A Killing Frost

by R D Wingfield

  “Kathy lives at Moorland Avenue, doesn’t she?”

  “That’s right, Inspector.”

  Frost spun round in his chair to check the wall map and jabbed a finger on Moorland Avenue. “So that could put her smack in the vicinity of the multi-storey when our friendly neighbourhood drunk heard the screams.”

  Jordan nodded. “Yes, Inspector.”

  “Right,” said Frost, ramming a cigarette in his mouth. “Then we need that bloody drunk.” His hand was hovering over the phone, ready to call Bill Wells, when the station sergeant came in and forestalled him.

  “That drunk’s been on the blower again, Jack. He heard the radio appeal, but wouldn’t give his name. He says he can’t help. He heard screaming, but saw sod all. He phoned from a call box again.”

  “Sod it,” snarled Frost. “I want him. He might have seen a car or something later. Another appeal, Bill. Would the prat who phoned the police phone us again, please. And I’ll need all the men you can spare. We’re going to have to put a search in hand.”

  “I can’t spare anyone, Jack. Mr. Skinner’s got them all looking for Debbie Clark and the boy.”

  “Then he’ll have to make it a combined search,” said Frost. “Is he in yet?”

  Wells looked past Frost, out of the office window. “His car’s just pulling in now.” He gritted his teeth and winced at the sound of an anguished squeal of brakes and a rubber-ripping skid. Wells gasped. “Bloody hell, Jack. Taffy Morgan’s nearly rammed into the back of Skinner’s car.”

  “Stupid Welsh git,” said Frost. “I’ve told him a hundred times: ‘You’ll never kill Skinner by ramming his car. You’ve got to wait until he gets out, then drive over him.’ ” There was a burble of angry voices outside. “Now what?”

  “Skinner’s having a quiet word with Taffy,” grinned Wells.

  Doors slammed and thudding footsteps approached, then the office door crashed open and an angry Detective Chief Inspector Skinner marched in. He jabbed a finger at Wells. “I’ve just driven past two of our men on their way to work still in civvies. I made it clear enough yesterday, even for you Denton thickies, that I want them in uniform before they clock on. I want to see them the minute they come in.”

  “Right,” nodded Wells.

  “And I want to see you, too,” snarled Skinner, stabbing a finger at Frost. “Five minutes.” He slammed the door as he left and the windows rattled.

  “And good morning to you too, you fat sod,” said Frost, jerking two fingers at the closed door. To his alarm, the door opened again and he thought Skinner had heard him and was coming back—but it was Taffy Morgan.

  “Skinner’s a bit touchy this morning,” said Taffy flopping down in the chair behind his desk and taking the Daily Mirror from his pocket.

  “I don’t think he likes people ramming the back of his car,” said Frost. “Now put that flaming paper away, I’ve got jobs for you. I want CCTV footage from the building society cash machine and I want CCTV footage of the area around the multi-storey for around midnight last night. If Jan O’Brien was abducted, let’s see what cars were about at that time of night.”

  “Right, Guv.” With a quick glance at the picture of a half-naked girl on page three, Taffy tucked the morning paper under his arm and left the office.

  Frost’s internal phone rang. It was Skinner.

  “OK,” acknowledged Frost, giving the phone another two-fingered salute as he hung up. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Is ‘Get your effing arse in here’ the same as saying ‘Would you kindly come into my office’?” he asked Bill Wells.

  As he approached Skinner’s office after a quick cup of tea in the canteen, Frost could clearly hear the DCI’s angry voice bellowing from behind the closed door, which then opened to allow two sheepish-looking, out-of-uniform, PCs to emerge. “And the next time I spot you on the way to work, but out of uniform, I’ll have your flaming guts for garters,” roared Skinner, speeding them on their way.

  “Little tip,” whispered Frost. “He likes you to be wearing your uniform before you start duty—he might have been too shy to have mentioned it. I’m going in for my bollocking now.” He gave the door a half-hearted tap and entered.

  A smouldering Skinner glowered at him from behind his desk. Much of the office had been stripped bare, ready for complete refurbishment. If Mullett could raid the maintenance budget for a tarted-up, wooden-panelled office, then Skinner was not going to put up with this tatty affair. He slashed a finger at a chair and grunted, “Sit!”

