful wife plus a violent husband equals one dead lover. Now was the time for him to take over. ‘Are you aware that your lover, Mark Compton, and his wife have been subjected to verbal and written threats over the past few weeks and that their property has been maliciously damaged?’

She seemed genuinely surprised. ‘No, Sergeant. I was not aware of that.’

‘Are you aware there was a fire at The Old Mill last night? The place was gutted.’

She couldn’t disguise a malicious smile. ‘I didn’t know that either, but serve the bastard right.’

‘The bastard’s dead, Mrs Bradbury,’ said Frost, bluntly. ‘He died in the fire. We think it was murder.’

The cigarette dropped from her fingers and she stared unbelieving at the inspector. ‘No! Oh no!’ Then her eyes widened in horror. ‘And you think my husband killed him…? Oh my God!’ Her hands covered her face.

‘We’ve got to find him,’ said Gilmore.

‘If he’s killed Mark, he’ll kill me,’ she said, scrabbling for the cigarette which had burnt a black mark into the landlord’s carpet.

‘We won’t let that happen,’ Frost assured her. ‘Any idea where he is?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ She studied the end of her cigarette, her full, pursed lips blowing it back to life.

God, thought Frost, squirming in his chair, you can blow me back to life any time you like, love. A muffled voice calling his name slowly caught his attention. His personal radio. He tugged it from his pocket. Johnny Johnson with some news. He moved away so the woman couldn’t hear.

‘We’ve located Simon Bradbury, Inspector.’

‘Then grab him where it hurts and hold him,’ said Frost, signalling for Gilmore to come over.

‘No need, Jack. He’s not going anywhere. He’s at Risley Remand Centre… drunken driving, malicious damage and assaulting a police officer. He’s been in custody for the past two weeks.’

‘Damn!’ Gilmore’s foot lashed out at the waste bin in anger, spilling the contents over the floor. His one and only suspect now had a cast-iron alibi. They were back to square one.

There was no further point in staying. Frost rewound his scarf and began to button up his coat while Gilmore, on his knees, stuffed the spilt papers back into the bin.

‘One last question,’ said Gilmore. ‘Do you own a car, Mrs Bradbury?’ She nodded. ‘And where were you last night?’

‘Here. I did my packing and went to bed early.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ smirked Gilmore. ‘You drove over to Lexing to get your own back on your ex-boyfriend.’

She stared at him as if he were mad. ‘I don’t know what the hell you are talking about.’

‘Don’t you? Then I’ll spell it out for you. Mark Compton chucked you up. You weren’t going to let the bastard get away with it, so you made abusive phone calls and sent death threats.’

Her head moved slowly from side to side in disbelief. ‘Death threats? I’d scratch his bleeding eyes out, but I wouldn’t make threats.’

‘You did more than scratch his eyes out,’ continued Gilmore. ‘You burnt his house down. But he caught you in the act, so you smashed his skull in and left him to burn to death.’

She looked in appeal to Frost who stared stoically back, hoping his own mystification didn’t show.

‘The death threat letters were made up of words cut from this month’s Reader’s Digest,’ Gilmore continued. ‘And what have we here?’ With a triumphant flourish he waved under her nose a magazine he had retrieved from the waste bin. The current copy of Reader’s Digest.

Frost slumped on to the arm of his chair. He thought Gilmore might have been on to something, but this was grabbing at straws.

‘I’ve got news for you,’ said the woman. ‘They don’t only print one copy. Lots of people buy it.’

‘Oh, I agree, madam,’ purred Gilmore. ‘Lots of people read it. But how many people cut words out?’ He thrust a scissor-slashed page under her nose, then flipped through and found another, and another.

Frost took the magazine. Gilmore was right. The death threat letters had been from this copy of the magazine. He looked up at the woman. ‘Have you got anything to say?’

She stared at him, then at Gilmore, her face white. ‘You’re framing me, you bastards! I want a solicitor.’

‘You can phone from the station,’ said Gilmore. At the door holding her tightly by the arm, he called to Frost, ‘You’d better bring her suitcases down. Forensic will want to examine her clothes.’ He waited while she put on her coat before leading her out to the lift.

With a distinct feeling of being upstaged, Frost gathered up the cases. At the side table he paused and hopefully looked inside the black lacquered cigarette box. It was disappointingly empty. Not his lucky day. Shoulders drooped in resignation, he picked up the cases, kicked the door shut behind him, and left the flat.

The lift taking him down now smelt fleetingly of plump, jolly, hennaed-haired murderess, Jean Bradbury. Frost was vaguely worried. He had his own theories on the Compton killing and the woman didn’t figure in them. But downstairs, with the woman locked safely in the car and glaring poisoned darts at them a smirking Gilmore called to him from one of the residents’ garages.

‘This is her garage,’ said Gilmore as he squeezed past a beige-coloured Mini Cooper and pointed to patches of damp on the concrete floor. The pervading smell was petrol. ‘This must be where she stored the petrol cans.’

Frost nodded gloomily. ‘Well done, son.’ He was forced to admit it. Gilmore was right and he was wrong.

‘I’d better get my prisoner back to the station,’ said Gilmore, leaving his inspector to close the garage doors.

The significance of ‘my prisoner’ instead of ‘our prisoner’ was not lost on Frost.

