Morning Frost

by James, Henry

‘Quiet. Your colleague came by on Saturday to check up on me. I must say, you’re very kind to take so much care.’

  Clarke stopped in her tracks. ‘It’s not so much that we care, Miss Roberts – it’s more that we suspect you’re not telling us the whole truth.’ She deliberately did not use the word ‘lie’, although that’s what she meant. Clarke had learned early on that an indirect statement could work wonders and avoided hysterical accusations.

  ‘About what?’ the teacher asked, the cold afternoon chilling her breath.

  ‘In spite of what you said to me before, I think you do have a boyfriend, Miss Roberts.’

  ‘I told your colleague—’

  ‘My colleague is dead. Now, if you’d like to explain exactly who you were out with at the town hall on the evening after the rape.’

  The sudden news of Simms’s death clearly pulled Marie Roberts up short, and her cheery demeanour evaporated. ‘Oh. I’m very sorry to hear that. Look … it’s my call to press charges, isn’t that right? Well, I think I’d like to let it go – put it behind me and move on.’

  ‘Charges? We’ve not even caught your attacker.’

  ‘Yes, of course, I’d just rather forget about the whole incident.’

  ‘Really, why’s that?’ Clarke pressed the young teacher.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’ Marie Roberts hung her head in shame. ‘Terry Windley and I are lovers. Everything would have been fine if that little peeping Tom hadn’t startled the hell out of me. I just want to forget the whole thing.’ She burst into tears.

  Clarke felt embarrassed. ‘Be that as it may,’ she said, ‘there is a rapist at large, and as unconcerned as you appear to be about catching him, I’m sure the other, real, victim is of a different mind.’

  ‘But what makes you think it’s Terry? I mean, Jesus, Terry’s not like that. I read in the paper the attacker had a knife!’

  ‘I think we’d better go back to the station for a chat, don’t you?’

  Monday (5)

  ‘Right, get to work. There’s plenty of time. The club doesn’t open until six today.’

  Charles was panting with the exertion – they all were. It had taken all four of them to get the big man on to the snooker table. He must be 130 kilos at least. Then they had been made to squeeze into boiler suits, and what with the combination of shock, exertion and now the constrictive suit Charles felt he might pass out.

  ‘What?’ he managed to puff.

  ‘Start chopping.’

  A pair of meat cleavers lay glinting conspiratorially on the edge of the table.

  ‘But … but he’s still alive!’ As if to confirm this fact, Palmer began to moan.

  ‘Not for much longer.’ Nicholson sniffed. They’d discovered that was the tall assassin’s name; the driver had let it slip while straining to get Palmer on to the table.

  Charles looked to Gaston; beads of perspiration covered his tanned creased brow. He wasn’t sure his friend could handle this much longer: he wasn’t sure he could handle it.

  ‘I’ll get you started.’ Nicholson stubbed his cigarette out slowly on the prone man’s hand, which fidgeted as if being galvanized by an electric shock. It dawned on Charles that he’d decided to wake the man up before he – or they – butchered him. Palmer’s eyes started to twitch.

  ‘Oi Pumpy, wakey, wakey,’ Nicholson hissed in his ear, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves.

  ‘My head …’ Palmer slowly regained consciousness. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘On a snooker table.’

  Charles noticed the big man blink rapidly in panic – suddenly savvy as to the significance.

  ‘Yep, you know what happens now, don’t you?’ Nicholson shook Palmer’s chubby jowls. ‘You’re history, sunshine … shh, no, you keep quiet.’ Palmer had started to whimper, knowing he was done for. ‘We’ve all had enough of your chatter – you listen to me. Can you do that, just once – listen? Good. See, Trev and I have had enough. You’re too greedy, not willing to share … and you’re behind the times. There’s more to the world now than snooker and the occasional bank job … which reminds me, even when there’s a tip-off for an easy job, you give it straight to some tart who walks in off the street. Well, not any more.’

  ‘You’ll never get away with it,’ Palmer wheezed.

