by Robert Innes
Blake smiled. Fletcher reminded him of Mattison, who had appeared just as nervous and keen to please when Blake had first arrived at the station. “I’d say you’ve got a pretty good eye for observation. It’ll do you well in your career. What’s your first name?”
“Ben, Sir.”
“Trust your instincts, Ben,” Blake said, taking the folder off him. “They’re good. Now, what have you got for me?”
Fletcher looked ready to burst with pride. “I was working through that paperwork, Sir, and I found a list of names that have visited Frost since he was in Strangeways. Well, it’s not much of a list, actually. Just a couple of people, one of them is Tom Partridge as I think you know and the other one…” He passed the list to Blake.
Blake stared at the name in front of him, his mouth falling open. “Oh my God,” he murmered.
“I thought you might want to see,” Fletcher said. “Like I said, sorry to interrupt your interview, but I thought, baring in mind what happened yesterday…”
“You did the right thing,” Blake said, grabbing the folder. His brain was now whirring furiously. Finally, things were starting to piece together. “Ben, do me a favour. Go and take a statement from Nigel Hawthorne, but don’t let him leave yet. I’ve suddenly got a lot more I want to ask him. Give me ten minutes, there’s something I need to check out.”
Blake hurried out of the room and ran back towards the meeting room. Slowly, the maddest of theories was starting to form in his head as to how Frost could have escaped the van, but it was going to take a solid piece of evidence to convince him that it was worth pursuing.
“Harte!” Gresham shouted as soon as Blake had entered the room. “Where the hell is Matthews?”
Blake barely looked up from the computer as he started hammering the keys and the mouse to get him back on to the news website. “Is she not here yet?”
“Well, obviously she’s not here yet, or I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?”
Blake ignored him and clicked onto the same report he had been looking at earlier with the two videos of Frost next door to each other.
He played the first one, of Frost apparently leaving Strangways, before immediately clicking on the second one featuring the van arriving in London, this time not watching Frost at all.
“Oh, you’re clever,” Blake murmered. “Very clever.”
“What are you muttering about now?” Gresham asked him.
Again, Blake said nothing. His heart was hammering in his chest. He clicked on the files on the computer and brought up the video of Frost inside the van before the lights turned off and he had apparently disappeared.
“Oh, I am an idiot,” Blake exclaimed, slapping his forehead. “Of course he didn’t look right, neither did the yard! His hair, oh my God, I’m so stupid! That’s why there’s nothing in between!”
“What are you blabbering about, Harte?” Gresham snapped, looking furious that he was being kept out of whatever Blake had discovered.
Blake sighed and turned the computer screen to face him. “Look at these two videos. One of Frost leaving Manchester, the other showing him not arriving in London. Spot the difference, what can you see?”
Blake played Gresham the videos and watched him as Gresham stared at the screen confused. “Spot the difference? One has Frost in it, the other one doesn’t, what are you talking about?”
“Never mind Frost,” Blake exclaimed. “Look at the van. Look at every part of the van that you can see in both videos.”
Gresham stared at the videos again and waved his hands in the air cluelessly, looking furious. “What am I supposed to be looking at? It’s just an ordinary van!”
“Wrong,” Blake replied, picking up the phone. “It’s two ordinary vans, except one of them isn’t so ordinary.” He threw some paper around on the desk until he found the phone number he was looking for and stabbed it into the keypad. “Theresa Bowen is standing in the way of it most of the time in the first video, but you can just about make it out as it leaves the prison. The two vans have got two different number plates, I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner.”
Gresham’s eyes widened as he watched the videos again. “So, the vans were swapped?”
“No,” Blake said, banging his fist on the table as the dial tone rang in his ear. “There’s only one van. Come on, pick up!”
“What do you mean there’s one van?” Gresham snapped. “You just said there was two, clearly there’s two, why else would there be two different number plates? Clearly, the vans swapped halfway to London or something and the escort team didn’t see it. Oh, heads will roll for this Harte, I tell you now, heads will roll!”
