Frost 3 - Night Frost

by R D Wingfield

  "I’m sure this is all significant stuff," Frost said, "but I’m such a dim sod I can’t see it." He wandered over to the window and opened it to let out the smell of tobacco smoke. In the darkened street below, the street lights were just coming on.

  Gilmore sighed inwardly. He knew the man was thick, but surely he didn’t have to explain every detail. "I’m saying the glass was moved by someone else. I’m saying she left a suicide note and weighed it down with the glass. The stepfather found the body, saw the note and because it implicated him, he destroyed it. There’s two sets of prints on the glass. I’m laying odds they’re the girl’s and the stepfather’s."

  Frost squinted at the glass. "Anything else?"

  "Yes," said Gilmore. "I’ve got a feeling about the step father. He’s hiding something. I just know he is."

  Frost nodded. Feelings and hunches were things he knew all about. His eyes slowly traversed the room. Yes, there was something wrong. He could sense it too. "All right, son, let’s go and have a chat with the stepfather." He pitched his cigarette out of the window and closed it, then took one last look at the still figure on the bed before covering her with the sheet.

  They were in the lounge, a large, comfortable room with heavy brown velvet curtains drawn across a bay window. From the other room the heart-breaking sound of sobbing went on and on. Frost stared gloomily at the blank screen of a 26-inch television set and wished they could get this next part over. He looked up as the stepfather, Kenneth Duffy, a dark-haired, boyish-looking man, in his late thirties, came in.

  Duffy’s eyes were red-rimmed and his cheeks glistening wet. He had been crying. Drying his face with his hands, he dropped heavily into an armchair opposite the two detectives. "My wife’s too upset to talk to you."

  "I quite understand, sir," murmured Frost, sympathetically. "I know you’ve already explained everything to my colleague, but I wonder if you’d mind telling me. I understand you’re a van driver with Mallard Deliveries?"

  "Yes."

  "And it was you who found Susan?"

  "Yes." His voice was so low they had to lean forward to catch what he was saying. "I found her."

  "What time would this be?"

  "Time? This afternoon . . . just after four. She was on the bed. I touched her. She was cold." He broke down and couldn’t continue.

  Frost lit a cigarette and waited until Duffy was ready to go on. "Tell me what happened this morning. Right from the beginning."

  "Susan always got herself up . . . made her own breakfast. She had a half-term holiday job in the new Sainsbury’s supermarket . . . shelf-filling and sometimes helping out on the check-out. She had to clock in at eight and left the house at half-past seven. I’d wait until I heard the front door slam, then I’d get up."

  "You wouldn’t come down until after she had gone?"

  "I don’t start work until 8.30. We’d only get in each other’s way."

  "I see," said Frost, wondering if there was more to it than that, if Susan was deliberately avoiding being alone with her stepfather.

  "I heard her going up and down the stairs this morning, but now I think of it, I never heard the slam of the front door. She always slammed it when she went out. Today she must have gone back upstairs to her bedroom. I came down a little after 7.30, washed, dressed and went to work."

  "And you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?"

  "No. There was nothing to suggest she hadn’t gone to work."

  "You didn’t look in her bedroom before you left?" asked Frost, looking for somewhere to flick his ash.

  "I had no reason . . . but in any case, she hated people going into her room when she was out. So I went to work and my wife went to work and Susan was upstairs dying." Again he broke down.

  "So what made you go into her bedroom at four o’clock this afternoon?" asked Frost.

  "I’d finished early and was home just before four. I phoned Susan at Sainsbury’s to remind her about the groceries we needed and they told me she hadn’t been in to work all that day. I suddenly remembered I hadn’t heard that front door slam. I went upstairs and looked in her bedroom." He knuckled the tears from his eyes. "I’m sorry," he said. "I’m so sorry." He was apologizing for crying. Frost gave a sympathetic nod and made a mental note to check with Duffy’s firm about him finishing early.

  "Have you any idea why Susan should want to take her own life?"

  "There was no reason—no reason at all."

  "Was she worried about anything?"

  "She seemed a bit edgy over the last couple of days. We thought something had gone wrong at school . . . a row with a friend or something . . . nothing serious."

  "Did she have a boyfriend?"

