First Frost

by James, Henry

  Though the fact that the body was found in a Cortina was making Wells feel decidedly uneasy.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Hudson,’ said Frost gently. ‘Been in the wars, have we?’

  Propped up in bed, the woman’s face was mostly obscured by bandages, bruising and tubes, though she did manage to nod a grim affirmative.

  ‘I’m DS Jack Frost, from Denton CID, and this is my colleague DC Sue Clarke, who you’ve met before.’

  Clarke smiled at the woman.

  ‘We’d obviously like to ask you a few questions,’ continued Frost, ‘if you are feeling up to it.’ Or not, he might well have added.

  The woman nodded. She still hadn’t opened her mouth, and Frost was suddenly beginning to think she couldn’t, with a broken jaw among her injuries – the duty nurse hadn’t volunteered any such information, nor, he realized, had the consultant. It was a wonder anything got done in this hospital at all.

  Frost looked at his watch; Julie Hudson had been missing for almost exactly seventy-two hours.

  ‘I hope they’re looking after you OK,’ said Clarke. ‘Got everything you need?’

  Really, thought Frost, there was a time and a place for such inanities and this wasn’t it. He’d brought Clarke along because he knew the questioning would get personal and Wendy Hudson might be more willing to open up to a woman – plus Clarke had interviewed her originally.

  As it was, Wendy Hudson wasn’t opening up to anyone.

  ‘Mrs Hudson,’ said Frost, moving closer to the woman’s bed, ‘Mr Hudson, that is, your husband, Steve, is now missing, as well as your daughter. You’re in here, beaten black and blue. So what’s been going on?’

  Wendy Hudson stared straight ahead and slowly shook her head from side to side. She appeared to try to lift her right hand, but could barely raise her fingers from the blanket.

  ‘Perhaps she’s not able to talk,’ said Clarke, who was now on the other side of the bed with all the various drips and attachments, and reaching for the woman’s left hand, which she lightly took hold of.

  ‘You won’t get any useful information from feeling her pulse,’ muttered Frost, turning away. ‘She is alive.’ The tatty Venetian blinds were askew, those that were still in place, that is, revealing a view of the rain-swept car park, three floors below. A van with a very large aerial protruding from the roof sat in a far corner. Squinting, Frost could make out the letters BBC on the side.

  ‘Was it Steve,’ Clarke was saying, ‘who did this to you?’

  Frost looked back and noticed the woman twitch. Was that a yes or a no? ‘Seems like you’ve got the magic touch, Sue,’ he said. ‘Ask her again.’

  Clarke repeated the question and the response was much the same. ‘What the hell does that mean?’ said Frost.

  ‘I think it means: maybe,’ said Clarke, smiling kindly at the woman.

  ‘We’re not going to get much of a statement, are we?’ sighed Frost. He lit a cigarette, only to spot a large no-smoking sign as he exhaled, advertising prosecution for offenders. He took another deep drag and carefully stubbed the cigarette out on the sole of his shoe, putting it back in the packet.

  ‘Is your husband with Julie?’ he asked, bending back towards the desperately sick woman. ‘Has he got her somewhere? Has he done something to her?’ Frost coughed.

  Wendy Hudson suddenly began shaking her head. Again and again. Frost found just watching the poor woman exhausting enough.

  ‘I think that’s definitely a no,’ said Clarke.

  ‘Can she write?’ Frost asked. ‘Hand her your notepad and pen, love.’

  Clarke promptly did as she was told, shifting round the bed and trying to rearrange Wendy Hudson’s fingers so she could clasp the pen on her own.

  She held on to the pen, all right, Frost could see, but didn’t appear to have the dexterity or the energy to write anything legible. ‘We’re not getting very far,’ he said, as much to himself as to anyone.

  Clarke said again, ‘Has Steve got Julie? Has he done something to her?’

  There was a distinct shaking of the head.

  ‘But he beat you up. Is that right?’ pressed Clarke.

  The response this time was different. Both a nod and a shake. Meaning, Frost suddenly decided, that Steve Hudson had attacked her, but Wendy Hudson felt somehow to blame. He could see pretty much exactly where this was heading, thinking again of his earlier suspicion, voiced to Hanlon, about Lee Wright coming back to Denton to claim what was his.