“Ssssh!” Blake hissed as there was finally an answer on the phone. “Hello, my name’s Detective Sergeant Blake Harte. Yes, that one,” he said irritably, rolling his eyes. He was wishing more and more that last night’s interview had never happened. “I wonder if you could put me through to your studio management team, please?” He waved his hand to silence Gresham as he went to question him again. “Yes, that’s right. Yes, certainly, specifically I’d like to know who has had access to the news at ten studio over the past month or so.”
As Blake was getting his reply, the door to the meeting room burst open again and Fox walked in, her face red and her expression deathly serious.
“I want everyone in here immediately,” Fox declared. “You as well, Blake, end that telephone call please.”
Blake frowned as he wrote down what he had been told on the nearest piece of paper. “That’s great, absolutely perfect. Thanks very much.” He hung up the phone and called after Fox as she stormed into Gresham’s office. “Ma’am? What’s the problem?”
“In here,” Fox told him.
Gresham and Blake exchanged confused looks and followed her into the office along with a few other officers who had been in the room.
“Where’s Fletcher?” Fox asked, once the door was closed.
“Taking a statement from Nigel Hawthorne,” Blake replied. “Ma’am, we’ve had a breakthrough. I think we can start putting a picture together of how Frost got out of that van.”
“Never mind that,” Fox replied sharply. “I’ll have to update Fletcher later. We have just been emailed a video, and I’m afraid we’re not the only ones who have been sent it.”
“What do you mean?” Blake asked.
Fox sighed as she tapped on the keyboard of Gresham’s computer. “I’m sorry, Blake. I know how close the two of you are. This isn’t going to be easy for you to watch, but I’ve got to show it to you.”
Blake gaped at her cluelessly. “Close? To who? What have you got to show me?”
Fox turned the computer screen around to face him. An image of Frost stared back at him, beneath the symbol of a play button.
“If there was any doubt that Frost was behind all of this, I’m afraid he’s just proved otherwise.” Fox said quietly. She clicked the video on and leaned back in the chair so that they could all see.
Judging from the quality, Frost was filming the video on a mobile phone, holding it up and walking around wherever he was with a gleeful expression on his pale face, his greasy hair as distinctive as it had always been. Blake’s blood turned to ice as he began speaking. His voice was just as deep and rich as he remembered it from the last time they had spoken nearly two years ago, though his face appeared more gaunt and his eyes as dark and cold as ever.
“Ladies and gentlemen, what a thrill it is to be here with you today. I apologise for the crude method of communication, but sometimes you have to work with what you can get hold of, don’t you? I’ve very kindly had this phone leant to me by a volunteer. I’ll introduce you to her in a moment, but first allow me to properly introduce myself and make my position absolutely clear.”
They watched as Frost continued walking through the room that he was in. It looked dark and Blake had to squint to make out any distinguishing features, but he was sure that it looked familiar.
“To those who don’t know me b
y face, my name is Thomas Frost. I am a serial killer. I don’t expect any of you to really appreciate the scale of what that means. Anybody who has been included in the receiving of this video will have their own views about how I have featured in their lives. Some of you, I refer to the media, would be nothing without me. There was a time when I was the most famous name in the UK, in fact I understand that I even made headlines across the world. Any news reporter, any journalist, anybody whose job it is to deliver tales of hardship and atrocities thrives on the sort of work that I performed nine years ago, and you are kidding yourselves if you believe otherwise. Don’t be mistaken in thinking that you have some sort of noble position in society. Gutter press is a reality. Fake news I believe is the current term, though you must forgive me if I’m not completely au fait with all the phrases. I have been locked up after all.”
Blake glanced at Fox. “He’s sent this to the media?”
Fox nodded. “Every single major newspaper in the country.”
