Frost 5 - Winter Frost

by R D Wingfield

  An estate car parked by the front door was locked, but the radiator was still warm. It had been driven recently. 'That's not the car that picked her up, guv,' whispered Morgan.

  'They'd have swapped cars,' said Frost. He looked up the ivy-covered wall to the upstairs windows where the light had shown. 'That's the room we try first.'

  'I reckon I could climb that ivy, guv.' Frost's withering stare was sufficient answer. 'We go in through the front door.' He looked round for Burton who had the pneumatic battering ram. 'Sod the noise, son - it's all speed from now on.' He stood back to give the DC room. The noise was deafening, but at the third blow the woodwork splintered and the door crashed back. Led by Frost they charged down the passage and up the stairs.

  The first room they burst into was empty, but a muffled scream sent them hurtling into the next one. Curtains drawn, the room was lit only by the glow from an electric fire. The smell hit Frost, cloying tartish perfume mingled with sweat and stale cigarette smoke. His torch picked out white, naked flesh as he fumbled for the light switch.

  On the bed, wide-eyed with terror, a naked woman. Leaning over her, a hand clamping her mouth to silence her cries, a man, also naked, his head twisted round, blinking at the night. Frost snatched the man's hand from the woman's mouth. It wasn't Liz.

  'There's no money here,' said the man, trying to keep his voice steady. 'I've called the police. They'll be here any minute.'

  'They're here already,' snapped Frost, flashing his warrant card. He went to the door and shouted to the others down the stairs: 'She's not in here. Look everywhere.'

  The man grabbed a dressing-gown from a chair and slipped it on. 'Police? What the devil do you want with me?'

  'I think you know what we want,' said Frost grimly. He turned to the woman. 'Are you all right, love?'

  'I was all right until you bastards came charging in.' She blazed angry eyes at Taffy and pulled a sheet over her naked body. 'Seen enough?' Morgan pretended he had been looking past her at something on the wall and frowned as if he didn't understand what she was getting at.

  'Pardon?' he asked.

  'Dirty bastard!' she snarled.

  Crashes and thuds from below as Hanlon's team joined in the search. The man barged past Frost and glared angrily down the stairs. 'You've smashed the front door in. Someone's going to pay for this!'

  Ignoring him, Frost pulled Morgan to one side and nodded towards the angry woman on the bed. 'Is she the one who was driving the cab?'

  Morgan shook his head. 'Don't think so, guv - wrong colour hair.'

  'Could have been wearing a wig,' muttered Frost.

  The man thrust himself between the two detectives. 'Would you mind telling me what this is all about or is it a state secret?'

  'You are Mr Gerald Vernon?'

  'Yes.'

  'And this lady is your wife?'

  A slight pause. 'Yes.'

  'One of our female officers was abducted tonight. We have reason to believe she is in this house.'

  Vernon's stunned surprise looked genuine. 'I don't believe what I'm hearing! Have you gone stark staring mad?'

  'Have you been out tonight?' asked Frost.

  'Yes.'

  'Near the Fenton Road area?'

  'Nowhere near the Fenton Road area. If you must know, we've been to the Coconut Grove nightclub.'

  'What time did you get there, sir?'

  'About ten o'clock.'

  'And what time did you leave?'

  Vernon consulted his wrist-watch. 'A little after three.'

  Frost turned to the woman on the bed. 'Is that correct, Mrs Vernon?' She shot a quick glance at the man before nodding.

  'Yes.'

  The sound of something falling and smashing made Vernon turn to Frost in fury. 'I hope the police are well insured, Inspector, because whatever damage your ham-fisted, loutish oafs have caused will be added to the extensive claim for damages I intend to make against you.'

  Burton came into the bedroom, brushing dust and cobwebs from his coat. 'We've been through all this floor and the loft - nothing!'

  He was followed by Sergeant Hanlon whose men had been searching the downstairs and the grounds. 'Nothing down there, Jack.'

  Frost's confidence was fast ebbing away. This was their only lead and if it led nowhere, they were left with absolutely nothing, and with time ticking away, they wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of finding Liz alive.

