crucifix on a chain glinted like the blade of a knife.
The man on the floor groaned and stirred slightly.
‘Hadn’t we better get him to a doctor?’ asked Gilmore.
Frost shook his head. ‘He’s only stunned.’ Then he remembered the old lady who should have heard all the noise and be screaming blue murder. ‘Let’s find the old girl.’
She was in the bedroom. In the bed, eyes staring upwards, mouth wide open and dribbling red. The bedclothes had been dragged back, exposing a nightdress drenched in blood from the multiple stab wounds in her stomach. On the pillow, by her head, was a browning smear where her killer had wiped the blade clean before leaving.
While the little house swarmed with more people than it had held in its lifetime, Frost and Gilmore closeted themselves in the bathroom with their prisoner, now securely handcuffed. He lay still, apparently unconscious. A dig from Frost’s foot resulted only in a slight moan. On the bath rack was an enormous sponge which Frost held under the cold tap until it was sodden and dripping, then he held it high over the man’s face and squeezed.
The head jerked, and twisted, the eyes fluttered, then opened wide. He blinked and tried to focus on the piece of white plastic bearing a coloured photograph.
‘Police,’ announced Frost.
A sigh of relief as the man struggled up to a sitting position. ‘In the bedroom — she’s dead…’ He winced and tried to touch his head and then saw the handcuffs. ‘What’s this? What’s going on?’
‘Suppose you tell us,’ snapped Frost. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Purley. Frederick Purley.’
‘Address?’
‘The Rectory, All Saints Church.’
‘Are you trying to be funny?’ snarled Gilmore.
Purley raised his dripping face to the sergeant. ‘I’m the curate at All Saints Church. Please remove these handcuffs.’ He tried to rise to his feet, but Gilmore pushed him down.
‘Since when do curates break into people’s houses in the middle of the night?’ asked Frost.
‘I only wanted to see if Mrs Winters was all right. I never dreamed…’ His head drooped.
‘Why did you think she wasn’t all right?’ asked Frost, dropping his cigarette end into the toilet pan and flushing it away.
‘I’d been sitting with one of my parishioners — an old man, terminally ill — giving his daughter a break from looking after him. As I walked back I saw Mrs Winters’ milk was still on the step. After that dreadful business with poor Mrs Haynes, I had to make sure she was all right.’
Gilmore’s head jerked up. ‘You knew Mrs Haynes?’
‘Yes, Sergeant. I was with her on Sunday. Her husband’s grave was vandalized. She was so upset.’
‘It wasn’t the poor cow’s day,’ said Frost. Then his eyes narrowed. ‘There was no milk on the step when we arrived.’
‘I brought it in with me. I put it in her fridge.’
Frost yelled down the stairs for the SOC man to check if there was an unopened bottle of milk in the fridge and if so, to go over it for prints. Back to Purley. ‘How did you get in?’
‘There’s a string connected to the front door catch. I’ve used it before… Mrs Winters is a cripple — she’s under the hospital, chronic arthritis. She can’t always get to the door.’
‘Right,’ nodded Frost. ‘So what did you do next?’
‘The hall was in darkness. I couldn’t find the light switch, but I made my way upstairs. I tapped on her bedroom door. No answer. I went in and switched on the light and…’ He shuddered and covered his face with his hands, ‘and I saw her. And then I heard the door click downstairs. I thought it was the killer coming back. I switched off the light and hid in the bathroom. You know the rest.’
A brisk tap at the door. The SOC man came in holding a full pint bottle of red-top milk, shrouded in a polythene bag.
‘This was in the fridge, Inspector. Two different dabs on the neck — neither of them the dead woman’s.’
Frost squinted at the bottle. ‘One should be the milkman, the other ought to be the padre here. Take his dabs and see if they match.’ He ordered Gilmore to remove the cuffs.
Another tap at the door. ‘The pathologist has finished,’ yelled Forensic.
‘Coming,’ called Frost.
It was cold in the tiny ice-box of a bedroom with its unfriendly brown lino and the windows rattling where the wind found all the gaps. Drysdale buttoned his overcoat and rubbed his hands briskly. ‘I estimate the time of death as approximately eleven o’clock last night, give or take half an hour or so either way.’ He pointed to bruising on each side of the dead woman’s mouth. ‘He clamped his hand over her face so she couldn’t utter a sound, then he jerked back the bedclothes and stabbed her repeatedly — three times in the stomach and lastly in the heart. The wounds are quite deep. To inflict them he would have raised the knife above his head and brought it down with considerable force.’ Drysdale gave a demonstration with his clenched fist. ‘As he raised his hand, some of the blood on the knife splashed on to the wall.’ He indicated red splatters staining the pale cream wall paper.
‘Would he have got any of that on himself?’
‘Without a doubt,’ said Drysdale, pulling on his gloves. ‘Considerable quantities of blood spurting from the wounds would have hit his right arm and blood from the blade would have spattered him as he raised his arm to deliver the next blow.’
‘No traces of blood in the bathroom waste-trap,’ offered the man from Forensic, who was measuring and marking blood splashes on the wall, ‘so he didn’t wash it off before he left.’
‘Dirty bastard!’ said Frost. ‘What can you tell us about the knife, doc?’
‘Extremely sharp, single-edged, rigid blade approximately six inches long and about an inch and a quarter wide, honed to a sharp point.’
‘The same knife that killed the other old girl — Mary Haynes?’
‘It’s possible,’ admitted Drysdale, grudgingly. ‘I’ll be more positive after the post-mortem — which will be at 10.30 tomorrow morning. You’ll be there?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ replied Frost.
Gilmore was waiting for him at the head of the stairs. The vicar of All Saints had been contacted and had confirmed that his curate, Frederick Purley, had gone out to visit a terminally ill parishioner, and the SOC officer had confirmed that one of the thumb prints on the milk bottle be longed to the man in the bathroom.
Frost groaned his disappointment. ‘The old lady died yesterday. So unless Purley killed her last night, then came back today just to put the milk in the fridge, we’ve lost our best hope for a suspect.’
He waited in the kitchen while Gilmore brought down the verified curate, who was vigorously rubbing his freed wrists, and who declined the offer of a doctor to look at his head on which a lump had formed nicely.
They sat round the kitchen table where the plates were already laid for the breakfast the old lady hadn’t lived to enjoy. Frost utilized the egg cup as an ashtray. A rap at the door as PC Jordan entered.
‘We’ve been all over the house, Inspector. No sign of forced entry anywhere. The back door’s locked and bolted and all windows are secure. He came in through the front door.’
Frost nodded, then turned to Purley. ‘Who else knew about instant entry with the old dear’s piece of string?’
‘Very few people, I should imagine. She wasn’t a very friendly or communicative woman.’
‘So how did you know her?’
‘She used to be a member of our church senior citizens’ club until her legs got too bad. I like to keep in touch.’
‘Anything about her that would make her attractive to a burglar, padre? Was she supposed to have money, or valuables in the house?’
Purley shook his head. ‘Not as far as I know.’
Frost scratched his chin. ‘Was Mrs Haynes a member of your church club?’
‘Yes, but an infrequent attender. She hasn’t been for months.’
‘What about a Mrs Alice Ryder?’
‘Ryder?’ His brow furrowed, then he shook his head. ‘No. I don’t recall the name.’