Police Superintendent Mullett sat to attention in his chair. He was on the phone to the Chief Constable. Opposite the satin mahogany desk stood a self-satisfied Detective Sergeant Gilmore, and a pale-looking Police Sergeant Wells who clutched a sodden handkerchief and kept interrupting the phone call by coughing and spluttering and noisily blowing his nose. If Wells thought he could wheedle his way on to the sick list, when they needed every man they could lay their hands on, he could think again.

‘We’re very much below strength,’ he told the Chief Constable, staring at Wells as he said it, ‘but I think you can rely on the Denton team to turn up trumps on Friday night.’

The door clicked open and Mullett looked up in annoyance as Frost shuffled in. Late again. ‘Ah, Frost,’ he said, putting his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘The Chief Constable wishes to know what progress you have made with the Paula Bartlett case.’

‘Bugger all,’ said Frost, dragging a chair over to the desk and sitting down wearily. ‘You told me to leave it for Wonder Boy’s return.’

Mullett’s smile flickered on and off like a dying neon tube. He held it unsteadily in place as he spoke into the phone. ‘Detective Inspector Frost reports no further progress at present, sir. However things should improve when Mr Allen returns from the sick list.’ He glared at Frost who unabashed, seemed more intent on trying to read, upside down, a private and confidential memo in the superintendent’s out-tray. Mullett pulled the tray towards him and turned the memo face down, then he flashed his gleaming white teeth into the receiver’s mouthpiece. ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. You can depend on me, sir.’ He grovelled his good- byes, then replaced the phone.

He smoothed down his moustache. ‘Trouble, gentlemen. County have been hearing rumours that those gypsies – or travellers as they prefer to be called – who were involved in the fighting in the town centre last Friday are out to seek their revenge on our Denton lager louts. The Chief Constable wishes us to ensure that we have a sufficiently large police presence here on Friday night to nip any such trouble in the bud.’

‘How many men is he sending us, then?’ asked Wells between coughs.

Mullett treated the sergeant to one of his thin, superior smiles. ‘County are stretched to the limit, Wells.’

‘And we’re not, I suppose?’ said Frost, flicking ash all over the carpet.

‘Everyone’s in the same boat,’ snapped Mullett. ‘I am not giving County the impression that we will go whining to them each time we have a minor problem. I want them to see that Denton can cope. So tomorrow, all leave will be cancelled. All off-duty men will be called in. And the sick list is closed.’ He stared hard at Wells, letting him know that the last comment included him. ‘I have assured the Chief Constable that the maintenance of public order will be our number one priority.’

‘Priority even over our murder investigations?’ asked Frost in his deceptively innocent voice.

‘Of course a murder case takes precedence,’ barked Mullett, ‘but you will manage with the barest minimum.’ He jerked his head away from Frost and gave Gilmore the full benefit of his white flashing smile. ‘The Chief Constable was delighted when I told him of your success in the Compton case, Sergeant.’ He beamed. ‘There was some mention of him writing you a personal letter of commendation.’ He noticed that Frost looked unhappy at this. Jealousy, of course. His assistant had succeeded where he had failed. ‘That will be all, gentlemen.’

In the corridor outside, Frost grabbed Gilmore’s arm. ‘Has the Bradbury bird confessed yet, son?’

‘No,’ Gilmore told him. ‘But we don’t need a confession. The forensic evidence is overwhelming. The death threat letters definitely came from that magazine… they even confirm they were cut out by her own scissors. We’ve found identical notepaper and envelopes in her flat and the marks on the garage floor are definitely consistent with cans of petrol being stored there. We’ve got motive, opportunity and strong evidence. What more do we want

‘I’m not happy about this one,’ said Frost.

Gilmore bit back the urge to say ‘tough’. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Inspector, I’m on my way to see Mrs Compton. I want to tell her the good news.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Frost.

‘Why?’ asked Gilmore, icily. It was his case. He didn’t want Frost along.

‘Just for the ride, son. I haven’t seen a decent pair of nipples all day.’

Ada Perkins wasn’t very welcoming. Her vinegar expression and sharp sniff of disapproval showed them exactly what she thought of them barging in on her patient. She marched them into the living-room where a washed-out-looking Jill Compton in a thick towelling dressing gown sat staring into, a roaring fire.

‘Good to see you up and about,’ said Frost, sinking into the other comfortable chair.

Gilmore dragged a hard kitchen chair over and sat opposite her. ‘How are you feeling, Mrs Compton?’

‘It hasn’t really sunk in yet. Everyone’s being so kind.’

Gilmore moved his chair closer. ‘I’ve some news for you. We’ve arrested Mrs Jean Bradbury for the murder of your husband.’

She stared at him in total disbelief. ‘Bradbury? You mean the wife of that man who tried to pick that fight with Mark?”

‘Yes. She moved into Denton some weeks ago.’

‘But why should she want to harm Mark?’

Gilmore looked at Frost, hoping the inspector would want to tell her of her late husband’s infidelity, but, for a change, Frost seemed content to lean back and listen. He took a deep breath. ‘Your husband was having an affair with her.’

She shrank back as if he had struck her, and stared wide-eyed, uncomprehending. ‘No,’ she whispered at last. ‘Oh no!’

‘I’m afraid it’s a fact,’ continued Gilmore doggedly. ‘He even promised her he would divorce you and marry her. When he broke off the relationship, she began this hate campaign. Jean Bradbury started the fire last night. She killed your husband.’

