by Danny Miller
Hanlon wanted to tell her he was probably shacked up with some girlfriend, but didn’t. He saw that beneath the brassy carapace and tough-as-nails criminal self-sufficiency, Debbie was genuinely concerned. She wouldn’t be standing in Eagle Lane station of her own volition if she wasn’t.
‘OK, let me get you a form to fill out and we’ll put out a missing-persons on Stevie.’
Debbie pulled a big beaming smile that showed she had almost as much gold on her teeth as she had about her neck and fingers. ‘Thanks, love, that’s all I ask as a tax-paying citizen.’
Hanlon suppressed a crack of laughter at that one – she’d never paid tax on anything in her life. ‘Do you have a recent photo of Stevie? I’m sure we have some, but they’re mugshots.’
Debbie glared at him. ‘I’ll find one.’
On entering the incident room where the team were gathered for what was known as the ‘scrum’ – the morning progress briefing covering the cases CID were dealing with – Frost was met with a barrage of mickey-taking. There were Egyptian-mummy gags and references to turbans and tea cosies. No possibly offensive remark was left unused. Knowing that banter was all part of the job, Frost was ready and countered with some choice insults himself.
The clack of the digital clock on the wall told them it was now precisely 11 a.m., and the fun and games of the weekend were over.
‘All right, all right, shut up, everybody, and let’s have your attention!’ he eventually called out as he stepped up to the incident board.
The board had all the known information about the George Price shooting pinned up on it, with the most urgent or significant facts, names and dates underlined with a red marker pen. ‘Progress report, what do we think, what do we know.’ Frost laid out what he believed to be the significance of Price’s little black book. He turned towards the board and picked up a red pen, and in big bold letters wrote SOCKS and WINSTON.
He then addressed the team: ‘Nicknames, or code names; either way, I suspect they owe George Price a lot of money. Enough to kill him? We’ve seen people killed for a lot less than these two owe. Let’s try and find out who they are. Use all your available sources. They could be nicknames used by other people as well, not just Price. They’re gamblers, obviously, but they’re high-rollers, they have money. Who knows, maybe they also owe other people money? Maybe there’s people out there who are angry with them, and wouldn’t mind telling us about it.’
‘Are they the ones who hit you on the head and nicked your dosh, sir?’ asked PC Simms. ‘That’s not me trying to be funny … sir.’
‘You couldn’t if you tried, son. I only wish I had a nurse and a bedpan to save me.’ More laughter. ‘As Simms correctly pointed out, whoever it was went through my pockets and took the money out of my wallet and the black book. This may sound counter-intuitive, but I reckon it was the book they were after and not the dosh. The money was just a bonus, they couldn’t resist that. So, was it Socks and Winston who did it? Did they see me at the races with the book? Is it someone we’ve already spoken to?’
Frost spotted Arthur Hanlon slip through the door and make his way to the desks.
‘Nice of you to join us, Arthur.’
‘Sorry, guv, got waylaid. Debbie Wooder’s lost her husband.’
‘She can go shoplift herself another one!’ someone shouted out.
‘Any luck with Frank Trafford?’ asked Hanlon.
‘Thank you, Arthur, I was just getting to him.’ Frost wrote up the name on the board along with ‘Moustache 2’.
The DI filled in the rest of the team on his meeting with Frank Trafford at the races. ‘He’s got plenty of motive. After his wife got sacked she left him, so he’s definitely got a beef with the Prices. He drinks too much and gambles too much, so it’s no surprise he has money troubles, and he’s got a temper on him and a record for violence. And as an ex-squaddie with two Northern Ireland tours under his belt, he’s no stranger to firearms. And from what I’ve heard he doesn’t have a solid alibi.’
‘Could he be Socks or Winston?’ asked Simms.
Frost considered the young PC. Simms was just like his late older brother, Derek, at his age. He had a knack for asking the right questions, and he’d be making CID like his brother in no time, Frost would make sure of that. ‘Frank Trafford isn’t in that league.’
‘He’s got the violence about him, though,’ suggested Hanlon. ‘He might be the one who hit you over the head?’
