by Robert Innes
Harrison shook his head. “Wow. He’s really gone to work on you, hasn’t he? So, just so I’m clear, Manchester has a guy going around throttling women who are too successful and they catch him, with, if I remember what Blake told me, his hands around the throat of a successful woman and he’s been made out to be the bad guy? Come on, Tom, you don’t believe that, surely?”
Tom smirked. “Yeah, he said that Blake was pretty fond of that story. He told me the truth, Harrison. Blake never found him with his hands around anybody’s neck. It’s all a lie. Blake only said that because he was under pressure to catch the real killer, he walked in on Dad having a domestic dispute with this old girlfriend of his and decided to use him and frame him for all the other deaths. You can laugh all you want,” he said loudly over the chuckle that Harrison had released, “but you’re the one who’s been taken in. Blake Harte isn’t the white knight everyone likes to think he is.”
“Right, okay then,” Harrison replied, shaking his head. “So, together you and Frost plotted to bring Blake down? As some form of revenge? Is that it?”
“Nobody else was going to listen to him,” Tom said. “He needed somebody to support him. Blake destroyed his life.”
“And what about Kerry Nightingale, Tom?” Harrison asked. “I mean, you did hear about that, I take it? You know the woman that he tried to kill before Blake stopped him? He manipulated someone to kill her on his behalf. He’s dangerous, Tom. He’s twisted. He’s evil.”
“Blake only said that to strengthen the case about Dad. Anything to build up his reputation as Harmschapel’s golden boy,” Tom snarled. “Kerry Nightingale was killed by that woman who worked at the apartments, everyone knows that.”
“So, Blake’s this massive liar,” Harrison concluded. “And Thomas Frost is nothing but a victim. Any police officer that says otherwise that dealt with the families of the women he killed, any news article anywhere that says that he’s a killer, it’s all lies? Every bit of it? You really believe that?”
“I didn’t at first,” Tom argued, “It took some convincing.”
“Yeah, I bet it did.”
“But it’s easy to destroy somebody in the media,” Tom told him. “Harrison, clearly you haven’t had experience with it. That’s a good thing, you’re lucky. But the police are trusted. Nobody believes for a second that they’d frame somebody to make their own lives easier. Dad was just a scapegoat. Blake’s got to pay for that. I’m sorry.”
Harrison sighed. “Yeah. Except there’s just one tiny detail you don’t know about. Something I found out today.”
“Yeah? Something the police told you, I’m guessing?” Tom asked wryly. “Harrison, you’ve got to learn to see the bigger picture. They’re all in it together.”
“Did you see the bigger picture when you were doing your research into your family? I mean your real family. Frost’s side of the family.”
Tom shrugged. “A bit. Dad told me when I went to see him for the first time. His own mum died years back but his father still lives in Manchester as far as he knows. I’ve also got a half brother living in Australia that I’ve never met and probably never will.”
“Actually,” Harrison said, relishing every word. “That man, Simon, I think Blake said his name is, is your nephew. Or step nephew. Or half nephew. I don’t know. I never understood family titles once it gets too complicated, mine’s not as extensive as yours.”
Tom frowned. “What are you on about? My half nephew? That would mean that Dad was my brother, you moron.”
Harrison just nodded. It took a few moments for Tom to register what he was being told.
“What are you…? That’s what you heard Mum saying today?” He scoffed and turned his head back towards the television. “You’re off your head. Just get out before I call the nurse.”
“Who’s Frost’s dad, Tom?” Harrison asked him. “What’s his name? Your ‘granddad.’” He enunciated the final word with his fingers to signify quotation marks.
Tom rolled his eyes. “Just get out.”
“What’s his name, Tom?”
“For God’s sake, it’s Samuel, alright? Now will you please just leave?”
“Jacqueline had an affair with him, Tom. Samuel is your father, not Frost. They had a brief fling when your mum turned to him when she started realising what a sick psycho Frost was. Wine flowed and coincidentally, nine months later, there you were.”
Tom stared at him, his mouth falling open slightly. “What are you…?”
“I’m saying that yes, Tom. You have been lied to. There’s no two ways about that. But it was only ever to protect you. Frost told your mum that if he ever found out you weren’t his, he would kill you both. Jacqueline ran. As far away from Manchester as she could to get away from the man that would kill his half-brother without a second thought.”
“My birth certificate said that my father’s name is Thomas Frost.”
Harrison nodded. “Of course it does. If I was in Jacqueline’s shoes, I think I’d make sure it said that as well. Just in case Frost ever found it. Just to give you that last, desperate bit of protection.”
For a few moments, Tom appeared incapable of speech. Then, he grabbed the buzzer on the side of his bed. “I’m calling the nurse. Just get out. I’m not listening to any more of this crap.”
Harrison sighed and stood up. “Alright, please yourself.”
“Blake Harte will pay for everything he did to my dad,” Tom spat furiously. “I mean, technically, he’s been paying for it ever since he was a kid, but he ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Harrison stopped on his way out the door and frowned. He turned slowly around. “What?”