Jill Compton shivered even though the room was sweltering. ‘No,’ she said firmly, as if trying to convince herself. ‘I don’t believe you. My husband would never look at another woman.’ Then she covered her face with her hands and hers body shook. ‘This is more than I can stand. I’ve lost every thing… my home… my husband

… and now you tell me he was unfaithful.’

Gilmore turned his head away in embarrassment. He didn’t know how to handle crying women. Frost leant forward to pat her arm sympathetically. ‘There were lots of, things your husband didn’t tell you, Mrs Compton. This may come as a bit of a shock to you, but did he tell you that your business was bankrupt?’

Her expression was one of utter bewilderment. ‘Bankrupt? That’s nonsense. We had a thriving business.’

‘It was thriving so much,’ Frost told her, ‘that your husband had to borrow small sums of money from his mistress… and then paid her back, with cheques that bounced.’

She shook her head defiantly. ‘You’re wrong. We had no secrets. Mark would have told me.’

‘I’m afraid I’m right.’ Frost patted her arm again. ‘I was in Bennington’s Bank today. One of the cashiers there owes me a favour and he accidentally left your business file on his desk and then went out for a few minutes. He must have completely forgotten what a nosy bastard I am.’ He dug deep in his pocket and fished out a crumpled scrap of paper. ‘I’ve scribbled down the details. The Old Mill is in hock to the bank as security for unpaid loans, your current account is ?17,000 in the red and creditors galore are breathing down your neck.’ He stuffed the paper back in his pocket. ‘My friend in the bank is a bit of a cynic. He said the only thing that could have saved your bacon was an insurance policy and a bloody good fire. Well, we’ve had the fire. Do you know the details of your insurance, Mrs Compton?’ He offered her his cigarette packet.

‘I know nothing of the financial side of the business. Mark handled all that.’ Distractedly, she accepted a cigarette, looked at it in puzzlement and pushed it back in the packet.

‘Then I can enlighten you,’ said Frost, striking a match against the fire surround. ‘A mate of mine works for your insurance company. He tells me that the building and the contents are insured against fire, theft, explosion, earthquakes and stampeding cattle for the sum of?350,000.’

Her eyes widened. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Neither could I,’ said Frost. ‘I doubt if there was more than a couple of thousand pounds’ worth of stock in the entire house… and, even that wasn’t paid for.’ Again he patted her hand. ‘You’re a very lucky woman, Mrs Compton.’

‘Do you think I give a damn about the money?’ she asked incredulously. ‘I want my husband. I want my home. That spiteful bitch of a woman…’

‘I’ve got more bad news for you,’ said Frost. ‘That spiteful bitch had nothing to do with the fire.’

Jill Compton shifted her gaze from Frost to Gilmore who was seething in his chair. Why the hell was the swine undermining him like this?

‘Your husband started the fire,’ continued Frost. ‘It was an insurance fiddle. One last throw to clear all the debts and make a dirty great profit. It was your husband who was sending all the death threats and the wreath and doing all the damage.’

‘This is ridiculous. Why would he do that?’

‘A providential fire, your business on the rocks and the sprinkler system turned off at the mains. No insurance company is going to pay out on that. So your husband had to invent this imaginary nutter who makes weird phone calls and death threats. He even involved the police to give it authenticity.’ Frost shook his head in grudging admiration. ‘Bloody clever. He almost deserved to get away with it.’

An ingenious theory, thought Gilmore, but where’s your proof?

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jill, her chin thrust forward defiantly, ‘but I won’t believe a word against my husband. It was that damn woman.. .’

‘We’ve got proof coming out of our ear-holes,’ said Frost. ‘He had the key to the girl’s flat. The magazines he cut the messages from

… his fingerprints are all over them…’

Gilmore stared down at the floor and tried to keep hi expression impassive. He wanted no part of this. Forensic had found no prints other than the Bradbury woman’s.

‘Secondly,’ Frost continued, ‘we’ve a witness who saw your husband stacking petrol cans in Jean Bradbury’s garage. But the clincher, the absolute clincher…’ He scrabbled around in his mac pocket. ‘I found these in the boot of your husband’s car.’ He opened his hand to show some bright green leaves nestling in his palm. ‘Three different sorts of leaf. And not any old leaf. According to our Forensic Department they are identical to the leaves on that wreath which we found in your lounge. We’ve even traced the grave where your husband pinched it, haven’t we, Sergeant?’

‘Yes,’ acknowledged Gilmore, curtly. That was the only part of Frost’s tissue of lies that he was prepared to endorse.

She stared at the leaves and shook her head. ‘This is too much. I just can’t believe it.’

Carefully, Frost replaced the leaves in his pocket then gave her one of his disarming smiles. ‘It shouldn’t be too hard to believe, Mrs Compton. It wouldn’t have worked if you weren’t in it with him.’

She jerked back, her face white. ‘How dare you!’

Ignoring her, Frost continued. ‘You were his alibi, he was yours. When he was away, you vandalized the garden. You each claimed to have received the phone calls in the other’s presence… and when the wreath was chucked through the window, you both claimed to have seen someone running away. Which was impossible, because your husband planted the wreath. Even a dim sod like me can see that you were in the fiddle with him.’

Her mouth opened and shut, then she thought for a while and finally took a deep breath. ‘I was hoping this would never have to come out, Inspector. Everything you say is true. It was Mark’s idea. I didn’t want to go along with him, but he said things were desperate and this was the only way out. He was my husband and I loved him. I did what he asked. Any wife would have done the same.’

