Night Frost (21 page)

   Doesn’t the old fool remember anything, thought Gilmore. "He’s the old boy who attempted suicide after he got the poison pen letter."

   Frost grinned. Something else to delay their return to the cold, dreary station. "I promised the doc I’d have a word with him. Come on, son."

   Gilmore almost lost Frost in the labyrinth of corridors. Denton General Hospital was originally an old Victorian workhouse, but had been added to and rebuilt over the years. Frost darted up dark little passages, across storage areas and up clanking iron staircases to get to the ward where Wardley was lying. The staff nurse in her little cubicle with the shaded lamp greeted Frost as an old friend. She wasn’t too keen on the idea of waking Wardley up, but Frost assured her it was essential.

   Wardley, a little man of around seventy-five, his thinning hair snow white, was sleeping uneasily, turning and twitching and muttering. Frost shook his shoulder gently. Wardley woke with a start, mouth agape. He looked concerned as Frost introduced himself.

   "Have you come to arrest me?" he croaked in a quavering voice.

   "Attempted suicide isn’t a crime any more," said Frost, dragging chair over to the bed. "Besides, for all we know, it was an accident."

   Wardley frowned. "You know it was suicide. I left a note."

   "Did you? We couldn’t find it."

   The old man pulled himself up. "It was on the bedside cabinet. My note . . . and that letter. How could you miss them?"

   Frost scratched his head. "They might have fallen under the bed. We’ll look again later. Suppose you tell me what the letter said?"

   The old man shook his head and his hands gripped and released the bedclothes. "Terrible things. I’m too ashamed."

   "Blimey," said Frost, "I hope I can do things I’m ashamed of at your age."

   "It happened a long time ago, Inspector."

   "Then it doesn’t bloody matter," said Frost. "Tell me what it said."

   A long pause. Someone further down the ward moaned in his sleep. A trolley rumbled by outside.

   "All right," said Wardley at last. "It goes back thirty years—before I came to Denton. I lived in a little village. It was miles away from here, but I’m not telling you its name. I ran one of the classes in the Sunday school." He paused.

   "Not much sex and violence, so far," murmured Frost. "I hope it warms up."

   Wardley pushed out a polite, insincere smile and immediately switched it off. "There were these two boys in my class. One was twelve, the other thirteen. After the class they would come back with me to my house. We would chat, watch television. All innocent stuff." His voice rose. "As God is my witness, Inspector, that’s all it was."

   "What else would it be?" soothed Frost, thinking to him self, You dirty old bastard!

   "One of the boys told lies about me. Filthy lies. I was called up before the Sunday school superintendent. I swore my innocence on the Bible, but he didn’t believe me. I was forced to resign." He stopped and studied the inspector’s face, trying to read signs that he was being believed now.

   "Go on," murmured Frost.

   "I couldn’t stay in the village. People whispered and pointed. I had to move. So I came to Denton. After thirty years I thought it was all over and done with. And then I received that awful letter."

   'What did it say, Mr. Wardley?"

   "Something like 'What will the church say when I tell them what you did to those boys?' I’m a churchwarden, Inspector. It’s my life. I couldn’t face it happening all over again. If it gets out, I won’t fail next time."

   Gilmore asked, "Is there anyone in Denton, or locally, who could have known about your past?" Wardley shook his head.

   "These two boys you messed about with," Frost began, stopping abruptly as Wardley, quivering with rage, thrust his face forward and almost shouted.

   "I never touched them. It was all lies. I swore on the Bible." So loud did he protest that the staff nurse hurried anxiously towards the bed, only turning back when Frost gave her a reassuring wave.

   He rephrased his question. "The boys who lied, Mr. Wardley. I want their names. And the name of the Sunday school superintendent, and all the people from your old village who would have known about this. We’ve got to check and see if any of them have moved to Denton."

   He left Gilmore to take down the details and went down to the car where he could smoke and think. Why on earth was he wasting time on this poison pen thing when he was way out of his depth with more important cases?

   The car lurched to one side as Gilmore climbed in. "Where to?" he asked, trying to get comfortable in the sagging driving seat.

   His reply should have been "Back to the station," but he couldn’t face going back to that cold Incident Room and wading through those endless, monotonous robbery files. "Wardley’s cottage. Let’s have another look for that letter."

