Ada wrapped her dressing gown around her spare frame. ‘I’ll stay with her for a while. There’s tea and biscuits in the kitchen if you want some.’
The kitchen, with the coal fire roaring away, was almost overpoweringly warm and Gilmore had to fight hard to keep his eyes open as he sipped Ada’s hot, sweet tea. Frost had twitched back the curtains to reveal the early morning sky, part-streaked with smudges of smoke from the lire. He was sprawled in the chair by the kitchen table, using a saucer as an ashtray. He too was tired. He’d have given anything to be able to climb into bed, preferably with the naked Jill Compton whose tear-stained, unmade-up face seemed to hold an erotic attraction.
His foot twitched and made contact with something under the table, something that swayed, then toppled heavily with a glassy clunk. Yawning, he lifted the tablecloth. Nudging his foot lay a wine bottle on its side. One of Ada’s home made brews. There were about twenty or so more bottles of wine bunched together under the table. ‘The stingy cow’s hiding it from us,’ he said, pulling the cork out with his teeth and taking a swig. The room shimmered, then jerked still. He replaced the cork and pushed the bottle back with the others under the table.
‘You know what I’ve been thinking?’ said Gilmore.
Frost shook his head to stop the fuzziness. ‘If it’s some thing rude, I’m all ears, son.’
‘If that poison pen letter was sent to Mark Compton, then who is the woman he’s been knocking off?’
‘I wish I knew,’ replied Frost. ‘I’d love to get some of what he’s been getting.’
‘He’s been going with another woman,’ said Gilmore. ‘There could be a jealous husband, or boyfriend.’
‘A good point, son,’ began Frost, then he stopped dead and looked under the table again as a nagging thought struck him. ‘Why has she dumped the bottles there? She’s usually so neat and tidy… everything in its place.’
‘I don’t know,’ muttered Gilmore, his tone implying he didn’t care either.
A wall cupboard in the corner caught Frost’s eye. ‘That’s where she usually keeps her wine. Quick, son. Take a look inside.’ Gilmore showed his astonishment. ‘It could be important, son.’
Anything to humour the old fool, thought Gilmore as he tugged at the handle. ‘It’s locked!’
‘Catch!’ Frost tossed him a bunch of keys. ‘Try one of these.’
The first key didn’t fit, so he tried another. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this without a search warrant.’
Frost raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. ‘You learn something new in this job every day. Someone was telling me you can’t plant false evidence any more, but I’m not that gullible.’ He lit up another cigarette. ‘Hurry it up, son.’
Another key. Still no joy. But the next glided in smooth as silk and the lock clicked. Gilmore pulled open the door then whistled softly. Inside the cupboard was a battered old Olympia typewriter. He was carrying it over to the table when a door slammed and an angry voice shrilled, ‘And just what do you think you’re doing?’
‘I tried to stop him, Ada,’ said Frost, ‘but he wouldn’t take any notice.’
‘I let you into my house. I give you tea. I give you biscuits..’
‘But you don’t give us your body, Ada. The one thing I’ve been lusting after.’
She wasn’t listening to Frost. Angry eyes stabbed at Gilmore who was ripping a blank page from the back of his notebook and feeding it into the roller. Her voice, shaking with rage, rose an octave. ‘Don’t you dare touch that!’ She plunged forward but Frost’s arm shot out to restrain her.
‘We’ve got to check it to make sure he hasn’t broken it, Ada. I want you to get every penny of compensation.’
The page in to his satisfaction, Gilmore pecked out a test sentence. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. He snatched the paper from the machine and studied it carefully, a grin of triumph creeping across his face. ‘The “s” and the “a” are out of alignment, Inspector. We’ve found the poison pen typewriter.’
Frost took the page from him and nodded. ‘He’s right, Ada. But I bet you’ve got a perfectly plausible explanation?’ He waited expectantly.
She folded her arms stubbornly and compressed her lips.
‘Can’t quite hear you, Ada,’ said Frost, cupping his hand to his ear.
Her eyes narrowed, but she remained silent.