  Taking a deep breath, Frost said, ‘He beat you up because he suddenly found out, after – what is it? – thirteen years that Julie was not his kid. That right? Julie’s real father being one Lee Wright – nice fellow – who just so happens to have been released from prison a few weeks ago and who paid you a visit, I’m guessing, just the other day. Popped round for a cup of tea, did he?’

  Frost glanced over at Clarke, who looked startled. He continued, hearing Wendy Hudson begin to sob surprisingly loudly, ‘Sorry to be blunt, Mrs Hudson, but we urgently need to get to the bottom of this. Julie needs to be safely accounted for, and as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter whose father Steve Hudson is, or isn’t. Anyone responsible for beating up a woman with such brutality needs to be behind bars.’

  Wendy Hudson was shaking her head one moment and nodding the next, giving Frost the impression that she disagreed.

  ‘You can’t blame yourself for everything,’ said Clarke.

  Frost was pleased that the DC seemed to have picked up the same idea. Wendy Hudson was sobbing harder.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ said Clarke, holding her hand again, ‘once you’re better and feeling stronger.’

  ‘And Julie?’ Frost coughed again. His mind was a little less clear, less made up on this point. ‘Is she with Lee Wright, her natural father?’

  That nodding and shaking again, which Frost took to mean she didn’t know. He looked at Clarke again.

  ‘No?’ Clarke prompted.

  Wendy Hudson seemed to nod more affirmatively this time.

  Yes, thought Frost. ‘Lee Wright’s got her, hasn’t he,’ he said triumphantly. He still had no idea whether Wendy Hudson had known this all along. Perhaps she had made up the story about her daughter disappearing from Aster’s for Steve Hudson’s benefit. Or maybe she didn’t know for sure, but just hoped Lee Wright had her, and was keeping her safe.

  Either way, Frost couldn’t imagine that an armed robber, recently released from a very long stretch inside, would make much of a father. ‘I need the phone,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hanlon crossly, picking up the phone and half expecting it to be the hospital again, saying that Becky Fraser had in fact been discharged.

  ‘Hanlon!’ barked Mullett, clearly in a rage. ‘Where’s Frost?’

  ‘Sorry, sir, no idea.’

  ‘No idea?’ Mullett shouted. ‘He’s in charge of bloody CID at the moment, I need him now. There’s been an accident.’

  ‘An accident? What—’ started Hanlon.

  ‘Yes – a fatality. I want Frost,’ repeated Mullett, ‘urgently.’

  Hanlon pushed aside the Fraser paperwork.

  ‘It’s one of ours,’ the super continued, a little more quietly this time. ‘Dead behind the wheel.’

  Thinking there was no time like the present, Frost made for the payphone behind the tatty newsagent’s and gift shop in the lobby of the hospital’s main entrance.

  While he dialled the station, Clarke wandered over to look at the magazines.

  He was put straight through to Hanlon. ‘He’s got the girl,’ Frost said immediately, ‘as I suspected. Came back for what he thought was rightfully his. What was that last address you have for Lee Wright in Denton? He’s somewhere close, I can feel it in my bones.’

  ‘Jack,’ said Hanlon. ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. Where the hell are you? Everyone’s looking for you. Mullett’s frantic.’

  ‘I’m at the hospital; Wendy Hudson’s been nodding out some answers.’

  ‘Well,
brace yourself. I have some bad news.’

  ‘A body’s been found? Not the girl? Oh shit. Armed robber or not, he was her bloody father.’

  ‘No, Jack.’

  Frost could barely hear Hanlon. The line was terrible. ‘Speak up, Arthur,’ he said.

  ‘It’s Bert,’ said Hanlon.

  Frost felt something give in his chest and his head immediately began to spin. ‘What do you mean, it’s Bert?’

  ‘He’s dead, Jack.’

  Frost momentarily held the phone away from his head, looked out through the lobby doors, at the heavy grey sky on the near horizon. With his left hand he reached for his cigarettes. ‘Where, how?’ he asked calmly.

  ‘It was an accident, Jack. Rimmington way, a lane in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘What the hell was Bert doing out there?’

  ‘That’s all I know, Jack. Look, I’m really sorry. I know what he meant to you, especially.’

  Frost thought of Betty, their two grown-up children. ‘Does Betty know?’