   "We shouldn’t be wasting time on this," moaned Gilmore. "And how are we going to get in?"

   "Dr Maltby will have a key," said Frost, hoping this was true.

   Frost was in luck. Maltby did have the key. He sat them in his surgery while he went upstairs to fetch it. "Watch the door," hissed Frost, darting for the doctor’s desk.

   "What are you doing?" asked Gilmore, horrified, watching the inspector methodically opening and closing drawers.

   "Looking for something," grunted Frost, busily opening a locked drawer with one of his own keys.

   A creak of a floorboard above, then footsteps on the stairs.

   "He’s coming," croaked Gilmore, wishing he could run and leave Frost to face the music.

   "Got it," crowed Frost, waving a blue envelope. He glanced at it and stuffed it back, quickly locked the drawer, then slid back into his seat just as the door opened and Maltby came in with the key to Wardley’s cottage.

   "What the hell was that about?" asked Gilmore when they were outside.

   "The poison pen letter the doc gave us yesterday. He wouldn’t tell us who it was sent to, so I sneaked a look at the envelope. Sorry to involve you, son, but you’ve got to grab your chances when they come."

   "So who was it addressed to . . . anyone we know?" Frost grinned. "Mark Compton. Mr. Rigid Nipples." Gilmore’s eyebrows shot up. "What?"

   "Doesn’t it make you hate the swine even more . . . married to that cracking wife and having it off every Wednesday with a female contortionist in Denton?" He halted outside the door of a small, dark cottage, pushed the key in the lock and they went in.

   They started in the bedroom, with its iron-framed single bed, and worked downwards. Everything inside the bedside cabinet was taken out. Frost showed mild interest in some loose tablets he found in the drawer, then seemed to lose interest. The cabinet was pulled away from the wall in case the note and the letter had fallen behind it. The bed likewise was moved, exposing a rectangular patch of fluffy dust. Even the bedclothes were stripped and shaken.

   Gilmore, watched by Frost from the doorway, crawled all over the room on his hands and knees, looking in corners, behind curtains. He even stood on a chair and looked on top of the wardrobe. "Nothing here," he said, brushing dust from his jacket.

   A quick poke around in the bathroom and then downstairs. Again Frost didn’t seem inclined to join in the search, but let Gilmore do it while he sat on the arm of a chair, smoking and flipping through some bird-watching magazines he’d found in the magazine rack then looking all the way across the room at some nail holes in the wallpaper through a pair of high-powered binoculars he’d taken from a shelf.

   "It would be quicker with two," said Gilmore.

   'When you get fed up, we’ll go," said Frost. "The letters aren’t here. I’m only staying because you seem so keen."

   Gilmore glowered. "All right," he admitted. "I’m fed up."

   "We’ll have a word with Ada next door," said Frost.

   You’re messing me about, thought Gilmore as he followed the inspector to the adjoining cottage with its black-painted door and shining, well-polished brasswork. A quick rat-tat-tat at the brass knocker and the door was opened by Ada Perkins, her sharp pointed chin thrust forward belligerently. "Oh, it’s you, Jack Frost. I thought I could hear heavy feet plonking about next door."

   "And we thought we could hear the sound of an ear-hole pressed against the wall," replied Frost. "We’d like a couple of words . . . preferably not 'piss off'."

   With a loud sniff of disapproval she showed them into a spotlessly clean, cosy little room where a coal fire glowed cherry red in a black-leaded grate and where chintz curtains hid the damp and depressing weather outside. In the centre of the room stood a solid oak refectory table draped in a green baize cloth on which was a quantity of different coloured wine bottles bearing white, hand-written labels.

   "Not interrupting an orgy, are we?" asked Frost.

   She ignored the question and pointed to the high-backed wooden chairs by the table. "Sit down!"

   While Gilmore fidgeted, and kept consulting his watch, anxious to get back to his files, Frost settled down comfort ably and warmed his hands at the fire. He picked up one of the bottles and pretended to read the label. “What’s this? 'Cow’s Dung and Dandelion. A thick brown wine, sticky to the palate.' That sounds good, Ada."

   She snatched the bottle. "It’s
Cowslip
and Dandelion, as well you know. I’m sorting out my home-made wine." She turned to Gilmore, who was drumming his fingers impatiently. "Would you like to try some?"

