Fatal Frost

by Henry James

  ‘The grass,’ Clarke repeated. ‘Had the manicured ninth hole not been trampled by a squadron of berks in plus-fours, they might possibly have a clue as to how the body arrived there.’

  ‘What on earth are you on about?’ Simms said, his forehead creased, confused.

  Clarke shrugged.

  Frost tried to ignore the dark creases under her puffy eyes. He noticed a whiff of alcohol. ‘Let’s not dwell on what we don’t have,’ he said diplomatically, but added with a glint in his eye, ‘It’s a pity a competent officer wasn’t on the scene.’ How ironic. If Mullett knew remotely what he was doing and thought less about the spectacle, there’d be undisturbed evidence. A clue in the dew. He smiled at his own joke.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Clarke snapped.

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ Frost replied quickly. God, he felt tired. ‘Is there anything Forensics can tell us?’

  ‘It’s likely the body came from the woods, as opposed to being carted across the green.’

  ‘What – he was killed in the woods?’ Frost said, as the phone rang.

  ‘I didn’t say that, did I?’ Clarke rejoined. The more she spoke the more the tension increased palpably. Frost could cut it with a knife. It didn’t help that it was growing late and the week had already seemed long; although in fact it was only Wednesday. The phone continued to ring. ‘The new golf club itself is locked at night, and the perimeter is either chicken wire or a hedgerow. Or Denton Woods.’

  ‘I see.’ Frost felt for his cigarette packet. Empty – the second pack today. ‘Hold on,’ he said and picked up the phone angrily. ‘Yes?’ It was Night Sergeant Johnny Johnson. He had Samantha Ellis’s mother on the phone.

  ‘I’m busy,’ Frost said. He knew he couldn’t delay talking to the mother much longer, but in truth he just hadn’t had the time.

  ‘She says it’s important. It’s to do with Mr Mullett on the television.’

  ‘Tell her I’ll call her back.’ He put the phone down and scribbled ‘Ellis’ on a spare piece of blotting paper. ‘Right, where were we? Access to the golf club.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Clarke sighed. ‘Uniform combed the woods all day today. Found nothing apart from some bivouacs left over from some camp, probably Scouts.’

  ‘Bivouacs?’ asked Waters. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Tents, shelters, made out of fern and bracken. Green shit,’ Simms offered helpfully. ‘You know, Boy Scout stuff.’

  ‘Where are you off to?’ Frost enquired gruffly, seeing Waters reach for his jacket.

  ‘It’s nine o’clock. I’m … going to meet a friend.’

  ‘Blimey, you don’t waste much time. Go on then, bugger off. I want a full report in the morning. Be here by eight; we’re off to the posh girls’ school, St Mary’s. You’ll give them a fright, all right.’

  As Waters left the room, Frost turned back to Clarke. ‘Right, so, bivouacs? So were there kids camped out over the bank holiday weekend?’

  ‘Haven’t had time to get on to it yet,’ Clarke replied, brow creasing.

  ‘What have you been doing all day, then?’ Frost snapped in jest, but before he knew it his remark had released the floodgates. Clarke’s shoulders convulsed as she broke down in sobs in the chair opposite.

  Frost exchanged an awkward look with Simms.

  ‘All right, Derek, son,’ Frost said, suddenly feeling very tired, ‘that’ll do for tonight. Well done. We’d better get down to the woods tomorrow morning – not that I doubt the thoroughness of our colleagues, but just to be sure. Get an Ordnance Survey map and plot the entrances and exits – I doubt uniform will have squared that off. Check out the movements of the Girl Guides and Scouts over the last week and interview those in charge. Take Kim Myles, she strikes me as one who’s no stranger to leaping around the toadstool.’

  DC Simms picked up his leather jacket, nodded goodbye and left quietly.

  ‘Give me a cigarette,’ Clarke muttered, sniffing, her auburn hair hiding her eyes. Frost chucked her an unopened pack.

  ‘What’s up?’ Frost asked reluctantly.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, regaining her composure in an instant. ‘Mullett threatened to suspend me.’

  ‘Did he?’ Frost said, unmoved. ‘He may want to, but he can’t afford to.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know why?’ Clarke said with a sneer. ‘Not that it matters; we were on first-name terms by the time we parted company.’

