Morning Frost

by James, Henry

  Over the next few months, Waters spent many evenings listening to jazz with Jack Frost. The detective’s mother had died in January, and working his way through her record collection, which he’d finally found a connection with, was his way of grieving for her. It also turned into an understated way for Waters and Frost to bond. A few drinks, the occasional game of chess and a shared appreciation of these early recorded greats had brought the two men closer than any in-depth conversation ever could have done.

  They’d listened to the discs in chronological order, starting with the earliest recordings in Edna Frost’s collection, by Ferdinand Joseph La Menthe, or Jelly Roll Morton as he became known, the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz. Both grew fascinated with this remarkable character. On the evenings they didn’t play chess, they’d sit in silence listening to National Library of Congress interviews with Jelly Roll, captivated by this raw and heartfelt oral record of one of the period’s most colourful characters. Frost was particularly smitten with this chancer from another age.

  Waters had also discovered that Frost was a history buff. The shelves, and often the carpet, played host to numerous weighty tomes. Jack was reluctant to discuss his interest but Waters had deduced over the weeks that in order to relax and wind down, Frost needed to engage his mind – and his preferred topic was the intricacies of conflict, in the form of great military tacticians, from Alexander and Caesar, through to Wellington and Napoleon. The irony of this passion for strategists from a man as disorganized as Jack Frost wasn’t lost on Waters. Maybe that was the point, he thought – the man who seemed so proudly maverick secretly craved order.

  As Mary’s demise grew nearer and the drinking took its toll, Frost admitted he struggled to concentrate on the hefty reference works. It was around this time the two began playing chess more often. Waters was not a skilled player but rose to the challenge, whereas Frost always opened strongly but lacked focus and made foolish errors, which made for interesting games.

  During sessions of tedious surveillance with plenty of opportunity to think, Waters would reflect on why Frost had picked him out as a pal. He was in no doubt that he’d been ‘selected’, and his conclusion was that he, in the eyes of the great and good of Denton, was, like Frost, an outsider.

  He lit a cigarette and felt a twinge of guilt over turning the guy down for this coming evening. He recalled him shambling off sadly in the darkness and cursed himself. What had gotten into him? He could take Kim to the movies any night – they were moving in together any day now too. The man had lost his wife, for Christ’s sake, he could at least put himself out. He shook his head ruefully and realized that, despite their unique bond, when it had mattered Waters had simply reverted to the classic Eagle Lane view – that Frost was a tough old bird, a loner, a resenter of intrusion, and not in need of anyone or anything. He ought to have known better.

  The rain was heavy now, but time was pushing on. The threatening phone calls reported had all been made between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. It was now nearly nine thirty – damn, he’d managed to overshoot by half an hour. He’d been here since 5 a.m., relieving a uniform detachment. He stretched and turned the key in the ignition – his toes had been numb for hours now; time for a bit of heat.

  ‘Ah Jack, there you are. Please come in and take a seat.’

  Mullett smiled obsequiously and even found himself rising from behind the desk. This unprecedented civility arose purely from awkwardness; he felt unsure how to act in the presence of the newly bereaved man. Despite spending the entire previous day in close proximity to Frost and his in-laws, Mullett had barely uttered a word to him. Now, presented with him on a one-to-one basis, he could think of nothing suitable to say. He wondered with surprise if perhaps he felt genuine compassion for the man sitting opposite, still in his black suit and tie from the day before.

  ‘If it’s about the computer …’

  ‘It’s not about the computer—’

  ‘Because if it is …’

  ‘It’s not about the computer,’ Mullett repeated. ‘It’s about Harry Baskin. I want to discuss his … getting shot.’

  ‘He does seem to have a lot of people around here worried. Very touching. He’ll live. Not so sure about the boy; he’s still in intensive care.’

  ‘Wait a second, slow down.’ Mullett was struggling to think straight. He popped a couple of Disprin into his water glass, and stirred it with his ivory letter opener.