Tom smirked. “Yeah. Not so smug now, huh? Not so full of information. Poor little Blake, with his nightmares. Oh, yeah, I know about that. Mum never could keep her gob shut when there was an interesting little titbit like that to gossip about. What are the details again? That he discovered the body of an old woman in a house when he was ten? Found with a knife in her back, wasn’t she?”
Harrison stared at him. “How do you know that?”
“Her name’s Julia Watkins,” Tom said, smiling at him. “And you want to know how I know her name? She’s my great grandmother.”
“Your great…You mean the woman in that house was…” Harrison’s brain whirred, trying to join the pieces Tom was giving him together. “She was Frost’s grandmother?”
Tom merely watched him work it out, the smile on his face growing.
“Oh my God,” Harrison murmered. “It was Frost, wasn’t it? The one woman he admitted he’d killed to you. It was his grandmother? Frost killed her?”
Tom shrugged. “I doubt I’m really supposed to be telling you this, but it doesn’t matter now. Yeah. Dad killed her. It was an argument that got a bit out of hand.”
“A bit out of hand?” Harrison repeated, his voice raising. “He stabbed her Tom! His own grandmother! How? How did she get in the house?”
“I don’t know all the details,” Tom replied lightly. “All I do know is that Dad was in the house the night that Blake found her. She was moved there. That old house, it had been abandoned for years and he needed somewhere. He was young, he was scared. He wanted to hide what he’d done. Her body was taken to that house and was hidden in there. Funny how small the world is really. I doubt he had any idea that night that he would end up traumatising a little boy that would grow up to be someone who would destroy his life. The fact that Blake has been haunted by that night ever since, well, I won’t pretend it isn’t sweet.”
“You are sick!” Harrison shouted. “It shouldn’t be your mum sitting in a cell right now, it should be you!”
The door suddenly opened and the nurse stormed in, looking around the room with an outraged expression on her face. “What on Earth is going on in here?” she fumed. “I’ve got patients trying to sleep you know!”
Harrison exhaled slowly in an attempt to calm himself. “Sorry,” he said quietly.
“I should thin
k so too,” the nurse snapped. “Anyway, your colleague is here.”
“My colleague?”
The nurse stepped aside and a moment later, Mattison walked in and rolled his eyes when he saw Harrison.
“Oh, well it would be you,” he remarked. He turned to the nurse. “Thanks for your help.”
The nurse scowled at Harrison. “Just keep it down, please. And try and make it quick, I’m late doing my drug rounds.”
Mattison nodded and closed the door behind her before turning to Harrison. “What are you doing here? What’s all the shouting about? And why is Nurse Ratched out there telling me that there was already an officer in here?”
“I wanted to find out what was going on,” Harrison told him. “Matti, do you know what he’s just told me?”
“I can find out that for myself, Harrison, you aren’t supposed to be here! I’ve come to talk to Tom about what Jacqueline said in her interview, the one you apparently listened in on? You’re lucky you didn’t get yourself arrested, and now you’re impersonating an officer? You want to consider yourself lucky that Gardiner isn’t here. Just wait outside and I’ll take you back to Harmschapel when we’re done.”
“Oh, look who it is,” Tom said, nodding his head at the television screen. “The man of the hour.”
Harrison and Mattison glanced at each other and walked towards the bed, staring at the television on the wall.
A trailer advertising that the news was on after the commercial break flashed up on the screen and the first report was detailing the murder of a woman that Harrison vaguely recognised. He was just about to question why he recognised her when suddenly Blake appeared on the screen, sitting in the news studio next to the newsreader.
“Blake!” Harrison exclaimed. “Who’s that woman they were talking about?”
Mattison sighed. “Her name’s Helen Beauchamp. She’s a member of Parliament for Manchester. Frost murdered her earlier today.”
“What?” Harrison asked, his head spinning around. He glared at Tom who was looking at the screen looking decidedly less smug than he had a few moments beforehand. “You see? You see what your brother is capable of?”
“It’s more lies,” Tom murmered, though he did not appear entirely convinced by his own words. “Dad wouldn’t just…”
“He has and he’s done it before,” Mattison murmered. “And I’m afraid Harrison’s right, Tom, whether he has any right to be or not. Thomas Frost isn’t your father. I’m sorry.”
Tom said nothing. He merely just narrowed his eyes, looking slightly pensive as the opening titles to the News at Ten began to play.
Twelve
Blake could not have felt more uncomfortable. When they had arrived at the studios, he had been briefly greeted by Fox, and grunted at by Gresham, then frogmarched through the corridors to the news studio itself where a makeup artist had briefly dabbed his face with a brush.
Now as he sat sweltering underneath the studio lights, wondering how on Earth he had managed to get himself into this situation, Theresa Bowen stalked across the studio and sat down in the seat opposite him without a word.
Blake watched her organise her papers, wondering how she was capable of looking down in front of her while still giving the impression of having her nose in the air, then looked around the studio at the bright green screen around them.
“Different to how it looks on television, isn’t it?” he commented as Theresa scribbled on the top of her first report. “How do you know where to look?”
Theresa glanced at him irritably. “You get used to it. You need to be quiet, we’re about to go on air.”
