Night Frost

Friday morning shift

Liz slammed the eggs and bacon on the table and stamped off back to the kitchen without a word. ‘Thanks,’ grunted Gilmore, eyeing with wary disfavour the flabby bacon floating in grease and the under-cooked eggs. He liked the bacon crisp and the eggs well done, but he held his tongue. She was spoiling for a fight and was just waiting for him to complain.

His knife sawed away at a tough chunk of meat which squeaked across the plate and defied all efforts to cut it. Liz returned with his tea. ‘Anything wrong with the food?’ she snapped.

‘No, no — it’s fine,’ he lied. ‘I’m not very hungry.’ He risked a sip of the tea. Near-cold and milky when he liked it hot and strong. He replaced the cup on the saucer and made one more effort to restore peaceful relations. ‘Look, Liz, I’m sorry.’

This was her chance. ‘Sorry! I’m left on my own all night. You come in hours late, too tired to talk or do any bloody thing, then you tell me you’ve got to be out again. I never bloody see you.’

‘It won’t be for long, love, then things will be different.’ He reached for her, but she shook him off.

‘It’s always going to be different, but it never bloody well is. I’m sick of your job, I’m sick of this dead and alive town, I’m sick of everything.’ The door slammed in an angry explosion behind her.

Gilmore sighed and took his plate to the kitchen where he emptied it into the pedal bin. He hated to admit it to him self, but he was getting sick of Liz.

Frost wasn’t feeling very happy either. That damn inventory form had reappeared. Mullett must have quarried deep into the filing tray in Allen’s office where Frost had buried it and had transferred it to the top of his in-tray with a large, block capitalled inscription in red felt-tip yelling WHY HASN’T THIS GONE OFF? Because I haven’t bleeding sent it off, thought Frost, reading on. MUST GO OFF TODAY WITHOUT FAIL. SCM — the OR ELSE was implied.

Gilmore came in carrying a thick bacon sandwich and a mug of tea from the canteen. Frost brightened up until he realized Gilmore intended it for himself. ‘Doesn’t that wife of yours feed you?’ he growled and was quite unprepared for Gilmore’s slashing expression of vehemence.

Burton broke the tension by coming in to report.

'What’s the position with Gauld?’

‘He left home at 8.56,’ Burton told him, ‘and drove straight to Denton Hospital. He’s been ferrying out-patients backwards and forwards. We’re keeping him under surveillance.’

‘Good,’ nodded Frost. ‘What have you found out about him?’

‘Not much. He lives with his widowed mother. They moved to Denton some ten years ago from Birmingham. He’s never had a permanent job — just temporary work, mainly driving. The neighbours like him. Apart from his hospital work, he helps out at the local Oxfam shop in his spare time.’

Frost gave a derisory snort. ‘What else does he do? Cure the sick and raise the dead?’ He thought for a while. ‘Do the neighbours see him coming and going late at night?’

‘Sometimes, sir. But you’d expect that with all the late-night coaches he drives.’ Burton paused. ‘I know you want to go for broke on him, Inspector, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep a watch on some of the other coach drivers.’

‘Then do it, son. As long as you don’t let up on Gauld.’

‘We could do with more men.’

‘I could do with a new dick,’ said Frost, ‘but I’ve got to manage with what I’ve got.’ He stared miserably at the inventory. ‘You busy, son?’ he asked Gilmore.

Gilmore backed towards the door. ‘I’m due in court with Mrs Compton in twenty minutes.’

Frost flicked through the wad of information-demanding pages and shuddered. He chucked it back in his in-tray and reburied it. His internal phone buzzed. He scooped his mac from the hat-stand. ‘Tell him I’m out,’ he yelled from the corridor.

Burton picked up the phone. ‘I’m afraid Mr Frost isn’t here, sir,’ he told the Divisional Commander.

The sound of the Westminster chimes reverberated inside the flat. A fat, motherly little woman in a green overall waddled into the hallway and opened the door. A shabbily dressed man twitched a shy smile. Not one of the regulars. She hadn’t seen him before. ‘I phoned,’ he said.

