Frost 5 - Winter Frost

by R D Wingfield

  Morgan gave a sheepish grin. 'Sorry, guv . . . damned alarm clock . . .'

  'Yes, if you switch them off and go back to sleep they're no bleeding good, are they?' He noticed the DC rubbing his jaw. 'How did you get on with the dentist?'

  Morgan rattled a little white box. 'Gave me some painkillers, guv. Said he couldn't touch it until the swelling had gone down.'

  'That's what the nurse said to me,' Frost told him, 'but I think she was talking about my dick.' He heaved himself off the corner of the desk. 'You all know what to do. Chat up the ladies of the night, spurn their tempting offers and see if they can name that torn!'

  Back in his office he was surprised to see Liz Maud waiting for him.

  'Quick word, Inspector.'

  'Sure.' He waved her to a chair. 'How's the armed robbery going?'

  'I'm getting nowhere . . . but I'm afraid I'm going to have to hand my cases over to you.'

  His eyebrows shot up. 'Oh?'

  'I've got to go to London for some medical treatment.'

  He looked concerned. 'Nothing serious, I hope?'

  She shook her head. 'No . . . a minor operation . . . I'll be back in a couple of days.'

  'Good.' It wasn't flaming good. They were already short-staffed and now all her cases were going to be dumped on him. He waited. It didn't look as if she was going into details, but he could make a guess and it wouldn't be for ingrowing toenails.

  'I'll be off tomorrow afternoon and probably back next Friday.'

  'Well, don't come back until you're properly fit. I'll try not to sod your cases too much.'

  She smiled. 'I'm sure you won't.'

  'What's the problem with the armed robbery?'

  'They had to have swapped cars somewhere near where they shot the old boy . . . but we can't find either car.'

  Frost scratched his chin. 'They might not have gone to the woods for their own car. They could have walked. They might even live near the woods.'

  'Possible,' she shrugged, 'but if they lived locally, they would have dumped the old boy's car somewhere in Denton . . . So why haven't we found it?'

  'Because we're bleeding inefficient,' Frost told her. 'And we're working on a shoe-string thanks to Mullett's generosity in giving County all our spare manpower. We haven't got the bodies to go up and down every side street and alley.'

  She nodded. 'I suppose so.'

  He found a pencil stub and turned over one of Mullett's memos so he could write on the back. 'Tell me about your cases.'

  Station Sergeant Bill Wells took an instant dislike to the man the minute he barged through the doors. But then he felt this way with most members of the public who came crashing in with their petty grievances, expecting instant attention. This one, a lout in his late twenties with close-cropped hair and a scowling face, was snapping his fingers for Wells to attend to him. 'Yes?' grunted Wells. He wasn't going to waste a 'sir' on this rubbish.

  'My car's been stolen.'

  'Stolen car?' Wells tugged a form from a stack and pushed it across. 'Fill in the details.'

  'You fill in your own flaming forms. I know who's stolen it and I want her arrested.' He pushed the form back.

  'And who do you think has stolen it?' asked Wells.

  'I don't think, I flaming know It's my girlfriend . . . my ex-flaming-girlfriend now. She's run off and pinched my motor.'

  'You're saying she took it without your permission?'

  The man rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. 'That's what stealing means, doesn't it? Would I be wasting my time with flaming wooden tops if I had given her permission?'

  Wells gritted his teeth to keep his temper. Let's hope she's driven the flaming thing over a cliff, he said to himself. The man took a cigarette from a packet and stuck it in his mouth. Wells waited until he had it well lit before pointing to the 'No Smoking' sign. 'If you don't mind,' he said, hoping Frost wouldn't spoil it by slouching in with a cigarette going full blast. Scowling, the man ground the cigarette under foot. Wells smiled sweetly. 'Give me the details - as briefly as possible. We're very busy.'

  'We both work nights. I usually drive her to work and pick her up in the morning. I didn't go to work yesterday as I went up to London to see the big match.'

  Wells jabbed a finger. 'I remember you now. You were here last night with those other yobbos in the coach. Was it you throwing up in the bloody corner?'

  'No, it wasn't me throwing up and yes, I was here. Anyway, as I wouldn't be able to drive her, I told her to phone her work and say she was sick or something.'

