‘Then let’s start in the kitchen,’ said Frost.
It was a spacious, no-expense-spared kitchen, fitted out in solid oak with marble worktops, burnished copper cookware on the walls and miniature hand-operated water pumps instead of taps over the sink. A black Aga disguised to look like an old coal-fired cooking range breathed the warm crunchy smell of baking bread. Black-moustached PC Jordan, twenty-six, his tunic unbuttoned, was seated at a scrubbed pine designer table drinking tea from a thick designer mug. He jumped up to attention as the detectives entered, but Frost waved him to sit and dragged up a chair alongside him. Gilmore did the same.
‘I suppose you want some tea?’ said Ada and, without waiting for their reply, poured two teas from a brown teapot, pushed the sugar bowl across, then shuffled out, muttering something about having work to do.
Frost found a tea towel and dried his wet hair. ‘This is Frank Gilmore.’
‘Hi, Frank,’ said Jordan, offering his hand.
The hand was ignored. ‘Detective Sergeant Gilmore,’ came the icy correction. ‘And button up that jacket.’ Start as you mean to go on. Don’t let the lower ranks get too familiar or they’ll walk all over you.
Frost passed round his cigarettes, then asked for a report. Jordan, stifling his resentment at Gilmore’s snub, flipped open his notebook. ‘I got the call from Control at 9.23. I arrived at 9.34. The fire brigade was already here so I left them to it and went straight in to Mrs Compton.’
‘Mrs Compton?’ interrupted Frost. ‘Not the husband?’
‘He’s away on business,’ said Jordan.
A smile traversed Frost’s face. ‘Good. Then I won’t have to watch him fondling her bloody body… What’s she wearing this morning?’
‘That pink shortie nightie,’ said Jordan. ‘The one she wore the first time.’
Frost whooped with delight. ‘The shortie — wow! That’s the one that barely covers her bum. I must try and drop something on the floor for her to pick up.’ Then he remembered the serious business of the day and nodded for Jordan to continue.
‘She got up just after nine, picked the post up from the mat, made herself a cup of tea and went into the lounge. The first letter she opened was this.’ Jordan pushed across a transparent plastic bag. Inside it was a sheet of cheap quality A4 paper on which were pasted letters cut from a glossy magazine to form words.
Frost read it, his face grim, then passed it across to Gilmore. The message was short and chillingly to the point.
THE NEXT THING TO BURN WILL BE YOU, YOU BITCH.
‘Where’s the envelope?’ demanded Gilmore. This case was looking a little more worthy of his attention now. Jordan handed over another plastic bag containing a manila envelope, 9 inches by 4 inches. The address, typed in capitals, read: MRS COMPTON, THE OLD MILL, LEXING. It bore a first-class stamp and had been posted in Denton the previous evening. He motioned for Jordan to continue.
‘Next she heard this roaring sound from outside. She opened the lounge curtains and saw the summer house on fire, so she dialled 999.’ He closed his notebook.
Frost drained his mug and dropped his cigarette end in it. ‘This is getting nastier and nastier. It started off with heavy-breathing phone calls, now it’s death threats. Right, Jordan. Nip down to the village and ask around. Did anyone see anything… any strange cars lurking about someone stinking of petrol.’ As the constable left, he stood up. ‘Buttock-viewing time,’ he told Gilmore. ‘We’re going to chat up Mrs Compton.’
Gilmore followed him out of the kitchen, along the waxed wooden-floored passage and into the lounge, a large, high-ceilinged room which had a rich, rustic, new- sacking smell from the dark chocolate-coloured hessian covering its walls.
Jill Compton, standing to receive them, looked much younger than her twenty-three years. She wore a gauzy cobweb of a baby doll nightdress which hid nothing, and over it a silken house-coat which flapped open so as not to spoil the view through the nightdress. Her hair, fringed over wide blue eyes and free-flowing down her back, was a light, golden corn colour. She wore no make-up and the pale, china doll face with a hint of dark rings around the eyes gave her a look of vulnerability. She smiled bravely. ‘I’m sorry I’m not dressed.’
‘That’s quite all right, Mrs Compton,’ said Frost, and there was no doubting the sincerity in his voice. ‘It’s a sod about your summer house.’