  ‘I know why,’ he said, topping up his mug with Black Label. ‘You and Kim Myles got rat-arsed then stumbled into Mullett’s TV appearance.’

  ‘Aren’t you in the least bit concerned?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Frost said. ‘Mullett was bad-tempered. When he goes on telly the rule is nothing can stick to him directly; it was, to say the least, a nuisance that he personally stumbled across a body. Nowhere to hide. I wish I’d been there to see him squirm.’

  ‘But I’m talking about why.’ Clarke pulled out a tissue and blew her nose violently.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why I was drunk on duty.’

  ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of, darling, most of us are.’ He smiled.

  ‘Rubbish. You can’t take anything about me seriously. Mullett took it seriously. Getting pissed on duty may be the norm for everyone, but not for me. It’s your fault.’

  ‘My fault? How in blazes is it my fault?’ Frost got up and paced the room, which was starting to feel cold. The heating had been off since the end of April. He stared long and hard at Emily Hardy’s angelic school photo pinned on the board – he hadn’t really looked at it before.

  ‘Let me finish up here,’ he said, reaching for Father Lowe’s pagan book, ‘and I’ll drive you home.’

  ‘It’s all right, Jack,’ Clarke said, regaining her composure a second time. ‘I, too, am going to meet a friend.’

  She stood up and strode out of the office.

  ‘Hook up with Simms and Myles in the morning!’ he called after her. Whether she heard him or not he didn’t know.

  DC Clarke stood trembling with anger, alone in the main CID office. She reached inside her handbag, which lay on her desk, and pulled out a crumpled pack of Silk Cut. On the white section of the packet was a phone number. She hadn’t wanted Frost to see it, but on reflection maybe she should have let him – it would serve him right.

  She lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply, staring out into the darkness through the window. Actually, I’m not angry at all, she thought, I feel terrific; hell, I got stabbed on Monday, so what’s to lose.

  Clarke picked up the receiver and dialled the local four-digit number. The phone rang four, five times before someone answered.

  ‘Danny?’ Clarke felt a tingle of excitement rush through her.

  ‘Knew you’d call,’ said a smooth male voice. ‘Bad afternoon?’

  Alone again and in his own office, Frost picked up A Brief History of the Pagan Calendar, the book Father Lowe had given him earlier in the day. With everybody out of the way he finally felt able to focus clearly.

  He leafed through the pages until he found May. ‘The month of May has been named after the Greek Goddess of Fertility, Maia. Maia is the chief of the Greek Seven Sisters and mother to Hermes, the God of …’

  Boring.

  ‘May is the month of the appearance on Earth of the mother Goddess, or Lady Wicca …’

  He skipped the intro and moved on to the calendar itself.

  May 1, or Mayday, is one of the most important of the eight pagan festivals. The festival of Beltane, the first day of Summer, celebrates the life force in all its incarnations, plant, animal and man, and harmony between one and all. Traditionally, homage to the Sun God takes the form of unbridled sexuality and promiscuity …

  Frost scanned further down. No mention of ripping open teenage boys. It seemed to him the whole thing, thinly veiled in mysticism, was just an excuse to shag anyone you felt like, ostensibly because the sun had come out. He could find nothing on sacrifice, but plenty on maypoles.


  He yawned. He knew he should get over to the in-laws. Just to reassure himself that Mary was safe. He wouldn’t insist she come home, of course. Could something be up – had she rumbled Sue? Would she care, he wondered, not for the first time that day. He glanced at his watch – he could make Rimmington before ten if he put his foot down.

  He closed Hollis’s Pagan Calendar. On the front were three scantily clad women striking peculiar poses. Witches in Denton? No chance.

  As he put the book down he spotted a new manilla file on the desk, headed HARDY, T. He hadn’t noticed it earlier. Inside were the fruits of uniform’s door-to-door this afternoon, an attempt at tracing the boy’s movements before his disappearance was reported.

  Tom Hardy. Date of birth: March 1, 1966. Barely made it past the age of consent, Frost thought. Or had much of a crack at the numerous O levels he was down for; and there were indeed many. He was a bright lad.

