Frost 4 - Hard Frost

by R D Wingfield

  "Thought you'd like to know, inspector. Forensic have done a quick test. Every indication that the blood and skin on the plywood panel definitely came from Snell. They also found small splinters of plywood on his wrist. So we've got our killer."

  "Terrific!" said Frost, trying to sound pleased.

  "I've phoned Mr. Mullett. He's over the moon, although he feels it's a great pity Snell wasn't arrested yesterday. He says he would like to have a word with you about it tomorrow."

  "I can't wait," said Frost. He clicked off and chucked the radio down on the passenger seat alongside him. Three kids and their mother. Would they still be alive if he had locked Snell up? He had never felt more guilt-ridden, more inadequate and more bloody useless as a policeman than he did right now. He reached into the glove compartment for the bottle of duty frees Shirley had given him.

  He shouldn't have drunk the whisky. He tried to work out how long it had been since he had had anything substantial to eat, but gave it up. It was too far back. Too much spirit on an empty stomach. He yawned, but fought off sleep although the urge to close his eyes, just for a few minutes, was almost irresistible. He would drive home and go straight to bed. It required a lot of concentration to start up the engine. Very, very carefully he eased the car from the kerb and turned back towards the town. It was so hot inside the car. He loosened his scarf as he turned on to the ring road.

  At first he drove slowly, but gradually, so gradually he was hardly aware of it, the car gathered speed. Huddles of trees and houses swished past and then he was racing down the main road to the town.

  Not another car in sight. Ahead of him he could see, in diminishing dots of colour, all the approaching traffic lights pin pricking into the distance like a string of tiny fairy lamps. He wound down the window and let the cold slap of the slip stream cool his head. That whisky was a mistake, a bloody mistake. He was feeling lightheaded. He fought off the urge to drive straight round to Mullett's house, throw stones at his bedroom window and demand, "If you've anything to say to me, bloody say it now."

  At the junction of Bath Road the traffic lights had changed to red, but he took a chance. As the car floated across the junction the vibrating clang of a sudden hammer blow made him jerk forward, snapping against the restraint of the seat belt. Then a splintering and a shattering of glass and the furious blasting of a horn. He slammed on his brakes and stared through the windscreen in dismay. He had shunted a dirty great expensive-looking motor that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

  He climbed out of his car, leaning against it for support. The other driver, an indignant woman in her late fifties wearing a full-length mink coat, came striding over to confront him. The coat looked as expensive as her car, a Bentley, all gleaming paintwork and stainless steel. It couldn't have been more than a few months old, but now the front wing was crumpled and the headlight smashed.

  She looked ready to scratch his eyes out before getting down to more savage violence. "You stupid, silly bastard. What's your flaming game? Are you blind or something - didn't you see the bleeding traffic lights?"

  The woman and the Bentley blurred out of focus, suddenly clicking back sharp and clear, with every detail of the damage screaming at him. The cold air and the shock of what he had done served to sober him up. "I'm sorry, love," he mumbled. "All my fault."

  "You bet it's all your fault. You could have killed me!" Her nose quivered. She leant forward and sniffed. "You're drunk! You're bloody drunk! No wonder you drove straight past the red light. I'm calling the police." She fished a mobile phone from inside the Bentley. "Bastards like you ought to be locked up."

  His dejection was complete. As if he wasn't in enough trouble! His medal wasn't going to get him out of this little lot. Mullett would have a field day. But why was the woman studying him, staring at his face? He stared back. Something about her pressed a buzzer, but not loudly enough.

  She poked an accusing finger at him. "I know you, don't I? You're a cop. A bloody cop!" She snapped her fingers as a name came up. "Frost . . . Sergeant Jack Frost."

  "You'll never believe this, madam," he said, leaning heavily against his car as his legs didn't seem to want to support him, 'but it's now Detective Inspector Jack Frost." He focused his eyes on her. A faint ripple of recollection. "Do I know you?"

  "You ought to, you old sod, the number of times you've run me in for soliciting."

