the far side, Frost could see the serried ranks of stark white marble marking the modern section, where the recently deceased slept an uneasy, decaying sleep. One of the cold marble headstones marked the grave of Frost’s wife. He hadn’t visited it since the funeral.
Detective Sergeant Gilmore, shutting his ears to Frost’s constant moanings, was squinting his eyes, trying to focus through the lashing rain to something over to the left, near an old Victorian crypt. Was it the wind shaking the ivy, or could he see someone moving about?
Frost peered half-heartedly in the direction of Gilmore’s pointing finger and grunted dismissively. ‘There’s sod all there. It’s the wind.’ He perched himself on the infant Jenkins’ headstone and sucked hard at his cigarette. ‘How long have we been here now?’
‘Eight minutes,’ replied Gilmore.
Frost ground his cigarette to death against the headstone and stood up. ‘That’s long enough. We’re going.’
‘But Mr Mullett said…’
‘Sod Mr Mullett,’ called Frost, scurrying back to the car. ‘If anyone wants to vandalize graves in this pissing weather, then good luck to them.’
Gilmore stared hard across the ranks of marble. The wind rattled the ivy again. There was someone there, he was sure of it. But a cloud crawled across the moon and it was too dark to see. When it passed, there was nothing.
The pub was packed, thick-fogged with eye-stinging smoke, and very noisy. Disco music belted out and voices were raised to overcome it. A group of teenaged girls, clutching vodka and limes, were shrieking with high- pitched laughter at the punchline of some dirty joke. No-one took any notice of the disc jockey framed by flashing disco lights up on the small stage, who was chewing a microphone to announce the next number. In counterpoint to the throbbing beat of the disco, a drunken Irishman in the far corner was singing ‘Danny Boy’ in a high tenor voice to a fat lady in black who had tears in her eyes.
Gilmore was edgy. His very first night on duty in Denton and they had disobeyed Mullett’s express orders. He decided he would choke his drink down and tell Frost he was going back to the cemetery, as ordered by his Divisional Commander, and would continue the surveillance on his own if necessary.
By waving a?5 note Frost managed to grab the attention of the barman who lip-read his order. As he waited, he let his professional eye wander over the throng. The girls with the vodkas were silent, poised ready to shriek anew as the next joke reached its climax. The drunken Irishman had fallen in mid-song and was face down on the table while the fat lady, no longer tearful, thumbed through his wallet.
The main doors were still swinging behind someone who had left hurriedly and Frost recalled a face, a blur in the crowd that had seemed alarmed at the entrance of the two detectives. It was a face he should know, but couldn’t place. He shrugged. What the hell. They were here for a drink, not to feel the collar of some petty crook.
The barman pushed the two lagers across and was back from the till with Frost’s change when the bar phone rang. He answered it, then, holding the receiver aloft, yelled, ‘Is there a Mr Frost here?’
Frost swapped worried glances with Gilmore. Who knew they were here? Flaming hell, had Hornrim Harry sent his narks after them to report on their every movement? Gingerly, be took the phone and pressed it tight against his face, his finger jammed in the other ear to deaden the background noise. The caller was mumbling and he couldn’t hear what the man was saying. ‘You’ll have to speak up,’ he shouted and then, as clear as a bell, he heard the words ‘dead body’. ‘Say that again?’
‘Seventy-six Jubilee Terrace. Upstars bedroom. The old girl’s dead. I think the husband’s killed her.’
‘How did you know I was here? Who’s this speaking?’ A click as the caller hung up. Frost swore to himself and slid the phone back across the counter. If it was someone’s idea of a joke, it wasn’t a very funny one. And that voice. He knew it. It went with the face he glimpsed leaving the pub as they came in. The harder he tried to remember, the further it slipped out of his grasp.
‘Trouble?’ Gilmore asked anxiously. It was always trouble with Frost. If it was Mullett who had phoned, he’d make it quite clear that he had obeyed Frost’s orders under protest.
Frost scooped up his change. ‘Knock back your drink, son. I might have another corpse for you to look at.’
The man on the bike tucked his head down against the rain as he took the short cut through the cemetery after his meeting with the vicar. This damn rain seeping through his mac wasn’t going to do his cold any good and he hoped he wasn’t in for a dose of this flu thing that everyone seemed to be catching. Row after row of headstones slipped silently past as he pressed down on the pedals. Graves and tombs didn’t frighten him, not even at this hour of night, but he would still be happier once he was out through the cemetery gates and on to the main road.
And then he nearly lost control of the bike as a sudden sound reverberated around the churchyard. A funeral bell. His head swivelled as he tried to locate the source. There! It was coming from the old Dobson vault! Someone had broken in and was tugging at the rope inside, tolling the bell installed some 150 years ago by old William Dobson who was terrified of being buried alive and wanted to be able to summon help should he awake in his coffin.
Through the rain he could see a light bobbing. He yelled and someone burst from the crypt, and hared off into the darkness.
He turned his bike and pedalled for all he was worth back to the vicarage where he called the police.
Jubilee Terrace was a cul-de-sac of Edwardian terraced houses and would soon be torn down when the next phase of the new town development was reached. Number 76, the fanlight still showing a light, was the end house standing next to a high brick wall which guarded an electricity sub-station. The rain had eased off slightly and the reflection of a lamp standard shimmered in a large puddle where the drain was blocked.
Gilmore knocked at the door and waited, his fingers drumming impatiently on the porch wall. No-one came. He knocked again louder this time.
The door to number 74 opened and a shirt-sleeved man looked out. ‘No use knocking there, mate. The old git’s as deaf as a post.’
‘Actually, it’s the lady of the house we want,’ said Frost. ‘Do you know if she’s in?’
‘She’s got no choice… she’s bed-ridden. Never goes out.’
‘I heard she was dead,’ said Frost.
‘Dead? You must have the wrong house, mate. He may be deaf but he makes a lot of noise. These walls are paper thin. I can hear them talking and rowing — if my luck’s out, I can even hear him gobbing down the sink.’
‘I’m not sure I’ve got their names right.’
‘Maskell — Charlie and Mary — he’s Charlie, she’s Mary.’
‘Oh, he’s Charlie!’ Frost pretended to make an alteration in his notebook, then, as soon as the man went in he dropped to his knees and squinted through the letter-box. A dimly lit hall papered in dreary, dark chocolate brown.
‘How can she be dead if he’s heard them talking?’ protested Gilmore. ‘This has got to be a wind-up.’
‘You’re probably right, son,’ grunted Frost, still at the letter-box. Then his nose twitched and he knew it wasn’t a wind-up. The bad breath of decay. He could smell death.
The detective sergeant took his turn to sniff then shook his head. ‘It’s damp and stuffy, that’s all.’
‘It’s more than that, son.’ He gave one more knock which shook the front door. Noises inside, but no-one came. ‘Let’s try the back way.’
A lowish wall muddied their trousers as they clambered over to land with a splash in a small back yard, a few square feet of puddled concrete containing a dustbin and an outside toilet, its gaping door hanging from one hinge. Ever the optimist, Frost tried the back door, but it was locked and bolted. A downstairs sash window, curtains drawn and no light showing, defied the efforts of Frost’s penknife.
‘Let’s leave it,’ said Gilmore, edging back to the wall. They were trying to break into someone’s house just on the say-so of an anonymous phone call.
But Frost wasn’t listening. He had now transferred his attention to the upstairs window. Difficult to tell from that angle, but it appeared to be open at the bottom. ‘Keep watch, son. Give a yell if anyone comes.’ He climbed up on top of the dustbin which seemed ideally sited for the purpose and heaved himself up on the outside toilet roof and then to the sill.
