Night Frost djf-3

by R D Wingfield

  Frost looked away. There was nothing to say.

  Outside, in the car, Gilmore said, ‘That video. Did you notice Susan’s feet?’

  ‘Her feet were the last thing I thought of looking at,’ said Frost. ‘Why?’

  ‘The ground was rough so she was wearing shoes,’ said Gilmore. ‘Stark naked, but wearing shoes… just like Paula.’

  Frost worried away at his scar, then shook his head. ‘Coincidence, son. No-one would want to make a porn video with Paula. The poor little bitch didn’t have the looks, or the figure.’ He salvaged a decent-sized butt from the ashtray and lit up. ‘The doc was right. He said that poison pen bastard would kill someone some day.’ He huddled down in his seat, suddenly feeling cold. ‘And I haven’t the faintest idea how to go about catching the sod.’

  Gilmore started up the engine. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Drop me off at the station, then go home, son. You’ll be fit for sod all in the morning if you don’t get some kip.’

  Wednesday night shift (2)

  Gilmore drew up outside the house and checked the windows. Despite the hour he half expected to see all the lights blazing and a still-smouldering Liz waiting for him. But the house seemed to be in darkness and he sighed with relief. He wasn’t ready for another slanging match. But as he quietly clicked the front door shut behind him he heard mumbled voices and a slit of light showed from under the lounge door.

  He tiptoed down the hall and turned the handle. An old black and white film was playing on the television and Liz was curled up in the armchair, a couple of empty tonic water bottles on the table and a bottle of vodka on the floor by her side. She turned and held up a brim-full glass in a mock toast. ‘Home is the hunter!’ In one gulp she swigged it down, waving the empty glass triumphantly aloft.

  ‘It’s gone four o’clock,’ he said. ‘What are you doing up?’

  She pouted. ‘You said you’d be in early. You promised me you’d be in bloody early.’

  He shrugged off his jacket, loosened his tie and took a clean glass from the display cabinet. ‘I said I’d try. It just wasn’t possible.’ He flopped wearily into the other armchair and reached for the vodka bottle. It was empty. He held it up accusingly. ‘This was a full bottle on Saturday!’

  ‘So I bloody drank it. What else is there to do in this stinking town, sitting in this lousy room, waiting for you and you never bloody come.’

  He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to wipe away the fatigue. ‘It won’t be long.’ None too hopefully he pushed himself from the chair and foraged through the display cabinet, looking for something alcoholic amongst the half-empty bitter lemon and Coke bottles. Defeated, he poured himself a glass of Coke. It was warm and flat. On the television screen Humphrey Bogart was slapping Peter Lorre around. He relaxed, rested his head against the back of the armchair and tried to fight off sleep.

  ‘You know what I thought,’ slurred Liz in a husky whisper, putting her empty glass on the table. ‘I thought I’d wait up for my randy, rampant, lover-boy husband and I thought we’d have some randy, rampant sex. How does that grab you, superstud?’

  He was too tired. He wasn’t in the mood and he didn’t even think he was capable of making love. But he forced a grin. He didn’t want a row, a hurtful, scratching row, all in hoarse angry whispers to avoid disturbing the neighbours. ‘You’re on,’ he said, and held out his arms.

  She slunk over and nestled in his lap. He kissed her. She tasted of vodka. Her body was hot and burning and her perfume was heady and erotic. Her hand crawled over him, tugging the shirt free from his trousers, her fingers exploring, caressing and lightly scratching his lower stomach. Then he wasn’t faking any more. Then he was unbuttoning and easing off her dress. Then he was biting and licking and groaning.

  And then, jarring like a dentist’s drill, the door bell. A long, persistent ring. And someone banging on the door. And Frost’s voice yelling for him to open up. This is a nightmare, he thought. A bloody nightmare.

  ‘Sorry, son,’ said Frost, barging in as he opened the front door. ‘An emergency…’ He stopped dead as he saw Liz smouldering in the armchair, her dress unbuttoned down to the waist, making no attempt to cover her naked breasts. Frost made no attempt to hide his gaping admiration.

  Gilmore made the unnecessary introduction. ‘My wife Liz.’

  ‘Sorry about this, love,’ apologized Frost. ‘You must hate my guts.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply.

