The murmur of conversation stopped abruptly and every one sprang to their feet as Mullett marched into the Briefing Room. He frowned. There seemed very few people in attendance. A quick count . . . eight in all, six men and two WPCs. No sign of Frost. He raised his eyebrows at Wells, querying the small turnout.
"This is all there is, sir," he was told. "Two more down with flu, plus Bryant and Wilkes still in hospital after the pub punch-up last week. Collier’s on the desk in the lobby standing in for me."
"And Mr. Frost?"
"I did tell him, sir."
Mullett’s lips narrowed. Typical Well, he certainly wasn’t going to wait for him. He looked around the room. The new man, Gilmore, smartly turned out, was in the front row. Next to him, a sullen DC Burton, all brawn and no brains. Burton was a good man to have at your side in an emergency, but he would never progress beyond the rank of DC.
Mullett shivered and rubbed his hands together briskly. It was damn cold in here. "Sit down, everyone, please. Well, what we lack in quantity, I’m sure we more than make up for in quality." He let the half-hearted ripple of laughter die. "Firstly, I’m sorry to tell you that Mr. Allen has suffered a set-back and will not, be returning to duty for some time . . ." His brow furrowed in annoyance as the door crashed open and Frost burst in.
"The bloody canteen’s shut," announced Frost, looking round in puzzlement. "What’s everyone doing in here?" Then he spotted Mullett. "The briefing meeting! Sorry, Super . . . I forgot . . ."
Mullett waited until Frost had found himself a seat right at the back. "I was just telling everyone the sad news about Inspector Allen."
"Sad news?" echoed Frost, genuinely misunderstanding. "Bloody hell, he’s not coming back, is he?"
When the laughter subsided Mullett gave a tolerant smile. "He won’t be back for some time. I was about to explain that, in the meantime, you would be taking over his cases. Our resources are going to be spread very thinly, so I don’t want any wasted effort. We’ve got two people tied up in the Murder Incident Room on this Paula Bartlett case. What’s the current position?"
"It’s more or less fizzled out," said Frost, striking a match down a filing cabinet. "I can’t see any progress there until the body turns up."
"Good," smiled Mullett, ticking off the first item on his pad. "Then on the basis of your assessment, Inspector, I’m closing down the Incident Room pro tem. This will release much-needed personnel to more urgent duties." He beamed as if that solved everyone’s problems, then frowned as he reached the next item on his list. "Another senior citizen burglary, over the weekend, Inspector?"
Frost looked up. "That’s right, Super. Old lady living alone. He got away with about £80 in used fivers."
"Correct me if I’m wrong, Inspector," said Mullett, "but this would be the sixteenth such break-in in three weeks, the victims all senior citizens?"
Frost gave a vague shrug. "I haven’t been counting, but you’re probably not far out."
"I am exactly right," snapped Mullett. "Sixteen—all senior citizens, most of them robbed of their life savings. What are we doing about it?"
"What the hell can we do about it?" replied Frost. "He leaves no clues and nobody sees him. It doesn’t give us much to go on."
"What does he take?" asked Gilmore. "If it’s jewelry have we got all the local fences covered?"
"Good point!" agreed Mullett.
"Of course I’ve got the fences covered," replied Frost "Even a dim old twat like me thought of that. If anyone tries to sell any of the loot, I’ll be contacted. But he takes very little jewellery. He concentrates on cash—used notes Many of these old people mistrust banks. They keep wads of banknotes in the house. They stick it in the wardrobe or in the middle drawer of the dressing table under the condoms and the leather knickers. They think no-one will find it there—but it’s the first place he looks."
"You say there’s been no clues," said Mullett. "I understand people have spotted a blue van in the vicinity. That should give you something to go on. There can’t be that many blue vans in Denton."
"Sixteen burglaries," said Frost. "In two instances, we found neighbours who claim they saw a van parked in the vicinity late at night. One thought it was a small blue van, another a biggish van, dark-coloured, could have been blue."
"But it’s a lead," insisted Mullett. "Do a check on all blue vans."
"Do you know precisely how many blue vans there are in the Denton area alone?" asked Frost, producing and waving a small notebook.
