A Killing Frost

by R D Wingfield

  “Jordan’s brought in that tom you wanted to see,” Wells told him.

  Frost frowned: “What tom?”

  “Maggie Dixon. The tom who was hovering round Market Square last night.”

  “Oh, her!” He took a bite of his sandwich. “That cow in the canteen said they’d only got mackerel salad.”

  “Sounds fishy to me,” said Wells.

  “Ha bloody ha,” said Frost, taking his sandwich and mug of tea to the Interview Room.

  Maggie looked distinctly unappetising in the harsh light of day: thick lipstick and mascara and a heavily powdered face gave her an almost clown-like appearance. Her straw-blonde, bleached hair added its twopenn’orth to her unattractiveness. She was none too pleased to have been hauled in at this unearthly hour and stood, arms folded, glaring at Jordan. She transferred her glare to Frost as he entered.

  “What’s the bleeding idea, dragging me in here? I’ve got to get ready to go out and earn the rent.”

  “Won’t take long, Maggie,” soothed Frost. “Sit down.”

  She plonked herself down in a chair, still scowling.

  “I’m hoping you can do something for me, Maggie.”

  “I don’t give policemen freebies, you know.”

  Frost shuddered. “Is that a promise?” He offered her a cigarette, which she snatched from the packet and rammed in her mouth, then she leant over the table to accept a light. Frost lit his too and sucked down smoke. “You were near a Fortress Building Society cashpoint last night.”

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Who says so?”

  “I bleeding say so. I saw you. Now don’t drag this out, Maggie, there’s a good tart. The quicker we get this over, the quicker you can be off your feet and on your back, keeping the landlord happy. Now, you were in the vicinity of that cashpoint last night while your client was trying to take money out so he could put his dick in.”

  “What if I was? Is it a crime?”

  “All I want to know is, did you see anyone use it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Frost fired off a salvo of smoke rings. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Describe him.”

  “It wasn’t a him, it was a her.”

  Frost’s mouth dropped open. A half-formed smoke ring dissipated.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. They don’t have to have their dicks hanging out for me to know if it’s a man or a woman.”

  “Can you describe her?”

  “Getting on a bit, dark coat, kept her head down.”

  “Can’t you tell us more than that?”

  “You want a lot for one bleeding fag. I’ve told you all I know. As soon as I saw she was a woman, I switched off. I don’t earn money from women. And talking of earning money, can I go now?”

  Frost nodded. “Take the lady back to where you found her, Jordan, but try not to succumb to her charms on the way.”

  “I’ll try,” grinned Jordan, “but I’m only human.” When they had left, Frost pushed the rest of his toasted sandwich in his mouth and flushed it down with a swig of tea. A woman? He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and made his way to the Incident Room.

  “Let’s see the CCTV video of the blackmailer again,” he said to Collier.

  Again the blurred, indistinct image shuddered across the screen.

  “Could be a man, a woman, or even a bleeding giraffe for all the good this flaming thing is,” he muttered.

  As he passed through the lobby on the way back to his office, Bill Wells waylaid him. “Graham Fielding wants to make a statement, Jack.”

  “Bloody prisoners. Just because they’ve raped and murdered someone, they think they can make statements any flaming hour of the day or night. He’s Skinner’s prisoner, not mine. Skinner should be back tomorrow.”

  “If a prisoner wants to make a statement, he’s entitled to make one, Jack.”

  “Stall him. I’ve been warned to keep my dirty hands off this one and you know how I always obey orders.”

  DC Morgan was engrossed in the Daily Mirror when Frost returned to the office. He pushed it away hurriedly. “We managed to get the body over to the morgue more or less in one piece, Guv. The undertaker says you owe him one. Oh—and Mr. Harding said to tell you there were no traces of clothing under the body, so he reckons she was stripped before she was dumped.”

  “That figures. It makes me more and more certain those clothes we fished out of the lake were hers. As soon as we get some idea from the pathologist as to age, height, how long dead, and so on, we’ll try and find out who the hell she is. We’ve already put out an all-stations request on the clothes, but sod all so far.”

