Frost took the form and the proffered pen and tried to focus on the details. He squinted at the time entered on the form, then at his wristwatch.
“You’ve put the wrong time down. It’s half past eleven, not five past midnight.”
“I get paid an extra ten quid if I’m called out after midnight,” said the doctor.
Frost scrawled his signature and handed the chit back. “You can get in trouble for making false claims, Doc.”
“Only if you’re caught,” said Mackenzie, zipping up his case.
“That must have been where I went wrong,” said Frost bitterly.
The door closed behind the doctor and Frost again asked for details.
“The householder is a bloke called Gregson—John Gregson,” said Jordan.
Frost frowned, then stopped frowning because it made his headache worse. “Hold on a minute. Gregson?” His memory raced through the data base in his brain. “Little fat bloke, bald head? He’s got form—robbery with violence. I put him away five years ago. An ex-burglar is burgled. Poetic justice.” He nodded to Jordan. “Carry on, son.”
“He’s asleep in bed,” continued Jordan, “when he hears a noise from the lounge. He creeps downstairs, clicks on the light and there’s this bloke in goggles unplugging his video recorder.”
“Show me the lounge.”
“Through here,” said Jordan, leading Frost out of the kitchen and into a room leading off the hall. The heavy curtains in the lounge were drawn and a video recorder with trailing leads was on the carpet in front of the TV set. Frost gave the room a cursory glance, which didn’t seem to provide him with any flashes of inspiration, so he returned with Jordan to the kitchen.
“Carry on, son.”
“Goggle man barges past him and makes for the kitchen, to get out through that window—the way he got in.”
Frost moved to the window. “Doesn’t seem to have been forced.”
“Gregson said he left it open. He’d brought an Indian in and the kitchen stank of curry.”
Frost stared out through the window on to the darkened back garden, to the rear of which was a tall wooden fence.
“He got over that fence, and through the conveniently open window,” continued Jordan.
Frost nodded. “So he legs it to the kitchen. What next?”
“Gregson goes to grab him. The bloke suddenly starts flashing a knife—that knife—” He pointed to the knife by the body, “and starts jabbing. He stabbed Gregson in the arm.”
Frost looked at the long-bladed, razor carving knife on the floor. “That’s a big bastard. You don’t carry that just for getting stones out of horses’ hooves.”
Jordan grinned. “So to defend himself, Gregson grabs a kitchen knife from the worktop and gets his jab in. The burglar slumps to the floor, Gregson dials 999. The ambulance arrived shortly after we did, confirmed he was dead and left.”
“Where’s the knife Gregson used?”
Howe held up a transparent plastic evidence bag containing a blooded kitchen knife.
Frost went to the tap and splashed cold water on his face. His head was still thumping and his stomach churning. He wasn’t up to all this. He unbuttoned his mac and loosened his scarf. It was bloody hot in here, even with the window wide open. “Let’s have a word with . . .” He paused and blinked helplessly. He had forgotten the bloody bloke’s name.
“Gregson,” Jordan told him and led him upstairs.
Gregson—fatter, balder and older than Frost remembered him, now in his fifties—was sitting on the bed, his head in his hands, sobbing quietly. He was still wearing his pyjamas, which were garish purple and bloodstained. His wrist bore a bloodstained bandage. Taffy Morgan, lolling in a chair next to him, jumped up as Frost entered. “Mr. Gregson, Guv,” he said, as if Frost didn’t know.
Frost pulled up the chair Morgan had vacated and slumped down in it. “We’ve got a dead body downstairs, Mr. Gregson,” he said.
Gregson looked up and stared at Frost. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I just don’t know how it happened. It was all so confused. I was dripping blood. I was just holding the knife to protect myself. He must have moved forward. I never even knew I’d stabbed him. He just looked at me, all sort of surprised, then slumped to the floor and there was blood—lots of blood.” He shook his head as if to try and erase the memory.
