Night Frost

by R D Wingfield

  The ‘place’ Frost knew was a converted van selling hot dogs and hamburgers on a windswept stretch of waste ground near the cemetery. The stale greasy smell of frying onions slapped them round the face as they got out of the car. On the side of the van a drop-down flap provided a serving counter and a canvas awning sheltered the clientele from the worst of the weather. Behind the counter a tall, thin man with a melancholy face and a red, running nose sucked at a cigarette as he pushed some onion slices around the fat with a fork.

  ‘Lord Lucan and party,’ announced Frost. ‘We did book.’

  ‘Very funny,’ said the man, pulling the cigarette from his mouth so he could cough all over the food. He banged two cups on the counter, dropped a tea-bag in each and filled them with hot water from a steam-belching urn.

  They sipped the scalding tea while the man fried them two hamburgers in tired, spitting fat. It was a cold night with the wind flapping the canvas awning.

  ‘You caught that girl’s killer yet?’ asked the owner, putting the burgers on a plate and sliding them over.

  Frost lifted the top of his bun and peered suspiciously at the onion-topped meat sinking in a puddle of fat. ‘We’re on a different case, Harry. Suspect meat sold as hamburger filling.’ He took a tentative bite and chewed cautiously. ‘I hope yours comes from a legitimate source?’

  Harry sucked nervously at his cigarette. ‘Of course it does Mr Frost. That’s top-class stuff, that is – minced steak.’

  ‘Good,’ said Frost. ‘Only this dodgy outfit is importing so-called meat from the Continent . . . all sorts of rubbish – dead horses, cats, dogs, some of it even worse.’

  ‘Worse?’ asked Harry.

  Frost leant forward confidentially and lowered his voice. ‘Don’t spread this around, Harry, it would cause a public outcry, but we’ve got evidence they’re even buying unclaimed bodies from undertakers and putting them in the mincing machine.’

  Harry pulled the cigarette from his mouth and flicked off the spit from the end. ‘You’re having me on, Mr Frost!’

  ‘I wish I was,’ answered Frost gravely. He took a bite at his hamburger, then pulled it from his mouth. ‘Bloody hell!’ He snatched the top from his bun and gaped in disbelief. Lying across the onion, drenched in a bloody pool of tomato ketchup, was a severed human finger.

  Gilmore shuddered and dropped his on the counter. Harry’s face went a greasy white and his head jerked back in horror, rattling the tins on the shelf behind him. ‘Christ, Mr Frost! They told me it was good meat. They said it was prime beef steak . . .’ His voice suddenly changed to outrage. ‘You bastard!’

  The severed finger was wiggling at him and Frost was convulsed with laughter as he pulled it free and wiped off the ketchup.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ bellowed Harry. ‘You nearly gave me a bloody heart attack.’

  Frost wiped the tears from his eyes. ‘I was going to put my dick in, Harry, but the buns were too small.’

  ‘Bleeding funny!’ snarled the man as they walked back to the car, Frost still convulsed at his joke. ‘Pity you don’t put your bloody energy into finding that poor kid’s killer.’

  Frost stopped laughing.

  The cemetery was crawling past the car window. Frost asked Gilmore to stop. He lit a cigarette and stared moodily across white marble and granite. ‘Harry was right, son. That bloody girl. I haven’t the faintest idea what to do next.’

  Gilmore said nothing. At the far end of the empty road he had spotted a man, dressed in black, crouching by the cemetery railings. Gilmore clicked off the headlights, then nudged Frost, who nodded. ‘I see him, son.’

  The man seemed to be doing something to the railings.

  ‘What’s he up to?’ asked Gilmore.

  ‘Whatever it is, let him get on with it,’ muttered Frost, huddling down into his seat. ‘I can’t solve the cases I’ve got. I don’t want any more.’

  But Gilmore wanted more. Another arrest on top of the successful outcome of the Compton case would do his promotion chances a world of good. He wound down the window and stuck his head out, trying to make out what the man was doing. Frost shivered as the cold air rushed in. ‘He’s either got his dick stuck between the railings, or he’s having a pee, son. Let’s get back to the station.’

  Suddenly the man seemed to push against the railings and was through to the cemetery where his black shape flitted briefly across the white of the headstones before being gulped up by darkness.

  Gilmore was out of the car while Frost was still fumbling for his seat belt.

