Burton and the WPC shook their heads. ‘I visit cemeteries as infrequently as possible,’ said Burton.
‘Me too,’ said Frost. ‘I only go in one if I can’t find anywhere else to have a pee. But our plumber knew where to find it and knew he could get in it.’ He jabbed a finger at Gilmore. ‘How?’
Gilmore shook his head. He had no idea.
‘Right, son, let me mark your card. What was alongside the crypt, by the broken railings?’
‘A stand-pipe and a tap,’ said Gilmore, beginning to see what the old fool was getting at.
‘Exactly, sergeant. And they looked fairly new. So who would have installed them?’
‘A plumber,’ said Gilmore, ‘and he’d know how to get in through the broken railings.’
‘And he’d know how to use a blow-lamp,’ added Burton.
Frost chucked an empty cigarette packet into the air and headed it against the wall. ‘Another case solved. Get in touch with the vicar, find out who did the work, then bring him in for routine questioning and beating up.’ He yawned and looked at his watch. Nearly an hour to kill before the post-mortem. He was about to suggest sending out for some Chinese takeaway when the phone rang. Control for the inspector. Another burglary at a senior citizen’s home – old lady of eighty-one.
‘Damn!’ muttered Frost. He could have done without this tonight.
‘There’s worse to come,’ said Control. ‘The intruder beat her up. She’s not expected to live.’
Clarendon Street. Lights blinked out from quite a few of the houses where the occupants had been wakened by the police activity. Outside number 11 was an empty area car, its radio droning and no-one to listen, and behind that, an ambulance, engine running, rear doors open. As Gilmore parked the Cortina on the opposite side of the street, two ambulance men carrying a stretcher emerged from the house, closely followed by a uniformed constable. By the time they crossed the road the ambulance was speeding on its way to the hospital.
‘Anyone at home?’ yelled Frost down the passage.
A door at the head of the stairs opened. ‘Up here, Inspector.’ Tubby Detective Sergeant Arthur Hanlon beckoned them in.
A bedroom, its bed askew in the middle of the floor, the sash window open and Roberts, the Scene of Crime Officer, bending, engrossed in dusting the bottom edge of the frame for fingerprints. There were fragments of a smashed blue and white vase on the floor and the top centre dressing table drawer gaped open, its riffled contents spewing out.
By the dressing table a hooked-nosed woman in her mid-forties wearing a quilted dressing gown was talking earnestly to PC Jordan.
The scene was familiar. This burglar seldom varied his technique. A quick in and out job. Straight for the dressing table to grab indiscriminately whatever jewellery was instantly available, then, starting with the top centre drawer, he looked for the ‘cleverly hidden’ cache of notes which couldn’t be trusted to the bank and which were nearly always at the back of the top centre drawer. Then out again, the whole operation lasting a maximum of five minutes. A familiar scene, but this time with a difference. There was blood everywhere, on the floor, on the bedding and on the curtains.
‘How’s the old girl?’ asked Frost.
‘Not good,’ said Hanlon, honking loudly into a handkerchief and dabbing a sore-looking nose. ‘Stab wounds and a possible fractured skull. The ambulance men don’t think she’ll regain consciousness.’
‘Damn,’ muttered Frost, but his eyes were looking over Hanlon’s shoulder at the SOC man, who was offering an irresistible target. ‘Excuse me a moment.’ Frost tiptoed over and accurately jabbed a nicotined finger at the seam of the tight trousers. ‘How’s that for centre?’ he roared.
Roberts shot up, hitting his head on the window sill. He spun round angrily, only to grin when he saw Frost. ‘It’s you, Inspector. I might have guessed.’
Gilmore raised his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. A potential murder investigation and the fool was indulging in schoolboy games. Well, someone had to act responsibly. ‘What happened?’ he asked Hanlon.
‘The victim is Alice Ryder, a widow aged eighty-one. She occupies the top half of the house, a Mr and Mrs Francis live downstairs. Mr Francis is on night work – that’s the wife over there.’ Hanlon nodded towards the woman with Jordan. ‘She found the old lady.’ Sensing their eyes on her, the woman came over, anxious to relate her part in the drama.
‘I woke up about quarter-past three to go to the toilet and I noticed