DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

Crippen,” called Frost through the letter box. “Come on, open up. You know bloody well who we are. You’ve been giving us the eyeball through the curtains ever since we pulled up.”
    The clanking of chains being unhooked, keys turned and bolts drawn, then the door creaked open. Facing them was a small, wiry old dear wearing a moth-eaten fur coat over a too-long nightdress, the bottom of which was black with dirt where it constantly dragged over the floor. Her ensemble was topped by an ill-fitting, ill-suited brown nylon wig in a Shirley Temple bubble style; it wobbled and threatened to fall off each time she moved her head. Her face was knee-deep in make-up, the cheeks rouged like a clown’s. She was at least seventy years old and possibly much nearer eighty.
    “Tell your mummy the cops are here,” said Frost.
    “Never mind the jokes,” she retorted. “Where was you while I was being robbed?”
    “Paddling in pee down a toilet,” answered Frost. “Can we come in, Lil?”
    She took them into the front downstairs room, a cold, damp little box packed tight with heavily carved, gloomy furniture treacled with dark-oak varnish. In the centre of the room a knock-kneed table sagged under the weight of bundles of ancient newspapers tied with string. A piano, complete with candle holders, cringed sulkily in a corner; it, too, carried more than its fair share of bundled newspapers. The one window was hidden by thick, dusty, velvet curtains, tightly drawn so that passers-by couldn’t get a glimpse of the treasures within.
    Frost thumbed through one of the yellowing newspapers. “Looks as if Mr. Atlee’s going to win the election,” he said. He pushed it away. “Right, Lil, so what happened?”
    “You know what happened, Inspector,” she said, the wig wobbling furiously. “I put it all down in that form. It’s all rotten forms these days. Soon you’ll have to fill up a form to go to the lavatory.”
    “I fill up a bucket myself,” murmured Frost. “My hairy colleague can’t read, Lil, so tell him what happened.”
    She gave Webster a searching look and decided he just might be worthy of her confidence. “You listen, young man, because I’m only saying this once.”
    The day before, she had travelled to Felby, a town some fifteen miles away, to visit her sick sister. She left the house at three, catching the 3.32 train from Denton Station. A few minutes before leaving she had checked that the sovereigns were safe. She was indoors again by ten o’clock that night but, tired out after the journey, went straight to bed.
    “If I’d known my life’s savings had been stolen, I wouldn’t have slept a wink,” she said. “First thing after breakfast I went to the hiding place and I nearly had a seizure on the spot. The tin was empty - all the money I had scraped and saved for, my little nest egg, my burial money - all gone. They should bring back hanging.”
    Poor old girl, thought Webster. “Where did you keep the tin?”
    “In the piano.” She waddled to the corner, removed two piles of newspapers and opened the piano top, then, standing on tiptoe, plunged her hand into the depths. With a twanging of strings, she pulled out a biscuit tin decorated with pictures of King George V and Queen Mary. This she opened, holding it out by the lid to demonstrate its complete emptiness.
    “It’s empty, all right,” agreed Frost. “I’ve never seen a tin more empty. Who else knew where you kept it hidden?”
    “No-one!” she said.
    “The thief knew,” said Frost.
    “Was anything else taken?” asked Webster.
    She wobbled the wig from side to side. “No, thank God. I’ve checked everywhere. Just my seventy-nine golden sovereigns.”
    “What sort of sovereigns, Lil?” asked Frost.
    “They were all Queen Victoria,” she answered. “My old mother, God rest her soul, left them to me on her deathbed.”
    “Would you know them if you saw them again?”
    “I know every mark, every scratch on them. I’d know them as if they were my own children - and I miss them as much as if they were.” She dabbed her eyes and trumpeted loudly into a large handkerchief which looked as if it, too, dated from Queen Victoria’s time - and hadn’t been washed since. The wig slipped down over one eye.
    “And the tin was put back again in the piano?”
    She nodded.
    Frost prodded his scar. The same old pattern, a quick in-and-out job, but this time the thief knew exactly what he was after and where to find it. So how