Harte

by Robert Innes

  “No, that’s next on the list,” Fox replied. “I need two of you to go to Strangeways and find out what actually happened there this morning. The prison he was meant to go to in London have already gotten back to us, and as you can see from these pictures that have come back from Scotland Yard…” her voice trailed off as she clicked on the photographs on the computer. Images of the prison van, dismantled and taken from all angles appeared. “…he was definitely not in that van when it arrived. Somewhere between Strangeways and London he has completely vanished.”

  Blake leant against the wall with his arms crossed and a deep frown, his temples almost throbbing in confusion. “Have we got the footage from the camera from within the van?”

  Lisa smiled grimly. “Yes, we most certainly have and I’m afraid it doesn’t clear anything up in the slightest.”

  Again, she clicked on the computer and a moment later, Frost appeared on the screen in front of him. Revulsion and anger roared dully in Blake’s chest at the sight of his face as Fox clicked the play button, but as he stared at Frost’s face his frown grew deeper.

  “What’s wrong?” Sally asked, catching his expression.

  “I don’t know,” murmered Blake, staring at Frost’s face on the screen. “It’s just something doesn’t look right. His face.”

  “It still looks as ugly and horrible as it always did,” Sally replied.

  “Yeah,” Blake said quietly. “Maybe. What the hell is it? There’s something wrong, I just can’t…” His voice trailed off as he stared at the screen. There was something that just seemed out of place on Frost and he could not work out what it was.

  The tape was from the inside of the prison van, the vantage point from a camera that was above the seating area of a caged compartment in the back of the van. As the footage began, Frost was led behind the bars by two prison guards, his hands bound in handcuffs. Then, his leg was chained to the bottom of the small wooden seat, an action that by all logic should have made much movement impossible. Once he was secured, one of the guards closed the door of the cage and locked it before exiting the van and slamming the door behind him, leaving Frost alone in the dark and confined van, where he now stared ahead, an expression of calm on his face.

  “We can fast-forward through this now,” Fox said, clicking on the mouse. “We’ve checked and absolutely nothing of note happens until the end.”

  The footage sped up and Frost was clearly moving, rocking from side to side, still staring ahead as the van drove along. Despite the fact that he still felt there was something wrong with what he was seeing, Blake could not help but feel unnerved by the expression on Frost’s face. It was completely unreadable, no sign of the evil thoughts that Blake imagined were constantly whirring through his mind.

  “Okay, here we go,” Fox muttered. “Now, watch carefully.”

  The room, in complete silence, stared at the screen as Fox clicked the mouse.

  For a few seconds, nothing changed. Frost continued rocking gently in his seat, with no indication that he was about to do anything out of the ordinary. Then, his eyes widened and he quickly turned his head to look up at the camera, a sinister grin slowly spreading across his face. Then, the whole van appeared to turn dark, obscuring everything from view.

  “Where’s he gone?” Sally asked, confused.

  Then, the dim light in the van rose again. Frost was now gone, the chains and handcuffed in exactly the same positions as they had been when they were tied around their occupant.

  There was a murmur of consternation amongst the officers.

  “How the hell…?”

  “Woah.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Bull,” Blake said loudly over the muttering. “That footage is complete and utter bollocks.”

  Fox nodded at the officer nearest the wall to turn the lights back up again and rose an eyebrow at Blake. “You think?”

  Blake glared at the image of the empty seat on the screen. “I know.”

  Behind him, Gresham let out an audible and deliberate tutting sound. “Oh, here we go.”

  Blake spun around to face him. “Sorry? You’re going to tell me that what we’ve just seen is perfectly feasible? That a man can vanish from handcuffs and chains in the space of a few seconds of darkness from a moving van? The fact that it only happened when the van was suddenly plunged into darkness hasn’t bothered you at all? It’s a bit convenient, unless I missed the memo that stated that we were looking for a Scooby Doo villain.”

