“Perhaps my hairy colleague and I could take a look at it first, sir.”
They tramped over more newspaper, past skirting boards glistening with newly applied white paint, as he took them into a small utility room. The room housed a large chest freezer and the gas and electricity meters. On the far wall was the back door, which opened on to the garden. This was the door the intruder had forced. As the lock was now useless, the door was bolted top and bottom to keep it shut. Price unbolted and opened up. The back garden was similar to Mrs. Shadbolt’s, but overgrown and minus the gnomes.
Frost stepped outside and filled his lungs with fresh air to get the taste of paint out of his mouth. He and Webster examined the door. The jamb was crushed and splintered where it had been jemmied open.
“He was determined to get in, wasn’t he, sir?” muttered the inspector, straightening up. “Was anything taken? Are all your tins of paint accounted for?”
“The constable kindly went through the house with me. Everything was intact. We haven’t really got anything worth stealing, but he might have thought the previous occupants were still here. They had lots of expensive silver, I believe.”
“That’s probably the answer!” Frost exclaimed delightedly. “You should have been in the force, Mr. Price.”
Price blinked and beamed his pleasure, then a shrill whistle screamed from the kitchen. “The kettle! Would you like some tea?”
“Love some,” said Frost. “Be with you in a second.”
As soon as Price had retired to kitchen, Frost scratched his chin thoughtfully and advanced on the chest freezer. “Had a case once, son. This bloke strangled his wife and buried her under the floorboards, telling the neighbours she had gone to visit her sick mother. When the body started to niff a bit, and the Airwick was fighting a losing battle, he dumped her in the freezer and started painting the house so the smell of paint would mask everything else .. .”
Webster groaned. “Surely you’re not suggesting .. . ?”
“I bet you tuppence she’s in the freezer.” He flung up the lid, looked inside, then let it thump down again. “Tuppence I owe you.” Something tucked down between the back of the freezer and the wall caught his eye. He leaned across to peer into the dark space. “Something down there, son. Give us a hand to shift this thing.”
What on earth is the prat up to now? Webster struggled to ease the fully loaded freezer away from the wall. At last there was room for Frost to poke his arm down. It emerged clutching a pair of rusted garden shears, the wooden handles missing.
“Hooray!” exclaimed Webster sarcastically.
“I’m doing my Sherlock Holmes stuff and you’re taking the piss,” reproved Frost. He held the shears to the light. “See these small splinters of wood stuck on the blades? They’re off that door. This is what our burglar used as a jemmy, my son.”
Webster took the shears and offered them to the door jamb. “You could be right,” he admitted grudgingly.
“Don’t strain yourself,” muttered Frost. He carried the shears out to the garden, his head bent, searching. With a cry of triumph he pointed to a shear-shaped indentation in the earth of a flower bed that ran along the fence. “And this is where our burglar got it from.”
“So?” said Webster.
“So,” Frost continued patiently, ‘he didn’t bring it with him. Not a very well-equipped burglar, was he? Didn’t have anything on him to open a door, so he had to use an old, rusty pair of shears that just happened to be in the garden. And wasn’t he lucky finding them in the dark?”
“Tea’s ready,” called Price.
Frost put the shears on top of the freezer, bolted the back door, then called, “Coming!”
They took tea in the lounge. It was served in dainty china cups on a tray containing milk, sugar, and a selection of biscuits. Price’s wife had him well house trained Frost praised his tea.
The man smiled modestly. “I can turn my hand to most things. Take a biscuit.”
Frost took a custard cream. “I forgot to ask you, sir. What’s your job? You’re not a house painter, are you, like Hitler?”
“I’m a night maintenance engineer with Broughtons Engineering Works on the Industrial Estate, but I’m on holiday this week.”
The custard cream was delicious. Frost took another one. “Night work?
What hours do you do?”
“We start at eight at night and finish at six the following morning. The machines are going nonstop all day, so repairs and maintenance have to be carried out when the factory is closed.”