  Someone had dumped a wad of papers in his in-tray. He gave the covering memo a cursory glance.

  It was from Mullett: Frost: this is urgent. PL. attend. SCN Divisional Commander. Without bothering to see what it was about, he chucked it over to Morgan. He had enough on his plate without any of Mullett’s rubbish. “Get this done, Taff.”

  “What is it, Guv?”

  “I don’t know, but Mullett says it’s urgent. Read it and chuck it in the waste bin—not necessarily in that order.”

  Morgan turned to the front page, then let out a low whistle. “It’s from the FBI—the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “The FBI? They’re not investigating my flaming car expenses, are they?”

  Morgan grinned. “No.” He read for a while, then looked up. “The FBI have cracked a big paedophile ring op on the internet. They’ve got the names of people paying by credit card for pornographic images of kids to be downloaded to their computers.” He flipped through the next two pages. “And some of them live in Denton.”

  “Anyone we know?” asked Frost.

  Morgan carefully studied the pages before replying. “No, Guv.” He turned a page. “Lots of small fry but there’s a bloke from Denton here who’s supposed to be a lay preacher—he’s spent a packet on child porn over the last few months—well over a thousand quid.”

  “Right, Taff,” said Frost. “See Sergeant Wells. Get search warrants, get a computer expert and a couple of uniforms to assist and bring the bastards in.”

  As Taffy left, Frost’s phone rang. Mullett wanted to see him.

  “What’s happening about that paedophile ring?” asked Mullett.

  “Being dealt with even as we speak, Super. I gave it top priority as you requested.”

  “Good,” nodded Mullett. “DCI Skinner won’t be back today. Some form of stomach upset.”

  “Yes, I heard you treated him to a meal,” said Frost. “You have to be very careful what you eat in these transport cafés—some of them just have buckets for toilets.”

  “I took him to my club,” retorted Mullett indignantly, “as you know damn well, Frost. Anyway, he wants you to keep an eye on his cases, but take no action without consulting him first.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Frost.

  As he passed through the outer office, Ida Smith, Mullett’s secretary, was hammering away at her keyboard at finger-blurring speed.

  “Poor old Skinner,” said Frost. “He swallowed a bad winkle. Have you ever had a bad winkle stuck inside you, Ida?”

  She affected not to hear him. The man was foul-mouthed, uncouth and insufferable. She pretended to be concentrating on her work and typed even faster.

  Frost’s phone was ringing incessantly as he came back to his desk. No bleeding peace for the wicked, he thought as he picked up the handset.

  “Jack,” said Sergeant Wells, “Fielding’s brief is here. He wants bail.”

  The solicitor was a young woman in her early twenties, severely dressed, with a big nose, no chest and horn-rimmed glasses.

  “I want police bail for my client,” she told Frost. “He is happily married, runs a courier business which needs his presence and has a full answer to this accusation.”

  Frost scraped a chair across the brown lino, dumped the case file on the table and sat down facing them. “I’m standing
in for my colleague, Detective Chief Inspector Skinner. There’s no way we can grant bail.”

  Fielding leapt up. “I must have bail. I can’t stay locked up here. I’ve got a business to run.”

  His solicitor waved him down. “Leave this to me, Mr. Fielding.” She turned to Frost: “I understand you have DNA evidence from semen found on the victim’s clothes.”

  “That’s right,” nodded Frost. “On her dress.”

  “My client now admits that he did have sexual intercourse with this girl, but on an earlier occasion. The semen could well have come from that occasion—after thirty years there is no way you can prove otherwise.”

  “A good point,” agreed Frost. “I wish I’d thought of that. Trouble is, she wore that dress for the first time on Christmas Eve—she bought it for a party, so there’s no way the semen could have got on it earlier. And to sod your client up even further, the scrapings of flesh from under her fingernails match your client’s DNA too.”