  ‘Oh yes, we will.’ Nicholson perched on the table, relishing his moment. ‘We’ve had to wait. You’re a cunning old goat – never leave yourself exposed like that fool Baskin, and never go too far – those fat little legs can’t manage it. We just didn’t know how to bump you off, until this pair of charlies turned up.’ Nicholson pointed a meat cleaver at Charles and Gaston. ‘You’re a bit of a big lad, and to get shot of you, to get you to disappear totally, we need help. I’ve been biding my time. Pondering, you might say. But now you’ve given me no choice.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Palmer stuttered.

  ‘Not only did your girl bungle killing Baskin, she only then goes and gets herself caught by the rozzers with bent cash.’

  ‘That wasn’t her fault, mate, it’s that French twa—’

  ‘I don’t give a monkey’s about whose fault it was – but it means the police are on to her, and if they catch her, she’s going to have to bargain with them.’

  ‘She wouldn’t breathe a word – I promise,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Course she would!’ Nicholson shook his head in disbelief, and sighed. ‘Trouble with your sort is, you can never see beyond the tits and make-up; she’s lethal and smart.’

  Charles was at a loss: he now understood Louise was caught up in something far more dangerous than he could ever have imagined – the rest of the conversation meant nothing, though he tried to follow what he could. If they ever got out alive, there’d be some explaining to do.

  ‘Think the Denton rozzers wouldn’t be banging on our drum?’ Nicholson tutted as he ran the blade across the fleshy white neck. ‘Stupid. But on the other hand this opportunity presented itself with these two berks.’ He waved the meat cleaver casually in their direction again.

  Charles saw Gaston’s Adam’s apple rise and felt his do the same. Nicholson spun round and sneered in Palmer’s face. ‘So ya see, Marty, I really have no choice.’

  ‘But Kelsey—’

  ‘Kelsey nothing, sunshine,’ Nicholson said, priming his forearm.

  ‘But Robbo! You know me,’ Palmer rasped.

  ‘Yes, I do, Marty, that’s the trouble. It’s too good a chance to miss. Besides, one thing you are is clever, you’d have us eventually … see, a compliment? It’s my time now. Sorry. You’re fishfood, mate. Bye bye, Marty.’ Nicholson raised the cleaver, theatrically almost, pausing to let his victim take in his last second. And then it came swiftly down on the man’s neck.

  Charles thought he was going to throw up. Gaston, he could see, was. This Nicholson was clearly a psychopath who’d been biding his time, and although his plan had been to get Charles and Gaston to hack Palmer up, he couldn’t resist the opportunity of slaying his boss himself.

  After another swift slash, Nicholson stepped back from the snooker table to admire his handiwork, then tugged the corpse to the edge of the table, to allow the blood to drain into a container beneath.

  ‘Right, you two.’ He wiped a spray of blood from his brow. ‘Off you go.’ They both took a step closer to the table, the polythene crunching underfoot. ‘Try not to make a mess.’

  ‘May we have gloves?’ Gaston asked with astonishing calm, wiping vomit from his lips.

  ‘Gloves?’ Nicholson smiled. ‘Oh dear, only got this one pair.’

  Clarke shut the door on Marie Roberts and shot round to the front desk to find Bill Wells. The foyer itself was practically in darkness, the sergeant sitting in a solitary pool of light.

  ‘You wanted me, Bill?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘The reservoir – they’ve fished out something unsavoury.’

  ‘Can’t someone else go? I’ve got a nympho teacher in there, needs taking in hand.’

  ‘Really? Sound
s just like Jack’s cup of tea.’

  ‘What sounds like Frost’s cup of tea?’ Mullett appeared before them, in overcoat and uniform cap. ‘Or do I really want to know?’ he said, buttoning his coat.

  ‘Nothing, sir,’ Wells said hastily. ‘Off anywhere nice?’

  Mullett glared at Wells as if he were simple. Clarke could barely contain a snicker, though she wasn’t sure why she should be so amused – the super was on most irascible form, and given it was only Monday, it didn’t bode well for the rest of the week before them.

  ‘To get something to eat, if you must know. I have deferred the press conference until tomorrow,’ he said sternly. ‘We may as well wait for Frost to return with Daley, and perhaps he’ll have something positive to say for once. Do we believe Daley to be behind the money fraud too?’