Frost listened patiently, trying to ignore the ominous churning in his stomach. He hoped the bathroom was next door. If it was downstairs he wasn’t sure he’d make it. He suddenly realised that Gregson was looking at him, expecting an answer to an unheard question. “Sorry what was that again?”
“I said what is going to happen to me?”
Life imprisonment for you and £50,000 compensation for the burglar’s family, the way our bleeding law is going, thought Frost. Aloud he said, “Too early to say at this stage, Mr. Gregson.” He sighed with relief as his stomach eased up a bit, then screwed up his face, trying to remember what Jordan had told him. “He was unplugging your video when you spotted him?” Gregson nodded. Frost beckoned Morgan over. “See if you can find chummy’s car or van. It shouldn’t be too far away.”
“His car?”
“He’s not walking down the street in the small hours with a video recorder tucked under his arm like Anne Boleyn’s bleeding head, now is he? Even our own PC Plods might find that a mite suspicious.”
“What sort of car has he got?” asked Morgan.
“How the bleeding hell would I know?” retorted Frost.
“Then I wouldn’t know either, Guv, would I? If we knew where he lives, I could go to his house and ask.”
“No!” said Frost sharply. “If he’s married, or living with someone, we’re going to have to break the news that he’s dead and I’m not up to that at the moment.” He could just see himself throwing up all over the bereaved. “Forget the car for now.” He turned his attention back to Gregson. “We’re going to have to ask you to come to the station to make a statement, Mr. Gregson. Put some clothes on and let the officer have your pyjamas. We’ll need them for forensic examination.” He paused. What the hell was nagging him? The bed. Of course. It was a double bed.
“Are you married, Mr. Gregson?”
Gregson kept his head bowed. “Yes.”
“And where is your wife?”
Gregson stared blankly at Frost for a while before replying. His voice was flat. “She left me over a month ago.”
“Oh! I’m sorry to hear that. And where is she now?”
“I don’t know. I came home from work and there was a note on the table saying she’d left me and she wasn’t coming back. I had no idea. There was no hint . . . I thought we had a perfect marriage.”
Frost shook his head sadly. “Rotten luck. And now this . . .”
He told Morgan to take Gregson to the station, then trotted downstairs to join the four uniformed men who had made themselves mugs of instant coffee and were drinking, oblivious to the sprawled body on the floor. The window where the dead man had made his entrance was still wide open and the cold air was starting to clear Frost’s head. He took the offered mug of coffee. “Is there anything to eat in this house? I’m starving.”
Jordan looked in the fridge. “Yoghurts?” he offered.
“Sod that,” said Frost. “Find some bread and make us all some toast.”
While Jordan began feeding bread into the toaster, Frost filled them in on his conversation with Gregson. “Probably a straightforward self-defence killing, but let’s break all my rules and be thorough for a change. I get a feeling there’s something not quite right here. He says his wife left him about a month ago—probably couldn’t stand the sight of those bleeding purple pyjamas. Anyway, check that she’s not buried in the garden. And knock up the neighbours. They might be able to throw some light on where she is.”
Simms consulted his wristwatch. “A bit late to be knocking people up, Inspector.”
Frost squinted at his own watch, but his alcohol-blurred vision made it impo
ssible to read, so he nodded. “First thing in the morning then. And as soon as SOCO have finished, root around and try and trace where her parents live. They might know where to find her. Ah . . .” This as Jordan passed round a plate of buttered toast. For a while they munched quietly. “Mind how you eat it,” warned Frost. “I don’t want toast crumbs all over the bleeding corpse. And someone wash up afterwards, otherwise the next time he kills a burglar he won’t ask us back.” Supersaves own brand of washing-up liquid on the window ledge reminded him he was no further forward with the bloody blackmailer. Tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . . he’d think about what to do about that tomorrow. “Any more of that toast left?”
Jordan was popping another load of bread in the toaster when the door crashed open. A furious-looking Detective Chief Inspector Skinner was framed in the doorway. “What the bloody hell is going on here?”
“Bloody hell . . . the filth,” muttered Frost to himself. Aloud he said, “We’re just taking a meal break.”