  Woof, woof thought Frost. Are we going for walkies? He flopped down in the chair. Skinner didn’t look very well. His skin had a greenish pallor and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.

  “You look rough,” said Frost.

  Skinner rubbed his stomach. “Superintendent Mullett took me out to dinner at his club last night. I think the oysters were off.”

  “I hate oysters,” said Frost. “They taste like salted snot.”

  Skinner looked as if he was going to throw up. “Never mind about me. A complete and utter balls-up last night.”

  “The meal wasn’t a success then?” asked Frost.

  “You know damn well what I mean. The cashpoint stake-out. All those men. All that bloody overtime and you let the sod get away with a thousand quid.”

  “We made an arrest,” protested Frost.

  “Oh yes,” sneered Skinner, “a flaming handbag-snatcher. All that overtime and a flaming handbag-snatcher. I hear we have another bloody missing girl?”

  Frost filled Skinner in.

  Skinner tapped his teeth with his pencil. “Do you think there’s any link with the other two missing kids?”

  “Possible, but I doubt it. I think our friendly neighbourhood rapist has got her.”

  A ripple of pain made Skinner wince and rub his stomach. “Bleeding oysters. Right. I’m on my way now to brief the search teams. I’ll get them to look for Jan O’Brien as well. If you get any results from the CCTV footage, follow it through, but keep me posted. And if you get near to making an arrest, I take over—comprende?”

  “Buenas noches,” agreed Frost, pushing himself out of the chair and beating a hasty retreat.

  Back in his office, he wearily dragged his over flowing in-tray towards him. He skimmed through the memos and forms, then dragged the waste-paper bin over so he could discard all the tricky stuff and deny he had ever received it. Whatever they were, he didn’t have the time to waste on them. He looked round as Morgan came in, a batch of videotapes in his hand.

  “Sorry I’ve been so long, Guv,” said dropping wearily into his chair.

  “Don’t apologise, Taff,” said Frost. “Things always seem to go a lot smoother when you’re not here. So you’ve got the cashpoint and CCTV footage?”

  “Yes, Guv.”

  “Right. Take them into the Incident Room and run them through. Get Collier to help you.”

  “Shall I have my breakfast first, Guv?” asked Morgan hopefully. “I’ve already ordered the big fry-up.”

  “All you think about is your dick and your flaming stomach,” snorted Frost. “No. Get cracking on those videotapes, they’re more important. Don’t worry about your breakfast—I’ll eat it for you. And stop sulking—put your flaming lower lip in!”

  When he returned from the canteen, his phone was ringing. Didn’t the bleeding thing ever stay quiet for a few minutes? He answered it.

  “Frost.”

  It was Beazley, the owner of Supersaves. “What the hell happened last night? Did you catch him?”

  Shit, thought Frost. He’d forgotten about Beazley. “Ah, Mr. Beazley. I was just on my way over to you. We didn’t catch him, but we’ve got some people on video footage you might be able to identify.” He thought it best not to mention the withdrawn thousand pounds at this stage, and hoped and prayed Morgan would turn something up.

  “Then make it bloody snappy. My time is precious.”

  “Fifteen minutes at the outside,” promised Frost, hanging up and m
aking his way to the Incident Room, where Morgan and Collier were staring at a TV monitor showing juddering footage of late-night traffic.

  “Does it take two of you to look at one tape?” asked Frost. “Have you done the building society cashpoint tape, yet?”

  “It’s next on the list, Guv.”

  “Do it now. Beazley’s shitting bricks.” Frost looked at the cassette they were slotting into the video player with misgiving. It was old and battered and the tape looked almost white from constant recording and replaying. In the interests of economy, the building society used the same tape over and over again, even when it was past its best. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk as Morgan switched the video player on and fast-forwarded to the previous night. “Just before and just after midnight,” Frost reminded him as blurred black-and-white images raced across the screen and a digital clock at the top right-hand corner sped through the time.

  Morgan jammed the Stop button. “We’re here, Guv.” He pressed Play.