  "Stacks of them—no-one steady."

  "She must have had some reason for killing herself," Frost insisted. "Family trouble, perhaps? Girls don’t always get on with their stepfathers."

  "We got on fine," insisted Duffy. "She was happy at home . . . doing well at school . . . everything was right for her."

  "If everything was right," said Frost, "she’d still be alive." He stared at Duffy until the man had to turn his head away. "We couldn’t find her suicide note."

  The knuckles of Duffy’s hands whitened as he gripped hard the arms of the chair to try to stop his body from shaking. "There wasn’t one."

  "My colleague here is pretty certain there was."

  "If there had been a note, I’d have found it."

  "Of course," said Frost, treating Duffy to an enigmatic smile. "Of course you would." He studied the glowing end of his cigarette, then casually asked, "Was she pregnant?"

  "Pregnant? Girls don’t kill themselves these days just because they’re pregnant."

  "It depends who the father is," snapped Gilmore. Duffy’s head came up slowly, angry patches burning his cheeks. He sprang to his feet, fists balled. "What are you suggesting? What filth are you bloody suggesting?"

  Frost stepped between them and pushed Duffy back into the chair. "We’re suggesting nothing, Mr. Duffy. The post-mortem will tell us if she was pregnant, in which case we might want to talk to you again."

  "I’d like to talk to Susan’s mother," said Gilmore. "No!" Duffy leapt from the chair and stood by the door to bar their way.

  "It’s all right, sir," said Frost. "It won’t be necessary." He jerked a thumb at Gilmore. "Let’s go, Sergeant."

  Gilmore glared at Frost. Right, you sod. Mullett wants the dirt on you, I’ll find it for him. With a curt nod at Duffy, he followed the inspector out. The sobbing from the kitchen was much softer, weaker. The mother had cried herself to exhaustion.

  Outside in the car they watched as a hearse pulled up to collect the body for the post-mortem. Two undertakers in shiny black raincoats slid out the coffin.

  "Well?" asked Gilmore, impatiently. "What do we do about it?"

  "We do nothing," said Frost. Before Gilmore could protest, he explained. "Look, son, just on a hunch and without any evidence, you expect me to believe that Duffy’s been having it away with his unwilling, fifteen-year-old, schoolgirl stepdaughter."

  "Yes," replied Gilmore, biting off each word, "that’s exactly what I expect you to believe."

  Frost took a long drag at his cigarette. "If it’s any consolation, son, I agree with you all the way. I reckon he put Suzy up the spout and that’s why she killed herself and that’s why stepdaddy destroyed the suicide note. But we could never prove it. She never made a complaint and now she’s dead." He wound down the car window and jettisoned his cigarette end into the gutter. "There’s sod all we can do about it."

  "You want proof?" said Gilmore, his hand on the car door handle. "I’ll get you proof. Let me go and talk to the mother. She must have noticed something."

  "No!" Frost grabbed Gilmore’s hand and pulled it away from the handle. "You do not breathe a word of this to the mother. Don’t you think the poor cow’s suffered enough? Let it drop, son. That’s the end of it."

  Gilmore stared at the rain. "So the bastard gets
away with it?"

  "Yes," agreed Frost. "The bastard gets away with it." He started the engine.

  The undertakers were sliding the coffin into the back of the hearse.

  The light in the upstairs bedroom window went out.

  The rain bucketed down.

  Monday evening shift

  The internal phone grunted and gave its peevish ring. Automatically Wells picked it up and said, "No, sir, Inspector Frost hasn’t come in yet . . . Yes, sir, the minute I see him." He banged the phone down and stamped his feet to try and restore his circulation. It was freezing cold in the lobby. The central heating had broken down and wouldn’t be repaired until the following day at the earliest. How he envied all those lucky devils who were down with the flu and were tucked up in their nice warm beds and didn’t have to put up with Mullett bleating every five minutes. He consulted the wall clock. Twenty to ten. Only ten lousy minutes of the shift gone. Still, it was only half a shift. Sergeant Johnnie Johnson was to relieve him at two. So only another four freezing hours of this.

  A roar of poncey aftershave as the new chap, Detective-newly-promoted-to-bloody-Sergeant Gilmore marched up to the desk. "Where’s Inspector Frost?"

