Yes, a gap at the bottom he could get his hand under. For a moment he hesitated. It all seemed too good to be true; the dustbin conveniently placed and the window invitingly open. But there was no turning back now. He lifted the window and dropped inside.
A pitch dark room. The torch he pulled from his pocket was on the blink, but its faltering light enabled him to steer a tiptoeing course through a maze of booby-trapped junk ready to topple at any moment — an old treadle Singer sewing machine, cardboard boxes gorged with useless items too good to throw away, the frame of a push bike and an old-fashioned pram from the late 1930s in pristine condition which, for some reason, made him think of the baby’s grave in the churchyard.
Cautiously, he turned the door handle. The door whined open.
A landing from which stairs descended to the hall. To his right a door with a crack of light showing from inside. He moved towards it. From downstairs came the sound of someone lumbering about and talking in the overloud voice of the deaf. Crockery clattered. The old boy was making tea or something.
The smell hit him as soon as he opened the door. And then he saw her. On the bed. An old woman, her head propped up with pillows. She didn’t move. She couldn’t move. She was a shrivelled, mummified husk and had been dead for many months.
Shit! Just what he bloody wanted! He rammed a cigarette in his mouth, but didn’t light it, then steeled himself to walk across and lift the discoloured bed sheet which made a tearing noise as it parted from the body. The stains on the bedding weren’t blood. No signs of injury anywhere. There was something round the mouth. Mouldering food and a brown dribble of something still sticky. On a rickety card table alongside the bed was a cup of cold scummy tea and a plate of congealed food. Shit and double shit. He now knew what it was all about and wanted to get out of the room and back in the car and as far away as possible. The bloody cemetery was preferable to this.
Before he could get to the door he heard someone coming up the stairs. The old boy, talking away to himself.
He spun round, frantically looking for another way out There was a window behind thick, drawn curtains which belched death-scented dust. He parted them to scrabble at the window catch. But it was rusted in and wouldn’t budge.
A clatter of crockery then a tap at the door. ‘Your supper, love.’
Frost pressed himself tight against the wall, hoping the opened door would conceal him. The old man, tall and stooped, came in. A tray holding a bowl of soup and a plate of bread and butter rattled in unsteady hands. He frowned at the food on the card table then turned angrily to the husk in the bed. ‘You didn’t eat it!’ he shouted. ‘I cooked it for you and you didn’t eat it!’ Then his voice softened. ‘You know what the doctor said. You’ve got to eat to keep your strength up.’ He exchanged the old tray for the new and picked up a spoon. ‘You must try and eat some of this, love. It’s full of goodness,’ and he spooned soup over the gaping mouth, dabbing with a handkerchief as it dribbled down the shrivelled chin. He was deaf. He didn’t hear the thud of Frost’s footsteps down the stairs and into the street.
In the car, Gilmore listened incredulously, his face creased in disgust. ‘And he’s still bringing her food? Flaming hell!’
‘The poor old sod won’t accept her death,’ said Frost, sucking thankfully at a cigarette.
Before Gilmore could reach for the radio to inform the station, Frost’s hand shot out to stop him. ‘Forget it, son. We don’t want to get involved.’
A shocked Gilmore said, ‘You can’t just drive away and do nothing about it.’
‘We’re not supposed to be here,’ said Frost. ‘We’re supposed to be tomb-watching.’
‘But she’s dead. He’s probably still drawing her pension.’
‘Big bloody deal,’ grunted Frost. ‘I’ll try and live with it.’ And then the car radio which had been pleading urgently for attention to an empty car, tried again.
‘Control to Mr Frost. For Pete’s sake come in, please over.’
Frost snatched up the handset. ‘Frost.’
‘At flaming last, Jack!’ It was Bill Wells, the station sergeant. ‘Where are you?’
Frost looked out of the window on to Jubilee Street. ‘On watch at the cemetery, as ordered,’ he replied, trying to sound puzzled at such an obvious question.
‘No, you’re not, Inspector. If you were, you’d see the place was crawling with bloody police cars.’
‘Ah yes… there does seem to be some commotion at the far end,’ said Frost, signalling for Gilmore to put his foot down and get the damn car back to the cemetery at top speed. ‘What exactly has happened?’
‘Vandals breaking into a crypt.’
Right. ‘I’ll check it out and call you back.’ He switched off hurriedly and urged Gilmore not to heed the approaching red traffic light.
There was only one police car at the graveyard, its blue flashing beacon reflecting eerily off the rain-soaked marble markers. Gilmore parked tight behind it.
‘There!’ pointed Frost.
Ahead of them, right off the main path, was the Victorian crypt they had spotted earlier, an ugly little building, looking like a small, ivy-covered boiler house and guarded by tall, sharply spiked, cast-iron railings. Two marble angels with naked swords stood sentry on each side of the entrance gate where a uniformed officer, PC Ken Jordan, was talking to an old man in a flat cap who was supporting a push bike. Jordan left the man to meet the two detectives.
‘Who’s the old git with the running nose?’ asked Frost.
‘He’s George Turner, the churchwarden. He phoned us.’ Jordan filled them in on what had happened. ‘I’ve had a quick look around. No sign of anyone.’
‘Ah well,’ said Frost, anxious to get back in the car and the dry, ‘I’ll leave you to handle it.’ He jerked his head to Gilmore. ‘Come on, son.’
But Gilmore was rattling the heavy iron gates. They were held firm by the lock. ‘So how did he get in?’
‘There’s a couple of broken railings round the back,’ said Jordan.
‘Show me,’ demanded Gilmore. They followed Jordan to the rear of the crypt. Next to a stand-pipe supporting a dripping tap, two of the cast-iron railings had been broken away leaving a gap wide enough to squeeze through. They squeezed through, Frost reluctantly bringing up the rear, and marched round to the entrance to the crypt.
The door, solid oak some 3 inches thick, bore a crudely sprayed skull and crossbones in still-wet purple paint. It should have been secured by a heavy duty padlock and hasp, but the screws fixing it had been prised out of the door jamb and the door yawned open.
‘Vandals!’ bawled Turner. ‘I’d horsewhip them till they screamed for mercy.’
‘Ah well,’ said Frost, flumbling for a cigarette, ‘not much harm done.’
‘What I want to know,’ continued Turner, ‘is where were the police who were supposed to be on watch? Something should be done about them. They should be taught a lesson.’
Frost nodded his agreement. ‘They should be flogged until they screamed for mercy, then castrated without an anaesthetic.’
‘Aren’t you going to look inside?’ asked Turner. ‘They might have done some damage.’
‘Right,’ grunted Frost, without enthusiasm. The old man leading, and guided by Jordan’s torch, they went in, down two steps to the stone-floored chamber.
Jordan’s torch prodded the darkness. It was a very small chamber with some six ornate, black-painted Victorian coffins stacked on stone ledges along the walls on each side. From the roof the bell rope was still quivering.
‘I’ve never been inside a crypt,’ observed Gilmore. ‘I thought it would be bigger.’
‘What for?’ asked Frost. ‘They aren’t going to get up and bleedin’ walk around, are they?’ His nose twitched. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘I can’t smell anything,’ said Turner, ‘but then I’ve got a cold.’ To prove it he foghorned into a large handkerchief.
‘It smells like a corrugated iron urinal in a heat-wave,’ Frost said. ‘When did you bung the last corpse in?’
‘The crypt hasn’t been used since 1899,’ he was told.
