‘Oh, he’s Charlie!’ Frost pretended to make an alteration in his notebook, then, as soon as the man went in he dropped to his knees and squinted through the letter-box. A dimly lit hall papered in dreary, dark chocolate brown.
‘How can she be dead if he’s heard them talking?’ protested Gilmore. ‘This has got to be a wind-up.’
‘You’re probably right, son,’ grunted Frost, still at the letter-box. Then his nose twitched and he knew it wasn’t a wind-up. The bad breath of decay. He could smell death.
The detective sergeant took his turn to sniff then shook his head. ‘It’s damp and stuffy, that’s all.’
‘It’s more than that, son.’ He gave one more knock which shook the front door. Noises inside, but no-one came. ‘Let’s try the back way.’
A lowish wall muddied their trousers as they clambered over to land with a splash in a small back yard, a few square feet of puddled concrete containing a dustbin and an outside toilet, its gaping door hanging from one hinge. Ever the optimist, Frost tried the back door, but it was locked and bolted. A downstairs sash window, curtains drawn and no light showing, defied the efforts of Frost’s penknife.
‘Let’s leave it,’ said Gilmore, edging back to the wall. They were trying to break into someone’s house just on the say-so of an anonymous phone call.
But Frost wasn’t listening. He had now transferred his attention to the upstairs window. Difficult to tell from that angle, but it appeared to be open at the bottom. ‘Keep watch, son. Give a yell if anyone comes.’ He climbed up on top of the dustbin which seemed ideally sited for the purpose and heaved himself up on the outside toilet roof and then to the sill.
Yes, a gap at the bottom he could get his hand under. For a moment he hesitated. It all seemed too good to be true; the dustbin conveniently placed and the window invitingly open. But there was no turning back now. He lifted the window and dropped inside.
A pitch dark room. The torch he pulled from his pocket was on the blink, but its faltering light enabled him to steer a tiptoeing course through a maze of booby-trapped junk ready to topple at any moment — an old treadle Singer sewing machine, cardboard boxes gorged with useless items too good to throw away, the frame of a push bike and an old-fashioned pram from the late 1930s in pristine condition which, for some reason, made him think of the baby’s grave in the churchyard.
Cautiously, he turned the door handle. The door whined open.
A landing from which stairs descended to the hall. To his right a door with a crack of light showing from inside. He moved towards it. From downstairs came the sound of someone lumbering about and talking in the overloud voice of the deaf. Crockery clattered. The old boy was making tea or something.
The smell hit him as soon as he opened the door. And then he saw her. On the bed. An old woman, her head propped up with pillows. She didn’t move. She couldn’t move. She was a shrivelled, mummified husk and had been dead for many months.
Shit! Just what he bloody wanted! He rammed a cigarette in his mouth, but didn’t light it, then steeled himself to walk across and lift the discoloured bed sheet which made a tearing noise as it parted from the body. The stains on the bedding weren’t blood. No signs of injury anywhere. There was something round the mouth. Mouldering food and a brown dribble of something still sticky. On a rickety card table alongside the bed was a cup of cold scummy tea and a plate of congealed food. Shit and double shit. He now knew what it was all about and wanted to get out of the room and back in the car and as far away as possible. The bloody cemetery was preferable to this.
Before he could get to the door he heard someone coming up the stairs. The old boy, talking away to himself.
He spun round, frantically looking for another way out There was a window behind thick, drawn curtains which belched death-scented dust. He parted them to scrabble at the window catch. But it was rusted in and wouldn’t budge.
A clatter of crockery then a tap at the door. ‘Your supper, love.’
Frost pressed himself tight against the wall, hoping the opened door would conceal him. The old man, tall and stooped, came in. A tray holding a bowl of soup and a plate of bread and butter rattled in unsteady hands. He frowned at the food on the card table then turned angrily to the husk in the bed. ‘You didn’t eat it!’ he shouted. ‘I cooked it for you and you didn’t eat it!’ Then his voice softened. ‘You know what the doctor said. You’ve got to eat to keep your strength up.’ He exchanged the old tray for the new and picked up a spoon. ‘You must try and eat some of this, love. It’s full of goodness,’ and he spooned soup over the gaping mouth, dabbing with a handkerchief as it dribbled down the shrivelled chin. He was deaf. He didn’t hear the thud of Frost’s footsteps down the stairs and into the street.