She gave a welcoming smile to put him at ease. He looked so nervous. ‘French lesson, isn’t it? Miss Desiree’s expecting you.’ She led him through the hall into a dimly lit room with the curtains drawn. ‘The gentleman who phoned,’ she announced, then retired discreetly, closing the door with a gentle click behind her.

The woman sitting on the bed was in her late thirties and looked like a young Mae West. The loose-fitting red dressing gown she wore was carefully flapped open to display black bra, black knickers and black stockings which were held up by rosette, red garters. An over-brilliant smile clicked on automatically as she greeted her visitor. ‘Don’t be shy,’ she purred in a thick French accent, ‘I am Mademoiselle Desiree.’

‘Hello, Doris,’ said Frost, giving her a quick flash of his warrant card. ‘How’s your bunions?’

The smile withered and died with the French accent. ‘Jack effing Frost! Well, you can piss off as soon as you like.’

‘You can’t get round me with sweet talk,’ said Frost, helping himself to one of her cigarettes from a packet on the bed.

He flopped into a chair and pulled a photograph from his pocket. ‘Recognize him?’

She took the photograph and gave it a cursory glance. ‘Can’t place him,’ she said, disdainfully handing it back.

‘It’s dark in here,’ said Frost. ‘Perhaps the light might be better down at the station.’

‘All right. Haven’t seen him for a while, but he used to be a regular. Every Wednesday just after five. His name’s John Smith.’

‘It’s his John Thomas I’m interested in. What did he pay for, Doris — straight sex, or did you have to tart it up, if you’ll pardon the expression?’

‘More or less straight sex — but I had to dress up.’

‘As what?’

She crossed the room to a large fitted wardrobe and slid open the doors. Like the stock for a fancy dress ball, all sorts of bizarre costumes rustled and swung on hangers. On the floor of the wardrobe were whips, canes, a canvas strait jacket, some handcuffs and various ropes, straps and chains. She selected a hanger and unhooked it from the rail. It held a black gym-slip, a white blouse, black knickers and thick dark stockings. ‘He was kinky about schoolgirls,’ she said. ‘I had to wear this school uniform and act all bleeding coy. It didn’t half get him excited.’

‘It’s getting me excited,’ said Frost, standing up and stuffing the photograph of Bell back in his inside pocket. ‘I only wish I had the time…’

Gilmore found Frost in the Murder Incident Room rummaging through the exhibits cupboard. ‘You wanted me, Inspector?’

‘Yes, son. Get the car. We’re going to call on the school master.’ He pulled out the plastic bag which held the shoes Paula Bartlett was wearing when they found her. He told Gilmore about his visit to the prostitute. ‘That’s clinched it for me, son. I’m going to nail the bastard.’

Gilmore hesitated. Frost’s case was strong on suspicion, but pathetically weak on proof. ‘How are you going to do that?’

‘I might have to cheat a little,’ said Frost, pushing the bag back into the exhibits cupboard, ‘and if that doesn’t work, I might have to cheat a lot.’

Bell led them through into his cold, cheerless lounge, apologizing for the state of the place. ‘I still haven’t got over it.’ He cleared some old newspapers from a chair, but they declined his invitation to sit.

‘An official call, I’m afraid, sir,’ said Frost, looking grim.

‘Oh?’ He straightened a few cushions and seemed more concerned at the state of the room than the unexpected visit of the two detectives.

‘Probably nothing in it,’ continued Frost. ‘We get these crank calls all the time and we have to follow them up?’

‘Crank calls?’ blinked Bell.

‘Paula Bartlett, sir. We have a witness who claims he saw the girl in your house on the afternoon she went missing.’

‘Here?’ Bell frowned, finding the idea incredible. ‘Oh no, Inspector, that’s ridiculous.’

‘I’m sure it’s ridiculous,’ continued Frost, ‘but as I said, sir, we have to follow these things through. Just a formality, but do you mind if we have a look around the house?’