  He looked from one to the other and was met with blank stares. Clarke had no idea – she’d heard the gossip about Mullett getting caught out at his newsagent’s, but that was the extent of her knowledge.

  ‘Where’s Hanlon?’ Mullett asked.

  ‘Sick, sir,’ Wells said, evidently pleased that he could at least answer that question.

  ‘I want to see him as soon as he’s back, you hear?’ And with that he marched out of the building.

  ‘That answers my question too,’ said Clarke.

  ‘What, Hanlon being sick?’

  ‘Yes, it explains why I’m running around like a lunatic. What’s wrong with him anyway?’

  ‘Dodgy guts.’ Desk Sergeant Bill Wells leaned across. ‘What’s all this about a nympho teacher?’ he whispered conspiratorially.

  ‘Bill, I’m surprised at you.’ Clarke grimaced. ‘I always thought better of you – the rest of that scurrilous bunch you expect it from, but you, Sergeant Wells.’

  Wells looked put out. ‘I was only curious, Sue …’

  ‘I’m joking with you.’ She laughed briefly. ‘Poor little Marie was not raped, far from it – she was having a bit of fun with a randy teacher, a certain Mr Windley, when she realized they were being watched through a spyhole and panicked. Randy Windley scarpered out of the window and things soon escalated. She’s pretty miffed as she reckons the headmaster reported it to the police without her consent, knowing full well what was going on. Something not right, though; why didn’t he dismiss her? Anyway, when she heard another teacher had been raped for real, she knew she was in trouble.’

  ‘Bloody hell, silly mare, she must feel a right twit.’

  ‘Not half as much as when she finds out her boyfriend is possibly in the frame for the rape of Joanne Daniels.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Terry Windley, the pervert landlord who landed Waters one on the nose with a wrench. But that’s by the by for now. What’s all this about the reservoir?’

  The uniformed officers stepped aside to allow two men in plain clothes to enter the room. CID probably, but not the two who had caught her at the transport café: a shortish, sandy-haired, bearded white man in a Christmas jumper, and a bigger, younger black man in a denim jacket with a plaster across his nose, like some sort of Apache warpaint. An unlikely-looking pair.

  ‘Miss Daley, we meet again.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Frost and this here’s my colleague, Detective Sergeant Waters.’

  Of course, it had to be.

  ‘Nice jumper.’

  He looked down at his chest. ‘Why, thank you.’ He seemed genuinely pleased.

  So this was the man she had set out to kill, the man who had seen off the Kelly gang, killing her uncle Joe and crippling Blake.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t recall the pleasure.’

  Louise in fact remembered she had seen Frost once, fleetingly, when he had banged on her door in Carson Road. He’d been making enquiries after Steve Hudson across the road had knocked his wife about. It was hard to believe that what she saw before her was the source of so much trouble – she was expecting someone more impressive. The tenacious super-sleuth who had been hounding her this past year looked more like someone’s dodgy uncle after a rough night.

  ‘We exchanged shots in Denton Woods last October,’ Frost prompted.

  ‘Really? I must have missed you …’ she said sardonically; she had certainly shot at a number of policemen that fatal night. Until she had a grip on what exactly the police did know she’d have to be careful what she said. There was always the chance she could slip out of this, a chance, however slim. ‘Would you mind telling me how you caught me?’ She smiled.

  ‘Your trucker pal put a call out on the CB to say he was picking up a “cutie”.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the radio.’

  Louise couldn’t remember whether the radio was on when she climbed into the cab – there was a CB but all she could remember was the awful Country and Western music playing. But she did nod off on the journey. How stupid!

  ‘Can’t blame him – if I’d been lucky enough to pick up such a piece of crumpet by the roadside I’d announce it to the world too.’ Frost grinned.

  ‘OK.’ She’d had enough of bantering with the smug bastard; she cut to the chase: ‘What are you charging me with? I presume it’s more than possession of a dodgy fiver?’

  ‘Armed robbery, for starters; the Fortress building-society job last year with Blake Richards sounds about right – wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t – I was just the driver.’