In the car, Gilmore listened incredulously, his face creased in disgust. ‘And he’s still bringing her food? Flaming hell!’
‘The poor old sod won’t accept her death,’ said Frost, sucking thankfully at a cigarette.
Before Gilmore could reach for the radio to inform the station, Frost’s hand shot out to stop him. ‘Forget it, son. We don’t want to get involved.’
A shocked Gilmore said, ‘You can’t just drive away and do nothing about it.’
‘We’re not supposed to be here,’ said Frost. ‘We’re supposed to be tomb-watching.’
‘But she’s dead. He’s probably still drawing her pension.’
‘Big bloody deal,’ grunted Frost. ‘I’ll try and live with it.’ And then the car radio which had been pleading urgently for attention to an empty car, tried again.
‘Control to Mr Frost. For Pete’s sake come in, please over.’
Frost snatched up the handset. ‘Frost.’
‘At flaming last, Jack!’ It was Bill Wells, the station sergeant. ‘Where are you?’
Frost looked out of the window on to Jubilee Street. ‘On watch at the cemetery, as ordered,’ he replied, trying to sound puzzled at such an obvious question.
‘No, you’re not, Inspector. If you were, you’d see the place was crawling with bloody police cars.’
‘Ah yes… there does seem to be some commotion at the far end,’ said Frost, signalling for Gilmore to put his foot down and get the damn car back to the cemetery at top speed. ‘What exactly has happened?’
‘Vandals breaking into a crypt.’
Right. ‘I’ll check it out and call you back.’ He switched off hurriedly and urged Gilmore not to heed the approaching red traffic light.
There was only one police car at the graveyard, its blue flashing beacon reflecting eerily off the rain-soaked marble markers. Gilmore parked tight behind it.
‘There!’ pointed Frost.
Ahead of them, right off the main path, was the Victorian crypt they had spotted earlier, an ugly little building, looking like a small, ivy-covered boiler house and guarded by tall, sharply spiked, cast-iron railings. Two marble angels with naked swords stood sentry on each side of the entrance gate where a uniformed officer, PC Ken Jordan, was talking to an old man in a flat cap who was supporting a push bike. Jordan left the man to meet the two detectives.
‘Who’s the old git with the running nose?’ asked Frost.
‘He’s George Turner, the churchwarden. He phoned us.’ Jordan filled them in on what had happened. ‘I’ve had a quick look around. No sign of anyone.’
‘Ah well,’ said Frost, anxious to get back in the car and the dry, ‘I’ll leave you to handle it.’ He jerked his head to Gilmore. ‘Come on, son.’
But Gilmore was rattling the heavy iron gates. They were held firm by the lock. ‘So how did he get in?’
‘There’s a couple of broken railings round the back,’ said Jordan.
‘Show me,’ demanded Gilmore. They followed Jordan to the rear of the crypt. Next to a stand-pipe supporting a dripping tap, two of the cast-iron railings had been broken away leaving a gap wide enough to squeeze through. They squeezed through, Frost reluctantly bringing up the rear, and marched round to the entrance to the crypt.
The door, solid oak some 3 inches thick, bore a crudely sprayed skull and crossbones in still-wet purple paint. It should have been secured by a heavy duty padlock and hasp, but the screws fixing it had been prised out of the door jamb and the door yawned open.
‘Vandals!’ bawled Turner. ‘I’d horsewhip them till they screamed for mercy.’
‘Ah well,’ said Frost, flumbling for a cigarette, ‘not much harm done.’
‘What I want to know,’ continued Turner, ‘is where were the police who were supposed to be on watch? Something should be done about them. They should be taught a lesson.’
Frost nodded his agreement. ‘They should be flogged until they screamed for mercy, then castrated without an anaesthetic.’
‘Aren’t you going to look inside?’ asked Turner. ‘They might have done some damage.’
‘Right,’ grunted Frost, without enthusiasm. The old man leading, and guided by Jordan’s torch, they went in, down two steps to the stone-floored chamber.
Jordan’s torch prodded the darkness. It was a very small chamber with some six ornate, black-painted Victorian coffins stacked on stone ledges along the walls on each side. From the roof the bell rope was still quivering.