  One of the cast iron railings had rusted away and could be lifted from its concrete base. Gilmore pulled it up and wriggled though, then held it so Frost could follow.

  The cemetery was vast. Their man could have gone anywhere. ‘We’ve lost the bugger, son.’

  ‘Shh!’ hissed Gilmore, squinting to focus his eyes. ‘There!’

  Frost’s eyes followed Gilmore’s finger. The moon pushed its way through a cloud and illuminated the cemetery in a cold blue light. Uncut grass twitched and shivered in the wind. Trees creaked and groaned. And then Frost saw him. About sixty yards away, zigzagging between the graves.

  ‘Follow me!’ ordered Gilmore, haring off in pursuit. Reluctantly, Frost stumbled after him. He couldn’t see what Gilmore was getting all excited about. The man could simply be taking a short cut.

  They jogged on, past angels and cherubs. The path veered to the right and there ahead of them was the Victorian crypt. ‘Stop, son,’ pleaded Frost, ‘I’ve got to rest.’ They paused alongside some new, raw graves, panting, sucking in air, looking left and right where the path split. Nothing but white headstones as far as the eye could see.

  ‘We’ve lost him,’ said Frost happily. ‘Let’s get back to the car.’

  An irritated flap of Gilmore’s hand hushed him to silence and pointed to the crypt. The man, his back to them, was bent over doing something to the padlock. A loud click, then a groaning of hinges as the door was pushed open. A torch flashed and the man disappeared inside the burial vault.

  ‘Still taking a short cut?’ scoffed Gilmore, smugly. He moved quietly round to the side of the building and squeezed through the railing by the tap, where Paula Bartlett’s killer squeezed through with her body. Frost, slower, followed.

  Round to the door where the newly fitted brass padlock still held the hasp firmly, but as before, the screws had been prised from the rotting door frame. Intermittent splashes of light spilled from inside. Echoing in the confined space, sounds of something heavy being dragged across the stone floor.

  Gilmore and Frost looked at each other. What the hell was he doing?

  Cautiously, Gilmore edged his head until he could see inside. Pitch black, then the man’s torch clicked on again and lit up a scatter of something on the floor. Bones. Human bones. And on top of them, a grinning, yellow-toothed, human skull.

  Gilmore’s involuntary gasp was enough to make the man spin round, the glare of his torch hitting Gilmore straight in the eyes, momentarily blinding him. Then, with a yell, the man charged and Gilmore found himself flying through the air, his back, then his head hitting the stone floor with a teeth-jolting crack making pin-points of light dance in the blackness at the pain.

  Crouching, ready to give him a second dose, the man moved forward.

  ‘Stay where you are. Police!’ yelled Frost, dragging his torch from his mac pocket and kicking bones out of the way as he advanced into the vault. The man blinked into the beam and Frost stopped in his tracks. Gilmore’s assailant was wearing a clerical collar.

  The curate gawped surprise at the sudden appearance. ‘Mr Frost!’

  Gilmore creaked open his eyes and saw a skull and a thigh bone within inches of his face. He sat up, gingerly touching the back of his head then studying the blood on his fingertips.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Sergeant,’ apologized the curate. ‘I thought you were one of the vandals.’ He helped Gilmore to his feet and examined the cut on his head. ‘Only a graze, I th
ink.’

  With an angry jerk, Gilmore shook him off. ‘Perhaps you’d care to explain what you’re doing here at this time of night?’ He picked up the torch and swept the stone floor with its beam. The lids of two coffins had been unscrewed open and the skeletal bodies inside tipped out with bones and pieces of shroud strewn all over the floor. ‘And how do you propose to explain this?’

  ‘I use the graveyard as a short cut to get back to the vicarage. I’ve been sitting with another sick parishioner. She died, I’m afraid – this terrible influenza epidemic.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘So many deaths.’

  ‘Let’s have the address of this sick old lady,’ said Gilmore, pen poised over his notebook. He wrote down the details. ‘Right. Now explain this.’ He nodded at the mess.

  ‘Does it need explaining?’ said the curate bitterly. ‘You’re supposed to be protecting us against vandals. I passed the crypt and saw the door was open. I came in to investigate and found this.’ He shook his head. ‘Such pointeless desecration. One tries to be forgiving, Sergeant, but this is sick.’

  Gilmore snapped shut his notebook. ‘All right, Mr Purley. That’s all, for now.’ He emphasized the ‘for now’.

