Night Frost (40 page)

   "And that’s when he found out about the spare key under the mat and the string inside the letter-box," said Frost, excitedly. "Let’s bring the bastard in."

   Hanlon was more cautious. "We could blow it by acting too soon. Jack. We need some solid evidence."

   "All right. Go to the hospital, see if you can find anyone who saw Gauld take the old dears back home. Check with the neighbours in the hope someone saw Gauld deliver them back. Get details of his car—did anyone see it in the vicinity on the nights of the murders? You know the form—whatever I’ve forgotten, do it. Lastly, I want Gauld tailed. I want to know everything he does every minute of the day and night, and when he goes out on his next killing job, we grab him, and if he’s got his bloody knife on him, that’s all the proof I need."

   In the corridor, he collided with Detective Sergeant Gilmore who looked as happy as his inspector.

   "We’ve got a full statement from Mrs. Compton, Inspector."

   "Thank God for that, son. I was afraid I might have to perjure myself at her trial."

   "She admits everything, but says the husband’s death was an accident."

   "How? Did she accidentally welt him round the head with one of her rigid nipples?"

   A broad grin from Gilmore. Anything Frost said was funny today. "Thanks for your help," he added sincerely.

   "All I did was tell a few lies," demurred the inspector. "Any self-respecting policeman would do the same."

   "And after your stunt with the leaves," added Gilmore, "I got Forensic to go over the boot of Mark Compton’s car. We actually found a couple of leaves from the wreath."

   "That’s what’s known as nature imitating art," said Frost. "When you get a minute, see me in the office. I’ll update you on the Ripper case. We’re nearly ready to nail the bastard."

   In the office, weighed down in the centre of his desk by a stapling machine, was the memo from County beefing about the balls-up with his car expenses. He screwed it into a tight ball, tossed it in the air and headed it towards the open goal of the waste bin. It dropped dead centre with a satisfying plonk. He beamed happily. Things were starting to go right.

   Later, when everything blew up in his face, he would remember this brief moment of euphoria.

Thursday night shift (1)

The downstairs light went out. A pause, then the upstairs light came on and the silhouette of a man passed the window. Gilmore ducked down behind the steering wheel until the curtains were closed and the bedroom light went out. He shook Frost awake. "He’s gone to bed."

   Yawning heavily, Frost consulted his watch. A few minutes to midnight. They had been parked down the side turning for nearly two hours, since taking over from Burton. Gauld had collected a party of senior citizens from the Silver Star Bingo Club at nine o’clock, and had delivered them all safely back to their homes by 9.56. He had then driven his grey Vauxhall Astra back to his terraced house in Nelson Street and was indoors by 10.15.

   Frost fidgeted and tried to get comfortable. He was tired and hungry and there was no chance of a relief until six His fault. He had forgotten to ask Mullett to authorize more overtime and Wells was playing it by the book. He smeared a gap in the misted windscreen with his cuff and peered out at the still, dark street. "It’s too late for him to murder anyone now," he decided. "Let’s get ourselves something to eat. I know a place that’s open all night."

   The 'place' Frost knew was a converted van selling hot dogs and hamburgers on a windswept stretch of waste ground near the cemetery. The stale greasy smell of frying onions slapped them round the face as they got out of the car. On the side of the van a drop-down flap provided a serving counter and a canvas awning sheltered the clientele from the worst of the weather. Behind the counter a tall, thin man with a melancholy face and a red, running nose sucked at a cigarette as he pushed some onion slices around the fat with a fork.

   "Lord Lucan and party," announced Frost. "We did book."

   "Very funny," said the man, pulling the cigarette from his mouth so he could cough all over the food. He banged two cups on the counter, dropped a tea-bag in each and filled them with hot water from a steam-belching urn.

   They sipped the scalding tea while the man fried them two hamburgers in tired, spitting fat. It was a cold night with the wind flapping the canvas awning.

   "You caught that girl’s killer yet?" asked the owner, putting the burgers on a plate and sliding them over.

   Frost lifted the top of his bun and peered suspiciously at the onion-topped meat sinking in a puddle of fat. "We’re on a different case, Harry. Suspect meat sold as hamburger filling." He took a tentative bite and chewed cautiously. "I hope yours comes from a legitimate source?"