  "Soliciting?" It was difficult to say the word without slurring. He closed his eyes. A mental picture of a thinner, much younger version of the woman, this time wearing a cheap, imitation leopard skin coat. He opened his eyes as the filing index of his mind obliged with a name. "Kitty - Kitty Reynolds. And you haven't changed a bit. Are you still on the game?"

  She grinned. "A different branch of the business. I'm in management now. I run a little specialized house - four girls. I won't tell you where, though."

  "I don't want to know, love," said Frost, holding up his hand. "I can't even cope with the cases I've got." He took a squint at the Bentley and walked as steadily as he could over to it. Now he could see it properly the damage looked even worse. "I seem to have put a tiny dent in your motor." He wet a finger and rubbed it over the wing as if that would put it right.

  "A tiny dent, you drunken pig? There's nearly a thousand quid's worth of damage there." She gave a conspiratorial grin. "But have it on me. I'll tell the insurance company the other motor didn't stop and I couldn't get its number."

  The wind wasn't so cold. The night wasn't so dark. His guardian angel had come back from holiday just in time. "You're a saint, Kitty, a bloody saint."

  She grinned again. "I owe you a few favours, Jack - that blind eye you turned when I could have got into serious trouble."

  Frost tried to recall the circumstances, but couldn't. There had been so many blind eyes. "Don't remember it, Kitty, but whatever I did, it was a pleasure." He gave her a wave. "I'd better get off back home before the filth start sniffing around." He tried to walk back to his own car, but found his legs weren't interested in taking his orders and he had to grab the Bentley for support.

  Kitty threw back her head and laughed. "You're too bloody drunk to drive. Hop in my car. I'll park your heap down that side street, then I'll take you back to my place and try to sober you up."

  Her place was down a murky side road leading off Vicarage Terrace. From the outside it looked down at heel and scruffy, just like Frost, but the front door was fitted with the most sophisticated security lock, a lock which looked as if it cost more than the house.

  "Through here, Jack." The hall light was on and the inside was a revelation, everything new and expensive . . . very expensive. She took his arm and steered him through to the lounge where she sat him down on a deeply cushioned chesterfield and pushed a solid silver cigarette box towards him. She retired to the kitchen while he sat, feeling warm and happy, savouring the rich coffee smell that floated through the open door. Kitty emerged carrying a tray holding cups, saucers and a percolator. Two cups of hot, steaming black coffee were poured and then she settled down in the armchair opposite him, sipping from her cup and watching him drink.

  "It's flaming hot," said Frost.

  "Stop your bloody moaning - just drink it."

  He spooned in a shovelful of sugar and stirred. He hated black coffee. "So you packed the old game in then, Kitty?"

  "I had to, Jack. I was getting past it."

  He sipped and swallowed. "I'm well past it, but I'm still carrying on."

  "My," she said, pulling a face, 'we are feeling sorry for ourselves, aren't we?"

  A wry grin. "I was, but not any more." He unwound his scarf and unbuttoned his mac, then drained his cup in one gulp and shuddered as if he had taken a dose of medicine. To his dismay she leant over and immediately refilled his cup. He ladled in more sugar and took a sample sip. "Whatever men found irresistible about you, Kitty, it certainly wasn't your lousy coffee . . . It tastes like horse pee."

  "You're always moaning. Just drink it down and sober up.
I'm not sending you back to your wife in that state."

  "My wife's dead."

  Her expression changed. "Oh Jack, I am sorry. It must be lonely for you without her."

  "I was lonely with her, love. We didn't get on too well, I'm afraid." He loosened his tie and tugged at the tight, petrified knot. The heat was counteracting the sobering effects of the coffee.

  She shook her head sadly. "You poor old sod. You can stay here tonight if you like."

  "Eh?" said Frost, feeling everything coming back to life again.

  "If you're going deaf, Jack, forget it. I don't sleep with deaf men." Rising from the armchair she collected the coffee cups and carried them back to the kitchen. When she returned, she studied him, her head to one side, hands on well-padded hips. "You wouldn't look so bad if you got yourself a decent suit."

  Frost looked down at his jacket and scrubbed away a patch of spilt coffee. "I thought this was a decent suit. I paid a bomb for it."

