“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.
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
