First Frost

by Henry James

  ‘It’s important, Superintendent, and I won’t keep you long.’ Winslow ushered Mullett through.

  Mullett sat down, placing his cap on the chair next to him. The room was large enough to host a conference.

  Winslow buzzed his secretary for coffee, before fixing Mullett with a penetrating stare. ‘Inspector Bert Williams,’ he eventually sighed, before removing his wire-framed glasses and vigorously cleaning them with a special lens cloth. ‘Very sorry to hear he’s passed away.’

  ‘Yes, it’s awful news,’ replied Mullett. ‘Days away from his retirement, too. What a tragedy.’ He didn’t know where this was leading, but didn’t like Winslow’s tone.

  ‘And I thought he was at home, with the flu,’ Winslow tutted, replacing his glasses. ‘Instead he was gallivanting down country lanes, Rimmington way.’ He paused. ‘Look, I’ll come straight to it, Stanley. Was Williams on the level?’

  Mullett couldn’t help but look away from those beady eyes, magnified through crystal-clear lenses. ‘On the level? Do you mean, did he have a drinking problem?’

  ‘That wasn’t what I was getting at,’ Winslow said. ‘Though it might not be entirely unconnected. Remember our conversation just yesterday – about a leak, in your division, connected to those brutal Rimmington and Wallop heists?’

  Mullett hardly needed reminding. However, he had certainly not made any connections to Williams, the longest-serving member of the division. A drunk maybe, but he was not disloyal.

  ‘As I’m sure you are aware,’ continued Winslow, ‘I was a great admirer of Bert’s, but by all accounts his drinking and absenteeism had been getting rather out of hand. Clearly he could no longer be relied upon.’

  ‘I don’t know how you could know that,’ said Mullett, defensively. ‘Really—’ They were interrupted by Winslow’s frumpy secretary reversing into the room with a tray of coffee and biscuits.

  Winslow waited for her to pour the coffee, proffer Jaffa Cakes and disappear, before he piped up again, ‘Allegiances go out of the window with alcoholics. Besides, the latest intelligence suggests that this gang, aside from having a police insider on their payroll, have links with some seriously dangerous individuals over from Northern Ireland. You can probably imagine what I’m getting at – terrorists turned professional criminals – and I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge any more at this juncture. But needless to say, it’s imperative that we make headway urgently.’

  ‘Obviously I’ll do what I can,’ said Mullett, more than a little exasperated. He didn’t like being kept in the dark where County, or he presumed National and the Anti-Terrorist Branch at that, were concerned. ‘Given what you’ve told me.’ He coughed. The coffee was too strong for his stomach. He wondered whether he might be getting an ulcer.

  ‘What was Williams working on when he died?’ Winslow asked.

  Mullett had no idea. The old biddy who’d been mugged? A possible arson attempt? An aggravated burglary? Nothing major. ‘A number of routine investigations,’ he said. ‘With his retirement imminent, he was winding down, of course.’

  ‘Has the post-mortem thrown anything up?’

  ‘Too early.’ Mullett took another sip of the coffee, feeling it go straight to his bowels. ‘We should hear the preliminary findings this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, keep a very close eye on it.’

  ‘Sorry, Nigel, it’s been a long morning already – what exactly are you implying?’ Mullett was becoming more uncomfortable by the second.

  ‘Come, come. Do I really need to spell it out?’

  Mullett grimaced as another shockwave rippled through his bowels.

  ‘All right, I will. Could Williams have been tipping this gang off … and then something went fatally wrong?’ The assistant chief constable didn’t appear very interested in a reply, barely pausing before he continued, ‘Why not get that fellow Jack Frost on to it? If anyone has any idea about the skeletons in Williams’s cupboard, it’d have to be Frost. He was his partner, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Nigel, with all due respect, I’d have thought that Frost’s relationship with Williams is precisely the reason not to—’

  ‘Oh, rubbish. If there’s any question over Williams’s demise, Jack Frost will want to clear his name,’ said Winslow. ‘Can’t believe Frost is bent. And he’s certainly not stupid.’

  ‘But Nigel, there is no question mark over Williams’s death, at the moment.’ Mullett couldn’t believe Winslow was taking this line; unless, of course, Winslow was party to some information that he wasn’t. Or, unless – he shuddered – it was a test to smoke out the real mole, and someone was actually pointing the finger at him. ‘I have to say, sir, that I just don’t think Frost is experienced enough.’