  ‘I’m known as Coitus Interruptus in the trade,’ added Frost, hoping to warm up the atmosphere, but neither of them responded.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Gilmore curtly.

  ‘Another arson attack at the Comptons’. I know it’s your case, but I’ll attend to it if you like.’

  Gilmore hesitated.

  ‘Bloody go,’ snapped Liz. ‘Bugger off and go!’ The door slammed as she stormed out of the room.

  ‘I’ll wait outside,’ said Frost. ‘Be quick.’

  ‘I’m coming now,’ said Gilmore, grabbing his coat.

  The rain had stopped, but a cold wind chased them to the car. ‘Sorry if I sodded things up for you, son,’ said Frost, settling into the passenger seat. Gilmore gave a noncommital grunt and slammed the car into gear. He looked back at the house, half hoping Liz would be at the window so he could give her a wave. A forlorn hope.

  The road was clear so Gilmore was able to ignore traffic signals and speed limits and drove with his foot jammed down hard while Frost briefly outlined what he knew. ‘Compton phoned the station about half an hour ago. Someone was prowling about outside. A couple of minutes later the station alarm went off, so the prowler must have broken a window or forced a lock or something. Control sent an area car. It found the place in flames. The fire brigade’s on its way. That’s all I know so far.’ As they left the town and climbed the hill to skirt the woods an orange glow throbbed in the sky ahead. ‘Bloody hell, son,’ said Frost. ‘That’s one hell of a fire.’

  Soon they could see the flashing electric-blue beacons of the fire trucks and hear the deep-throated roar of the burning wooden structure fanned to a frenzy by the wind. The scorching heat hit them as they climbed out of the car and stumbled over a spaghetti confusion of hoses.

  ‘Look out!’ someone yelled.

  A long-drawn-out creaking screech of agony as the supporting timbers of the mill gave way, then a slow rumbling as the roof collapsed and whooshed up a tongue of flame which licked the night sky with thousands of red, dancing sequins. Firemen in yellow oilskins turned their backs as the dragon’s breath of scorched air and smoke blasted out at them.

  With the roof down and the building open to the sky, the firemen were able to direct their hoses into the seething heart of the fire gradually damping down the flames and sending up clouds of steam and oily smoke.

  ‘Inspector! Over here.’ PC Jordan was waving to them from the side of a fire truck. There was something on the grass by his feet. Something covered by a crumpled sheet of grey plastic, dripping wet from the back-spray of the hoses.

  ‘Shit,’ said Frost. The plastic was draped over a dead body.

  ‘The firemen found him in the lounge,’ Jordan told them. ‘He’s burnt to buggery.’

  Frost bent and carefully lifted the sheet, then turned his head away, but not before he had breathed in the sickening smell of burnt flesh. Gilmore, watching, felt his stomach start to churn. The dead face gawping up at him was blistered red raw and distorted by intense heat. ‘Where the hair should have been was grey powdery ash.

  ‘The firemen reckon he must have fallen into a pool of blazing petrol,’ explained Jordan, staring straight ahead, determined not to look down. ‘They dragged him out of the lounge.’

  ‘Poor bastard,’ muttered Frost. He pulled the plastic sheeting down further to see better. Welded into the bubbling black flesh, pieces of charred material. ‘Looks like pyjamas.’

  ‘Yes, sir. We presume he’s the householder.’

  Frost forced himself to b
end again and study the face closer. If it was Mark Compton it would require medical and dental records for a positive identification. Slowly, he straightened up. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘The place was well alight when we got here. Simms radioed for the fire brigade. No way of getting in at the front, so I tried the rear and found Mrs Compton, in her night clothes, unconscious on the lawn just outside the back door.’

  'Where is she now?’

  ‘She’s with someone in the village, I think.’

  Frost nodded for him to continue.

  ‘When the fire brigade got here they sent a couple of men with breathing apparatus into the house. The body was in the lounge. They dragged him out but he was already dead.’

  ‘I thought the sprinklers were supposed to stop this sort of fire,’ said Frost.

  ‘They’d been put out of action, Inspector. The water supply was turned of at the mains.’

  Gilmore thought it was about time he reminded everyone that this was his case. ‘Radio through to Control,’ he snapped. ‘Tell all patrols that anyone out and about at this time of the morning, on foot or in a car, is a suspect and is to be detained for questioning.’

