First Frost

by Henry James

  Where the hell was Frost? He’d only just been in the lobby and now he’d disappeared.

  Sunday (5)

  ‘This is a call for uniform, surely,’ said Frost, grumpily reversing the Cortina in the police yard. Even on a Sunday afternoon, and without Mullett’s gleaming chariot taking pride of place, it was impossible to turn around and not scrape something. ‘Why are we having to check this out?’

  ‘Mullett’s new Sunday staffing rosters,’ huffed Hanlon. ‘What uniform there is seems to be tied up at the Hudson place.’

  ‘So the super thinks that because it’s a Sunday coppers aren’t needed,’ said Frost, clunking through the gears. ‘Bloody ridiculous. He should know by now that there’s no rest for the wicked.’

  ‘Doesn’t help, I suppose, with Bert not being in, and Allen on holiday.’

  Frost sighed loudly. ‘I expect even lovely Sue Clarke will have her legs up – if not apart. While we’re off to investigate an attack on a nipper, by apparently a bloody fox. Where’s Johnny Morris when you need him?’ Frost accelerated up Eagle Lane.

  ‘Hold on a minute, Jack, you wanted that last right, towards Denton Woods – Forest View?’

  ‘Oops, silly me,’ said Frost. ‘Can’t turn round now. Not with the turning circle on this heap of tin. Let’s take the scenic route.’ Frost pulled straight across the Bath Road, making for the ring road, relentlessly crunching through the gears.

  ‘Bloody clutch’ll go, carry on like that,’ Hanlon said under his breath.

  ‘You complaining about my driving? Ah, look, Hudson’s Classic Cars. Thought it was around here. May as well pop in. See what’s on offer.’

  ‘Jack, there isn’t time,’ Hanlon said, pulling nervously on his seatbelt. ‘According to the Old Bill, this young child, it sounds serious. We can come straight back here.’

  ‘A little prone to hysterics is the Old Bill. Don’t worry, we’ll only be a minute, Arthur.’

  ‘You planned this, didn’t you, you devious sod?’ Hanlon’s jowls jiggled as the Cortina bumped up the kerb.

  ‘Right,’ Frost said cheerily, climbing out and peering over the roof, across to the forecourt. ‘Sunday’s the day for leisurely pondering a new motor, isn’t it?’

  Strung above the entrance to the forecourt was a fancy banner, swirly gold lettering on a British Racing Green background: Hudson’s Classic Cars. In a corner of the forecourt stood a tatty Portakabin.

  Bit quiet, Frost thought, surveying the gleaming, brightly coloured stock. Then he spotted a lanky young man in a large anorak, sitting on the step of the Portakabin. He was cupping a cigarette.

  ‘Why don’t you stay here, Arthur, and I’ll go and have a word with the lad. Don’t want to make him feel hemmed in.’

  At that moment the radio crackled into life and Hanlon squeezed back into the passenger seat of the Cortina.

  ‘If that’s Control,’ said Frost, ‘tell them I’m taking a leak.’

  Frost ambled across the forecourt, his mac flapping in the breeze. He found himself squeezing between a bright-red Datsun sports car and a green Volkswagen Golf.

  ‘Hello there,’ Frost said amiably, approaching the Portakabin.

  The lad got to his feet, adjusting the front of his anorak and flicking the cigarette butt aside. Frost could see that he was wearing a suit under the parka.

  ‘Thinking of trading in my Ford, over there.’ Frost nodded in the direction of the Cortina. ‘For something a little more stylish.’

  The young man peered over Frost’s shoulder at the car, and sighed, nodding his head. ‘Yeah? What did you have in mind?’

  Frost swung round, pulling a Rothmans out of the crumpled pack. ‘How about that bright-red one? Got a light?’

  The young man handed over a Zippo, eyeing the Cortina again. Hanlon was slowly climbing out, and shaking crumbs off his jacket.

  Noticing the lad’s bemused frown, Frost added, ‘Need a car that can support a bit of weight. But it’s also got to have enough oumph for a quick getaway.’

  Still looking surprised, the lad said, ‘The Datsun? Nice motor that – a 260z. Two owners from new, only 50K on the clock. Goes like the clappers.’

  ‘Does it indeed? Well, it might just be for me then, I’m always in a hurry. Can I give it a whizz?’