‘Mind? Of course not. Look anywhere you like. It’s all such a mess though, I’m afraid.’

‘We’re used to mess, sir,’ Frost assured him. ‘No need to come with us. We’ll do it quicker on our own.’ And he trotted up the stairs, Gilmore following close behind. The first door they tried led to the master bedroom, the unmade bed a shambles, discarded clothes everywhere. Frost grinned. ‘This will do fine. Start searching.’ He sat on the bed, smoking, as Gilmore poked around, dragging out the dressing table, peering behind the wardrobe.

‘It would help,’ grunted Gilmore, shouldering the ward robe back into position, then climbing on a chair so he could look on the top, ‘if I knew what I was supposed to be looking for.’

Frost puffed out three smoke rings then speared one with his finger. ‘We’re looking for proof the girl was in the house.’

Gilmore climbed down from the chair and rubbed the dust from his hands. ‘We’re never going to find it after two months.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Frost, pushing himself up from the bed and wandering over to the dressing table. ‘There’s some thing poking out down there.’

He bent down and came up holding a shoe. A flat-heeled, lace-up brown shoe. Neatly written inside, in biro, the name ‘Paula Bartlett’.

Gilmore stared in confusion. ‘I looked there,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have missed it.’ He snatched the shoe from Frost, his nose wrinkling in distaste as a clinging smell of decay floated up. ‘This is one of the shoes we found on the body. You took it from the exhibits cupboard.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ hissed Frost.

‘You’re going to plant evidence?’ croaked Gilmore. ‘You fool! You’ll never get away with it.’ He thrust the shoe back into Frost’s hand. ‘You can forget it as far as I’m concerned. I want no part of it.’

‘Play along with me,’ pleaded Frost.

‘No bloody way.’ Gilmore’s mind was racing. He couldn’t wait to get back to the station. This was something Mullett had to be told about.

‘Please!’ said Frost.

The old twit looked so pathetic, Gilmore relented. ‘Just don’t involve me,’ he said.

Bell, slumped in a chair, straightened up as the two officers came back in. He forced out a smile which wasn’t returned The older detective’s face was grim and doom-laden. ‘Is there anything the matter?’

Frost didn’t answer. He just held out the shoe in mute accusation.

Bell backed away, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Paula was only wearing one shoe when we found her, sir. We kept this information from the press. In searching your bedroom we found this. It matches perfectly the other shoe we found on the body.’

The schoolmaster’s face was a picture of incredulity. ‘It’s impossible. I don’t understand…’

Frost felt the familiar, icy quiver of doubt. He was so sure he had the killer that he hadn’t fully considered the serious consequences of what would happen if his bluff failed. ‘In your bedroom,’ he repeated. ‘There’s no way it could have got there by accident.’ He was aware of the irony even as he said it.

Still the man shook his head.

‘I’ve had a chat with your prostitute friend, sir. Very interesting. Did your wife dress up in kinky schoolgirl clothes for you as well?’

Bell’s head jerked back as if he had been struck. He bit his lip tightly and shuddered, his face screwed up as if on the verge of bursting into tears. He went through the pantomime of searching hopefully in the empty cigarette box, then gratefully accepted one from Frost. ‘We all do things we’re ashamed of, Inspector. I was hurting no one. As I told you, my wife was incapable of making love during the last months of her illness. I had to find an outlet somewhere.’

‘And you found it in poor little Paula Bartlett? You raped her.’

‘No!’ screamed Bell.

‘You strangled her, and rammed her in a sack like so much rubbish.’

‘No! No, no, no.’

‘So how did the shoe get in your bedroom?’ asked Frost, hooking it on his finger and slowly swinging it from side to side.

Bell stared at Frost, his gaze unwavering. Because you put it there, you bastard, his expression seemed to say. Unflinching, Frost stared back. Gilmore’s pen hovered over a page where nothing was written down.

Slowly, Bell pulled his eyes away from Frost, away from the shoe. He drew deeply on the cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs, then gradually releasing it and watching the air currents catch it and tear it to shreds. Then he reached out a hand towards Frost. He wanted the shoe. He took it, turned it over slowly, then gave it back. ‘You have a witness who saw her in the house?’