Mullett flapped a hand. He didn’t want to know, which was a relief to Frost as he had no idea himself, although he was fully prepared to pluck an astronomical figure out of thin air if Mullett called his bluff "It doesn’t matter how many there are, Inspector. We’ve got a computer. It can churn out the information in seconds."
"But the computer can’t check through it and knock on bloody doors and question people," said Frost. "That’s what us poor sods would have to do and it could take weeks—months—and still lead nowhere."
Mullett gave Frost a vinegary smile. "It’s easy to be negative, Inspector. I offer suggestions, you offer objections. I’m getting a lot of flak from the press on this one. I want him caught now. That’s your number one priority. We haven’t got many men, but take as many as you like." He frowned with annoyance as Sergeant Wells’ hand kept flapping, trying to attract his attention. Not more of the man’s moans, he hoped. "Yes, Sergeant?"
"With respect, sir. It’s all very well saying Mr. Frost can have as many men as he likes, but I’ve still got a night shift to run and I’ve hardly any men to do it. This flaming flu epidemic doesn’t seem to have hit the criminal fraternity yet."
"I’m well aware of that, thank you, Sergeant, which brings me to my next point. We’re under strength so some things will have to go by the board. We are going to have to turn a blind eye to many of the minor crimes, even . . ." and he flashed a paternal beam in Gilmore’s direction, ". . .suicides which look slightly doubtful. We will not go out of our way to look for trouble. I don’t want any arrests for drunkenness, rowdiness, soliciting, illegal parking, loitering—anything minor like that. We just haven’t got the time or the manpower." He smiled at Wells. "So that should lighten your load quite a bit, Sergeant."
"Yes, sir," mumbled Wells, doubtfully.
"Fine," said Mullett, closing his notepad and turning to go. Then he remembered one other item. "Oh—Inspector Frost. I had a visit from the vicar of All Saints and Councillor Vernon this morning. They are very worried at this current wave of mindless vandalism in the cemetery. There was another incident over the weekend. How are the patrols going?"
"What patrols?" asked Frost.
"The anti-vandalism patrols I asked you to organize. I sent you a memo."
"I never got it," said Frost hastily. It was probably buried somewhere in his in-tray together with all the other stupid rubbish Mullett kept sending him.
"And I spoke to you personally about it."
"Ah—so you did," agreed Frost, vaguely remembering Mullett chuntering something about graveyards, "but as you so rightly said, Super, we can’t waste time on these piddling trivialities."
Mullett gave Frost a pitying shake of the head. Hadn’t the man any common sense? "There’s no such thing as a piddling triviality when a member of the town council is involved, Inspector. See to it right away—the vulnerable time seems to be between ten and midnight."
"I’ve got no-one to send," said Frost.
"Then attend to it yourself, Inspector. These are difficult times, so we act as a team. We’ve all got to pitch in." Mullett looked at his watch and yawned. It had been a long day and it was freezing cold in the Briefing Room. Time for him to get home to bed.
Monday night shift (1)
Rain dripped down the upturned collar of Frost"s mac. "How long have we been here?" he asked peevishly.
Gilmore wriggled his watch free of his sleeve. "Five minutes."
Frost hunched his shoulders against the cold, penetrati
ng drizzle and wound his scarf tighter around his face to blunt the teeth of the wind chewing on his scarred cheek. As he stamped his feet to try and bring some feeling to his frozen toes, his wet socks squelched in his shoes. "This is all a bleeding waste of time," he muttered, rasping a match on a weather-eroded headstone. The match splintered, then flared to show the moss-blurred inscription:
George Arthur Jenkins
Born and Died
Feb 6th 1865
Suffer the little children to come unto me
"There's one poor little sod who never drew his old age pension," he muttered moodily, letting the wind extinguish the match.