“A meal break? Looks more like a bloody picnic—and all round the flaming corpse. If the press got hold of this . . .” He jerked his head at Frost. “A word, Inspector.”
Frost followed him out to the hall, like a schoolboy summoned to the headmaster’s study.
“Thank your lucky stars you’re being transferred, otherwise I’d have had you demoted and back on the bloody beat,” snarled Skinner.
“I’m only here because they couldn’t find you,” said Frost.
“That’s no flaming excuse.” Skinner’s nose twitched. “And you’re drunk.”
“I’m bloody not,” retorted Frost hotly, but he was conscious this lacked conviction as he was slurring his words and swaying slightly. He grabbed the door handle for support.
“Go home,” ordered Skinner. “You’re off this bloody case. I’ll take this up again with you tomorrow.”
Frost sat huddled in the back seat of the area car as Jordan drove him home. A thousand thoughts were spinning round his head, but he couldn’t focus on any of them. There was something wrong, something nagging, and he couldn’t think what it was. “Pull over, son. Stop for a while. I want to have a think.”
Jordan slid the car into a side street and switched off the engine. He took the offered cigarette.
For a while they smoked, Frost’s eyes half closed as he went over the events of the burglary. Then he said, “I think I want to have a word with Gregson again, son. Take me back to the station.”
“Skinner ordered me to take you straight home, Inspector,” said Jordan.
“So who are you going to obey?” asked Frost. “A fat-bellied sober chief inspector or a drunken sod like me?”
Jordan drove him to the station.
As he sat opposite Gregson in the Interview Room, he suddenly realised how dead tired he was. He stifled a yawn. “A couple of things about this killing bother me,” he said, “but I’m sure you can clear them up.” He shook a cigarette from the packet and offered one to Gregson, who declined with a wave of his hand. “Ronnie Knox,” mused Frost as he lit up. “He was a classy villain.” He shook out the match and dropped it in the ashtray, then looked up and beamed at Gregson. “You used to do a spot of burglary yourself, didn’t you? Not in Ronnie’s class, of course.”
Gregson’s head came up with a jolt as he vaguely recognised Frost. He pointed a querying finger.
“Yes,” nodded Frost. “It was me who sent you down. I collared you and Ronnie. What about that for a coincidence?”
“I remember you now,” said Gregson. “It was a long time ago. I learnt my lesson in jail and packed it in when I came out. Besides, I was getting too fat to climb through kitchen windows.”
Frost gave an understanding nod. “But Ronnie kept himself in good nick. Like I said, he had class. He used to stake out these posh houses—usually when the owners were away—went in for jewellery, objets d’art, that sort of thing, not tuppence-ha’penny video recorders. And out of all the houses with rich pickings he could have chosen, why did he pick—if you’ll pardon the expression—your shit hole of a place?”
“We used to look for easy access,” said Gregson. “Like I told the other bloke, I’d left the window open—I guess it was an open invitation.”
“Ah,” nodded Frost knowingly. “I hadn’t thought of that. But there’s one other thing. That dirty great knife he brought with him. It was far too big for his pockets and he’d need both hands free to climb over your fence, so where did he put it?”
“I expect he stuck it in the waistband of his trousers,” suggested Gregson.
“Flaming hell, no,” said Frost. “Climbing the fence with that stuck down his trousers—he’d have cut his flaming dick off. And how the hell would he know your window was open? He couldn’t have seen it until he climbed the fence.”
Gregson shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”
“And another thing,” continued Frost. “You said you switched on the light and found him unplugging your clapped-out video recorder? With the lights out and those heavy curtains drawn, it would have been pitch dark in there—and he didn’t have a torch.” His headache started playing up again—he was wishing he hadn’t started all this. It was Fatso Skinner’s case anyway. “If he climbed over your fence, we’ll find wood fibres on his clothes, but I’ve got one of my funny feelings we won’t find any. And once we trace your wife, I reckon she’ll tell us that the knife Ronnie was supposed to have brought with him was in the house all the time—which would rather shoot your burglar story right up the arse. Might save us all a lot of time if you told us the truth, don’t you think?”