‘Yes,’ lied Frost.

He crushed out the cigarette in an ashtray and buried his face in his hands. ‘I’d better tell you about it. Yes, Paula was here that day. I should never have kept quiet. It was stupid. But I was terrified you’d think I’d killed her. She was alive when she left here, I promise you.’ Again he looked in the cigarette box, again seeming surprised to find it empty. Gratefully he accepted another from Frost.

'When I got back from the cemetery, I was soaked to the skin. There’d been a cloudburst during the funeral.’

Frost nodded. This part, at least, was true.

‘To my surprise, Paula Bartlett was in the kitchen. All she was wearing was one of my dressing gowns and her shoes. She was putting her wet clothes in the tumble drier. She told me she’d been caught in the storm on her bike and had got absolutely drenched. She thought I wouldn’t mind if she dried off in my house. I could have done without it that day of all days, but of course, I agreed.’

‘How had she got in?’ Frost asked.

‘The back door wasn’t locked.’

‘Why was she out in the storm — she should have been at school?’

‘She said she intended skipping the first lesson — she didn’t like the relief teacher who was taking my place.’

‘I see.’ Frost signalled for him to continue.

‘We had a meal from the deep freeze in the kitchen, then she went upstairs to put on her dry clothes. She left here shortly after one. I thought she was going straight to school. I last saw her pushing her bike up that path.’ He pointed through the window. ‘And that’s the gospel truth, Inspector.’

‘I don’t think so, sir,’ said Frost, shaking his head sadly and sounding genuinely sorry. ‘You say she pedalled away into the sunset on her bike?’

‘Yes!’ insisted Bell.

‘Wearing only one bloody shoe?’ asked Frost, holding it accusingly under the man’s nose.

Gilmore, his pen hovering, held his breath. Frost was pushing his luck. If the schoolmaster remembered both shoes were on the body, he’d realize that there was no way the other shoe could have been found in the bedroom and that Frost’s case was built solely on a bluff.

But Frost’s luck held. Bell was confused. His expression kept changing as various alternatives to his story flitted across his mind and were hastily discarded. His best bet would have been to keep quiet. To say nothing. To let the police do the proving. But he’d kept quiet for too long. He had to tell someone.

‘The girl had sex before she died, sir,’ Frost gently prompted. ‘And we found her shoe in your bedroom.’

Bell shrank visibly, and stared down at the carpet. ‘I’d like to make a statement.’

Concealing his relief, Frost gave the statutory caution and signalled for Gilmore to start a fresh page. ‘When you’re ready, sir.’

‘We had lunch. I should have suspected something. Paula kept "accidentally” letting the dressing gown slip open. Then she went upstairs to get dressed. She called me. She was in our bedroom. Sitting on the bed. She was naked. She was wearing lipstick — thick lipstick. She looked like a child tart. The girl was offering herself to me.’ He paused, then glared defiantly. ‘What the hell! What the bloody hell! I suppose you think I’m some sort of animal?’

Frost said nothing.

The man’s shoulders shook as he covered his face. ‘When it comes down to it we’re all bloody animals.’ He stood up and stared out of the window. ‘We made love. Half-way through she began to struggle. She yelled for me to stop. Then she started screaming rape. I panicked. I grabbed her by the throat to stop her screaming. We struggled. She wouldn’t stop screaming. Suddenly she went still. I must have squeezed too hard. I didn’t mean it… as God is my witness, I didn’t mean it. I tried the kiss of life, I tried everything… but she was dead.’

‘Did you think of sending for a doctor?’ asked Frost.

‘A doctor?’ Bell frowned and his hand flicked away the question as futile. ‘It would have been no use. She was dead.’