Frost nodded. ‘But that still makes you an accessory, Mrs Compton.’

She gave the secret smile of a poker player holding a royal flush. ‘An accessory to what, Inspector? I have no intention of making a claim on the insurance policy, and if I don’t claim, then there is no conspiricy to defraud.’

Frost looked deflated. ‘Law isn’t my strong point, Mrs Compton. I suppose there’s no law that says you can’t destroy your own property. So who burnt it down – you or your husband?’

‘Mark. I tried to stop him, but he did it.’

A match flared. Frost sucked at his cigarette. ‘That only leaves one problem.’ He flicked the match in the fire and slowly expelled a lungful of smoke. ‘Who killed him?’

She frowned.

‘I may be a bit slow on the uptake, Mrs Compton, but there was no mysterious nutter with a grudge… you and your husband invented him, so you couldn’t have heard him breaking in last night. You must have gone downstairs with your husband… you wouldn’t lie in bed while he was splashing petrol about. Only two people in the house and one of them is murdered. So who did it, Mrs Compton?’

Gilmore was watching the woman. God knows how Frost had stumbled on to the truth, but her expression was as good as a signed and sealed confession.

‘Why did you do it, love?’ asked Frost, his voice softening. ‘Did you find out about him and the Bradbury woman?’ Her reaction was barely perceptible, but he saw it.

She stared at him unblinking. ‘I had no motive to kill my husband. I never knew about Mark and her.’

Frost pushed himself out of his chair. ‘I think you did love. You probably got a poison pen letter telling you all about it, but we can check on that.’ He jerked his sleeve back to consult his wrist-watch. ‘But here am I rambling away and it isn’t even my case.’ He gave an apologetic grin to Gilmore as he shuffled out. ‘Sorry, son. I’ll leave you to get on with it.’

Gilmore stood up and opened the bedroom door. ‘Would you please get dressed, Mrs Compton. I’d like you to come to the station with me.’ While he waited he was irritated to hear Ada’s startled shriek from the kitchen, followed by the raucous roar of Frost’s laughter and his cry of ‘How’s that for centre, Ada?’ Stupid childish bloody fool, he thought.

Outside, Frost pulled the handful of leaves from his pocket and hurled them into the wind. There were plenty more on Ada’s privet hedge where he had plucked them on his way in.

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Thursday afternoon shift (2)

The Incident Room was buzzing with activity when Frost entered carrying a mug of tea and a corned beef sandwich from the canteen. Burton, eyes gleaming with excitement, hurried over to him.

‘You look happy,’ said Frost. ‘Has Mr Mullett died?’

Burton grinned. ‘It’s better than that, sir.’

Frost sat on the edge of a desk and sank his teeth into his sandwich. ‘Nothing could be better than that.’

‘First of all,’ Burton told him, ‘we’ve checked all the local security firms. A couple of them send salesmen around cold calling to sell complete burglar alarm systems, but they leave chains and padlocks to the hardware stores.’

Frost washed down a mouthful of sandwich with a swig of tea. ‘That doesn’t send my pulse racing, son. What else?’

‘We’ve knocked on as many doors as we can asking if any one-man-band outfits have been touting for custom in fitting security chains and locks. A complete blank.’

Frost chewed gloomily. ‘Wake me up when you get to the good bit.’

‘I called on Mrs Proctor as you asked…’

Burton paused for maximum effect. ‘A couple of days ago Mrs Watson told her that one of the bingo coach drivers had offered to fit a stronger security chain on the cheap.’

Frost punched the air and whooped. ‘Geronimo! Did she say which driver?’

‘No, sir.’

‘No matter, we can probably pin-point him. Now I want you to check all the coach companies…’

‘Already done,’ cut in Burton. ‘The main bingo run con tract is with Superswift Coaches, but they sub-contract the work out to other firms on a day-to-day basis. I’ve got details of the other firms.’ He offered the typed list to Frost who warded it away with his sandwich. ‘Each firm has a rota of drivers for its various runs, so you wouldn’t necessarily get the same driver each time additionally most drivers are self-employed so the same driver could do work for different firms.’

Frost gave a weary shake of the head. ‘All these details give me a headache. Skip the foreplay – go straight to the big bang!’

‘Right, sir. Sally fed all the names and duty rotas through the computer so we could eliminate those who definitely weren’t anywhere near Denton when the killings took place. We’ve come down to four possibles.’ From a folder he pulled four typed A4 sheets with photographs clipped on them. ‘We pulled the photographs from the firms’ personnel files.’

Frost wiped his buttery fingers on his jacket and took the first page. The photograph showed a man in his late thirties, a podgy face, receding dark hair.

‘David Allen Hardwicke,’ recited Burton. ‘Works for the Denton Creamline Coach Company. He’s done a lot of bingo runs, but he’s mainly used for coach parties from the clubs for West End shows and pantomimes. During-the summer he does the outings to the seaside resorts

Frost stared down at Hardwicke’s. details. The man was thirty-eight, married with two children aged nine and ten. Frost poked at the typescript with the crust of his corned beef sandwich. ‘He was away from Denton for two of the killings.’

