Fatal Frost

by Henry James

  He looked nervously out through the plate-glass of his office into the open-plan area beyond. The girls were going about their business, placing new listings in the window, but they knew something was up; he knew they knew. He shouldn’t have cancelled that viewing at Two Bridges. Keep things looking normal no matter what, that was the answer. He looked down at the list of clients: Mullett, 3 Wessex Crescent. The name was familiar, but he couldn’t think why.

  Those kids – those little bastards who grabbed his case – got more than they could ever have bargained for, more than an empty sandwich box and a copy of the Denton Echo, which is what he’d told the police the case contained. Suppose they handed themselves in, terrified they’d robbed a villain? No, they’d lie low, realizing they’d been lucky. Which was more than could be said for him. It was unheard of, daylight robbery in a nice part of Denton, where respectable, well-to-do people lived. People who murdered chimney sweeps.

  The phone rang, and he could see Vicky through the glass mouthing something at him. As well as cancelling the viewing, he’d said he didn’t want to be disturbed because of bad toothache. He cringed at how lame it sounded. He gestured to Vicky to put the call through.

  He sat in silence for what seemed like eternity, waiting for the caller to speak, expecting the police again.

  ‘Christopher?’ It was Fiona, his wife. ‘Christopher, are you there, darling?’

  ‘Yes, darling, I’m here. What is it?’ he snapped. He was relieved it was only his wife but irritated with her for disturbing him at the same time.

  ‘Darling, you know when that chappie was working on the chimney on Tuesday, did he say there was a problem?’ Everett sat looking intently at the surface of the fake-wood desk. ‘Darling? I can still hear cooing. Did you hear me? The pigeon, darling, I can still hear it cooing.’

  Waters ejected Frost’s jazz cassette and rooted around in the glove box for something more current. He could have brought something from the Vauxhall, but he had other things on his mind.

  As well as a slight hangover he was still dazed from the attack last night. He knew he’d made a mistake going to that pub with Myles. A police pub with a very cute female police officer; how dumb was that? He’d let his guard down; he’d been lulled by Denton’s simplicity and Myles’s carefree confidence. Yes, just for a brief moment he’d started to enjoy life – more fool him. He felt OK in himself, but it was the slashed tyres on the Vauxhall that really hurt. He loved that car.

  12 Gold Bars by Status Quo. It would have to do. He slipped the cassette in, and wound down the window too to get rid of the unpleasant smell. He’d not been in Frost’s Cortina before, having driven the Vauxhall yesterday. Whatever it was, the smell was pretty pungent, and even the volume of cigarettes that was clearly smoked inside the car – the velour roof was stained yellow – was unable to mask it. Could be anything in this motor, he thought; the footwell was full of discarded fast-food cartons. Jesus, something could be living in there. Waters reached under the seat to adjust the leg room, nudging a sizeable Jiffy bag out of the way as he did so.

  ‘What the bleedin’ hell is this?’ Frost spluttered as he climbed back in after stopping to buy some cigarettes. ‘Heavy Metal?’

  ‘Chill your boots,’ Waters said. ‘It’s just music.’

  ‘Bit loud!’

  ‘I found it in your glove box.’

  ‘Must be Arthur’s,’ Frost said, his glance briefly taking in Waters’ black eye. ‘Got a bit of rhythm this, actually. The jazz didn’t really do it for me, I must admit. The tape was my mother’s. More curious to know what she listened to as much as anything …’

  To Waters’ surprise Frost had failed to remark on his bruised face when he’d picked him up from Eagle Lane twenty minutes ago. Mullett had ignored it too, but that was less of a surprise; with Frost he felt he’d built up some kind of rapport. Up to now he’d found him chatty and jolly; today he was subdued and uncommunicative. Waters doubted he was the sort to be troubled by a murder scene – the sweep’s was the third dead body Frost had seen this week alone – but he didn’t feel he knew him well enough to ask if there was anything troubling him.

  So he’d changed the music in the hope of sparking off a conversation. But after the surprise mention of his mother, Frost had become sullen and lost in thought again.

  They were now on the way to St Mary’s, to check the background of Emily Hardy, Tom’s sister, who was still missing. Uniform had been all over the school yesterday, but Frost was determined to see the headmistress for himself. Apparently they’d crossed swords before. No surprise there, thought Waters; everywhere in Denton he seemed to be a well-known character.