  She stared at Frost, then at her client, who wouldn’t meet her gaze. She shuffled through her papers to give herself time to think. She had never been presented with a situation such as this at law school. With a last glare at her client, she took a deep breath. “I might have misunderstood my client’s instructions, Inspector. Might I have a few words with him in private?”

  “Be my guest,” said Frost grandly, gathering up the file and leaving them to it.

  “How’s it going?” asked Wells as he passed Frost, who was leaning on the wall in the passage outside the Interview Room, sucking at a cigarette.

  “Him and Fanny are concocting a new story line to prove he didn’t do it. I think she raped herself, then strangled herself. How’s the paedophile thing going?”

  “We got the search warrant you wanted and they’re on their way now. Do you think you can trust Morgan with this?”

  “By the law of averages he must do something right now and again,” said Frost. “But I’ll poke my nose in as soon as I get Skinner’s ancient murder out of the way. Ah!” The door opened and the solicitor beckoned him in.

  “We’re ready, Inspector.”

  He stubbed out his cigarette and followed her back in. “I’m all ears,” he said, dumping the file on the table and dropping down into his chair.

  The woman nodded for her client to begin.

  “All right, Inspector,” said Fielding. “I’ll tell you the truth. I was afraid to say it before as it looked bad for me. Yes, I was with her on Christmas Eve. Yes, we had sex, but she was alive when I left her. I swear by my baby’s life, she was alive when I left her. I didn’t beat her up. I didn’t kill her. When I heard she was dead, I panicked. I didn’t come forward.”

  “Are you saying she willingly submitted to sex?” asked Frost.

  “Yes.”

  “That doesn’t add up, I’m afraid, son. The poor little cow must have been terrified. She fought off her attacker . . . fought like mad. Like I told you, there was skin under her fingernails where she had scratched him. And it was your skin, son. The DNA test proves that conclusively.”

  “I’d been with her a couple of times before, Inspector. At her climax she liked to rake your bare back with her nails. It gave her pleasure. It gave me a bit of pleasure at the time too, but it bloody well hurt afterwards. Some women are like that.”

  “Yes, some like to bite your dick off, but I’ve never met any, thank God. So where did you have this back-lacerating sex?”

  “Denton Woods.”

  “Where in the woods?”

  “By the lake.”

  “Right, so what happened after you disentangled your lacerated body?”

  “I dropped her off just outside Denton and we arranged to meet on Boxing Day.”

  “Why didn’t you take her home?”

  “She said she had to meet someone and they’d give her a lift back.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t remember, Inspector. It was a long time ago.”

  “It’s a long time ago now, son, but it wasn’t then. When you heard she’d been murdered, why didn’t you tell the police the name of this bloke she was meeting?”

  “I don’t know, Inspector. I think she muttered a name which meant nothing to me and I could hardly make out what she was saying. Perhaps I didn’t ask her . . . it was a bloody long time ago . . .”

  “All right. Let’s say I’m stupid enough to believe you. The next day, Christmas Day, she is found stripped naked, beaten up, raped, strangled, and dumped in a churchyard. The police put out appeals for help. Her parents are crying their bleeding eyes out. Why didn’t you come forward then?”

  “Because I was bloody scared. I was only seventeen. You don’t believe me now. I’d have been lynched if I’d gone to the cops then. They were screaming for blood.”

  “I was on duty at the time,” Frost told him. “I had to break the news to the girl’s parents. I’d have lynched you my bloody self. So you’re trying to tell me that you had willing sex, had your back torn to ribbons, dropped her off and someone else murdered her?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  Frost shook his head sadly. “If I were you, son, I’d make sure you get yourself a bloody good lawyer.”

  Fielding scowled. “You don’t believe me?”

  “It’s not my job to believe you, that’s the jury’s job. But if I were on the jury, I wouldn’t have to retire to find you guilty.”

  “It’s true,” Fielding shouted, banging his fist on the table.

  “Then be prepared for a gross miscarriage of justice,” said Frost, “because you will certainly go down for life.”

  “My client’s story sounds perfectly plausible to me,” said the solicitor. “I intend to demand bail.”