The sky was black and heavy with rain and the graveyard looked as lonely and as miserable as a graveyard should look at half-past ten on a cold, wet night. They were in the old Victorian section among weather-eroded angels who wept granite tears over the graves of long-dead children, and where overgrown grass straggled over the crumbling headstones and collapsed graves of their long-dead grief-stricken parents. Through the rain, way over on the far side, Frost could see the serried ranks of stark white marble marking the modern section, where the recently deceased slept an uneasy, decaying sleep. One of the cold marble headstones marked the grave of Frost's wife. He hadn't visited it since the funeral.
Detective Sergeant Gilmore, shutting his ears to Frost's constant moanings, was squinting his eyes, trying to focus through the lashing rain to something over to the left, near an old Victorian crypt. Was it the wind shaking the ivy, or could he see someone moving about?
Frost peered half-heartedly in the direction of Gilmore's pointing finger and grunted dismissively. "There's sod all there. It's the wind." He perched himself on the infant Jenkins' headstone and sucked hard at his cigarette. "How long have we been here now?"
"Eight minutes," replied Gilmore.
Frost ground his cigarette to death against the headstone and stood up. "That's long enough. We're going."
"But Mr. Mullett said . . ."
"Sod Mr. Mullett," called Frost, scurrying back to the car. "If anyone wants to vandalize graves in this pissing weather, then good luck to them."
Gilmore stared hard across the ranks of marble. The wind rattled the ivy again. There was someone there, he was sure of it. But a cloud crawled across the moon and it was too dark to see. When it passed, there was nothing.
The pub was packed, thick-fogged with eye-stinging smoke, and very noisy. Disco music belted out and voices were raised to overcome it. A group of teenaged girls, clutching vodka and limes, were shrieking with high-pitched laughter at the punchline of some dirty joke. No-one took any notice of the disc jockey framed by flashing disco lights up on the small stage, who was chewing a microphone to announce the next number. In counterpoint to the throbbing beat of the disco, a drunken Irishman in the far corner was singing "Danny Boy" in a high tenor voice to a fat lady in black who had tears in her eyes.
Gilmore was edgy. His very first night on duty in Denton and they had disobeyed Mullett's express orders. He decided he would choke his drink down and tell Frost he was going back to the cemetery, as ordered by his Divisional Commander, and would continue the surveillance on his own if necessary.
By waving a £5 note Frost managed to grab the attention of the barman who lip-read his order. As he waited, he let his professional eye wander over the throng. The girls with the vodkas were silent, poised ready to shriek anew as the next joke reached its climax. The drunken Irishman had fallen in mid-song and was face down on the table while the fat lady, no longer tearful, thumbed through his wallet.
The main doors were still swinging behind someone who had left hurriedly and Frost recalled a face, a blur in the crowd that had seemed alarmed at the entrance of the two detectives. It was a face he should know, but couldn't place. He shrugged. What the hell. They were here for a drink, not to feel the collar of some petty crook.
The barman pushed the two lagers across and was back from the till with Frost's change when the bar phone rang. He answered it, then, holding the receiver aloft, yelled, "Is there a Mr. Frost here?"
Frost swapped worried glances with Gilmore. Who knew they were here? Flaming hell, had Hornrim Harry sent his narks after them to report on their every movement? Gingerly, be took the phone and pressed it tight against his face, his finger jammed in the other ear to deaden the background noise. The caller was mumbling and he couldn't hear what the man was saying. "You'll have to speak up," he shouted and then, as clear as a bell, he heard the words "dead body". "Say that again?"
"Seventy-six Jubilee Terrace. Upstars bedroom. The old girl's dead. I think the husband's killed her."
"How did you know I was here? Who's this speaking?" A click as the caller hung up. Frost swore to himself and slid the phone back across the counter. If it was someone's idea of a joke, it wasn't a very funny one. And that voice. He knew it. It went with the face he glimpsed leaving the pub as they came in. The harder he tried to remember, the further it slipped out of his grasp.
"Trouble?" Gilmore asked anxiously. It was always trouble with Frost. If it was Mullett who had phoned, he'd make it quite clear that he had obeyed Frost's orders under protest.
Frost scooped up his change. "Knock back your drink, son. I might have another corpse for you to look at."
