Fatal Frost (8 page)

‘Are you suggesting there’s racism in the police force, sir?’ Frost’s eyebrows shot up his forehead in mock surprise. ‘Here, in this day and age? Surely not.’

‘I’d like to think it’s only on the fringes,’ Mullett said, not meeting Frost’s eye. ‘Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, from here on you’re responsible for him.’

‘What, like a chaperon?’

‘You’re the most senior-ranking officer present, therefore it’s your duty.’ And, Mullett thought, the men respect you, although heaven knows why. ‘Besides, DI Allen’s away. Simms, Clarke, Myles – they’re all under your jurisdiction now. Use them and Waters any way you see fit. Just ensure that this burglary gets cleared up – it’s the third in as many weeks.’

‘Ah yes – one of your chums, so I gather. The cat in the fridge case, isn’t it?’ Frost said chirpily.

Mullett got up from behind the desk and paced the office. He ran a finger inside his collar. Before Mrs M disappeared off
to
visit her sister, he’d been prompted to launder his own shirts as a test run, just in case the need arose while she was away. Too much starch, he now realized. It was irritating the hell out of him, and shortening his patience to a minimum.

‘The previous week a dog was also garrotted,’ Mullett said stiffly.

‘What sort of dog?’ Frost asked.

‘How the blazes should I know? Does it matter?’

‘But how did it fit in the fridge?’

‘It wasn’t found in the fridge! The dog was dumped on the compost heap. This is all irrelevant – just get on top of it, will you. I know you already have the dead girl by the railway line, but I can’t have Simms foul this up. Good lad though he is, he’s very green. No arguing – that’s an order. Dismissed.’

Frost got to his feet and left the office without a further word. Almost immediately Mullett regretted his harsh tone. Wells had informed him this morning, whilst discussing DC Hanlon’s bereavement, that Frost’s own mother had died last month. The man, to Mullett’s knowledge, had not missed a single day, apart from that of the funeral itself.

He loosened his tie. It was pressing on the scratchy collar and he was tired. But overall the day had not turned out too bad. Winslow, the odious little man, may have actually done him a favour in foisting Waters on Denton. Mullett’s gambit to bring him under Frost’s jurisdiction was a good one. The situation might well become incendiary if Frost screwed up, and the odds were that, his colleagues’ respect notwithstanding, Frost would indeed screw up. And with it lose his chance of promotion, something Winslow had been hassling Mullett to expedite ever since DI Williams’s demise.

Yes, Mullett thought to himself, from this perspective he really couldn’t lose.

* * *

Frost and the WPC stood respectfully at a distance while Mrs Ellis identified her daughter’s body. Drysdale solemnly replaced the sheet.

Accompanying her was her long-term boyfriend, Larry; Mrs Ellis was widowed three years ago and Samantha had, apparently, learned to regard him as her dad. Accordingly he seemed just as distraught as any father would be.

Not surprisingly, it hadn’t been easy to probe the pair for information prior to leaving for the mortuary, but Frost had tried his best. Mrs Ellis was vague about her daughter’s movements in the hours before her death. As she’d already reported, Samantha had gone out on Saturday and had not returned; where she’d been, or who with, the mother didn’t know. She was often out at the weekend. It was difficult for Frost to judge whether the girl had been secretive, or whether the mother just wasn’t interested in what her daughter got up to. At this stage he didn’t really like to push the questioning too far.

From what he had observed at the family home Samantha had been quite an unusual teenager. Her bedroom was devoid of the bright popstar posters that seemed to be the norm for girls of her age; instead it was filled with sombre astrological paraphernalia. Mrs Ellis knew of a diary, but had searched for it in vain when she realized the girl was missing.

Having identified her daughter’s corpse, Mrs Ellis was convulsing with grief, and it was all the shell-shocked boyfriend could do to stop her collapsing to the floor. The WPC patted her arm. It was one of the worst parts of the job, observing a family’s distress in the cold, grey surroundings of the mortuary. What a god-awful place to kiss your beloved goodbye, Frost thought. He knew there was literally nothing he could say that would make things better, so elected to keep quiet.

The WPC had begun to lead the sobbing Mrs Ellis out of the room, but the boyfriend stayed back and turned to Frost.

‘How could this happen in Denton? How could you let
this
happen? You’re supposed to be responsible for keeping it safe!’

‘I’m very sorry, sir, we’re doing everything we can. If you’d just like to come this way …’

‘I’m not leaving until you promise you’ll do everything in your power to find her killer. I want every officer in your wretched force to be put on this.’

‘Now, we don’t yet know if there
was
a killer. It may have been … an accident.’

‘An
accident
? People don’t accidentally fall out of trains! Do you think she was some kind of idiot?’

Frost remained calm; he’d been on the receiving end of such anger many times before. What better way to combat your sense of uselessness than by having a pop at a policeman. He could see this was the man’s last great gesture of surrogate fatherhood and was happy to let him have it; it was all part of the job.

‘Sir, I realize how difficult this must be for you. If anything comes to mind regarding why Samantha went up to London on Saturday, please do call me.’

‘We’ve already told you! She didn’t say! She often went out with friends. It was probably just a shopping trip. Who knows?’ He started to move despondently towards the door of the lab.

