Fatal Frost (46 page)

‘Sorted,’ Simms said, leaning out of the Escort. ‘Waters says Frost has just gone in.’

‘Good,’ she said, uncertainly.

Simms got out and stood next to her. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be fine,’ he said, unconvincingly. ‘You’re as jittery as Waters.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Hartley-Jones isn’t armed, is he? I know Frost saw him leave with a shotgun, but he wasn’t carrying anything when you saw him park up, was he?’

Clarke felt a rasp of panic in her throat. She wasn’t sure. Having seen Hartley-Jones leave his vehicle she’d assumed he’d gone to the match and hadn’t paid attention to what, if anything, he was carrying. It was only when she’d arrived back at the station and the possibility arose that he probably wasn’t heading anywhere near the match that she’d realized her slipup.

‘What’s up? You don’t look sure.’ He frowned at her.

‘I don’t know.’ She turned to look at Simms. ‘I don’t know whether he was armed or not – I can’t be certain …’

‘Jesus Christ.’ Simms dived back in the car for the radio handset.

Clarke scoured the building again with the binoculars. It wasn’t her fault, she told herself. Hartley-Jones may well have a concealed weapon on him anyway; he was suspected of murder after all! Bloody Jack, always charging off without thinking …

Frost looked up. The timber ceiling creaked again. Somebody was moving around on the next level. The floorboards groaned repeatedly in the same place, indicating that someone was pacing back and forth overhead. He switched off the walkie-talkie and retraced his steps to the front entrance of the mill where the main staircase was situated.

Once he’d reached the first floor he made his way gingerly across the atrium, careful to avoid the plentiful debris of Coke cans, campfire remains and loose masonry. One wrong step could alert his quarry to his presence. Directly in front of him were rows of industrial skeletons, machinery that over the years had gradually been stripped bare. To the left were the overseers’ offices. A sudden noise that sounded like a chair being scraped or dragged came from within one of them. All were glass-fronted, except, from what Frost could make out, the centre one, which was panelled, and he could see that they were linked by adjoining doors. As carefully as he could, he edged towards the office next to the panelled one.

As he drew closer he heard voices – no,
a
voice, a deep, mellifluous voice. Frost stood motionless outside the door, barely breathing, listening intently.

‘I’m afraid, my flower, there’s no time. No time left for us at all.’

Frost collected his thoughts. He stood pressed to the door that led to the panelled office, gripping the handle. He had no doubt that it was Michael Hartley-Jones waxing lyrical on the other side.

‘We will never bloom.’

Suicide: is he talking about suicide? Frost decided he had no choice. He gently opened the door.

‘Damn.’ Waters tossed the radio on to the passenger seat. Simms had just told him that Hartley-Jones might be armed. Of course he might be armed. He tried the walkie-talkie. Nothing, which was fair enough, really. If Frost was creeping around in there, he would hardly want that antique relic crackling away. I should have insisted on going in with him, he thought. He gazed at the building. Dark clouds had moved in from the south, giving the Victorian edifice an air of foreboding. ‘Damn,’ he repeated, slamming the car door shut and making for the mill.

He hadn’t seen which entrance Frost had chosen. The grand front vestibule struck Waters as too open; he reckoned the rear was the safer option. A side door was open. He entered and stood stock-still for a moment, assessing his surroundings. The building was silent. He quickly ascertained that nothing was happening on the vast, open-plan ground floor and stealthily made his way up to the first floor by the back stairs.

As Frost entered, Hartley-Jones looked up, startled. He stood behind a chair, to which was tied a girl of about fourteen. She was gagged and very distressed.

‘Afternoon,’ Frost said with half a smile.

‘Ah, the tenacious Inspector Frost,’ remarked Hartley-Jones with uncanny composure, strikingly at odds with the words Frost had heard through the door.

‘Detective Sergeant,’ Frost corrected. ‘The rank of inspector as yet eludes me.’