  ‘And advise all hospitals, chemists and doctors that we want to know immediately about anyone requesting treatment for burns,’ added Frost.

  A car horn sounded and Dr Maltby’s Vauxhall crept into the side road. Maltby, wrapped up against the cold in a thick overcoat, climbed out and surveyed the smouldering wreck age of the once beautiful house. He spotted Frost and made his way across, stepping with exaggerated care over the hose-pipes.

  ‘He’s drunk again,’ hissed Gilmore.

  ‘Then arrest him,’ snapped Frost. ‘We need the extra work. Over here, doc!’

  The doctor lurched over. ‘Terrible business, Jack.’ He nodded at the sheeted shape. ‘The husband?’

  ‘All that’s left of him, doc. He fell face first in some four star. What I want to know is, did he fall or was he pushed?’

  Maltby pulled the sheet completely away from the body and arranged it over the wet grass so he could kneel down. He shook his head testily. ‘He’s too badly burnt. You’ll need a proper post-mortem.’ He lifted the head slightly, his fingers exploring the skull. ‘Hello…’ Carefully he moved the head so he could examine it more easily. ‘The back of the skull’s caved in.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Frost, squatting down beside the doctor. His nicotine-stained fingers probed. Yes, he could feel the pulpy fracture where the skull gave way under pressure. He wiped his hand on his mac and straightened up. ‘Damn, damn and double damn!’

  ‘Could it have happened when he fell?’ asked Gilmore.

  Frost shook his head. ‘He fell face down, son… straight into the burning petrol.’

  Maltby nodded his agreement. ‘I’d say he was struck from behind

  … a heavy blow from a blunt instrument. If the blow didn’t kill him outright, then the fire finished him off.’

  Frost’s shoulders sagged wearily. ‘It’s murder whichever way you look at it, doc.’ He shook water from the plastic sheeting and jerked it back over the body. ‘Where’s the poor sod’s wife?’

  ‘Ada’s looking after her,’ said Maltby. He turned to watch the firemen. The Old Mill was now a skeleton of blackened, smoking timbers which had to be continually dampened down as a malevolent wind kept fanning sparks into flames. ‘Get the bastard, Jack,’ he said, as he stumbled back to his car.

  ‘I’ll try,’ called Frost. He turned to Gilmore. ‘Come on, son. Let’s go and have a word with Old Mother Rigid Nipples.’

  Gilmore exploded. He had had just about enough of Frost’s callous crudeness for one day. ‘Haven’t you got any bloody feeling? A man’s dead. His wife is a widow. Must everything be a cheap joke?’

  Frost accepted the rebuke with a half-hearted shrug. ‘I see so many rotten things, son. If I dwelt on them, I’d probably go and chuck myself under a bus, which might make Mullett happy, but wouldn’t do the victim any good… so I joke. It makes the job a bit more tolerable… sorry if it upsets you, though.’

  A concerned-looking Ada, a thick mouse-grey dressing gown over flannelette pyjamas, a man’s cap covering her curlers, led them through to the bedroom where Jill Compton, all respectable in one of Ada’s passion-killing high-necked winceyette nightdresses, lay with eyes closed, on Ada’s iron-framed single bed. Frost thought it was the most erotic sight he had ever seen and wished he wouldn’t keep thinking dirty thoughts at inopportune moments. Jill’s eyes fluttered, then opened wide in startled anxiety as Frost gently called her name She sat up Where s Mark? Is he all right?

  Frost groaned inwardly. He hadn’t realized she hadn’t been told. ‘It’s bad news, I’m afraid, Mrs Compton.’

  She stared at him, then at Gilmore, her eyes pleading to be told that what she feared, what she dreaded, wasn’t so. ‘No… no.. please…’ And her head shook, rejecting what she knew they would tell her.

  Frost knew of no way to deaden the hurt other than killing hope quickly. ‘Your husband is dead, Mrs Compton. The firemen got him out, but it was too late.’

  At first she looked angry, as if her refusal to accept what they were telling her would make it untrue. Then her body shook as she buried her face in her hands, tears streaming between her fingers. ‘No …’

  Ada pushed forward to comfort her. ‘You’d better, go now,’ she ordered the two detectives.

  ‘No,’ said Frost, firmly. ‘She’s the only witness. The only person who can help us.’

  Ada stood her ground, chin jutting defiantly, one arm protectively around her charge. ‘I’ve told you to go. This is neither the time nor the place.’