  The clock said 23.50. The out-of-focus shape appeared of a woman withdrawing cash. The image was blurred and almost unrecognisable, but Frost felt sure it was the tom who had approached him in the car. He made a mental note to get her picked up in case she had seen whoever had used the cashpoint after her.

  “This is it, Guv!” exclaimed Morgan.

  Frost groaned. The next image was unrecognisable. Probably a man in a dark coat with the collar up, his head bent low.

  The figure moved off and the screen briefly went blank—the CCTV was programmed only to record when someone was at the cashpoint.

  Then, with the clock showing 00.03, the same figure reappeared, face kept well down. The money was withdrawn and the figure moved off into the dark.

  “I think it’s the Pope,” offered Frost. “Get Interpol on the phone. We’d better arrest him, just in case.” He leant back in his chair. “Bleeding building society and its false economies.” He turned to Collier, who was hovering behind him. “Any chance we could get the pictures enhanced?”

  “I doubt it, Inspector,” Collier told him. “There’s hardly anything on the tape to enhance, and in any case, all we’d get would be an enhanced man with his face completely covered.”

  “Try it anyway,” said Frost. “And find out the address of that tom. She might be our only hope.” He rewound a few seconds and watched the man withdrawing cash again. “Why do they bother with CCTV, and then put in cheap flaming cameras with dirty lenses, not enough light and a clapped-out tape?” He stood up. “Get a couple of stills printed out. I’ve got to have something to show Beazley, even if it’s flaming useless.” He wasn’t going to enjoy that meeting.

  As he made for the door, Bill Wells came in. “Skinner wants to see you, Jack, and says it’s urgent.”

  Skinner, his face still green and sweaty, jabbed a finger at a chair, instructing Frost to sit. In front of him on the desk was an opened, ancient-looking folder bulging with photographs and yellowing, dog-eared pages of typescripts. “I’m still feeling rough, so I’m off home to get my head down for a couple of hours. Keep a watching brief on the search.”

  “Right,” said Frost, standing to go.

  A finger wagged him back to the chair. “I haven’t finished. I want you to arrest a bloke for me. Just arrest him and get him banged up. I’ll do the rest when I come back.” Skinner slid a forensic report across the desk. “Graham Fielding, your suspected rapist. They’ve done a DNA on the sperm sample from Sally Marsden and it wasn’t him. He’s in the clear.”

  “Shit!” snorted Frost. “He was my odds-on favourite.”

  Skinner pushed the file over and Frost found himself staring at a black-and-white photograph of a young girl’s body, naked, her wide sightless eyes staring up into the sky, lying on her back amid long, straggling grass rimed with hoar frost.

  Frost stared and shivered. He felt cold. Freezing cold. He was back in time, a cutting wind sawing through his clothes as he stood looking down at the girl’s naked body . . . Deep in his brain a piercing bell was ringing, insisting that he knew who she was. But the name just wouldn’t come. “Who is she?”

  “Casey Turner. Fifteen years old. Raped, strangled and dumped in the old St Martin’s cemetery back in 1977.”

  Frost whistled softly as the memory flash-flooded back. Casey Turner. Of course. Fifteen-year-old Casey Turner. “It was Christmas Day,” he said, half to himself. “The poor little bitch was killed on Christmas Day. I was on the case—still a sergeant then, of course. Bert Williams was in charge, but we never got any where. No suspects . . . nothing.”

  “I’ve got a suspect now,” smirked Skinner. “A red-hot, bloody one hundred per cent cast-iron suspect.” He pulled a report from an envelope and gave it to Frost.

  “DNA Test Result,” read Frost. He looked puzzled and checked the date at the top of the form. “It’s a recent sample. What’s it got to do with an ancient murder?”

  Skinner leant back in his chair and gave a smug smile. “It’s got everything to do with it. When the lab tests DNA samples, they compare them with their database of old DNA material to see if they can match it. It cleared your suspect of rape, but it matched the DNA from sperm samples and flecks of skin from under Casey Turner’s fingernails where she clawed her killer some thirty years ago.”

