The room was dead quiet.
‘She put down the phone,’ continued Frost, ‘and went to the front door. She squints through the spy-hole, likes what she sees, so this nervous woman undoes the chain, draws the bolts and welcomes in the bastard who’s going to rip out her intestines.’ He took the cigarette from his mouth and spat out a shred of tobacco. ‘You’re all a lot smarter than I am, so let’s have some brilliant suggestions. Come on – you’re a nervous woman of seventy-six. Who would you let into your flat at night – apart from a toy-boy with his own teeth and a big dick?’
Burton raised his hand. ‘Something we’ve never considered, sir. She’d never let in a man – but what if the Ripper was a woman?’
Frost chewed on his lip as he thought this over. ‘It’s possible, son. It would explain a lot, but my gut reaction is against it. We’ll keep it in mind, though.’
WPC Jill Knight raised a hand. ‘If she’d phoned for a doctor, she’d let him in.’
A buzz of excitement.
‘You’re right,’ said Frost. ‘She’d let a doctor in.’
‘Or a priest,’ added Gilmore. Purley was still his number one suspect.
‘Or a priest,’ agreed Frost. ‘OK, son. You can check on the curate. We want to know where he was last night. And you, Jill. Find out who her doctor was. See if she asked him to call last night and even if she didn’t, find out where he was at 9.35. Anything else?’
He waited. Nothing. He took out a fresh cigarette then threw the pack to Burton to offer around. ‘I’ll tell you something that worries me.’ He struck a match on the table leg. ‘This time he took no money. He didn’t ransack the bedroom. Over a hundred quid in her purse in full view on the sideboard and it wasn’t touched. Now Sergeant Gilmore suggests something disturbed the Ripper and he had to hoof it off before he could nick anything.’ He blew out the match and let it drop to the floor. ‘But stupid sod that I am, I can’t buy that. This bloke is icy cold. Nothing panics him. I reckon money’s never been his motive.’
‘So what is his motive?’ asked Gilmore.
‘Killing,’ said Frost. ‘I reckon he gets his kicks out of cold, bloody killing.’
The room went quiet. Chillingly quiet. This had the ring of unpalatable truth.
‘Right.’ Frost slipped down from the desk. ‘Let’s play the tape again.’
It was played again, and again and again. Frost, smoking, chewing his knuckles, hunched in front of the loudspeaker. Just a moment, there’s someone at the door . . . Vague sounds. A bleep. Gilmore’s voice . . . Mr Watson, this is Denton Police . . .
‘Again,’ snapped Frost. There was something there. Something his subconscious had caught but which kept slipping away. ‘This is no damn good,’ he moaned. ‘I want it louder.’
‘It won’t go any louder,’ said Gilmore.
‘We could use the hi-fi equipment in the rest room,’ suggested Burton.
They crowded into the rest room. Gilmore slotted in the cassette and turned the amplifier up almost to its maximum. He pressed Play and the hiss of raw tape crackled from the twin speakers.
The bleep screamed out like an alarm signal. Tape hiss. Hello, son. It’s mother, shouted the old lady, the sound almost hurting their ears.
‘Leave it,’ ordered Frost as Gilmore’s hand moved to turn down the volume. You needn’t worry any more about . . . Through the mush, a buzzing vibrating sound. Then another.
‘The door bell,’ muttered Frost. At ordinary volume level it was inaudible.
Just a moment, there’s someone at the door . . . A rustling, then an echoing bang as if someone had hit a microphone. She had put the phone down. Fading footsteps as she padded up the hall to the front door, eager to let in her murderer. Now the tape background roar was paramount. Frost pressed his ear to the speaker. ‘Nothing. I imagine she’s giving him the eyeball through the peep-hole. Ah . . .’ He moved back. Just about audible, the sound of bolts being drawn and the chink of the chain being removed. The lock clicked. The door opened. The woman said something, but it was so faint and the background so loud, they couldn’t distinguish a word. Then a screaming bleep as the automatic cut-off operated.
‘Let me have a go,’ said Burton, elbowing Gilmore away and adjusting various controls on the hi-fi’s graphic equalizer which could cut and boost individual frequencies. ‘Now try it.’