  ‘Precisely, precisely,’ Winslow said, rubbing his hands. ‘Something like this needs an untrained eye.’

  Maybe, but not uncouth, Mullett could have added. Instead he said, lamely, ‘We do have the very capable DI Allen.’ Not that Mullett had yet been able to track him down to cancel his leave.

  ‘Put Frost on to it, right away. There’s a good fellow.’

  ‘To be honest, sir’ – Mullett was not going to let this go without a fight – ‘I had thought it might be advisable if Frost had a few days off. You know, compassionate leave? He was very close to DI Williams. I don’t want him making any irrational moves. He’s working on a couple of sensitive cases as it is.’ Mullett paused for effect. ‘Don’t forget the whole rabies thing started with him. I wouldn’t like to put him under any more pressure.’

  ‘Nonsense. Pressure brings out the best in a chap.’

  Mullett’s bowels twitched urgently for attention. ‘If you insist,’ he said crossly. He got to his feet, and began shuffling backwards out of the room.

  Winslow’s attention was diverted by his desk phone, which had started to ring and flash.

  Mullett barely made it to the corridor before he heard Winslow shouting after him, ‘Superintendent, you have a bomb in Market Square! Mobilize your troops – sounds like the real thing.’

  *

  Hanlon left his finger on the doorbell for a good few seconds. A pessimist by nature, he didn’t hold much store that whoever answered would even have heard of the Dixon woman. He’d struck it lucky with the last address and the boffin. Twice in a row wasn’t going to happen.

  The fact that Frost had turned off the radio and so they were out of contact with Control was also making Hanlon more anxious and downcast by the minute. He knew that Frost had his own issues with Mullett and procedure, but he didn’t see why he had to expose himself to such a serious misdemeanour as well.

  And who knew what Frost had been up to when he popped into the telephone exchange? Another skirting of the rules, was Hanlon’s guess. Though if, as he suspected, it had something to do with Bert Williams, then Hanlon was more than happy to forgive Frost anything. Jack might have been putting a brave face on it, but Hanlon knew what the inspector had meant to him.

  ‘Nobody in,’ Hanlon said to himself, not in the least surprised. Relieved in a way. He’d decided he wanted to get back to the station. Make his presence felt.

  ‘Give them a chance,’ said Frost, who had now climbed out of the car and was puffing away on the pavement behind him. ‘Probably can’t hear the bell with that racket going on.’ Frost raised his eyes to an upstairs window.

  Hanlon stepped away from the porch. He’d somehow missed that, pop music coming from one of the bedrooms. Frost moved forwards and gave the doorbell another go. Hanlon could now hear a voice from inside. Saw a figure through the frosted-glass door coming towards them.

  A plump and kind-faced grey-haired woman, in her late fifties, opened the door. She looked suddenly resigned. ‘He’s not here,’ she muttered.

  ‘Lee’s not our concern, right now,’ said Frost presumptuously.

  Bloody hell, Hanlon thought. Jackpot. Adrenalin was surging through his body. ‘Denton CID,’ he said, shoving his warrant card in the woman’s face. ‘Are you Joan Dixon?’r />
  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s the girl,’ said Frost gravely. ‘Julie, Julie Hudson. It’s her safety we’re most concerned about.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you’d better come in,’ Joan Dixon said.

  As the dank countryside flashed by, Mullett, gripping the steering wheel with one hand, tried yet again to reach Control on the handset with the other. The airwaves were either jammed, or Control was blocked. What the hell was going on at the Eagle Lane station? He couldn’t bear to think.

  ‘Come in!’ he barked. He was at least thirty minutes away from Denton, having only just left County headquarters. Blasted rabies, Mullett said to himself. Blasted Frost. If it hadn’t been for some half-baked scheme cooked up by the detective sergeant to avoid Social Services and get a little girl supposedly out of harm’s way, Mullett wouldn’t have been at County this morning, and could have been directing operations on the ground.

  They had a proper life-threatening crisis, and not only was Mullett not on hand, but it didn’t seem like anyone else was either.

