Morning Frost

by James, Henry

  ‘Enough of this’ – he waved his hand vaguely, searching for the appropriate word – ‘speculation. What of the rape at the school? And the girl outside the pub last Monday? We have a result there I believe.’ He pulled forward his notepad and plucked the cap from his Parker fountain pen.

  ‘Sort of – the randy sod who shagged Marie Roberts in the school loo is the knicker-sniffer who boshed Waters on the conk.’

  ‘Are you saying the, err, intercourse at the school was consensual?’ Mullett was sure that no other divisional commander had to suffer the same unseemly use of language from subordinates relaying case assessments.

  ‘I am, sir. But we believe this same gentleman is connected with other cases, including the attack last Monday.’

  ‘That’s good. And do we have proof this man raped Joanne Daniels?’

  ‘We have a lead. Miss Daniels has confirmed she knew him; he was a supply teacher in Rimmington six months ago, at the school where she works. And we think we might also have him for a rape in the West Country. And we also have an ID from a shopkeeper in Brick Road that confirms our man’s been using the Brick Road call box.’

  ‘Good,’ Mullett said, capping the pen. ‘It seems an arrest is imminent?’

  ‘That’s if he’s not scarpered.’ Frost lit another cigarette.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘His tenure at Denton Comp finished on Friday. And you let him go, remember?’ Frost leaned back in the chair, hands to the back of his head, as if stretching back in a deckchair on Brighton beach. He continued: ‘Yes, according to Miss Roberts, his imminent departure was why they risked a bunk-up in the lavvy …’

  Mullett was not going to rise to Frost’s remark concerning Waters’ breach of procedure. ‘Well, arrest him, then.’

  ‘We don’t know where he is. The address he gave the school is the flat he rented out to the students – you recall, sir, where he assaulted Sergeant Waters?’

  ‘You’ll find him.’

  By the end of today this man was to hold the rank of Detective Inspector. Mullett knew he had no way out; the ACC would not tolerate any further delay. It may as well be now; his plan to bring Frost to heel by way of the new IRIS computer system was not going to happen any time soon – the new technology was proving as unreliable as the wayward detective.

  ‘Are you going to keep that?’ Mullett enquired, finally.

  ‘What?’ Frost said innocently.

  ‘That beard.’

  Frost scratched at his jaw. ‘Hadn’t thought about it, sir. Never trust a bloke with a beard is my rule … Why? Do you like it?’

  ‘Do I …? Heavens, no,’ Mullett retorted. He looked down at the promotion letter that Miss Smith had typed up over the weekend and braced himself; and after an involuntary adjustment to his tie he began: ‘Frost, as you know, Denton division has been a DI down for over a year. The Assistant Chief Constable very much feels, as do I, it’s time to bring the division into line. Given the current staffing shortage and lack of experience across the force it is impractical to recruit from outside, leaving me no alternative but to promote from within.’

  Here, Mullett paused; his very being was in revolt. He looked across at Frost, whose attention appeared to be elsewhere. ‘Frost, are you listening?’

  ‘I was thinking about a shave, sir,’ he replied, feeling under his chin.

  Mullett couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘You are promoted to the rank of Detective Inspector, with immediate effect.’

  Frost paused mid-scratch. ‘Nice one. What’s that work out at a month?’

  ‘Miss Smith will fill you in on the particulars,’ Mullett said sternly, ‘and let me tell you, Frost, I have my reservations. Needs must, but I will be watching you like a hawk.’

  ‘I’d be disappointed if it was any other way.’ Frost smiled a bristly smile.

  ‘Stand,’ Mullett ordered, and standing himself, saluted and offered his hand. Frost stood straight for a change, receiving the handshake and adopting a serious air. ‘Congratulations. That will be all. Keep me posted on further developments. Dismissed.’

  Frost turned to leave.

  ‘And that beard makes you look like a fisherman.’ Mullett was reminded of the smug, unkempt know-it-all from Jaws; older perhaps, without the glasses but with the jumper. The superintendent felt a wave of relief; he had performed his duty. Now the burden had shifted.

