Frost 5 - Winter Frost

by R D Wingfield

  'She doesn't sleep well. Says the car wakes her up as it goes past her place. About two o'clockish or thereabouts, she says.'

  'Did she hear it tonight?'

  'No, she took a sleeping tablet, but she's definite about the other nights. Do you want to talk to her?'

  'No time for that, son. We go straight to the smallholding. Meet me outside.' He radioed for Morgan and Jordan to join him. They followed him up the steep hill. No chance of a stealthy approach. The whine of their engines straining up the steep rutted slope would waken the dead.

  The smallholding was a collection of ramshackle structures around a two-storeyed house. Outside the main building a black car was parked and a light gleamed through curtains from a downstairs room. Surveying it, Frost felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. This was it. This was bloody it.

  As they squelched to a halt by the front door, Frost clambered out and ran over to the car, a black Ford, the windows wound down and the driver's door wide open. He stuck his nose inside and sniffed for traces of the pungent perfume Liz had been wearing. All he could smell was carbolic disinfectant. He checked the number plates. Not the ones Taffy had noted, but too much to expect the false plates still to be there. He rejoined the others and pounded at the front door with his fist. They waited. Nothing. Frost gave the door handle a tentative turn and, to his surprise, the door swung open. Collier was sent round to the back, while Frost and the other three entered the house.

  They stepped into a long passage. Frost jerked a thumb to Burton and Jordan. 'Upstairs.' He and Morgan followed the passage to a large, stone-flagged kitchen where a cream-coloured Aga stove belted out heat. A long wooden-topped table was laid out for breakfast with bowls and cups. In front of the Aga a grey and black tabby cat in a wicker cat basket gave them bemused looks while her six tiny kittens, eyes still not open, suckled noisily. A peaceful, innocent domestic scene.

  'I think we're on the wrong track, guv,' said Morgan.

  'You can be a bastard and still like animals,' said Frost, although his frail certainty was now wavering. 'Hitler had a dog and Mullett's got a cat.' He opened the back door to let Collier in, then they checked all the downstairs rooms. All neat and tidy. Footsteps from above as Burton and Jordan returned.

  'Nothing,' reported Burton. 'One double bed, but it hasn't been slept in.'

  'So where are the people who live here?' asked Frost. 'Let's try the outbuildings.'

  They split up, Morgan and Frost going to a wooden-walled structure with a corrugated iron roof. Pitch dark inside, but over the drumming of the rain they could hear rustling. Someone was inside. Frost fumbled round the door frame and found a light switch. Some twenty cats in cages blinked angrily at him. His heart did a somersault and he shivered, but not from the cold. Deja vu again. Cats, and that smell!

  Old Martha Wendle's cottage all those years ago when eight-year-old Tracey Uphill went missing.

  'You all right, guv?' asked Morgan.

  'Yes,' lied Frost, shaking off the memory. Tracey was dead when they found her.

  A quick look round. Metal cupboards filled with tins of cat food and bags of cat litter. Nothing else.

  On to the next building, a windowless barn-like structure. Frost stiffened and held up a finger for silence. The murmur of voices from inside. Carefully, he turned the door handle and gently opened the door. Inside, about half-way down, a hurricane lamp lit up two figures wearing oilskins, their backs to him. They were bending over something on the straw-lined floor, something whimpering in pain. He charged towards them. 'Stay where you are. Police!'

  A squeal of alarm as they spun round. Two women looking terrified. Both were in their mid-fifties, one quite fat with uncombed dark hair, the other thin and sharp-featured.

  'Police!' said Frost again, trying to find his warrant card. Morgan got his out first and flashed it in front of their faces. They blinked at it, not understanding.

  Another whimper from the floor. Frost pushed them aside. On a bed of straw, a red setter, body heaving and shaking, tongue lolling, whites of eyes showing.

  'She's in labour,' the thin woman explained. 'There's a blockage there, or something. We're very worried about her.' She blinked again at the warrant card. 'But why are you here?'

  Frost quickly explained about Liz. 'We're searching everywhere in this area.'

  The two women seemed genuinely concerned. 'How dreadful,' exclaimed the fat woman. 'She can't be here, Inspector. We've been up all night with the dog and we'd have heard a car. But please search anywhere you like - anywhere.' The dog whimpered again. 'We've got to get the vet,' said the thin woman. 'Can one of your policemen carry her to the house?'