  Gresham grumbled to himself but kept quiet. He had been notably less opinionated since Fox had taken charge of proceedings.

  “Go on, Blake,” Fox encouraged, over the mumblings of confusion as to who exactly Blake was amongst the other officers. “Just your ballpark, this sort of thing, isn’t it?”

  Blake was unmoved by the compliment. He just continued staring at the screen, his brain whirring. “Three pieces of footage we’ve just watched. Two from outside two different prisons, one from the inside of an apparently moving van. Not exactly difficult to work out which one has been faked. How long is it into the footage before he vanishes?”

  “Thirty-six minutes,” Fox replied.

  “And the driver had no idea?” Sally asked. “Don’t they have a monitor in the cab to keep an eye on whoever they’ve got in the back?”

  “Wouldn’t have been difficult to loop the tape for the benefit of the driver, assuming he had no idea what was going on,” Blake continued. “And there’s something else wrong with one of those tapes. I don’t quite know what yet, but I’m going to find out. I’d say you’re bang on the money, Ma’am. We need to get to Strangeways and talk to those two prison guards. One or both of them know what went on today, maybe even know where Frost is now.”

  “I take it I can leave that to you two then?” Fox asked, with a nod at Sally.

  Sally and Blake glanced at each other with a brief smile.

  “Damn right you can, Ma’am,” Sally said firmly.

  “Excellent,” Fox said, closing down the images on the computer. “The rest of you, I want to know exactly what route this van took. Any delays in the journey, anything remotely out of the ordinary, if its gears crunched, I want to know about it. Frost is out there somewhere and we are going to find him.”

  The officers murmered in agreement and began to set about their work. Blake was just about to grab his coat when the doors to the meeting room burst open and Fletcher, the young officer that Blake had briefly met in Gresham’s office ran in, clutching a piece of paper, looking breathless.

  “Fletcher, what is it?” Gresham snapped.

  “Ma’am,” Fletcher called over the hubbub of the other officers. “Ma’am!”

  The noise began to die down as they all began to register the urgency in Fletcher’s voice.

  Fox frowned. “What’s the problem?”

  Fletcher swallowed, looking nervous. “We’ve found a body, Ma’am. A woman’s been found strangled. They think it’s Frost.”

  The silence in the room was immediate.

  Blake stepped forwards. “How do you know it’s Frost?”

  Fletcher nervously passed Blake the piece of paper in his hand. “There was a message written next to the body,” he said quietly. “Uniform read it to me over the phone.”

  Blake turned the paper over in his hand and his mouth became instantly dry as he read what Fletcher had written on the paper.

  “This one’s for you, Blake. Here we go again! Speak soon. F.”

  Ten

  It felt like stepping back in time. Once more, Blake found himself standing over the dead body of a woman, her lifeless eyes briefly lit by the forensic camera, all thanks to Thomas Frost. Blake glanced around the flat, the horribly familiar tell-tale signs all around him, and they weren’t the only aspects of the crime scene that he recognised.

  “It’s Helen Beauchamp,” Sally murmered as she stepped closer to the body. “Christ, Blake, we’ve only just been watching her on the TV at work.”

/>   “That interview was pre-recorded,” Blake replied. “She must have given it and then come home. Woman in power. Frost’s favourite. He hasn’t changed.”

  “She’s been strangled,” the forensic pathologist said, glancing up at them from where he was knelt over Helen’s body. “Looks like it was a fairly quick job.” He picked up a cloth belt that matched Helen’s dress. “This would be your murder weapon. I’d say he forced her down to the ground, got this from around her waist and then throttled her with it.”

  “Classic Frost. Strangled like the others,” Fox muttered. “Who found her?”

  “Her cleaner,” Sally replied. “Apparently she let herself in and found her lying here.”

  “And the note?”

  The pathologist nodded towards a mirror on the nearest wall where the goading note had been stuck. “Still hanging over there.” He glanced up at Blake as he took another photograph of the bruises around Helen’s neck. “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

  Blake ignored him and slowly walked around the living room. “So, he’s still in Manchester. At least that narrows down the possibilities of how he got out of that prison van.”