  But, sniffing back her tears and biting hard on her lower lip, Jill spoke quietly. ‘It’s all right. I want to help. What do you want to know?’

  Signalling Gilmore to get out his notebook, Frost dragged a wicker-seated chair to the side of the bed. ‘Tell us what happened.’

  The detective sergeant gave a sharp cough and glared angrily. ‘This is my case,’ he reminded the inspector.

  ‘Sorry son,’ said Frost mildly, moving his chair back a little.

  Gilmore gave the woman a sympathetic smile. ‘Tell us what happened, Mrs Compton.’

  She fumbled under the pillow for a handkerchief, dabbed at her eyes, then, twisting the tiny scrap of cloth in her hands, related the course of events. ‘We went to bed just before midnight. I woke up suddenly. Mark was using the phone by the bed. He was calling the police. He had heard someone prowling about outside.’

  ‘Did you see who it was?’ asked Gilmore.

  ‘Not clearly. We looked out of the window and could see a shadow of someone moving about. Mark was angry. He grabbed a heavy torch and said he was going to teach who ever it was a lesson.’

  ‘He was going to use the torch as a weapon?’

  She nodded. ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘You didn’t go downstairs with him?’

  ‘No. He insisted I stayed in the bedroom with the door locked. I waited. Suddenly I heard shouting and crashing, as if there was a fight. Then it went quiet. I waited, hoping Mark would come back I called him. No answer. Then I smelt burning so I unlocked the bedroom door. Thick black smoke. I could hardly see. I had to feel my way down the stairs. When I opened the lounge door, flames and smoke roared out. I could see Mark, face down on the floor. But the heat was intense. I couldn’t get to him.’

  She paused, her face drawn and pained as she relived the moment. Frost started to say something, but Gilmore brusquely signalled him to be quiet.

  ‘I saw the lounge window was open, so I tried to get out into the garden through the back door. But the smoke was so thick. I was choking. When I found the bolts, they wouldn’t undo. I struggled and finally got them undone…’ She looked at her broken nails, then hid her hands under the bedclothes. ‘… but I must have passed out. That’s all I remember. There was a fireman… and then there was Ada.’ The effort of talking had exhausted her. Her e
yes closed and her head dropped back on the pillow. ‘That’s all I remember,’ she repeated in a whisper.

  ‘The firemen found you collapsed just outside the back door,’ Gilmore told her. ‘Did you see anything more of the person who broke in?’

  Eyes still closed, she shook her head. ‘No.’ Her body trembled with the reaction and she tried to sit up. ‘If only I could have got to Mark. He was so close. But the flames…’

  Gilmore patted her arm. ‘There was nothing you have done, Mrs Compton. He was already dead when first saw him.’

  She raised her face to the sergeant. ‘I pleaded with him to wait for the police. If only he had stayed with me…’ And then she threw back her head and howled in anguish, her sobs racking her body.

  With a belligerent stride Ada pushed in front of Gilmore. ‘No more. She’s had enough.

  Gilmore replaced the chair up against the forget-me-not patterned wallpaper. ‘Thanks for your help, Mrs Compton. And I really am most sorry.’

  Ada wrapped her dressing gown around her spare frame. ‘I’ll stay with her for a while. There’s tea and biscuits in the kitchen if you want some.’

  The kitchen, with the coal fire roaring away, was almost overpoweringly warm and Gilmore had to fight hard to keep his eyes open as he sipped Ada’s hot, sweet tea. Frost had twitched back the curtains to reveal the early morning sky, part-streaked with smudges of smoke from the lire. He was sprawled in the chair by the kitchen table, using a saucer as an ashtray. He too was tired. He’d have given anything to be able to climb into bed, preferably with the naked Jill Compton whose tear-stained, unmade-up face seemed to hold an erotic attraction.

  His foot twitched and made contact with something under the table, something that swayed, then toppled heavily with a glassy clunk. Yawning, he lifted the tablecloth. Nudging his foot lay a wine bottle on its side. One of Ada’s home made brews. There were about twenty or so more bottles of wine bunched together under the table. ‘The stingy cow’s hiding it from us,’ he said, pulling the cork out with his teeth and taking a swig. The room shimmered, then jerked still. He replaced the cork and pushed the bottle back with the others under the table.