‘Consistent bastard!’ snorted Frost. ‘All right, Ted, paint me a word picture. Let’s have a reconstruction.’
‘Right,’ said Roberts. ‘The old lady was in the front room watching the telly. Our intruder gets in through the bedroom window, but this time he was unlucky. She’d stuck that blue and white vase on the window ledge and as he clambered in, he knocked it over and it fell to the floor. The old lady heard it, came charging in to see what it was, so he went for her with this…’ Roberts clicked open his ‘evidence case’ and pulled out a sealed, transparent polythene bag. Inside the bag was a black-handled kitchen knife, its blood-smeared blade honed to razor sharpness. ‘It was on the floor, by the bed.’
‘You’re saying he had this knife in his hand when the old girl came charging in?’ When Roberts nodded, Frost shook his head. ‘I can’t buy that, Ted. If I was climbing through windows I wouldn’t want a lethal thing like that in my hand… I could cut my dick off.’
‘He wouldn’t carry it in his hand when he was climbing. He’d have it in a tool bag.’
‘All right,’ said Frost. ‘I’ll pretend to accept that for the moment. Then what happened?’
‘He stabs her, but she puts up a fight. He drops the knife in the struggle, punches her repeatedly in the face then finishes her off by smashing her skull in with a cosh or something.’
Frost’s finger prodded away at the scar on his cheek as he worried this over. ‘I can’t believe it’s the same bloke who did all the others. He’s never resorted to violence before.’
‘He hasn’t been disturbed before,’ offered Hanlon. ‘His other victims were damn lucky they never heard anything.’ He sniffed and dabbed his nose. ‘I think I’ve got the flu.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ said Frost firmly. ‘We’re too busy. Do we know what’s been taken?’
Jordan stepped forward. ‘Same as all the others. Bits and pieces of jewellery — Mrs Francis has given me a description — and money. Mrs Francis doesn’t know how much, but says the old lady always kept a fair amount of cash by her — a couple of hundred at least.’
‘I want this bastard,’ said Frost. ‘People who kill for a couple of hundred lousy quid are dangerous.’ He looked at the bed, knocked askew with splodges of blood all over the pillows and sheets. Someone must have heard or seen something. ‘Get as many men as you want from Bill Wells and start knocking on doors.’
‘I’ve already asked. He says he can’t spare anyone until the next shift.’
‘He’s bloody well going to have to. We’re not going to wait for her to die, Arthur, she might sod us about and linger. We’re going to anticipate. This is a murder enquiry as of now. I want a team knocking on doors, I want Forensic, I want someone by the old girl’s bedside night and day in case she can give us a description, if I’ve forgotten anything, I want that as well.’
While Hanlon radioed the station, he ambled over to the open window and looked out on to a small rain- puddled yard. Below him was the dustbin used by the man to gain entrance. It reminded him of the yard in Jubilee Terrace and the mummified corpse. What a bloody night this had turned out to be. First the mummy, then Paula Bartlett… Paula… Flaming heck! The autopsy! He daren’t be late for that. He was in enough trouble with the pathologist as it was.
He checked his watch. Ten to four. They could just do it if they ignored fiddling details like adverse traffic lights. ‘I’ve got to leave you to it, Arthur. Just solve the case and tie it all up before the end of the shift.’ He dashed across to the door. ‘Come on, Gilmore. We’ve got an autopsy to watch and ten minutes to get there.’
At four o’clock on a cold, dark, rainy morning, the mortuary lights gleamed across the driveway to the hospital and bounced off the black, supercilious shape of the pathologist’s Rolls Royce. Frost’s mud-coated Cortina shuffled in and parked alongside. ‘Don’t forget.. ours is the one on the left,’ he reminded Gilmore.
The night porter, a gangling twenty-year-old with an embryonic moustache, snatched a cigarette from his mouth and dropped it to the floor as the two detectives walked in. He thought it was that toffee-nosed pathologist who had already rebuked him for smoking on duty.
‘Midnight matinee,’ said Frost, flashing his warrant card. ‘Paula Bartlett.’