  “‘Here we go again,’ Sally repeated. “Blake, he’s planning on doing more of this. It’s starting again.”

  Blake shuddered. The old woman in the house suddenly seemed like nothing compared to the notion of Frost at large again.

  “Right, you two,” Fox said sharply. “Get to that prison. Blake’s right. If he’s in Manchester, it means that he never intended to go anywhere near London and, in my mind, that means that he’s been planning this for a while and it can’t have been on his own. Someone helped him to get out of that van. We’ll finish up here.”

  Blake and Sally nodded and made their way towards the door.

  “Blake?” Fox called.

  Blake turned with a frown. Fox now looked incredibly serious.

  “When this gets out, Helen’s death, it’s going to take more than a few sycophantic words in the paper to dissuade people that Frost is at it again. We’re going to have to make an official statement.”

  Blake nodded in agreement. He could already sense where Fox was heading with what she was saying.

  “The public will probably recognise you as somebody they can trust when it comes to Frost,” Fox told him. “Do you think you could do it?”

  Blake sighed. “Look, I’ll think about it, okay? You forget, I don’t even work for this branch anymore.”

  “All the same,” Fox replied. “I think it would be best. Let them know that we’re taking it seriously, we’ve brought back the man who originally brought him to justice. It’ll put the public at ease. They’re going to be scared.”

  Blake could think of nothing to say. The thought that he would be solely responsible for being the public’s source of comfort made him feel worse than ever.

  Strangeways Prison was the sort of place that would unnerve even the most hardened of people. As Sally and Blake were led through the freezing cold, echoey corridors to talk to the Chief Officer, he felt a sense of unease at the people he was currently so close to.

  Sally clearly felt the same. She had been somewhat chatty in the car and now seemed to have ran out of things to say. Her eyes darting around whenever they heard anything remotely out of the ordinary like a prisoner shouting or a door slamming.

  Eventually, they arrived in the empty office of the Chief Officer. The warden who had brought them here assured them that he was on his way and left them alone, talking into his radio as he went.

  Blake exhaled. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “It’s like walking through the reptile house,” Sally replied. “That feeling you get when you think of what could happen if the glass wasn’t there. Who is this Chief Officer?”

  “Nigel Hawthorne,” Blake replied, glancing at his notes. “Hopefully he can shed some light on what the hell went on this morning.”

  “Where are you staying tonight, incidentally?” Sally asked him. “You’re welcome at mine if you want, whatever bloody time we get finished.”

  “Love to,” Blake replied, “but my mother has already informed me that she’s made the bed up. Don’t worry, it won’t last. As soon as she realises that me being back could involve her getting up at all hours to let me in from whenever we get finished, she’ll soon change her mind.”

  “How are you?” Sally said, her expression suddenly serious. “I know how mental this must all be for you. Don’t think I haven’t seen you mildly freaking out when you thought nobody was looking. You can talk to me, you know.”

  Blake smiled and gripped her hand, “I know. Trust me, I will. It’s bizarre. Seeing the house, Frost, seeing another body thanks to him…” His voice trailed off as his mind took him back nine years to the various bodies that Frost had left in houses around Manchester. The city had been in terror, thanks in no small part to the media taking any opportunity it could to paint Frost as the next Jack the Ripper, which only served to make him more dangerous as he felt his spotlight grow.

  “We’ll catch him,” Sally told him, before looking towards the open door impatiently. “Where the hell is he? We haven’t got all day.”

  Blake watched as she stood up and began rooting around the desk. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m just trying to speed up the process a little bit, that’s all,” Sally replied, flicking through some papers on the desk.

  “Is this how you got that promotion?” Blake asked, glancing through the door to the empty corridor outside. “Doing your own investigation? You know this isn’t allowed, sit down. He’s not going to be long.”