‘That’s what you’re going to find out, Arthur. Bring him in, and let’s see if we can organize a line-up for our two eyewitnesses who saw’ – Frost wrote ‘Moustache 1’ on the board – ‘Terry Langdon leaving the scene in a red Porsche.’
‘Don’t think Frank Trafford’s got a Porsche, though,’ said Arthur Hanlon.
‘How do you know? He might have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in his garage.’ Frost turned his attention back to the team. ‘We also got some insights from his landlord into the state of Terry Langdon’s mind at the time of the Price shooting – fragile at best—’ Just then DC Clarke entered looking pleased with herself and holding a ring binder. ‘What you got for us, Sue?’
Clarke explained she’d just returned from the ballistics lab. She then ran through what she and DC Hanlon had discovered in and around Terry Langdon’s bungalow: his passport, which would suggest that he was still in the country, some recent gun magazines and an improvised firing range out in the woods, where they had recovered a bullet.
‘However,’ she continued, ‘the bullet in George Price’s head, from what Dr Maltby could ascertain from the entry wound and X-rays, indicates a 9mm handgun, maybe something like a Beretta. The bullet we dug out of the tree was from a .38, which matches the reading material Langdon had about the Webley Mk IV.’
‘So, the big question is, if you were doing firing practice – you’d use the same gun, surely?’ Frost’s question was rhetorical. ‘A semi-automatic and revolver have a completely different action and kick. Why would you change guns?’
‘And why leave your passport behind if you’ve planned in advance on killing someone and then going on the run?’ asked Hanlon.
‘You’re on a roll. But I’m surprised to see you still here, I thought you’d be knocking on Frank Trafford’s door by now.’
DC Hanlon stopped grinning and leaning back in his chair with his hands laced across his ample belly like he’d single-handedly cracked the case, and made his way out.
Clarke suggested, ‘Might want to put another name up there. Michael Price.’
Frost wrote it up. ‘He’s got motive. Doesn’t get on with his father, as George ousted him from the business in favour of his new wife.’
‘And he hasn’t got an alibi. He spent the day at home playing Chuckie Egg. It’s a video game. And I sort of believe him, he strikes me as the type who spends a lot of time on his own, bit of a misfit.’
‘That’s hardly a defence. But then again, you lot could hardly claim to be well adjusted either, could you?’ joked Frost.
Clarke joined in the laughter. Someone then asked if they were to give any assistance to the investigation into the jewel robbery in Rimmington over the weekend. Frost said only if they were asked to or if they came across some pertinent facts, intimating that Superintendent Kelsey and his team were more than capable, and even more territorial. There was always competition between Eagle Lane and the Rimmington nick: the last five-a-side regional tournament they’d played in had had more than a whiff of an ‘Auld Firm’ game about it, with shins getting whacked more than the ball.
Satisfied that everyone was fired up and there was enough to be getting on with, Frost drew the ‘scrum’ to a close, then went over to Sue Clarke’s desk and propped himself on the corner of it. She winced at the sight of him.
‘Looks nasty, Jack.’
‘What does?’
‘Your head.’
‘Not all of it, surely?’
‘No, not all of it. The bit that’s covered with a bandage looks OK.’
‘Hiya!’ said Clarke, bursting into a big smile.
Frost turned round towards the object of Sue’s interest, certainly of greater interest than him, and performed a perfectly executed comedy double-take as he saw DI Eve Hayward approaching. She was everything that John Waters had said she was. Frost did a smooth dismount from Clarke’s desk. As Hayward drew closer, he swore he could detect a little shimmy in her hips, a faint smile on her red lips, and a glint in her eyes as she looked at him. Maybe it was wishful thinking, or the bump on the head messing with his wiring, but Frost went with it anyway.
‘DI Eve Hayward, meet DI Jack Frost.’
‘Thank you, Sue,’ said Frost, extending a hand. ‘Nice to meet you, Eve.’
She took his hand. ‘Likewise, Jack.’