  Within the file was his school record. Not missed a day all year. Captain of Denton Comprehensive’s football team, too. His form teacher confirmed he had been in school on the Friday despite the lack of compulsory lessons during exam time.

  The Hardys’ neighbours had stated that they’d seen the boy return home after football practice on Friday afternoon. His parents had already gone away for the bank holiday weekend. After that there were no other local sightings, so no indication of when he next left the house, or what he was wearing. They hadn’t had time to interview his sister, Emily, before her disappearance.

  Frost was struck by the parallel with the Ellis case – hands-off parenting. It seemed that once the kids were on the brink of leaving school, the parents couldn’t wait to shrug off the burden of responsibility. Tom Hardy was just sixteen, so maybe he was old enough to be left on his own for a short while. But his younger sister, at fourteen, was not.

  Frost had had enough for now. He picked up his keys, switching off the desk lamp.

  ‘Thanks for asking me out,’ Waters said, smiling. A couple of beers in the fug of the Eagle had relaxed him nicely, but he knew it was getting late.

  ‘Well, I bet you wouldn’t have got round to it,’ Kim Myles teased, the gin bringing a flush to her cheeks.

  ‘Probably not,’ he admitted. ‘Anyway, I’d better be going. Got my orders for tomorrow morning.’

  Myles looked at her watch. ‘They’ve not rung time yet!’ Her blue eyes flashed at him. ‘All right, you need your beauty sleep. I’ve got to trawl about in the woods tomorrow, apparently – with Derek Simms.’ She gave a look of distaste. ‘But will you walk me home? ’Snot far.’

  ‘No problem,’ Waters agreed.

  ‘Just nipping to the loo. I won’t be a sec.’ The girl hopped up excitedly.

  Waters liked Kim Myles. She was bubbly, lively, flirtatious and undoubtedly dangerous. Why else would she have asked him on a date – a black cop from the Met, and the newest face at Eagle Lane? Each factor on its own was enough to upset those of a sensitive nature; it was bound to go down badly with the average provincial plod. In defiance of which she’d brought him to the firm’s drinking hole. Why? She could only be after trouble. Trying to wind up an ex maybe?

  He scoured the bunch up at the bar. The Eagle was within spitting distance of the Denton nick, at the corner of Eagle Lane and Queen Street, and had an odd mix of clientele: off-duty coppers consorting with obvious villains. Both groups had shot glances of disgust in their direction throughout the evening, as much at the girl as at him. He could handle being the only black face in a sea of white, especially with a cute blonde on his arm – the only problem was, could they?

  ‘Hiya. Ready?’ Kim Myles stood glowing in front of him. No doubt about it, she was a stunner. He smiled – he’d be pissed off too if he was the local whitey clocking him trundling off with this choice bit of stuff. He downed his beer and picked up his cigarettes.

  The clear night sky had induced a temperature drop, reminding them they were only just out of April. Myles took the opportunity to link arms. Waters wasn’t about to resist the warmth of the girl against his denim jacket.

  ‘So what do you make of it – Denton?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s good.’ He smiled broadly in the darkness.

  ‘Care to elaborate?’

  ‘It’s a novel experience. There’s some crazy shit going on. All this talk of witches.’ He half laughed. ‘You know it’s different from what I’m used to.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll bet. But don’t you think they’re a bunch of oddballs? Mullett, Frost – the lot of them?’ she persisted, stopping to light a cigarette. Waters was loath to be drawn into giving opinions on his new colleagues. Myles had spilled the beans on Frost and Clarke; he’d guessed as much but didn’t care, he was more concerned about Mullett hauling the two women over the coals for being pissed when their morning had been spent identifying Tom Hardy’s body.

  ‘They’re all right – good guys.’

  Waters deflected Myles’s questions – which he quickly surmised were a roundabout way of uncovering what he felt about her. Before he knew it, they’d arrived at her block of flats off Queen Street.

  ‘This is me,’ she said, looking up at him, eyes glinting beneath the orange street light. ‘Coffee?’

  He shook his head and was about to say, ‘Better not’, but before he could speak she’d grabbed his jacket and pulled him down. He felt her hot mouth on his. The hardness of her kiss took him by surprise, but she quickly released him.

