A Killing Frost (2 page)

   They were interrupted by the clatter of hurrying footsteps. The cubicle curtains were jerked open and a sharp-faced woman in her late thirties toting a white plastic carrier bag barged in. Jerking a thumb at Frost she demanded, ‘Who the hell is he?’

   ‘He’s a detective, Mum,’ said the girl.

   ‘Well, he don’t flaming look like one,’ she snapped, dumping the carrier bag on the bed. ‘Here’s your clothes. I’m taking you home.’ She spun round to Frost. ‘Fifteen years old. Never had a boyfriend. I’ve told her - not until you’re sixteen. You see too many of these kids dressed like tarts - barely eleven years old, some of them. She’s a good girl - never out late. I make certain she don’t get into any trouble and this bastard . . .’ Words failed her.

   ‘I know, love,’ agreed Frost. ‘But we’ll catch him, don’t you worry.’ He hoped he sounded more certain than he felt.

   ‘I’m against abortions,’ continued the mother, ‘but if that bastard’s made her pregnant . . .’ She shook her head. ‘Other kids are at it like bloody rabbits she keeps herself pure and this happens.’

   ‘There’s no bloody justice,’ sympathised Frost. He stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch, and I’ll keep you informed.’ He almost raced down the long corridor, ready to light up the minute he was out side. He nearly made it.

   ‘Inspector Frost.’

   He stopped and turned to see Sophie Grey, the young social worker.

   ‘Could I have a word, Inspector? It’s very important.’

   Frost groaned inwardly. Everything was bloody important these days.

The train rattled round the bend before shuddering to a halt with a squeal of brakes as it reached the station. The carriage window was dirt-grimed, but Detective Chief Inspector Skinner could see enough to confirm what he had let himself in for. He dragged his case down from the rack and opened the carriage door.

   ‘Denton . . . Denton . . .’ bellowed the Tannoy. ‘Alight here for Denton.’

   Skinner, the only passenger to alight, nodded ruefully. He didn’t need to be told. The whole drab, miserable look of the place screamed ‘Denton’ to him. He gazed wistfully at the train as it moved on, taking its passengers to happier destinations.

   Outside the station, thick black, low-lying clouds added to the gloom, and a cold wind slashed his face. He looked up and down the empty road. No sign of the police car that was supposed to meet him. Just bloody typical of Denton! He dragged the mobile phone from his pocket and rang the station. The idiot at the other end did nothing to improve his temper.

   ‘What did you say your name was?’ asked a bored-sounding Sergeant Wells.

   ‘Skinner. Detective Chief Inspector Skinner,’ he snapped, jumping back just too late to avoid being doused with dirty water as a passing lorry drove through a puddle. He couldn’t read the mud-splattered numberplate, but he noted the firm’s name on the side. He’d get Traffic to nail the bastard. ‘A car is supposed to be picking me up.’

   ‘That’s right, sir,’ agreed Wells cheerfully. ‘Isn’t it there?’

   ‘Would I be bloody phoning you if it was here?’ hissed Skinner. ‘Of course the bleeding thing isn’t here.’

   ‘If you’d just hold the line, sir, I’ll check,’ said Wells, putting him on hold. A tinny synthesiser played the first few bars of the ‘William Tell Overture’ over and over again. After what seemed ages, Wells returned, sounding puzzled. ‘Are you sure it isn’t there, sir?’

   Skinner took a deep breath. ‘Of course I’m bloody sure, Sergeant. Do you think I don’t know what a flaming police car looks like?’ At that moment an area car crawled round the corner.

   ‘All right, it’s here now - and it’s taking its bloody time.’ He clicked off the phone and shoved it back in his pocket.

   As the car drew up alongside him, he opened the door, chucked his case inside and slid into the passenger seat.

   ‘Are you DCI Skinner?’ asked the driver, PC Jordan.

   ‘Who the hell do you think I am?’ snarled Skinner.

  
A big, fat, pig-headed bastard
, thought Jordan, but he kept the idea to himself. ‘You could be someone who thought this was a taxi and just climbed in, sir. It has happened before, so I always like to check who my passenger is.’

   ‘Well now you bloody know,’ snapped Skinner. This officer was too cocky for, his own good. He’d better watch his step or he’d be following Frost out of Denton.

   Jordan exchanged raised eyebrows and pulled down mouth with his observer, PC Simms, then spun the car round to head back to the station. They drove in silence.

   The radio crackled. ‘Control to Charlie Simms. Are you anywhere near Milk Street?’

   ‘Just passed it,’ answered Simms. ‘Why?’