‘It could have been the house,’ she said, her voice unsteady. ‘Did you see that letter?’
Before Frost could answer the front door slammed and a man’s voice called, ‘Jill — I’m home! Where are you?’
‘Mark!’ She ran out to meet her husband.
‘Damn!’ grunted Frost. ‘The buttock-squeezer’s back!’ Mark Compton was twenty-nine and flashily good- looking. Fair-haired, a bronzed complexion, although slightly overweight from good living, he looked like a retired life-guard out of Neighbours. Gilmore hated him instantly for his looks, his money, his perfectly fitting silver-grey suit, his arm around Mrs Compton, but most of all for his hand caressing her bare arm.
‘A letter? My wife said there was a letter threatening to kill her.’
Frost showed it to him. His face went white. ‘Why are we being persecuted like this?’ He sank down into a leather armchair. His wife dropped down on his lap and snuggled up to him.
‘That’s what I want to know,’ said Frost. ‘Why?’ He and Gilmore were sitting, facing the Comptons, in a large leather settee. He fumbled for his cigarettes. ‘Whoever’s doing this must have a reason.’
‘Reason?’ said Compton ‘There’s no bloody reason. It’s the work of a maniac.’
‘We’ve been receiving a spate of complaints about poison pen letters. “Did you know your wife’s been having it off with the milkman?” — that sort of thing. I’m wondering if it could be the same bloke.’
‘We’ve had death threats, Inspector, not stupid poison pen letters.’
‘Run through the main course of events again,’ said Frost. ‘Just for the benefit of my new colleague here.’
Mark Compton slipped his hand under Jill’s house-coat and gently stroked her bare back. ‘OK. As you know, we run a business from this place… Jill was on her own one night when this bugger phoned.’
‘What sort of business is it?’ interrupted Gilmore.
‘Dirty books,’ said Frost.
Compton glowered. ‘We’re fine art dealers,’ he corrected. ‘Mainly rare books and prints, a small proportion of which might be termed erotica, and manuscripts, but not many. There’s over a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of stock upstairs.’
Gilmore whistled softly to show he was impressed. ‘Safely locked up, I hope?’
‘We couldn’t get insurance if it wasn’t,’ Compton replied icily. ‘Your Crime Prevention Officer has given us the once-over and was quite satisfied. We’ve got a sophisticated alarm system with automatic 999 dialling. If anyone tried to break in, they’d set off the alarm at your police station.’
‘Books and manuscripts,’ said Gilmore, ‘and a wooden building. I shouldn’t think the insurance company were too happy about that?’
Mark Compton pointed to metal roses dotting the ceiling. ‘Automatic sprinklers in every room, a condition of the policy.’
‘So not too much danger from fire?’
‘An ordinary fire, perhaps, but if some stupid bastard starts pouring petrol all over the place like they apparently did with our summer house…’
Frost’s head came up sharply. ‘How did you know that, sir?’
‘The fireman outside told me. It’s not a state secret, is it? I am entitled to know the methods maniacs use to destroy my property.’
Frost smiled and switched his attention to the woman. ‘Tell us about the phone calls.’
The recollection made her shudder. ‘It started about two weeks ago. The phone kept ringing in the middle of the night. Every time I answered it, the caller hung up. It was frightening. This place is so isolated. I was terrified.’ Again she shud
dered. Her husband moved his hand up to cup and squeeze her breast in reassurance. In case Gilmore hadn’t spotted this, Frost drew it to his attention by a sharp dig in the ribs with his elbow. Gilmore pretended not to notice and, trying to keep his eyes well above breast level, he asked Jill to continue.
‘The next morning a black Rolls Royce came up the drive. It was a hearse, with a coffin in the back!’ She was shaking uncontrollably. Mark squeezed her tighter and she clung to him. At last she was able to continue. ‘Two men dressed all in black got out and knocked. They said they were undertakers and had come to collect the body of my husband. I think I screamed.’