Blake turned his head to Sally, Gresham and Fox who were standing behind the cameras and tried to give Sally a silent plea to get him out of the situation. He had already worked out from Theresa’s demeanour that she was not about to give him an easy interview. Sally merely gave him what she must have assumed was an encouraging thumbs up.
The production team behind the cameras began to count them down as the sound of the news theme tune played.
“This is News at Ten,” boomed an announcer, “with Theresa Bowen.”
“Good evening,” Theresa began. “The city of Manchester tonight is coming to terms with the fact that Thomas Frost, one of Britain’s most prolific serial killers, is once more on the streets. In footage that has been circulating on social media throughout the day from our reports, Frost can be seen being placed into the back of a prison transfer vehicle, which was due to take him to Belmarsh prison in London from his original placement at Strangeways in Manchester. When the van arrived in London, Frost was nowhere to be seen. The confusion in the city soon turned to terror as it would appear that he immediately struck again. In the last few hours, Manchester Police have confirmed the murder of Helen Beauchamp, an MP for the city. Now, as Manchester’s residents find themselves once again looking over their shoulders, the main question on everybody’s lips is just how did Frost manage to escape from a high security prison van surrounded by police officers at all points during his journey and, to follow that, how did the police allow it to happen? From Manchester, Darren Bates has his report.”
She stared at the camera for a few seconds before she received a signal from someone in front of her that the report was playing. She shuffled the papers in front of her and glanced at Blake. “I’ll be speaking to you after the report.”
Blake did not reply. He was too busy watching the monitor as the report began to play, desperately studying the footage of Frost departing Strangeways to see if anything jumped out of him, but the camera cut away too quickly for him to be able to focus on anything.
When the report had finished, Theresa looked up at the camera again. “And joining me now is Detective Sergeant Blake Harte from Manchester police.” She swivelled around in her chair and glared at him. “DS Harte, I think I’ll begin by asking the question that I did at the top of the report: how did this happen?”
Blake glanced at the officers behind the camera, mentally spooling through the information that Fox had hurriedly told him to divulge before the interview, and then back to Theresa. “Well, we’re obviously investigating exactly how this is possible,” he said slowly. “I understand that this is a difficult time for Manchester, but –”
“You do accept though that the police have massively failed in their duties here?” cut in Theresa. “To allow a category A prisoner to escape, it’s just beyond comprehension. The public put their faith in you that you’re going to keep these prisoners off the streets, and then something like this happens.”
“Well, as I say,” Blake continued, well aware that he was now sweating profusely and hoping that HD televisions were not as good as they claimed to be, “we are investigating how it has happened, that will of course involve us looking into exactly what went wrong today at Strangeways –”
“Do you admit that the police failed today?”
“I think it’s important to –”
“It’s a simple question, DS Harte, do you admit that you’ve failed the public today?”
Blake glared at her for a moment. “No, I don’t. Because this is something that I think even someone who has some form of vendetta against the police must admit is absolutely extraordinary.”
“A vendetta?” Theresa asked icily. “Whatever do you mean?”
Blake bit his lip and shook his head. “I think we might be straying slightly from the point of the topic at hand here.”
“You’re the one who took us there, I’m sure the viewers will be able to see that,” Theresa replied. “Utterly bizarre thing to say under the circumstances.”
Again, Blake glanced at the other officers. Sally’s encouraging expression had disappeared and Gresham’s tell-tale vein looked like it was threatening to bulge from the top of his head.
“So, what can you actually tell us?” Theresa went on. “Is there anything you can say to put the public’s mind at rest? Because in the past twelve hours, not only has a serial killer escaped your custody, w
hich you don’t seem to be willing to admit is a failure, when it quite clearly is –”
“Look, I don’t –”
“But there has also been a murder which you are apparently claiming was the work of Thomas Frost? He’s killed again already?”
“We believe so, yes,” Blake said quickly. “We obviously send our deepest condolences to Helen Beauchamp’s family and friends and we have also been asked by them to request that the media give them some privacy at this difficult time.” Blake realised he had aimed Helen’s family’s request directly at Theresa and hoped she got the message. He sensed she was exactly the sort of reporter to try and bother a grieving family in the name of a good story. “We would like to assure the public that we have officers from all ranks and divisions out on the streets searching for Frost. He cannot hide forever and it is only a matter of time before he is found. In the meantime, it is vital that if anybody has any information whatsoever relating to his whereabouts, they get in touch with the police immediately, any time, day or night.”
“How do you know that this is Frost’s work?” Theresa asked, with a frown. “How was she killed?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” Blake replied.
“But, surely, you must understand why people are confused,” Theresa went on. “You’re expecting us to believe that a serial killer is prowling the streets and then just started killing again? Why would he do that when, logically, he would be wanting to stay as under the radar as possible to avoid detection? Manchester is a big city, Helen Beauchamp was a member of Parliament. These are extremely turbulent times in politics. You’re telling me that you don’t think there’s anybody else in the whole of Manchester who is capable of strangling a politician?”
“I never said she was strangled,” Blake replied hotly.
“You’re saying it was Frost though,” Theresa went on. “And if all reports from the original investigation are to be believed, Frost’s method of killing was always strangulation.”