Burton retrieved the sheet and shook off the breadcrumbs. ‘Yes, but sometimes drivers swap turns with each other and don’t let their firms know. That’s one of the complications you didn’t want to hear about. We’re checking it out.’

Frost took one last bite, then hurled the remains of his sandwich in the general direction of the waste bin. It missed by a foot. He ambled over and tried to boot it in, but missed again. He picked it up and dropped it in. ‘Who’s next?’

The next was Thomas Riley, the photograph showing a thin, sharp-featured man, light hair plastered well back and well-spaced teeth. ‘Riley runs a one-man business – Riley’s Coaches,’ said Burton. ‘Forty-one years old, married, no children. Does the odd bingo and theatre run, but nowhere as many as Hardwicke.’

Frost drained his tea. He couldn’t work up any enthusiasm about Riley.

‘And he’s got form,’ announced Burton, waiting for the reaction.

‘Form?’ Frost snatched Riley’s details and studied them again.

Burton’s finger painted out the information. ‘Receiving stolen goods. Video recorders, TV sets, electronic gear.’

‘Hmm.’ Frost dumped his mug on a stack of computer print-outs and fished out his cigarettes.

Burton took one. ‘And he beat up a night-watchman once.’

‘Hardly beat him up,’ corrected Frost, scraping a match down the side of the computer casing. ‘Knocked the old boy over when he tried to stop him.’ He turned to the continuation page. ‘Anyway, Riley was out on a job last night. Didn’t get back in until after the time of the murder.’

‘He dropped his last passenger off at 9.15,’ said Burton, leaning forward to share Frost’s match, ‘but didn’t garage the coach until 9.45. Mrs Watson was killed around 9.35. He could just have done it.’

Frost snorted smoke. ‘He’d have had to rush, and I can’t see our Ripper rushing things. He likes to take his time.’ He handed back the details. ‘Next.’

Burton passed across another page and waited expectantly. If he had to put money on it, this was his nap selection. Robert Jefferson, thirty-three, married, one teenaged daughter. A thickset man with close-cropped black hair, he stared morosely from his photograph like a criminal having his mug-shot taken. Jefferson drove for Superswift Coaches, mainly long-distance and Continental work, but had done a couple of bingo runs from time to time. His off-duty schedule put him in Denton for every one of the Ripper killings. A man of violent temper, he had broken his wife’s jaw and she was instigating divorce proceedings because of his cruelty.

Frost unimpressed. ‘I don’t think so, son. I can’t see Old Mother Watson inviting that thug into her fiat. Bung him at the bottom of the pile.’

‘You’d better like this one,’ said Burton. ‘He’s the last.

Ronald William Gauld, twenty-five, single, lives with his widowed mother. Does casual work as a relief driver for Clarke’s Coaches – mainly bingo and old people’s outings. He’s supposed to be a ball of fun on the coach trips. All the old dears love him.’

‘I’m beginning to hate him already,’ said Frost, extending his hand for the details.

‘He’s only employed as a casual by Clarke’s, so he could well work for other firms we haven’t checked on yet but Clarke’s time-sheets have him off-duty on all the times and days of the Ripper killings.’

Frost glanced at the colour photo clipped to the sheet. Gauld, grinning with well-spaced teeth into the camera, looked more a boy than a man. His expression was frank and open, his brown eyes twinkled and his thick, light brown hair hung boyishly over his forehead. Excitement like static electricity crackled through Frost. Instinct. Gut reaction. He knew. He just knew. ‘Bingo!’ he yelled.

Everyone in the room looked up.

Frost waggled the photograph, then held it aloft. ‘This is him. This is the Granny Ripper!’

Burton could only look puzzled. ‘Why, sir?’

‘Gut reaction, son. I’m very rarely, right, but I am this time. Forget the rest… We go nap on Laughing Boy Gauld,’ He slid down from the desk, rubbing his hands together and pacing backwards and forwards to discharge his nervous excitement. ‘Put every available man on him. I want him watched twenty-four hours a day.’

Burton urged caution. ‘Don’t you think we should hedge our bets, sir?’

‘No,’ said Frost firmly. ‘We go for broke.’

‘He’s only a possible suspect. We’ve got nothing on him.’

‘So we find something on him. Show copies of his photograph to the victims’ neighbours. Do they remember seeing this roguish little bastard hanging around? Find out if he’s been offering to fit new security chains for any of the old dears who find him such a scream. Go back to Old Mother Proctor and ask her if Gauld was the name of the man who offered to fit Mrs Watson’s chain. ‘Check with Gauld’s neighbours. Has he come home at night dripping with blood with a knife sticking out of his back pocket? Get everyone on it even the girl on the computer.’

‘Hold it, Inspector!’ Detective Sergeant Arthur Hanlon, eyes watering, nose streaming, looking like death warmed up, had been standing by the door. ‘You’d better hear what I’ve found out first.’

‘If it’s bad news, I don’t want to know,’ said Frost.

‘You might have to look for another suspect, Jack. You asked me to check on the three murder victims. I did. The only one who went to bingo was Mrs Watson.’

‘Rubbish, Arthur. The second old girl – Betty Winters. We found a Reef Bingo membership card in her purse.’

‘She hadn’t used it for five years. She was crippled with arthritis – never left the house except to go to hospital for treatment.’

‘And the first one – Mrs Thingummy?’

‘Mrs Haynes. Very prim and proper. Didn’t believe in gambling. Wouldn’t even play bingo down at the church club for packets of tea.’