  Frost nodded to Morgan who bent and gently humped up the dog. As soon as the two women had left Frost called the rest of his team over. 'I've got one of my feelings. Get some more men in and give this place a right going-over. She could be alive, she could be dead, so look everywhere.' Burton and Collier were detailed to accompany him back to the house. I'll keep Little and Large talking while you search every nook and cranny.'

  He slumped down in the chair alongside the Aga, the dog, eyes closed, panting heavily, in a basket at his feet. He ruffled its fur and watched the thin woman ring the vet's emergency number on a mobile phone, letting the Aga bake dry his sodden clothes.

  'He's out on another call, Mavis, a calving, but he'll phone back when he's finished so we can take Jessie straight to his surgery. He thinks he'll have to do a Caesarean.'

  Mavis, the fat one, looked worried. 'I hope the calving doesn't take long, Lily.' She shuffled over to the sink and filled a brown enamel kettle, stepping carefully over the cat's basket to plonk it on the Aga. 'Would you like a cup of tea, Inspector?'

  'If you twist my arm,' yawned Frost, loosening his scarf. The heat was making him sleepy. He nodded at the mobile. 'Aren't you on the phone?'

  'The phone company quoted over a thousand pounds to run a line up here and the electricity people wanted double,' Lily told him. 'We haven't got that sort of money, so it has to be the mobile.'

  'We look after cats for the Cats' Defence League,' added her companion. 'So a phone is vital.' She frowned at the noise of dragged furniture coming from above. 'You surely don't think she is in this house?'

  'Not really,' smiled Frost. 'But we have to search everywhere, just to be thorough.' They each took one of his offered cigarettes. He lit up. 'One of your neighbours mentioned she often hears your car late at night.'

  'Oh dear,' said Mavis, sounding very concerned. 'I hope we don't wake her up. We're always having to dash off to the vet's. Animals seem to have a habit of being taken ill in the middle of the night.' She slurped milk into the cups, the cigarette dangling from her lips. Frost's eyes narrowed. He had seen her somewhere before. She bent and poured milk into the cat's saucer. The cat eyed it blearily and decided she would leave it until later.

  'All the doors and windows of your car were wide open as we drove up,' said Frost.

  Mavis smiled and nodded. 'One of the cats made a mess inside it. I'm hoping the smell has gone by now.'

  An explanation for everything, thought Frost, then suddenly his see-sawing spirits soared. He remembered where he had seen the fat woman before.

  Their mobile phone chirruped. Mavis snatched it up. 'The vet,' she told the thin woman. 'On his way to the surgery now. He wants us to bring the dog over.'

  'I'll get someone to go with you,' said Frost. They protested that it wasn't necessary, but he insisted. He called Burton down and drew him to one side. 'Go with them to the vet's. Don't let them out of your sight for a second and bring them straight back. I'll explain later.'

  He saw them out to the car, then dashed back to the house just as Detective Sergeant Hanlon returned from searching the outhouses. 'Nothing, Jack, not a sniff.'

  'Then we'll just have to sniff a bit harder, Arthur. Bring in everyone - pull them off what they're doing. I want every inch searched again. She's here, alive or dead - Liz is here, I'm bloody certain!'
r />   Hanlon stared at him. 'How can you be so sure?'

  'That fat tart. She works in the control room of Denton Minicabs. Left her old man to live with her lady lover - that'll be skinny Lizzy. I spoke to her at Denton Minicabs, told her what we were investigating, but she never said a word about it today. She was hoping I wouldn't recognize her until they got Liz out of the way.' He turned to Morgan. 'Could Fatty Arbuckle have been driving the cab that picked Liz up?'

  'Could have been, guv. I didn't really get a proper look.'

  'It was her, I'd stake my last packet of fags on it. They said they would have heard a car if it came to dump Liz, but we come straining up the hill in two motors making one hell of a row, and they pretend to be taken by surprise. They'd seen the torches, they couldn't miss them from up here, and the fat tart would have recognized Liz. They knew we were coming. They were ready for us.' He rubbed his hands together briskly. Action, this was what he liked, action. 'Get everyone in, Arthur. We are now going to search on the basis that Liz is definitely here and we are definitely going to find her. Pull out cupboards, rip up floorboards, sieve the cats' flaming litter trays, never mind the damage, just find her.'

