Fatal Frost
About the Book
May, 1982
. Britain celebrates the sinking of the
Belgrano
, Jimmy Savile has the run of the airwaves and Denton Police Division welcomes its first black policeman, DS Waters – recently relocated from East London.
While the force is busy dealing with a spate of local burglaries, the body of fifteen-year-old Samantha Evans is discovered in woodland next to the nearby railway track. Then a fifteen-year-old boy is found dead on Denton’s golf course, his organs removed.
Detective Sergeant Jack Frost is sent to investigate – a welcome distraction from troubles at home. And when the murdered boy's sister goes missing, Frost and Waters must work together to find her ... before it’s too late.
Contents
A DS Jack Frost Investigation
JAMES HENRY
Prologue
He fought his way through the bracken. The fence was here somewhere – all the houses in the close backed on to these woods. He knew he was in the right vicinity, having taken bearings from the bedroom lights an hour or so ago, but as night crept on and the lights disappeared one by one it became more difficult to navigate through the darkness. He had already made a detour to avoid the mad vagrant who lived in the railway carriage. Last year that crazy tramp had given the police the nod about the bank robbers who’d been stashing their gear in the woods
.
Abruptly, the canopy ended and a row of sleeping detached houses came into view, bathed in bluish moonlight. The sky was still clear, after a scorcher of a day
.
He was sure the house would be empty. His work often brought him to this close, and this grandiose pile had long been on his radar. He’d noticed on Friday, after showing a property across the road to some clients, movement at number 7, suitcases being packed in the back of an old Audi. The early May bank holiday weekend, a gift! Nevertheless, he was cautious with the torch beam. Though past
2 a.m.
it would only take one night-owl to raise the alarm. He opened the back door with the key he’d made an impression of two years ago. That was the genius strategy: leave it as long as possible, then the trail would be cold, and people never changed locks unless … unless something like this happened
.
He’d memorized the house layout: kitchen leading out into the hall, lounge to the left and … He froze suddenly as something warm brushed against his leg. He instantly felt his eyes welling up, which must have been psychosomatic, as his skin had not directly come into contact with the animal’s fur itself. He reached into the pocket of the rucksack and pulled out the wire. After the battle with the dog the week before he’d made the noose in advance, which saved him having to fumble and remove his gloves, and avoided the risk of leaving prints
.
He wondered about the feline instinct for danger as he easily slipped the wire over the head of the purring animal. An abrupt jolt and a brief but frantic struggle gave way to a sudden stillness as the animal succumbed to its fate. Although still watering, his eyes had now adjusted to the light, and the bright May moonlight allowed him to dispense with his torch. The white obelisk of the tall fridge-freezer stood humming softly in the corner of the kitchen – perfect. He felt a sneeze coming on as he slipped the limp furry body between a loaf of Slimcea and a bottle of Piat d’Or
.
Right, first the VCR and maybe the hi-fi – after all it was a Bang & Olufsen. Though he’d have difficulty getting out through the woods, if he got too greedy. Then he’d move on to the major spoils, the real reasons for being here, upstairs in the bedroom
.
Monday (1)
DETECTIVE SERGEANT JACK
Frost had been at his desk in Denton’s Eagle Lane station since 7.30 a.m. Frost was not a natural early bird, but it being bank holiday Monday, he knew the office would be quiet and he was using the opportunity to tackle the bane of his life – paperwork.
The station ran a skeleton staff on bank holidays. This was one of station commander Superintendent Mullett’s many schemes to keep payroll costs down, along with the banning of overtime since January. Mullett’s reasoning for these economies was the repair work to the bomb damage sustained by the building last October, which, although barely started, was already predicted to come in at well in excess of the insurance pay-out. How Mullett could subordinate the cost of running the force to the need for fancy furnishings was beyond Frost. He was no less bemused by Mullett’s assumption that, like the super himself, most of Denton’s villains would be taking a bank holiday break.
So, the super was probably on the golf course, and DI Allen was also nowhere to be seen. So far, only Station Sergeant Bill
Wells
had appeared, remarking on the fine May weather as Frost passed by the front desk on his way to the Gents, before settling back down to continue mulling over the bank holiday racing fixtures. And Miss Smith, Mullett’s secretary, had put in an appearance – she was allowed overtime to meet her boss’s ever-growing demand for paperwork and bureaucracy. All was peace and quiet. Apart from a burglary reported an hour ago, which PCs Jordan and Baker could manage, there was nothing doing. Maybe Mullett was right.
All being well, if Frost could tweak his car expenses a fraction, and at least make a start on the crime clear-up stats, he could be out of here by midday and meet Arthur Hanlon in the Cricketers for lunch. Cheer the tubby sod up a bit, and enjoy a spot of sunshine with the rest of Denton.
He was concentrating intently, tongue running along his bottom lip. He carefully changed the ‘6’ into an ‘8’ on the March garage bill. ‘Well, if you won’t pay me overtime, you stingy moustachioed git, I’ll have to shaft you,’ Frost said to himself. He took a sip of his coffee and then reached for the stapler, lining up the pages before walloping it down with the palm of his hand. Job done, he thought, and lit a celebratory Rothmans. Now the clear-up stats, although there wasn’t quite the same incentive to get those filed.
At 8.15 a.m. Sergeant Wells – who had finished studying the fixtures and was now listening keenly on Johnny Johnson’s portable radio to how it was all kicking off in the Falklands – was interrupted by a call. A man out walking his dog had found a dead girl on the outskirts of Denton, near the train track.
Superintendent Stanley Mullett sat inside the Rover in the car park of the Eagle Lane station listening intently. The events in the South Atlantic had him glued to his seat. The Argentine cruiser the
Belgrano
had been torpedoed. It made him proud to be British.
As the news drew to a close and Jimmy Savile was once more given the run of the airwaves, Mullett switched off the radio and smoothed his moustache in the mirror before emerging into the bright May sunshine. Another promisingly warm day, he thought, and very nice it was too. As he locked the car he looked forlornly at the splintered windows of the canteen building. Six months since a terrorist bomb in the nearby Territorial Army base car park had taken half of Eagle Lane with it, the 200lb explosive catching the base’s fuel dump as well. Six months, and only now was the boarding coming down and repairs at last taking place.
Six lives had been lost on that day last October. Four civilians, one army regular and one police officer. Mullett hadn’t taken to DCI Patterson from the Anti-Terrorist Branch, that much was true, but he’d done a good job. Poor devil had been about to return to London and was caught in the blast as he got in his car.