Everyone was busy. The SOC officer, draped with an array of Japanese cameras and leather cylinders of lenses, blazing away with a Canon, the Forensic team, crawling over the carpet, the fingerprint man, whistling tunelessly to himself as he dusted away with his little brush, splashing white powder everywhere. Frost had almost to fight his way through to the corpse. ‘Everyone outside,’ he yelled. ‘You can come back in when I’ve finished.’ He waited while they shuffled out, then he approached the body.
She sat in the rust and grey armchair, her dull eyes fixed on an old 19-inch black and white television set which, encircled by a stockade of knick-knacks and framed photo graphs, stood on a rickety coffee table. Frost touched the set. It was still warm.
‘It was still on when I got here,’ said Detective Constable Burton. ‘I switched it off.’
Frost nodded and haunched down to study the Ripper’s handiwork. A jagged gash on her neck had gouted blood which glinted stickily down the front of her brown floral dress. Blood from stab wounds in her stomach had leaked to form a puddle on her lap. Her left hand dangled down the side of the chair, the fist tightly clenched. His eyes travelled slowly up to her face, the wrinkled flesh bluish white against her sparse grey hair. He leaned closer to examine the hair, which was in untidy disarray. ‘What do you make of that, son?’ Gilmore crouched down beside him.
‘He came on her from behind,’ said a familiar voice and they looked up at the slightly swaying figure of Dr Maltby who had been waiting in the bedroom. He nodded a greeting, then prodded a finger at her hair. ‘The killer came at her from behind, grabbed her hair and yanked up her head. Then he cut her throat. The head’s only hanging by a thread of flesh at the back of the neck, so I wouldn’t shake her if I were you.’
They backed gingerly away from the body, Frost carefully lowering himself into the matching armchair.
‘When he cut her throat,’ continued the doctor, ‘he sliced through her vocal cords in the process, so she wouldn’t have been able to scream, even if she wanted to.’
‘I’m sure she bloody wanted to,’ said Frost, poking a cigarette in his mouth and passing the packet around. ‘I reckon the poor cow would have given her right arm to have been able to scream.’
Grunting his thanks, Maltby accepted a light and moved round to face the body. ‘The killer then came round to here and stabbed her four times in the stomach.’ He mimed four stabbing thrusts. ‘That done, being a neat and tidy person, while she was still bleeding to death and drowning in her own blood, he wiped the knife blade clean, just there.’ He indicated a wide smear on the skirt of the dress.
Frost took this all in with a sniff. ‘I won’t ask how you deduced all that, doc, because I don’t suppose I’d understand a flaming word. Time of death?’
Gently, the doctor felt the woman’s legs. ‘Rigor’s fully developed and she feels cold. It would need rectal temperature readings to be precise, but I shall leave that treat to our pathologist friend… he can be the one to have her head fall off in his lap. At a rough guess she’s been dead fourteen to eighteen hours.’ He jerked back his sleeve to read his watch. ‘Say between nine o’clock last night and one o’clock this morning.’
Frost dropped to his knees and, very carefully, lifted the woman’s left arm. ‘Look at the way her fist is clenched.’
‘Show me,’ said Maltby, lowering himself, none too steadily and kneeling on the floor. He took the hand and focused his eyes with difficulty. ‘Looks like a cadaveric spasm… you sometimes get it with violent death. Hello…’ He looked closer. Something white. The corner of a piece of paper was protruding slightly. Frost snatched the hand and tried to force the cold fingers open.
Maltby stood up and distanced himself from the operation. ‘Careful,’ he said. ‘You’ll have her damn head off.’
Frost snapped his fingers at Gilmore. ‘Hold her head, son.’
‘Eh?’ said Gilmore.
‘She won’t bloody bite you.’
Steeling himself, Gilmore took the head in his hands while Frost tugged at the tightly closed fingers. The head felt cold and as fragile as a blown egg. He gritted his teeth and willed the inspector to hurry.
‘The pathologist won’t like you interfering with his corpse,’ warned Maltby gleefully.
‘Sod the pathologist,’ muttered Frost, grunting as the fingers opened and the hand suddenly went limp. Gilmore almost cried out as the body seemed to quiver and he swore he could feel the head patting from the trunk. Carefully and very slowly, like a man building a tottering house of cards, he took his hands away.