He paused. The only sound in the room was the slight rustle as Gilmore turned the page of his notebook. Bell’s head twisted to the sergeant, as if suddenly realizing that every thing he was saying was being taken down. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I was so frightened… so appalled. I tried to think. I had to find somewhere to hide the body and I suddenly thought of that crypt. I thought it would at least be a Christian place of burial for the poor child.’ At this Frost gave an involuntary snort of derision, but Bell didn’t care what Frost thought. This was the statement that would be read out in court, the statement the jury would hear. ‘That night, I took the poor child’s remains out to the car and drove to the cemetery. As reverently as possible I put her in the crypt. I said a prayer for her. I never meant to hurt her.’

‘Before you did that, you reverently burnt the poor child with a blow-lamp,’ said Frost. ‘What sort of kindly, Christian act was that?’

He bowed his head. ‘Genetic fingerprints. I’d read some where you could positively identify a sperm sample. I was trying to destroy the evidence.’

‘The newspapers?’ prompted Frost.

‘I wanted it to look as if she hadn’t finished her round, so I took the newspaper she had brought and put it in her bag, meaning to dump it somewhere with the bike. As I was passing Greenway’s cottage, I noticed his paper sticking out of the letter-box, so I took that as well.’ He waited until Gilmore’s pen had finished writing this all down before adding, ‘I bitterly regret the pain and anguish I caused Paula’s family. It was an accident. I shall live with the scars for the rest of my life.’

Frost stood up and took him by the arm. ‘So will the poor cow’s parents, sir.’ They helped him on with his coat and led him out to the car.

Mullett was angry. He paced up and down Frost’s tiny office, shaking with rage. ‘I’ve told you time and time again, Frost, catching the criminal isn’t enough. We’ve got to be able to prove our case in court. What on earth did you think you were doing?’

‘I thought I was solving a murder case,’ answered Frost. He didn’t expect praise, but he was unprepared for Mullett’s fury.

‘By slipshod, unorthodox methods? By sneaking official evidence from the evidence cupboard? Planting it in a suspect’s house? For heaven’s sake, man, don’t you realize the risk?’

‘Risk?’ asked Frost.

‘What other solid evidence do you have against him apart from his own admission?’

‘Nothing yet,’ said Frost.

‘Has he signed the statement he’s given you?’

‘Not yet. It’s being typed now.’ He nodded towards Gilmore who was typing at speed and pretending not to listen to Frost’s bollocking. He ripped the last page from the machine and hurried from the room.

‘What if he refuses to sign?’ demanded Mullett. ‘What if he decides to plead not guilty in court and claims that the statement was obtained by means of a trick… by the planting of false evidence? If this all blows up in our faces, Inspector, I’m distancing myself from the whole affair. It was done behind my back, against official instructions and contrary to my specific orders. Don’t expect me to carry the can for your shortcomings. Don’t expect me to stand by you.’

‘I’d never expect that, sir,’ said Frost, and he had never sounded more sincere. He looked up anxiously as Gilmore came back, the statement in his hand. ‘Well?’

‘He signed it,’ said Gilmore, slipping the typescript in a folder.

‘He can still retract it,’ snapped Mullett, cutting short Frost’s audible sigh of relief. ‘And then we haven’t got a shred of legitimate evidence against him.’

‘We’ve got quite a bit, sir, actually,’ said Gilmore. ‘Forensic have just phoned an interim report. They’ve turned his house over and found strands of the girl’s hair on the plush velvet headboard of the bed. Bell had changed and washed all the bedding, but there’s definite traces of blood on the mattress corresponding to the girl’s blood group.’

‘Oh!’ said Mullett, sounding almost disappointed.

‘That’s… good news. Perhaps more than you deserve, Inspector, but good news.’ He took the statement from Gilmore and ran his eye over it.

‘I almost feel sorry for the poor sod,’ said Frost.

Mullett’s eyebrows arched. ‘You feel sorry?’

‘A choice young naked piece of nooky offering herself. I wouldn’t like to bet I’d have turned my nose up at it,’ said Frost. ‘Just his rotten luck she turned out to be a teaser.’

‘That’s just Bell’s version. You surely don’t believe it?’