  ‘Why, thank you, sir,’ Frost smiled. ‘Talking of fish, a couple of anglers reeled in a snooker player in the Denton reservoir yesterday early afternoon.’

  ‘Meaning? Do you mean a professional?’

  ‘Well, he’ll need to pull himself together if he’s to stand a chance at the Crucible.’

  Gibberish, as usual; Mullett tutted to himself as Frost yanked the door to behind him. To be expected; Frost would never change. So be it. And after all, Mullett had a division to run, and though he himself did not support Frost’s move up he was sensible of the fact that Frost’s promotion would give morale a boost following Simms’s murder. Winslow was right about that if nothing else. For now, though, Mullett needed to turn his mind to the press conference.

  Frost held the pathologist’s report close to his face. He must get his eyes checked. Clarke had called him late the previous evening wanting to run through the ‘jigsaw man’ case. A poor pun on the body found in the reservoir and the surrounding fields.

  ‘But isn’t it a Rimmington division case – I mean, he was reported missing to them?’ Clarke was fiddling with something in her hands, he noticed.

  Frost sipped his scorching coffee. ‘No, you’re stuck with him, I’m afraid; we found the body. They’ll work with us on it, I’m sure. Tell me again, why the delay in reporting the missing person to us?’

  ‘A problem with transferring information on to the computer system, that’s what the sergeant said.’

  ‘Seems odd to me – wouldn’t the wife be camping out on the doorstep, worried sick?’

  ‘I guess – but she’d not reported him missing straight away anyhow – it wasn’t until the weekend when they were supposed to leave for a snooker championship in Sheffield that she grew concerned.’

  ‘So he’d have been gone over a week; more like ten days, according to the path lab. Modern marriage for you.’ Of course, in his day he himself had been known to ‘slip away’ for several days. Not a week, though. ‘Odd that it took her that long.’

  ‘Yes, if she loved him, but she might’ve been sick of the sight of him.’ Clarke gave him a cold look.

  ‘Only one way to find out – get over there and talk to her.’

  She sighed. ‘But I’m trying to sting Windley this morning – got to be at Brick Road at nine thirty.’

  ‘It’s only eight – you can get over to Rimmington and back before then. Early morning’s always best; Game’s wife might have a job – you’ll catch her before she leaves.’

  ‘I don’t know where she lives. The desk sergeant didn’t tell me.’

  ‘The desk sergeant didn’t tell me.’ Frost mimicked cruelly. ‘Oh, come off it, Sue – use the flaming phone book for a start; there can’t be that many Games in there.’

  ‘Right, so I turn up and tell her her husband was hacked to pieces and has been feeding the fish for the past ten days. Great start to her day.’

  ‘Someone’s got to do it – take a WPC. I’d come with you but I’ve got to write a crib sheet on Daley for Hornrim Harry, for his TV appearance later.’

  ‘I want to see her,’ Clarke said. Frost could detect the faintly concealed aggression in her voice.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But Jack …’

  ‘No. And that’s an order.’ He looked her squarely in the eye. ‘You have no reason to.’ He knew no good would come of it. ‘What’s that you’re fiddling with?’

  Clarke held up a scrappy envelope. She tossed it at him and he narrowly caught it, clutching the packet to his chest. He squinted at the squiggles. ‘Look inside,’ she said.

  ‘Where did you
find it, under the bed?’ Clarke coloured. ‘Only joking. Get it over to the lab pronto – if you’re going to Rimmington to see Mrs Game you can drop it off.’

  Clarke frowned.

  ‘Well, get a runner to take them over for you, then. Ahh, and here’s one now.’ A fresh-faced lad of about nineteen entered the room; he didn’t look familiar. Perfect. ‘Hello, son, you new?’

  Clarke stood up. ‘Jack, this is David. David Simms.’

  ‘Oh, Simms? Any relation?’

  ‘Brother. David came by yesterday. We had quite a chat. He’s all up to speed on computers. And, interestingly, he was logging some house-to-house calls, pertaining to something Derek was—’

  ‘Terrific.’ Frost squirmed. He felt deeply uncomfortable. ‘How about you do young Sue here a favour? We can talk about Space Invaders later, eh?’

