Frost nodded in sympathy. He had many nights like that.
‘The first house I tried I thought was going to be easy. Up on the dustbin and through the back window. I could hear the old boy talking to his wife downstairs, so I thought the coast was clear. Straight in the bedroom and there’s this weird niff . . . I flashes my torch around and, bloody hell – there’s a decomposing corpse grinning at me. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I had to nip in the pub for some Dutch courage and who comes walking through the door but you and that bloke there with the fancy aftershave. This just ain’t my bloody night, I thought. But I phoned you. I told you about the body.’
‘I know, Wally,’ nodded Frost. ‘I recognized your voice.’
‘I should have packed it in, but I needed some readies – I owed the bookie a couple of hundred and he was screaming for it. I’d already marked out this house in Clarendon Street. It looked easy and they said this old lady had cash all over the place. It must have been well bloody hidden – I never found it. The bedroom was empty. She was in the other room watching the telly, then, just my flaming luck, I knocks this vase over and the next thing I know she’s charging in with the knife, slashing away. I lashed out in self-defence and she went out like a light.’ He took another drag at his cigarette. ‘It was all her fault, Mr Frost. I could have sued her for what she did to me. You know the law – you’re only supposed to use reasonable force in ejecting a burglar, and gouging chunks out of his gut with a carving knife ain’t reasonable force.’
‘Neither is smashing someone’s skull in,’ barked Gilmore from behind him.
‘A tap, Mr Frost, that’s all I gave her. A tap with me jemmy, just to discourage her. The bloody knife was stuck in my stomach and I had to pull it out. I’d tore my rubber gloves in the struggle, so I wiped the handle clean in case my prints were on it, then grabbed up a few bits of jewellery and got the hell out of there. When I read in the paper next day she was in Intensive Care, it frightened the shit out of me – if you’ll pardon the expression. I never did another job from that night to this. That’s the honest, gospel truth.’
Frost shook another cigarette out of the packet and tapped it on the table. ‘Tell me the honest gospel truth about the other poor cows, Wally. Did they all come at you with knives and then commit hara-kiri?’ He watched the prisoner closely, but unless Manson was a brilliant actor, he didn’t seem to know what Frost was talking about.
‘Others? What are you trying to pin on me?’
Frost opened the file and spread out colour photographs of the two dead women showing their wounds in vivid close-up, his eyes still locked on Manson’s face.
Wally shuddered and turned his head. ‘Bloody hell, Mr Frost. That’s horrible.’ He fumbled for a grubby handkerchief to mop his brow. ‘You ain’t suggesting they’re down to me? I’ve never killed anyone in my life.’
‘Yes, you have, Wally,’ said Frost, grimly. ‘The old girl you discouraged by caving in her skull died in hospital.’
‘Come off it, Inspector,’ said Wally, grinning to show that he had seen through Frost’s bluff. ‘There’s no way a little tap would . . .’ And then he saw Frost’s expression and knew he was serious. ‘Oh my God!’ The grin froze solid and his face drained of colour. ‘Dead?’
Frost nodded.
‘Bloody hell, Mr Frost. She came at me – with a knife. I had no choice – it was self-defence.’
‘Were these self-defence?’ asked Frost, smacking his hand on the photographs.
‘You’re not pinning them on me, Mr Frost. I’ll cough to the old girl, but that’s all.’
Frost gave him a disarming smile. ‘Fair enough, Wally. Tell you what – as we’re mates – cough to the others and I’ll give you self-defence on the first one.’
‘I never bleedin’ did the others. How can I make you believe me?’
‘I’d consider an alibi, Wally. Where were you Tuesday night?’
Manson looked appalled. ‘I can’t give you an alibi without incriminating myself. I was doing another job.’
‘Don’t be a twat, Wally. We’re talking murder and you’re talking petty burglary.’