  ‘Headache, sir?’

  Mullett ignored the remark. ‘Worried about him? Who else around here is worried?’

  ‘Superintendent Kelsey called late last night, having dispatched your good self in an area car. He enquired as to our progress.’

  ‘Kelsey – what on earth has it got to do with him?’ Mullett was momentarily vexed, although he quickly composed himself. Kelsey was not his sort of man – he’d spent far too much time in the field to understand modern policing – but he knew he shouldn’t let that get to him, especially in front of Frost. ‘Is he worried about reprisals?’ Mullett suggested. ‘Gangland activity?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Frost shrugged. ‘But as I say, Baskin’ll live. What about the poor boy in intensive care? He could well die.’

  Mullett had been unaware of any other casualties, not having checked the incident board, but chose not to let on. Very soon, thanks to the blessing of new technology, he’d have this sort of information at his fingertips, and the board would be a thing of the past.

  ‘Yes, well, was it a … gang thing? Baskin has his fingers in so many pies …’

  ‘Too many pies, I would hazard. He’s no gangster, though. His entrepreneurial skills, such as they are, don’t go much further than girls getting their kit off for next to nothing, and Irish navvies cobbling a few bricks together, and not very well at that.’ Frost gestured vaguely at the refurbished office.

  ‘OK … Well, keep me posted. And Jack …’ Mullett hesitated.

  ‘Sir?’

  The words fought their way to the surface: ‘I’m deeply sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Sir.’

  The door opened suddenly, causing them both to start, and instantly extinguished the tiny spark of fellowship.

  ‘Miss Smith, I would appreciate a knock!’ Mullett snapped.

  ‘Sorry, sir, but Sergeant Frost is required urgently.’

  ‘Why so?’ Mullett enquired.

  Liz Smith’s powdered forehead was creased with worry. ‘There’s been another rape.’

  ‘What, at this time of the morning?’ Frost looked at his watch. ‘Bit keen?’

  ‘Where?’ Mullett barked, ignoring Frost’s tasteless remark.

  ‘The school. Denton Comprehensive.’

  ‘Flamin’ heck,’ Frost snorted, eyebrows shooting up.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Mullett rose, shocked. ‘On school premises?’

  He stared at Frost, now also on his feet and standing next to the diminutive Miss Smith. ‘This is getting out of hand …’

  ‘A child?’ Frost asked.

  ‘A teacher,’ Miss Smith replied. ‘A pupil found her in the lavatories in a state of distress.’

  ‘I’d best be off then. Sir?’

  ‘Of course.’ Mullett nodded, reaching for the pack of Senior Service lying on the polished desk. Frost left hurriedly, almost knocking over Mullett’s secretary. The superintendent lit his cigarette, dismissing the perturbed Miss Smith with a wave of the hand.

  What in heaven’s name was the world coming to? Half past ten on Friday morning, and a young woman raped at a school. He puffed on his cigarette indignantly. It was the second rape in a week. A woman had been attacked outside a pub in Foundling Street on Monday evening. She, too, was a teacher.

  Uniform had wasted no time at all in tracing the dead paperboy’s home address – in his back pocket there’d been an unopened wage envelope, with a number denoting his route, that he’d been given that very morning in Townsend’s on London Street – and they’d already notified the parents of his death, but hadn’t mentione
d any possible suspicious circumstances. Simms wouldn’t broach that topic until he had the lab report. Whilst foul play wasn’t yet confirmed he felt it was worth a visit to the boy’s employer. Philip Chilcott had picked up his bag at 6.30 a.m., as he did every day of the week with the exception of Sunday, when a lie-in was permitted. Gruelling work, Simms thought, remembering the round he himself had done as a teenager. According to Townsend, the newsagent, a West Country man in his late sixties, it was not a popular round.

  ‘The route’s spread out and covers a lot of ground. We call it the initiation round.’

  ‘Meaning?’ asked Simms.