  The man’s face fell. ‘Can’t,’ he said.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Haven’t got the keys. Slight problem there. Sorry. Can I take your details and give you a bell later?’

  ‘In a bit of a rush, I’m afraid. To be honest, I’ve seen something else I’m keen on. Going for a second look at it – in fact, this very afternoon.’ Frost paused, surveyed the forecourt once more. ‘What’s your name, by the way?’

  ‘Brendan.’

  Frost thought he’d detected an Irish lilt to his voice. ‘Well, Brendan … I’m a little confused. Sunday is surely the best day of the week here. You’ve got all these smart motors begging for new owners. Yet you don’t have the bloody keys.’

  Now looking a little forlorn, Brendan said, ‘The boss has the combination to the safe. He’s very particular about not giving it out. And he’s not showed up yet. Truth be told, he hasn’t rung in either. I can’t even get into the office. Turned loads of people away already.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Frost doubtfully. ‘Steve Hudson? He’s your boss, yes?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s him.’ Brendan suddenly looked on guard again.

  ‘Does he often simply not turn up?’

  ‘He’s a busy man.’

  Frost was picking up odd vibes from this lad. ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘What is this? An interrogation? You the Gestapo?’

  ‘Just answer the question,’ Frost said sharply.

  The lad’s brow furrowed. ‘So, he left work yesterday lunchtime. He was in a hurry.’

  ‘Why? Why the hurry?’ Frost prompted.

  Brendan pulled out a pack of smokes.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Frost said, reaching for one of Brendan’s fags. He’d just crushed a butt-end underfoot. ‘Haven’t had one of those for a while.’ There was a thick, horizontal green band on the packet and the word Major. ‘From across the water, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the lad said, not looking up. ‘Originally.’

  ‘Prefer the weather over here?’ Frost asked.

  The lad peered up at the sky. Heavy clouds were tumbling in from the west. ‘Yeah. Every minute of it.’

  ‘Steven Hudson, then – where was he dashing off to yesterday?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘You can do better than that.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  Frost looked over at Hanlon, who was leaning against the Cortina. ‘Don’t think I need to spell it out, do I?’

  ‘All right,’ Brendan said calmly, ‘I didn’t hear everything but it looked like he had a blazing row with a customer, over that very car, the Datsun. Then he says he’s got an appointment out of town, and that I can have the rest of the day off. So I’m out of here, too.’

  ‘What time exactly?’ Frost said.

  ‘One thirty, two? I don’t know. I didn’t hang around, that’s for sure. It was pissing down. And the boss isn’t usually so generous.’

  ‘Who was the customer?’ asked Frost. ‘Seen him before?’

  ‘Seen her before, you mean. It was a she.’

  ‘A woman?’ said Frost, surprised.

  ‘Yeah, she was pretty, too. But you’d be surprised at the number of women who come round here, looking for something fast and sporty. Mr Hudson seems to have a way with them.’

  ‘That so?’ said Frost, backing away. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Don’t work too hard. And if Mr Hudson does turn up with the combination give me a call right away. I can just see myself in the Datsun.’ He dropped his card at the lad’s feet.

  ‘I know all about you lot,’ Brendan said quietly.

  ‘Sorry, didn’t catch your last name … Brendan who?’ Frost
called back. But the lad either didn’t hear, or didn’t answer. Frost flicked away the rest of his Irish smoke and made his way across the forecourt. Hanlon had already squeezed himself into the Cortina’s driver’s seat, and the engine was ticking over.

  ‘Jack, Control have been on twice,’ said Hanlon breathlessly. ‘This Liz Fraser has called a number of times wanting to know where we are. She’s frantic. She thinks that whoever, or rather whatever, attacked her baby might strike again. She’s too terrified to leave the house.’

  ‘I thought it was a fox.’ Frost climbed into the passenger seat, relieved that he didn’t have to drive. ‘She should have called Rentokil, or that bleeding Johnny Morris for all I care. This is still not a job for CID.’ He paused, fished for a fresh cigarette. ‘That lad back there, Brendan, something about him I can’t quite place. Not sure he’s on the level.’

  ‘Ah, Forest View,’ Frost said as Hanlon swung the car into the secluded but scruffy cul-de-sac. ‘Mary’s always nagging on about wanting to move here. I can’t see the attraction myself. Flamin’ countryside with its rampaging wildlife. There’s enough to deal with in the sodding town centre.’