‘I’m sorry I missed your briefing on Saturday, must have got the times mixed up.’
‘I hope that wasn’t due to you getting dropped on your head.’
Frost laughed. ‘You know how it is, all in the line of duty.’
Eve Hayward nodded. She then glanced down. Frost followed her gaze and realized he was still holding her hand, a hand that was heating up.
He let go, nervously cleared his throat and said, ‘So then, counterfeit goods cropping up in the area? I can’t say that I’ve noticed.’
‘Because you haven’t been looking. But I think it will be a real eye-opener when you see just how far it goes.’
‘Put like that, how can I refuse?’ Frost glanced down at his watch. ‘How about I buy you a cup of tea and a bacon butty and you can tell me all about it? I like to keep abreast of things, Eve.’
‘I’m sure. And put like that, how can I refuse?’
Frost looked on as Hayward’s smile suddenly soured and dropped from her face altogether. Frost could feel jets of hot air beating down on the back of his neck. He turned to find Superintendent Stanley Mullett: his heavily magnified eyes behind his horn-rim spectacles were glaring down at him.
Frost never made it down to the canteen for the superior repast he’d promised Eve. He couldn’t help but suspect that the very prospect of he and DI Hayward sharing anything, much less the delights of the canteen, exasperated Mullett to his very core. It was clear to Frost that she had caught the super’s attention, and captured his imagination too, just as she had with everyone else in Eagle Lane who was male and had a pulse.
So there Frost stood, in Mullett’s office, whilst the superintendent sat at his desk in his top-of-the-range black leather, height-adjustable executive chair. He hadn’t invited Frost to sit down. Mullett’s back was straight and his hands were laced together in front of him with purpose – he looked like a newsreader, about to read him the riot act.
‘Your behaviour has been a disgrace, no other word for it.’
‘I beg to differ, Superintendent Mullett.’
‘Drinking, gambling, brawling, and then ending up in Denton General. Can you deny it? Unless that bandage around your head is the latest in fashion statements … Mr Adam and his Ants, perhaps?’
Frost raised an amused eye to the heavens at Mullett’s botched pop-culture reference; they usually stopped just short of Gilbert and Sullivan. ‘I can account for my actions.’
‘What you do at the weekends, Frost, is your business, but when it’s done under the guise of police work, then it becomes my business.’
Frost wanted to laugh good and hard as Hornrim Harry sat there stiff in his starched collar; his perfectly pressed uniform as black as boot polish; and the boots themselves, buffed to within an inch of their lives for a mirrored finish. Who was he kidding? He was so out of touch with the nitty-gritty, the gut instinct, and sometimes, when needs be, the down-and-dirty of real police work that he’d have to call a copper if he lost his keys. Everything came down to columns of figures – statistics and clear-up rates – for Mullett these days. All so that his desk could remain as empty as his head. It took a certain type to sit at that empty desk, and Frost thanked his lucky stars he’d never make it. Mullett could swivel on his top-of-the-range office chair to his heart’s content as far as he was concerned.
‘George Price, the victim,’ said Frost in a measured tone, ‘is a bookmaker who has a pitch at Radleigh races, so it made sense to me that anyone who knows anything about George Price would be at Radleigh races. And to do that, I had to blend in with the surroundings, win people’s trust, get them talking and try not to stick out like a sore thumb.’ Frost gently tapped a forefinger on the bandage. ‘Hence the sore head, not planned or intended, just some collateral damage. All part of the job, I’m afraid, and worth it for what I found out.’
Mullett drew his brows together above his glasses and examined Frost with a beady-eyed intent. ‘We have the name of the culprit, Terrence Langdon. There are eyewitnesses who saw him leave the scene of the crime, and from what I’ve read on the case, from what you’ve bothered to put in your report, he has plenty of motive: a long-standing feud with Price, and designs on his wife. We have Traffic and Transport Police looking for him, we’ve frozen his assets, and this week he’ll feature on Shaw Taylor’s Police 5. I don’t want Denton’s CID wasting any more time or resources on this.’