Frost’s shoulders slumped. ‘Sod you, Arthur. Why must you be so flaming thorough?’ He glanced down at the photograph of Gauld which seemed to be smirking smugly back at him. ‘It’s got to be Gauld. There’s got to be some common factor that links him to all three.’ He became aware that everyone in the Murder Incident Room was waiting for him to give them orders, to tell them what to do. And he didn’t know. His one and only lead had gone down the pan. He stared through the window out at the miserable, depressing, rain-swept car-park, drawing deeply on his cigarette, punishing his lungs for his own inadequacy. As he pulled the cigarette from his mouth, a thought buzzed and screamed. ‘You said Mrs Winters never left the house except to go to hospital for treatment. How did she get there – the poor cow couldn’t walk?’

‘She certainly didn’t go by bingo coach,’ said Hanlon.

‘Very funny, Arthur – remind me to pee myself when I’ve got more time.’ Frost’s finger stabbed at Burton. ‘Phone the hospital transport officer and find out.’

Burton reached for the phone, but he thought it was a waste of time. ‘She’d have gone by ambulance, Inspector.’

‘Not necessarily, son. Just phone and ask.’ He paced the room, impatiently as Burton held on, waiting for someone to fetch the transport officer from the canteen. And then he remembered something else. Mrs Mary Haynes. The first victim. Her purse. There was a hospital appointment card in her purse. ‘And ask about Mrs Mary Haynes,’ he shouted.

Burton nodded, then held up a hand for silence. The transport officer was on the line. Burton put his questions and waited… and waited… There seemed to be a long delay with Frost hovering anxiously before the answers came through. ‘Ambulances? I see. Do you have the drivers’ names? I see. Thank you very much, you’ve been a great help.’ He replaced the receiver and tried to look noncommittal as Frost hurried over. But he couldn’t keep up the pretence.

‘You bastard!’ yelled Frost. ‘We’ve hit the jackpot, haven’t we?’

Burton grinned broadly. ‘They have a pool of volunteer drivers who help out with their own cars when the ambulances are too busy to collect patients for treatment.’

‘I know,’ said Frost. ‘A volunteer driver used to pick up my wife.’

Burton smiled sympathetically before adding, ‘One of those volunteers is a Mr R.W. Gauld.’

Frost crashed down on a chair. ‘Then we’ve got the bastard!’

‘Not quite, Inspector. The hospital doesn’t keep records of individual pick-ups – they handle hundreds of patients every day. All they can say is that Gauld was among the volunteer drivers on duty on the last two occasions when Mrs Winters and Mrs Haynes attended for treatment. He didn’t collect them, but it’s possible he took them back home afterwards.’

‘And that’s when he found out about the spare key under the mat and the string inside the letter-box,’ said Frost, excitedly. ‘Let’s bring the bastard in.’

Hanlon was more cautious. ‘We could blow it by acting too soon. Jack. We need some solid evidence.’

‘All right. Go to the hospital, see if you can find anyone who saw Gauld take the old dears back home. Check with the neighbours in the hope someone saw Gauld deliver them back. Get details of his car – did anyone see it in the vicinity on the nights of the murders? You know the form – whatever I’ve forgotten, do it. Lastly, I want Gauld tailed. I want to know everything he does every minute of the day and night, and when he goes out on his next killing job, we grab him, and if he’s got his bloody knife on him, that’s all the proof I need.’

In the corridor, he collided with Detective Sergeant Gilmore who looked as happy as his inspector.

‘We’ve got a full statement from Mrs Compton, Inspector.’

‘Thank God for that, son. I was afraid I might have to perjure myself at her trial.’

‘She admits everything, but says the husband’s death was an accident.’

‘How? Did she accidentally welt him round the head with one of her rigid nipples?’

A broad grin from Gilmore. Anything Frost said was funny today. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he added sincerely.

‘All I did was tell a few lies,’ demurred the inspector. ‘Any self-respecting policeman would do the same.’

‘And after your stunt with the leaves,’ added Gilmore, ‘I got Forensic to go over the boot of Mark Compton’s car. We actually found a couple of leaves from the wreath.’

‘That’s what’s known as nature imitating art,’ said Frost. ‘When you get a minute, see me in the office. I’ll update you on the Ripper case. We’re nearly ready to nail the bastard.’

In the office, weighed down in the centre of his desk by a stapling machine, was the memo from County beefing about the balls-up with his car expenses. He screwed it into a tight ball, tossed it in the air and headed it towards the open goal of the waste bin. It dropped dead centre with a satisfying plonk. He beamed happily. Things were starting to go right.

Later, when everything blew up in his face, he would remember this brief moment of euphoria.

RD Wingfield

Night Frost

Thursday night shift (1)

The downstairs light went out. A pause, then the upstairs light came on and the silhouette of a man passed the window. Gilmore ducked down behind the steering wheel until the curtains were closed and the bedroom light went out. He shook Frost awake. ‘He’s gone to bed.’

Yawning heavily, Frost consulted his watch. A few minutes to midnight. They had been parked down the side turning for nearly two hours, since taking over from Burton. Gauld had collected a party of senior citizens from the Silver Star Bingo Club at nine o’clock, and had delivered them all safely back to their homes by 9.56. He had then driven his grey Vauxhall Astra back to his terraced house in Nelson Street and was indoors by 10.15.