  'Inspector!' Collier burst into the bedroom. 'I found this behind the hat-stand.' He held aloft Liz Maud's handbag. Frost's spirits sky-rocketed. He opened it and took out the mobile phone.

  With a bellow of rage, Burton hurled himself at Vernon, smashing him against the wall. 'Where is she, you bastard? What have you done with her?'

  With difficulty Frost and Collier managed to drag him off, but not before Burton had managed to bloody Vernon's nose. 'Go and check the two cars downstairs,' ordered Frost.

  Burton scowled sullenly. 'I've checked them.'

  'Then check them again - now!' As Burton slouched out, Frost turned to Vernon who was trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose with a handkerchief. 'I apologize for my colleague's over-enthusiasm, sir.

  'Like us, he's anxious to know where she is.'

  'I don't know where she is,' hissed Vernon, each word making him wince with pain, 'and I don't particularly care. But you are going to pay for this. My God, how you are going to pay . . .'

  Frost waved the handbag. 'When our colleague went missing she was carrying this. So where is she?'

  'Why don't you ask him how the handbag came to be here, you bloody bullies?' The woman was shouting at them from the bed.

  'All right,' said Frost sweetly. 'How did the handbag come to be in your house, Mr Vernon?'

  Vernon folded the blooded handkerchief and stuffed it into his dressing-gown pocket. 'We found it in the road as we were driving home from the Coconut Grove.'

  'What time was this?'

  'I've already told you - three o'clockish.'

  Frost sent Morgan to check this with the night-club, then signalled for Vernon to continue.

  'As we turned from Bath Road into the side road, there was this car ahead of us.'

  'What sort of car?'

  'I only saw the back of it. Darkish, could have been black, nothing special.'

  'It was black,' chipped in the woman from the bed. 'Black, one person driving, two in the back.'

  Vernon glared at her. 'Do you want to tell this bloody story, or shall I?'

  She pouted and stuck her tongue out at him.

  'We're driving behind it when she sees something in the road and yells for me to stop. So, being a good citizen, completely unaware that I would be beaten up by the police for my trouble, I stopped and retrieved it.' He jerked a thumb. 'It was that handbag.'

  Frost turned to the woman on the bed. 'You spotted it?'

  She nodded. 'Yes. I think it came from the car in front of us.'

  'You think'? Didn't you see?'

  'I wasn't actually looking, but I got the impression it had been chucked out. I wanted Gerry to go after the other car and give it back. He drove ever so fast, but there was no sign of it.'

  'I was going to drop it in at the police station in the morning,' said Vernon. He winced and ran his tongue along his mouth. 'I think he's broken one of my teeth.'

  'I'm sure he hasn't,' said Frost dismissively, hoping and praying he was right. They were in enough trouble. If Vernon's story checked out and he didn't leave the Coconut Grove until after three, there was no way he could have swapped cars and picked Liz up. Frost looked up hopefully as Morgan returned.

  'I've contacted the club, guv. They confirm Mr Vernon didn't leave until just after three.'

  'Shit!' said Frost.

  'Yes,' said Vernon, smiling malevolently, 'and that is exactly what you've dropped yourself in, Inspector. I'm suing you, and that thug and the Denton police force for malicious damage and criminal assault.'

  Where have I heard that befor
e, thought Frost mournfully as he sent the rest of the team back to their cars. He put on his contrite look. 'I appreciate your feelings, sir, but it would be a nice gesture if you could overlook this error of judgement on our part. We were concerned for our colleague.'

  Vernon shook his head. 'I don't make nice gestures, officer.'

  Frost sighed. 'Fair enough, sir. If you and your lady wife would come down to the station with proofs of identity, we'll get the wheels rolling.'

  Vernon frowned. 'Proof of identity?'

  'It's just that your good lady wife, flashing her dugs over there, is a dead ringer for one of the high class ladies of the night from the Coconut Grove. I'm sure I'm mistaken, but if she isn't your wife and your real wife finds out . . .'

