First Frost

by James, Henry

  ‘Ah, Jack, I thought it might be you in here.’

  Frost gave a start and looked up to see Mullett looming in the doorway. ‘Mr Mullett – you spooked me. Bit late for you, isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Day like today, routines go out of the window,’ Mullett sighed.

  A little too obviously, Frost thought.

  ‘And I’ve a mountain of paperwork. It’s not only you lot who are continually snowed under.’ He stepped closer, peering over. ‘What have you got there?’ Mullett gestured towards the blue file Frost realized he was clutching.

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’ Frost looked at the file as if he’d never seen it before in his life, then casually dumped it on top of a stack of papers behind him. ‘We’re getting somewhere with the canal stiff; some crucial evidence has been found,’ he said, trying to distract the super. ‘And there’s been another breakthrough with the Hudson case. Just got a call from our friends in Dover.’

  ‘Yet more developments? Thank God for some good news.’

  The super pulled up a chair, then retrieved a packet of Senior Service from his jacket pocket. He offered it to Frost first.

  ‘Steve Hudson has been arrested at the Dover Hoverport, alone.’ Frost lit up. ‘The sod was on his way to Calais. An alert Customs official spotted the motor. Should be here by the morning.’

  ‘Well, that is good news,’ Mullett said unconvincingly.

  Frost continued, ‘God knows where he was really headed – Spain? That’s where they all end up, isn’t it? By all accounts, Steve Hudson used to keep some pretty unsavoury company. Not sure I trust his uncle much, either. You know, Michael Hudson, manager of Bennington’s Bank. Bailed his nephew out once too often, I reckon.’

  ‘I know it’s been a long, tiring day, Jack,’ said Mullett. ‘But it’s always best to temper your hunches in this business, and keep things professional, especially when referring to local dignitaries.’

  ‘Local dignitary, Michael Hudson?’ Frost tried to laugh, but his heart wasn’t in it.

  ‘Gathering solid evidence is what we deal with – all we deal with.’ The superintendent leant forward, flicking ash into the overflowing bowl. ‘And that goes for Bert as well,’ Mullett continued. ‘Jack, you simply must try to keep your emotions out of it. I’ve said we’ll get to the bottom of this, and we will. The truth will prevail, believe you me.’

  Frost shook his head. He was exhausted.

  ‘So let’s not go barking up the wrong tree, making all sorts of insinuations. The division needs to pull together, especially at a time like this. This is not a place for people who think they know better – for people to betray our trust in them. God forbid.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ What was Mullett banging on about? Frost was too tired to argue.

  ‘Good. So we’re agreed: no wasting valuable time looking for something that isn’t there.’ Mullett ran his forefingers through his moustache. ‘And Frost, when you make significant breaks on cases, can you please immediately inform me.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for me, sir,’ Frost yawned. ‘What case exactly are you referring to?’

  ‘The Lee Wright connection to the Hudson case. I knew about the prints, of course, but not that he’s Julie’s father.’

  ‘Ah, yes, sir. Well, there wasn’t time. I went straight from Wendy Hudson’s bedside at the hospital to that lane where Bert was found. You were one of the first to know.’

  ‘That’s as maybe.’

  Would it ever be possible to please the man?

  ‘Are we, then, any closer to locating this Lee Wright?’ said Mullett, stubbing out his cigarette.

  ‘I’ll let you know the minute we get any closer,’ said Frost.

  ‘Damn those parole boards,’ said Mullett, quickly adding, ‘He could be armed. We’ll need to make sure we’re fully prepared and go in with tactical support.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘And the girl – you think she’ll be unharmed?’ Mullett asked.

  ‘He’s her father. I bloody well hope so.’

  ‘Let’s not forget, Frost, that Wright has been more than ruthless in the past. He shoved a gun into an innocent person’s face.’

  ‘These people usually operate by different rules when it comes to their own,’ Frost said.

  ‘All the same, let’s keep an open mind and be fully prepared until we know she’s safe. And it wouldn’t do any harm to go easy on Steve Hudson, until we can be certain of what his intent was. According to DC Clarke, his wife was very confused. Plus it must have come as something of a shock to suddenly find out you’re not the father of a child you’d always taken to be your own.’

