the houses as a curtain was twitched back and quickly closed. A brief glimpse of a white face looking down at them.
'What light from yonder window breaks,' whooped Frost, nudging Cassidy and pointing. 'There's someone in that house.'
It was the only house in the street where the doors and windows were not boarded up. It was number 39.
Four empty milk bottles stood in a line on the doorstep, waiting vainly for a milkman who no longer called. Frost jammed his thumb in the bell push and leant his weight on it. A bell inside shrilled edgily. He gave the door a couple of kicks and yelled, 'Open up police!'
A light clicked on inside and showed dimly through the grimed fanlight over the front door. The sound of someone stumbling down the stairs.
'Who is it?'
'The Avon Lady,' said Frost. 'Come on, Sidney, open up… you know damn well who it is.'
A chain clinked and the door opened a fraction so a bleary eye could study the warrant card held out by
Cassidy. The chain was unhitched and the door opened wide. A meek-looking man in his early forties, wearing a dressing-gown over red-striped pyjamas, thinning brown hair falling over his eyes, blinked at them. 'What is this all about?'
'Hello, Sidney,' beamed Frost. 'Long time, no see.'
Snell peered at the inspector. 'Sergeant Frost!' He shivered and drew his dressing-gown more tightly around him. 'I'd hoped I'd never meet up with you again.'
Frost pulled a face. 'I don't seem to endear myself to people, do I?' He stepped into the hall and kicked the door shut behind them. 'Can we come in?'
There was a musty smell to the house. Snell led them to the lounge, a cold room with old, worn furniture. Two battered suitcases and a pile of bulging carrier bags stood on the floor. A picture of Snell as a young boy, in the garden with his mother, stood in the centre of the sideboard. He switched on a two-bar electric fire and motioned them to chairs. 'I'm sure, if I wait long enough, you'll tell me what this is all about.'
'We were passing, we saw your light and we knew we'd get a friendly welcome and a fairy cake,' said Frost. 'But I'm forgetting my manners. How's your mother?'
Snell's lower lip quivered. 'My mother is dead.'
'My sincere condolences,' said Frost, remembering that this was the old cow who used to provide Sidney with watertight alibis all those years ago.
Snell knuckled his eyes. 'On the generous assumption that you are being sincere, I thank you.' He sighed. 'It's hard coming to terms with it.'
'Sudden, was it?' asked Frost.
Snell shook his head. 'She'd been in hospital for nearly two months. Three weeks ago they phoned me to say she was dying. I came straight away. She died half an hour before I got there.' He covered his face with his hands. 'We never said goodbye.'
'Three weeks ago? And you've been in Denton ever since?'
He nodded. 'Don't worry. I'm not staying. I couldn't, even if I wanted to. The Council are tearing this entire street down.'
'That's a bit drastic, just to make you move on,' said Frost.
Snell ignored him. 'Mother was the stumbling block. She wouldn't leave. As soon as they heard she was dead she wasn't even buried the Council slapped a demolition order on the place. I'm disposing of her effects, not that she had much, and I go back to Newcastle tomorrow.' He nodded towards the suitcases and carrier bags. 'So you needn't concern yourself with what I might do.'
'It's not a question of what you might do,' said Cassidy, deciding it was about time to make his presence felt. 'It's a question of what you've already done.'
Snell stared at Cassidy, his eyes blinking in puzzlement. 'Perhaps you'd kindly explain yourself.'
'The day after you returned to Denton, we had complaints of a man exposing himself to mothers and children. Isn't that what you used to do?'
'Coincidence.'
'Coincidence has a long arm, but a very short dick,' chipped in Frost. 'Two of the mothers said it was the smallest they had ever seen, which immediately made us think of you.'
Snell flushed brick red. 'Now you are being insulting.'
'And then,' continued Cassidy, raising his voice to let Frost know he was doing the questioning, 'we had instances of children being stabbed in the arms and buttocks, just as you did when you pretended to be a doctor.'
Snell slowly stood up, trembling with outrage. 'I committed my crime ten years ago. I was caught and I was punished. I've learnt my lesson.' He turned to
Frost. 'They don't like child molesters in prison.'
'Not too keen on them myself,' said Frost.
'I got beaten up buckets of filth thrown over me. I'm not going to risk that again.'
'Where were you this morning around half-past eight?' asked Cassidy.
'In here, sorting out mother's things.'
'And where were you earlier tonight from about ten o'clock onwards?'
'In here. I never went out.'
'Got a girlfriend, have you?' asked Frost.
'No.'
'Boyfriend?'
'No.'
'So if you're not sticking pins in little kids, hearing them cry, watching the blood spurt out of chubby little arms and bottoms, what do you do for kicks?'
With a disdainful smile, Snell opened the sideboard drawer and took out a bible which he waved in the inspector's face. 'Nothing you would understand, Mr. Frost, but I get my kicks, as you call them, from the Good Book. I'm a born again Christian.'
'It wasn't your bible you were waggling at those women this morning,' said Frost. 'It was your little winkle.'
'How many times do I have to tell you I never went out this morning… I'll swear to it on the bible if you like.'
'I bet you would, you bastard!' snarled Cassidy.
Snell glowered. 'I don't have to put up with this harassment. You haven't got anyone for these crimes, so you're trying to fit me up, even though I've gone straight for the past ten years.'
Cassidy pulled two photographs from his inside pocket. The first was of the missing boy. He handed it to Snell. 'Where did you pick him up?'
As Snell studied it, Frost watched him closely, noting an expression of puzzlement followed by relief. If you're acting, you're bloody good, he thought.
'I've never seen him before.'
'Then what about him?' Snell took the photograph of the dead boy, but his eyes were on Frost who had got up from the chair and was now mooching about the room, pulling open drawers, rummaging inside. 'Do you have a search warrant? 'he called.
Frost flashed a beaming smile. 'Of course not, Sidney. This is just a courtesy call.'
'The photograph,' snapped Cassidy, tapping it with his finger.
Snell gave it hardly a glance before returning it. 'Never seen him before.'
'He was chloroformed,' said Cassidy.
'So?'
'There was chloroform in the medical bag you used to carry around with you.'
'Was there? If there was, I never used it and that was ten years ago. I've taken my punishment and I've turned to the Lord. If he can forgive me, why can't you?'
'Perhaps the Lord didn't know you had these,' called Frost from the sideboard. He was holding up a coloured