‘I’ve never been inside a crypt,’ observed Gilmore. ‘I thought it would be bigger.’
‘What for?’ asked Frost. ‘They aren’t going to get up and bleedin’ walk around, are they?’ His nose twitched. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘I can’t smell anything,’ said Turner, ‘but then I’ve got a cold.’ To prove it he foghorned into a large handkerchief.
‘It smells like a corrugated iron urinal in a heat-wave,’ Frost said. ‘When did you bung the last corpse in?’
‘The crypt hasn’t been used since 1899,’ he was told.
‘It’s coming from over here,’ said Jordan, his torch sweeping the floor.
‘There!’ called Frost, grabbing the torch and directing it towards the far corner. The light bounced off a large, bulging bundle wrapped in black polythene sheeting, criss-crossed with 2-inch wide brown plastic adhesive tape and tied with cord.
‘That didn’t ought to be here!’ said Turner.
As they dragged it to the centre of the floor it trailed foul-smelling liquid. Frost bent down and prodded it gently with his finger. The bundle felt cold and squelchy and the stench of putrefaction belched out. Frost’s pen-knife slashed open the plastic sheeting. So strong and sickening was the smell that they all had to retreat back to the door to inhale the clean, rain-washed night air.
They steeled themselves to go back in. Holding his breath, Frost cut the slit bigger and peeled back some of the, plastic. A gas-bloated putrefying face looked up at him.
PC Jordan gagged, his hand shaking so much that he nearly dropped the torch. Frost snatched it from him and handed it to Gilmore. ‘If you’re going to throw up, Jordan, do it outside. It stinks enough in here as it is.’ Gladly, the constable charged up the steps. ‘Are you all right, Sergeant?’
Fighting hard to control his stomach, Gilmore nodded. If the inspector could stand it, so could he.
Jordan returned, white and sweating, wiping his mouth. ‘I hope you haven’t desecrated someone’s grave?’ said Frost sternly. Jordan didn’t answer. He hadn’t looked and he just didn’t care.
‘Nip upstairs,’ Frost told Gilmore, ‘and radio through to the station. Tell Sergeant Wells we’ve found a body in the churchyard. When he stops peeing himself laughing and saying, “But the churchyard is full of bodies,” tell him “ha-bloody-ha” from me and I want a doctor, Forensic, Scene of Crime Officer and a gross of air fresheners.’
The mobile generator grunted and coughed before chugging away contentedly, and the Victorian vault was bathed in electric light for the first time in its life. Duck boarding had been placed down the centre of the steps and over the floor and footsteps clacked as they crossed it. Frost stood outside, keeping well out of the experts’ way as they measured and photographed, took samples and dusted for prints. The body remained tied up in the sheeting awaiting the arrival of the police surgeon.
A cursing as someone stumbled unsteadily down the path. Frost grinned to himself happy to see that Dr Maltby was still on duty and not that jumped-up, toffee-nosed sod, Slomon.
‘Welcome to the boneyard, doc.’
Maltby waved his bag and lurched over. ‘What have you got for me this time?’
‘Body in a sack. It’s past its best.’
‘Aren’t we all,’ said Maltby, following the inspector down the stone steps. ‘Any progress with my poison pen writer?’
‘Give us a chance, doc,’ pleaded Frost. ‘I’ve been tripping over corpses all day.’
Maltby dropped to his knees and bent over the body ‘Well, he’s dead,’ he announced.
‘I should hope he is,’ grunted Frost. ‘if I smelt like that, I wouldn’t want to live.’
Gilmore snorted his disgust. Frost seemed to thrive on bad taste remarks.
‘By the way, Jack,’ said the doctor casually as he gently prodded the puffy flesh through the torn opening in the plastic, ‘you know that dead girl — the suicide…’
‘What about her?’ asked Gilmore.
Pointedly addressing Frost, the doctor continued. ‘Tear up the report I did on her. I’m writing a new one.’
‘What was up with the old one?’ asked Frost.
‘I missed something. The morgue attendant tipped me the wink. He spotted it when he undressed her.’ He stood up and wiped his hands on a towel from his bag. ‘This one’s been dead at least eight weeks — possibly longer.’
‘What did the morgue attendant find?’ asked Gilmore. He knew there was something dodgy about that suicide.