Frost parked his cup on the arm of the settee. Price snatched it up and put it on the tray. “Are you there all alone, sir?” He brought out his cigarettes.
Price jumped up to fetch an enormous ashtray which he placed in front of the inspector. Then he opened wide the window. “My wife can’t stand the smell of tobacco smoke.” He returned to his chair. “No, I don’t work on my own. There’s two of us, the senior engineer and the deputy. I’m the deputy. You will be careful with your ash, won’t you?”
“I’ll swallow it if you like,” said Frost, starting to get irritated. He thought for a moment. “The Industrial Estate. That’s not far from the golf links where those two girls were raped?”
“That’s right,” agreed Price, fanning Frost’s smoke out the window, “The nurse on April 4th, the office worker on the 5th.”
Frost stiffened. Price had the dates exactly. “You’ve a good memory for dates, sir?”
“Not really. The police questioned me about it. I was able to help them.”
Webster and Frost exchanged glances. “In what way, sir?”
“It’ll be on your files,” said Price.
I haven’t read the bloody files, thought Frost. “I’m sure it is, sir, but tell us anyway.”
“Your lot suspected our senior engineer, a man called Len Bateman. He’d been in trouble with the police years ago for messing about with young girls. I was questioned by a Detective Inspector Allen. Do you know him, Mr. Frost?”
“One of our junior officers,” said Frost.
“Anyway, I was able to tell Mr. Allen that Len Bateman had been working right alongside me at the time of all the rapes, so there was no way he could have done them.”
Frost took another custard cream. “Does Bateman still work for your firm?”
“Oh no. A few weeks later the works manager caught him stealing engine components. He was sacked on the spot and a new man took his job.”
“When was he sacked, sir?”
“About mid-April.”
“Which was about the time the rapings stopped,” said Frost thoughtfully. There were no more custard creams left, so he helped himself to a chocolate digestive. Price moved the tray out of his reach.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed the coincidence, sir,” continued Frost, munching away. “Three of the rapes took place near where you work, and two at Meads Park near where you used to live. No sooner do you move down this way than the rapes start up again in Denton Woods, almost on your doorstep.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting it is anything other than a coincidence?” said Price, rubbing a rag on a speck of white paint he had noticed on his chair leg. “I couldn’t have done it, I was at work. Ask Len Bateman, he was working alongside me.”
“You’re quite right,” said Frost. “You’ve got a cast-iron alibi.” He thought for a moment. “I used to know a bloke who worked nights just like you. He worked with one other bloke just like you and Len Bateman. They used to get up to a fiddle between them. If one wanted a night off, the other one used to clock in for him. No-one ever found out.”
“I wouldn’t dream of doing a thing like that,” said Price.
Frost beamed at him. “Of course you wouldn’t, sir -it’s dishonest. But just supposing you and Bateman did work the same fiddle. There would be nights when you’d be all on your own in the factory, perfectly free to nip out for the odd rape when the mood struck you. And if Len Bateman was asked, he’d have t
o swear blind he was with you all the time because your alibi was his alibi.”
Webster shifted uneasily in his chair. He hoped Frost wasn’t going to make some wild accusation without a shred of evidence.
Completely unabashed, Frost carried on. “A new man took over when Bateman got the sack, so you couldn’t work your fiddle any more. Which is probably why there were no more rapings for nearly four months.”
No-one could have looked more stunned than Price. “This is some kind of nightmare! My house is broken into and the investigating officer is almost accusing me of multiple rape.”
“Almost?” cried Frost. “I didn’t mean to be as vague as that.”
Price stood up and, as forcefully as he could, said, “I must ask you to leave. This is most upsetting.”
Frost didn’t budge. “Does your wife visit her mother very often?”
“Two or three times a year.”
“Leaving you all alone in the house. I wouldn’t be at all surprised that if we started comparing dates, we’d find you were either at work on your own or all alone in the house when the rapes took place.”