Gilmore pushed himself between her and Frost. He was barely in control of himself. He kept seeing Susan Bicknell in her Mickey Mouse nightdress, stretched lifeless on the bed. ‘You don’t need to say anything, you evil- minded bitch. Because of you an old man tried to kill himself. Because of you a fifteen-year-old kid took her own life.’
She stared back at him, her eyes unflinching. ‘Then you’d better arrest me, hadn’t you?’
‘Stop fighting, you two,’ said Frost, flopping back in his chair. ‘You never wrote those bloody letters, Ada. The longest note you ever wrote said “No milk today, please, the cat’s got diarrhoea.”’ He shook an export Benson and Hedges from the packet. ‘That’s old Mr Wardley’s typewriter, isn’t it? He’s the sod who’s been sending the letters.’
Her expression didn’t change.
‘Wardley?’ exclaimed Gilmore. ‘That’s impossible. He got one of the letters. He tried to kill himself.’
‘He didn’t try very hard, did he, son? He didn’t try as hard as that poor cow Susan Bicknell.’ He folded the piece of paper into a spill and lit his cigarette from the fire. ‘I reckon Wardley didn’t swallow more than a couple of those tablets.’
‘The bottle was nearly empty,’ said Gilmore.
‘Only because he’d tipped most of the tablets out into the drawer of his bedside cabinet. He sent the poison pen letter to himself, then faked the suicide.’ He puffed smoke towards the woman. ‘I’m right, aren’t I, Ada? You can caress any part of my body if I’m wrong.’
Her lips twisted into a tight, bitter smile then she moved across to the table and started stacking the dirty cups and saucers on a tray. ‘How did you find out?’
‘Guesswork mainly, Ada. But I was bloody suspicious of that unfranked poison pen letter Wardley was supposed to have received. Everyone else’s letter went into juicy detail… every thrust, every withdrawal, each nibble of naked ear-hole all lovingly described. But there weren’t any juicy bits at all in his own letter. It was almost polite. “What would the church say if I told them what you did to those boys!” Not a mention of dick anywhere.’ He dragged hard at the cigarette. ‘And then there was the missing suicide note. It didn’t make sense you should destroy it. There was no point.’
Ada crossed the room to the sideboard. ‘I didn’t destroy it. I just didn’t want you to see it.’ From the drawer she took a sheet of blue notepaper. Frost glanced at it, then passed it over to Gilmore. ‘“A”s and “s”s out of line, son. The silly sod used the same machine for the suicide note and the poison pen letters.’
‘He thinks himself so clever, but he’s not all there,’ said Ada. ‘I found out about him last year. I went in to do his cleaning and there he was, bashing away at the typewriter, so engrossed in one of his nasty letters he never heard me.’
‘Then why didn’t you inform the police?’ asked Gilmore.
She dragged a chair to the fire and sat down. ‘He’s lived next door to me for years. I didn’t want to get him into trouble.’
‘So you just let him carry on writing his dirty letters?’
‘I made him promise he’d stop. I thought he had stopped.’ She stared into the fire then picked up the poker and shattered a lump of coal sending sparks shooting up the chimney.
‘What brought things to a head?’ asked Gilmore. ‘Why the letter to himself and the faked suicide attempt?’
She rubbed her hands as if she was cold and held them to the fire to warm them. ‘I was working up at The Mill when the post came. There was a letter addressed to Mr Compton. I recognized the blue envelope and the wonky typing right away, so I hid it in my pocket. I wasn’t going to let him cause trouble with the Comptons.’
‘Did you confront Wardley?’ Frost asked.
‘As soon as I finished work. I charged over to his cottage and told him I was going straight to the police. He said the police would never believe me. It would be his word against mine and he was a churchwarden and I was a charlady. Just then, in comes Dr Maltby with the sleeping tablets. I took the letter from my pocket and said, “Can I talk to you in private, doctor. I’ve got something to show you.” Mr Wardley went as white as a sheet. Of course, when we got outside, I gave the doctor the letter and explained how I’d got hold of it, but I didn’t tell him anything about Mr Wardley writing it. I only meant to frighten him. I can’t tell you how I felt when I went back later and it looked as if he’d killed himself.’
