Authors: R. D. Wingfield
In the dark, Shelby flushed. He believed his womanising was a well-kept secret, but nothing seemed to escape the seemingly unobservant Frost.
“He may look a bloody old man, Shelby, but he’s not much older than you.” The inspector bent down, his hand slipping under the water to the back of the head, his fingers exploring and finding the sticky section where the skull moved under pressure. “He’s been living rough ever since his family chucked him out a couple of years back. He started out as a wino—cheap booze “laced with meths or surgical spirit—then he progressed to heroin.”
“Heroin!” exclaimed Shelby, his torch beam slowly creeping over the emaciated figure at his feet. “That’s an expensive habit.”
“Well, by the look of him,” observed Frost, “I doubt if he wasted money on nonessentials like soap and food. He used to be a lovely kid. A cheeky little sod. Look at him now!” He prodded the body with his foot, then turned away. A match flared as he relit the butt. “I suppose you haven’t been through his pockets?”
“Not yet,” the constable admitted. “He’s a bit messy.”
“Well, he’s not going to get any bloody cleaner floating in pee, is he? Is there any way to stop this damn water rising? It’s up to my ankles. I feel like a passenger on the
Titanic
.”
Shelby paddled over to the far end of the fetid room leaving Frost in the dark. “I think it’s this one over here sir.”
“Don’t give me a running commentary, son. Just fix it.”
Shelby’s torch beam bobbed, then pointed upward to spotlight a cast-iron cistern tank which was meant to flush the urinal stalls at regular, hygienic intervals. It was brim-f, and water was cascading over the sides and down the wall. Shelby reached up and plunged his hand inside the tank. He jiggled the ball cock up and down a couple of times, and suddenly the cistern gulped, emptied itself, then filled up and cut off. Satisfied, Shelby splashed back to Frost.
“That’s done it, sir. If we can shift the body it should unblock the drain and let the water flow away.”
“Better not move him, son. You know what a fussy little creep this police surgeon is. And see if you can’t find a light switch. Slomon’s bound to moan about the dark.” He sneaked a look at his watch. How much longer before he could get to the party? Where was bloody Slomon?
His question was answered by a clatter of footsteps from the top of the stairs and a peevish voice that inquired, “Anyone down there?”
Shelby’s torch guided the newcomer down. Dr Slomon, a short, self-important individual wearing an expensive-looking camel-haired overcoat, peered distastefully into the murk as Frost waded over. “Inspector Frost! I might have guessed. Somehow one associates you with places like this.” His overcoat was unbuttoned, and beneath it Frost could see a bow tie, and a smart black evening dress suit.
“You needn’t have got tarted up just to come down here Doc. Any old suit would have done.”
Slomon smiled sourly. “If you must know, I was on my way to Inspector Harrison’s retirement party when I got this call. I hope it’s not going to take long.”
“So do I,” said Frost. “Hold on a tick, we’re trying to find the light switches.”
At first there didn’t seem to be any way of turning on the lights, but eventually the beam of the torch followed the wiring down until it disappeared inside a small wooden cup board on which was stencilled Switches—Keep Locked. In obedience to this request, the cupboard door had been secured with an enormous brass padlock that wouldn’t have been out of place in the vaults of the Bank of England.
“It’s locked,” announced Shelby.
“I don’t think so,” said Frost, splashing over to take a look. There was a wrenching sound, a tearing of wood, and the padlock crashed to the floor. “You see,” said Frost, “it wasn’t locked.”
The splintered door swung open to reveal its treasures . . . rolls of toilet paper stamped Property of Denton Borough Council, a huge bottle of disinfectant, and a pair of brass-domed light switches screwed to the wall. Two clicks and the fly-specked bulbs high in the ceiling fought a half hearted battle against the darkness.
Frost surveyed his surroundings, the filthy, stained urinal stalls with their cracked beige glazing turning an unpleasant shade of brown, the copper piping thickly crusted with verdigris, the brown composition floor awash with discoloured water and floating matter. Behind him a row of dark-green painted doors with brass coin locks guarded the lavatories. One of the doors was newly splintered, the coin lock hanging from loose screws; it yawned open to reveal a toilet with a broken seat stuffed with torn sheets of newspaper; over it dangled a length of discoloured string as replacement for the missing chain.