  His brief telephone conversation with Sergeant Wells before he left County had filled him with dread. The Anti-Terrorist Branch had confirmed that the code word, though not the most recent on their books, was a recognized one. Wells had then told Mullett that while he’d already notified the bomb squad, he was unable to raise either Frost or Hanlon, who weren’t just out of the building, but out of radio contact.

  It was against procedure, and now lives were at risk, while Station Sergeant Bill Wells – yes, the station sergeant – was temporarily in charge. The man couldn’t even organize the lobby.

  Boiling with rage, Mullett glanced at a map of Denton spread across the front passenger seat. He was working out the best way to seal off Market Square, hoping Sergeant Wells was doing the same and directing uniform accordingly.

  ‘Hello, hello!’ he shouted into the handset, trying to keep his eye on the road, as the country lane was becoming increasingly winding. He could hear nothing but loud static. ‘Come in!’ he yelled, just as a small dark-brown car suddenly appeared on the rise of the hill, in the middle of the road.

  Mullett threw the handset to one side and swerved the car violently to the left. There followed the muted thud of impact and the super’s Rover skidded on to the verge.

  ‘Come on down, Julie,’ Joan Dixon shouted for the fifth time. ‘The police just want to know that you’re all right.’

  ‘Should we go and get her?’ said Hanlon. They were still crowded in the narrow hallway, with Joan Dixon effectively guarding the stairs. The pop music had only got louder.

  ‘No, that’ll scare her,’ she said, looking at Hanlon, then Frost. ‘She’s a very sensitive girl.’

  ‘Deaf too, is she?’ said Frost.

  Hanlon looked at his colleague, as if to say, Keep your mouth shut.

  ‘Come on, Julie,’ shouted Joan Dixon one more time, ‘there’s a good girl.’ Turning to Hanlon and Frost again, she added, ‘She’s been through a lot, these last few days.’

  ‘Suppose you don’t want to go and get her, do you?’ Frost suggested.

  ‘Ah, no need,’ Joan Dixon said, as a tall, very thin girl appeared on the landing and tentatively made her way downstairs.

  Julie Hudson’s painfully angular face was heavily made up. Tatty pieces of cloth had been tied into her mousey hair, but the streak of red it had in the photo was still clearly visible.

  ‘Where’s Lee?’ the girl asked, suspiciously eyeing Hanlon and Frost. ‘He’s been ages.’ She was wearing a ripped vest top, held together with safety pins, a tiny white PVC miniskirt, stripy red-and-black tights and a pair of huge black Dr Martens boots.

  As she reached the bottom stair Hanlon could see that her make-up was concealing a livid outburst of acne. He could also see the look of stark relief on Jack Frost’s face.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said, squaring up to Frost.

  ‘Hello, Julie. I’m Detective Sergeant Frost and this is DC Hanlon, Denton CID. We’ve been very worried about you.’

  ‘Why? I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘We know that, love,’ said Frost.

  ‘Tea, coffee?’ Joan Dixon said, moving towards the end of the hallway, and presumably the kitchen.

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Frost.

  Speak for yourself, thought Hanlon. ‘Tea would be grand, thanks.’ Hanlon tried to smile at the girl, who was now leaning shyly against the wall. She immediately looked away. That’s gratitude for you.

  ‘Now, what we need to know,’ said Frost, ‘is how you ended up here in this house, who exactly brought you here.’

  The girl looked towards the end of the hallway, as if for help, but Joan Dixon had disappeared to make tea.

  ‘He brought me here,’ she answered quietly.

  ‘Who’s he?’ said Hanlon.

  ‘My dad, I suppose.’

  They moved towards the kitchen. ‘Was it against your will? Did he hurt you in any way?’ prompted Frost.

  ‘No,’ she said, huffing. ‘Why would he do that? He’s my dad, right. I wanted to come. I hate my mum.’

  ‘He wouldn’t hurt her – last thing he’d do,’ said Joan Dixon, as she filled the kettle.

  ‘Where is your son, Lee?’ Frost asked her.

  ‘He went out to get a few things, should have been back by now.’

  ‘Seeing as he’s on parole, as far as I understand it,’ said Frost, ‘he shouldn’t be anywhere near here anyway. He should be in Bristol.’

