Night Frost djf-3

by R D Wingfield

  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 con
vinced. 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.’