  Frost supposed Clarke had written her damn report already. ‘No excuse to pulverize a defenceless woman,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Maybe not, but we get it wrong, and we could all be made to suffer.’ Mullett rose to leave. ‘Night then, Jack.’ He reached over and put a hand on Frost’s shoulder. ‘Get some rest.’

  Frost got up to shut the door after his boss, retrieved the thick blue Met file and sat back at the desk.

  It detailed Blake Richards’s chequered career in the Met. The chippy new Aster’s security guard, the man who Frost had had a run-in with only yesterday, was no saint. Frost had wondered if his neatly trimmed ginger beard was an attempt to mask all sorts of flaws and discrepancies.

  The file contained a commendation for his undercover work relating to the famous £5-million Ealing heist, then a reprimand for intimidating a female witness over a bank job in Chelsea. A much more serious allegation of rape hadn’t stuck. Another commendation for undercover work during a gangland killing spree in the East End. Then there were unfounded allegations of collusion with the Flying Squad’s notorious Inspector Dickie Brent, who’d been dismissed and eventually charged with murder and bribery.

  As he was fighting to stay awake, another all too familiar name suddenly caught Frost’s attention: George Foster. Beefy, thuggish, notoriously violent, Foster had been a bouncer at Denton’s seedy strip joint the Coconut Grove, before ramping up his organized-crime operations and heading for the big smoke. Frost hadn’t seen or heard of him for many years.

  Foster’s name was mentioned here in connection with an investigation into a series of bank jobs in south London and the Croydon area. Richards was leading the investigation, but the case was eventually dropped due to tainted evidence.

  On the same page Williams had written another name in the margin. Whether it was the light, the hour, or Frost’s eyesight, he couldn’t make it out. He’d have to get Forensics on to it, but quietly. He didn’t want any more bloody lectures from Mullett about not following hunches.

  Plus Bert had had his reasons for keeping this quiet. Frost would have to tread carefully.

  Wednesday (1)

  ‘Jack?’ Hanlon pushed the door further open and walked into Bert Williams’s office. Frost’s head was resting on a blue file amid the mountains of paperwork which littered the late inspector’s desk. The detective sergeant was fast asleep, and snoring loudly.

  It was 8.30 a.m. Hanlon, still in his hat and coat and clutching a warm bacon sarnie, sat down in the scruffy spare chair opposite the desk, took his sandwich out of the greasy paper bag and tucked in. Swallowing, he said again, more loudly, ‘Jack.’ Adding, ‘Rise and shine.’

  Frost stirred.

  ‘Jack,’ Hanlon said once more. ‘Wake up, you sod, we’ve got one hell of a day.’

  Slowly Frost lifted his head, clocked Hanlon, sat back in Williams’s old office chair, and fumbled for his cigarettes. Lighting up, he said, exhaling, ‘Where’s my breakfast?’

  ‘I didn’t know you were going to be here already, did I?’ apologized Hanlon. ‘Not like you to be so punctual. Here, you can have half of this if you want.’ Hanlon went to rip off a corner of his sandwich.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll wait until Grace pops by with her trolley. It’s liquids I need, not solids.’

  ‘Not sure you’re going to have time to hang around. A couple
of people we’ve got to find first.’

  ‘Yes, all right, I do realize that, Arthur,’ grumbled Frost. ‘At least Steve Hudson’s been arrested – stopped at Dover Hoverport, of all places, he was – one less to worry about.’

  ‘Finally, considering he must have stuck out like a sore thumb in that motor of his: yellow TR7, like a huge wedge of cheese tanking down the A2. Trench’s brown Mini Metro won’t be anything like so obvious to track. How are we going to find that?’

  ‘I don’t know. We need another chat with Liz Fraser – she’s still foxing me.’ Frost laughed at his own joke. ‘Clarke had a bit of a go yesterday in the hospital, apparently, but it sounds like she was too soft on her.’ He paused. ‘And this Simon Trench fellow, he must have mates in Denton. I bet Liz Fraser has some idea where he might be holed up, who he’s with. You alerted Social Services yet?’

  ‘Just getting on to it, Jack.’

  ‘A right pain in the arse, that lot,’ said Frost. ‘I suppose we’ll have to involve Social Services if we ever find Julie Hudson, too. Her mother’s in no fit state to look after her at the moment. And Lee Wright – father or no father, he’ll be going straight back inside.’