   ‘A Sadie Rawlings, 13 Milk Street, has reported an abduction - her two-year-old baby son. Inspector Frost is on his way. He wants you to meet him there.’ 

   ‘We’re taking Detective Chief Inspector Skinner to the station. We’ll drop him off first. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.’

   A stubby finger jabbed him in the arm. ‘Take the shout now,’ ordered Skinner. ‘I’ll handle it.’ He rubbed his hands with glee. A child abduction on his first day. This should earn him some Brownie points.

   ‘It’s Inspector Frost’s case,’ Jordan told him.

   ‘Well it isn’t any more. And when I want some thing done, Constable, you do it. You don’t query it -
comprende
?’

   ‘The Chief Inspector says he’ll handle it,’ reported Simms. ‘We’re on our way.’

   Jordan spun the car into a U-turn.

Milk Street - a cul-de-sac blocked off at one end by the brick wall of a monumental mason’s yard - had more than its fair share of boarded-up windows and rusting abandoned cars waiting for the council to get round to towing them away. Black plastic dustbin sacks, put out days too early for the weekly collection, had been ripped open by dogs and their contents spewed over the pavement.

   Skinner stepped gingerly over a slurry of discarded Indian takeaway containers and rapped on the door of Number Thirteen with the flat of his hand.

   It took several raps before Sadie Rawlings, an over-bleached blonde in her late twenties, opened the door and squinted at the warrant card. ‘Took your bleeding time,’ she said. ‘I’m at me wit’s end. I phoned bleeding ages ago.’

   ‘Five minutes ago, actually, madam,’ said Skinner as they followed her into the house.

   ‘Broke in through the window,’ she said. ‘Smashed half my crockery and took the kid. There’s blood all over the place.’

   ‘Blood?’ Skinner’s head snapped up. It was the first time this had been mentioned.

   The woman was walking unsteadily and reeked of cheap gin. A cigarette with a tube of ash quivered from her lips. Her make-up had been trowelled on. ‘I woke up this morning and he was gone - bloody gone!’

   The house had a stuffy smell, the lingering aroma of past meals intermingled with stale cigarette smoke and cat’s pee.

   ‘Right, madam,’ said Skinner. ‘From the beginning. What time did you put the baby to bed?’

   ‘Six o’clock. He went straight off to sleep.’

   ‘And what time did you go to bed?’

   ‘Questions, bleeding questions. Just bloody well find him. They’ll blame me. They’ll say I neglected him. I’m a bloody good mother.’

   ‘I don’t dispute that, madam,’ said Skinner, trying to stay patient, ‘but I need some answers first. What time did you go to bed?’

   ‘I don’t know. I don’t study the bleeding clock. Just after ten - something like that.’

   ‘You heard nothing during the night?’

   ‘Not a sodding thing and I’m a light sleeper. The kid’s only got to cough and I’m in there like a shot. I’m a bloody good mother.’

   ‘So you said, madam. And what time did you go into the baby’s room this morning?’

   She tried to focus bleary eyes on her wrist watch. ‘About half an hour ago. When I phoned you. As soon as I saw he was gone, I phoned.’

   ‘So he must have been taken some time between six o’clock yesterday evening and nine this morning?’

   ‘Bleeding marvellous. I could have bloody worked that out for myself.’

   Skinner took a deep breath. She was beginning to get on his nerves. ‘Could I see the baby’s room now, please?’

   She led them down the passage and flung open the door to a small room, barely furnished with a chair and a white painted cot. A sour smell came from a heap of discarded Pampers nappies on the floor. She kicked them under the cot. ‘I was going to tidy up but with all this bleeding upset . . .’ She pulled hack the curtain and daylight tried to claw its way through a dirt engrained window. The bedclothes on the cot, which looked as if they hadn’t been washed for weeks, were pulled back. The pillow, which showed the indentation of the baby’s head, was splattered with blood.

   Skinner nodded grimly. This was looking nasty ‘Don’t touch anything.’ He went to the door and bellowed down the passage to Jordan, ‘Get SOCO down here now!’ Returning to the woman, he said, ‘Show me where they broke in.’

   He followed her back down the passage to a tiny kitchen. Below a shattered sash window, the battered draining board was smothered with pieces of broken glass. Glass and broken crockery scrunched underfoot. Skinner’s nose wrinkled. There was no way he would eat any food prepared here. The walls were dirty and greasy; unwashed saucepans and food-encrusted plates were piled in the sink, which was awash with cold, grey, greasy water. There were more dirty nappies in the corner, next to a heap of unwashed clothes.

