on about now? ‘Smashing his own window? Scaring the hell out of his own wife?’
‘I just get the feeling there’s something phoney about this.’
‘I don’t share your opinion,’ sniffed Gilmore. ‘And in any case, there was no way it could have been the husband. He was with his wife when the window was smashed.’
‘Then I’m wrong again,’ shrugged Frost.
Downstairs, husband and wife were in close embrace, the shortie nightdress had ridden up to pouting breast level and hands were crawling everywhere.
Frost scooped up the wreath and passed it over to Gilmore. ‘We’ll see ourselves out,’ he called.
They didn’t hear him.
Police Constable Ken Jordan, his greatcoat collar turned up against the damp chill, was waiting for them at the lane at the rear of the sprawling rubbish dump. The lane was little more than a footpath with rain-heavy, waist-high grass flourishing on each side. In the background the night sky glowed a misty orange.
‘Blimey, Jordan, what’s that pong?’ sniffed Frost, inhaling the sour breath of the town’s decaying rubbish. ‘It’s not you, I hope?’
Jordan grinned. He liked working with Frost. ‘Pretty nasty one this time, sir. The body’s a bit of a mess.’
‘I only get the nasty ones,’ said Frost. ‘Let’s take a look at him.’
They followed Jordan, stumbling in the dark, as he led them down the narrow path, the wet grass on each side slapping at their legs. ‘The old lady died, sir – at the hospital. I suppose you know.’
‘Yes,’ said Frost. ‘I know.’
The lane curved. Ahead of them sodium lamps gleamed and flickering flames of something burning bloodied the haze. The tip was perimetered by 9-foot high chain link fencing, giving it the appearance of a wartime German prisoner of war camp.
Behind the wire fence, towering proud through streamers of mist, rose mountains of black plastic rubbish sacks and chugging between them, pushing, scooping and rearranging the landscape, a yellow-painted corporation bulldozer splashed through slime-coated pools of filthy water. As it demolished heaps of rubbish, rats scampered and scurried, their paws making loud scratching sounds on the plastic sacking. The smell was stale and sickly sweet like unwashed, rotting bodies.
Frost wound his scarf around his mouth and nose as he nodded towards the bulldozer. ‘I didn’t know they worked nights.’
‘It’s this flu virus,’ explained Jordan. ‘Half of the work-force are off sick and the rest have to do overtime to keep ahead. It was the bulldozer driver who spotted the body.’
‘Then sod him for a start,’ said Frost.
‘This way, sir.’ Jordan led them off the path, trampling a trail through the lush, sodden grass to where a pasty-faced PC Collier stood uneasily on guard over rusting tin cans and a tarpaulin-covered huddle.
Frost lit up a cigarette and passed around the packet. Everyone took one, even Collier who didn’t usually smoke. Frost looked down at the tarpaulin and prodded it with his foot. ‘I can’t delay the treat any more.’ He nodded to Collier. ‘Let’s have a look at him.’
Collier hesitated and didn’t seem to want to comply.
‘You heard the inspector,’ snapped Gilmore. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Keeping his head turned well away, Collier fumbled for the tarpaulin and pulled it back.
Even Frost had to gasp when he saw the face. The cigarette dropped from his lips on to the chest of the corpse. He bent hurriedly to retrieve it, trying not to look too closely at the face as he did so.
Jordan, who had seen it before, stared straight ahead. Gilmore’s stomach was churning and churning. He bit his lip until it hurt and tried to think of anything but that face. He wasn’t going to show himself up in front of the others.
The body was of an old man in his late seventies. There were no eyes and parts of the face were eaten away with bloodied chunks torn from the cheeks and the lips.
‘The rats have had a go at him,’ said Jordan.
‘I didn’t think they were love bites,’ said Frost. He straightened up. ‘Still, we’re lucky the weather’s cold. Did I ever tell you about that decomposing tramp in the heat-wave?’
‘Yes,’ said Jordan hurriedly. Frost was fond of trotting out that ghastly anecdote.
‘Did I tell you, son?’ said Frost, turning to Gilmore. ‘The hottest bloody summer on record. I can still taste the smell of him.’
‘Yes, you told me,’ lied Gilmore.
The dead man, the exposed flesh yellow in the over-spill of the sodium lamps, lay on his back, lipless mouth agape, staring eyeless into the night sky. He wore an unbuttoned black overcoat, heavy