The piece of paper fluttered to the ground. It was a carefully folded?5 note. There was something else pressed tightly into the palm, leaving an impression in the flesh. Three pound coins.
Frost placed the coins in his open palm and stared at them. They told him nothing. He retrieved the banknote from the floor, pushed all the money back into the dead hand and tried to close the fist around it so the pathologist wouldn’t know what he had done. But the dead hand remained limp and let the money drop.
‘You’ve done it now,’ called Maltby, moving quickly to the door. ‘If you’d asked me I’d have told you that you couldn’t put it back again.’
‘I’ll throw the bloody head at you if you don’t hop it,’ bellowed Frost as the door clicked shut.
Gathering up the money, he deposited it on the coffee table alongside the knick-knacks, then sank back in the chair. ‘All right, Burton, let’s have some details. I don’t even know the poor cow’s name.’
Burton flipped open his notebook. ‘Mrs Julia Fussell, aged seventy-five, a widow, one son, married, two kids.’
Frost groaned. ‘Don’t tell me I’ve got to break the news to him.’
‘He emigrated to Australia last year.’
Frost brightened up. ‘Good for him. Carry on, son. Who found her?’
‘Her next-door neighbour, Mrs Beatrice Stacey. She knocked to see if the old dear wanted any shopping, didn’t get a reply, so let herself in with a spare key. I haven’t got much sense out of her. She’s having hysterics next door.’
‘I’ll see her in a minute,’ said Frost.
‘The pattern’s the same as Mrs Watson, yesterday,’ Burton went on. ‘No sign of forcible entry, apparently nothing taken — the bedroom’s undisturbed — and money left in her purse.’
A glum nod from Frost. He wandered over to the front door which was fitted with bolts top and bottom, and a security chain. ‘As you say, son, exactly the same as that poor old cow yesterday. He comes late at night, but she lets him in and then she calmly sits down to watch the telly so he can creep up behind her and cut her bloody throat.’ He examined the security chain. Quite a flimsy affair. ‘You said her purse was untouched. ‘Where is it?’
Burton walked over to a small walnut-veneered sideboard and tugged open a drawer. Using his handkerchief, he took out a worn red leather purse and handed it to the inspector. ‘There’s eighty-five quid in there.’
Holding it by the handkerchief, Frost flicked through the banknotes. All new?5 notes, crisp and consecutively numbered. The numbers tallied with the note taken from her hand. He chewed at a loose scrap of skin on his finger as he thought this over. ‘Right. Try this out for size. It’s the same pattern as yesterday. The Ripper’s coming to fit a new security chain for her. She’s waiting for him, the money all ready from her purse. She lets him in, sits down, holding the money tight in her hot little hand, and watches the telly while the nice man fits the chain for her. But the nice man just creeps up behind the poor cow and cuts her throat, then he stabs her in the stomach, wipes his knife on her dress and off he goes, all happy.’
‘Then this puts Gauld in the clear,’ said Gilmore. ‘He was driving his coach until ten and we watched his house until past midnight.’
‘He could have gone out again after we left,’ said Frost, furious with himself for giving up the surveillance so early. ‘If Doc Maltby is right the time of death could have been as late as one o’clock.’
‘You don’t call at one in the morning to fit a chain,’ pointed out Gilmore. ‘And old girls of seventy-five don’t sit up all night watching television.’
Frost gave a rueful sniff. The sergeant was right. This was his star suspect flushed down the sewer. He pushed the money back into the purse, then noticed something else in the centre compartment. Membership cards for the Reef Bingo Club and for the All Saints Senior Citizens’ Club.
‘All Saints?’ exclaimed Gilmore excitedly. Frost’s suspect might be a non-runner, but his own one was fast coming up on the rails. ‘That bloody curate comes from All Saints.’
The pathologist studied the rectal thermometer, gave it a shake, then wiped it clean before replacing it in his bag. His lips moved silently as he did a mental calculation. ‘In my opinion death occurred between midnight and one o’clock this morning.’