‘Yes, I do.’ He turned to Gilmore. ‘He said she’d put on lipstick. Do you remember when we searched Paula’s room — in her wastepaper bin?’

Gilmore thought, then nodded. He remembered. ‘An empty lipstick packet!’

‘Plain little Paula never used make-up! The poor cow had a crush on him. She had it all planned in advance what she was going to do. And now she’s dead, his life is ruined and when it all comes out in court it will break her parents’ hearts. I thought I was going to enjoy bringing the bastard in on this one, but now…’ He shrugged and pulled open his drawer for a packet of export only.

Mullett gave an uneasy smile. He didn’t quite see what Frost was driving at. ‘Another crime solved, and that’s all that matters, Inspector.’

The phone rang. Gilmore answered it, then offered it to Mullett. ‘For you, sir. The Chief Constable.’

Mullett tugged his uniform straight and stiffened as he took the phone. ‘Yes, sir… we’ve got him… and he’s given us a full confession. And I modestly claim credit for our team work, sir. The good old Denton team have turned up trumps again.’ He listened and smirked, oblivious to the faces Frost was pulling behind his back.

The other phone rang. Frost answered it. He listened and his face went grim. He snatched his mac from the hat-stand and jerked a thumb for Gilmore to follow. ‘Another Ripper victim. An old lady. The bastard’s nearly decapitated her.’

It was like seeing the same tired B-movie over and over again. The tiny over-furnished room. The smell, a mixture of blood and of too many people packed in too restricted a space. The atmosphere was frowsty with sweat, aftershave and tobacco smoke. ‘Open a window,’ yelled Frost. ‘It stinks in here.’

Everyone was busy. The SOC officer, draped with an array of Japanese cameras and leather cylinders of lenses, blazing away with a Canon, the Forensic team, crawling over the carpet, the fingerprint man, whistling tunelessly to himself as he dusted away with his little brush, splashing white powder everywhere. Frost had almost to fight his way through to the corpse. ‘Everyone outside,’ he yelled. ‘You can come back in when I’ve finished.’ He waited while they shuffled out, then he approached the body.

She sat in the rust and grey armchair, her dull eyes fixed on an old 19-inch black and white television set which, encircled by a stockade of knick-knacks and framed photo graphs, stood on a rickety coffee table. Frost touched the set. It was still warm.

‘It was still on when I got here,’ said Detective Constable Burton. ‘I switched it off.’

Frost nodded and haunched down to study the Ripper’s handiwork. A jagged gash on her neck had gouted blood which glinted stickily down the front of her brown floral dress. Blood from stab wounds in her stomach had leaked to form a puddle on her lap. Her left hand dangled down the side of the chair, the fist tightly clenched. His eyes travelled slowly up to her face, the wrinkled flesh bluish white against her sparse grey hair. He leaned closer to examine the hair, which was in untidy disarray. ‘What do you make of that, son?’ Gilmore crouched down beside him.

‘He came on her from behind,’ said a familiar voice and they looked up at the slightly swaying figure of Dr Maltby who had been waiting in the bedroom. He nodded a greeting, then prodded a finger at her hair. ‘The killer came at her from behind, grabbed her hair and yanked up her head. Then he cut her throat. The head’s only hanging by a thread of flesh at the back of the neck, so I wouldn’t shake her if I were you.’

They backed gingerly away from the body, Frost carefully lowering himself into the matching armchair.

‘When he cut her throat,’ continued the doctor, ‘he sliced through her vocal cords in the process, so she wouldn’t have been able to scream, even if she wanted to.’

‘I’m sure she bloody wanted to,’ said Frost, poking a cigarette in his mouth and passing the packet around. ‘I reckon the poor cow would have given her right arm to have been able to scream.’

Grunting his thanks, Maltby accepted a light and moved round to face the body. ‘The killer then came round to here and stabbed her four times in the stomach.’ He mimed four stabbing thrusts. ‘That done, being a neat and tidy person, while she was still bleeding to death and drowning in her own blood, he wiped the knife blade clean, just there.’ He indicated a wide smear on the skirt of the dress.