  They drew to a halt at the end of the sweeping drive. The school was by far the strangest place Waters had come across since arriving in the area. A musty old Victorian edifice, the like of which he’d seen only in black and white films.

  Girls stopped to stare wide-eyed as the incongruous figure of DS Waters – over six feet tall, chestnut skin, bruised and swollen face – stepped over the stone threshold.

  ‘Boo!’ he said, grinning at a gaggle of girls who were loitering in the polished hallway. They burst into giggles and ran off.

  ‘Told you you’d go down a treat here. The headmistress may take a shine to you – but watch it, she’s into taxidermy. Before you know it, you’ll be stuffed and mounted as a curiosity.’

  The ancient school porter showed them into Sidley’s study. She was staring out of the window, smoking a cigarette, and as they entered she turned. Dressed from head to toe in black, she struck a tall, elegant, slightly Gothic figure. A teased mane of mulberry-coloured hair framed an angular face of the type that would sooner raise an eyebrow than a smile.

  ‘Sergeant Frost,’ she said, ‘it’s been a while.’ She failed to acknowledge Waters. He shrugged off the slight and instead took in the peculiar array of stuffed objects – an owl, a raven – placed around the bookcase-lined office.

  ‘Yes,’ Frost was saying. ‘I considered applying for the PE instructor vacancy but I wasn’t sure I had the physique for it.’

  ‘Well, don’t hold your breath,’ she answered curtly. ‘I assume you’re here about this?’ She was indicating the copy of the Denton Echo on the enormous, empty oak desk.

  Frost picked up the paper and read the headline: Teenage Boy Found Mutilated by Golfing Chief of Police. Ha – Mullett would love that. So much for the press conference. ‘Yes, it’s about the lad’s sister, Emily, a pupil of yours. Must keep a better grip on your girls – they’re forever going astray.’ He tutted.

  ‘Yes, your uniformed colleagues were here yesterday – quite a few of them. Very upsetting for the girls.’

  ‘Of course,’ Frost said gently. ‘They can be a bit heavy-handed at times. In fact, that’s part of the reason I’m here … and of course to see you again, Miss Sidley.’

  Waters was taken aback. Was Frost flirting with the old dragon? An ageing Morticia Addams who surrounded herself with stuffed carcasses?

  ‘Yes,’ Frost continued. ‘There seems to be some confusion among my colleagues regarding the time young Emily disappeared. As I’m sure you understand, it’s crucial to our inquiry to know whether she went missing before or after learning of her brother’s death.’

  ‘She was here first thing for assembly and when the register was called in the morning, but she did not attend afternoon lessons.’

  ‘Did nobody notice her absence?’

  ‘She was going to the afternoon hockey match, so anyone who knew that would not have thought it odd that she wasn’t in school.’

  ‘So she was at the hockey match?’ concluded Waters.

  ‘Well … no,’ said Sidley, wringing her pale hands. On one finger she wore an oversized ring in which the stone had been fashioned to look like an eye. ‘Originally we reported she’d gone to hockey, but upon enquiring further we discovered she wasn’t in fact with the hockey group.’

  Waters raised an eyebrow. ‘Is it normal to have quite
such a relaxed approach to your pupils’ whereabouts?’

  ‘Well, Detective …?’

  ‘Waters.’

  ‘Waters. We do keep as close a check on our pupils as the regular school day allows, giving due consideration to the age of the girls. After all, these are not infants. Some are mere months away from adulthood.’

  ‘Legally perhaps,’ Waters said, earning himself a withering look of disdain from Sidley.

  ‘But in any case, a pupil’s response to discovering that her brother has been found mutilated on a golf course isn’t something we could feasibly foresee, now is it?’

  Hard-hearted cow, thought Waters. He was about to express his surprise that someone who worked among young people wasn’t more visibly distressed by recent events, but luckily Frost intervened.

  ‘If Emily went missing in the early afternoon, she wouldn’t have known Tom was dead. Her parents hadn’t told her yet. All she knew was that he’d disappeared. His parents reported him missing on Tuesday morning, but our Forensics people think he was killed at the weekend – keep that to yourself, that’s not been reported in the press.’