Gilmore registered dismay. ‘Not earlier?’ They had seen the curate outside the cemetery just after midnight last night and it was over half an hour later that they left him to go on to the vicarage.
‘If it was earlier,’ sniffed the pathologist, snapping shut his bag, ‘then I would have said so.’ He shouted down the stairs for the mortuary attendants to come up and collect the body then shafted a glare of disapproval at Frost who had come bounding back into the flat, grinning all over his face. ‘I’ve relayed my preliminary findings to your sergeant.’
‘Thanks, doc,’ said Frost, not sounding very interested. He grabbed Gilmore by the arm and pulled him to one side.
‘Autopsy at four,’ called the pathologist, buttoning up his coat.
‘Right,’ said Frost. He wasn’t interested in the autopsy. By four o’clock the killer should be behind bars.
But Gilmore got in with his own bad news first. ‘Death occurred after midnight, so that clears the curate.’ He waved away Frost’s offered cigarette. ‘So now we haven’t got a single flaming suspect.’
‘Yes, we have, son,’ beamed Frost, sending his cigarette packet on a round tour of the room. ‘Our luck had to change some time and now it’s happened. I’ve been chatting up the old dear next door. First, the dead woman had a job getting off to sleep. She was always up watching television until three or four in the morning. Second, she’d told her neighbour she was going to have a stronger chain fitted and guess who was going to do it?’
‘Gauld?’
‘She didn’t know his name but it was that nice young man who drove the mini-coach that took her to bingo.’
‘Did she say when he was coming to do the job?’
‘No, son. But he came last night. Late. After Joe Soap pulled off the bloody surveillance.’
‘How do you know?’
‘She didn’t tell her neighbour when he was coming. But she told her how much he was going to charge her. Eight quid.’
Gilmore whistled. The?5 note and three pound coins in the dead hand. ‘It sounds too good to be true.’
‘You know my motto,’ smirked Frost. ‘Never kick a gift horse up the fundamental orifice.’ He noticed Burton hovering. “What is it, son?’
‘Forensic have turned up a rogue fingerprint, sir. On the sideboard. Looks recent.’
Frost beamed. ‘Luck could be running our way for once. I think the time has come to bring Gauld in.’
Friday afternoon shift
The coach drew up at the old lady’s house. The driver sprang from his seat and opened the door, steadying her as she descended the steep step from the coach to the pavement. ‘Can you manage all right from here, my love?’ he asked. She nodded and waved her thanks and hobbled up to her front gate as the coach went on its way.
There was only one other passenger. A dishevelled individual hunched up in the rear seat, puffing away solidly on the journey back from the bingo hall. Gauld hadn’t seen him before. He slowed down at the traffic lights. Damn. The scruffy man was making his way down the aisle. Not one of those chatty sods, he hoped. The seat behind him creaked as the man lowered himself down.
‘Drop you off at the Market Square?’ Gauld asked.
‘Eagle Lane,’ mumbled the man. ‘Opposite the police station.’
As he turned into Eagle Lane he noticed in his rear-view mirror a police car close behind him. When he pulled up outside the police station, the car stopped even though it had plenty of room to pass. His passenger shuffled out, squeezing past two uniformed policemen who suddenly appeared at the coach door. ‘Mr Ronald Gauld?’ asked one of them. ‘I wonder if you’d mind popping into the station for a couple of minutes.’ The other policeman leant across and switched off the ignition.
They took him through to a small, functional room, sparsely furnished with a plain light oak table and three chairs. In the corner of the room a young thickset chap in a grey suit was sitting, a notebook open on his knee. Another man, whose scowl seemed permanent, was standing, leaning up against the wall. He pointed to a chair for Gauld to sit. The door opened as a third man came in. Gauld blinked in surprise. It was the scruffy passenger from his coach. ‘Frost,’ announced the man, ‘Detective Inspector Jack Frost.’
The lino squealed as Frost dragged a chair over to sit opposite Gauld. He then laid out on the table a green folder, a pack of cigarettes, a box of matches and the large manila envelope containing the possessions the station sergeant had asked Gauld to empty from his pockets. This done, Frost smiled benevolently and helped himself to a cigarette.
Gauld wriggled in his chair. He cleared his throat and tried to keep his voice steady. ‘What’s this all about?’