“Only my opinion,” commented Frost, “but I think it was more romantic with the lights off.” He paddled over to the body. “Here’s your patient, Doc. I’d be obliged if you’d hurry it up. I want to get to that party, too.”
The police surgeon made no attempt to leave the bottom step. He looked first at the swirl of dirty water he would have to wade through, then at his highly polished patent-leather shoes. “Do we know who he is?”
“His name is Ben Cornish,” replied the police constable. “A dropout. Sleeps rough. He’s on drugs and booze.”
Slomon nodded. “I see. And what leads you to suspect that death is other than from natural causes?”
“I wasn’t sure if he was dead, so I brought Dr Cadman in. He said he died from a blow to the back of the skull.”
Slomon’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh? And how did Dr Cadman reach that extraordinary diagnosis?”
“I think he did it by actually walking over and examining the body,” chimed in Frost, losing patience. “He didn’t do it by remote control from the bottom step.”
Slomon’s cheeks ballooned with anger. “I don’t need lessons from you on how to conduct an examination, Frost. These tin-pot general practitioners don’t know what the hell they are talking about. Even from here I can see that the most likely cause of death is the obvious one: he choked on his own vomit. I have no intention of soiling my clothes by wading through that filth just to confirm what is self-evident. Isn’t there any way of getting rid of this dirty water?”
“Only by moving the body,” explained Frost. “It’s bunging up the drain.”
“Then move the damn thing! Surely you’ve enough gumption to do that without having to be told. And while you’re moving it you might as well bring it over here to me.”
And this is the bastard who insists on everything being done by the book, thought Frost. Aloud, he said, “You take his arms, Constable. I’ll grab his legs.” As they raised the body, the water began gurgling and swirling down the cleared drain. “Reminds me of the time,” said Frost, grunting as he took the weight, “when I was a bobby on the beat and I had to pull this stiff out of the canal. He’d been dead a bloody long time but had only just popped up to the surface. I grabbed his arms to pull him out . . . and his bloody arms came off. I was left holding the damn things while he sank to the bottom again.” Both Shelby and Slomon winced at this choice tidbit of reminiscence.
“Will this do, Doc?” asked Frost, dumping the body at the foot of the stairs and shaking his sleeves where water had run up his arm.
Nodding curtly, Slomon bent forward, looked at the face with disgust, then moved the head forward so he could examine the base of the skull with probing fingers. It was a brief examination. “As I thought,” he said, treating the inspector to a self-satisfied smirk, “the head injury was not the cause of death and was not the result of a blow. The damage probably resulted from his head colliding with the stone flooring when he fell.” He looked around, then pointed to something glinting on the floor, by the wall. “Something you missed, Inspector. Fortunately I keep my eyes open whenever I do an examination.”
Frost swore softly as Shelby retrieved a broken wine bottle from the gully. There was no way they could have seen it earlier, as the dirty water had completely covered it.
Stretching out a hand, Slomon received the bottle from the constable and cautiously raised it to his nose. A delicate sniff, followed by a smug nod of satisfaction at his own cleverness. “Wine laced with industrial alcohol, a potent combination.” He handed the bottle to Frost for confirmation. Frost took his word for it and passed it to the constable. “He drank himself senseless, then fell,” continued Slomon dogmatically. “Then he choked on his own vomit. I’ll arrange for the hospital to carry out a postmortem first thing tomorrow, but they will only confirm my diagnosis.” He consulted his watch. “The party calls. I’ll leave the tidying up to you.” With a curt nod he was up the steps and out into the clean night air.
“I wish they were doing a postmortem on you, you bastard,” Frost muttered. He again looked around his unsavoury surroundings. Why was something nagging away? Why was that little bell at the back of his head ringing insistently, warning him something was wrong? He looked around again, slowly this time. But it was no good—whatever it was, it wasn’t going to show itself. And why was he worrying? Death was from natural causes, and he had the party to go to.
“Do we know his next of kin, sir?” asked Shelby, his notebook open.
“His mother and brother live in Denton,” Frost told him. “The station will have their address.”
