A Touch Of Frost (44 page)

“Very tasteful,” murmured Frost, thinking he had never seen anything so ghastly in his life.

“I looked out,” continued the woman, “and there he was climbing over the fence into my garden, right down at the end, near the gnome on the toadstool. I just screamed and screamed and he immediately leapt over the fence.”

“What, back the way he was coming?” asked Frost, pulling his head back in.

“Oh no,” Mrs. Shadbolt told him. “He carried on across my garden and over the fence into next door.” She indicated the wooden fence to the right.

Frost spun around, frowning. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am. It was dark, but I could still see him. And the fence shook as he clambered over it.”

Frost looked out of the window again. “Where’s the house of the bloke whose back door was forced?”

“To the right. The way the intruder was going. Next door but one, number 36.”

Frost sat down on the bed and wriggled because he was sitting on something uncomfortable. He pulled Diddums out from under him and dropped it on the floor. “This isn’t making sense.”

“It’s making sense to me,” said Webster, who couldn’t understand why the inspector was wasting time on this piddling little abortive breakin. “The man climbs over the fence into Mrs. Shadbolt’s garden. She screams, so he climbs over the next fence. Where’s the problem?”

“Probably nothing,” said Frost, seeming to lose interest. “What are the people like at number 36, Mrs. Shadbolt?”

“I can’t really say, Inspector. They only moved in recently but they seem a nice couple.”

“Right,” said Frost, standing up. “We’ll have a chat with them. Thank you so much for your help.”

Out in the street, as they turned toward number 36, Frost said, “Do you ever get the feeling that things are suddenly going to start going right, son?”

“I often get the feeling,” said Webster, “but never the follow-up.”

“Me too,” muttered Frost, “but I’m hoping today might prove the exception. Now, what’s this geezer’s name?”

“Price,” said Webster, “Charles Price.”

Charles Price was a shy-looking man in his late thirties with dark hair and an apologetic smile. He was painting the front door of his house and was so engrossed in his work, he didn’t hear the two policemen walking up his front path.

“Mr. Price?” asked Frost. “We’re police officers.”

He spun around, startled, the paintbrush shaking in his hand. “You did give me a turn,” he said. “I never heard you. Is it about last night?”

Frost nodded. “Just a few questions.”

“Nothing was stolen,” said Price. “He must have been scared off. Your police constable was on the scene in minutes.”

“All part of the service,” said Frost with a smile. “Do you think we might come in?”

Methodically, Price replaced the lid on his tin of yellow paint, wiped the brush with a rag, and immersed it in a jam jar half filled with white spirit. “Trying to get it all finished before the wife comes back,” he explained, wiping his hands on another piece of rag. “We only moved in three weeks ago and there’s so much to do to get the place shipshape.”

Warning them to be careful of the wet paint, he guided them through the passage and into a small lounge, which was spotlessly clean and had double sheets of newspaper laid over the floor to protect the carpet. “If I spill so much as a single drop of paint, my wife will never let me hear the end of it.” Noticing the inspector’s dirty mac, he spread another sheet of newspaper across the settee before inviting them to sit down. “She’s very fussy about the furniture.” He brought a kitchen chair over and perched himself on the edge.

“Just a couple of questions, then we’ll let you get back to your decorating,” said Frost, the newspaper crackling beneath him as he tried to get comfortable. “You’ve been here only three weeks, you say?”

“That’s right. We used to live in Appian Way, over by Meads Park, but we had to move. My wife couldn’t get on with the neighbours.”

“And where is your good lady, sir?” Frost was wondering if it would be possible to light a cigarette without causing a towering inferno with the sheets of newspaper.

“She went to Darlington on Tuesday to look after her sick mother. The poor old dear is eighty-seven and can’t do a thing for herself—can’t even get to the toilet. My sister-in-law usually looks after her, but she had to go into hospital with her varicose veins.”

Frost cut in quickly before they got the entire family medical history. “I see, sir. Thank you.”

“She’s not due back until tomorrow,” said Price, “but she was away when the man broke in, so she wouldn’t be able to help you. Is it all right if I patch up the back door where he broke in? She’ll be furious when she sees the damage.”

“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 to 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.