  He watched for a while in the pouring rain as the teams went through the outhouses and sheds, then returned to the dryness and warmth of the house, getting in everyone's way as he mooched around. Back to the kitchen where he swilled down his mug of tea, watched by the nursing cat with its sleeping kittens.

  The all too familiar negative reports rattled in, non-stop: nothing . . . nothing . . . nothing . . . His gloom returned. She was here, he knew she was here, but what was the bloody good of knowing if they couldn't find her? Then he went cold. Up against the wall, near the sink, draped with a cloth and stacked with crockery as if it was a table, a large chest freezer, amply big enough to hold a woman's body. He piled the crockery in the sink and tried to lift the lid. Shit! It was locked. A tuppenny-ha'penny lock, but none of his skeleton keys worked. There was a poker by the Aga. Leaning over the cat, he snatched it up and levered off the lock, taking a deep breath before raising the lid, then forcing himself to look inside. Fish, meat, loaves of bread. No body. He let the lid drop with a thud, not knowing whether to feel relieved or dejected. He sank back in the chair and stared through the window to the night sky. Already daylight was scratching at the edges. He was sucking moodily on his fifth cigarette when Hanlon returned, looking as tired and dejected as Frost. 'We've torn the place apart, Jack. She isn't here.'

  Frost scrubbed weariness from his face with his hands. 'I've sodded it up again, Arthur. We've been wasting our time, looking in the wrong place.'

  'It was our best shot, Jack.'

  'Which missed the bleeding target by miles.' Wearily, he pushed himself out of the chair. 'Nothing to do now but wait until someone reports finding a body.' His mobile rang. His heart skipped a beat. Good news? Bad news? It was Mullett asking, 'What progress?'

  'None,' reported Frost. 'Not a sodding thing.' He clicked Mullett off in mid-moan and dropped the phone back in his pocket, now feeling almost suicidal. Another death on his conscience. Well, he'd give Mullett the treat of his life when he got back to the station, his resignation with immediate effect.

  Hanlon sensed his mood. 'You did your best, Jack. You couldn't have done more.'

  'I let it happen, Arthur. If that's doing my best, I'm bleeding useless.' Shoulders slumped, he made his way outside where the rain-soaked teams were assembled, waiting for his further instructions. He was about to send them all home when he stopped dead in his tracks and clapped a hand to his forehead. 'What a bloody, bloody fool! The generator!'

  Blank expressions.

  'They're not on mains electricity, yet they've got a fridge, a deep freeze, lights. They must have a generator. Did anyone find it?'

  Heads were shaken. 'We looked everywhere,' said Hanlon.

  'We couldn't have looked everywhere. You can't make electricity out of thin air. There's got to be a generator.' He stared upwards. No overhead power lines. 'It's got to be inside the house.'

  They followed him back into the kitchen where the mother cat yawned annoyance at having her sleep disturbed yet again. He looked around. 'Where the hell is it?' As he spoke the thermostat on the deep freeze clicked and the motor started to hum. 'Switch that thing off and listen. If there's a generator we should be able to hear it.'

  Morgan clicked the switch. The humming stopped. They strained their ears. Silence broken only by the mewing of one of the kittens. Hanlon shook his head. 'Can't hear anything, Jack.'

  Morgan dropped to his knees and pressed his ear to the stone-flagged floor. 'I can!' he called excitedly. 'It's coming from underneath.' Frost joined him. He could hear it too. A low, throbbing sound just about audible through the thick slabs. 'There must be a cellar!'

  Frost straightened up, eyes darting round the kitchen, stopping at the cat and its offspring in the basket, bang in front of the Aga. He remembered fat Mavis stepping over it with the kettle. 'If I had a cat with kittens, I think I'd stick the basket in that recess alongside the stove, not bang in front of it where I'd have to step over it every time.' He tugged at the folded blanket on which the basket rested, sliding it, with the cat and kittens, to one side. 'Bingo!' The blanket had been covering a wooden trap door. Morgan heaved it open. Wooden steps led down to darkness. Frost fumbled and found a light switch.