  ‘Had some luck there, yesterday,’ said Hanlon. ‘Lee Wright’s old address? Well, amazingly, the man who lives there has been there, on and off, ever since the Wrights moved out. Or rather the Dixons. Wright used to live there with his mother, who goes or went by the name of Joan Dixon. Just seeing what we’ve got on her, and the owner of the house is going through his paperwork. Says he had a forwarding address somewhere.’

  ‘Good boy,’ said Frost, pushing the chair back and standing.

  ‘Interestingly, though,’ said Hanlon, ‘a couple of heavies paid Wright’s old address a visit on Monday evening, asking for him. A large bruiser with the usual gold fashion accessories, and a wiry little Irish fellow. Oh, and there might have been someone else, stayed in the car.’

  ‘What sort of car?’

  Hanlon looked at him, wondering why he’d asked that. ‘Large, dark, was all he said. Cars aren’t his thing.’

  Just then Bert Williams’s phone went. Hanlon and Frost both jumped.

  ‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Frost. ‘Someone know something we don’t?’ He picked up the phone. ‘Yes?’ he said hesitantly.

  ‘Jack.’ It was Bill Wells. ‘Thought you might be in there. Heard you stopped the night.’

  ‘Very comfortable it was too.’

  ‘That’s what Bert used to say.’ Wells cleared his throat, before adding, ‘There’s someone down in the cells who’s complaining that he’s not very comfortable. In fact, he’s making a right racket.’

  ‘Steve Hudson, by any chance?’

  ‘That’s the one. Plus his solicitor has just arrived.’

  ‘Have them assembled in Interview Room One, will you please, Bill,’ instructed Frost. He put down the phone. ‘Arthur, I have visitors downstairs: the wife-beater and his stooge.’

  As Frost left Bert Williams’s office, he added, ‘I know you’ve got a lot on your plate – but don’t forget to call those old dragons at Social Services.’

  As DC Sue Clarke walked into the lobby, a tramp came stumbling out. He looked vaguely familiar.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ she said once inside, teeth gritted through the lingering stink.

  ‘That man,’ said Station Sergeant Bill Wells, peering through two huge, sad bouquets of flowers, ‘is a right pest.’

  ‘That why you were hiding?’

  ‘Desmond Thorley,’ said Wells, ‘once performed at the Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen, or so he’ll have you believe. Keeps coming in here banging on about strange goings-on in the woods, where he lives in a beaten-up old railway carriage. If you ask me, the only strange goings-on are in his head. Drinks like a fish.’

  Clarke moved closer to the front desk where the smell of the tramp was replaced by the heady scent of lilies and roses. The desk was overflowing with flowers and cards and hastily scrawled messages. A bottle of Denton Pale Ale had even been placed by Bert Williams’s photograph, a black ribbon tied around the neck.

  ‘Has Mullett seen all this?’ Clarke was taken aback by the very public and almost immediate outpouring of grief.

  ‘Word got round. People have been adding stuff as they’ve come in this morning,’ said Wells, rubbing his hands. ‘Mullett went straight to County – big press conference trying to clear up the rabies business.’

  Clarke looked at her watch. ‘I’m running late, and I need to find DS Frost before the briefing. A couple of developments.’

  ‘He should be heading for Interview Room One. Steve Hudson and his lawyer are waiting.’

  ‘Shit!’ Clarke rushed to the internal door. ‘I’m all over the place this morning – I’m really not prepared.’

  ‘Make it up as you go along,’ shouted Wells after her. Then to himself, ‘Everyone else does.’

  ‘Tell me again, Mr Hudson,’ Frost was saying, ‘exactly how you came to the conclusion that Julie is not your natural daughter?’

  ‘Simple. Her bloody mother told me as much.’ Steve Hudson was unshaven, his highlighted hair a mess, dark rings around his eyes. He looked shrunken and a little bit scared, behind the interview desk.

  ‘Just like that?’ Frost had heard it all before: a wife-beater believing his actions had been fully justified.

  ‘No, not just like that,’ Hudson replied. ‘The cow had been acting very odd. You know, late-night phone calls and stuff. Don’t know what she was getting up to in the day at home, either. A man had been round last week, that’s for sure. A neighbour told me.’

  ‘Is that right,’ said Frost. ‘And who would that be?’