  ‘The starters get the toughest rounds. When a lad leaves, the other ones will all move to a less demanding round. Reward for long service.’

  ‘I see.’ Simms nodded. He approved of this man, who must’ve spent half his life getting up at five thirty and yet still wore a neat shirt and tie. Something about him – upright values, pride in one’s appearance – reminded Simms of his own father. ‘Is it a tough round just because it’s spread out?’

  ‘It’s not just the distance. The posher places, the ones with the long drives, Wessex Crescent and the like, will want the broadsheets, and on a weekend those blighters get bigger and bigger, shoving more and more in …’

  Simms again nodded in agreement, not that anything more demanding than the People accompanied his Frosties in the morning.

  ‘The lads do like it over Christmas, though – lovely big tips.’

  ‘But in the bag I saw a stack of Suns and Mirrors,’ Simms queried.

  ‘A lot of them posh ’uns take both.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘They’ll all pretend to read The Times and what ’ave you, but y’see, they won’t get their fix of smut and sleaze from there, will they?’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ Simms agreed, realizing he was getting unnecessarily embroiled in the intricacies of the newspaper readership.

  ‘Where did you say ’e were found again?’ said the newsagent, popping the top off a tin of Old Holborn.

  ‘Bottom of One Tree Hill.’

  ‘Aye, well, he’d have them flats on the Wells Road to do an’ all. That lot settle for muck only – can’t afford any pretensions and whatnot.’

  ‘I see. That reminds me.’

  Simms reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out the white envelope given to him by Night Sergeant Johnny Johnson containing the fake five-pound notes. ‘There’s an alert from Scotland Yard. Dodgy fivers. Here, whack this up and be on your guard.’

  ‘Blimey, as if there in’t enough to worry about,’ the man grumbled. ‘Got people trying to stiff you any which way.’

  ‘That’s life,’ Simms replied. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Townsend. I’ll be back if anything else comes to light. Here’s my card in case you think of anything that might be helpful.’

  ‘Right you are.’ Townsend shrugged, licking a cigarette paper. ‘Should’ve split the round perhaps. Often thought about it.’

  As he left the shop and pulled out his own cigarettes, Simms resolved not to share this reflection with the poor boy’s parents.

  Friday (3)

  ‘Mr Bickerton,’ Frost asked. ‘Have you ever, in a professional capacity, come across a Joanne Daniels?’

  Clarke regarded Bickerton, the dusty, bald headmaster – the very same one who had once caught her smoking behind the bike sheds – as he rolled his eyes thoughtfully to one side, before slowly shaking his head. His office was festooned with team photographs, many black and white, and cluttered with trophies and what Clarke assumed to be cricket apparel – a miscellany acquired through decades of schooling.

  ‘No, the name is not familiar.’ His voice was soft but firm.

  Frost offered no more information to jog the man’s memory – it was his way, when searching for answers, to prompt as little as possible. He turned his attention back to the schoolboy who sat meekly to his left. They had been over the story once already, but Frost insisted on a re-run. Clarke studied the headmaster who in turn regarded the boy with scepticism, as if his story were the most unlikely chain of events imaginable. Neil Pearson concluded his account of escorting teacher Marie Roberts, in a state of extreme distress, out of the school lavatories, and how she clutched on to him desperately, refusing to let go in the safety of the headmaster’s office – her trauma rendering her helpless.

  ‘Go back a bit, to when you found Miss Roberts. Did you hear her cry out?’ Frost enquired. ‘Or did you find her upon entering the cubicle?’

  Pearson was a twelve-year-old second year with a shock of blond hair. He wore black-rimmed glasses, which he had the habit of touching with thumb and forefinger, like a nervous tic, every adjustment accompanied by an involuntary sniff.

  ‘Well,’ he said very quietly into a small, clenched fist, ‘she was just, sort of, lying there—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Clarke interrupted, ‘do you mind speaking up. I know this isn’t easy …’

  ‘Excuse me, Detective,’ the head suddenly boomed. Clarke paused. He resumed in a softer tone. ‘Pardon me, if I may … but I would dearly like to know what exactly young Pearson here was doing in the staff lavatories.’