  ‘No,’ said Hanlon. ‘A farmer called it in an hour or so ago. Charlie Alpha is at the scene. Mullett’s on his way.’

  ‘What about Scenes of Crime? Maltby?’

  ‘It was an accident, Jack.’

  ‘No, it bloody wasn’t!’ shouted Frost. ‘What’s the exact location, I’m on my way.’

  ‘Jack, hold on a minute. Dr Philips, the paediatric consultant, rang some time ago. About Becky Fraser. You should at least have a word with him before leaving the hospital – he wants to release her. Says the rabies business is getting out of hand.’

  ‘Rabies?’ Frost was for an instant confused, the thought of Williams dead had wiped everything else from his mind.

  ‘And that she has some burn marks on her body, on top of quite a catalogue of other injuries,’ said Hanlon hurriedly. ‘It’s abuse, all right. But we haven’t got any further with tracking down the father, Simon Trench . . .’ Hanlon paused, took a breath. ‘And that’s if it was him, and not the mother. We need to bring Liz Fraser in for formal questioning and let Social Services—’

  ‘Arthur, haven’t I already asked you to deal with this?’ said Frost, cutting him off. ‘Look, just give me the location. Where is Bert?’

  Frost hung up and ran across to Clarke, who was flicking through a magazine by the newsstand. ‘I need the car – the keys – won’t be long,’ he said breathlessly, holding out his hand. Clarke passed them over, not bothering to question his motives.

  ‘Small task for you, while you’re here,’ he called over his shoulder, barging through a group of pregnant young women. ‘Tell that Dr Philips up in Paediatrics not to discharge the rabies child on any account, and don’t let the mother out of your sight. Hanlon will fill you in.’

  Reaching the exit, Frost was accosted by a man who shoved a microphone in his face. Frost sent the microphone flying, and sprinted across the car park towards the Escort.

  Tuesday (5)

  Mullett climbed out of his Rover, checked his cap was straight and marched towards the cluster of officers. There were two panda cars and an ambulance on the scene. A tractor sat further up the wet lane. It was quickly getting dark, raining off and on. The superintendent shivered.

  ‘All right, Simms,’ he said, approaching, ‘anything been touched? Moved?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said PC Simms eagerly, holding a reel of police tape. ‘Well, not exactly. When we arrived and spotted the body, I did check for a pulse, though it was pretty obvious that he’d been dead for some time. I recognized him straight away, sir,’ he added.

  ‘Anything immediately suspicious?’ Mullett asked, scrutinizing the young PC. Could Simms be bent, leaking information? Seemed ludicrous. ‘Anything to suggest it wasn’t an accident?’ Mullett knew he had to go through the motions, at least show the right level of concern and gravitas, given they were dealing with a dead detective. It was by far and away his worst day as superintendent of the damned Denton Division.

  ‘No, not that I can see,’ said Simms.

  Mullett walked over to the car, which was half in a ditch to the side of the lane; the front end was badly dented. Mullett moved round the vehicle, catching his first sight of Williams’s body slumped awkwardly against the opened driver’s door, his right arm and leg hanging out of the car. Christ, Mullett thought, it must have been quite a prang. Williams’s chest seemed to have taken the brunt of the impact, probably against the steering wheel.

  ‘What a lonely place to die,’ said Mullett to no one in particular, wondering whether the door had opened on impact, or whether Williams, having initially survived the accident, opened the door, but was then unable to climb all the way out.

  Looking up he saw a fire engine making its way down the lane. Some distance behind the fire engine, but catching up fast, was an Escort, one of the station’s, with a flashing light slapped on the top.

  ‘The ambulance men want to know whether they can remove the body, sir,’ said Simms, ‘what with it getting dark.’

  Mullett looked at the corpse again, and at the car, how it was positioned, or rather how it had ended up. He walked round once more and peered at the opened driver’s door, noticing that the radio handset was dangling out of its holder. The impact could easily have dislodged it, though Mullett wondered again whether Williams might have survived the accident, might have tried to reach for help. But what the hell was he doing down this dirty little lane? ‘Tell them they’ll have to wait,’ he said to Simms.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Where does this lane go?’ Mullett’s geography of Denton and its surroundings was not all that it should have been.

  ‘Back road to Rimmington, sir, not used much now.’

