A Killing Frost

by R D Wingfield

  “His five-year-old son died in Denton Hospital,” said Frost. “He doted on the kid and cracked up. He blamed the hospital and the nurses for the kid’s death.” He rubbed his aching wrist. “I almost feel sorry for the poor sod.”

  Drysdale stared at Frost. “You amaze me, Inspector.”

  As soon as the pathologist had left, Frost tore off the green mortuary gown and hurried out to his car. He was thankful that Drysdale was satisfied they had recovered all the body parts and didn’t want the shop searched again for a navel or an ear-hole or something equally obscure. Blood samples and maggots had been sent off to the appropriate experts, but he didn’t give a sod about the result. Wherever and whenever she had been killed, the poor cow was dead and they had the killer, and if it didn’t come to trial there would be a hell of a lot less paperwork.

  Back in his office, a memo from Mullett glowered at him from his in-tray. Mullett was concerned at the amount of manpower being used in the search for the missing teenager, Jan O’Brien. When, he asked, would the officers involved be able to return to their normal duties?

  ‘As soon as possible,’ scrawled Frost across the neatly typed memo, which he winged across to his out-tray. Bloody hell. There was no flaming peace in this job. Wouldn’t it be lovely if a couple of days went by without bodies turning up, girls going missing and bastards blackmailing the supermarket? How was he going to get through everything he had to do with Hornrim Harry screaming about costs and missing paperwork, and half the force out of Denton on special duties?

  His phone buzzed. “Mullett wants to see you now,” said Bill Wells.

  “Tell him I’m out,” said Frost, grabbing his mac and making for his car.

  He drove around aimlessly, his head was still throbbing and his flaming wrist was hurting like hell, and he was getting sleepy. He passed the turning leading to the butcher’s, and wondered who Wells had given the lousy job of standing on guard outside—or inside, if they had a strong stomach. It was cold, windy and raining and he pitied whichever poor sod had drawn the short straw.

  The poor sod in question was WPC Kate Holby, who was huddled up in the shop doorway sheltering from the driving rain. She quickly sprang to attention as Frost’s car drew up.

  “All right, love,” called Frost, turning up his mac collar as he joined her in the doorway. “You don’t have to impress me, I’m nobody. Sold much meat?”

  She grinned. For a while they silently watched the rain drumming on the pavement and gurgling down the drain. “You’re looking a lot happier now, love,” said Frost. “Settling in, are you?”

  “It’s been a lot better these last few days,” she said.

  “That’s because Skinner’s not here, isn’t it?”

  She said nothing.

  “Look, love. Our mutual friend Skinner is kicking me out to Lexton in a couple of weeks. You really should come with me. You could easily get a transfer. I might be able to get you into CID.” The thought of the kid stuck with Skinner and no one to stick up for her was something he didn’t like to contemplate.

  She shook her head. “I’m not letting him drive me out. I’m not running away.”

  “If you don’t stand a chance of winning, it’s often better to run,” said Frost. “I’d run away from the bastard if I were you. Your time will come. You’re bloody good, love, like your dad. You’ll zoom up the ranks. You might even be Skinner’s boss one day, then you can pay the bastard back.”

  “He’s not forcing me out,” she said stubbornly.

  Frost shrugged. “Fair enough. But if you ever change your mind . . .” He looked out into the rain again and noticed Lewis’s car was still parked outside. It should have been taken back to the station. Something else he had forgotten about. “Why aren’t you waiting inside, out of the rain?” he asked.

  “I haven’t got the key,” she told him.

  “Didn’t the bastards let you have the key—” began Frost, stopping suddenly as he realised the key was in his pocket. He was about to hand it over, but dropped it back into his pocket again.

  “Hell, why are we guarding this place? The autopsy’s over, no bits are missing and if anyone wants to break in and pinch any of that meat, they’re welcome. Hop in my car, I’ll drive you back to the station, then I’m off home to get my head down for a couple of hours.”

  As he slowed down and waited for the traffic lights to change, he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her face was reflecting the red glow of the stop signal . . . red like the dress his wife wore that Christmas. God, the kid was a cracker. A stubborn little cow, but a cracker. She reminded him of his wife when she was that age.

