her light was still on. I was worried, so I went up to check. Her telly was going full blast and her bedroom door was open. I looked in . . .’ She paused, shuddering at the recollection. ‘There she was, on the floor and blood everywhere. I couldn’t get to the phone quick enough. She was terrified of anyone breaking in . . . she must have had a premonition.’ She wrapped her dressing gown tighter around her. It was cold in the room with the window open. ‘That’s all I can tell you.’
‘You didn’t see who it was who did it?’ asked Gilmore.
She gave him a thin smile. ‘I’d have mentioned it if I had – just in case it was important.’
‘Sarcastic cow!’ seethed Gilmore when she had gone.
‘I thought she was quite nice,’ observed Hanlon, who was irritated at the way the new bloke kept trying to take charge.
‘I didn’t like her nose,’ said Frost, ‘or her dressing gown.’ He nodded to the SOC officer. ‘Surprise me. Tell me that this time he left fingerprints.’
Roberts shook his head. ‘He wore gloves, as always.’
‘Consistent bastard!’ snorted Frost. ‘All right, Ted, paint me a word picture. Let’s have a reconstruction.’
‘Right,’ said Roberts. ‘The old lady was in the front room watching the telly. Our intruder gets in through the bedroom window, but this time he was unlucky. She’d stuck that blue and white vase on the window ledge and as he clambered in, he knocked it over and it fell to the floor. The old lady heard it, came charging in to see what it was, so he went for her with this . . .’ Roberts clicked open his ‘evidence case’ and pulled out a sealed, transparent polythene bag. Inside the bag was a black-handled kitchen knife, its blood-smeared blade honed to razor sharpness. ‘It was on the floor, by the bed.’
‘You’re saying he had this knife in his hand when the old girl came charging in?’ When Roberts nodded, Frost shook his head. ‘I can’t buy that, Ted. If I was climbing through windows I wouldn’t want a lethal thing like that in my hand . . . I could cut my dick off.’
‘He wouldn’t carry it in his hand when he was climbing. He’d have it in a tool bag.’
‘All right,’ said Frost. ‘I’ll pretend to accept that for the moment. Then what happened?’
‘He stabs her, but she puts up a fight. He drops the knife in the struggle, punches her repeatedly in the face then finishes her off by smashing her skull in with a cosh or something.’
Frost’s finger prodded away at the scar on his cheek as he worried this over. ‘I can’t believe it’s the same bloke who did all the others. He’s never resorted to violence before.’
‘He hasn’t been disturbed before,’ offered Hanlon. ‘His other victims were damn lucky they never heard anything.’ He sniffed and dabbed his nose. ‘I think I’ve got the flu.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ said Frost firmly. ‘We’re too busy. Do we know what’s been taken?’
Jordan stepped forward. ‘Same as all the others. Bits and pieces of of jewellery – Mrs Francis has given me a description – and money. Mrs Francis doesn’t know how much, but says the old lady always kept a fair amount of cash by her – a couple of hundred at least.’
‘I want this bastard,’ said Frost. ‘People who kill for a couple of hundred lousy quid are dangerous.’ He looked at the bed, knocked askew with splodges of blood all over the pillows and sheets. Someone must have heard or seen something. ‘Get as many men as you want from Bill Wells and start knocking on doors.’
‘I’ve already asked. He says he can’t spare anyone until the next shift.’
‘He’s bloody well going to have to. We’re not going to wait for her to die, Arthur, she might sod us about and linger. We’re going to anticipate. This is a murder enquiry as of now. I want a team knocking on doors, I want Forensic, I want someone by the old girl’s bedside night and day in case she can give us a description. If I’ve forgotten anything, I want that as well.’
While Hanlon radioed the station, he ambled over to the open window and looked out on to a small, rain-puddled yard. Below him was the dustbin used by the man to gain entrance. It reminded him of the yard in Jubilee Terrace and the mummified corpse. What a bloody night this had