Frost took this all in with a sniff. ‘I won’t ask how you deduced all that, doc, because I don’t suppose I’d understand a flaming word. Time of death?’

Gently, the doctor felt the woman’s legs. ‘Rigor’s fully developed and she feels cold. It would need rectal temperature readings to be precise, but I shall leave that treat to our pathologist friend… he can be the one to have her head fall off in his lap. At a rough guess she’s been dead fourteen to eighteen hours.’ He jerked back his sleeve to read his watch. ‘Say between nine o’clock last night and one o’clock this morning.’

Frost dropped to his knees and, very carefully, lifted the woman’s left arm. ‘Look at the way her fist is clenched.’

‘Show me,’ said Maltby, lowering himself, none too steadily and kneeling on the floor. He took the hand and focused his eyes with difficulty. ‘Looks like a cadaveric spasm… you sometimes get it with violent death. Hello…’ He looked closer. Something white. The corner of a piece of paper was protruding slightly. Frost snatched the hand and tried to force the cold fingers open.

Maltby stood up and distanced himself from the operation. ‘Careful,’ he said. ‘You’ll have her damn head off.’

Frost snapped his fingers at Gilmore. ‘Hold her head, son.’

‘Eh?’ said Gilmore.

‘She won’t bloody bite you.’

Steeling himself, Gilmore took the head in his hands while Frost tugged at the tightly closed fingers. The head felt cold and as fragile as a blown egg. He gritted his teeth and willed the inspector to hurry.

‘The pathologist won’t like you interfering with his corpse,’ warned Maltby gleefully.

‘Sod the pathologist,’ muttered Frost, grunting as the fingers opened and the hand suddenly went limp. Gilmore almost cried out as the body seemed to quiver and he swore he could feel the head patting from the trunk. Carefully and very slowly, like a man building a tottering house of cards, he took his hands away.

The piece of paper fluttered to the ground. It was a carefully folded?5 note. There was something else pressed tightly into the palm, leaving an impression in the flesh. Three pound coins.

Frost placed the coins in his open palm and stared at them. They told him nothing. He retrieved the banknote from the floor, pushed all the money back into the dead hand and tried to close the fist around it so the pathologist wouldn’t know what he had done. But the dead hand remained limp and let the money drop.

‘You’ve done it now,’ called Maltby, moving quickly to the door. ‘If you’d asked me I’d have told you that you couldn’t put it back again.’

‘I’ll throw the bloody head at you if you don’t hop it,’ bellowed Frost as the door clicked shut.

Gathering up the money, he deposited it on the coffee table alongside the knick-knacks, then sank back in the chair. ‘All right, Burton, let’s have some details. I don’t even know the poor cow’s name.’

Burton flipped open his notebook. ‘Mrs Julia Fussell, aged seventy-five, a widow, one son, married, two kids.’

Frost groaned. ‘Don’t tell me I’ve got to break the news to him.’

‘He emigrated to Australia last year.’

Frost brightened up. ‘Good for him. Carry on, son. Who found her?’

‘Her next-door neighbour, Mrs Beatrice Stacey. She knocked to see if the old dear wanted any shopping, didn’t get a reply, so let herself in with a spare key. I haven’t got much sense out of her. She’s having hysterics next door.’

‘I’ll see her in a minute,’ said Frost.

‘The pattern’s the same as Mrs Watson, yesterday,’ Burton went on. ‘No sign of forcible entry, apparently nothing taken — the bedroom’s undisturbed — and money left in her purse.’

A glum nod from Frost. He wandered over to the front door which was fitted with bolts top and bottom, and a security chain. ‘As you say, son, exactly the same as that poor old cow yesterday. He comes late at night, but she lets him in and then she calmly sits down to watch the telly so he can creep up behind her and cut her bloody throat.’ He examined the security chain. Quite a flimsy affair. ‘You said her purse was untouched. ‘Where is it?’

Burton walked over to a small walnut-veneered sideboard and tugged open a drawer. Using his handkerchief, he took out a worn red leather purse and handed it to the inspector. ‘There’s eighty-five quid in there.’