Frost recalled that there were two drunk girls on the train, picked up by the second cab driver. Could they have been friends of Samantha’s? It was worth checking out, although surely they would have reported something if they’d witnessed what had happened. Unless they’d been involved.

‘Sir,’ Frost called out. ‘Could you ask Mrs Ellis again about the diary? It could be crucial.’

Larry nodded as he left the building and emerged into the cool night air.

Monday (5)

SUE CLARKE PULLED
the duvet up close around her neck and took a massive swig of Chardonnay. A small black-and-white portable was perched on the corner of the dressing table, and a heartrending scene from
Brief Encounter
was being played out. She could feel her eyes begin to fill with tears, but not in response to the film, which she’d seen at least a dozen times before and found more comforting than sad. No, if anything, these were tears of self-pity.

When the doorbell had gone earlier that evening she was sure it would be him, and the disappointment must have shown. Derek looked embarrassed and was lost for words. He smiled and mumbled some pleasantries about making sure she was OK, and being worried about her on her own. At least he’d made the effort. She started to wonder if maybe ditching him had been a mistake … but just her luck, he was dating Liza Smith, Mullett’s secretary, and had been for the last six months or so. Well, you know what they say, the grass is always greener …

She gently rubbed her leg, which was smarting again. She
reached
over to the bedside table for painkillers and swiftly swallowed two with her wine.

Clarke’s romance with Jack Frost had begun last autumn, just after the shoot-out in Denton Woods. That was when she’d first worked with Frost; on the bank-robbery case; and the pair of them had nearly been killed. She knew that a secretive affair with a married man and fellow-officer could hardly be more wrong, and she had no one to blame but herself; she’d made the first move. It was after she’d seen Frost’s wife turn up at the hospital; he, the unhappy victim, laid low with appendicitis; she, the sexy, smug victor, complacent in the knowledge that he couldn’t bring himself to leave her. The encounter had brought it home to Clarke. She knew the poor devil would never free himself, despite confessing repeatedly that the marriage was over, and the realization spurred her on. She seduced him.

It was eleven o’clock when Frost finally returned home. The house was in virtual darkness. He let himself in the front door and closed it gently. A soft flicker of light escaped from the living room, and he peered through the door to see Mary slumped over, asleep in the ancient recliner – an heirloom of his father’s. Some old movie was on the TV; it amazed him that Mary could sleep through the din, as a steam train pulled noisily out of the platform, with a swell of background music. He turned away; he’d had enough of trains and stations for one day. Slipping off his shoes he padded to the kitchen and flicked on the light, the brightness of the blazing fluorescent tube momentarily blinding him. On the kitchen table was a half-empty bottle of Smirnoff with the cap off. No wonder she was sleeping through the racket.

Frost sighed as he poured himself a measure and lit a cigarette. Leaning against the stove and staring through the window at the moon, he reflected on the day’s events.

The sound of a creaking floorboard indicated that Mary had
finally
roused herself and was heading for bed. He picked up the vodka and made for the lounge. The TV was still on; a woman and her husband were sat in a front room, old-fashioned and yet not too dissimilar from his. He switched it off with a shrug. The pair of them hardly kept abreast of modern trends, apart from Mary and her clothes and music, that was. He turned on the standard lamp and sank into the chair Mary had recently vacated.

Mary and Sue. Sue
or
Mary. Without warning the image of the poor unfortunate teenager he’d seen today on the slab popped into his mind. He blinked, refocused and caught sight of the stack of old 78s that had once belonged to his mother. Getting down on his knees he began to shuffle through: King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington. Frost slipped ‘Canal Street Blues’ out of its sleeve and flipped up the lid on the turntable. He lifted off a 7-inch of ‘Only You’ by Yazoo, flopped the weighty disc in its place and moved the switch across from 45 to 78 rpm. As the needle crackled in contact with the vinyl Frost moved back to the recliner and picked up a book he’d been reading the previous night, Oman’s
Peninsular War
, Volume V.

He tried to engage with the British resistance at Tarifa, but the jazz and vodka took him before he’d even reached the bottom of the page.

Once he was sure his wife was asleep, Chris Everett slipped out to the garage and retrieved his briefcase from the Rover. He didn’t dare keep it in the house; Fiona was always sniffing around, going through his stuff, suspicious old witch. She never ventured into the garage, though. The videos were hidden in the boot of the old MG, which had been off the road for all but a month since he’d bought the blasted thing four years ago.

Back in the kitchen, Everett flipped the case open. He’d laid a shirt on the table and now he placed the jewellery on it gently,
piece
by piece. Half a dozen necklaces – one pearl, a couple of diamond ones, and the extraordinary emerald one he’d picked up at Rimmington, with its matching brooch and earrings.

Chris Everett, regional manager for Regal Estates, had systematically stored information on every property he had personally valued for the company over the last seven years. His ‘hands-on’ attitude to the business, and keenness to remain in the field had earned him a succession of promotions throughout his career. Little did the customers or Regal management realize he’d revisit the property a couple of years later with copies of the keys he’d cut whilst they were in his possession.

Of course, he’d always smash a windowpane in order to divert suspicion, but entry with a key was so much quicker and safer than trying to fathom latches and climb through windows. He wrapped the jewellery in the shirt, folded it tightly and placed it in a Bejam carrier bag, and then he made his way quietly through to the living room.

Tuesday (1)