  They followed him out and watched as he tried to make the door secure. ‘You’ll need a new door frame,’ said Frost.

  ‘Yes, Inspector. More expense.’ Another sigh. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow and try and fix it. I’ll tidy up inside as well.’ Round to the side of the building where they squeezed through the gap in the railing.

  They watched him picking his way between the graves before veering off towards the vicarage.

  ‘I don’t trust him,’ growled Gilmore. ‘He’s always out too late at night for my liking. If there’s been another Ripper murder . . .’ Frost was pinning his hopes on the coach driver, but Gilmore had serious doubts. ‘Let’s go. This place is giving me the creeps.’

  ‘It must have given Paula Bartlett’s killer the creeps, coming here at dead of night with a body in his arms.’ Frost poked away at his scar and stared at the ranks of white headstones crowding in on the crypt. ‘He knew how to find the crypt, son, and he knew he could get in.’ He pushed his hands deep into his mac pockets and wandered along the railings, booting at pebbles in his path. ‘So how did he know?’

  ‘Perhaps he was someone who often used the graveyard as a short cut,’ offered Gilmore, pointedly rubbing the back of his head.

  Frost chewed his knuckles in thought, then took out his cigarette packet and shook it. One left. He poked it in his mouth and flung the empty packet into the long grass. A blast of cold wind cut across the cemetery, shaking the trees and making him shiver. ‘Let’s go.’

  They walked on to the path where the first of the new graves encroached. Frost struck his match on a convenient headstone. The match flared. He saw the wording, but at first didn’t take it in. Then he stared, open-mouthed, until the match burnt his fingers. ‘Where the bloody hell did this come from?’

  He struck another match so Gilmore could read the inscription.

  In Loving Memory

  Of

  Rosemary Fleur Bell

  April 3 1962 – September 10 1990

  Adored Wife Of Edward Bell M.A.

  R. I. P.

  ‘The schoolmaster’s wife! Her grave right on the bloody doorstep of the crypt and we haven’t spotted it. We must be bleeding blind as well as stupid!’

  ‘It’s probably only just been put up,’ said Gilmore, wondering what all the fuss was about. ‘You have to wait ages for the grave to settle before you can erect a headstone.’

  ‘That wispy-bearded bastard. I knew it was him all the time.’ He turned and stared at the crypt.

  ‘I don’t follow you,’ said Gilmore.

  ‘You could spit on the flaming crypt from here,’ said Frost. ‘At the funeral Bell would have had a grandstand view of that fat-gutted plumber forcing open the door to get inside out of the rain. Later he needed somewhere to hide the kid’s body. A crypt. Who’d look for a body in a Victorian crypt?’

  ‘You’re saying he killed her the very day of his wife’s funeral?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frost.

  ‘But he was in the house all the time she was doing her paper round.’

  ‘I don’t know how he did it, I just know he did it.’

  Gilmore swivelled his head towards the vault door with its solid brass lock hanging impotently. ‘Even if you are right, how are you going to prove it?’

  ‘Proof!’ barked Frost. He took a long drag at his last cigarette and dashed it to the ground half-smoked. ‘Everyone’s obsessed with bloody proof.’ Then his shoulders slumped. Gilmore was right. Without proof, the bastard was going to get away with it.

  Thursday night shift (2)

  The minute hand on the lobby clock was quivering as it gathered its strength to claw up to two o’clock. The damn phones had been ringing non-stop and Wells was finding it hard to keep his voice sounding polite. ‘I’m sorry, madam,’ he told a caller who had phoned previously to complain that her neighbours were having a noisy row and were keeping her awake. ‘We’re short-staffed and we had to divert the car to a more important incident. We’ll get someone there just as soon as we can.’ Hardly had he replaced the phone and logged the call when there was an angry commotion outside, then a scowling, red-faced bull-frog of a man in an expensive black overcoat and a white silk scarf exploded into the lobby, closely followed by an anxious-looking PC Collier.

  ‘Who’s in charge?’ the man bellowed, dumping a bulky brie-fcase on the floor. He reeked of whisky.

  Wells put his pen down and sighed. He could do without this. ‘I am, sir.’

  The man looked disdainfully at Wells’ sergeant’s stripes and screwed his face into a sneer. ‘I want someone in authority, not you. Not a bloody sergeant.’

  ‘What’s this all about?’ Wells asked Collier.