  The lights turned green and the car jerked forward. You’re getting to be a bleeding maudlin old sod, he told himself.

  15

  Detective Inspector Jack Frost walked into his office to find DS Arthur Hanlon on a chair doing something to the overhead light.

  “Don’t jump, Arthur—think of your wife and kids. Why make them happy?”

  Hanlon clambered down to put a blown light bulb on the desk. “I’ve changed the bulb. You couldn’t do it with your poor hand.”

  Frost grunted his thanks. “If anyone says you’re not a little sweetie, Arthur, send them to me. Now piss off. I’ve got to get my head down for a couple of hours, otherwise I’ll be even more bleeding useless than usual.” He riffled through his in-tray: all the usual junk from Mullett—memos marked ‘Urgent’ with lots of under linings in red ink. They could wait.

  Hanlon grinned. “Manchester CID have been on the blower, Jack. They want to know what progress we’ve made with the murdered girl.”

  “Flaming heck,” snorted Frost. “We’ve got enough on our plate with our own unsolved murders without trying to solve theirs.” He plonked down in his chair, dragged the Emily Roberts file from his in-tray and flipped through it. “It suits them to work on the theory that the girl was picked up in Manchester and brought down here to be killed. Skinner wants her to have been killed in Manchester and the body dumped down here, so it’s Manchester’s pigeon. Between you and me, I’m inclined to go along with Manchester CID’s version. If she was killed there, why dump her here?”

  “They say you asked if she had done any modelling, or wanted to be a model. They can’t turn anything up that would support this.”

  “I was trying to tie her killing in with Debbie Clark. Both bodies on an embankment, both naked. And they both went to the same school in Denton, did you know that?”

  Hanlon shook his head. “So what am I going to tell them, Jack?”

  Frost worried away at his scar, deep in thought. “We’ve got sod all to go on, Arthur. A dumped body, that’s all.” He rested his chin on his palm and chewed his little finger. “If the killer came from Denton, why would he go to Manchester to pick up a girl? There’s plenty of girls in Denton.”

  Hanlon shrugged.

  Frost held up a finger as a thought struck him. “Try this out for size, Arthur, as the bishop said to the actress—the killer was going to Manchester anyway. When he was there, he saw his chance and took it.” He leant back in his chair. “And I’ll tell you something else, Arthur. If you were driving from Denton to Manchester you wouldn’t want to go there and back in the same day. You’d stay overnight in a hotel or a B&B, and when you stay somewhere you’ve got to register—give your name and address. Hotels are required by law to keep the records for six months or so—I can’t remember exactly how long. Get Manchester CID to check it out, see if anyone from Denton stayed in the area overnight the day the girl went missing. If we can find the name of anyone who worked for that modelling agency or worked in the office block, then bingo, two dicky birds with one stone.”

  “There’s a hell of a lot of hotels and B&Bs in Manchester, Jack. They won’t be too pleased.”

  “We’re not in the business of pleasing them. They know the area where she went missing. They can start from there. If they have more luck than I usually do, it could be the first one they try.”
<
br />   “Supposing he registered under a false name and address?”

  “Many of these places ask for car registration numbers—we could trace him through that. And the odds are he paid by credit card, so he’d have to give his proper name. Do what I say, Arthur, there’s a good boy. Get on to Manchester. It’ll keep them off our backs for a while.”

  As Hanlon left, Frost’s phone rang. It was Marcus from the Crown Prosecution Service. “We’re taking Graham Fielding to court on Wednesday, Inspector. We understand his solicitor is going to ask for bail.”

  “Bail? On a murder charge? He won’t stand a chance.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. The courts sometimes use their discretion. The crime happened a long time ago.”

  “That doesn’t make the poor cow he killed any less dead, does it?”

  “I suppose not,” said Marcus grudgingly. “Do we oppose bail?”

  “Of course we bleeding well oppose it,” said Frost. “Who’s our lawyer?”

  “Mr. Jefferson.”