  ‘But he was desperate,’ said Joan Dixon. ‘I know it’s all been a bit of a shock for Julie, but Lee’s been doing everything he can for her. Spoiling her rotten, he is: new record player, portable TV, clothes, jewellery, you name it. I don’t think she was very happy at home with her mum, and that man, as it was.’

  ‘I’d still like to know how the hell Lee Wright got her out of Aster’s, in broad daylight?’ Frost persisted.

  ‘You’d have to ask him that,’ Joan Dixon said, suddenly less sure of herself. ‘But he didn’t hurt her, in any way.’

  Hanlon and Frost both looked at Julie who, saying nothing, merely looked away.

  ‘No, I’m sure not,’ muttered Frost, eyeing the bare kitchen counter. Joan Dixon clearly kept a tidy, clean house.

  ‘He’d waited a long time to see her,’ she continued.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t anyone’s fault apart from his own,’ said Hanlon. The woman was beginning to annoy him – didn’t she realize the trouble her son had caused? ‘A conviction for armed robbery is not something you can easily forget.’

  ‘Julie won’t be taken away, will she?’ Joan Dixon asked, her voice now beginning to quaver.

  ‘She’s still a minor,’ said Frost, who Hanlon could tell was also running out of patience. ‘It’s not up to us. But if it was, I’d drive her straight round to her mum’s. That’s if her mum wasn’t in hospital.’

  Joan Dixon gasped. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What’s happened to Mum?’ said Julie, her face, despite the make-up, going very white. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Seems like someone wasn’t too happy about Lee and Wendy’s big secret getting out,’ said Frost.

  ‘Not Lee,’ said the woman. ‘He wouldn’t do such a thing.’

  ‘Anyone capable of shoving a loaded shotgun in someone’s face could do anything,’ said Hanlon. Julie, he noticed, was standing completely still. He regretted what he’d just said, having no idea what Julie already knew about her real father.

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ Joan Dixon said, a note of resignation in her voice.

  ‘No, it wasn’t Lee who put Wendy Hudson in hospital,’ said Frost. ‘But that doesn’t mean he’s off the hook. Kidnapping is a serious enough charge. Not the sort of behaviour you’d expect from someone who is still on parole. Looks like he’ll be going straight back to the slammer.’

  Julie gasped now.

  ‘But Julie needs him,’ Joan Dixon said urgently.

  ‘Julie needs her mum
,’ said Frost. ‘Her own home. Don’t you, Julie?’

  Julie said nothing, now looking at the floor.

  ‘What on earth has happened to Wendy?’ said Joan Dixon.

  ‘What’s happened to Mum?’ repeated Julie. ‘What’s happened to her?’

  ‘She was badly beaten – by her husband,’ said Frost. ‘Who, thankfully, we’ve now got in custody.’

  ‘I hate that man!’ Julie suddenly shrieked. She rushed out of the kitchen, and clumped up the stairs.

  ‘Wendy’ll recover,’ Frost continued, addressing Joan Dixon, ‘but Lee should have thought a little harder before turning up out of the blue. He went round there last week, didn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Joan Dixon said. ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

  ‘Couldn’t he have come to a more civil arrangement with the mother of his child?’ Hanlon said.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘none of this was my idea. When he turned up here with Julie, on Saturday afternoon, I was shocked. But what could I do? I tried to make her feel at home.’

  ‘Well, it’s all over now,’ said Hanlon. ‘You and the girl will be accompanying us back to the station, I’m afraid. Many more questions need to be answered.’ Hanlon was keen to exert some authority, given that it was his painstaking work that had located the missing girl.

  ‘Now where’s this bloody son of yours again?’ said Frost, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘I don’t know, honest,’ she said. ‘He went out first thing this morning. Said he was just going to the shops.’

  ‘To pick up another teenager?’

  Hanlon looked at Frost sternly – yet another inappropriate remark – and said, embarrassed, ‘The whistle gone on your kettle, love?’

  Joan Dixon reached round and turned off the gas. The kitchen was fast filling with steam.

  ‘Has he got other friends in town?’ Frost asked. ‘He can’t have been back long.’

  ‘Look, he’s done his time. He’s straight now,’ she insisted. ‘He doesn’t want any more trouble.’

  ‘That’s not what my colleague asked,’ said Hanlon.

  ‘He’s in enough trouble as it is,’ warned Frost, who was looking out of the window. A row of conifers closely shielded the back garden.