‘There’s nowhere comfortable in this bloody shithouse,’ said the girl.
‘You don’t have to live here,’ Hoskins snarled at her. ‘You can pack your carrier bag and go whenever you like.’ He nodded towards the far door. ‘In there.’
The room housed a settee that doubled as a bed, a hi-fi unit with two shaking, throbbing speakers spewing out heavy metal, a black and white television set and a motor bike which was leaking oil on to bare floorboards.
Frost kicked at the hi-fi flex, yanking the plug from the power point. The music died abruptly and the resulting silence took some adjusting to. He opened the window to the garden and yelled for Jordan and the other uniformed man to come in. ‘Search this place from top to bottom. Bag all clothing for forensic examination.’
‘Have you got a warrant?’ demanded the girl.
Frost smiled sweetly. ‘I don’t understand these technical terms, love.’ He found himself a chair, shook off the dubious pair of underpants it contained and sat down. He pointed to the settee, indicating they too should sit. With an energetic shove the WPC helped them comply.
Frost drew on his cigarette. Their heads moved simultaneously, watching his every move like a rabbit watching a snake. Smoke dribbled from his nostrils. He fanned it away. ‘My colleague thinks you might be able to help him with his enquiries.’ He nodded for Gilmore to take over.
Gilmore stared at each of them in turn, holding their gaze and forcing them to break away. ‘You know why we’re here.’
‘I’ve got no bleeding idea,’ snapped the man. ‘You come bursting in here with that bloody lesbian . . .’
‘A woman’s been murdered next door and you don’t know why we’re here.’ Gilmore thrust his face to within an inch of Hoskins ‘Why did you knife her? A poor old lady who never did anyone any harm.’
‘Don’t give me that innocent crap. You’ve used a knife before.’
‘Only in self-defence.’
‘This was in self-defence,’ snapped Gilmore. ‘She caught you robbing her house. She would have gone to the police. So, in self-defence, she had to be silenced.’
‘Oh, marvellous,’ sneered the girl. ‘The police are bleeding baffled so they arrest the poor sod next door just because he’s got a police record.’
‘Not just because he’s got a police record, love,’ said Frost. ‘It’s because the poor sod next door left his fingerprints all over the murdered woman’s bedroom.’
The girl’s head snapped round to Hoskins. ‘You stupid bastard! You never told me you touched anything.’
‘That’s right, you mouthy cow!’ snarled Hoskins. ‘Sign my bleeding death warrant!’
Gilmore gave a yell of triumph. ‘Caution them,’ said Frost, ‘and take them down to the station.’ He went out to see how the search for the knife and for bloodstained clothing was getting on. The bedroom was a pigsty. Jordan and WPC Ridley were stuffing unwashed clothing into a black plastic dustbin sack, the same type of sack Paula Bartlett’s body was found in.
‘Nothing yet,’ Jordan told him. Frost nodded glumly. Outside through the window, he could see two police officers sifting through the contents of the dustbin. Something told him that this wasn’t going to be as easy as Gilmore seemed to think.
The interview room was cold. The heating engineers had managed to restore heat to the basement cells, but wouldn’t get round to this floor until the morning. So it was cold. But Hoskins was sweating. The girl, now wearing a thick sweater, sat by his side. Gilmore had wanted the pair questioned separately, but Frost favoured having them together.
Gilmore switched on the tape recorder, announced the details of the time and who was present, then dragged a chair across and sat facing them.
‘I want to make a statement,’ said Hoskins.
‘You’re on the air, so go ahead.’
‘I never touched her. Like I told the other cop, the old girl knocked at our door moaning that someone had got into her house with the spare key, but when I looked, the key was there all the time, so I left her to it. After a while, I got worried about her, so I went back and knocked, but got no answer. I thought I’d better check, just in case, so I used her spare key from under the mat to get in. I called, “Are you all right, Mrs Haynes?” Dead silence. Funny, I thought. I called again. Nothing. So I nipped upstairs just to make sure she’s all right and, Christ! There she