“I really can’t believe what I’m hearing,” exclaimed Price, his eyes blinking rapidly.
“Let’s take last night,” said Frost, lighting up a second cigarette. “There was an attempted rape in the woods, just across the road there a policewoman, a very tasty bit of stuff, young, big boobs the sort you like. You had a go at her, but she fought back. The cops came running, so you had to scoot off.”
Price just shook his head at every word as if unable to believe anyone could be so stupid or so cruel.
Webster kept his face impassive and stared out the window in case the inspector wanted to involve him in this flight of fancy.
Frost carried on doggedly. “You wore a track suit, jogging trousers
with no pocket, and a sweatshirt with no pocket. Under your arm you
carried a plastic mac -the mac you used to chuck over their heads
before you half strangled them. You ran off like mad, but in the dark
you bumped into someone, which made you drop the mac’
Price’s Adam’s apple was travelling up and down like an express lift.
“This is nonsense!”
“Trouble was,” continued the inspector, ‘when you lost your mac, you also lost this.” From his pocket he produced a tagged Yale key which he held out for Price to see. “Your front-door key. Which presented you with a problem. How do you get back inside your house? You can’t knock up your wife; she’s away in Darlington.”
Price turned in appeal to Webster. “I didn’t leave the house all night. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Can you prove that?” Webster asked.
“How can I prove it?” Price said hopelessly. “I was here on my own.
It’s like a nightmare.”
“It was a nightmare for those poor girls, sir,” said Frost. “Anyway, back to our poor old rapist, who you say isn’t you. It’s not his night. His dick’s been disappointed, he’s lost a perfectly good mac, and he hasn’t got his front-door key. So how is he going to get back inside his house? Too noisy to smash windows, and the front door is too exposed and too solid. Which leaves the back door. This means climbing over garden fences. Unluckily for him, old Mother Shadbolt’s yapping dog wakes her up and she screams blue murder and rings for the law.” “Whoever Mrs. Shadbolt saw,” insisted Price, ‘it wasn’t me. It was the burglar.”
“A bloody weird burglar, sir. He’s spotted by a screaming woman. Instead of doing what any self-respecting house breaker would do get the hell out of there as fast as he could he calmly hops over another couple of fences and starts to jemmy open your back door with a pair of rusty shears he finds in the pitch dark in your back garden. He enters your house, hides the shears behind your freezer, then nips off unseen without taking anything. That was no burglar, Mr. Price. That was you, breaking back into your own house because you’d lost your key in Denton Woods.”
Price stared first at Frost, then at Webster. He put a sheet of newspaper over a dining chair and sat on it. “What can I say?” he mumbled, almost on the verge of tears. “I’m innocent. It wasn’t me. What can I say?”
Frost shook his head in unstinted admiration. “You’re a bloody good actor, sir, I’ll give you that. But let’s put it to the test, shall we?” He tossed the tagged key over to Webster. “Go and see if this fits the gentleman’s front door, would you, son?”
Webster left the room. Frost sat on his sheet of newspaper, watching Price through narrowed eyes. Price, on his sheet of newspaper, fidgeted uncomfortably.
They could hear Webster’s footsteps as he walked toward the open front door. Then came the click of the key being inserted into the lock. A pause. Webster came back into the room and handed the key to the inspector.
An uneasy, cold, prickly sensation crept up Frost’s spine. “Well, son?”
“It doesn’t fit,” said Webster. “It’s not the right key.”
Frost seemed to crumble visibly. Webster almost felt sorry for him. The big buildup, all the pieces apparently fitting until the last, vital ingredient. It was the wrong key.
“Are you sure?” asked Frost flatly.
“Positive,” said Webster. “The key doesn’t fit the lock.”
“Well, Mr. Price,” said Frost. “It looks as if I’ve made a bit of a balls-up. I can only say I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” said Price generously. “You were only doing your job. I must feel thankful that I’ve been eliminated. Now, if you’d excuse me, I’ve so much to do before my wife returns. I presume it’s now all right for me to repair the back door?”