  Waters paid for the two coffees and nodded towards a free table in the Eagle Lane canteen. PC Simms took his lead, and the pair sat down. Waters noticed a table of young uniform heads turn at the new recruit sitting with a CID sergeant. Waters shook his head; surely those kids must understand a bit of decorum.

  ‘Don’t worry about that lot, they’re just curious. Your brother was popular with those guys. It was only …’ He was going to say it was only a year ago that Derek Simms was sitting among them still in uniform, but stopped himself, thinking it highlighted how young the kid had died. ‘So was it by luck or design that you ended up here?’

  ‘Bit of both, I guess.’ The boy had an angry shaving rash, accentuating his youth. ‘This part of the country is advanced in its use of computers – that’s what I’m interested in, more than just as a hobby – so I’ll be spending a bit of time collating and pulling together data from all sources.’

  ‘Sounds fun.’ Waters smiled. He was as cynical as Frost on technology matters but wanted to be encouraging.

  ‘Yes, so much information is lost; take, for example, your day-to-day routine – or even theirs.’ He indicated the crowd of PCs over his shoulder. ‘Brief notes in pocket books, be it detailing first impressions from scenes of crime to routine enquiries – all can be used as courtroom evidence, but where else is the information held, outside of one of these?’ By way of demonstration he slapped his own recently issued pristine notebook on the table.

  ‘Superintendent Mullett is going to love you,’ Waters said wryly.

  ‘I’ve yet to meet the divisional commander, but he has quite a reputation.’ Simms beamed.

  ‘He has at that,’ Waters confirmed.

  ‘Tell me, Sergeant,’ Simms said, suddenly earnest. ‘You lived with my brother. Was he a good policeman?’

  ‘One of the best,’ Waters said, and then found himself starting to say again what only moments ago he had held back. ‘See that crowd over there – your brother was better than all of them put together. He proved himself and moved on.’ That satisfied the young policeman, allowing both men to talk at ease. Simms junior struck Waters as a bright, opinionated lad, without the chippiness his brother had often displayed; ambitious, but more suited to the science of police work than life on the streets. The young Simms explained that the way he saw police work evolving was through science, and that this was just the tip of the iceberg.

  ‘I hear you,’ Waters agreed, ‘but someone has still got to catch these guys.’ Suddenly the canteen hushed. Simms noticed it too; he darted a look over his shoulder. The immaculately pressed white shirt and the perfect Windsor knot, topped off with the manicured moustache: the superintendent had entered the room.

  ‘What’s up?’ Simms said quietly.

  ‘Nice chatting with you, David, but I gotta split.’ He gulped the burning coffee. Waters’ rendezvous with Clarke was pressing, and he didn’t want to catch the super’s eye.

  DC Sue Clarke was out of sorts. For one, she wasn’t sure about the logic of nicking Windley with Waters. Who knew what he might do when he saw his old adversary – lash out, or maybe freak and do a runner? Then there was the peculiar happening half an hour ago in Rimmington with the non-existent Mrs Game. Maybe she’d misheard what the sergeant had said last night. Her mind was a jumble. She could kick herself for flushing in front of Frost this morning, and then for standing by when he was rude to Derek’s brother. Infuriating. And that bloody bullet. When tidying up this morning she had retrieved from under the bed a water glass which she’d knocked from her beside table when answering the telephone on Sunday night. Behind the glass she’d found a used envelope containing a lead slug. The missing evidence from the Gregory Leather robbery must have slipped out of Simms’s pocket on Friday night. Why he had it, heavens only knew. She had tried to see Frost first thing this morning, but he was in with Mullett – they had Daley for Simms’s murder. Though Clarke had remained calm, Frost had refused her access to Derek’s murderer – given half a chance she’d claw the woman’s eyes out – but one thing at a time. She was currently sat with Waters outside a student flat on Brick Road waiting for Windley.

  ‘I’m a bit worried about this,’ Clarke said, shifting in the driver’s seat of the unmarked Escort. Windley had yet to appear as scheduled.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get him,’ Waters said. ‘The girl will be safe. We’re here.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t show?’

  ‘He’ll show.’