  “Is this his wife do you think?” Sally cut in, holding up a framed photo on the desk and turning it around to face him.

  A beautiful blonde woman in a long, flowing, white dress smiled back at them. Beside her stood a taller, more distinguished, sterner, looking man with a serious expression and a thin moustache under his nose.

  “I’m guessing so,” Blake said, shrugging.

  “Looks like they’re off on holiday,” Sally mused, picking up an envelope from the desk. “Two plane tickets to Heidelberg.” She looked up at him and frowned. “Where’s that?”

  Blake rolled his eyes. “Geography never was your strong point, was it? It’s in Germany.”

  Sally frowned again. “Germany? Not exactly what I’d call a holiday destination.”

  “There could be any number of reasons why they’re going to Germany,” Blake told her, aware of footsteps outside in the corridor. “Wedding, friends over there, meeting with Angela Merkel, anything! Will you sit down, someone’s coming.”

  Grumbling slightly, Sally sat back down just as the tall man from the photograph on the desk, Nigel Hawthorne, strolled in.

  “Good evening,” he said glancing at them both as he walked around the desk. As he sat down opposite them, his eyes landed on the photograph of the blonde woman. For a moment, Blake thought he was going to question them about what they had been doing in his absence, but he merely adjusted the photograph’s position for a moment and then turned to them. “DS Harte and Sergeant Matthews, isn’t it?”

  “Actually, it’s DS Matthews,” Sally told him.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Hawthorne replied. “I received a phone call from an Inspector Gresham. He said that you were just a sergeant.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure he did,” Sally snapped, slamming her notepad on the table. “Mr Hawthorne, I’m sure you know why we’re here.”

  “Thomas Frost, yes.”

  “What exactly happened this morning?” Blake asked him. “Frost climbs into a prison van, the doors are closed, when they’re next opened, he appears to have completely vanished.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Hawthorne said, with a shrug as he shuffled his papers around on his desk. “As far as I was aware, everything went according to plan.”

  “Who were the two officers that put him in the back of the van?”

  “I couldn’t
tell you, I’m afraid.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the two officers don’t normally work for this prison, they were on placement. As far as I can tell, they both left this afternoon.”

  Sally and Blake looked at each other in bemusement.

  “Could you tell us either of their names?” Blake asked.

  “Erm, not off the top of my head,” Hawthorne murmered, flicking through the papers. “I don’t come into contact with the officers all that often, especially if they don’t normally work here.” He ran his finger down a sheet that he pulled from the pile. “This could be it. Simpkins and Jordache. Wouldn’t know them if I passed them in the street, I’m afraid.”

  “Mr Hawthorne, I don’t think you quite appreciate the situation here,” Blake said slowly. “This morning, an extremely dangerous serial killer left your prison and escaped. He’s now out there, on the streets, and he’s already managed to murder someone else. Then, we receive a tape from the interior of the van that Frost was travelling in which is so obviously fake that it’s almost cynical. Are you seriously telling me that you have absolutely no idea about what happened this morning?”

  “I wasn’t in this morning, I’m afraid,” Hawthorne replied, looking awkwardly down at the desk. Blake was slightly pleased to see that he looked rightfully horrified by the clear incompetence he was displaying. “I was visiting my wife, she’s…” He picked up the photograph of the blonde woman from the desk and stared at it, his steely looking exterior appearing to crack for a moment. “…she’s not been very well recently.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Blake replied brusquely. “But are you seriously telling us that you can’t offer any insight to what happened this morning? You, the man in charge of this prison, wasn’t here and the two prison officers that actually loaded Frost into the back of that van are nowhere to be found. You can’t tell us that that isn’t slightly suspicious.”

  Hawthorne placed the picture down and straightened his tie, clearing his throat as he did so. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I can tell you. I can try to track down those two officers, but I know as much as you. I watched the whole thing unfold from my wife’s television in the hospital today and was, I’m sure, as horrified as you were.”