  ‘What’s that, Jack?’ Hanlon had been quietly humming along to ‘The Winner Takes It All’, which was blaring from the radio, annoying the hell out of Frost.

  ‘Never mind. What number?’

  ‘Two. Think we’ve just passed it.’ Hanlon braked and reversed up the unmade road. ‘Here we go … Jesus! What the …’

  A dark-brown Mini Metro sped past, spraying gravel and clipping the Cortina’s wing mirror.

  ‘What number did you say?’ Frost asked, blithely unconcerned.

  ‘Two … wait a sec.’ Hanlon dug out his notebook. ‘No, twelve. But blimey, people shouldn’t drive so fast down lanes like this.’

  ‘Unless of course you think you’re being chased by a rabid monster. C’mon, let’s take a look anyway.’

  Hanlon slammed the car into first, then abruptly stopped as quickly as he’d pulled away.

  ‘Flaming hell, Arthur, you steady on now!’

  ‘But it’s criminal damage,’ Hanlon said. ‘At the very least dangerous driving. Besides, you’re meant to stop at the scene of an accident – it’s the law.’

  ‘Forget it. He probably didn’t realize he’d hit us,’ said Frost. ‘These things happen. Mary’s always scraping our car.’

  ‘And you’re not?’ said Hanlon, opening his door.

  For someone so fat Arthur Hanlon could, on occasion, take Frost by surprise and move very quickly. The detective constable was out of the car and steaming up the overgrown garden path before Frost had got to his feet. ‘Hang on,’ Frost shouted after him, slamming the car door.

  ‘Nobody in,’ Hanlon wheezed as Frost caught up by the front door. Hanlon pressed the bell again and began rattling the door handle. ‘Locked, too, not surprisingly.’

  ‘Patience, Arthur. Give her a chance.’

  Hanlon stepped back from the door and craned to his left and right, clearly working out the best way round the back.

  More breaking and entering, thought Frost, just as he detected movement inside. ‘Hold on, Arthur.’ Frost could see that a large woman was slowly approaching the front door. ‘Take your time, love,’ he muttered.

  ‘At last,’ she said, opening up. ‘You took your bloody time. Get better service in Sainsbury’s.’ She was youngish but very dishevelled, wearing baggy clothes in drab colours and no make-up. Strands of lank hair were stuck to her round, sweaty face. She had wire-framed glasses, the lenses badly smudged.

  ‘Why didn’t you trouble them, then?’ said Frost, thinking if she lost some weight and tarted herself up a bit she could almost have been attractive. Perhaps she once was. ‘Could have stocked up on Frosties at the same time.’ Frost exhaled. The hallway, or perhaps it was the woman, smelt of stale sweat and urine. ‘And toiletries.’

  Hanlon gave Frost a hard look. ‘I’m Detective Constable Arthur Hanlon, and this is Detective Sergeant Jack Frost, of Denton CID,’ he said, pushing forwards. ‘Mrs Fraser?’

  ‘Miss Fraser. Liz Fraser.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Hanlon. ‘Liz Fraser. We understand your child’s been’ – he coughed – ‘attacked.’

  ‘By a hairy beast,’ Frost added under his breath, wondering whether he should just alert Social Services and save himself wasting the next twenty minutes.

  ‘You better come in,’ Liz Fraser said. ‘Becky’s calmed down a lot. But she has some nasty scratches.’

  ‘Scratches? No bite marks? No severed limbs?’ Frost quipped before he and Hanlon were led through to the back of the house. There was a bright sitting room with large French doors, closed, leading on to a patio. Outside Frost could see a sand pit full of children’s toys, and a revolving washing line. The yard was contained by a five-foot-high wooden fence. Beyond were the tall, dark trees of Denton Woods.

  The sitting room appeared to have been hastily tidied, but it was dirty. Toys, clothes and piles of paper were in heaps in the corners, while the laminate floor was coated in grime. Sitting in the middle, chewing on a dummy, was a little fair-haired girl, two or so years old, in a dirty pink top, and red trousers. She looked happy enough, though there was an ugly bruise on her left cheek, and a bandage on her right wrist. She appeared also to have a faint bruise on her forehead. But there was no sign of anything that looked like a bite or a scratch.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ Frost said, bending towards her. The toddler look startled and began to whimper. Frost pulled back. ‘Nasty bruise, all right,’ he said, addressing the mother. ‘Shouldn’t you have taken her to the doctor?’