  'Why couldn't she drive herself ?'

  'Because she hasn't passed her driving test. If she had an accident or anything, the insurers wouldn't pay out. When I got back in this morning, no sign of her and more important, no sign of my car.'

  'So what did you do?'

  'What the hell could I do? I went to bed. I woke up about four this afternoon; still no sign of her. I waited until ten o'clock when she should be at the hospital and phoned them.'

  'The hospital?' queried Wells.

  'She's a nurse, does the night shift at Denton General - at least, that's what she told me. When I phoned them today they said they'd never heard of her.'

  Wells rubbed a hand over his face. This was getting beyond him. 'Never heard of her? Was she an agency nurse?'

  'I don't know - what difference would that make?'

  'Some of these part-time agency nurses give false names to avoid having to pay income tax. She might have used a different name.'

  'According to Denton General, the only nurses working nights in her ward were two West Indians and a nun . . .' He tugged a photograph from his pocket and stuck it under Wells' nose. 'Does she look like a bleeding nun?'

  Wells squinted at a photograph of an attractive girl in a very low-cut dress, leaning forward to show yards of cleavage. The cleavage was so attractive, it took him a while to look at her face. He stared. 'Just give me a moment, sir.' He used the phone in Control, out of earshot of the man, and buzzed Inspector Frost. 'You'd better get out here right away, Jack.' He looked again at the photograph. She definitely wasn't a nun . . . she was the murdered tom.

  Frost tapped a cigarette on the packet and lit up. He was leaning against the wall of the interview room, watching the man closely as Liz interviewed him.

  'What the hell's going on?' asked the man. 'The wooden top outside says you're all terribly busy, now I get two detective inspectors falling all over me about a stolen car.'

  Liz made an attempt at a reassuring smile. 'Just a couple of questions.' She glanced at the form on the table. 'You are Victor John Lewis, 2a Fleming Street, Denton?'

  'Bang on, darling. I haven't changed my bleeding name and address since I filled that form in five minutes ago.'

  Liz pointed to the photograph. 'And this is Mary Jane Adams, your girlfriend?'

  'Yes.'

  'You live together?'

  'Yes.'

  'How long have you been together?'

  'Six months. What the hell has this to do with getting my car back?'

  'Bear with us. Where do you work?'

  'At the all-night petrol station in Felton.'

  'When did you see Mary last?'

  'Just after five o'clock yesterday afternoon when I left to pick up the coach.'

  'When you woke up this afternoon and she wasn't back, weren't you worried?'

  'Of course I was worried - she'd walked out on me before, but this time she took my bloody motor. When you find her, I want the cow charged.'

  Liz shot a glance at Frost in case he wanted to ask some more questions before they told him about the girl. Frost moved into the chair next to Liz. 'I'm afraid we've got some bad news for you, Mr Lewis.'

  The mortuary attendant parked his chewing gum on the underside of the table, put on his doleful expression and led them through to the refrigerated section. He pulled open the long drawer, twitched back the sheet and stood respectfully in the background. The face, washed clean of make-up, looked like that of a youn
g schoolgirl. Lewis stared, then his face screwed up in pain as he turned away. He nodded to Frost. 'Yes . . . that's Mary.'

  Lewis was knuckling tears from his eyes on the way back, but apart from a few" sympathetic grunts, Frost said nothing, his mind on other things. He wasn't being callous. He had driven grieving relatives back from the morgue so many times, it was almost a routine. He couldn't get involved in their grief, otherwise he would be grieving every bloody day and his job would become unbearable.

  Back at the station Frost sat Lewis in the main interview room with a mug of strong tea while he nipped out to gather up the reports Morgan had been making for him. He picked through them. 'Another job for you, Taffy boy. Lewis says he used to drop her off and pick her up from outside the hospital at the end of her shift. If she was plying her trade in Clayton Street, how did she get there? It's too far to walk. Check with the local cab firms.'

  'What for, guv?' asked Morgan.

  'Lewis could be lying. He might have known she was on the game and dropped her off outside the flat at Clayton Street. If he dropped her off outside the hospital and then she called a cab that would suggest he had no idea she was a tom which would sod up my theory.'

