dribbling smoke through his nose and moving mounds of paper to new positions. He was singing himself a parody of a once beautiful Frank Sinatra song.
'Maybe she's waiting, Just expectorating
Onto her old shabby dress…'
WEDNESDAY-6
The church clock grated and whirled and hurled a salvo of eleven chimes over a sleeping town.
Martha Wendle, awake in her bunk in the women's cells, heard it as a vague sound, barely impinging on her racing jumbled thoughts. The kitten… the lovely white kitten, its skull crushed and blood streaming from its nose. And that child. Why didn't she run away when Martha first shouted at her? Why did she stay and throw stones? If Tracey had run away she would still be alive and life would have gone on as usual. But now the child was dead, her cats would die, and children would throw stones at her empty cottage windows. If only she could turn back the clock, relive it again, force the child to run away.
The wife of the Reverend James Bell-heard the chimes as she lay rigid in the sagging marriage bed, right on the edge, as far away from him as possible, ready to shudder and recoil at the slightest nauseating contact of bodies. Those books, those disgusting books. And those photographs. And he had taken them himself, actually seen those girls undressed. His eyes dwelling on their naked bodies..
Her husband was huddled in the fetal position and he heard nothing but his own internal mumblings, his pleas to God for forgiveness, his promise that if there could be no scandal-if it could be kept from his Bishop-then he'd stop. No more photographs, no more books. A promise, Lord. A solemn promise.
And in the printing room of the Denton Echo nothing could be heard over the chattering and thudding of the presses. They had to completely remake the front page which now carried the familiar schoolgirl photograph and the self-explanatory banner headline TRACEY FOUND-DEAD. It was also necessary to make a slight alteration to the back page where a short paragraph, 'Hunt Continues For Missing Girl', was replaced by an equally small paragraph reading '1951 Killer Strikes Again'. The public's appetite could only feed on one sensation at a time.
In Vicarage Terrace, Mrs. Uphill was asleep at last, the drained, empty, heavy sleep of exhaustion. Downstairs the phone was ringing.
Clive Barnard heard the chimes and counted. Eleven. The earliest he had been to bed since… since Sunday, years and years ago. Hazel's body, cool and hot, hard and soft, was stretched out beside him. He pulled her to him and they kissed and buds of hardness flowered against his chest. His hands slipped down to the swell of her buttocks and…
And there was a knock at the bloody door.
'Are you in there, son?'
Stupid, silly, sodding Frost.
She pulled him down, her hands cool, busy, and he was tempted to keep quiet, to let Frost take it out on the door until he gave up and went away.
'Open up, son… please!'
There was something about that 'please'. He pulled gently from her and swung his feet to the floor. She was angry and covered herself with the bedclothes. 'Don't bring him in here,' she hissed, then, with heaving shoulders, presented her back.
'Hold on, sir-won't be a minute,' He dressed quickly. Out of bed, away from Hazel it was sub-zero. Grabbing his thickest coat, he opened the door and slid outside.
And there was Frost, in his old overcoat and his tatty scarf, his scarred face troubled and apologetic. He noticed the hump under the bedclothes as the door squeezed shut. 'Sorry, son. After tonight you won't be bothered. It's just that I need your help.'
Wondering if Hazel would still be there when he got back, Clive tiptoed down the stairs after the inspector. He didn't bother to ask what it was about; whatever it was, he was committed. And, as Frost had said, tomorrow Inspector Allen would be in charge-tidiness, efficiency, regular hours, and undisturbed sex after close of business.
Snow was falling and the car shivered in the street outside. Frost stepped back to let Clive slide into the driving seat.
'Where to, sir?' The engine started first time.
'Didn't I say, son? Mead Cottage.'
Clive blinked. Mead Cottage was where old-man Powell lived. It would be nearly 11:30 by the time they got there. 'Do you think they'll be up, sir?'
'Christ, I hope not,' said Frost. 'She might offer me some more of her bloody coffee.' Then, lighting two cigarettes and poking one in the driver's mouth, 'Do you think I'm a nut-case, son?'
Clive shook his head, his nose delicately savoring the heady Hazel perfume that the heat of the car was driving from the pores of his body.
'Well, you will in a minute. I'm going to break into his house.'
Clive hammered the horn and a drunken pedestrian leaped back to the safety of the pavement and swore at the car as it swept past.
'Hard luck, son, you missed him,' said Frost.
Clive swallowed hard. Then, without looking at the inspector, said quietly, 'I'm sorry, sir, but I don't want any part of this.'* Frost sighed. 'That's all right, son, I quite understand. We'd better turn back.'
'Why do you want to break in?' asked Clive and they passed the intersection where he should have turned and Mead Cottage was getting closer and closer.
'After you left tonight, son, I had a word with Sandy Lane. Something had been nagging me. Do you remember, when we were leaving Sandy's office last night, that young reporter poked his head in and said he'd phoned the bank manager about finding the skeleton but he'd refused to give a statement? I thought, at the time, he meant Hudson, the current bank manager, but he didn't-he meant Powell, the old one. So last night old-man Powell was one of the few people in Denton who knew we'd dug up Fawcus. He was also one of the few people in Denton who were actually involved in the 1951 robbery.'
'Apart from Garwood, sir.'
'Yes, son, but Garwood got himself shot, so I'm chancing my arm and removing him from my limited list of suspects. That leaves Powell. He claimed that the first he knew of Fawcus's being found was when he read about it in this morning's paper. So he lied. And a man who tells lies is the sort of man who wouldn't hesitate to strike down a lovable golden retriever. Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion that Powell killed Garwood.'
Clive's cigarette had burned down to the filtertip. He laid it to rest in the ashtray. 'With respect, sir, it sounds very thin to me.'
'That,' said Frost, loosening his scarf, 'is because my standards are a bloody sight lower than yours.'
Clive declined another cigarette. 'But how does breaking into his house help?'
'I didn't like the way he kept that tatty old bureau of his locked. He can't keep valuables in there, the house is hardly burglar-proof.'
'He could keep insurance policies or securities, sir.'
'He could, son, but I'd guess he'd keep them in a safe-deposit box at the bank. As he's my only suspect, I'm hop ing he did the decent thing and killed Garwood and then ransacked his lounge, looking for something, which he found and now has locked up in his bureau. So I'll take a look. If there's nothing there, no harm done.'
There must be some way to talk him out of this sheer bloody madness, thought Clive. They'd be at Mead Cottage within minutes. 'But, sir,' he exclaimed, 'if Powell killed Garwood, then he also killed Fawcus-we know the same gun was used. So what has he done with the money, bearing in mind that PS20,000 was worth a darn sight more back in 1951?'
'There,' said Frost, 'you have put your finger on one of the many weak points in my theory. Thirty-two years ago you could go to town, have a woman, a plate of winkles, and a cup of tea, and still get some change from PS20,000. But perhaps what's hidden inside his bureau will provide the answer, because I can't. Pull up here, son- the house is round the next bend.'