  A large cellar stretching the length of the kitchen. In one corner a diesel-powered generator throbbed away. Up against one wall was a single bed with a mattress and pillow. Frost sniffed the pillow. Perfume. Liz's perfume. She had been here, on this bed. He thudded up the wooden steps and yelled to the men outside. 'She's been here . . . search again.'

  She had to be somewhere near. The two women would have spotted the police teams crashing about and would have had to get Liz out of the house quickly. She had to be within walking distance, but there was no trace of her.

  'We need those two cows back here now!' said Frost, but before he could radio Burton headlights and the sound of a car straining up the hill. Burton and the two women returning.

  He waited in the kitchen. Burton was in first, humping in an exhausted-looking red setter bitch in its basket. 'Mother and kids doing fine,' he announced proudly. Behind him the two women, beaming all over their faces, carried in a large cardboard box which they lowered gently to the floor. Frost looked down on five newly born red setter puppies. 'Panic over,' smiled Lily. 'Jessie didn't need a Caesarean after all.' The smile abruptly froze on her face. With his foot, Frost was slowly pushing the cat's basket to one side. The two women watched as if hypnotized.

  'We've found the cellar,' said Frost grimly.

  The thin woman shot a warning glance to Mavis, clicked her smile back on and turned to Burton. 'Put the basket there, please.' She indicated the recess by the Aga. 'They must be kept warm.'

  'I said we've found the cellar,' repeated Frost.

  The two women busied themselves putting the puppies in the basket with their mother. 'There's nothing down there,' said Mavis, in a matter-of-fact voice. 'Just a spare bed and the generator. No-one could have got down there without our knowledge.' She held out a puppy to Frost. 'Isn't he a little darling?'

  'Don't sod me about,' snapped Frost. 'Where is the woman police officer you brought here tonight?'

  Mavis gave him a look of puzzled innocence. 'We haven't been out at all tonight, Inspector. How could we pick anyone up?'

  'You're a lying bitch!' snapped Frost.

  The thin woman came forward. 'Inspector, I appreciate you are concerned about your colleague, but you are wrong if you think she is here. We know nothing about her, I give you my word!'

  The word of a bitch who tortures and kills, thought Frost. We've searched everywhere, so where the hell is she? He creased his face in thought. The women would have spotted the search party and had to get Liz out of the house bloody quickly. Where could they hide her? And then it hit him. 'Of course,' he exclaimed. 'Of bloody course!' The one pla
ce they hadn't looked and it was so flaming obvious. The boot of the car. What a prat he was. The car doors had been left wide open and he hadn't thought of looking in the boot! He held out his hand. 'Your car keys, please.'

  Mavis nestled the puppy next to its mother, then dug deep in her coat pocket. Frost hurried out with the keys, but didn't like the relieved look which had returned to both the women's faces.

  The boot was empty.

  He was now at the brink of utter despair. Back to the house. 'Where is she?' he shouted.

  Mavis shook her head and gave him a pitying smile. 'I'm afraid we don't know, Inspector.'

  Frost tugged Burton to one side. 'Did you let either of them out of your sight even for a bloody second when you went to the vet's with them?'

  'No,' said Burton.

  Frost raised his head and swore bitterly at the ceiling. 'Shit, shit, shit. Tell me exactly what happened.'

  'We drove to the vet's - '

  'Who drove?'

  'The skinny bird. I was in the back with Fatty and the dog. When we got to the surgery, the lights were on inside and the main door was open. It was peeing with rain, so she drove the car right up to the surgery door. I humped the dog out, the fat one came in the vet's with me while the other woman parked the car.'

  Frost's eyes glinted. 'She parked the car? Where?'

  'The parking area just round the back of the surgery.'

  'She'd have to walk back through the peeing rain. Why didn't she leave the car where it was?'

  Burton frowned. 'I don't know. I was more concerned with getting the dog inside. But she was only out of my sight for a minute or so.'

  'That's all she'd flaming well need to drag Liz out of the boot, hide her somewhere and when we'd left, go back and pick her up again.'

  Burton stared at him. 'Do you think she's still alive?'

  'I hope so, son, I bloody hope so.'

  He quickly briefed the others, then jerked a thumb at the two women. 'You're coming with us.'

  Mavis looked concerned. 'Jessie - ' she began.