“I digress,” Frost continued. “The point of this video is to deliver a simple message. I now speak directly to Detective Sergeant Blake Harte, and I know he’ll be watching this because he’s as obsessed with me as it’s possible to be. So obsessed in fact, that he believes the feeling is mutual. Somewhat ironic that he paints me as the one with the psychological problems, but there we are. Experience has taught me that hypocrisy is always prevalent in those in power. I’m not obsessed with him, far from it, though I confess that it would seem that fate has thrown us together on more than one occasion, before any of this even started. Do you recognise where I am, Blake?”
Blake’s heart felt like it had stopped as Frost turned the camera away from himself and panned around the room he was standing in.
“Well?” Gresham snapped. “Do you know where he is?”
“Yes,” Blake murmered. “He’s in the house. The old house where I found Julia Watkins.”
“This is where I’ve been hiding,” Frost said, the camera on him again. “In case you don’t remember the location, it was a long time ago after all. I had a rather unfortunate incident as a teenager which involved the death of my grandmother. You were the one that discovered her body, weren’t you, Blake? In this house, on your own street that you grew up in as a child. Just ten years old when you were faced with your first dead body. And what an effect it apparently had on you. Ordinarily, I’d be filled with genuine contrition about that, but then you just kept appearing in my life and all of a sudden, you’ve locked me up and my life as I knew it was over. I think many people would be within their rights to think that I would then have become obsessed with the idea of punishing you. You were the face of the original investigation after all, the white knight, the soldier who brought the enemy to justice. But you weren’t alone, were you, Blake? It was never just you. You had an accomplice, didn’t he, my dear?”
To Blake’s horror, Frost opened a door to the living room of the old house and turned the camera around to face whoever he was talking to, the light from the phone shining in their face.
It was Sally. She was sitting in exactly the same chair that Blake had discovered Julia Watkins in, rope tied tightly around her, a gag in her mouth, her eyes wide with fury and fear.
“Oh my God,” Blake whispered.
“You see, Blake, this has never been about you,” Frost said. “None of it. I’ve seen you more as an annoying fly buzzing around my head, one that I’ve, admittedly, thought of swatting on more than one occasion, but then there was this woman. Sally Ann Matthews. She’s the one I’ve thought about non-stop since my arrest.” Sally struggled against the ropes binding her to the chair, shouting something through the gag in her mouth. Frost ignored her as he turned the camera back to himself. “She was there, standing by your side, acting as though she was anywhere near as important as her male sidekick. Not looking so powerful now, is she? It’s always been about her. The woman who helped you because she was too weak to do it herself.”
He zoomed the camera in so Sally’s face filled the screen. Blake felt the anger boiling inside him as Frost grabbed her face and squeezed her cheeks together.
“I’ve pictured throttling the life out of her many times and I knew that when I was planning to free myself from incarceration that she would be top of my list. And you, Blake, were the person I had to use to bring her straight to me, because everything is about you, isn’t it? All the officers that are currently searching the streets for me, all your bosses, there are thousands of officers on the force, but it was you that had to be the face of saving the day, giving interviews and statements. Telling the public how safe they were, just for your own self-indulgence. You made it too easy. I’m sure it filled you with some sort of purpose thinking that I’ve done all this to get to you, but honestly, it’s never been my interest. It’s all been for Sally.”
He stroked her face with his finger, ignoring Sally flailing in the chair to get away from him. Finally, he stopped toying with her and turned the camera back to himself, his dark eyes glinting madly from the light of the camera, smiling broadly.
“She’s going to die tonight, Blake. I do believe it’s her birthday. That’s got a sort of lovely poetry to it, don’t you think? All I ask is that you come along for the party. I’ve even placed her in exactly the same way you found my dear grandmother, just so you can continue with the fantasy that I care enough about you to keep it all relevant for your benefit. You know the house, Blake. It’s where it all began, but for everyone else, media, journalists, just so Blake can have his moment in the spotlight, it’s thirty-nine Hope Crescent, Manchester. Come one, come all. See you soon.”