   Gilmore shook his head curtly. "We’re not allowed to drink while we’re on duty."

   "This isn’t alcoholic," Frost assured him. "This is home made." He beamed at Ada. "Perhaps just a little sip—to keep out the cold." 

   From the top of the matching solid oak sideboard, she produced two of the largest wine glasses Gilmore had ever seen, and after giving them a quick blow inside to shift the dust, banged them down on the green baize. She filled them to the brim, and slid them across. "Try that."

   Gilmore lifted his glass and eyed the cloudy contents with apprehension. "That’s more than a sip."

   Frost told him, "You’ve got to have a lot to get the full benefit," and raised his glass in salute to Ada who waited, arms folded, for their verdict. "Cheers!" The wine tiptoed down his throat as smooth as silk, tasting of nothing in particular, then, suddenly, the pin slipped from the hand grenade and something exploded inside him, punching him in the stomach, making him gasp for breath and firing little star shells in front of his eyes. "Gawd help us!" he spluttered as soon as the fit of coughing stopped.

   "What’s it like?" whispered Gilmore who hadn’t plucked up the courage to try his yet.

   "Delicious," croaked Frost, his throat raw and stinging as if he had swallowed a glass of hot creosote. Quickly he covered his glass as Ada offered a second helping. "If you’re trying to get us drunk so you can have your way with us, Ada, forget it. I lust after your body, but all I want at the moment is the letters."

   Her expression hardly changed as she rammed the cork home in the bottle. "What letters?"

   Pausing only to slap the coughing, red-faced Gilmore on the back, Frost said, "The poison pen letter and the suicide note."

   She stared blankly, as if mystified.

   "You don’t have to be a bleeding Sherlock Holmes to deduce you’ve got them, Ada. Wardley left them on his bedside cabinet. You were the first one in. They were gone by the time the doc arrived a couple of minutes later. Don’t sod me about. I want them."

   Her lips tightened stubbornly. "Did Mr. Wardley say you could have them?"

   "Yes, Ada. And he also said if you didn’t hand them over, I was to give you a clout round the ear-hole." He held out his hand. She hesitated, then took a folded sheet of notepaper from her apron pocket and thrust it at him.

   Frost was slowly becoming aware that he was beginning to feel a trifle light-headed. Everything in the room was starting to blur slightly round the edge. It took a great deal of effort to bring the typed letter into focus. Thank God he’d refused a second glass of Cowslip and Dandelion.

   "Give it to me," said Gilmore impatiently. He unfolded the note and read it aloud. " 'Dear Lecher. What would the church say if I told them about you and the things the boys said you did?' "

   "Is that it?" asked Frost, sounding disappointed.

   Gilmore nodded. "Typed on the same machine as the others. The 'a' and the 's' are out of alignment."

   "It all looks out of alignment to me," muttered Frost, wishing he hadn’t made such a pig of himself on Ada’s lethal brew. He squinted up at the blurred outline of the woman. "And where’s his suicide note, Ada?"

   Stubbornly, she folded her arms. "I burnt it." At Frost’s angry exclamation, she explained, "Suicide is a mortal sin. Mr. Wardley is a churchwarden. I wanted people to think the overdose was an accident."

   Frost pulled himself to his feet and waited to give the room a chance to steady itself. "I wish you hadn’t done that, Ada."

   She walked with them to the front door. "Think yourself lucky I kept the poison pen letter. I was in two minds whether to burn that as well."

   "Thanks for the wine," said Frost. "I only felt sick for a little while." A cold, swirling mist was waiting for them out side. Its chill dampness embraced them, sobering Frost instantly and making him shiver.

   Gilmore edged the car out of the village and headed for Denton. Up on the hill, looking down on them, The Old Mill, a dark blur in the mist. No lights showed. "Old Mother Rigid Nipples has gone to bed," Frost murmured. "Her husband’s probably got one of them stuck up his nose right now."

   "Her husband’s away," grunted Gilmore, trying to spot the area car that was supposed to be watching the place, but there was no sign of it.

   As they drove back, the radio was pleading for all available patrols to help break up a fight between two gangs of youths outside one of the town’s less reputable pubs. "Steer clear of there," said Frost, not wanting to get involved.