  ‘So, in other words,’ summarized Waters, ‘when she came to school on Wednesday, all Emily knew was her brother had been missing for several days.’

  ‘Miss Sidley,’ Frost continued, ‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that teenage girls run off all the time, often for the oddest reasons, but in this case we’re terribly concerned, and that’s nothing to the anguish her parents are going through. We don’t yet know how Emily’s disappearance is connected to her brother’s. It’s possible she just got scared. Or perhaps there’s something deeper at the heart of it. Anything you could tell us might be of help.’

  Sidley reached for another cigarette and slowly fixed it into an ivory holder. ‘You might want to talk to her friends. She’s particularly close to two of the girls here, I understand. On Wednesdays, instead of going home to Denton, Emily always goes to Two Bridges. I believe she attends Girl Guides with her two friends who live there.’

  ‘I see,’ said Frost. ‘That’s interesting. We interviewed a couple of girls from Two Bridges in connection with another case – the girl found dead beside the train track on Monday morning.’

  ‘My girls? Which ones?’ Sidley asked, concerned. ‘Wasn’t the girl on the train from Denton Comprehensive?’

  Frost was surprised to hear that she was unaware of their enquiries, given that Simms had called the school to verify whether the Two Bridges girls attended St Mary’s. Of course, a secretary would have taken the call, but for the head to be left unaware that the police were asking questions seemed lax. This interview had revealed an unexpected number of holes in St Mary’s procedures, and the head was looking more and more uncomfortable.

  ‘Sarah Ferguson and Gail Burleigh,’ replied Frost. ‘We’re appealing for witnesses. We thought they may have seen the Ellis girl, or even known her.’

  Sidley stubbed out her cigarette while processing this information. ‘Well,’ she finally said, ‘I’ve heard nothing in school about this, and couldn’t comment on what or who the girls have seen. But I can tell you that they both know Emily Hardy. They’re the girls she went to Guides with.’

  Thursday (3)

  ‘BLOODY FRENCH!’ ONE uniformed officer snapped. Wells didn’t catch who said it, as he put down the phone. It had been ringing constantly all morning – either Hartley-Jones again for the super, or the super’s wife, or the flipping press. A bunch of uniform had gathered in the lobby and were noisily debating the latest news from the South Atlantic that had just broken.

  ‘You can’t say that – we’ve got the same bleedin’ missiles!’ bellowed PC Jordan. The British destroyer HMS Sheffield had been hit by an Exocet missile. The Defence Secretary, John Nott, had addressed the House of Commons late last night, and it was all over the wireless this morning.

  ‘Yeah, but the Frogs gave the Argies the planes, too.’

  ‘What? Like they just gave them away? Don’t think so, mate …’

  The phone went again, and Wells waved at the officers to keep it down. ‘Denton Police.’

  ‘Detective Frost, please,’ said a voice Wells recognized.

  ‘He’s out, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It’s Harding from Forensics. We’re at Kenneth Smith’s house.’ The sweep, of course. They’d located his address straightaway since Denton had only two chimney sweeps and both were listed in the Yellow Pages. ‘Tell Frost we’ve found no clues to Smith’s movements leading up to the crime, either here or in the van. He’s a bachelor, which doesn’t really help us, and we can’t find an appointment book. Could you be so kind as to let him know?’

  ‘Looks like we’ll be visiting our young lady friends in Two Bridges again,’ Frost said. ‘First we’d better stop off at the lab to see what Drysdale’s found out about the murdered sweep.’

  Frost clumsily reversed the Cortina, narrowly missing an ancient-looking stone lion in the forecourt of St Mary’s. The heatwave had returned with a vengeance, and the car’s vinyl seats were like hot coals.

  ‘So what are these Girl Guides?’ Waters asked, winding down his window urgently.

  ‘You know, big Brownies,’ Frost said.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Little girls who do good deeds in brown uniforms – the female version of Boy Scouts. You know, bob-a-job week, and all that.’

  ‘Sure, I know what Boy Scouts are, the ones who made those tents out of leaves in the woods that Clarke mentioned yesterday.’

  ‘The very same. Perhaps Brownies and Guides are more of a provincial thing,’ Frost mused, pulling out on to the main road.