  ‘Just a neighbour, that’s all.

  ‘I don’t see that this is relevant,’ said Steve Hudson’s solicitor, the slippery Henry Dobbs, who was sitting some feet away from his client, and looking increasingly agitated. Perspiration speckled the chubby man’s flushed face. Frost thought he urgently needed to loosen his red spotty bow tie.

  ‘So you confronted her?’ Frost offered, making himself more comfortable – Mullett’s new chairs hadn’t yet made it into the cramped, airless interview rooms.

  ‘I thought she was having an affair . . .’ For the first time Steve Hudson met Frost’s gaze. ‘Not something any man should have to put up with.’

  ‘Steven,’ interjected Henry Dobbs, scribbling something on a yellow legal pad, ‘you know you don’t have to say anything at all at this stage. This is merely a formality. Detective Frost is fully aware of your rights. Aren’t you, Mr Frost?’

  Frost lit a cigarette, keeping his packet to himself. He then looked over to see if the tape recorder was still running; it was.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to hide,’ said Hudson.

  ‘And that’s why you were running off to France?’ asked Frost. He was bored with this already, his mind this morning never far from Bert Williams, from Betty, her breaking down in his arms. Frost needed to get hold of his contact at British Telecom, get those telephone numbers in Bert’s bloodied pocket notebook checked and cross-checked.

  ‘Needed a break,’ grumbled Hudson. ‘That was all. Who wouldn’t have if they’d been in my situation?’

  ‘All right,’ Frost said, ‘where exactly were you in the house when you first confronted your wife?’

  ‘We were in the bedroom, I think.’

  ‘And this was on Saturday night, just a few hours after Julie had gone missing?’ Saturday, Frost thought. Bloody Saturday.

  ‘I was off my head with worry, of course, but Wendy was acting like everything was almost normal. Like Julie had only popped out to see a friend. She even tidied Julie’s room for her, saying she wanted it spotless for when she returned,’ Hudson said, his anger subsiding.

  ‘Detective,’ piped up Henry Dobbs, ‘I’d like a few moments with my client in private.’

  ‘Dobbs, why don’t you save your breath for once,’ said Frost, ‘you know we’ll get there in
the end. Besides, your client keeps inferring that he’s got nothing to hide.’

  Frost shifted his gaze to Steve Hudson. ‘Detectives Hanlon and Clarke had already been round to take statements by this stage, right? Are you then implying that Wendy was putting on some crocodile tears for our benefit?’ Thoughts of wasting police time crossed Frost’s mind.

  Thoughts also came to him of the poor woman battered nearly to death, lying in a pool of her own blood on the kitchen floor.

  ‘I was the one who called the police initially,’ said Steve Hudson. ‘You’ll have that on your records. If you keep such things.’

  Frost watched Dobbs frown. Never trust a man with a beard was one of Frost’s favourite adages. Never ever trust a man who wears a bow tie was another.

  ‘Wendy changed her tune when your lot turned up, that’s for sure,’ Hudson continued.

  Frost noticed that Hudson’s hands, out on the table, were shaking. Nerves? Signs of alcohol dependency? With his dyed, messed-up hair, black turtleneck sweater and swanky leather jacket, Frost couldn’t understand how anyone would buy a used motor off him. He looked more like a footballer out on the razz. Or a failed crooner.

  ‘If we can get back to the moment you confronted her.’ Frost looked Steve Hudson in the eye. ‘This was in the bedroom, right?’

  ‘To begin with,’ Hudson said.

  ‘You made a right mess in there,’ said Frost, making a point of ignoring that twat Dobbs’s glare, ‘before what, chasing your wife down the stairs and into the kitchen, where you proceeded to knock the bleeding life out of her?’

  ‘Mr Frost,’ interjected Dobbs, ‘as you know full well, my client is under no obligation to answer such outlandish accusations.’

  ‘Outlandish?’ shouted Frost, turning to face Dobbs.

  ‘My wife told me that I was not the father of our child,’ added Hudson quietly.

  ‘After you did what, exactly? Torture her? Beat her round the head, again and again?’

  ‘Detective,’ said Dobbs firmly, ‘I really object of the strongest possible terms. My client is, at this point in time, innocent. This line of questioning is beyond the pale, and you know it.’