R. Wingfield - Night Frost

Gilmore leant forward and craned his neck to take it all in. He was impressed. ‘That must have cost a few bob?’

Frost nodded. ‘Rumour has it that the Comptons paid close on a quarter of a million for the place. With the slump in the housing market it’s worth a lot less now.’

The car scrunched up the gravel driveway which led to a white-framed, black front door outside which a police car was already parked. Alongside the drive ran a lawn, once immaculate, but now a muddy, churned-up, tire-grooved mess a-slosh with dirty water. Their job done, firemen were clambering into a fire engine ready to drive off. In the middle of the lawn the Fire Investigations Officer, rain bouncing off his yellow sou’wester, was gloomily poking through a jumble of sodden ashes and burnt, paint-blistered wood, all that was left of the summer house. Frost paddled over to him, cursing as water found the holes in his shoes and ruefully remembering his wellington boots snug and dry in the back of the car. Gilmore stayed put on the path. He wasn’t ruining his shoes for a lousy burnt-out summer house.

Frost flicked his eye over the smouldering remains. ‘I could have made a better job of putting it out by peeing on it.’

The fire officer straightened up and grinned. ‘We didn’t stand a chance, Jack. The wood was soaked with petrol. We got here twelve minutes after the call, but it had almost burnt itself out by then.’

‘Petrol?’ Frost picked up a chunk of wet burnt wood and sniffed it. It smelled just like wet burnt wood. He tossed it back on the pile and watched the fire engine drive away.

‘No doubt about it. I’m still checking, but it was probably set off by some crude form of fuse — a candle or something. I’ll be able to tell you more when I find it.’

‘You know me,’ said Frost. ‘If it’s crude, I’m interested.’ He squelched back to the drive.

Gilmore hammered at the front door while Frost scuffed moodily at the gravel path and tried out the rusty bell on an old-fashioned, woman’s bicycle which leant against the wall. The door creaked open on heavy, black, wrought iron hinges and a scrawny, leathery-skinned woman in her late sixties, carrying a mop and bucket, scowled out at them. She wore a man’s cap, pulled right down over her hair, and a drab brown shapeless dress, tied at the waist with string.

Frost nodded towards the bucket. ‘No thanks, Ada — I went before I came out.’ He introduced her to Gilmore. ‘This is Ada Perkins, the Swedish au pair.’

The woman grunted. ‘You’re not half as funny as you think you are, Jack Frost.’ She jerked a bony thumb towards a door at the end of the passage. ‘There’s a policeman in the kitchen drinking tea.’

‘Then let’s start in the kitchen,’ said Frost.

It was a spacious, no-expense-spared kitchen, fitted out in solid oak with marble worktops, burnished copper cookware on the walls and miniature hand-operated water pumps instead of taps over the sink. A black Aga disguised to look like an old coal-fired cooking range breathed the warm crunchy smell of baking bread. Black-moustached PC Jordan, twenty-six, his tunic unbuttoned, was seated at a scrubbed pine designer table drinking tea from a thick designer mug. He jumped up to attention as the detectives entered, but Frost waved him to sit and dragged up a chair alongside him. Gilmore did the same.

‘I suppose you want some tea?’ said Ada and, without waiting for their reply, poured two teas from a brown teapot, pushed the sugar bowl across, then shuffled out, muttering something about having work to do.

Frost found a tea towel and dried his wet hair. ‘This is Frank Gilmore.’

‘Hi, Frank,’ said Jordan, offering his hand.

The hand was ignored. ‘Detective Sergeant Gilmore,’ came the icy correction. ‘And button up that jacket.’ Start as you mean to go on. Don’t let the lower ranks get too familiar or they’ll walk all over you.

Frost passed round his cigarettes, then asked for a report. Jordan, stifling his resentment at Gilmore’s snub, flipped open his notebook. ‘I got the call from Control at 9.23. I arrived at 9.34. The fire brigade was already here so I left them to it and went straight in to Mrs Compton.’

‘Mrs Compton?’ interrupted Frost. ‘Not the husband?’

‘He’s away on business,’ said Jordan.

A smile traversed Frost’s face. ‘Good. Then I won’t have to watch him fondling her bloody body… What’s she wearing this morning?’

‘That pink shortie nightie,’ said Jordan. ‘The one she wore the first time.’

Frost whooped with delight. ‘The shortie — wow! That’s the one that barely covers her bum. I must try and drop something on the floor for her to pick up.’ Then he remembered the serious business of the day and nodded for Jordan to continue.

‘She got up just after nine, picked the post up from the mat, made herself a cup of tea and went into the lounge. The first letter she opened was this.’ Jordan pushed across a transparent plastic bag. Inside it was a sheet of cheap quality A4 paper on which were pasted letters cut from a glossy magazine to form words.

Frost read it, his face grim, then passed it across to Gilmore. The message was short and chillingly to the point.

THE NEXT THING TO BURN WILL BE YOU, YOU BITCH.

‘Where’s the envelope?’ demanded Gilmore. This case was looking a little more worthy of his attention now. Jordan handed over another plastic bag containing a manila envelope, 9 inches by 4 inches. The address, typed in capitals, read: MRS COMPTON, THE OLD MILL, LEXING. It bore a first-class stamp and had been posted in Denton the previous evening. He motioned for Jordan to continue.

‘Next she heard this roaring sound from outside. She opened the lounge curtains and saw the summer house on fire, so she dialled 999.’ He closed his notebook.

Frost drained his mug and dropped his cigarette end in it. ‘This is getting nastier and nastier. It started off with heavy-breathing phone calls, now it’s death threats. Right, Jordan. Nip down to the village and ask around. Did anyone see anything… any strange cars lurking about someone stinking of petrol.’ As the constable left, he stood up. ‘Buttock-viewing time,’ he told Gilmore. ‘We’re going to chat up Mrs Compton.’

Gilmore followed him out of the kitchen, along the waxed wooden-floored passage and into the lounge, a large, high-ceilinged room which had a rich, rustic, new- sacking smell from the dark chocolate-coloured hessian covering its walls.

Jill Compton, standing to receive them, looked much younger than her twenty-three years. She wore a gauzy cobweb of a baby doll nightdress which hid nothing, and over it a silken house-coat which flapped open so as not to spoil the view through the nightdress. Her hair, fringed over wide blue eyes and free-flowing down her back, was a light, golden corn colour. She wore no make-up and the pale, china doll face with a hint of dark rings around the eyes gave her a look of vulnerability. She smiled bravely. ‘I’m sorry I’m not dressed.’

‘That’s quite all right, Mrs Compton,’ said Frost, and there was no doubting the sincerity in his voice. ‘It’s a sod about your summer house.’

‘It could have been the house,’ she said, her voice unsteady. ‘Did you see that letter?’

Before Frost could answer the front door slammed and a man’s voice called, ‘Jill — I’m home! Where are you?’

‘Mark!’ She ran out to meet her husband.

‘Damn!’ grunted Frost. ‘The buttock-squeezer’s back!’ Mark Compton was twenty-nine and flashily good- looking. Fair-haired, a bronzed complexion, although slightly overweight from good living, he looked like a retired life-guard out of Neighbours. Gilmore hated him instantly for his looks, his money, his perfectly fitting silver-grey suit, his arm around Mrs Compton, but most of all for his hand caressing her bare arm.