Fatal Frost (32 page)

‘Yes, yes,’ Burleigh interjected. ‘We’ve been over all that with your colleague, the dark chap.’

‘Sergeant Waters?’ Frost replied, almost tempted to say something further to antagonize the buttoned-up lawyer, but thinking better of it. ‘OK, Gail, when was the last time you saw Emily?’

‘Lunchtime at school.’

‘And? Did she intend to come home with you that evening?’

It was like getting blood out of a stone. She sat there chewing gum; he had to forcibly stop himself reaching across and …

‘Yeah, she was coming over. But she had to meet someone first. She said she’d meet me after hockey.’

‘Any idea who?’

The girl shook her head.

‘What state of mind was she in?’ Frost pressed. ‘You know, happy? Sad?’

‘She was, you know, all right. Happy, I guess.’

‘And at this stage neither of you had heard about her brother’s fate?’

The girl shook her head. Frost got up and stretched. He was none the wiser; he still had no clue as to how the missing girl had reacted to her brother’s death. Was she frightened? Scared? Had she even known that he was dead?

‘Did you know Emily’s brother, Tom?’ Frost asked.

The girl considered the question before answering, ‘No, not really. Only by sight.’

‘Did you ever go to the Hardys’ house?’

There was a rap on the door. A face appeared at the small, rectangular window – it was Simms. Now what?

Frost stepped outside, pulling the door to. ‘Yes?’

‘We might have found the Hardy boy’s clothes,’ Simms said excitedly. ‘And …’

Frost stepped back into the interview room. ‘OK, you can go. Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch very soon. Gail, please try and think a little more about the last time you saw Emily Hardy …’ The pair looked surprised to be released so abruptly but weren’t about to argue. ‘Constable, show the gentleman and his daughter out.’

Frost waited until they were out of earshot down the corridor.

‘Well, where?’ he asked Simms.

‘Municipal dump. Clarke took the call.’

Thursday (9)

THE CLEAR SKIES
brought a chill to the evening air when the sun disappeared behind the old mill across the canal. Clarke pulled a crumpled raincoat from the boot of the Escort, slipped it on with a shiver and picked up the torch.

The slowly rotating blue light of the area car advertised the presence of two uniformed officers, who were accompanied by a council worker. The municipal dump was brilliantly lit with huge arc lamps reminiscent of a sports arena, except all there was to see was garbage.

The officers nodded as Clarke approached. The council worker, dressed in a woollen hat and a tatty denim jerkin, regarded her disdainfully. He was in full flow, explaining the complexities of rubbish collection. A
woman
, was what his expression said.

‘… because of the bank holiday there’s always some confusion, you see. There’s those that read the flyers with all the revised collection dates on them, and those that don’t.’

One of the PCs turned to Clarke in order to elucidate the
topic
at hand. ‘What the gentleman is saying is that it’s difficult to ascertain when the—’

‘Whoa …’ Clarke protested, looking over her shoulder as an unmarked black van pulled up. She had asked for an initial on-site forensic analysis, thinking it best before moving the clothes to the lab. ‘Let’s take this in reverse order. So, start with when the discovery was made.’

‘It was the rats.’

‘Rats?’ Clarke looked to the PC, who shrugged.

‘Yep, rats. You’d think this being a refuse site we’d be used to seeing ’em all the time. Well, to a degree that’s true. But when there’s so much to choose from’ – the man made a sweeping gesture – ‘they get fussy. You only see a real frenzy when there’s fresh meat to be had. By fresh I don’t mean literally fresh, just uncooked.’

Clarke felt suddenly colder. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but what does this have to do with the clothes?’

‘It’s what the clothes contained,’ the man said with a grave look.

He didn’t need to say any more. The organs and entrails of that poor, eviscerated boy, she thought, that’s what the rats had been feasting on. She fought back a wave of nausea and was barely aware of the conversation between the dustman and Forensics men as to where the objects had been found.

Clarke recovered her poise and followed the others into the landfill area.

The dustman continued his story: ‘So, come this evening, we tramp across the mound, just to see if there’s anything worth having – you’d be surprised.’

Clarke was more intent on watching her footing as they clambered across the landscape of rubbish.

‘Here you are,’ he said, bending down to cast aside a large hessian sack. ‘I put this over it to stop the rats from ’aving it away.’

Clarke flashed the torch over a supermarket carrier bag. What looked like a heavily blood-stained sleeve of a white tracksuit lay poking out of the top.

‘As soon as I saw the blood I called the police.’

‘That’s about it, thank God,’ said DC Kim Myles. ‘My feet are so sore. We’ve covered every street and cul-de-sac on this blinkin’ estate. And a fat lot of good it’s done us. We’ve basically retrodden uniform’s path.’

‘Apart from that row of shops.’ Waters pointed towards a parade of half a dozen shops all in darkness except for one, on the corner of a modern housing estate and the Wells Road.

‘Let’s grab a few cans at the offy,’ Myles suggested.

Waters nodded. He felt deflated and fancied a drink; it had been a long day and it seemed to him that the investigation was going badly. They should have questioned Emily immediately upon discovering her brother’s body. It stood to reason that she was in all probability the last one to see the boy alive, the pair being alone in the house. OK, Denton division were chronically understaffed, but Mullett’s preoccupation with the press and keeping up appearances did nothing to help.

He pulled open the door of Unwins and allowed Myles in first; he liked her all the more for respecting his preference not to discuss the caning he’d received last night. She’d not mentioned it again since they’d left the station.