  Vernon's eyes blazed. 'You bastard!'

  'Not such a bastard, sir,' smiled Frost. 'We'll accept your claim for damage to property - we're insured for that - and if it would spare you any embarrassment, I won't query it if you say you were alone in the house when it happened. But I want the assault accusation dropped.'

  'You bastard!' repeated Vernon.

  Frost beamed. 'All agreed then, sir? Don't bother to come to the door, I'll find my own way out.'

  As he closed the front door behind him, the gloom returned, not helped by the weather. The black clouds had opened and rain was bucketing down. Liz Maud was out there somewhere, at the mercy of the serial killer, and he didn't know what the hell to do next.

  Screwing his eyes against the stinging smoke drifting from his cigarette, he stared unseeing at the large-scale map on the wall of the incident room. The cigarette tasted hot and bitter, and his head ached from smoking too much, but it was something to do while he waited for an elusive, long absent, flash of inspiration to whisper in his ear, telling him what to do next. A tramp of footsteps as the team he had sent to search the spot where the handbag was found returned. As he feared, they had found nothing, but at least it had given him some respite, some relief against them all sitting staring at him, waiting for him to come up with the magic answer. He was all out of magic answers.

  To add to his misery, an angry, all bright and shining Mullett brisked in. 'Four Divisions have men standing by, Inspector, all on overtime to our account, and no-one has told them what to do.'

  Frost barely gave him a glance. 'As soon as I know what they can do, I'll tell them,' he snapped. Sod Mullett, sod the budget and sod everyone.

  Mullett glared and stamped out.

  Frost turned to the wall map and studied it closely, scratching his chin in thought. 'The bag with the phone was found here.' A nicotined finger marked the spot. 'Vernon slows down, unclicks his seat belt, gets out and picks it up. Back to the car, a quick nose in the bag, seat belt back on and away. That should take him what - thirty seconds?'

  Burton shrugged. 'Depends how quickly he did it.'

  'Of course it does,' said Frost, 'but he's got a hot bit of choice nooky in the car and he wants to get his leg over, so he's not going to dawdle. She wants him to go after the other car, so he puts his foot down - the foot on the end of the leg he wants to get over. He drives like the clappers, but no sign of the other motor.' Back to the map. 'Once you get round the bend here, the road runs straight as a die. You should be able to see the rear lights of the other car for miles.'

  'What are you getting at?' asked Hanlon.

  'If he didn't see it or overtake it, the other car must have turned off down one of the side lanes.' He indicated them on the map.

  'There's a hell of a lot of them,' said Burton.

  'But if it was out of sight before Vernon turns the bend, then it's got to be one of the early ones otherwise Vernon would have seen it.' He pointed this out on the map as they crowded round. 'This gives us three side road possibilities. This one, which leads to those farms and smallholdings where old mother Nelly Nipples lives. This one, which ends up at the new estate, or this one which goes through to the factory area. I'm going to call in all our resources from other Divisions and saturate these three areas, house-to-house, the lot.'

  Burton, leaning over his shoulder to study the map, was doubtful. 'If he took the road to the factory area' he could have gone straight through and out on to the Bath Road at the back and be miles away by now.'

  'He was on the Bath Road to start with, son. If he'd wanted it, he wouldn't have come off it in the first place.' Burton was beginning to get on his nerves. Maybe this wouldn't work, but it was all they had. 'We're going to have to get people out of bed and search their premises. They're not going to be very pleased. Lie to them if you like and tell them it's a three-year-old kid we're looking for - they might be more helpful than if we said it was a police officer. And if they still refuse to let you in to search, tell them that under the 1997 Police Act you have unlimited powers of entry and if they resist they will be arrested and charged.'

  'What Police Act is that?' Jordan asked.

  'Any bloody Police Act you like,' said Frost. 'It doesn't exist. If that doesn't work, knee them one in the groin and go in anyway. I'll carry the can for any come-backs. If you knock and get no reply, smell gas and break in. I want every single property searched.'

  'It could take hours,' said Burton.