  ‘These Girl Scouts camp too?’

  ‘I would guess so – though not in the same tent. Why?’

  ‘On Tuesday, when Simms and I went round to see Gail Burleigh, her snooty old dear was spouting on about how her Gail was one of these Guides. The girl was really embarrassed about it.’

  ‘What? And neither of you said anything about it last night?’

  ‘Didn’t think much of it – the girl was so dismissive. We were more concerned with what she was up to on Saturday. Now I think of it, her mother did mention something about camping.’

  ‘Simms is a clueless dork. He really should have told me this. Good lad in the field, but when it comes to engaging the old grey matter he’s next to useless.’ Frost sighed. ‘Though it’s probably nothing. Just because the golf course is next to the woods it doesn’t definitely follow that the kid was in there. He was just as likely dropped off by a golf buggy. Still, Simms better have a list of all those kids who were in Denton Woods by the time we get back to Eagle Lane … if we ever do get back. Bloody farmers.’

  In front of them a tractor was towing a trailer full of pigs. The farmyard smell wafted in through the open Cortina windows. Aah, the English countryside, thought Waters, but as he sank back in the passenger seat his ribs twitched, causing him to grimace.

  ‘I guess the Scouts might have seen something,’ Waters reasoned, ‘but you don’t honestly think it was them who sliced the kid open, do you?’

  ‘Why am I driving?’ Frost asked, annoyed, ignoring his question. Turning, he said, ‘Was it the same people who vandalized your car who vandalized your face?’

  ‘I dunno,’ he said, staring out across the fields.

  ‘What’s the damage, anyway?’

  ‘Couple of tyres slashed,’ Waters replied. ‘Don’t worry, it should be sorted by this afternoon.’

  ‘Coppers, was it?’

  Waters didn’t know what to make of Frost’s direct, offhand approach. Perhaps it hid an underlying concern? He wasn’t too sure. ‘It’s possible, I guess.’

  ‘You guess or you know?’

  ‘OK, well, I caught a whiff of aftershave as I hit the deck – Brut, I think – and it was certainly familiar.’ Waters turned and looked at Frost’s sweaty profile. ‘I wouldn’t wish to levy accusations without being one hundred per cent certain, but on the other
hand …’ The fact that Frank Miller’s green bottle was there taunting him under the shaving mirror at Fenwick Street, and that every morning Miller drenched himself in the stuff, he chose to keep to himself.

  ‘On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine who else you might have upset in such a short space of time,’ Frost finished the sentence for him. ‘Christ, that bloody truck stinks to high heaven!’

  ‘Surprised you can tell, given the pong in this motor,’ Waters couldn’t help but say. ‘Could do with a dose of Brut in here.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, son? Are you saying my vehicle has odour issues?’ Frost retorted.

  ‘As it happens, I am,’ Waters said.

  ‘And there’s me thinking you’d let rip.’ Frost smiled. ‘Only joking. There’s not a Jiffy bag down there somewhere, by any chance?’

  ‘Yep, there’s a package.’ Waters reached down and picked up the Jiffy bag, giving it a squeeze.

  ‘Forgot about that. It’s a cat for DC Simms.’

  Waters froze before chucking the thing to the floor.

  ‘Dead one,’ Frost added, as if there could be any doubt. ‘I guess the hot weather hasn’t done it much good. I thought the car was a bit ripe this morning myself, in an unkebab-like way.’

  ‘Ditch it, for Christ’s sake!’ Waters said, aghast.

  ‘Nah, you keep hold of it, son, young Derek will be eternally grateful to you this afternoon. It belongs to one of Hornrim Harry’s mates, the one who was turned over last weekend. Be hell to pay if we don’t hand it back.’

  ‘And there won’t be if we hand it back like this?’

  ‘Good point. Maybe shove it in the fridge – take the edge of it.’ Frost grinned. ‘After all, that’s where it was found.’

  * * *

  ‘Right, here we are, right back where we started,’ Simms said with a hollow laugh. He had the OS map spread out on the car’s bonnet, which was parked at the bottom of a cul-de-sac beside the overgrown entrance to Denton Woods. He and Clarke had set off from here once already, wasting ten minutes traipsing along the path before discovering, when it broke off in three different directions, that they’d forgotten the OS map.