  ‘Try finding one on a Sunday.’

  ‘The hospital? Could have got an ambulance out.’

  ‘It wasn’t that serious; I used to be a nurse,’ Liz Fraser said. ‘And I have a first-aid kit on the premises. For my job … I’m a childminder.’

  Frost studied the place with renewed interest, taking in the quantity of kiddies’ playthings, inside and out. It made sense.

  ‘Why the great emergency?’ said Hanlon. ‘Why haul us all the way out here?’

  ‘My little girl was attacked, in the garden,’ the woman said nervously. ‘Whatever sort of animal did this needs to be caught before another child is seriously hurt. Or worse.’

  ‘You told the station,’ said Hanlon, stepping over to the French doors, ‘that you thought it was a fox.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I first thought.’ The woman followed him over to the doors. ‘But I now think it might have been bigger – a big cat sort of thing.’

  ‘A what?’ exclaimed Frost. He was surprised to see Hanlon easily open the French doors – so they weren’t locked, then. If the woman was genuinely afraid of something outside, she’d have at least secured the property.

  Hanlon stepped into the yard, over the toys, walked round the sandpit and towards the high fence. Frost didn’t think it would have been that easy for a fox to leap over, but what did he know?

  ‘Yes,’ Liz Fraser continued, ‘a large cat. You know, perhaps one of those panthers.’

  ‘A panther?’ spluttered Frost.

  ‘There were those sightings not so far from here, weren’t there, near Wells last summer,’ Liz Fraser insisted.

  Frost was sure she was blushing. Her pale, greasy skin was turning blotchy.

  ‘But I didn’t see much, of course,’ she added. ‘I was in the kitchen tidying up, and Becky was having her nap in the pushchair, out the back. But as soon as I heard her scream, I ran outside.’ She took a deep breath, and continued shakily, ‘There it was, dark and hairy, disappearing over the fence.’

  ‘Wasting police time is an offence, you know,’ said Frost dismissively. He’d had enough. ‘I suggest you get your story straight.’ He made for the hallway, then paused by the lounge door. ‘Who else lives here? The child’s dad?’

  ‘Chucked him out,’ Liz Fraser said quietly. ‘I live on my own now.’

  ‘When did this happen?’ sai
d Frost. ‘When did he go?’

  ‘The other day,’ she almost whispered.

  ‘Where’s he live now?’ said Frost.

  ‘Don’t know and don’t care.’ Her bottom lip was quivering.

  ‘Does he have a name?’

  ‘Simon, Simon Trench.’

  ‘You weren’t married, then?’

  ‘No, thank God.’ Liz Fraser walked over to Becky, who’d begun crying in earnest, and picked her up, saying, ‘It’s all right, sweetheart.’

  ‘You want to tell me exactly when you last saw this Simon Trench?’

  ‘As I said, I chucked him out the other day. Haven’t seen him since.’

  She seemed to be avoiding looking Frost in the eye. Frost didn’t see the point in pushing the woman on her relationship problems any further right now – he had an idea where it was heading. She was in all sorts of denial, and he was no shrink or social worker. What he suddenly wanted to do was to get the child into some type of proper care right away.

  Hanlon was still in the backyard studying the fence and beyond. Frost thought the detective constable was being ridiculous, appearing to take the wild-animal nonsense seriously. But it gave him an idea, as he pictured in his mind the rabies warning poster Bill Wells had just stuck up in the lobby, back at the station. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘we better get your daughter checked out by the experts.’

  ‘But I was a nurse,’ Liz Fraser said, panic – or was it fear? – creeping into her voice. ‘I’m an experienced childminder.’

  ‘So you’ve said,’ said Frost.

  ‘She doesn’t need to see a doctor,’ Liz Fraser gabbled. ‘I’ve attended to her wounds. It’s what’s out there that I’m worried about. That’s why I called the police.’

  ‘It’s what’s out there that I’m worried about, too,’ said Frost, looking away. ‘We’ll give you a lift to Denton General.’

  ‘It’s really not necessary,’ Liz Fraser said, clutching her child tighter to her chest.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ countered Frost, as Hanlon stepped back into the lounge.