  Frost looked surprised. Both he and Clarke had overlooked this particular detail. Because the boy had found the woman, they had both assumed, wrongly it now seemed, that the attack had taken place in the children’s washroom.

  ‘Not only that, why did he visit the toilets at nine fifteen, when lessons had already started?’

  ‘I … I was in there all along.’ The boy adjusted his glasses again.

  ‘You what?’ Clarke leaned forward, amazed. ‘While Miss Roberts was being attacked?’

  The boy looked sheepish.

  ‘What the blazes …!’ the head stammered.

  ‘Sonny, what did you see?’ Frost urged. ‘Did you get a look at Miss Roberts’s attacker?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Nothing at all?’ Clarke said softly.

  ‘Come now, Pearson, stop buggering about and answer the lady! What were you doing in there?’

  The boy, aware that this commanding tone was ignored at his peril, shifted his attention from his feet and looked directly at the headmaster. ‘Making a spy-hole,’ he mumbled.

  ‘A what!’ The head raised a white eyebrow, and, with gown sleeve trailing across the desk, reached over and thwacked Pearson’s ear with the ruler. ‘Stupid boy!’

  Frost let out an inadvertent snort of laughter. The head settled back down, evidently calmer for having administered an act of violence. The boy’s ear pulsed red.

  ‘Listen, Neil,’ Clarke said to the boy, ignoring the two men, ‘did you hear someone enter the toilet?’

  ‘Err … no.’

  Frost was smirking. ‘So, how long had you been doing DIY in there?’ His levity rankled Clarke; a woman had been raped and there he was grinning at some schoolboy prank.

  ‘About fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes!’ cried Bickerton. ‘What class were you supposed to be in, and why the hell did the teacher not wonder where you were?’ The idea of a pupil freely absconding and flouting the rules of the school seemed more troubling to him than the claim that a teacher had been raped on site.

  ‘PE. I got a sick note.’

  Bickerton rose and went to the door to address his secretary. ‘Miss Taylor, get me this halfwit’s form teacher, we’ll see about truancy at—’

  ‘Mr Bickerton,’ Frost interceded. ‘If we may keep a focus on why we’re here.’

  ‘Yes, of course, sorry.’ He returned to his seat.

  ‘Now, Neil,’ Frost said, slowly. Clarke could tell he was bored. ‘You were in the teachers’ toilets for fifteen minutes, from nine until nine fifteen, and in that time you were not aware of anyone coming and going?’

  ‘No, sir, I was just hacking away at the cubicle wall, and then I heard a sort of muffled whining which then stopped, so I thought I’d better leave and so I c
ame out and heard this big bang … which was one of them big frosted windows, like, so I went to have a look and there was Miss, all … all, undressed, and she burst into tears, like.’

  ‘OK, sonny, that’ll do. Just a word with you, sir, if we may?’

  The boy looked to the head for permission to go, which was granted with a curt nod. Clarke looked at Frost, trying to read his mind. He hadn’t seemed concerned when they’d arrived about Marie Roberts being off the premises, having already gone home with a WPC in an area car.

  ‘I do apologize for the lad,’ Bickerton began. ‘It makes you wonder how these children are brought up. Disgraceful. You have my full assurance he’ll be caned to within an inch of his—’

  Frost raised a hand and shook his head. ‘Not on our account. Nothing wrong with a healthy interest in the older woman. No, what I’m more concerned about is the fact that it’s now, what?’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘Nearly eleven. The incident took place at nine, was discovered at nine fifteen, but was reported only at half ten – why the delay in calling the police?’

  Clarke realized that the time lag hadn’t even occurred to her. Was she becoming so preoccupied with her ‘condition’ that she couldn’t even analyse the facts of a simple case? She definitely didn’t feel quite with it. She pinched herself surreptitiously.