  "No idea," beamed Wells, delighted to be so unhelpful. Gilmore scowled at the clock. Frost was ten minutes late already. "How do I get a cup of tea?"

  "You make it yourself. The canteen’s closed. The night staff are all down with flu."

  Gilmore scowled again. Detective sergeants didn’t make the tea. He would find DC Burton and get him to do it. As he turned to go he bumped into a woman wearing a red raincoat with the hood up over her head. "Sorry," he muttered, stepping out of her way.

  "Yes, madam?" asked Wells; Then he recognized her and his voice softened. "What can we do for you, Mrs. Bartlett?"

  "I’ve got to see Inspector Allen. It’s very urgent. I’ve news about Paula . . ."

  Gilmore stopped dead. Paula? Paula Bartlett? Of course, the girl on the poster, the missing school kid. "Perhaps I can help, madam. I’m Detective Sergeant Gilmore. I’m handling the case in Mr. Allen’s absence."

  She looked up at him, eyes blinking behind heavy glasses, a dumpy woman in her early forties. Her usually pale face was flushed with excitement. "Wonderful news. Paula’s alive. I know where she is."

  "Mrs. Bartlett . . ." began Wells guardedly, but Gilmore took her by the arm and drew her away to one of the benches. "Where is she, Mrs. Bartlett?"

  "In a big house, overlooking the woods."

  His hand shaking with excitement, Gilmore scribbled this down.

  "Where did you get this information from?" called Wells from the desk.

  Gilmore scowled. He was handling this. He didn’t want any interference from the sergeant.

  She turned towards Wells. "From Mr. Rowley. He’s a clairvoyant."

  Gilmore’s heart sank. "A clairvoyant?"

  She nodded earnestly. "He phoned us. He told us things about Paula that no-one would know. He said he suddenly had this mental picture of Paula in a tiny room . . . a tiny attic room. She was being held prisoner. He described the room, the house, everything."

  "I see," said Gilmore. He stood up. "If you’ll excuse me for a moment." He crossed over to Wells and lowered his voice. "Do we know a clairvoyant named Rowley?"

  "No," grunted Wells. "But we know a nut-case called Rowley who thinks he’s a clairvoyant. He spots the girl in about fifty different places every bloody week."

  "Shit!" said Gilmore. He returned to the woman, who was waiting expectantly. "I don’t think you should raise your hopes too high," he began, but she was in no mood for pessimism.

  "Paula’s alive," she said simply. "You’re going to find her and bring her back to me. I’ve got the full details here." She pressed a sheet of folded notepaper into his hand.

  The lobby doors crashed open and Frost barged in. "It’s peeing cats and dogs out there," he announced, tugging off his scarf and flapping rain-water all over the papers on Wells’ desk. "Oh heck!" He had spotted Mrs. Bartlett walking across the lobby with Gilmore. He turned quickly and pretended to be studying a "Foot and Mouth Restriction Order" poster on the wall. It was cowardly, but he couldn’t face her. He felt like a cancer specialist trying to avoid a terminally ill patient anxious for reassuring news. There was no reassuring news. The girl was dead. He knew it.

  "Everything all right, Mrs. Bartlett?" called Wells. "Yes, thank you," she smiled, pulling the red hood over her hair. "This gentleman here is going to bring Paula home for me. I’ve got her room all ready." She gave Gilmore a look of such implicit trust, he didn’t have the heart to contradict her. He opened the lobby door and watched as she crossed the road in the rain to hurry home and wait for her daughter.

  "Poor bitch," murmured Frost. "She comes in two or three nights a week."

  "You might have warned me," Gilmore snapped angrily to Wells.

  "You never gave me the chance," said Wells happily. To Frost he said, "Mr. Mullett wants to see you."

  "Sod Mr. Mullett," said Frost.

  "That’s what I say," said Wells, "but he still wants to see you."

  In direct contrast to the arctic conditions in the rest of the station, Mullett’s office was a hothouse with the thermostat on the 3-kilowatt convector heater set to maximum. But the heat did nothing to soften the expression on his face which was pure ice as he waited for Frost, who was already nearly a quarter of an hour late.