Maltby’s head twisted to the detective sergeant. ‘There were marks on her buttocks — weals — about a week old, fading but still visible. She’d been quite severely beaten with a whip or a cane. And there were needle marks on her left arm.’
Gilmore’s eyebrows shot up. ‘And you missed it?’ He pulled the inspector to one side. ‘Surely you’re not going to let him get away with this?’
‘When you’ve made as many balls-ups as I have, son you don’t hesitate to help fellow sufferers,’ Frost told him.
Maltby snapped his bag shut. ‘I can’t tell you any more about this one unless you unwrap it.’
‘Might be best to wait for the pathologist,’ suggested the man from Forensic who had been hovering, ears flapping. ‘You know how fussy he is about bodies being left untouched.’
‘Sod the pathologist,’ snapped Frost. ‘It’ll be hours before he gets here. Cut it open.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Forensic, cutting through the cord to preserve the knots.
‘Must preserve the knots, doc,’ Frost explained. ‘The murderer might be a Boy Scout.’
‘We don’t yet know it’s murder,’ commented Forensic pedantically, as he delicately sliced through the plastic sheeting.
‘Bleeding hard to commit suicide and then tie yourself up in a parcel,’ sniffed Frost.
Forensic moved away. ‘All yours, doctor.’
As Maltby laboriously peeled aside the black plastic which tried to cling to the moist, rotting flesh, both Forensic and Gilmore found it necessary to move nearer the door and the sweet night air.
‘Bloody hell!’ exclaimed Frost. ‘It’s a woman.’
Gilmore forced himself to look. He saw the bloated body of a female, stark naked, hunched in a foetal position, knees bent to breasts and trussed with string which bit deep into wet, oedematous flesh. The hair, stained and discoloured, looked dark, almost black.
‘She’s wearing shoes!’ cried Frost. He bent over. No tights or stockings, just flat-heeled brown shoes, tightly laced over swollen naked flesh. ‘I want photographs.’
The doctor moved to one side to let Ted Roberts, the burly Scene of Crime Officer, take photographs, then began a close, careful examination, gently forcing open the mouth, then scrutinizing the neck. ‘She’s in too bad a condit
ion, but I’d guess at manual strangulation.’ His examination continued downwards. He asked for the string to be cut so he could see the lower part of the body. He parted the legs slightly. ‘Dear God!’ he exclaimed, visibly startled at what he saw.
The lower stomach and genital area was a mass of blackened and charred weeping flesh.
Frost dropped on his knees beside the doctor and gasped. ‘Look at this, Gilmore. Some bastard’s burnt her.’
A fleeting glance was enough for Gilmore who stood well back, willing his stomach to keep calm while camera motors whirred and flash tubes crackled.
Maltby’s nose scraped the blackened area. ‘To do this sort of damage you’d need a blow-lamp.’
‘Bloody hell!’ said Frost. ‘Was it done before or after death?’
The doctor shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I hope it was after.’
No longer hunched up, she looked smaller than Frost had first thought. ‘How old is she, doc?’
‘Young,’ Maltby told him, again exploring the mouth. ‘Fifteen.. sixteen.’
‘Fifteen!’ echoed Frost. ‘And dead eight weeks?’ His head sank. ‘There ought to be a mole on the right shoulder, doc. Have a look, would you.’
Maltby moved some strands of hair and nodded. ‘Shit,’ cried Frost. ‘Shit and double shit!’ This putrid mess of tortured flesh was the missing newspaper girl.
They had found Paula Bartlett.
‘I didn’t see what he looked like,’ the church warden told Frost. ‘He just dashed off into the dark.’
‘Was he tall, short, fat, thin…? You must remember something. It’s bloody important. He’d just dumped a girl’s body in there.’
‘Just a dark shape, that’s all I saw.’ Then he hesitated. ‘I think there might have been more than one of them.’
‘More than one?’ yelled Frost. ‘Blimey, you kept that up your bloody sleeve.’
‘As I was pedalling up, I thought I heard voices — men’s voices.’
‘So why didn’t you tell us this before?’ demanded Gilmore.
‘Because I didn’t think it was important. I thought we were dealing with vandals, not a flaming murder. I didn’t hear what they were saying and I didn’t see anyone else.’
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