  “That useless prat! Well let’s hope he doesn’t sod this one up like he did the last one.” He slammed the phone down and was reaching for his mac when Bill Wells came in.

  “Whatever it is, Bill, it will have to wait. I’m off home for a couple of hours.”

  “Just received this package,” said Wells, dumping it on the desk. It measured about nine inches by five inches and was wrapped in brown paper and neatly sellotaped.

  Frost picked it up and examined it. The typed label was addressed to: THE OFFICER IN CHARGE, DENTON POLICE STATION, DENTON

  He looked up at Wells. “So? Why haven’t you opened it?”

  “I don’t like the look of it. It could be a bomb.”

  Frost stared at him. “Why should it be a bleeding bomb?”

  “It’s the same size as that package Flintwell division had the other week. That was a bomb.”

  “It wasn’t a flaming bomb,” said Frost. “It was a hoax . . . it was full of talcum powder.”

  “This may not be a hoax.”

  “Then call the flaming bomb squad, or give it to Mullett. Let him lay his life down for his men.”

  Wells hesitated, still trying to get Frost to take the package.

  “Oh, give it here.” Frost snatched it from the sergeant, grabbed a paper knife and slit the sealed ends. “Stand by for the explosion.”

  Wells stepped back warily.

  Frost held it down with his elbow and tore off the wrapping with his good hand. “Bloody hell!” he cried. There was a shattering bang and bits of broken glass everywhere. Wells flung himself down on the ground.

  “Sorry,” said Frost. “I must have accidentally knocked that dud light bulb on the floor.”

  A glowering Wells stood up, brushing pieces of broken light bulb from his uniform. “You bastard, Jack. You did that on purpose.”

  “That’s either slander or libel,” said Frost. “If I knew which it was I’d sue you.” He stripped the brown paper away. Inside was a video cassette. There was no covering note. He slid the package over to Wells. “Get someone to play it. If there’s anything I should see, let me know when I get back. If it blows up and kills someone, tell them I’m sorry.”

  “Very funny,” sniffed Wells.

  There was no way he was going to get the sleep he so desperately craved. As he turned the key in the lock, he could already hear his phone ringing. It was Bill Wells.

  “What the hell is it now?” snarled Frost.

  “You switched your mobile off.”

  “I know. Stupid bastards keep trying to phone me. So what is it?”

  “That video, Jack. You’ve got to see it.”

  “What’s on it?”

  “I think you’d better see it for yourself, Jack.”

  “All right, I’ll see it when I get back. Now let me get some sleep.”

  “Now, Jack. You’ve got to see it now.”

  Frost frowned. “I’m dead on my flaming feet, Bill. This isn’t a leg-pull, is it? Are you paying me back for the light bulb?”

  “It’s not a leg-pull, Jack, I wish it was. I’m deadly serious.” He sounded it.

  “All right,” sighed Frost. “I’m on my way.”

  Mullett waylaid him as he hurried down the corridor. He’d checked Frost’s in-tray and found all his memos untouched.

  “My office, now, Frost.”

  “Right away, Super,” said Frost on autopilot. He didn’t follow Mullett. He branched off into the Incident Room, where DS Hanlon, Wells and PC Collier were waiting for him. They all looked shaken and grim-faced.

  Frost stuck a cigarette in his mouth and sat himself down in the chair facing the monitor.

  “The tape’s loaded, Inspector,” Collier told him. “Just press Play.”

  Frost pressed Play.

  Black-and-white flashes zipped across the screen, then a juddering picture of two people appeared, too fuzzy to make out, then the picture steadied. Something black moved from side to side—a black cloth covering something.

  Frost fiddled with the volume control. “What’s happened to the sound?”

  “There’s no sound, Jack,” said Wells. “Just watch.”

  The video camera zoomed back. The black cloth was a hood, completely covering someone’s head. It was shaking violently from side to side.

  A hand snatched at the hood and pulled it off. A close-up of a pair of tear-stained eyes blinking at the light. The head twisted away from the camera. A blur as a hand passed in front of the face and jerked it back to face the camera, holding it firmly so it couldn’t move. The camera zoomed back further. A young girl, terrified and crying.

