A Killing Frost

by R D Wingfield

  The balcony door wasn’t locked. Turning the handle, he pushed it open and stepped out, bracing himself and grabbing the iron rail tight against the force of the wind, his hair and tie streaming.

  Frost looked down ten storeys into yawning blackness, then took the cigarette from his mouth and let it fall. It was like dropping a stone down a bottomless well. The red dot took ages before it shot out a miniature shower of sparks when it hit the ground and was swallowed up by the darkness. That was a bloody long way down. The boy couldn’t have fallen from here. He’d have done more than break his legs. He would have been smashed to pieces when he hit the concrete of the patio. He must have fallen from one of the lower floors. But which one?

  Frost stepped back from the balcony and closed the door, conscious that the others were looking at him, expecting him to come up with something. Well, they could bloody well expect. It felt warmer inside after his stint on the balcony, but it was still an icebox.

  “Debbie Clark was here,” he said. “Not on this floor, but she was here, in this building. It’s too dark to do a proper search tonight. We’ll get our team together and go over it inch by inch in the morning.” He stabbed a finger at Harry. “When we leave, you stay out of here. This is now a crime scene. If we catch you inside I’ll have you up for perverting the course of justice.”

  “You try and bleeding help,” moaned Harry, “and that’s the bleeding thanks you get.”

  13

  Frost was woken up in the middle of the night by the insistent ringing of his mobile phone. He staggered out of bed and clicked on the light. Where the hell was the phone? The damn thing was in the room somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where he had left it. He eventually located it under the bed.

  “Frost.” It had better not be a flaming wrong number.

  “Fortress Building Society, Inspector. Someone is withdrawing five hundred pounds from the cashpoint in Market Square right now. If you hurry, you can get him.”

  “Thanks,” said Frost. “For a minute I thought it was bad news.” He clicked off the phone and put it where he would forget it again.

  Shit! Beazley would chew his privates off in the morning. He shrugged. There was sod all he could do about it, he’d just have to cross that bridge when he came to it. He lit up a cigarette and smoked for a while before crawling back into bed. He switched off the light, but was unable to sleep. His mind kept whirring round and round, reminding him of all the vital things he had to do and didn’t have time for. Why wasn’t flaming Skinner taking some of the load off his back?

  He was still awake when the milkman rattled by at six and had just drifted off to sleep when the alarm went off at half past seven. It was still pitch dark outside.

  Frost swept through the lobby on his way to the Briefing Room, yelling a greeting to Station Sergeant Johnny Johnson. “How’s it going, Johnny?”

  Johnson slammed the incident book shut. “Our paedophile prisoners are complaining about the standard of their accommodation. They want bail.”

  “They want castrating,” said Frost. “I thought Skinner was dealing with them.”

  “He’s had to go back to his old division.”

  “I wish he’d bloody stay there. I think we’d better oppose bail for their own safety. Let’s try and get them put on remand—oh, and when that nice Mr. Beazley phones, you don’t know where I am.”

  He pushed through the swing doors and into the Briefing Room, where he gratefully accepted a mug of steaming hot tea from Collier. He stirred it with a pencil and wiped the sleep out of his eyes, then turned his attention to the search team.

  “As you probably know, we’ve found the boy’s bike. It was hidden in some shrubbery outside that big empty office block on Denton Road. I’m pretty certain that’s where the boy was killed and that’s probably where the girl was killed.”

  He paused as Johnny Johnson came in and handed him a memo from Forensic. He scanned it, then waved it aloft. “Forensic have confirmed it. The boy was killed there—the grit matches. There’s a metal trellis running up the side of the window by the balconies. I reckon something was going on inside that the boy wanted to see, so he climbs up the trellis, gets a grip on the balcony rail and is hanging there, ready to haul himself over, when our friendly neighbourhood murderer hears him and smashes his knuckles with a stick, making the kid lose his grip and fall. The fall didn’t kill him, so while he’s lying there, moaning with pain, the bastard comes down and bashes the kid’s skull in.”

  “Why?” asked Jordan.

  “Because the boy had seen something he should not have seen. He could have seen the girl being killed. There’s no proof of that at the moment, but I’m bloody certain Debbie Clark was killed there.”

  “So why didn’t the killer chuck the boy’s bike in the river along with the girl’s?”

  “Probably because he couldn’t find it,” answered Frost. “It’s hard to spot in daylight—at night it would have been impossible. It was too well hidden. I’m banking on this sequence of events, but if anyone can come up with anything better, let me know. I’m not too proud to pinch it as my own.” He waved his cigarettes around, then lit up.