  Suspected rapist Windley had yesterday evening given notice to his tenants – Clarke discovered this by chance when she called the letting agency to see if they knew where Windley lived (to which the answer was no, all written correspondence went through a PO box).

  Windley had also requested access to the property today, which he was within his rights to do. Marie Roberts had said he’d been unsettlingly taciturn on the subject of the incident involving Waters on Sunday; Roberts now saw Windley in a different light and she feared he might exact revenge on the tenant, Laura, if he suspected she’d set him up.

  ‘She’s frightened. She should be at college. But she’s too nervous to leave the flat,’ explained Clarke.

  They both looked up at the first-floor flat, where the young student stood at the window. She had been nervous throughout their earlier questioning. When Clarke and Waters had quizzed the student over contact with her landlord, she’d been edgy and not the confident young woman Waters had described on the way over – Clarke was expecting someone brash and cocky, but recent events had frightened her into submission. Clarke could imagine how the situation had changed in the girl’s eyes: it’s one thing to think your landlord is a bit of a perv, rooting around in your knicker drawer, something to laugh about with the girls maybe, but it’s another thing for the man to then be questioned by the police about serious sex attacks. Clarke waved at the figure clutching the net curtain and wondered what went through these young girls’ heads: as if it’s normal for a grown man, a teacher no less, to be interested in teenage girls in that way in the first place?

  ‘Here he is,’ Waters said as a sky-blue Leyland Princess came into view.

  But instead of slowing to a halt the car accelerated past them.

  ‘Shit, he made us!’ Waters exclaimed.

  ‘Made you, you mean.’ She started the car and turned the wheel aggressively. ‘He’s not getting away.’ Waters picked up the radio and registered an alert.

  The Princess swung a left out of Brick Road and hared off down Cromwell Road, leaving a cloud of black exhaust fumes hanging at the T-junction.

  ‘Suspect heading east in a ’79 light blue Princess. Registration—’ Clarke spun the Escort round the corner after the Princess, cutting up a bus. ‘Outta my way …’

  ‘Whoa … we want to get him … where’s your siren?’

  ‘Haven’t got one …’ Windley had shot the lights ahead, causing a Granada to twist into the middle of the road. Clarke deftly dodged the car and sped after the Princess. Up ahead she could make out a removal van trying to pull a three-point turn in the road, leaving too narrow a gap for anyone to pass.

  ‘He’ll never get round that,’ she
said as the Princess mounted the pavement.

  ‘You’re right,’ Waters agreed, ‘there he goes.’

  Clarke pulled up sharply behind the abandoned car. Windley had vaulted a garden wall to get past his own vehicle.

  ‘Quick little bugger,’ Waters remarked.

  ‘I’ll catch him,’ Clarke said, determined. ‘You take the front of the van.’ And with that she was off. Waters jumped out and rounded the Pickfords van. Clarke felt the blood pump at her temples; I will have you, she said to herself and channelled every ounce of her strength into the chase. Terry Windley now embodied every crime and ill she had recently experienced. The PE teacher was quick but lost ground by checking over his shoulder too frequently. Suddenly she was upon him and they both jolted painfully to the ground.

  ‘Wow!’ Waters said as he caught them seconds later. ‘You are quick for—’

  ‘For what? A girl?’ Clarke snapped, looking up from the flower bed, flicking back hair from her forehead. But she was smiling.

  Tuesday (2)

  Charles rocked back and forth in the replica Gainsborough chair, tapping his fingers nervously on the briefcase. He tore his eyes away from the phone sitting on the bureau to glance at his wristwatch; still a minute to the hour.

  Charles studied the card left by the policeman – Detective Constable Arthur Hanlon – resting against the phone. Hanlon? Wasn’t he one of those drunken bores at the wake he’d been to with Brazier?

  ‘Call them,’ Gaston urged him, noticing his attention on the card. ‘Now. Before he rings.’

  ‘What, give it all up?’

  ‘The painting fell into your lap. Forget it – burn it with the money.’

  ‘It’s not the painting.’ Charles stood up and paced the draughty attic. ‘Don’t you see, we’ll be finished. Our reputation in tatters.’ He sat back down despairingly and sighed. ‘Never to work again.’