  A half-hearted rap at the door. Unmistakably Detective Inspector Frost. Even his knock was slovenly. Mullett adjusted his chair to dead centre, straightened his back and curtly said, "Enter!"

  The door opened and Frost shuffled in. What a mess the man looked. The shiny suit with the loose buttons, creased and crumpled where it had received a soaking from last night’s rain and had then been dried over a radiator. His tie was secured with a greasy knot that looked impossible to undo and Mullett was sure that the shirt was the same one the inspector had been wearing for the past six days. Why was this flu virus perversely selecting all the best men for its victims and leaving the rubbish unscathed?

  Frost flopped into a chair. "Take a seat," said Mullett a split second too late. His lips tightened as he unlocked the middle drawer of his desk and removed the envelope from County HQ.

  Frost watched warily, wondering which of his many transgressions had come to light. He adjusted his face into a pre-emptive expression of contrition and waited.

  "I’ve never been so humiliated and ashamed in all my life," began Mullett.

  No clue here. Mullett had used these opening remarks many times before.

  "That an officer in Denton Division—my division—should be detected in forgery."

  Forgery? Frost’s mind raced. He had often forged Mullett’s signature on those occasions when his Divisional Commander’s authorization had been required and Frost knew it would not be forthcoming. But the last occasion was months ago.

  Mullett pulled out a wad of papers from the envelope and detached the Strictly Confidential County memo. The rest he pushed across to the inspector.

  Frost’s heart dropped with a squelch into the pit of his stomach. He recognized them immediately. His car expenses. His bloody car expenses, back like an exhumed corpse to accuse him

  "Ah—I can explain, Super," he began, frantically trying to dream up an excuse that would satisfy Mullett.

  But Mullett was in no mood for explanations. He snatched up the receipts for the petrol Frost was claiming to have purchased during the month. "Forgeries!" he snapped. "Twelve different petrol stations, but identical handwriting. Your handwriting, Inspector." He waggled the receipts under Frost’s nose and Frost could see that someone in County had done the Sherlock Holmes with his expense claim and had ringed in red ink all the similarities in the handwriting of the various receipts.

  "Flaming hell!" gasped Frost. "Here we are, down to less than half-strength, working double shifts, and some lazy sod in County has got the time to go through a few lousy petrol receipts." He tos
sed the expense claim back on the desk. "If I was you, sir, I’d damn well complain."

  "Complain?" shrieked Mullett. "I’m in no position to complain. One of my officers, an inspector, fiddling his car expenses . . ."

  "I wasn’t fiddling," said Frost. "I lost the proper receipts and had to make copies."

  "Copies! They weren’t copies. They were forgeries . . . and not even good forgeries at that!"

  Frost switched off his ears as Mullett ranted on, his face getting redder and redder, his fist pounding the desk at intervals. He wasn’t interested in what Mullett was saying, he was only concerned at what Mullett intended doing about it. This could be the chop, the heaven-sent opportunity his superintendent had been dreaming about for years. Then something Mullett was saying penetrated his filtering mechanism.

  "This could have been the end of your career in the force, but much against the grain, I have interceded on your behalf with County . . ."

  Interceded. Bloody hell, thought Frost. What’s the catch?

  Mullett stuffed all the receipts back into the envelope and gave it to Frost. "Resubmit your expense claim, but this time with proper, genuine petrol receipts and nothing further will be said."

  Frost sat stunned. This was too good to be true. He slipped the envelope in his inside pocket. "Right, Super, leave it to me." He rose, ready to take his leave before Mullett came to his senses.

  "This is your last chance, Inspector. One more slip up—just one—and . . ." But he was talking to an empty room. Frost had gone.

  Mullett sighed deeply. He unfolded the Confidential memo from County and read it again. It pointed out that he, as Divisional Commander, had signed Frost’s expense claim, certifying that he had checked it and found it correct. How on earth was he expected to check everything he had to sign? It was most unfair. And what was more unfair was that in getting himself off the hook; he had to get Frost off as well. Damn. He returned the memo to his middle drawer and locked it, then phoned Sergeant Wells saying he wanted a briefing meeting with the night shift in ten minutes.