  “My colleague, Detective Chief Inspector Skinner, will be back tomorrow. He will question your client, take a statement and formally charge him. You can then ask the magistrate for bail.”

  “I didn’t do it,” insisted Fielding.

  “Most of the people I arrest say that,” Frost told him. “Funnily enough, the ones who confess are usually lying.”

  He was in the car, driving to Denton Woods to check on the search team, when his mobile rang. It was Taffy Morgan.

  “Guv, I’m outside that paedophile’s house. We’re just about to serve the search warrant.”

  “I didn’t ask for a flaming running commentary—just serve the flaming warrant.”

  “You should hear this, Guv, it’s important.”

  “It had better be flaming important,” cut in Frost. “I’m driving and on my mobile. It’s against the law. I might have to arrest myself.”

  “You’ll like this, Guv. Guess who’s just gone into the house?”

  “Prince Philip?”

  “No—better than him.” He paused for effect. “Harold Clark—Debbie Clark’s father.”

  Frost rammed his foot on the brake and swung the car into a screeching U-turn. “Stay put. Don’t do anything, Taff. I’m on my way . . .”

  7

  The lay preacher’s house was tucked down a quiet, tree-lined side road. It was an imposing dwelling, ivy clad and with a stone wall running round the perimeter. Clark’s car was parked in the driveway by the front door.

  Frost drove slowly past, then spotted DC Morgan’s car tucked down an adjoining side street. He nosed the Ford in behind it and waited while Morgan and a bespectacled, worried-looking man, whom Frost took to be the computer expert, climbed into the back.

  Morgan made the introductions. “This is Harry Edwards, the computer man, Guv. Clark’s still inside. It’s that big house round the corner.”

  “I saw it,” grunted Frost, holding his hand out for the search warrant to check Taffy hadn’t made one of his par-for-the-course sod-ups. All seemed to be in order. He opened the car door. “Right. Let’s frighten the shit out of them.”

  Frost switched on his charming smile as the front door was opened by a middle-aged man in a brown tweedy jacket, who blinked in s
urprise to find three strangers on his doorstep. “Can I help you, gentlemen?” he asked.

  “I wonder if you would mind reading this, Mr. Alman,” said Frost sweetly. “We’re police officers and this is a warrant to search your premises.”

  The man stared at the search warrant, then looked up at the inspector and shook his head in horrified disbelief. “I don’t understand. There must be some mistake.”

  “Could be,” agreed Frost, “but we have to check it out. The FBI seem to think that someone from this address, with your name and your credit-card details, has been buying and downloading pornographic images of children from the internet.”

  The blood drained from Alman’s face. He attempted a dismissive laugh and failed. “It is a mistake, officer. I don’t even have a computer.”

  “Fair enough,” purred Frost. “We’ll just come in and take a look at the computer you haven’t got, then we’ll turn your place upside-down, and if we don’t find what we’re looking for, you won’t believe the profuseness of our apologies.” He pushed past Alman into the house, followed by Morgan and Harry Edwards.

  “This is preposterous,” spluttered Alman, trying to head them off. “I’m a lay preacher. I’m about to hold a Bible class.” When he realised that Frost was ignoring him, he raised his voice almost to a shout. “It’s the police, with a warrant to search the house.”

  From a room at the far end of the hall came a thud of footsteps, then a lock clicked as someone inside turned the key. Frost rattled the handle. It didn’t budge. He turned to Alman. “It seems to have suddenly locked itself from the inside. Do you have a key?”

  Alman made a pretence of trying the handle. “Oh dear. It often does that—the wind slams it shut and the lock clicks. I’m afraid I haven’t got a key—but there’s nothing in there.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling the truth?” asked Frost. He stepped back and nodded to Morgan. “Kick it in.”

  Alman moved in front of the DC. “You’ve no right to do this!” he shouted.

  “Then I’m exceeding my authority.” snapped Frost, pushing him out of the way. “Give it some boot, Taff.”