   Harry sucked nervously at his cigarette. "Of course it does Mr. Frost. That’s top-class stuff, that is—minced steak."

   "Good," said Frost. "Only this dodgy outfit is importing so-called meat from the Continent . . . all sorts of rubbish—dead horses, cats, dogs, some of it even worse."

   "Worse?" asked Harry.

   Frost leant forward confidentially and lowered his voice. "Don’t spread this around, Harry, it would cause a public outcry, but we’ve got evidence they’re even buying unclaimed bodies from undertakers and putting them in the mincing machine."

   Harry pulled the cigarette from his mouth and flicked off the spit from the end "You’re having me on, Mr. Frost!"

   "I wish I was," answered Frost gravely. He took a bite at his hamburger, then pulled it from his mouth. "Bloody hell!" He snatched the top from his bun and gaped in disbelief. Lying across the onion, drenched in a bloody pool of tomato ketchup, was a severed human finger.

   Gilmore shuddered and dropped his on the counter Harry’s face went a greasy white and his head jerked back in horror, rattling the tins on the shelf behind him. "Christ, Mr. Frost! They told me it was good meat. They said it was prime beef steak . . ." His voice suddenly changed to outrage. "You bastard!"

   The severed finger was wiggling at him and Frost was convulsed with laughter as he pulled it free and wiped off the ketchup.

   "It’s not funny," bellowed Harry. "You nearly gave me a bloody heart attack."

   Frost wiped the tears from his eyes. "I was going to put my dick in, Harry, but the buns were too small."

   "Bleeding funny!" snarled the man as they walked back to the car, Frost still convulsed at his joke. "Pity you don’t put your bloody energy into finding that poor kid’s killer."

   Frost stopped laughing.

The cemetery was crawling past the car window. Frost asked Gilmore to stop. He lit a cigarette and stared moodily across white marble and granite. "Harry was right, son. That bloody girl. I haven’t the faintest idea what to do next."

   Gilmore said nothing. At the far end of the empty road he had spotted a man, dressed in black, crouching by the cemetery railings. Gilmore clicked off the headlights, then nudged Frost, who nodded. "I see him, son."

   The man seemed to be doing something to the railings.

   "What’s he up to?" asked Gilmore.

   'Whatever it is, let him get on with it," muttered Frost, huddling down into his seat. "I can’t solve the cases I’ve got. I don’t want any more."

   But Gilmore wanted more. Another arrest on top of the successful outcome of the Compton case would do his promotion chances a world of good. He wound down the window and stuck his head out, trying to make out what the man was doing. Frost shivered as the cold air rushed in. "He’s either got his dick stuck between the railings, or he’s having a pee, son. Let’s get back to the station."

   Suddenly the man seemed to push against the railings and was through to the cemetery where his black shape flitted briefly across the white of the headstones before being gulped up by the darkness.

   Gilmore was out of the car while Frost was still fumbling for his seat belt.

   One of the cast iron railings had rusted away and could be lifted from its concrete base. Gilmore pulled it up and wriggled though, then held it so Frost could follow.

   The cemetery was vast. Their man could have gone any where. "We’ve lost the bugger, son."

   "Shh!" hissed Gilmore, squinting to focus his eyes. "There!"

   Frost’s eyes followed Gilmore’s finger. The moon pushed its way through a cloud and illuminated the cemetery in a cold blue light. Uncut grass twitched and shivered in the wind. Trees creaked and groaned. And then Frost saw him. About sixty yards away, zigzagging between the graves.

   "Follow me!" ordered Gilmore, haring off in pursuit. Reluctantly, Frost stumbled after him. He couldn’t see what Gilmore was getting all excited about. The man could simply be taking a short cut.

   They jogged on, past angels and cherubs. The path veered to the right and there ahead of them was the Victorian crypt. "Stop, son," pleaded Frost, "I’ve got to rest." They paused alongside some new, raw graves, panting, sucking in air, looking left and right where the path split. Nothing but white headstones as far as the eye could see.

   "We’ve lost him," said Frost happily. "Let’s get back to the car."

   An irritated flap of Gilmore’s hand hushed him to silence and pointed to the crypt. The man, his back to them, was bent over doing something to the padlock. A loud click, then a groaning of hinges as the door was pushed open. A torch flashed and the man disappeared inside the burial vault.