‘I’m sure it’s only a matter of time,
Jack
; Mullett is forever apologizing for your … how should one put it … ?’ Hartley-Jones placed the tip of what Frost took to be a fisherman’s knife quizzically on his chin. ‘… pig-headed blundering?’ He smiled.
‘To
the extent that he’s worried he might just have to promote you. Stanley, bless him – you should have seen his face on the golf course when the boy was discovered. My, it was worth it for that alone!’

‘So, you admit killing poor Tom Hardy?’

Frost then spotted the 12-gauge standing prominently in the corner of the room. Hartley-Jones noticed Frost’s gaze, but continued, ‘And we don’t want that, do we?’ He flicked the knife between thumb and index finger, upending it so the point rested on the girl’s cranium.

Frost couldn’t look at the girl; he knew the terror in her eyes would distract him. ‘I think that unlikely, Mr Hartley-Jones. Or can I call you Michael?’

‘Mr Hartley-Jones to you. Familiarity from the working classes is not something I like to encourage.’ He sighed. ‘But I’m glad you’ve turned up. A change of plan has come to mind. There was I growing maudlin, feeling troubled that things just … weren’t going my way.’ He looked at Frost for corroboration. ‘But then you – shabby, unconventional Jack Frost – blunder in. And suddenly things aren’t looking so bad.’ Hartley-Jones straightened himself and stood erect, without releasing the pressure on the knife.

‘Not going so bad? You’re in it up to your neck. I know all about what you’ve been up to. You treated Emily here and her friends like your own personal harem. A bunch of schoolgirls! You got one of them pregnant, you bloody pervert.’

Hartley-Jones convulsed with laughter. ‘Idiot! You don’t understand it at all. The girls and I had such a precious bond. They worshipped me! Little Gail and Sarah, lovely Emily here, naughty Samantha … even Nicola, until she began to get wilful. And then Samantha started
screwing
Tom Hardy.’ Emily winced. ‘That’s when it really fell apart. It was
he
who impregnated her, the filthy little piece of scum! Not me.’

‘Well, it’s all over now,’ said Frost, ‘and there’s nothing to be
gained
from terrorizing young Emily, so why don’t you pack away the knife and come quietly.’

‘Oh I don’t think so.’ Hartley-Jones smiled. ‘Everything that’s been said will stay between these four walls. Precious Emily here would never breathe a word.’ He stroked the quivering girl’s chin. ‘So now, Detective Frost, you have a choice.’

‘A choice?’ Frost felt for his cigarettes. As he did so he caught sight of the handle of the door to the next office, behind Hartley-Jones, slowly moving downwards.

‘Yes. You or the girl. You see,
you’re
the problem, aren’t you? You disappear, and we can all carry on as before. Myself, Gail, Sarah, little Emily here …’

‘Nothing’s as it was before! Emily knows you sadistically murdered her brother. And the motive is even more twisted than we thought. The poor hapless lad was a goner the second he asked her out. You couldn’t stand one of your girls being touched by anyone but yourself … sick bastard.’ Frost was having difficulty maintaining his composure. He was fighting every instinct to rush the man and send him tumbling to the ground.

‘Very good, Sergeant. Too good. And that’s why you must sacrifice yourself now.’

‘Yes, sacrifice, a pertinent choice of word. Exactly how you wanted the Hardy boy’s murder to appear – as a ritualistic killing that could implicate your stepdaughter and her friends; the so-called School of the Five Bells. No one would suspect you, not even your stepdaughter. Tom Hardy arrived at your house on Friday night, came in, unusually, and like a well brought-up boy took off his shoes. You knew he was likely to escort Samantha there. You waited for him to leave and offered him a lift. Then you killed him. Heaven knows why you had to go so far. Wouldn’t a stern warning have been enough?’

‘Ahh, Sergeant, you still haven’t grasped the dynamics of the situation. The girls seem to think they don’t need their Uncle
Michael
quite so much now they’re growing older. But what if the outside world believed them all to be evil, sadistic witches and they were ostracized by society, and I alone understood their predicament? And that is why I took so much trouble. Aside from that, I’m impressed with your detective work. I think Mullett does you a disservice. So how exactly did you find out about the School of the Five Bells?’

