‘A providential fire, your business on the rocks and the sprinkler system turned off at the mains. No insurance company is going to pay out on that. So your husband had to invent this imaginary nutter who makes weird phone calls and death threats. He even involved the police to give it authenticity.’ Frost shook his head in grudging admiration. ‘Bloody clever. He almost deserved to get away with it.’
An ingenious theory, thought Gilmore, but where’s your proof?
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jill, her chin thrust forward defiantly, ‘but I won’t believe a word against my husband. It was that damn woman.. ’
‘We’ve got proof coming out of our ear-holes,’ said Frost. ‘He had the key to the girl’s flat. The magazines he cut the messages from … his fingerprints are all over them…’
Gilmore stared down at the floor and tried to keep hi expression impassive. He wanted no part of this. Forensic had found no prints other than the Bradbury woman’s.
‘Secondly,’ Frost continued, ‘we’ve a witness who saw your husband stacking petrol cans in Jean Bradbury’s garage. But the clincher, the absolute clincher…’ He scrabbled around in his mac pocket. ‘I found these in the boot of your husband’s car.’ He opened his hand to show some bright green leaves nestling in his palm. ‘Three different sorts of leaf. And not any old leaf. According to our Forensic Department they are identical to the leaves on that wreath which we found in your lounge. We’ve even traced the grave where your husband pinched it, haven’t we, Sergeant?’
‘Yes,’ acknowledged Gilmore, curtly. That was the only part of Frost’s tissue of lies that he was prepared to endorse.
She stared at the leaves and shook her head. ‘This is too much. I just can’t believe it.’
Carefully, Frost replaced the leaves in his pocket then gave her one of his disarming smiles. ‘It shouldn’t be too hard to believe, Mrs Compton. It wouldn’t have worked if you weren’t in it with him.’
She jerked back, her face white. ‘How dare you!’
Ignoring her, Frost continued. ‘You were his alibi, he was yours. When he was away, you vandalized the garden. You each claimed to have received the phone calls in the other’s presence… and when the wreath was chucked through the window, you both claimed to have seen someone running away. Which was impossible, because your husband planted the wreath. Even a dim sod like me can see that you were in the fiddle with him.’
Her mouth opened and shut, then she thought for a while and finally took a deep breath. ‘I was hoping this would never have to come out, Inspector. Everything you say is true. It was Mark’s idea. I didn’t want to go along with him, but he said things were desperate and this was the only way out. He was my husband and I loved him. I did what he asked. Any wife would have done the same.’
Frost nodded. ‘But that still makes you an accessory, Mrs Compton.’
She gave the secret smile of a poker player holding a royal flush. ‘An accessory to what, Inspector? I have no intention of making a claim on the insurance policy, and if I don’t claim, then there is no conspiricy to defraud.’
Frost looked deflated. ‘Law isn’t my strong point, Mrs Compton. I suppose there’s no law that says you can’t destroy your own property. So who burnt it down — you or your husband?’
‘Mark. I tried to stop him, but he did it.’
A match flared. Frost sucked at his cigarette. ‘That only leaves one problem.’ He flicked the match in the fire and slowly expelled a lungful of smoke. ‘Who killed him?’
She frowned.
‘I may be a bit slow on the uptake, Mrs Compton, but there was no mysterious nutter with a grudge… you and your husband invented him, so you couldn’t have heard him breaking in last night. You must have gone downstairs with your husband… you wouldn’t lie in bed while he was splashing petrol about. Only two people in the house and one of them is murdered. So who did it, Mrs Compton?’
Gilmore was watching the woman. God knows how Frost had stumbled on to the truth, but her expression was as good as a signed and sealed confession.
‘Why did you do it, love?’ asked Frost, his voice softening. ‘Did you find out about him and the Bradbury woman?’ Her reaction was barely perceptible, but he saw it.
She stared at him unblinking. ‘I had no motive to kill my husband. I never knew about Mark and her.’
Frost pushed himself out of his chair. ‘I think you did love. You probably got a poison pen letter telling you all about it, but we can check on that.’ He jerked his sleeve back to consult his wrist-watch. ‘But here am I rambling away and it isn’t even my case.’ He gave an apologetic grin to Gilmore as he shuffled out. ‘Sorry, son. I’ll leave you to get on with it.’
Gilmore stood up and opened the bedroom door. ‘Would you please get dressed, Mrs Compton. I’d like you to come to the station with me.’ While he waited he was irritated to hear Ada’s startled shriek from the kitchen, followed by the raucous roar of Frost’s laughter and his cry of ‘How’s that for centre, Ada?’ Stupid childish bloody fool, he thought.
Outside, Frost pulled the handful of leaves from his pocket and hurled them into the wind. There were plenty more on Ada’s privet hedge where he had plucked them on his way in.
Thursday afternoon shift (2)
The Incident Room was buzzing with activity when Frost entered carrying a mug of tea and a corned beef sandwich from the canteen. Burton, eyes gleaming with excitement, hurried over to him.
‘You look happy,’ said Frost. ‘Has Mr Mullett died?’
Burton grinned. ‘It’s better than that, sir.’
Frost sat on the edge of a desk and sank his teeth into his sandwich. ‘Nothing could be better than that.’
‘First of all,’ Burton told him, ‘we’ve checked all the local security firms. A couple of them send salesmen around cold calling to sell complete burglar alarm systems, but they leave chains and padlocks to the hardware stores.’
Frost washed down a mouthful of sandwich with a swig of tea. ‘That doesn’t send my pulse racing, son. What else?’
‘We’ve knocked on as many doors as we can asking if any one-man-band outfits have been touting for custom in fitting security chains and locks. A complete blank.’
Frost chewed gloomily. ‘Wake me up when you get to the good bit.’
‘I called on Mrs Proctor as you asked…’
Burton paused for maximum effect. ‘A couple of days ago Mrs Watson told her that one of the bingo coach drivers had offered to fit a stronger security chain on the cheap.’
Frost punched the air and whooped. ‘Geronimo! Did she say which driver?’
‘No, sir.’
‘No matter, we can probably pin-point him. Now I want you to check all the coach companies…’
‘Already done,’ cut in Burton. ‘The main bingo run con tract is with Superswift Coaches, but they sub-contract the work out to other firms on a day-to-day basis. I’ve got details of the other firms.’ He offered the typed list to Frost who warded it away with his sandwich. ‘Each firm has a rota of drivers for its various runs, so you wouldn’t necessarily get the same driver each time additionally most drivers are self-employed so the same driver could do work for different firms.’
Frost gave a weary shake of the head. ‘All these details give me a headache. Skip the foreplay — go straight to the big bang!’
‘Right, sir. Sally fed all the names and duty rotas through the computer so we could eliminate those who definitely weren’t anywhere near Denton when the killings took place. We’ve come down to four possibles.’ From a folder he pulled four typed A4 sheets with photographs clipped on them. ‘We pulled the photographs from the firms’ personnel files.’
Frost wiped his buttery fingers on his jacket and took the first page. The photograph showed a man in his late thirties, a podgy face, receding dark hair.
‘David Allen Hardwicke,’ recited Burton. ‘Works for the Denton Creamline Coach Company. He’s done a lot of