  ‘You can argue that in court. In the meantime, it’s back to Denton for you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a bore.’ Anything not to be in a cell: out of doors there was always a chance of escape, and she wasn’t cuffed. ‘Can I make a call, then?’

  They looked at one another.

  ‘Just one? Surely I’m allowed a call; I’ve not made one yet. Ask them,’ she said, pointing towards the two PCs, who shook their heads in confirmation.

  ‘Of course. If you promise not to run away again?’

  ‘Ha ha.’ What a comedian, she thought. ‘I’d like to call my brief, if that’s all right, get him to meet me at Denton.’ She had to try Pumpy – get him to spring her en route. He didn’t have to get his hands dirty himself, but surely he could send some of his boys.

  ‘OK, and then we’re off home. I’ll try and liven it up for you, though; John here hates my driving, which gives me a chance to have a cuddle with you in the back.’ Frost beamed, dangling a pair of handcuffs in front of him.

  Detective Constable Sue Clarke stood as close to the reservoir edge as she dared. Bubbles broke the surface intermittently, indicating the scuba unit beneath the black water. It was almost pitch black now, and the arc lamps were barely sufficient to keep track of the two frogmen – how they did what they did she would never know. To her left the elderly angler once again regaled the two constables with his fight to reel in the severed arm bedecked with weed that had lain at the bottom of the reservoir. Beyond him half a dozen other men in brown and green parkas were packing away their equipment and muttering amongst themselves. Clarke sniffed in the cold air; she could feel her nose starting to run. She could not think of a worse way to spend an afternoon than sitting here in the chilly damp in the hope of a nibble. It wasn’t even a natural lake – rather an ugly man-made effort of concrete commissioned in the late sixties.

  ‘I couldn’t say for sure.’ Maltby approached her, a dew drop hanging from his red nose, ‘but it’s likely it belongs to the same man – Drysdale will be able to tell you more.’

  A frogman surfaced before them struggling to push a brown sack clear of the water’s surface. A uniformed officer in waders moved to relieve him of what to Clarke looked like a coal sack, although presumably it wasn’t full of coal. Maltby hovered uncertainly beside her, looking as keen as she was to be away from this watery grave.

  ‘Thank you, Doctor, but don’t disappear – looks like there’s more to come.’ The coal sack was far from empty given the effort the PC was making to get it ashore; he nearly toppled in and had to be steadied by his companio
n.

  Monday (6)

  ‘I want bail.’

  ‘Bail? You’ve got to be joking!’ Frost paced the cell angrily. They’d made good time and arrived back in Denton in under two hours, but he was tired and irritable now. Too much time in a car didn’t agree with him, and now the chase was over, the excitement was fizzling out; it had been a long day. ‘We’ve been after you for a year – I’m hardly going to let you go wandering off, having just this minute charged you for shooting club-owner Harry Baskin!’

  ‘I want a lawyer.’

  ‘But I thought you called one before we left Bournemouth? Where is he?’

  Daley had not said a word on the way back; there seemed very little of her brazen demeanour left. She stared obstinately at the red stiletto on the table.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said finally, lifting her gaze from the shoe to meet his piercing green eyes. ‘Maybe he’s been shot?’

  ‘Make life easy for yourself; confess to shooting Baskin now. Cooperate.’

  She placed a painted fingertip on her chin and said, ‘Thank you for finding my shoe – do you happen to have the other one?’

  ‘You’re only making this tougher on yourself.’ He shook his head. Frost had placed the stiletto before her prior to getting the ballistics report back for the Beretta found in the Triumph, just to gauge her reaction. Stubborn and uncooperative.

  ‘There’s been all sorts of merry hell in Denton since you’ve been back. I would have a good hard think, if I were you, before we next have a chat.’

  Louise did not answer. She was as smart as she was pretty and would see his obtuse questioning had a purpose – but she didn’t know what they knew already, and he wasn’t going to tell her. But she’d been careful and had alibis. She was going down, that much was certain, but for how long would depend on her cunning.

  Frost pushed back his chair, which scraped on the cell floor, causing Louise to flinch. ‘Constable,’ he said, addressing the WPC minding the door, ‘assign Ms Daley some legal representation. Her lawyer appears to have gone missing, along with her other shoe.’