‘With all due respect, further information has turned up that leads me to believe there may be other suspects.’
‘Don’t take your eye off the ball, man, it’s Langdon we need to find.’
‘The first few days of any investigation are vital, and I already have DS Waters off the case because of the Bomber Harris shooting and unrest on the SHE, and now you want to take away DC Clarke for some bloody old nonsense no one gives a monkey’s about!’
‘I’m warning you—’
‘And I’m just trying to do my job!’
Mullett rose up from his seat with such force that Frost rocked back on his heels.
‘I didn’t come to see you just because of your dissolute behaviour in public—’
‘All in the line of duty—’
‘Concerns on the Southern Housing Estate have taken a turn—’
‘I’m not arguing against Waters being taken off the Price case, the Harris shooting is just as important – it’s Clarke that I’m angry—’
‘A young lad on the estate has died of a heroin overdose. Sixteen years old. He was found this morning.’
Frost rocked back on his heels again. Both men stood there, fixed in their positions, but without the heart to debate them any more. Something much bigger had just entered the frame. Of course, in reality, it was no great surprise, it had just been a matter of when. This was their first fatality in the drugs war, and sixteen years of age, just a kid. The drugs epidemic, as the media had labelled it, had already hit all the major cities. But still he felt a surge of indignant rage for the forces out there that would allow this to happen. Heroin was like a disease, and it was now on his patch, and he would do whatever it took to stop it, stop it spreading. He let out a heavy sigh, and Mullett did the same. For all the differences between the two men, when push came to shove, as it so often did, they had probably more in common than not. And right now, Frost wasn’t about to question the super’s authority any further. The death of the boy put it all into perspective – somehow a rich bookmaker getting shot, and still being alive, lost ground, and the new tragedy elicited the only possible response from Frost.
‘I’ll give it my full attention.’
Monday (3)
‘It’s a bad business, George, I’m telling you that. We’ve had the offer before, but we’ve always played with a straight bat. But I’m telling you, this is the end for me.’
Jimmy Drake sat in the wooden-framed armchair with its bobbling orange nylon upholstery. He was eating grapes, the grapes that he’d got for George Price. He was chatting to his old friend as if George was lying on a sun-lounger in the garden, by his swimming pool, as he liked to do on a hot summer’s day.
But of course Jimmy knew that wasn’t the reality as he watched George’s big barrel chest going up and down in time with the life-support system that pumped air into his lungs, kept his heart beating and the blood sloshing around; and all the tubes going in and out of him, and the steady bleeps and bouncing little lights of the machines telling him that George was still alive.
Jimmy had promised himself, and everyone else, that he wouldn’t visit his old friend until he was out of hospital. In his bed or in his garden at home, where he was sure he would be soon, with George immediately contravening doctor’s orders and smoking one of his big cigars and enjoying three fingers of Johnnie Walker Blue Label, if Jimmy knew George. But he’d come here today to tell him something. And he was just about to say it when—
‘Jimmy?’
Drake turned round and saw Melody Price framed in the doorway. She was dressed in her full-length fur coat, the finest Russian sable. God knows how many of the poor little sods have copped it to keep her in style like Lady Muck, thought the clerk, as she stepped into the room.
Melody looked at her husband, sort of peering over at him, almost as you would peer into a coffin. She had an expression of blank impassiveness that could, at a push, charitably pass as some sort of wifely stoicism. But then again, Jimmy couldn’t quite fully condemn her, either, as he wasn’t big on emotional displays himself.
She took a deep breath and shook her head. Almost as if she was disappointed in George, for having the temerity to get himself shot and then just lie about in bed all day; like those lazy scroungers he was always railing against on the news when the unemployment figures hit new record highs.
She eventually backed up what Jimmy was thinking by saying, ‘It seems strange seeing him like this. It’s just … it’s just not George, is it?’
Drake felt compelled to agree with her. He’d never known George to miss a day’s racing through illness. He couldn’t even remember him having a cold, never mind a hospital stay.
‘He’s so full of life,’ she continued. ‘I didn’t think anything would stop him.’