the wall. They were trying to break into someone’s house just on the say-so of an anonymous phone call.
But Frost wasn’t listening. He had now transferred his attention to the upstairs window. Difficult to tell from that angle, but it appeared to be open at the bottom. ‘Keep watch, son. Give a yell if anyone comes.’ He climbed up on top of the dustbin which seemed ideally sited for the purpose and heaved himself up on the outside toilet roof and then to the sill.
Yes, a gap at the bottom he could get his hand under. For a moment he hesitated. It all seemed too good to be true; the dustbin conveniently placed and the window invitingly open. But there was no turning back now. He lifted the window and dropped inside.
A pitch dark room. The torch he pulled from his pocket was on the blink, but its faltering light enabled him to steer a tiptoeing course through a maze of booby-trapped junk ready to topple at any moment – an old treadle Singer sewing machine, cardboard boxes gorged with useless items too good to throw away, the frame of a push bike and an old-fashioned pram from the late 1930s in pristine condition which, for some reason, made him think of the baby’s grave in the churchyard.
Cautiously, he turned the door handle. The door whined open.
A landing from which stairs descended to the hall. To his right a door with a crack of light showing from inside. He moved towards it. From downstairs came the sound of someone lumbering about and talking in the overloud voice of the deaf. Crockery clattered. The old boy was making tea or something.
The smell hit him as soon as he opened the door. And then he saw her. On the bed. An old woman, her head propped up with pillows. She didn’t move. She couldn’t move. She was a shrivelled, mummified husk and had been dead for many months.
Shit! Just what he bloody wanted! He rammed a cigarette in his mouth, but didn’t light it, then steeled himself to walk across and lift the discoloured bed sheet which made a tearing noise as it parted from the body. The stains on the bedding weren’t blood. No signs of injury anywhere. There was something round the mouth. Mouldering food and a brown dribble of something still sticky. On a rickety card table alongside the bed was a cup of cold scummy tea and a plate of congealed food. Shit and double shit. He now knew what it was all about and wanted to get out of the room and back in the car and as far away as possible. The bloody cemetery was preferable to this.
Before he could get to the door he heard someone coming up the stairs. The old boy, talking away to himself.
He spun round, frantically looking for another way out. There was a window behind thick, drawn curtains which belched death-scented dust. He parted them to scrabble at the window catch. But it was rusted in and wouldn’t budge.
A clatter of crockery then a tap at the door. ‘Your supper, love.’
Frost pressed himself tight against the wall, hoping the opened door would conceal him. The old man, tall and stooped, came in. A tray holding a bowl of soup and a plate of bread and butter rattled in unsteady hands. He frowned at the food on the card table then turned angrily to the husk in the bed. ‘You didn’t eat it!’ he shouted. ‘I cooked it for you and you didn’t eat it.’ Then his voice softened. ‘You know what the doctor said. You’ve got to eat to keep your strength up.’ He exchanged the old tray for the new and picked up a spoon. ‘You must try and eat some of this, love. It’s full of goodness,’ and he spooned soup over the gaping mouth, dabbing with a handkerchief as it dribbled down the shrivelled chin. He was deaf. He didn’t hear the thud of Frost’s footsteps down the stairs and into the street.
In the car, Gilmore listened incredulously, his face creased in disgust. ‘And he’s still bringing her food? Flaming hell!’
‘The poor old sod won’t accept her death,’ said Frost, sucking thankfully at a cigarette.
Before Gilmore could reach for the radio to inform the station, Frost’s hand shot out to stop him. ‘Forget it, son. We don’t want to get involved.’
A shocked Gilmore said, ‘You can’t just drive away and do nothing about it.’