As he paid for the beers, Waters raised the subject of the boy and his missing sister. The off-licence owner had yet to be questioned; he’d been closed when the initial sweep by was made on Wednesday morning.

‘Yes, I know both of them,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘They’ve been coming in with their parents since they were knee-high. The boy would come in from time to time on his own, for crisps and so on. And he tried to buy a bottle of cider only the other week. I refused him, of course. Terrible tragedy.’

‘When exactly? Can you remember? It might be important.’

‘Possibly at the weekend. Let me see.’ The man tugged thoughtfully at an earlobe. Waters realized immediately that the shopkeeper might have been the last one to see the boy alive, a fact he’d be unaware of since it had still not been reported in the press that Tom had been dead for several days before the discovery of his body. ‘Yes, it was a Friday; he asked me about bus times.’

‘Bus times?’ Myles repeated anxiously.

‘Yes, whether they ran to the same schedule in the evening as during the day. The timetable at the bus stop on the Wells Road had been defaced.’

‘Where was he heading?’

‘Other side of town. He wanted a number 4, which runs up the Bath Road out west, past Denton Woods.’

Waters’ heart started beating fast. ‘Can you recall what he was wearing?’

The shopkeeper squinted with the effort of remembering. ‘A tracksuit, I think.’

‘Time?’

‘I’d guess around 7.30.’

‘Thank you, you’ve been a big help.’

Waters made to leave but the man was still pondering. ‘Yes, I remember it now – a white top – a complete contrast to the girl all in black.’

‘The girl?’

‘Yes. The girl – I think it must have been his sister.’

Shortly after 10 p.m. Simms knocked on Frost’s office door. As he entered, he thought the DS looked pained in the glow from the desk lamp. His fingers were working his temples in a motion suggesting either deep thought or worry, Simms couldn’t tell which. In front of him was a large-scale map of Denton with highlighter marks across the middle.

‘Hello, son, come in. What’s up?’

‘The smash and grabs and the mugging. I’ve drawn a blank, I’m afraid. The victims didn’t recognize their attackers.’

‘What, between the three of them they couldn’t come up with even one possible?’ Frost said in amazement, picking his cigarette up from the ashtray.

‘The estate agent and the jeweller, nothing. The newsagent, well, every single photo was a candidate from his position; literally every white kid that came up.’

‘Hold on – surely he’s the one least likely to make a match? They were
all
wearing balaclavas in his shop, am I right?’

‘Yep.’ Simms pulled up a chair.

Frost reached into the lower drawer. ‘Time for a nightcap?’ he said, waving the bottle of Black Label.

Simms nodded, remarking, ‘I reckon the newsagent has convinced himself it’s race-related. Some weird persecution complex …’

‘Nothing weird about it. He’s probably right to be concerned; that estate is going downhill fast.’

Frost endeavoured to find some cleanish mugs, opening the office window and slinging out coffee dregs, while Simms wondered, not for the first time, what Frost’s thoughts were on Waters’ beating. The DS clearly wasn’t going to discuss it, not with him at least.

Simms’s thoughts turned back to the robberies. ‘Well, maybe we’re wrong to think it’s the same gang that’s done all three,’ he said. ‘After all, in the newsagent’s job they were armed, and they all had balaclavas.’

‘We don’t know they were armed. Nobody actually saw a gun. And the kid who did the bike trick outside the jeweller’s was in a balaclava. The other attack was more opportunist, so they hadn’t had time to get their masks on, and it was in broad daylight too – and yet the estate agent can’t offer us anything to help us ID them?’ Frost rolled his eyes.

‘Nothing. I picked him up off the street, remember. He was pretty dazed, and visibility was quite poor; the sky was very overcast.’

The Scotch burned Simms’s throat. He looked over at Frost; he had to hand it to him, he may look a tired wreck of a man, but you couldn’t fault his sharpness. According to station gossip his marriage was in trouble, perhaps seriously, and yet here he was, still giving his all to the job.

‘I take it DC Clarke has been through these too?’

Simms nodded. ‘She can’t point to anyone either, despite her tussle with one of the assailants, same as the estate agent.’

Frost grunted. ‘Never mind. We’ll catch them. I’ve enlisted some outside help …’

Simms was about to ask what but decided he was too weary.

‘And talking of Ms Clarke’ – Frost looked at his watch – ‘she should be back from the tip soon … which leads us to Tom Hardy and the jolly campers in Denton Woods. They’re our biggest chance of a breakthrough. We have the candle wax to suggest he was in the woods, so chances are the Scouts saw something. Any progress?’

‘Yes and no.’ Simms sighed. ‘The Scouts did camp this weekend. But not at Denton. They were on Rimmington Meadows.’

‘Arse.’ Frost sighed and looked nonplussed. ‘But hang on … Witnesses at Wood Vale saw groups of teenagers traipsing into the woods on Friday. What were they doing, going flower-picking?’ He snorted in derision.

‘Well, yeah, actually – more looking at them than picking. I don’t know exactly, but the Scout and Guide leaders mentioned something to do with a nature badge.’

‘What about the huts made of twigs and what-have-you?’ Frost puffed.

‘Bivouacs? They’d been there weeks, left over from their Easter camp.’

‘So let me get this straight – there was
nobody
camping out in Denton Woods last weekend?’

‘Not that we can verify. But I asked the leaders for names and addresses of everyone in their troops.’

‘Get that list,’ Frost said urgently, then looked back at the map before him, prompting Simms to ask, ‘What have you got there?’