  "When - before the First World War? Look at it - frayed cuffs, your trousers all shiny. And there's a button coming off your sleeve. I'll sew it on for you if you like."

  He fingered the loose button. "You sew as well?"

  She gave a smile full of meaning. "You'd be surprised at the little services I can perform."

  He was in the mood for being surprised. Sod the kidnapper. Sod Mullett. Sod everything. He stood up and moved towards her and that was the moment Control chose to page him.

  "Control to Inspector Frost. Come in, please."

  The sudden strange voice made Kitty start. "What the hell is that?"

  Frost fished the radio from his pocket and sighed deeply. "It's an electronic chastity belt." He pressed the transmit button. "Frost here, over."

  "Can you come back right away, inspector. We've got a man on the phone claiming to be the kidnapper. He's demanding to speak to the investigating officer . . . Hold on." There was a brief pause, then Lambert was back sounding excited. "We've traced the call to the public phone box outside the main post office. He's still on the line. Jordan and Simms are investigating."

  "I'm on my way," said Frost. He stuffed the radio back in his pocket, then looked regretfully at the Woman. "Sorry, love. It's not only my button that's going to be left dangling. Duty calls."

  "Well, you know where I am," she said, helping him on with his mac and brushing cigarette ash from the collar.

  But as the front door closed behind him, she knew he wouldn't be back.

  The kidnapper call was a hoax. The caller was blind drunk and was being egged on by his equally drunk mate. They were both brought back to the station and charged with wasting police time.

  A disappointed Frost drove back home and tried to get some sleep, but Kitty's black coffee kept him awake until just before the alarm went off.

  Chapter 13

  He arrived at the station early, anxious to check progress and then get well out of the way before Mullett arrived. Liz had beaten him to it and was already at her desk, hunched up over a stack of reports and a complicated-looking form which she was meticulously filling in. The office smouldered with her resentment.

  Frost peeked over her shoulder. She was doing the quarterly crime clear-up rate statistical return. "I thought Mr. Cassidy was doing this?"

  "No," she snapped. "I've been ordered to do them."

  Frost rasped a match down the front of the filing cabinet. He offered a cigarette to Liz, who refused. "Too much to hope the boy's been returned?"

  "I wouldn't know - I'm only the clerical assistant." She fanned away the smoke which was drifting over her figures.

  He thought he'd better take a chance and give Cordwell a ring in case the kidnapper had made contact, but at that hour of the morning, all he got was the answer phone He hung up, frowned and then yelled, "The answer-phone! Of course - the bloody answer-phone!"

  "Eh?" said Liz tetchily. She'd hoped that by coming in early she could get the return done without interruption.

  "The answer phone repeated Frost. "Something's been bugging me about Grover's alibi and I've just realized what it was."

  "Oh yes?" she said, flatly. He should be telling Cassidy, not her. She was only fit to fill in forms. "Don't forget we're going to see the woman in the cottage this morning."

  "What woman?" frowned Frost.

  "Primrose Cottage - where Lemmy Hoxton was supposed to have pulled his last job."

  "Later," said Frost, impatiently. "One case at a time. You spoke to their boss about his phone call to the store that night, didn't you? What did he say?"

  She paused, pen hovering over a column of figures, and sighed. How many more times was he going to go over the same ground? She put the pen down and checked her notebook. "He spoke to Mark Grover just before midnight, which was round about the time his wife was killed and round about the time the neighbours heard the sounds of a quarrel." She snapped the notebook shut and went back to the return where she was trying to transfer some of Frost's figures to the main sheet. "Is this a three or a five?"

  Frost squinted at it and shook his head. "Could be either. Does it really matter?"

  Another sigh. Frost's figures were probably spurious anyway, so what the hell did it matter. She made it a five.

  "The point is," Frost continued stubbornly, 'on the night the kids were killed I asked young Collier to phone the store to check with the security guard. But all he got was the answer phone The phones are switched off at night. So how could their boss phone them?"

  Liz tapped her teeth with her pen. "But why should he he?"

  "I thought we might go and ask him."