“Someone’s going to have to break the news to them, sir.” Shelby paused and looked hopefully at the inspector. “I’m not very good at it.”
Frost sighed. Why did he always fall for the nasty jobs? How do you tell a mother her eldest son had choked to death on his own vomit down a public convenience? He took one last look at the dripping heap of death sprawled at his feet and shook his head reproachfully. “Ben Cornish, you stupid bastard!” The open eyes of the corpse looked right through him.
“All right, Shelby. I’ll break the news to his old lady. You arrange for the meat wagon to take him to the morgue, and wait here until it arrives. I don’t want any late-night revellers peeing all over the body.”
He trotted up the steps to the street, Shelby, who wasn’t going to be left alone with the body, following hard on his heels. At ground level the wind was still prowling the streets. Frost took a deep breath. “Doesn’t fresh air have a funny smell?” He looked up and down the empty street. Or was it empty? He thought he saw something move down by the back entrance to one of the Market Square shops. As if some one had ducked into a doorway to avoid being seen. He caught a quick glimpse of the expression on Shelby’s face. The constable had seen the movement, too, but he was making a determined effort to keep his face passive. Strange, thought Frost. Very strange. He wondered what Shelby was up to . . . but if he was going to get to the party before the beer ran out . . .
With a wave to the constable, he climbed back into his car. As he settled down in the driving seat, his sodden trouser legs flapped clammily around his ankles, and he felt the cold squelch of his wet socks as he pressed his feet on the pedals. On the back seat, unused and bone dry, his Wellington boots sat on top of a yellowing back number of the
Daily Mirror
.
He reversed, only hitting the kerb once. As he drove past the red-brick building with the creaking enamel sign, he realized he couldn’t see the broken metal grille. It was halfway down the stairs and completely out of sight from the road. Yet Shelby said he had spotted it from his car. It vaguely worried him, but there was probably a logical explanation which could wait, whereas the party couldn’t. The dull boom of the disco belting out full blast from the station canteen was waiting to meet him as he turned into Market Square.
She was nervous. The moon, a diamond-hard white disc in the starless sky, made the path as bright as day but buried the bushes in deep shadow. She had an uneasy, nagging feeling of danger. Of someone lurking. She felt in her pocket, and her hand closed reassuringly over the nail file. Not much of a weapon, but just let anyone try anything and she’d use it like a knife.
But she didn’t have a chance to use it. He was too quick for her. A slight rustling noise from behind her, and, even as she was turning, the cloth blacked out the moon, the stars. She opened her mouth to scream, but choking hands squeezed and squeezed.
Inside her head she was screaming, loudly, deafeningly. But only she could hear.
Police Sergeant Bill Wells, sad-faced and balding, raised his head to the ceiling where all the noise was coming from and bared his teeth in anger. Upstairs, that was where he should be. Up there, enjoying himself, instead of being stuck down here as station sergeant, trying to cope with the running of the district with hopelessly inadequate numbers of staff.
He was one of the few members of the Denton Division forced to be on duty on this special night, the night of the big party. And what was unfair was that he should have been up there. Today should have been his day off. But at the very last minute, for his own peculiar reasons, the Divisional Commander had revised the duty roster, so now Wells was on duty, as was Jack Frost. This didn’t worry Jack Frost, as he intended to sneak upstairs whatever the rosters said. You could get away with it in plainclothes but not if, like Sergeant Wells, you were wearing a uniform. There was no justice.
The skeleton duty force could only cope if the night was almost incident-free. Indeed, all duty men had been instructed not to look for trouble, to walk away from it if it crept up, and to turn a blind eye to all minor offences. But already things had started to heat up with the discovery of a dead body down a public convenience, and it was a well-known fact that shifts that started badly almost always ended badly.
And the damn phone, ringing almost nonstop, wasn’t helping; the calls were usually from members of the public complaining about the noise. It was so unfair. The people upstairs were having all the fun and he was having to cope with all the complaints.
The phone rang again. He snatched it up and blocked his free ear with his finger to try and drown out that monkey music from above.
“Would you mind repeating that, madam? I’m afraid I can’t hear you.”
The woman caller was gabbling away excitedly, but even with the phone pressed so tightly against his ear it hurt, he couldn’t make out what she was agitated about.