Frost nodded. Webster stood up, ready to go, but Frost remained seated, his mind racing, re-examining the facts. He was so bloody sure he was right. He felt it. He knew it. So where had he gone wrong? But at last he was forced to admit defeat. Slowly he heaved himself up. “Thank you for your co-operation and for your understanding, Mr. Price.”
The door bell rang, loudly and insistently.
Price jumped to his feet. “I’ll get it. You wait here.” He sped from the lounge, closing the door firmly behind him. Frost darted for the door and opened it a crack so he could see right down the passage.
Price opened the front door. A hard-faced woman, a key in her hand, stood in the porch alongside a suitcase. She wore sensible tweed clothes, flat shoes, and her greying hair was pulled back into a bun. She must have been some twenty years older than Price.
“Maud!” exclaimed her husband. “I didn’t expect you back until tomorrow.”
“Mother’s dead,” said the woman, lifting the suitcase into the hall. “Now what on earth has been going on? Why doesn’t my key open the front door? Have you changed the lock or something?”
From the lounge, Frost charged down the passage. In his haste he sent a tin of yellow paint flying all over the floor.
While Mrs. Price was insisting on knowing what on earth was going on, Frost snatched the key from her hand and compared it with the one from the plastic mac. There could be no mistake this time. The two keys were identical.
The colour drained from the man’s face as he edged toward the door and escape. But Frost darted forward to block his way.
“Who is this man?” demanded the woman of her husband. But he could only open and shut his mouth and shake his head.
“I’m a police officer,” Frost told her. “Terribly sorry to hear about the death of your mother, Mrs. Price. But I’m afraid I’ve got even more bad news for you.”
“She wasn’t like a wife,” said Price tonelessly while they waited in the interview room for Webster to come back with the typed statement for signature. “She was always strict with me, always laying down the law about what I should and what I shouldn’t do. She treated me like a child, even when we had sex. It was horrible like making love to my own mother. It made me feel unclean. I wanted someone young and innocent. I was driven to those young girls, I couldn’t
help myself.”
“You could have left her,” said Frost, ‘gone off with someone younger.”
He shook his head, horrified at the enormity of the suggestion. “She wouldn’t have let me do that. She’d have got so angry.”
Frost felt irritated. Here was the swine who had smashed and kicked and violated those poor girls. He should be elated that he had caught the bastard. He should be revelling in the thought of what other prisoners, who loved to wreak vengeance on sexual offenders, would do to Price once he was put away. But the man was so ineffectual, so pathetic, that Frost had to fight hard to stop feeling sorry for him.
Webster came in with the typed statement. He slid it across the table to Frost, who checked through it, then passed it over to Price.
“This is a typed copy of the statement you have just given us, Mr. Price. Please read it through carefully. Unless there’s anything you wish to change, I’d like you to initial every page, then sign it at the end.” But Price, anxious to get the unpleasantness over, initialled the pages automatically with barely a glance at the contents, endorsing the final page with a signature in almost childlike handwriting. Frost and Webster witnessed it.
“No chance of bail, I suppose?” Price asked hopefully.
“No chance,” confirmed Frost.
“I’ve got some books hidden under the bed,” Price confessed shamefaced. “Dirty books. It would be awful if my wife found them. Any chance you could get to them before she does?”
“Happy to oblige, Mr. Price,” smiled Frost. “We don’t want you to get into any trouble.”
He took a copy of the signed statement and marched with it, in triumph, to Mullett’s office, pausing first to chat up Miss Smith. “You can take your rusty chastity belt off, Ida,” he smirked. “We’ve caught the rapist.” She stared right through him and continued sealing the flaps of envelopes marked Confidential. Not in the least put out, Frost asked, “Is Dracula in his coffin?”
“The Superintendent is off,” she snapped, encouraging a flap to stick with a thump of her fist and wishing it was Frost’s nose. “He won’t be back until tomorrow.”
A Touch of Frost Page 35