‘Some stupid, sick bastard’s idea of a joke,’ cut in Compton angrily. ‘Fortunately I came home a couple of minutes later. Jill was having hysterics. Then the phone rang. The Classified Ads section of the local paper checking details of my obituary notice which had just been phoned in. Apparently I had died suddenly as the result of a tragic accident. Just imagine if Jill had taken that call.’ She blinked up at him and buried her face in his chest. ‘Later that day, just to complete this hilariously funny sick joke, a firm of monumental masons sent me a quotation for my headstone. That was when I called in the police… not that it did us any damn good. The next day our ornamental pond was full of dead fish. They’d been poisoned. The maniac had poured bleach in. Then he phoned me.’
Gilmore’s head shot up. ‘Phoned you?’
‘He said, “Dead fish first, dead people next.” Then he hung up.’
‘Did you recognize the voice?’ asked Gilmore.
‘Of course I didn’t recognize it. Would we be sitting here wondering who it was if I did?’
Gilmore flushed. It would almost be worth his job to smack the smug bastard one in the mouth. ‘Can you describe the voice, sir?’
‘It was obviously disguised. Very soft, almost a whisper. You couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Things came through the post — newspaper cuttings, obituaries of people called Compton, or reports of killings or sudden deaths with the victim’s name crossed out and our name written in. Charming little things like that.’
‘Right,’ said Gilmore. ‘Whoever is doing this must hate you. Any suggestions?’
‘Don’t you think we’ve racked our brains, trying to think of something?’ barked Compton. ‘There’s no rhyme nor reason behind this. I keep telling you, this is the work of someone with a sick mind.’
‘Sick minds or not, sir, they’ve got to have a reason for picking on you in the first place.’
Jill Compton caught her breath and her eyes widened as if a thought had suddenly struck her. ‘Mark… that man who tried to pick a fight with you!’ She rose from his lap and sat on the arm of the chair.
Her husband frowned. ‘What man?’
‘In London — the security system exhibition.’
A scoffing laugh. ‘That was over a month ago.’ To the detectives he said, ‘A bit of nonsense. It’s got nothing to do with this.’
Then why did you look guilty when she mentioned it? thought Frost. ‘Let’s hear about it anyway, sir. Suspects are pretty thin on the ground at the moment.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with this,’ insisted Compton. ‘We’d gone up to London for an antiques fair at the Russell Hotel. This security system exhibition was on at the same time at a different hotel — I forget the name…’
‘The Griffin,’ his wife reminded him.
‘That’s right… Anyway, Guardtech, the firm that fitted up the alarm systems here, had sent us an invitation, so we looked in for a couple of hours. I was in the bar. Jill had gone off somewhere.’
‘I was powdering my nose,’ she told him.
‘Well — whatever. This woman comes up to me and asks for a light. Suddenly, her drunken lout of a husband staggers over and accuses me of trying to take his wife away from him. I didn’t want any trouble, so I turned to go. He swings a punch at me, misses by miles and falls flat on his face. It turned out he was a salesman for Guardtech security systems. Their sales manager came over and apologized. Said this chap was insanely jealous of his wife and had been knocking back the free booze all day, just spoiling for a fight with anyone.’
‘Do you remember his name?’ asked Gilmore, hopefully.
Compton shook his head.
‘His name was Bradbury, darling,’ said his wife, looking proud that she could supply important information. ‘Simon Bradbury.’
‘Something like that,’ grunted Compton begrudgingly. ‘But you’re wasting your time going after him. He lives in London.’
While Gilmore scribbled the name in his notebook, Frost stood up and wound his scarf round his neck. ‘We’ll check him out, anyway. If anything else happens, phone the station right away.’
Mark Compton’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. ‘You’re just walking away? For God’s sake, man, my wife’s life has been threatened. I want round-the-clock protection.’
Frost shrugged apologetically. ‘I’ll get an area car to make a detour from time to time, just to keep an eye on the place, but we haven’t got the resources for twenty-four-hour surveillance.’
Compton’s voice rose to a shout. ‘Bloody marvellous! Well, let’s make one thing clear. If the police won’t do anything, then I will. If he lays one finger on my wife, and I catch the bastard, I’ll kill him with my bare hands, and that’s a bloody promise.’
The Fire Investigations Officer was sitting in the back seat of the Cortina. waiting for them. He declined a cigarette, pleading a sore throat. ‘I think I’m coming down with flu, Jack. Half the watch are off with it.’