Gregson buried his head in his hands. “My wife . . . she left me for him.”
“What, for Ronnie Knox?”
Gregson nodded. “He came round here to collect her things. They were going away together to Spain. He taunted me. The bastard taunted me. I lost my temper. The knife was on the worktop.”
“You killed him, then made out he’d broken in?” said Frost.
“I found an old pair of ski goggles of mine and put them on him. Then I slashed my arm with the knife, put his dabs on it and left it near the body.”
“You didn’t stand a bleeding chance of getting away with it,” said Frost. “As soon as we talked to your wife she’d have blown your story sky high.”
“A wife can’t testify against her husband,” said Gregson.
Frost gave a scoffing laugh. “If you believe that, you’re a bigger prat than I thought.”
“What the bleeding hell is going on here, Frost?” Skinner, his face brick-red with rage, had crashed into the Interview Room.
“There were a couple of points—” began Frost, but Skinner wouldn’t let him finish.
“Sod your couple of points. I told you to go home. This is my case. Now go . . . now . . .”
Frost waved goodbye as the area car drove away, then staggered into the house, dead tired. The little red light on his answerphone was flashing. He pressed the ‘Play Message’ button. A voice he didn’t recognise. A shrill, angry voice. A woman’s voice. “You rotten, lousy, stinking bastard.” He shook his head as he clicked it off. Too tired to worry about it, he climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
He had been asleep barely an hour when he woke with a start. That woman on his answer phone. Of course! Of bloody course! It was Carol, the big-breasted, roly-poly pathologist. His date. He had forgotten all about her. Sod, sod, and double sod. He groaned as he drifted back into a troubled sleep to dream fitfully of consummation with the naked pathologist, all warm and steaming, big-breasted and hungry-mouthed, hands exploring . . . A moment of bliss, shattered when bleeding Skinner burst in at the moment of penetration, waving those flaming forged car expenses . . . The alarm woke him.
10
“You look bloody rough, Jack,” grinned Wells as Frost made his pale-faced entrance. “Drive you too hard, did she?”
Frost poked a cigarette in his parrot’s cage of a mouth and lit up. The smoke sandpapered his raw throat as he sucked it down
. “The only body I got my hands on last night had a surprised expression on its face and a carving knife in its gut.”
“What—Ronnie Knox? Skinner’s cock-a-hoop. He squeezed a confession out of Gregson. He’s charged him with murder.”
“Now why didn’t I think of that?” said Frost.
“Skinner wants to see you, Jack. The minute you got in, he said.”
“The bloody man’s insatiable,” said Frost.
Skinner frowned angrily as Frost sauntered in and flopped heavily in a chair, showering cigarette ash everywhere.
“Please sit down,” he said sarcastically. “Don’t wait to be asked.”
“Thanks,” grunted Frost, the sarcasm just bouncing off him. “You wanted to see me?”
Skinner pulled open a drawer and took out a blue form which he slid across the desk. “Your request for a transfer. Just sign it at the bottom, would you?” Seeing Frost hesitate, he added, “I got another batch of your expense claims from County last night. From a quick look through them it seems there are quite a few other items we could query if we really wanted to be sods.”
Frost withstood the urge to smash the bastard in the face and tried to look as if it was of no importance to him. You’ve already got me, you bastards. Why turn the screw? He scratched his signature at the bottom without bothering to read the form and slid it back to Skinner, who gave it a cursory glance and smiled with smug satisfaction as he replaced it in the desk drawer. Frost dragged down more smoke and mused over painful ways of slowly killing the sod.
“Good,” said Skinner, taking a key from his pocket and locking the drawer. “Have you put your house on the market yet?”
Frost looked blank. “Eh?”
“You should be starting in Lexton by the beginning of the month. You won’t be able to flaming commute, will you? You’ll have to move—buy yourself a place in Lexton.”
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