  Frost shook his head in wonder. “Flaming hell. After all this bleeding time Fielding must have thought he’d got away with it.” He looked again at the photograph. Details of the case were charging back fast and furious. The girl’s grief-stricken mother had had a complete nervous breakdown. One bitterly cold night she’d cleaned the house from top to bottom, cut her husband’s sandwiches for the next morning and put them on the kitchen table ready for him to take to work, then, in only a thin frock and no coat, had wandered out to chuck herself off the top level of the multi-storey car park in town. Frost had had to go and break the news to the husband that he had now lost a wife as well as a daughter.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Skinner, who was grimacing and rubbing his stomach. “I’m off home. Now just bring him in. Don’t question him—this is my case, not yours.”

  “Right,” nodded Frost, tucking the folder under his arm.

  “And don’t sod it up!” barked Skinner.

  “I’ll make a note of that,” said Frost, pulling a pen from his pocket and scribbling on a scrap of paper. “I always forget I’m not supposed to sod things up.”

  He left Skinner scowling after him. “You think you’re so bleeding clever, sunshine, but just wait until tomorrow. Your days in Denton are numbered.”

  Back at his desk, Frost opened the file and flipped through the yellowing pages of type script. It was all coming back. His brain started churning over the events of that awful Christmas morning, all those years ago . . .

  They’d only been married a few months and it should have been their first Christmas together, but at eight o’clock on Christmas morning the phone rang. Frank Gibson, the DS who had drawn the short straw for Christmas Day, had been rushed off to hospital with suspected appendicitis and Frost, as standby, was called in to fill the gap. When he told his wife, her fury knew no bounds. Their first Christmas together was going to be ruined. In tears, she threatened to chuck the Christmas dinner she had planned for so long in the dustbin.

  She had one hell of a temper. By God, she was a feisty firebrand in those days and a little cracker to boot. Absolutely beautiful, and she adored him as much as he was crazy about her. So how did it all go wrong? How did the poor cow end up dying in that pokey hospital room, her only visitor a man she had long since fallen out of love with?

  Much of it was his fault. Too much time spent on the job and not enough with her. And the promotion she had dreamt of for him had not happened until it was too late . . . until she was dying in that lousy hospital. He rubbed his scar. Until that toe-rag fired the bullet at him and he’d been given a George Cross and promoted to inspector. But by then the cancer was too far gone and when he tried to tell
her his news, she couldn’t take it in. He felt his eyes misting over and lit up a cigarette. He smoked and stared out of the window as memories came flooding back.

  The station was dead and yawningly empty, the phones were quiet and the flaming heating wasn’t working properly. He had phoned home a couple of times, trying to make the peace, but she had slammed the phone down on him. And then a phone bell suddenly ripped through the silence. Some drunk with enough fright in his voice to sound genuine was saying, “There’s a stone-dead naked tart in St Mary churchyard.” Before Frost could answer, the man had hung up. There was no one else to send and it was probably warmer outside than in this freezing station, so he wound his scarf around his neck and went out to check. Let it be a bloody hoax, he kept telling himself. Let it be a bloody hoax. But it wasn’t.

  Lying in the straggling overgrown grass of the old churchyard, amongst the lop-sided, moss-covered headstones of the long dead, was a recent dead, a very recent dead, a young girl, cold as ice, stark naked, a crumpled dress at her fret, staring wide-eyed up at a clear Christmas sky. Somewhere in the distance church bells were ringing.

  Bert Williams, the DI in charge of the case, was a dead loss, drunk most of the time and always letting others do all the work. Williams was out of his depth with the Casey Turner murder although even a good copper wouldn’t have had any luck solving it. They had no suspects. Nothing. And all their leads fizzled out.

  The DI couldn’t face breaking the news to the family, not that they would have appreciated a man unsteady on his fret, reeking of whisky. Williams had taken another swig from his hip flask behind a crumbling stone angel in the hope that it would bolster his courage to face the dead girl’s family. But it didn’t. “You do it, Jack. You’re so much better at this sort of thing than I am . . .”

  Frost sensed someone looking over his shoulder. Taffy Morgan.

  “That’s an ancient case, Guv.” He picked up the photograph of the body and shook his head sadly. “She’s only a kid.”