  ‘Maybe next time,’ she said, making off up the path towards the entrance of her building, swaying slightly and searching her handbag for keys as she did so.

  Waters felt pleased with himself. He’d behaved well and acted gallantly – the only problem being he had no idea where he was. Myles had disappeared inside her block without giving him a chance to ask for directions. Oh well, they hadn’t come that far and he had the number of the police house written down on him somewhere. There’d be a phone box.

  He lit a cigarette and walked back the way he’d come. Perhaps because of the booze, or perhaps because his mind was on the shapely Kim Myles, now presumably undressing, Waters failed to notice his attackers.

  One grabbed him from behind in a headlock, while another kneed him in the groin and pummelled his ribs. He went down on to the concrete; but just before a boot connected with his skull and he lost consciousness, he knew he recognized that aftershave.

  * * *

  ‘She doesn’t want to see you.’ Frost had expected it. Beryl Simpson could give one of Baskin’s bouncers a run for his money.

  ‘Come on, Beryl, don’t be like that,’ Frost pleaded. ‘I’m still her husband.’

  ‘Only when it suits you.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ His patience was wearing thin. ‘I do care, deeply, regardless of what you think. I want her to come home.’

  ‘All you care about is that bloody police force. Come back tomorrow, it’s late.’ Beryl Simpson tried to close the front door, but Frost had slipped his foot inside. The woman sighed heavily and stepped back and Frost found himself in the opulent hallway.

  Frost couldn’t remember the last time he’d entered the Simpson residence. He’d been persona non grata for many years. Precisely which spat had finally barred him from visiting he couldn’t recall – they’d been so many.

  He made a show of wiping his feet, to make himself appear like less of an intruder. The surroundings immediately reminded him of how desperately beneath her station Mary had married: the chandeliers in the grand hall, the Stubbs on the back wall – The Horse was Simpson senior’s pride and joy – the antique furniture. Frost hoped the old boy was at home, he at least could sometimes be an ally, though he was seldom in Rimmington, preferring to linger at his club in London.

  ‘Mary’s in the drawing room.’

  Frost walked slowly behind his mother-in-law across the polished floor. What a snob she is, he thought, despising the pious old sow. She’d always loathed him even before things went wrong; to her eyes he was common –
a scruffy, working-class oik. And he hated her with equal passion – a mother who’d insisted on sending her daughter to board at St Mary’s when the school was less than five miles away.

  Curled up on the enormous milk-white sofa, his diminutive wife was asleep in front of the colour television. He was struck by how placid she looked, almost impossible to reconcile with the saucy little firebrand that made his life hell at home. Even when she fell asleep in front of their own TV, like the other night when he’d got in late, she didn’t look half so peaceful and relaxed. Perhaps I really am the villain of the piece, he thought, and the life I’ve given her has made her turn out the way she has. He took a step forward. Underneath the standard lamp he could see she’d been neglecting herself: her roots were growing through and the perm was now loosening its grip on her red-dyed hair. Her pale skin was almost translucent in the soft glow of the television set. She fidgeted and wrinkled her small snub nose. His heart went out to her.

  ‘She’s all right,’ the mother said quietly behind him. ‘Let her sleep.’

  Frost swallowed. His throat was thick. One thing about Mary, she could look like an angel. Pity it was only when she was asleep.

  Why was she suddenly so tired though? It was unlike her – and the other night too, asleep in the chair. He followed his mother-in-law through to the expansive kitchen which opened on to a conservatory. There were rubber plants and wicker chairs everywhere. He didn’t recall the conservatory from the last time he’d visited. Had it really been that long, or was he just unobservant?

  ‘Drink?’ she offered with a resigned half-smile, holding up a bottle of Scotch.

  ‘Don’t mind if do. Straight,’ Frost said.

  She placed two glasses on the pristine counter. In the harsh light of the artfully placed chrome spotlights Frost took in the red-rimmed eyes and the creases beneath the foundation. Had she been crying? Or maybe she was just tired. In her day, Frost thought, Beryl Simpson would have been a cracker, with the same almond eyes and snub nose as her daughter.

  Reaching out to her as best he could he began to speak. ‘Look …’