  She looked down at the mass of papers on her desk, most of them with Frost's scrawled, indecipherable and mainly fictitious figures, and decided anything was better than this. She reached for her coat. "Why not?"

  Frank Maltby, the owner of Denton Shopfitters, was not at home. His wife told them he was over at Bonley's department store supervising the counter fittings. Which is where they found him, a pugnacious little man with a loud voice, standing in the centre of acres of brand new red and blue carpeting which had been laid by Grover and Collard on the night the children were killed. Workmen on piece rates were hammering and sawing. Liz showed her warrant card while Frost was still digging down in his pocket amongst the cigarette ends for his.

  Maltby scowled. "Now what?" His face went angry and he yelled over Frost's shoulder at a workman wielding a saw. "Mind what you're doing - that's solid bloody mahogany you're ruining, not plywood." Back to Frost. "What is it now?"

  Frost had to shout over the clatter of the hammering. "Just checking. Are you sure you phoned Mark Grover just before midnight?"

  "Of course I'm sure. I told the tart - the lady - her!" He jabbed a thumb at Liz.

  "Well," yelled Frost, 'in spite of what you told the tart, the lady, her, we seem to have a problem."

  "And what's that?"

  "The store switchboard shuts down at eight and all calls go to the answer-phone

  Maltby gave a smug smile. "I didn't use the store's line. I called him on his mobile phone."

  "His mobile phone?" echoed Liz in dismay. "I assumed you used the normal phone."

  "Then you assumed wrong, darling, didn't you?"

  "You told me he was definitely at the store."

  "And so he was. Where else would he be?"

  "Any bloody where he liked," said Frost. "He could have been having it away in bed with the tart, the lady, her, or he could have been back at home."

  "Well, he wasn't, smart-arse. He was here working."

  "And how can you be so bloody positive?"

  "Because he bloody told me, that's why. Now if you'll excuse me, some of us have got work to do."

  "All right," said Liz defensively as they walked back to the car. "It no longer proves he was at the store, but that doesn't mean he wasn't. We've got two other people who confirm he was there."

  "You're too negative," said Frost. "He started off with three people supporting his alibi, and now the
re's only two. Let's go and see the night security guard."

  They heard the radio squawking away as they neared the car. It was Cassidy at his smuggest. "Thought you'd like to know, inspector, I've got the case all tied up. Snell has confessed."

  At first Frost couldn't take it in and stared at the handset in disbelief. "Confessed?"

  "Coughed the lot - the mother and the kids. Said it all happened in a haze - he didn't know what came over him." There was a long pause. Frost, so sure Snell didn't do it, so bloody sure, couldn't think of a thing to say. "Are you still there?" asked Cassidy.

  "Yes," said Frost hastily. "Sorry. Congratulations . . . good work." He did his utmost to sound sincere, but knew he hadn't succeeded. A rustling over the speaker as someone else took the microphone. It was Mullett.

  "Whatever you are doing, Frost, I want you here, now - no excuses."

  Frost switched off. "The bugger's confessed," he told Liz, still unable to believe it. "Which rather tends to shoot my theory that the father did it right up the arse."

  She felt sorry for him. "You spotted an inconsistency that no-one else did, inspector . . . even Mr. Cassidy. You checked it out."

  He flashed her a wry grin. "For a tart, a woman, a what's it, you're not at all bad, sergeant. Ah well, it's bollock-chewing time, folks. Back to the ranch."

  Mullett was waiting for him and managed a quick jab with his finger at the chair just before Frost decided to sit anyway.

  "Two things, Frost. The press have somehow got hold of the fact that you suspected Snell before the killings but did nothing about it. They're clamouring for a statement. Secondly, I've had Sir Richard Cordwell on the phone. May I take it you have not yet been in touch with him?"

  "Not yet," said Frost.

  "Not yet?" echoed Mullett in a tone of exaggerated disbelief. "You're telling me that you haven't even phoned to ask if, by some remote chance after last night's fiasco, the kidnapper had kept his side of the bargain?"

  "I'm sure Sir Richard would have told us if he had," replied Frost.

  "Pathetic!" snapped Mullett.