  He collected Liz on his way back to the interview room. 'Could Lewis be the bloke you heard on the phone last night?'

  She shook her head. 'No. He's nothing like him.' She frowned. 'You don't suspect Lewis, do you?'

  Frost shrugged. 'I've got to suspect someone, and he's all we've got at the moment.'

  Lewis sat hunched at the table, sucking at a cigarette, the mug of tea cold, scummy and untouched. He raised his head as Frost and Liz came in. 'A prostitute! I still can't believe it.'

  'I know,' said Frost, sounding truly sorry. 'And to make things worse we've got to ask you some searching questions.'

  Lewis sniffed back a tear and nodded. 'Ask what you like. As long as it helps you catch the bastard who did it.'

  Frost shuffled the reports on the table in front of him. 'We've been making a few inquiries about Mary, Mr Lewis. The nearest she got to being a nurse was working in the canteen at Denton General.'

  Lewis stared, unable to take this in.

  'Four months ago she got the sack,' continued Frost. 'She'd been putting the takings in her pocket instead of in the till.'

  Lewis buried his head in his hands. 'You think you know someone and she turns out to be a prostitute, a liar and a thief.' He looked up. 'We were going to get married . . .'

  Frost waited as Lewis lit up another cigarette. 'I know this has all come as a nasty shock, Mr Lewis, but just to eliminate you from our inquiries, could we have an account of your movements last night?'

  The man wiped a hand over his face. 'As I said, I left the flat just after five and picked up the coach for Wembley - a crowd of us were going from the club. We saw the match and got tanked up. On the way back we stop at this off-licence place. There was a bit of a punch-up - some of the lads had tried to nip out without paying. We're off in the coach swilling down booze to get rid of the evidence. It all gets a bit hazy from there. I remember some cops picking us up and taking us to the nick. Then they bunged us back in the coach, but someone managed to hot-wire it and we got away. We all ended up in a pub somewhere near the motorway.'

  'What pub?' asked Frost.

  Lewis shook his head. 'No idea . . . it's all a blur.'

  'How long were you there?'

  'Couple of hours, I think.'

  'How did you get back to the flat?' One of the blokes had, parked his car there. He drove a crowd of us back. Don't ask me who it was.'

  'You got back and Mary wasn't there?'

  'Too right - and neither was my flaming car. I could have murdered the cow.' His face contorted as the import of the words hit him. 'God, what am I saying?'

  'It's all right,' soothed Frost. 'Then what?'

  'I flopped on the bed fully dressed and didn't wake up until about four in the afternoon with a splitting headache. Mary wasn't in bed with me.'

  'So what did you do?'

  'I still wasn't worried . . . I thought she'd sodded off somewhere to teach me a lesson. She knew I needed the car to take us both to work so I was sure she'd be back before then. I must have fallen asleep in the chair. I woke up just before ten. No Mary and no motor. I phoned the hospital, and they hadn't heard of her! And now I know why!'

  'There was a threatening phone call while we were at her place in Clayton Street,' said Frost. 'Any idea who it might have been?'

  'No, but there were a couple of queer phone calls at the flat. She'd been edgy for some time and jumped a mile each time the phone rang - always dashed to answer it before I did. I was beginning to suspect there was another bloke.'

  'Who did she say it was?'

  'She tried to pretend it was someone from work playing a joke, but she didn't sound as if she thought it was funny.'

  'And you just let it go at that?'

  'You didn't push things with Mary if she didn't want them pushed - not if you didn't want a screaming row.'

  'She had a temper?'

  'We both had, I suppose. The rows were awful, but it was fun making up.' He stared into space as if a specific memory had hit him then gave a brief, sad smile and shook his head. 'There were lots of good times.'

  'I'm sure there were,' nodded Frost. There were even good times in his own marriage that the many bad days couldn't entirely wipe out. 'Just for the purpose of elimination, Mr Lewis, we'd like to have the clothes you were wearing last night.'

  He frowned. 'My clothes?'

  'The killer would have got blood on his clothes. I know you'd want us to be thorough.'

  'They're at home. I'll bring them in.'