Frost frowned. ‘Haven’t you been told?’ He swung round to the man with the notebook. ‘Didn’t you tell him?’ A headshake. Frost tutted with mock exasperation, then slowly took a match from the box and struck it on the table. ‘It’s about Mrs Fussell.’
Gauld frowned as if trying to remember. ‘Never heard of her.’
‘Oh dear,’ exclaimed Frost, looking worried. He turned to the scowler. ‘We might have the wrong man, Sergeant.’ Looking puzzled, he scrabbled through the green folder and plucked out some typed pages. ‘All these witnesses must be lying.’ Back to Gauld. ‘You’d swear on oath you don’t know her, sir?’ Before Gauld had a chance to answer, he added, ‘What about Mrs Elizabeth Winters, Roman Road, Denton? Surely you’re not going to tell us you don’t know her?’
‘I know lots of people. I’m a coach driver. I drive people about all the time. I don’t necessarily know their names.’
‘Then here’s an easy one — Mary Haynes.’
‘I’ve just told…’ He blinked and stopped dead, his expression freezing as if he had just realized what the inspector was on about. ‘Wait a minute! I’ve just twigged. Haynes… Winters! They were both murdered! Are you trying to pin them on me?’
‘Yes,’ replied Frost, simply. ‘That’s exactly what we’re trying to do.’ He shook out the contents of the manila envelope and raked through Gauld’s possessions. There was a colour photograph of a grey-haired lady smiling doubtfully at the camera. He picked it up and studied it carefully. ‘I don’t recognize this one. When did you murder her?’
Gauld snatched up the photograph. ‘That’s my mother, you bastard!’
‘Ah!’ said Frost with an enlightened nod. He studied his notes. ‘Father died when you were three, mother alive and well.’
‘She’s not well!’ retorted Gauld. ‘She’s got a bad heart.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Frost. ‘Still, better a bad heart than having your throat cut. Any objection to our taking your fingerprints?’
‘What happens if I object?’
‘We’ll take them anyway, so why cause bad feeling?’
A young uniformed officer was summoned to take the prints. Frost waited patiently until the task was completed, then whispered something to the officer who nodded and left.
‘I ought to have a solicitor,’ said Gauld.
Frost seemed astonished. ‘You’re innocent! What do you want a solicitor for?’
‘Because I think yo
u bastards are trying to frame me for something I haven’t done, that’s why.’
‘Oh no.’ Frost sounded hurt. ‘I might frame you for something you had done, but not otherwise.’
The scowler moved forward. ‘All the murder victims travelled on your coach.’
Gauld twisted in his chair to face the questioner. ‘So what? Hundreds of people travel on my coach.’
‘Where were you last Sunday afternoon?’ barked the detective sergeant.
‘I don’t know,’ smirked Gauld. ‘Where were you?’
The door opened and the fingerprint man returned to murmur in the inspector’s ear. Frost’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. ‘All right, Gauld. You can stop the pretence. We’ve got you.’
‘Have you really?’ he said cockily. ‘I’m shaking with fright.’
‘You’ll be shitting yourself in a minute,’ said Frost. ‘You told me earlier you didn’t know a Mrs Julia Fussell.’
‘I said I didn’t know the name.’
‘You were going to fit a stronger security chain on her front door.’
Gauld leant back in his chair. ‘Ah — now I’m with you. Little old dear — about seventy-five. Lives in Victoria Court.’
‘So you do know her!’ said Gilmore.
‘I didn’t know her name. I always call her Ma.’ He looked disturbed. ‘What about her? Nothing’s happened to her, has it?’
‘You called on her late last night to fit the security chain.’
‘No, I didn’t. I was going to, but I felt tired, so I had an early night.’
Gilmore, standing directly behind him, bent down. ‘You lying bastard. You went there and killed her.’
Gauld’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of his chair. ‘Killed? You mean… she’s dead? That poor old lady is dead?’
‘Don’t act the bloody innocent. You know damn well she’s dead,’ hissed Gilmore.
Gauld just stared straight ahead, slack-jawed, head moving from side to side in disbelief. Then his eyes narrowed. ‘And you’re accusing me of killing her?’
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