  The man barged between the two officers. ‘Don’t you damn well ignore me. I’m talking to you, Sergeant. You ask me, not him. Now get me someone in authority.’ He fumbled in his pocket for a cigar.

  ‘Would an inspector satisfy you, sir?’ asked Wells, struggling to hold his temper in check.

  ‘If that’s all you’ve got, then he’ll have to do,’ snapped the man, clicking a gold Dunhill lighter and drawing on the cigar. Wells felt like pointing to the ‘No Smoking’ sign but wasn’t in the mood for any more aggravation and the odds were that Frost would come slommocking out with a cigarette in his mouth. He used the internal phone and whilst the man glowered and puffed cigar smoke and whisky fumes all over him, asked Inspector Frost to come into the lobby.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Frost. What’s up?’

  Frost, in his crumpled suit, greasy knotted tie and unpolished shoes, didn’t look at all impressive and he certainly didn’t impress the complainant who pulled the cigar from his mouth and stared contemptuously. ‘Isn’t there anyone else in charge?’

  ‘No,’ said Frost. ‘So if you’ve anything to say, spit it out, I’m busy.’

  ‘Not too busy to attend to me,’ snarled the man. ‘I’m making a complaint against that police officer.’ His finger jabbed at Collier. ‘He drove his car into me while I was stationary, then accused me of drunken driving.’

  Frost wrinkled his nose and turned his head away from the whisky fumes. To Collier he said, ‘Has he been breathalyzed?’

  ‘No, Inspector. He refused.’

  ‘Right,’ said Frost to Wells. ‘Get a police surgeon . . . one with warm hands. We’ll have a urine sample.’ Back to Collier. ‘So what happened, Constable?’

  ‘I’ve just told you what happened,’ shouted the man, his face getting redder.

  Frost pushed him away. ‘Shut up. You’re giving me a bleedin’ headache.’ Back to Collier.

  ‘I was on patrol in the Bath Road when I saw this Bentley crawling along, swinging from one side of the road to the other. I signalled for the driver to stop. He pulled into the kerb. I drew up behind him. As I was get
ting out, he started up the engine. I think he was trying to get away, but he put it into reverse by mistake and rammed into me. He was obviously drunk – speech slurred, eyes glazed. He flatly refused to use the breathalyzer, and knocked it out of my hand, so I brought him in.’

  ‘Well done,’ nodded Frost. ‘Book him.’ As he turned to go, the man grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him round.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he demanded, pushing his sweating face close to the inspector’s.

  ‘I know what you are,’ replied Frost, shaking himself free. ‘You’re a drunken, boring prick. Take your sweaty paw off my suit.’

  No-one heard the lobby door swing open. ‘What’s going on here?’

  Frost groaned. Bloody Mullett had to choose this particular moment to do his rallying call act on the troops. A little touch of Mullett in the night. ‘I’m handling it, sir,’ he said firmly.

  Mullett hesitated. He preferred not to get involved in anything unless he knew what it was about. Then his face lit up with recognition. ‘Good lord! It’s Councillor Knowles. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m making an official complaint against this police officer,’ said Knowles, ‘and I’m being treated abominably. That man . . .’ and his lip curled at Frost, ‘has been incredibly rude. He has threatened me, sworn at me and made me the subject of a false charge.’

  Mullett looked suitably shocked. His lips tightened. ‘You’d better come to my office, councillor. I’m sure we can sort this out.’ He glowered at Frost as he spun on his heel. ‘Two coffees to my office at once, please, Sergeant.’

  Frost jerked forked fingers to the door as it closed behind his Divisional Commander. ‘Pompous git!’ he bellowed impotently to the ceiling.

  ‘Did you hear that? Two coffees!’ croaked Wells. ‘What does he think this is – an all-night flaming café?’

  Young PC Collier was white-faced. ‘What will happen, Sarge? It was a proper arrest. The man was drunk and he ran into me.’

  ‘Go and make their coffee,’ said Wells, ‘and do one for me.’

  The internal phone buzzed. Inspector Frost to report to the Divisional Commander . . . at once! ‘When I’m ready,’ said Frost, after he had hung up. Slowly he finished his cigarette, then ambled off to obey the summons. Mullett was waiting for him in the passage outside. He took Frost by the arm and drew him away, beaming a smile of smug satisfaction. Hello, thought Frost. What’s the slimy sod been up to?