  'Then don't hang about,' said Frost. He picked up the phone and told Bill Wells to call in the other Divisions. 'Of course it's authorized by Mr Mullett, but whatever you do, don't bloody tell him.'

  The lorry that passed them was travelling at speed down the wrong side of the road to overtake. Frost's convoy of four cars had turned the bend, just past the point where Vernon found the handbag, and the dead straight stretch of road was ahead of them. Frost watched the rear lights of the lorry dwindle to pinpricks of red, but still clearly visible. Vernon was right.

  If the cab had stayed on the road, he would have seen its rear lights. It was the lorry driver's lucky night, speeding on the wrong side of the road past four carloads of coppers and getting away with it. Then he blinked. The red lights suddenly disappeared then, after a brief pause, appeared again. He went cold. Shit! He should have realized. As the map showed, the road went dead straight, but it also went up and down. Was that why Vernon didn't see the cab? Perhaps it hadn't turned off one of the three side roads he was going to search after all. It could have taken any of the many other side roads further ahead. He shot a quick look at Burton who was driving the car, but he hadn't given the lorry more than a passing glance. Frost's brain churned. They didn't have enough men to search all the possible side lanes. Right or wrong, he'd have to stick to his original plan and concentrate on the three nearest, but all the optimism he had when they set out had now evaporated.

  They parked on a piece of scrubland and huddled round the inspector, coat collars up, getting drenched in the heavy, thudding rain. Even the weather was conspiring against him.

  The area they were to search was bleak and remote with isolated ramshackle houses and bungalows, some empty and decaying, a few smallholdings and a couple of farms struggling to survive. In the distance, silhouetted against the night sky, they could see the house where old Nelly Aldridge lived with her idiot son. Not much point searching there but just to be thorough they'd give it a going-over after everywhere else had been covered.

  'We look everywhere, houses, barns, sheds, the lot. When you've searched, radio Sergeant Hanlon and he'll tick it off on the map to make sure we don't miss anywhere. Start with the most likely - places with a good access for a car. He's going to have to drive his victim right up to the door not drag her half a mile up a hill. Off you go, and good luck!'

  Frost, accompanied by PC Collier, began a search of some deserted farm buildings, all rusting corrugated iron, rancid hay and oily puddles. He had a feeling of having been here before, then remembered he had - when they were searching for the missing Vicky Stuart. Rain trickling down his neck, he shone his torch through a shattered window - broken floorboards, rotting rubbish and the scurrying and squealing of rats. He moved away. He couldn't see their killer bringing his victims he
re.

  His radio called him. PC Collier from the rear of the farmhouse reoporting signs that someone had been in there recently. Collier met him outside and took him into a room, pointing out a dirty mattress, some empty bottles and cans, and the remains of a fire in the grate. Frost shook his head. 'Some tramp's been using it. Have you checked upstairs?'

  Collier nodded. 'Nothing. The rain's pouring in through the roof.'

  Frost wrinkled his nose. The tramp had been using the corner of the room as his toilet. 'Hardly a love nest, is it, son? More like a sewage worker's beano site. Let's get out of here . . . and mind where you tread.'

  As they were leaving, a radio call from Jordan: 'At a house now, Inspector. We've been hammering at the door. A dog's barking inside, but no-one answers.'

  'Kick it in,' Frost told him. 'I reckon there's drugs on the premises.'

  And then reports started coming in thick and fast, all negative, intensifying his doubts that they were looking in the wrong area, but, right or wrong, he was committed.

  His radio called him again. Yet another negative report. He poked a cigarette in his mouth and surveyed the area. Through a solid curtain of rain lights from dozens of torches bobbed in the dark. Anyone looking out would know the police were in the vicinity, but they couldn't search blind. The cigarette was sodden and wouldn't light. As he hurled it away another radio call, this time from Burton, sounding excited: 'Might be on to something Inspector. I'm at a bungalow at the foot of the rise, talking to a Mrs Jessop. She reckons she often hears a car, very late at night, coming from that smallholding on the top of the hill.'

  'What does she mean by "very late"? Some of these old dears go to bed at six.'