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 complaints 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.
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 downstairs. 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, son.’ 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 fit 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-fi 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. Footsteps 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.’
Night Frost Page 14