Frost fidgeted and tried to get comfortable. He was tired and hungry and there was no chance of a relief until six His fault. He had forgotten to ask Mullett to authorize more overtime and Wells was playing it by the book. He smeared a gap in the misted windscreen with his cuff and peered out at the still, dark street. ‘It’s too late for him to murder anyone now,’ he decided. ‘Let’s get ourselves something to eat. I know a place that’s open all night.’

The ‘place’ Frost knew was a converted van selling hot dogs and hamburgers on a windswept stretch of waste ground near the cemetery. The stale greasy smell of frying onions slapped them round the face as they got out of the car. On the side of the van a drop-down flap provided a serving counter and a canvas awning sheltered the clientele from the worst of the weather. Behind the counter a tall, thin man with a melancholy face and a red, running nose sucked at a cigarette as he pushed some onion slices around the fat with a fork.

‘Lord Lucan and party,’ announced Frost. ‘We did book.’

‘Very funny,’ said the man, pulling the cigarette from his mouth so he could cough all over the food. He banged two cups on the counter, dropped a tea-bag in each and filled them with hot water from a steam-belching urn.

They sipped the scalding tea while the man fried them two hamburgers in tired, spitting fat. It was a cold night with the wind flapping the canvas awning.

‘You caught that girl’s killer yet?’ asked the owner, putting the burgers on a plate and sliding them over.

Frost lifted the top of his bun and peered suspiciously at the onion-topped meat sinking in a puddle of fat. ‘We’re on a different case, Harry. Suspect meat sold as hamburger filling.’ He took a tentative bite and chewed cautiously. ‘I hope yours comes from a legitimate source?’

Harry sucked nervously at his cigarette. ‘Of course it does Mr Frost. That’s top-class stuff, that is – minced steak.’

‘Good,’ said Frost. ‘Only this dodgy outfit is importing so-called meat from the Continent… all sorts of rubbish – dead horses, cats, dogs, some of it even worse.’

‘Worse?’ asked Harry.

Frost leant forward confidentially and lowered his voice. ‘Don’t spread this around, Harry, it would cause a public outcry, but we’ve got evidence they’re even buying unclaimed bodies from undertakers and putting them in the mincing machine.’

Harry pulled the cigarette from his mouth and flicked off the spit from the end ‘You’re having me on, Mr Frost!’

‘I wish I was,’ answered Frost gravely. He took a bite at his hamburger, then pulled it from his mouth. ‘Bloody hell!’ He snatched the top from his bun and gaped in disbelief. Lying across the onion, drenched in a bloody pool of tomato ketchup, was a severed human finger.

Gilmore shuddered and dropped his on the counter Harry’s face went a greasy white and his head jerked back in horror, rattling the tins on the shelf behind him. ‘Christ, Mr Frost! They told me it was good meat. They said it was prime beef steak…’ His voice suddenly changed to outrage. ‘You bastard!’

The severed finger was wiggling at him and Frost was convulsed with laughter as he pulled it free and wiped off the ketchup.

‘It’s not funny,’ bellowed Harry. ‘You nearly gave me a bloody heart attack.’

Frost wiped the tears from his eyes. ‘I was going to put my dick in, Harry, but the buns were too small.’

‘Bleeding funny!’ snarled the man as they walked back to the car, Frost still convulsed at his joke. ‘Pity you don’t put your bloody energy into finding that poor kid’s killer.’

Frost stopped laughing.

The cemetery was crawling past the car window. Frost asked Gilmore to stop. He lit a cigarette and stared moodily across white marble and granite. ‘Harry was right, son. That bloody girl. I haven’t the faintest idea what to do next.’

Gilmore said nothing. At the far end of the empty road he had spotted a man, dressed in black, crouching by the cemetery railings. Gilmore clicked off the headlights, then nudged Frost, who nodded. ‘I see him, son.’

The man seemed to be doing something to the railings.

‘What’s he up to?’ asked Gilmore.

'Whatever it is, let him get on with it,’ muttered Frost, huddling down into his seat. ‘I can’t solve the cases I’ve got. I don’t want any more.’

But Gilmore wanted more. Another arrest on top of the successful outcome of the Compton case would do his promotion chances a world of good. He wound down the window and stuck his head out, trying to make out what the man was doing. Frost shivered as the cold air rushed in. ‘He’s either got his dick stuck between the railings, or he’s having a pee, son. Let’s get back to the station.’

Suddenly the man seemed to push against the railings and was through to the cemetery where his black shape flitted briefly across the white of the headstones before being gulped up by the darkness.

Gilmore was out of the car while Frost was still fumbling for his seat belt.

One of the cast iron railings had rusted away and could be lifted from its concrete base. Gilmore pulled it up and wriggled though, then held it so Frost could follow.

The cemetery was vast. Their man could have gone any where. ‘We’ve lost the bugger, son.’

‘Shh!’ hissed Gilmore, squinting to focus his eyes. ‘There!’

Frost’s eyes followed Gilmore’s finger. The moon pushed its way through a cloud and illuminated the cemetery in a cold blue light. Uncut grass twitched and shivered in the wind. Trees creaked and groaned. And then Frost saw him. About sixty yards away, zigzagging between the graves.

‘Follow me!’ ordered Gilmore, haring off in pursuit. Reluctantly, Frost stumbled after him. He couldn’t see what Gilmore was getting all excited about. The man could simply be taking a short cut.