By now, they almost knew every squeak, rustle and click off by heart. When the woman spoke after opening the door it was clearer, but tantalizingly not clear enough for them to make out a single word. ‘Again,’ ordered Frost. But Mrs Watson might have been talking in a foreign language for all the sense it made. God, thought Frost. She could be naming her killer – ‘Come in, Mr Ripper of 19 High Street, Denton’ – yet they couldn’t understand what she was saying.
‘Try the earphones,’ said Burton.
The earphones were better, but still not good enough.
‘Let me have a go,’ said Jill Knight, adjusting the earphones over her tightly curled hair. She listened and frowned. ‘Again,’ she said. The frown was deeper, but this time her lips were moving as if she was repeating what she heard. She took off the earphones. ‘She’s saying, “Oh, it’s you. I didn’t expect you so soon.”’
They played it again through the speaker. The WPC was right. Oh, it’s you. I didn’t expect you so soon. Frost’s head bowed. He had been hoping for so much and this was nothing.
‘She knew him,’ said Burton.
‘And he came sooner than expected,’ muttered Frost. ‘I think that’s called premature ejaculation.’ The resulting laughter lifted his depression. ‘Let’s hear it again.’ He waved aside the moans that they knew it off by heart. ‘Indulge an old man’s whim. We might have missed something.’
Again they listened, but only half-heartedly. The tape had told them everything it could. There was nothing they had missed. Oh, it’s you. I didn’t expect you so soon. The thud of the door closing behind him, then the hiss and clanking as raw tape scraped past the replay heads when the automatic cut-out operated. A bleep . . .
Frost was sitting bolt upright in his chair, an unlit cigarette drooping in his mouth. ‘Again – just the end bit – and the volume as high as you bloody well like.’ Gilmore spun the volume control to its maximum. At first they didn’t spot it. ‘You must be stone bleeding deaf,’ roared Frost. ‘Again . . . and listen this time . . . There!’ And this time they heard it. A fraction of a second before the message switched off. The closing of the front door. The hiss, roar and crackle as the tape bumped past the heads then . . . a boxy, metallic chink.
Burton scratched his head. ‘Could be anything, Inspector. He could have bumped against the table as he came in.’
‘Even if he did,’ said Frost, ‘there was nothing on the hall table that would chink. That is definitely a metallic sound.’
‘There could have been something on the table – something valuable – but he took it away with him,’ suggested Gilmore, who was feeling left out of things.
‘I thought I heard something chinking as he came through the door,’ said the WPC.
‘Did you?’ exclaimed Frost excitedly and he was up on his feet, jamming his finger on the Rewind button and playing the tape through again. ‘Yes . . . there!’ And through the mush, as the man stepped through the door, a faint metallic chinking sound . . . then another.
They didn’t hear the door open. ‘What’s going on in here?’
‘Piss off!’ said Frost. ‘Oh, sorry, Super . . . didn’t know it was you.’ He played the tape through yet again for Mullett who tried to look as if he knew what Frost was driving at, but obviously didn’t.
‘That noise, sir. At first we thought he’d bumped into the hall table and jolted something on it, but we now reckon that whatever it was, he brought it in with him and dumped it on the hall table.’
Mullett considered this. ‘It might help if we knew what it was. But we don’t.’
‘I think I do,’ said Frost. He looked around the roo
m to make sure he had everyone’s attention. ‘What about a new security chain?’
Mullett frowned. ‘A security chain?’
‘Old Mother Watson had arranged to have a stronger one fitted,’ Frost told him. ‘And that’s who she let in last night with open arms . . . the man who was going to fit the new security chain . . . so she would be safe from attack.’
‘It could be a chain,’ said Mullett doubtfully, ‘but we don’t know for sure.’
‘I know for bloody certain,’ announced Frost. ‘I’ve got a hunch.’
A thin smile from Mullett. ‘Hunches are all very well,’ he began, but Frost wasn’t listening, he was giving instructions to his team.