  Frost stood up. 'I'll save you the trouble. Let's go and collect them.' Then he sat down with a thud. What a stupid sod he was. An important detail and he'd forgotten to ask. And there it was, staring up at him from the table. The form Lewis had filled in giving details of his missing car. A dark brown 1988 Toyota Corolla. The vandalized car with the slashed tyres outside the apartment building in Clayton Street was a Corolla. He quickly checked registration numbers. Lewis was shown as the registered owner. He berated himself. Stupid fool. Why hadn't he made the connection before? A tap at the door. Morgan beckoned him out.

  'I've checked with the cab firms, guv. Denton Minis had a fairly regular pick-up from outside 10 Clayton Street to Denton General Hospital . . . a woman. Sounds like our tom.'

  'Yes,' agreed Frost dolefully, 'and it sounds like I'm losing my only bleeding suspect.'

  A poky little bed-sit with a small bathroom and a kitchen. The black and orange studio couch which also served as a twin bed was rammed up tight against toe sash window and on shelves fixed to the opposite wall a cheap hi-fi unit sat next to a fourteen-inch remote control colour TV. Alongside the studio couch stood a small dark-wood cabinet on which there was a phone and a china ashtray overflowing with cigarette stubs, some only half smoked and mashed to hell. 'Do you both smoke?' Frost asked.

  'Only me.' Lewis took the ashtray and emptied it into a bin, blowing the overspill from the cabinet top. 'Mary hated all the muck of fag ends - said the smell gave her a headache.' He lit up another cigarette and started filling up the ashtray again.

  Frost went over to two pine effect single wardrobes, one on either side of the door leading to the bathroom. He opened the door to one. Woman's clothes: coats, dresses, shoes. A handbag dangled from one of the hooks. He clicked it open: make-up and tissues. He hooked it back and closed the door. 'Did she usually take a handbag with her when she went out?'

  'Yes. A red one, keys, credit cards and things.'

  There had been no sign of a handbag at the Clayton Street flat, thought Frost. So where was it? He cursed his stupidity. The car. It was probably in the car. As soon as he'd finished with Lewis he'd give the motor a going-over.

  'If we could have the clothes you were wearing last night,' he reminded.

  'Sure - won't be a tick.' As Lewis went into the kitche
n and rummaged in the laundry basket, Frost poked around, opening and closing drawers, looking for inspiration that didn't come. Lewis gave him the clothes in a plastic bag. 'Thanks,' said Frost. 'If you think of anything that might help, you will let us know?'

  Lewis nodded, then flopped down on the studio couch, sniffing back tears. 'I just can't believe she's not coming back.'

  'I know, I know,' cooed Frost soothingly. To himself he said, You killed her, you bastard, you bleeding killed her. But how was he going to prove it?

  'You still suspect him, guv?' asked Morgan as Frost climbed back in the car.

  'When you've only got one suspect,' grunted Frost, 'you don't let little things like watertight alibis stand in the way. Check with the other people on that coach. Let's make certain he was with them when the girl was killed.'

  The brown Toyota was in a sorry state: headlights smashed, tires slashed, bodywork crumpled as if hit with a sledge hammer. The driver's window had been shattered. Frost squeezed his arm through and opened the door, then shone his torch inside. Even the seats had been slashed. Frost brushed away the crystals of glass and slid onto the driver's seat He dug down deep into the glove compartment. 'Hey presto!' He pulled out a purse containing loose change and some credit cards. Also, a Nationwide Building Society deposit account pass book. The account had been opened three months earlier and there were regular entries, almost daily. The balance stood at over £6,000. 'The wages of sin!' muttered Frost to Morgan. 'Check if she made a will and Lewis is the sole beneficiary.'

  'Girls of her age don't make wills, guv,' said Morgan. 'They don't expect to die.'

  'Check anyway.' He rapped his forehead with his knuckled hand. Something was worrying him. The car keys. Where the hell were the car keys? 'First thing tomorrow, Taffy, you turn that flat upside down. The car keys have got to be there somewhere - she didn't hot wire the bleeding thing.' He called the station to get the car collected for forensic examination and was just slipping the radio back in his pocket when it squawked his name. 'Control to Inspector Frost.'