   Treading carefully to avoid the mess on the floor, Skinner moved to the broken window and peered at it closely. Rivulets of blood had run down the jagged edge of the pane. He gave a sigh of relief. It looked as if the intruder had cut himself when he smashed the glass, so the splashes on the pillow probably didn’t come from the baby. He kicked aside a piece of cup. ‘You had crockery stacked up by the window?’

   ‘I was going to wash them up,’ Sadie sniffed. ‘You never get any free time with a kid.’ She flicked ash from her cigarette into the dirty water in the sink.

   ‘He would have knocked them over as he clambered through the window. Don’t try and clean up the blood. Our scene-of-crime team are on their way. They’ll take samples for analysis.’ Fat chance of her cleaning anything up, he thought. He looked through the broken window to the yard. ‘How do we get out there?’

   A back door at the end of the passage opened on to a tiny yard, which contained an overflowing dustbin surrounded by a carpet of sodden disposable nappies. The door was bolted so the abductor obviously hadn’t taken the baby out that way. He would have had to use the front door. Odds were he’d have had a car waiting out side - he wouldn’t carry a baby through the streets. Skinner slid back the bolt and opened the door.

   ‘Hardly Kew Gardens,’ muttered Simms.

   Skinner stepped carefully over the mess and studied the gardens on each side and those running back to back. ‘He would have to climb over quite a few garden fences to get here from the street.’ He turned to Jordan. ‘Check with the neighbours. See if they saw anyone climbing over their fences during the night.’

   ‘If they had they’d have been straight on to us,’ said Jordan.

   He received a paint-blistering glare from Skinner. ‘That wasn’t a subject for debate, Constable, that was a bloody order. Just do it.
Comprende
?

   ‘
Comprende
,’ muttered Jordan. He wasn’t taking to this new chief inspector.

   Skinner turned his attention to the adjacent gardens. ‘All those fences to climb,’ he muttered. ‘Whoever did this was determined to get the kiddy.’ He clicked his fingers for Simms’s attention. ‘Let’s cover the worst-case scenario - a paedophile. Radio the station. I want everyone on the sex offenders register checked, then visited. I want to know if any of them are wearing bandages or plasters to cover cuts from broken glass. And I want their premises searched - plasters or not. If anyone refuses, we get a search warrant.’

   Simms radioed the station.

   ‘And where are we supposed to get the flaming manpower to do this?’ demanded Wells. ‘What prat authorised this?’

   Skinner snatched the radio from Simms. ‘Chief Inspector Skinner here, Sergeant. I authorised it and I expect my orders to be carried out without question. Just do it!’ He clicked off and thrust the radio back at Simms. ‘There are going to be some changes here. Denton seems to be staffed by idiots.’

   ‘You don’t think it’s a kidnapping then, sir?’ asked Simms.

   ‘Use your flaming common sense, Constable. How much money do you think the mother could raise? I’d say a tenner, top whack.’

   ‘Perhaps the kid’s father wanted custody?’ suggested Simms. ‘He wouldn’t have been happy leaving his kid with her.’

   ‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Skinner, although until then it hadn’t crossed his mind. His money was still on paedophiles. ‘Let’s ask her.’

   Back in the living room, Sadie was draining the dregs from a near-empty gin bottle which she hastily put down.

   ‘Has the child’s father ever tried to get custody of the baby?’

   ‘He only need bleeding ask,’ slurred Sadie. ‘He could have it gift-wrapped.’

   ‘We’d better check him out anyway. What’s his name? Where can we find him?’

   ‘I don’t know his flaming name. Charlie something. I only met him the once and he hardly said a flaming word once his trousers were off.’ A rat- tat at the front door made her look round. ‘Who the hell is that?’

   Skinner jerked a thumb at Simms. ‘Get it. It might be SOCO.’

Detective Inspector Jack Frost, maroon scarf dangling from his neck, pushed past Simms and made his way up the passage. ‘Strong smell of cat’s pee. Sadie must be in.’

   Sadie scowled at his arrival. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she sniffed.

   ‘Only the best for you, Sadie,’ breezed Frost. He kicked at some of the broken crockery on the floor. ‘Had a Greek wedding?’

   Sadie scowled. ‘My baby’s been kidnapped and he’s making bleeding jokes.’

   Skinner pushed forward. ‘That remark is out of order.’

   Frost stared at him. ‘Who the hell are you?’

   ‘Skinner. Detective Chief Inspector Skinner.’ He emphasised the ‘Chief’. This scruff was obviously Frost, the man Mullett wanted him to get rid of, the man whose days in Denton were numbered.