‘Tell me what you’ve found and then push off,’ said Frost. ‘I don’t want to catch it from you.’
The fireman passed across a plastic envelope. Inside was a chunk of burnt wood with a snail’s trail of a dirty grey waxy substance dribbled over it. ‘Candle grease from an ordinary household candle. And I’ve found several scraps of burnt cloth. My guess is that the fire was set off by a stump of candle burning down to some inflammable material — possibly rags soaked in petrol.’
Frost handed the envelope back. ‘How long would a fuse like that take to burn down?’
The fireman scratched his chin. ‘Depends on the length of the candle, but I shouldn’t think they’d use a full one, not in that situation. Too much risk of it toppling over or getting blown out. The more reliable way is just to use a stump, the shorter the better and then you’re talking an hour maybe a lot less.’
‘But if they did use a full-length one?’
‘Four and a half hours top whack.’
Frost chewed this over and stared up at the black- clouded sky through the windscreen. ‘How good is that sprinkler system in The Mill?’
‘Damn good.’
‘Even if petrol was used again?’
‘It would definitely keep it under control until we got here.’ His nose wrinkled and his eyes widened as he dived into his pocket for his handkerchief, but too late. His violent sneeze rocked the car.
‘Thanks a bunch,’ grunted Frost. ‘Flu germs are all we bleeding need.’
The Cortina bumped down the puddled lane on its way back to Denton. An agitated Gilmore, concerned about his delayed meeting with the Divisional Commander, was fidgeting impatiently, willing the inspector to drive faster. Frost seemed to be driving by remote control, his mind elsewhere, his cigarette burning dangerously close to his lip. They were approaching the gloomy Denton Woods before Frost spoke. ‘What did you think of Jill Compton?’
‘A knock-out,’ admitted Gilmore.
Frost wound down the window and spat out his cigarette. ‘Did you see how he was groping her? I thought she was going to get his dick out any minute.’ He shook another cigarette from the packet straight into his mouth. ‘When you get a chance, son, find out where Compton was last night and if there’s any way he could have started that fire.’
‘Compton?’ Gilmore was incredulous. ‘Why should he
destroy his own property?’
‘I don’t know, son. I don’t like the sod. He’s a bit too bloody lovey-dovey with Miss Wonder-bum for my taste — almost as if he wants to shout out for our benefit how devoted he is.’
Gilmore was unimpressed. ‘I thought he was genuinely devoted.’
‘Maybe so, son. I’m probably way off course as usual, but check anyway.’ The car was now speeding down the hill leading to the Market Square. ‘I’ll drop you off at the station. If Mullett asks, you don’t know where I am.’
The radio belched static, then Control asked for Mr Frost to come in please. ‘What’s your position, Inspector?’
Frost looked through the window at the row of shops and the turning just ahead leading to the police station. A bit too close to Mullett for comfort. ‘Still at The Mill, Lexing, investigating arson attack.’
‘Would you call on Dr Maltby, The Surgery, Lexing. One of his patients received a poison pen letter this morning and tried to kill himself.'
‘On my way,’ replied Frost, spinning the car into a U-turn.
‘Is Detective Sergeant Gilmore with you?’ asked Control. ‘Mr Mullett wants to see him right away.’
‘Roger,’ said Frost.
‘He also wants to see you this morning without fail,’ added Control.
‘Didn’t get that last bit,’ said Frost. ‘Over and out.’ He slammed down the handset and turned off the radio.
Lexing was a small cluster of unspoilt houses and cottages, nothing later than Victorian. Perched on the hill to the north was the mill they had just visited and leaning against the front door of Dr Maltby’s cottage was the same bike they had seen outside the Comptons’. And, sure enough, it was Ada Perkins who let them in.
‘What did the doctor say, Ada?’ asked Frost confidentially. ‘Are you pregnant or is it just wind?’
‘Not funny,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve just done the hall so wipe your muddy boots.’
She ushered them into the surgery. Maltby, a grey-haired, tired-looking man in his late sixties, wearing a crumpled brown suit, was seated at an old-fashioned desk and was furtively stuffing something that chinked into his top drawer and slamming it shut as he popped a Polo mint in his mouth. The waft of peppermint-tinted whisky fumes hit Gilmore as Frost introduced him.
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