They jogged on, past angels and cherubs. The path veered to the right and there ahead of them was the Victorian crypt. ‘Stop, son,’ pleaded Frost, ‘I’ve got to rest.’ They paused alongside some new, raw graves, panting, sucking in air, looking left and right where the path split. Nothing but white headstones as far as the eye could see.

‘We’ve lost him,’ said Frost happily. ‘Let’s get back to the car.’

An irritated flap of Gilmore’s hand hushed him to silence and pointed to the crypt. The man, his back to them, was bent over doing something to the padlock. A loud click, then a groaning of hinges as the door was pushed open. A torch flashed and the man disappeared inside the burial vault.

‘Still taking a short cut?’ scoffed Gilmore, smugly. He moved quietly round to the side of the building and squeezed through the railing by the tap, where Paula Bartlett’s killer squeezed through with her body. Frost, slower, followed.

Round to the door where the newly fitted brass padlock still held the hasp firmly, but as before, the screws had been prised from the rotting door frame. Intermittent splashes of light spilled from inside. Echoing in the confined space, sounds of something heavy being dragged across the stone floor.

Gilmore and Frost looked at each other. What the hell was he doing?

Cautiously, Gilmore edged his head until he could see inside. Pitch black, then the man’s torch clicked on again and lit up a scatter of something on the floor. Bones. Human bones. And on top of them, a grinning, yellow-toothed, human skull.

Gilmore’s involuntary gasp was enough to make the man spin round, the glare of his torch hitting Gilmore straight in the eyes, momentarily blinding him. Then, with a yell, the man charged and Gilmore found himself flying through the air, his back, then his head hitting the stone floor with a teeth-jolting crack making pin-points of light dance in the blackness at the pain.

Crouching, ready to give him a second dose, the man moved forward.

‘Stay where you are. Police!’ yelled Frost, dragging his torch from his mac pocket and kicking bones out of the way as he advanced into the vault. The man blinked into the beam and Frost stopped in his tracks. Gilmore’s assailant was wearing a clerical collar.

The curate gawped surprise at the sudden appearance. ‘Mr Frost!’

Gilmore creaked open his eyes and saw a skull and a thigh bone within inches of his face. He sat up, gingerly touching the back of his head then studying the blood on his finger tips.

‘I’m terribly sorry, Sergeant,’ apologized the curate. ‘I thought you were one of the vandals.’ He helped Gilmore to his feet and examined the cut on his head. ‘Only a graze, I think.’

With an angry jerk, Gilmore shook him off. ‘Perhaps you’d care to explain what you’re doing here at this time of night?’ He picked up the torch and swept the stone floor with its beam. The lids of two coffins had been unscrewed open and the skeletal bodies inside tipped out with bones and pieces of shroud strewn all over the floor. ‘And how do you propose to explain this?’

‘I use the graveyard as a short cut to get back to the vicarage. I’ve been sitting with another sick parishioner. She died, I’m afraid – this terrible influenza epidemic.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘So many deaths.’

‘Let’s have the address of this sick old lady,’ said Gilmore, pen poised over his notebook. He wrote down the details. ‘Right. Now explain this.’ He nodded at the mess.

‘Does it need explaining?’ said the curate bitterly. ‘You’re supposed to be protecting us against vandals. I passed the crypt and saw the door was open. I came in to investigate and found this.’ He shook his head. ‘Such pointless desecration. One tries to be forgiving, Sergeant, but this is sick.’

Gilmore snapped shut his notebook. ‘All right, Mr Purley. That’s all, for now.’ He emphasized the ‘for now’.

They followed him out and watched as he tried to make the door secure. ‘You’ll need a new door frame,’ said Frost.

‘Yes, Inspector. More expense.’ Another sigh. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow and try and fix it. I’ll tidy up inside as well.’ Round to the side of the building where they squeezed through the gap in the railing.

They watched him picking his way between the graves before veering off towards the vicarage.

‘I don’t trust him,’ growled Gilmore. ‘He’s always out too late at night for my liking. If there’s been another Ripper murder…’ Frost was pinning his hopes on the coach driver, but Gilmore had serious doubts. ‘Let’s go. This place is giving me the creeps.’

‘It must have given Paula Bartlett’s killer the creeps, coming here at dead of night with a body in his arms.’ Frost poked away at his scar and stared at the ranks of white headstones crowding in on the crypt. ‘He knew how to find the crypt, son, and he knew he could get in.’ He pushed his hands deep into his mac pockets and wandered along the railings, booting at pebbles in his path. ‘So how did he know?’

‘Perhaps he was someone who often used the graveyard as a short cut,’ offered Gilmore, pointedly rubbing the back of his head.

Frost chewed his knuckles in thought, then took out his cigarette packet and shook it. One left. He poked it in his mouth and flung the empty packet into the long grass. A blast of cold wind cut across the cemetery, shaking the trees and making him shiver. ‘Let’s go.’

They walked on to the path where the first of the new graves encroached. Frost struck his match on a convenient headstone. The match flared. He saw the wording, but at first didn’t take it in. Then he stared, open-mouthed, until the match burnt his fingers. ‘Where the bloody hell did this come from?’

He struck another match so Gilmore could read the inscription.

In Loving Memory Of Rosemary Fleur Bell

April 3 1962 – September 10 1990

Adored Wife Of Edward Bell MA.