The man on the bike tucked his head down against the rain as he took the short cut through the cemetery after his meeting with the vicar. This damn rain seeping through his mac wasn't going to do his cold any good and he hoped he wasn't in for a dose of this flu thing that everyone seemed to be catching. Row after row of headstones slipped silently past as he pressed down on the pedals. Graves and tombs didn't frighten him, not even at this hour of night, but he would still be happier once he was out through the cemetery gates and on to the main road.
And then he nearly lost control of the bike as a sudden sound reverberated around the churchyard. A funeral bell. His head swivelled as he tried to locate the source. There! It was coming from the old Dobson vault! Someone had broken in and was tugging at the rope inside, tolling the bell installed some 150 years ago by old William Dobson who was terrified of being buried alive and wanted to be able to summon help should he awake in his coffin.
Through the rain he could see a light bobbing. He yelled and someone burst from the crypt, and hared off into the darkness.
He turned his bike and pedalled for all he was worth back to the vicarage where he called the police.
Jubilee Terrace was a cul-de-sac of Edwardian terraced houses and would soon be torn down when the next phase of the new town development was reached. Number 76, the fanlight still showing a light, was the end house standing next to a high brick wall which guarded an electricity sub-station. The rain had eased off slightly and the reflection of a lamp standard shimmered in a large puddle where the drain was blocked.
Gilmore knocked at the door and waited, his fingers drumming impatiently on the porch wall. No-one came. He knocked again louder this time.
The door to number 74 opened and a shirt-sleeved man looked out. "No use knocking there, mate. The old git's as deaf as a post."
"Actually, it's the lady of the house we want," said Frost. "Do you know if she's in?"
"She's got no choice . . . she's bed-ridden. Never goes out."
"I heard she was dead," said Frost.
"Dead? You must have the wrong house, mate. He may be deaf but he makes a lot of noise. These walls are paper thin. I can hear them talking and rowing—if my luck's out, I can even hear him gobbing down the sink."
"I'm not sure I've got their names right."
"Maskell—Charlie and Mary—he's Charlie, she's Mary."
"Oh, he's Charlie!" Frost pretended to make an alteration in his notebook, then, as soon as the man went in he dropped to his knees and squinted through the letter-box. A dimly lit hall papered in dreary, dark chocolate brown.
"How can she be dead if he's heard them talking?" protested Gilmore. "This has got to be a wind-up."
"You're
probably right, son," grunted Frost, still at the letter-box. Then his nose twitched and he knew it wasn't a wind-up. The bad breath of decay. He could smell death.
The detective sergeant took his turn to sniff then shook his head. "It's damp and stuffy, that's all."
"It's more than that, son." He gave one more knock which shook the front door. Noises inside, but no-one came. "Let's try the back way."
A lowish wall muddied their trousers as they clambered over to land with a splash in a small back yard, a few square feet of puddled concrete containing a dustbin and an outside toilet, its gaping door hanging from one hinge. Ever the optimist, Frost tried the back door, but it was locked and bolted. A downstairs sash window, curtains drawn and no light showing, defied the efforts of Frost's penknife.
"Let's leave it," said Gilmore, edging back to the wall. They were trying to break into someone's house just on the say-so of an anonymous phone call.
But Frost wasn't listening. He had now transferred his attention to the upstairs window. Difficult to tell from that angle, but it appeared to be open at the bottom. "Keep watch, son. Give a yell if anyone comes." He climbed up on top of the dustbin which seemed ideally sited for the purpose and heaved himself up on the outside toilet roof and then to the sill.
Yes, a gap at the bottom he could get his hand under. For a moment he hesitated. It all seemed too good to be true; the dustbin conveniently placed and the window invitingly open. But there was no turning back now. He lifted the window and dropped inside.
A pitch dark room. The torch he pulled from his pocket was on the blink, but its faltering light enabled him to steer a tiptoeing course through a maze of booby-trapped junk ready to topple at any moment—an old treadle Singer sewing machine, cardboard boxes gorged with useless items too good to throw away, the frame of a push bike and an old-fashioned pram from the late 1930s in pristine condition which, for some reason, made him think of the baby's grave in the churchyard.
Frost 3 - Night Frost Page 5