‘Knock on doors again. Go round to all the neighbours of the victims. Did the victims talk of having chains fitted? Has anyone been canvassing before, or since, offering to fit security chains? Don’t cause a panic, but get what gen you can. I want someone to contact all the local security system firms. Do they send salesmen around canvassing? Have their salesmen found that some bloody amateur has been undercutting their prices? Mrs Watson was supposed to be a tight old sod, so this would have to be a cheap job. One last thing – Burton. Mrs Watson talked to the old biddy in the next-door flat about having a new security chain. Chat her up, see if she can come up with names. OK – on your bikes, everyone. Chop chop.’
As the team scurried out he flipped a cigarette from his packet and tried to catch it in his mouth. It missed. Scooping it up from the floor, he lit up and inhaled deeply. He felt happy. Things were now on the move. They were on the track of the killer, he felt sure of it.
The phone rang. Detective Sergeant Hanlon from the mortuary. ‘The pathologist has completed the autopsy on Mark Compton, Jack. Definitely murder. A heavy blow to the head from behind. That didn’t kill him, but the fire and the fumes finished him off – death from asphyxiation.’ Frost pushed Mullett to one side so he could yell for Gilmore, his voice echoing down the empty corridor.
Mullett cleared his throat pointedly. He wasn’t used to being ignored.
‘Sorry, Super,’ grunted Frost. ‘Be with you in a minute.’ As Gilmore appeared in the doorway, he told him about the autopsy findings.
Gilmore checked his watch. He’d forgotten all about the damn autopsy. Frost’s bad habits were contagious. ‘How come Hanlon attended it?’
‘I told him to, son. We’re far too busy.’
‘But it’s my case.’
‘Sorry, son, but we’ve too much work and not enough men to be able to specialize. It’s everyone’s case.’
But if I crack it, it’s my bloody case, thought Gilmore. ‘I want to see the woman that Compton was knocking off. She might know something.’
‘Right, son. We’ll do it now. Bring the car round to the front.’ Back to Mullett. ‘Anything I can do, Super . . . as long as it’s quick?’
Huffily, the Divisional Commander produced the curt memo he had received from County. ‘Still some discrepancy with your car expenses, Inspector. County are furious. They want an immediate reply.’
‘They want stuffing,’ corrected Frost, his mind elsewhere. ‘Stick it on my desk as you go out, would you, sir? I’ll deal with it later.’ And he dashed out of the rest room to the car.
Mullett was halfway down the corridor before he realized that Frost had ordered him about like an office boy. But it was too late to go back and protest.
The flats behind the supermarket were owned by a firm of property agents and were usually let out on short leases. The Denton Echo, in one of its bouts of outraged crusading, had exposed several of these tenancies as being taken up by high-class call girls and for a while many of the apartments remained empty, but slowly, and more discreetly, many of the old tenants returned.
In the carpeted foyer a lift purred down and the door opened with a barely audible hiss. They stepped inside and Gilmore pressed the button for the third floor. So different from the disinfectant-masking urine smell of the lift in the senior citizens’ flats, this lift was heady with the perfume of its previous passenger.
They walked over thick footstep-muffling grey carpet to the end flat. There was something outside the door. Four bulging rubbish sacks. Black plastic sacks, the sort Paula Bartlett’s body was in. Frost peeped inside one. Assorted packets, cartons and jars as if someone had been clearing out a cupboard. He fished out a detergent packet. It had been opened, but was almost brim-full. ‘The cow’s done a bunk,’ he said, jamming his thumb in the bell-push. He was surprised to hear footsteps from inside.
The woman who opened the door was around twenty-six years of age, and wore a tightly fitting knitted dress in emerald green. She was slightly plump, with red hennaed hair and breasts that could best be described as ample. Admiring their generosity, Frost had difficulty in locating his warrant card. Gilmore produced his.
‘Police. May we come in?’
She stared at Gilmore’s warrant card wide-eyed. ‘Police? What’s it about? That nosy old bitch downstairs hasn’t been complaining again, has she?’
‘Not to us,’ answered Gilmore curtly. ‘Can we come in?’ Pre-empting her reply he pushed forward into the hall.
Bristling slightly at his tone, she led them through to the lounge, a comfortable room with pale blue carpeting and dark blue upholstered furniture. The light grey walls were hung with aluminium-framed abstract prints. Frost shuffled across to the large picture window and looked down on to the sprawl of the supermarket. ‘Very nice,’ he murmured. ‘I bet you get a good view of the multi-storey car-park from your bedroom.’