   "Still taking a short cut?" scoffed Gilmore, smugly. He moved quietly round to the side of the building and squeezed through the railing by the tap, where Paula Bartlett’s killer squeezed through with her body. Frost, slower, followed.

   Round to the door where the newly fitted brass padlock still held the hasp firmly, but as before, the screws had been prised from the rotting door frame. Intermittent splashes of light spilled from inside. Echoing in the confined space, sounds of something heavy being dragged across the stone floor.

   Gilmore and Frost looked at each other. What the hell was he doing?

   Cautiously, Gilmore edged his head until he could see inside. Pitch black, then the man’s torch clicked on again and lit up a scatter of something on the floor. Bones. Human bones. And on top of them, a grinning, yellow-toothed, human skull.

   Gilmore’s involuntary gasp was enough to make the man spin round, the glare of his torch hitting Gilmore straight in the eyes, momentarily blinding him. Then, with a yell, the man charged and Gilmore found himself flying through the air, his back, then his head hitting the stone floor with a teeth-jolting crack making pin-points of light dance in the blackness at the pain.

   Crouching, ready to give him a second dose, the man moved forward.

   "Stay where you are. Police!" yelled Frost, dragging his torch from his mac pocket and kicking bones out of the way as he advanced into the vault. The man blinked into the beam and Frost stopped in his tracks. Gilmore’s assailant was wearing a clerical collar.

   The curate gawped surprise at the sudden appearance. "Mr. Frost!"

   Gilmore creaked open his eyes and saw a skull and a thigh bone within inches of his face. He sat up, gingerly touching the back of his head then studying the blood on his finger tips.

   "I’m terribly sorry, Sergeant," apologized the curate. "I thought you were one of the vandals." He helped Gilmore to his feet and examined the cut on his head. "Only a graze, I think."

   With an angry jerk, Gilmore shook him off. "Perhaps you’d care to explain what you’re doing here at this time of night?" He picked up the torch and swept the stone floor with its beam. The lids of two coffins had been unscrewed open and the skeletal bodies inside tipped out with bones and pieces of shroud strewn all over the floor. "And how do you propose to explain this?"

   "I use the graveyard as a short cut to get back to the vicarage. I’ve been sitting with another sick parishioner. She died, I’m afraid—this terrible influenza epidemic." He shook his head sadly. "So many deaths."

   "Let’s have the address of this sick old lady," said Gilmore, pen poised over his notebook. He wrote down the details. "Right. Now explain this." He nodded at the mess.

   "Does it need explaining?" said the curate bitterly. "You’re supposed to be protecting us against vandals. I passed the crypt and saw the door was open. I came in to investigate and found this." He shook his head. "Such pointless desecration. One tries to be forgiving, Sergeant, but this is sick."

   Gilmore snapped shut his notebook. "All right, Mr. Purley. That’s all, for now." He emphasized the 'for now'.

   They followed him out and watched as he tried to make the door secure. "You’ll need a new door frame," said Frost.

   "Yes, Inspector. More expense." Another sigh. "I’ll come back tomorrow and try and fix it. I’ll tidy up inside as well." Round to the side of the building where they squeezed through the gap in the railing.

   They watched him picking his way between the graves before veering off towards the vicarage.

   "I don’t trust him," growled Gilmore. "He’s always out too late at night for my liking. If there’s been another Ripper murder . . ." Frost was pinning his hopes on the coach driver, but Gilmore had serious doubts. "Let’s go. This place is giving me the creeps."

   "It must have given Paula Bartlett’s killer the creeps, coming here at dead of night with a body in his arms." Frost poked away at his scar and stared at the ranks of white headstones crowding in on the crypt. "He knew how to find the crypt, son, and he knew he could get in." He pushed his hands deep into his mac pockets and wandered along the railings, booting at pebbles in his path. "So how did he know?"

   "Perhaps he was someone who often used the graveyard as a short cut," offered Gilmore, pointedly rubbing the back of his head.

   Frost chewed his knuckles in thought, then took out his cigarette packet and shook it. One left. He poked it in his mouth and flung the empty packet into the long grass. A blast of cold wind cut across the cemetery, shaking the trees and making him shiver. "Let’s go."