Holding it by the handkerchief, Frost flicked through the banknotes. All new?5 notes, crisp and consecutively numbered. The numbers tallied with the note taken from her hand. He chewed at a loose scrap of skin on his finger as he thought this over. ‘Right. Try this out for size. It’s the same pattern as yesterday. The Ripper’s coming to fit a new security chain for her. She’s waiting for him, the money all ready from her purse. She lets him in, sits down, holding the money tight in her hot little hand, and watches the telly while the nice man fits the chain for her. But the nice man just creeps up behind the poor cow and cuts her throat, then he stabs her in the stomach, wipes his knife on her dress and off he goes, all happy.’

‘Then this puts Gauld in the clear,’ said Gilmore. ‘He was driving his coach until ten and we watched his house until past midnight.’

‘He could have gone out again after we left,’ said Frost, furious with himself for giving up the surveillance so early. ‘If Doc Maltby is right the time of death could have been as late as one o’clock.’

‘You don’t call at one in the morning to fit a chain,’ pointed out Gilmore. ‘And old girls of seventy-five don’t sit up all night watching television.’

Frost gave a rueful sniff. The sergeant was right. This was his star suspect flushed down the sewer. He pushed the money back into the purse, then noticed something else in the centre compartment. Membership cards for the Reef Bingo Club and for the All Saints Senior Citizens’ Club.

‘All Saints?’ exclaimed Gilmore excitedly. Frost’s suspect might be a non-runner, but his own one was fast coming up on the rails. ‘That bloody curate comes from All Saints.’

The pathologist studied the rectal thermometer, gave it a shake, then wiped it clean before replacing it in his bag. His lips moved silently as he did a mental calculation. ‘In my opinion death occurred between midnight and one o’clock this morning.’

Gilmore registered dismay. ‘Not earlier?’ They had seen the curate outside the cemetery just after midnight last night and it was over half an hour later that they left him to go on to the vicarage.

‘If it was earlier,’ sniffed the pathologist, snapping shut his bag, ‘then I would have said so.’ He shouted down the stairs for the mortuary attendants to come up and collect the body then shafted a glare of disapproval at Frost who had come bounding back into the flat, grinning all over his face. ‘I’ve relayed my preliminary findings to your sergeant.’

‘Thanks, doc,’ said Frost, not sounding very interested. He grabbed Gilmore by the arm and pulled him to one side.

‘Autopsy at four,’ called the pathologist, buttoning up his coat.

‘Right,’ said Frost. He wasn’t interested in the autopsy. By four o’clock the killer should be behind bars.

But Gilmore got in with his own bad news first. ‘Death occurred after midnight, so that clears the curate.’ He waved away Frost’s offered cigarette. ‘So now we haven’t got a single flaming suspect.’

‘Yes, we have, son,’ beamed Frost, sending his cigarette packet on a round tour of the room. ‘Our luck had to change some time and now it’s happened. I’ve been chatting up the old dear next door. First, the dead woman had a job getting off to sleep. She was always up watching television until three or four in the morning. Second, she’d told her neighbour she was going to have a stronger chain fitted and guess who was going to do it?’

‘Gauld?’

‘She didn’t know his name but it was that nice young man who drove the mini-coach that took her to bingo.’

‘Did she say when he was coming to do the job?’

‘No, son. But he came last night. Late. After Joe Soap pulled off the bloody surveillance.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She didn’t tell her neighbour when he was coming. But she told her how much he was going to charge her. Eight quid.’

Gilmore whistled. The?5 note and three pound coins in the dead hand. ‘It sounds too good to be true.’

‘You know my motto,’ smirked Frost. ‘Never kick a gift horse up the fundamental orifice.’ He noticed Burton hovering. “What is it, son?’

‘Forensic have turned up a rogue fingerprint, sir. On the sideboard. Looks recent.’

Frost beamed. ‘Luck could be running our way for once. I think the time has come to bring Gauld in.’