Her lips shaped a brief, flat, non-understanding smile. ‘This won’t take long, will it? I’m in a hurry.’
‘Mind if I sit down?’ said Frost, sinking into one of the blue armchairs. He dug deep into his pocket for his cigarettes and frowned with disappointment. The packet was empty. He had been too generous in the Murder Incident Room. ‘Do you mind telling us your name?’
‘East. Jean East.’ She studied her watch. ‘Look – what is this all about?’
‘A few questions,’ said Frost, letting his eyes wander around the room. He imagined this was where clients waited while the bedroom was occupied. He straightened up. Two bulging suitcases stood side by side to the left of the lounge door. ‘Moving out?’
‘The lease is up. I can’t afford to renew it. I’m going back to London.’
‘Then we caught you just in time,’ beamed Frost. ‘Do you know a gentleman called Mark Compton?’
A barely perceptible pause. ‘No. Why – what is this about?’
‘He might not have told you his real name,’ said Gilmore, moving in front of Frost to remind him that this was his case. He showed her a photograph.
She studied the colour print briefly, shook her head, and handed it back. ‘Sorry. Never seen him before.’
‘Perhaps you don’t recognize him with his clothes on,’ Frost suggested.
Her face tightened and her eyes blazed. ‘You can get out right now.’ She flung open the door dramatically, her breasts heaving, straining the woollen dress to the limits.
Frost heaved himself from the chair. ‘We’re going, love, but you’re coming with us. Get her coat, Sergeant.’
She hesitated. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To the station. I want a policewoman to examine you.’
‘Examine me? Why?’
‘If you haven’t got a little strawberry birthmark on your lower stomach, my apologies will bring tears to your eyes.’
She closed the door and turned slowly. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘You should keep your blinds closed when you’re entertaining,’ sneered Gilmore.
‘You had an audience,’ added Frost. ‘An old boy with field-glasses watching from the car-park.’
Her hand covered her mouth. She looked horrified. ‘Watching us?’
‘From start to finish. And then he sent a poison pen letter to your client. It described you in graphic detail.’
Her face crimsoned
to match her hair. ‘Let’s get one bloody thing straight. I’m not a tart. Yes, I knew Mark Compton. We were lovers. He came here and we made love and it was wonderful and if some dirty little snivelling shit in a filthy raincoat was watching, then sod him. I’m ashamed of nothing.’
‘Eat your heart out, Mills and Boon,’ said Frost. ‘But you said you knew him. You were lovers. Past tense?’
‘Yes – past tense, because the bastard threw me up last week. Came here, made love, then calmly told me it was all over. Look – what the hell is this all about?’
Gilmore raised his head from his notebook. He was content to let Frost ask the preliminary questions, but he would step in when the time was ripe. So she was a discarded lover. Not an uncommon motive for murder.
But Frost, digging fruitlessly through his pockets in the hope of finding a pinched-out butt, didn’t seem to have realized the significance. ‘Why did he chuck you?’ He watched enviously as she took a cigarette from a black lacquered box on a side table and lit it with a tiny, initialled, blue and gold enamelled lighter.
‘He was afraid his wife might find out.’ She flung her head back and laughed bitterly. ‘His bloody wife! He always told me he was going to divorce her and marry me . . . and like a fool I bloody believed him. Even when the bastard’s cheques bounced, I believed him.’
‘Cheques?’ queried Frost, tapping his empty Lambert and Butler packet hopefully, but she didn’t take the hint.
‘He was always borrowing money, and when I asked him to pay me back, his cheques bounced.’
‘How much money are we talking about?’
‘Getting on for £500, which I could ill afford.’
Frost scratched his chin. ‘He sounds a right charmer. How long have you known him?’
‘A couple of months. We met in London.’ She dropped down into the other chair and her breasts bounced like Mark Compton’s cheques, Do that again, Frost pleaded silently.
‘Does your husband know of this association?’ asked Gilmore who, unlike Frost whose gaze was directed higher, had noticed the wedding ring on her finger.
Night Frost Page 29