‘We should get paid double for handling bodies in that condition,’ complained the porter, leading them through to the autopsy room which was in darkness apart from the and table where the overhead lights poured down on a mass of decomposing and charred flesh that was once a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. ‘Dockers get dirty money, so should we.’ He opened a side door and called, ‘Police are here, doctor.’
‘Overture and beginners, doc,’ yelled Frost, perching himself on a stool for a good view. Gilmore, not so eager, moved back out of the splash of light.
The pathologist, his faithful secretary in tow, entered, scowling. He found nothing about his job amusing. The smile would be wiped off Frost’s face when he read a copy of the report he was sending to his Divisional Commander complaining that the inspector had allowed every Tom, Dick and Harry to maul the body before he had had a chance to see it.
‘Do you reckon he sleeps with her?’ whispered Frost to Gilmore as the secretary adjusted the lights over the end autopsy table to her master’s satisfaction. ‘It must be off-putting, banging away at someone, knowing you’re shaking up her stomach contents and her internal organs.’
Gilmore pressed further back into the blackness, not wanting to get involved in Frost’s coarse asides.
While the porter turned on the extractor fan above the autopsy table, the pathologist allowed his secretary to help him on with his green gown and heavy plastic apron. He fiddled with a control under the perforated table top and as water gurgled and trickled, he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and flexed his fingers. He was ready.
First, he carefully examined the body from top to bottom, without touching any part of it. ‘Body of a female in advanced state of decomposition,’ he intoned. Miss Grey’s pencil zipped across the page of her notebook. He eased open the mouth with a spatula and shone a small torch inside. ‘Age about…’
‘We know how old she is, doc,’ Frost told him. ‘I even know her birthday. What I don’t know for sure is how she died.’
The pathologist’s eyes flashed. ‘Don’t interrupt!’
‘Sorry, doc,’ said Frost, quite unabashed, ‘but we’re operating at half-strength and I’ve got lots to do. Could you just give me the headlines? I’ll read all the boring bits in your report.’
‘I don’t cut corners. Aged around fifteen.’ He snapped his fingers and demanded: ‘Dental records!’ Miss Grey passed him across a small typed card with marked diagrams. He studied it then handed it back. His spatula clicked on the teeth checking extractions and fillings. ‘From the dental record I can identify the body as that of Paula Bartlett, aged fifteen years and two months. Some traces of blood in her mouth.’ He wiped the mouth with a swab and dropped it into a container held out by his secretary.
‘She anticipates his every move,’ Frost whispered to Gilmore. ‘I bet he doesn’t have to tell her when to thrust or withdraw.’
Gilmore couldn’t even pretend to smile.
Frost fidgeted with impatience as the pathologist plodded on, the swollen neck now receiving his painstaking scrutiny, fingers carefully prodding and probing.
‘Dr Maltby said death was due to manual strangulation,’ prompted. Frost. Why was this man so bloody slow?
‘If I was one of Dr Maltby’s patients,’ murmured the pathologist, his nose almost touching the neck, ‘I’d insist on a second opinion on everything he told me.’ To his secretary he said, ‘Signs of manual pressure applied to neck.’
‘Ha!’ exclaimed Frost. ‘So that’s what killed her.’
‘I’ll tell you what killed her when I have completed the autopsy,’ said Drysdale, crushingly. ‘For all I know, there are eight bullet wounds in the stomach. Just keep quiet.’
Frost gave his watch a pointed stare, sighed deeply then went outside for a smoke. Gilmore was happy to join him. Even with the extractor fan working full blast, the atmosphere in the post-mortem room was foul and would worsen when Drysdale used the scalpel to open the body up.
The porter brought them two mugs of tea and gratefully accepted a cigarette from the inspector. Through the swing doors they could see the autopsy proceeding. A bone saw screamed and Gilmore turned his eyes away, his teeth gritted against the noise.
‘Perhaps we could browse while we wait,’ requested Frost. ‘Have you got a Susan Bicknell in stock?’
The porter flipped open his ledger and ran a nicotine-stained finger down the entries. ‘Suicide? Came in this afternoon? This way.’
They followed him to the refrigerated section. On a small side table near the door was a polythene bag containing a folded Mickey Mouse nightdress, a black and gold kimono and, separately wrapped, a Snoopy watch.