  The cigarette dropped from Frost’s mouth. He stared in horrified disbelief. “Good God . . .”

  It was the tortured, pleading, crying face of Debbie Clark.

  The picture blacked out. White snow shivered across the black screen.

  Frost was still staring, frozen to his chair, open-mouthed. He went to switch off and rewind the tape. A restraining hand stopped him.

  “There’s more to come, Jack,” said Wells gently.

  The snow juddered, then cleared to reveal a quivering picture of Debbie Clark’s face.

  Whoever was holding the camera was shaking violently. The picture steadied. The girl’s head and bare shoulders filled the screen, Frost could just make out the dark shape of someone standing behind her. Debbie moved her head to one side. Hands grabbed her hair and roughly jerked her back.

  The girl’s lips were moving. She was saying something . . . pleading with whoever was operating the video camera.

  Two hands moved up slowly from behind her and encircled her throat. She vainly shook her head from side to side, trying to shake them off, still screaming and pleading.

  The hands tightened their grip on her throat.

  Her face crumpled in agony.

  Her eyes bulged. Blood trickled from her mouth.

  The hands squeezed tighter, tighter, then released their grip.

  The girl slid lifelessly to the floor, the camera following her down.

  Keeping well out of the camera view, her killer dragged her up by her hair. Her head hung limply, tongue lolling.

  She was dead.

  The hands let go and she slumped back to the floor.

  The picture ended abruptly and noisy, raw tape took over.

  “Switch the bleeding thing off,” said Frost. He couldn’t take his eyes off the monitor.

  Collier leant across him and clicked off the video player.

  Frost felt cold, he felt sick, he felt angry, he felt pity, and he felt bloody helpless.

  He shook a cigarette from the packet and, with unsteady hands, poked it in his mouth.

  “Bloody hell,” he croaked. “They filmed the poor kid being strangled. The perverted bastards!”

  The others said nothing. They were as affected as he was.

  “I want everyone involved in this investigation to see that tape,” said Frost. “We drop everything else and we
concentrate on this one. We’ve got to get these bastards. I want copies of that tape made. I want the original to go over to Forensic with the wrapping paper and I want them to drop everything too. This is top priority.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. He had never felt so upset and shaken in all his life.

  “Why film it? Why send us a copy?” asked Hanlon.

  Frost shook his head. He didn’t have any answers. He shunted his cigarettes around.

  The Incident Room door opened and closed. No one looked round to see who it was.

  “What is going on, Frost?” hissed Mullett. “I specifically told you to come to my office. Instead I find you lolling and smoking in here.”

  Frost didn’t look up. He took a long drag at his cigarette and expelled a lungful of smoke. “Something more important than a bollocking in your office came up,” he snapped.

  Mullett’s face went beetroot. “And what could be more important than a summons from your divisional commander?” he snapped back.

  “This!” said Frost, jerking a finger at the monitor and vacating the chair. He nodded to Collier. “Play the tape for Superintendent Mullett, son.”

  Mullett glanced at the screen impatiently. Then he froze. His face whitened and he dropped down into the chair, staring, as if hypnotised, at the images on the monitor. As it ended, he turned his head away and took off his glasses to pinch his nose and dab his eyes. “My God!” he said.

  “Came by post an hour ago,” Frost told him. “London postmark.”

  Mullett covered his face with his hands and shook his head. “My God!” he said again. He blew his nose loudly, then stood up. “Take all the men you want, Frost—from other divisions if necessary, but get these animals.”

  Frost nodded his thanks. “I want to keep this bottled up for the moment, Super. No one outside need know we’ve had this tape—especially the parents. Now is not the time.”

  “Anything you say, Frost,” said Mullett, who then hurried back to his office.

  “See,” said Frost. “The bastard has a heart after all. Show him a video of a girl being strangled and he’s putty in your hands.” He screwed up his eyes and shook his head in an attempt to erase the images he had just witnessed. “Hanlon, get the video copied and send the original straight over to Forensic. And let’s go back to my office. I’ve got some whisky.”