‘A tattoo. At Samantha’s post-mortem.’

‘Poor Samantha. Yes, and the other two were on the same train. Now, you can’t hold me responsible for that one. I wouldn’t have harmed a hair on her head.’

‘Then why hurt Emily? Hand her over to me, and we’ll do a plea bargain for diminished responsibility – driven insane with jealousy.’

‘What sort of fool do you take me for? They’ll throw away the key. No, this one here made the mistake of telling Nicola she had read Samantha’s diary. You’ve met Nicola, have you? A fiery one that one. She’s innocent, though. She tried to warn me. The diary had things in it one would rather didn’t get out. And as you knew about the Five Bells it would only be a matter of time until you got to Emily, having already hauled the other two in. If only Samantha hadn’t been such a loose cannon, I could have kept it all under control without it coming to this. Come, Mr Frost, time marches on. What’s it to be?’

‘The agony of choice.’ Frost played with a cigarette but couldn’t light it – he feared the girl might choke, as she seemed to be having trouble breathing through the gag. ‘But the building is surrounded. You’ll never get away with it.’

‘Very funny,’ Hartley-Jones snorted. ‘You’ve never worked with anyone in your career. You’re a loner. A maverick. Mullett told me that too. But the problem with being alone is that there’s nobody to look out for you when you overstep the mark. No, Mr Frost, I’d like to be out of here by full-time. Your decision, please? Suicide? The maverick detective ends it all; a failing
marriage
proved too much? Yes, I know about that too. The story would be wholly convincing, I’m sure you’ll agree. “He took his own life, with a shotgun in a disused warehouse.”’

‘How do I know you’ll let her live?’

‘You don’t. But you have no alternative. Turn round, please, face the corner.’ Frost turned round and took a pace forward. Hartley-Jones followed him. Frost felt sure he could overpower the bigger man as long as he got the right hold. He braced himself ready to turn and pounce. The question was, where was the knife? As the killer moved in behind him, near enough for Frost to smell his cologne, and the cold steel barrel of the shotgun was held against his neck, there was a sudden creak as the door in the opposite corner flew open. The gun was swiftly retracted. Frost spun round to grab the man’s arm and caught a familiar face rushing in.

Clarke distinctly heard the blast. As the pigeons rose in a cloud of alarm from the roof of the building, her heart almost stopped.

‘Shotgun,’ Simms said flatly across the roof of the Escort. The constable from the area car was at Clarke’s side. ‘Gunfire, ma’am.’ He stood awaiting instructions.

Saturday (4)

‘HE’S DEAD, SIR,’
said Frost in a matter-of-fact tone.

‘Dead?’ Mullett said, amazed. ‘Well, I’m staggered. How?’

‘He took his own life.’ Frost paused. ‘Well, sort of.’

‘
Sort of?
Can you be more specific?’ Mullett fiddled nervously with the ivory letter opener.

‘There was a tussle, and Mr Hartley-Jones shot himself in the chest. I think his original plan
was
to shoot himself, but when I turned up he thought he might be able to go on living if I were out of the way.’ Frost gestured his innocence. ‘And I may well have been, if it wasn’t for DS Waters here.’

‘Well, what a relief,’ Mullett said, not really sure what he meant. He scrutinized Waters, who sat looking comfortably unruffled. Frost himself looked positively spruce and betrayed no signs of having recently wrestled for his life. He got up, moved to the window and tweaked the blinds. It was probably for the best, he mused. No awkward questions on his close association with a murderer to answer. Who’d have thought it; he’d known Michael Hartley-Jones for twenty years or more.
Mrs
M had always thought him odd and prone to depression, but a murderer? Heavens, this really didn’t bear close scrutiny. Best buried and forgotten. ‘And the girl?’ Mullett finally asked.