  ‘Right.’ Mullett paused. ‘Get on to Control. We’ll need arc lights, a tent. I want Scenes of Crime here and Doctor Maltby.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Simms again, this time sounding confused.

  ‘Accident or not, we owe it to Williams’s family to get to the bottom of what happened here,’ Mullett stated. If such an investigation showed, as Mullett expected it to, that Williams was drunk behind the wheel, and veered fatally off the track, then so be it. The division was heading in a new direction. There was going to be transparency all the way up to the top.

  Hearing a screech of breaks, Mullett looked over to see the Escort skid to a stop behind the fire engine. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he muttered to himself as DS Frost hurriedly clambered out, wrapping his mac around him.

  Without acknowledging his superior Frost headed straight for Williams’s Cortina.

  Mullett kept his distance as Frost walked slowly around the car, peered through the windows and the opened door, and then crouched down by Bert Williams’s body. From where he was Mullett couldn’t see exactly what Frost was doing, but shortly puffs of cigarette smoke, caught in a spotlight now being angled from the fire engine, began drifting up into the freezing, damp early evening air.

  Frost’s actions seemed to affect the other officers present, along with the ambulance and fire crews. Suddenly there was quiet and stillness and Mullett found himself solemnly removing his cap.

  ‘Bastards!’ Frost shouted, breaking the peace and emerging from his crouched position by the far side of the car, fag in the corner of his mouth, the glint of tears on his cheeks. ‘I’ll get the bastards who did this.’

  ‘Hang on a minute, Jack,’ Mullett said, walking towards his detective sergeant. ‘I understand you’re upset. We’re all upset. This is a tragic accident. Bert was . . .’ Mullett couldn’t think what to say next. ‘He was unique, in his way. One of our own. One of the family.’ Mullett coughed.

  Frost wiped his face on the sleeve of his mac. ‘I don’t care what you thought of him,’ said Frost, ‘but this was no accident. Where are Scenes of Crime, Doc Maltby? Why aren’t uniform on their hands and knees, combing the area? Call themselves coppers? And what’s that ambulance doing there, bang behind the Cortina, destroying any tracks? And your Rover, sir, right in the sodding way too.’ Fro
st fumbled for another cigarette.

  ‘Jack, there’s no need for hysteria. All the proper measures are being taken. That’s why I’m here, to see to it all.’

  ‘Where are Scenes of Crime?’ Frost repeated.

  ‘Jack, calm down.’ Mullett was aware of uniform observing the altercation and the raised voices. ‘I promise you, this accident – this incident – will be investigated properly. I’ll personally be in charge, until DI Allen’s back.’ Despite what he had implied to Winslow earlier in the day, Mullett now realized he really had no option but to try to haul Allen back from his holiday. All leave would have to be cancelled.

  ‘You’ll get to play your part,’ Mullett said, ‘don’t worry. And for your information, Scenes of Crime and Maltby are on their way.’

  ‘Right,’ said Frost.

  ‘Believe me,’ Mullett continued, ‘we’ll get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘One thing, Super,’ said Frost, ‘I want to tell Betty.’

  Mullett was only too keen to acquiesce. ‘Of course, Frost.’

  ‘Oh and another thing,’ Frost walked back over to the damaged Cortina, which, slick with rainwater, was glinting surreally under the spotlights. ‘I want a news blackout.’

  ‘A news blackout?’

  Frost turned to face Mullett, his eyes filled with anguish. ‘Yes, a blackout. I don’t want whoever did this to know we’re on to them yet.’ Frost placed both hands on the damaged wing, head bowed, as if physical contact would reveal the cause of the tragedy.

  Mullett paused for thought – he would have to be careful how he played this. ‘On to them? Yes, quite.’ He looked at his watch. ‘But Jack, let’s not get carried away with this. Wait and see what the autopsy throws up. What Forensics find. Besides, you know what the press are like: they’ll say what they want anyway. Too many people know about this already.’ He looked across at the fire crew, the ambulance men. ‘Try keeping that lot quiet.’

  ‘No mention or public statements from us about suspicious circumstances, then,’ Frost carried on. ‘This could be crucial.’

  ‘Fine chance gagging that lot from the Echo,’ said Mullett. ‘Just how the hell do you propose we do that?’