And with that, he clicked off the camera and his gleeful face disappeared from the computer screen.
Fifteen
For a few moments, they all remained silent. Blake could feel all their eyes on him, waiting for some sort of reaction, but he felt incapable of movement.
At last, Fox cleared her throat. “Blake, I know this is hard to process but I think I should advise you…”
But Blake never heard what she was going to advise. In a flash, he had thrown the office door open and was storming down the corridor towards the interview room, vaguely aware that he had reached a point where reason was beyond him. He was burning with anger, half at Frost for what he was doing to Sally, the other at his own stupidity as he realised that Frost’s goading words were all true. Deep down, he knew that everything he had done since he had been in Manchester had all been because of the buzz he had gotten from the job. Even when Theresa Bowen had been attempting to shred all his integrity during the interview, Blake had kept himself going by repeatedly telling himself that Frost would be caught and that he would be the one to do it, and Frost had used that to his advantage. Now, Blake’s best friend was in mortal danger and it was all his fault.
Ignoring the cries of his name from Fox and Gresham behind him, Blake almost kicked the door to the interview room open where Fletcher was just getting Hawthorne’s signature on the bottom of his statement.
“Ah, Detective Sergeant,” Hawthorne began as he looked up at Blake and stood up. “About time. I’d like to go home now…”
Before he could say anything else, Blake had grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pushed him against the wall, his eyes wide with fury.
“How did he do it?” Blake roared. “Everything you’ve told me is a lie, so start telling the truth!”
“Blake!” Fox shouted from behind him. “Let him go!”
But Blake was too furious to listen, merely tightening his grip on Hawthorne’s jacket. “I know you helped Frost escape from your prison! And now, he has my best friend and if he hurts her, you are going to regret it!”
“Release me at once!” Hawthorne cried, his words sounding a lot more confident that he looked. He turned desperately to Fox. “Get him off me!”
“Never mind her, talk to me!” Blake yelled. “What was your part in it? I want to know what you did! Tell me!”
“Hart
e!” Gresham yelled. “Let him go, now!”
“It was for Victoria!” Hawthorne cried, his voice cracking with emotion. “They promised me they could help!”
“Blake,” Fox said firmly, placing her hand on his shoulder, “Do you really think Sally would want you to be putting your job at risk like this? You being thrown in a cell isn’t going to help her.”
Somehow, her words cut through Blake’s anger, if anything because Blake was fairly sure Sally would be doing exactly the same thing if the tables were turned and it was he that was Frost’s hostage. Exhaling deeply, Blake forcibly released Hawthorne and walked to the other side of the room, leaning against the wall to calm himself down. “Start talking,” he said. “Who’s Victoria?”
Hawthorne glanced around the room at the officers around him. When he apparently realised that they were waiting for him to answer the question, he sighed heavily. “My wife. Like I told you, she’s unwell.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
Hawthorne sat down, looking up at Blake with sadness in his eyes. “Pancreatic cancer,” he murmered. “That’s why we’re going to Germany. The consultation is to enquire about our options.”
“Options?” Fox asked, her voice softening.
Hawthorne swallowed, clearly in an attempt to stop himself bursting into tears. “At the moment, there’s nothing that can be done for her, not in this country anyway. There’s a place in Germany that might be able to help us, but they’re expensive, very expensive.”
“How much are we talking?” Blake asked.
“Enough to force me into doing something that I didn’t want to do,” Hawthorne replied.
“So you were promised money in exchange for helping Frost escape?” Blake said, nodding. It did not come as a great surprise to him.
“Yes, and before you ask, no. Victoria knows nothing about it. In fact, do you know what she said to me before I left the house this morning? She told me to try and not worry about that wicked man escaping. She said I mustn’t blame myself, how could I possibly be to blame for whatever evil method he used?”