  “I reckon Debbie Clark was going to meet someone and she was a bit worried about it—bloody rightly so, as it turned out—so she asked her boyfriend to follow and keep an eye on her. Whoever she meets takes her into the office block. Thomas hides outside, then sees lights come on at one of the floors, so he climbs up the trellis to get a closer look, and gets his head smashed in for his troubles. The first thing we’re going to do is find out which floor he fell from. I want the patio on all four sides searched for traces of blood. The poor sod would have bled like mad, both when he hit the ground and when his brains were knocked out. When we find where he fell, we can then check the trellis for signs of him climbing—the greenery should be crushed or disturbed, which should lead us to the actual balcony he was hanging on to when he was helped down. We might find blood and prints on the rail. When we know the floor, we can search inside to see if there is any trace of the girl having been there. It’s going to be a cold, back breaking task and if you find anything, I’ll take the credit, which Skinner will then take for himself. I also want the surrounding area searched to see if we can find the brain-splattered blunt instrument that finished off the boy.” He pinched out his cigarette and dropped it in his pocket. “All right. Let’s get going.”

  It was PC Collier who found it. “Inspector!”

  Frost came running over. Not only was the gravel stained and flecked with blood, there were marks where the boy’s body had been dragged before being lifted. Frost shouted for the others to stop the search. “We’ve found it!”

  They gathered round him as he moved over to the trellis. “This is where he climbed up—look.” He pointed. “You can see broken stems where he trod on them.” His eyes followed the ivy upwards. “I reckon he made it to the fourth floor—the plants seem undamaged above that point.” He pointed to the blood marks. “Get them covered up and radio Forensic. Now let’s take a look inside.”

  They clattered up the stairs to the fourth floor, a vast echoing barn of empty space stretching the entire width of the building. It was pitch dark—all the blinds had been closed. Frost jabbed a finger at Jordan. “Get on to that caretaker and ask him if the blinds should be shut in an empty building.” He fumbled for the switches and clicked on the lights. “Now open the bloody things.” He waited while the blinds were opened and daylight streamed into the barren area. Frost opened the door to the balcony and checked to confirm there were no more broken branches above this level. This had to be it. “Get Norton up here to check for prints and blood.”

  While Norton went to work, Frost struck a match on the NO SMOKING sign and dragged at a cigarette. He moved to the balcony to watch, then looked out over the distant houses to the outskirts of Denton. What a dump the place looked. But dump or not, he wasn’t going to let the bastards chuck him out. But how was he going to stop them? Why the hell did
he start fiddling his expenses? It wasn’t as if he needed the money. His thoughts were cut short. Morgan was calling him.

  “Guv!” The DC had found something and was holding it aloft triumphantly.

  “Show me,” said Frost, holding out his hand. It was a spent match. “I just used that to light my fag, you prat. Now make yourself useful for a change. Go downstairs and wait outside. I want to know if anyone would have been able to hear the poor cow when she screamed her bleeding head off, begging the bastard to stop.” He ordered the blinds to be shut again, as they would probably have deadened the sound on the night.

  Minutes later, Morgan phoned to say he was positioned outside. Frost yelled, “Mullett is a sod!” at the top of his voice. The sound echoed around the empty floor. He phoned Morgan. “Well? Did you hear that?”

  “No, Guv—and I was listening.”

  “Without me telling you to,” said Frost. “Get back up here.”

  As he thought—from the double-glazed fourth floor, the poor girl could have screamed and screamed until the whole floor echoed to her pleas, and no one outside would have heard her, even if anyone was about in this remote area.

  Norton reported marks on the rail, but no distinguishing prints. “If he was gripping the rail, Inspector, and someone then cracked his knuckles, he would have released his grip, his hand would have slid open and smeared whatever prints were there.”

  “No matter,” shrugged Frost. “We know he was here, prints or not.”

  “There’s specks of blood. I’ll get Forensic to match it.”

  “If you want,” said Frost. “We know whose blood it will be.”

  Jordan reported back. “The caretaker said the blinds are never shut, Inspector.”

  “Then the killer shut these,” said Frost. “That clinches it. The boy would have seen the lights come on and then the blinds close—that’s why he shinned up here.”

  The searchers, now at the far end of the floor, had found nothing, except for a few bits of ancient rubbish.

  Frost dug his hands in his pockets. “She was here. The poor little cow was stripped, beaten and raped. She screamed her bleeding head off and no one heard. All right, let’s retrace our footsteps. Let’s assume she came in by the main entrance . . .”

  “She couldn’t do that, Inspector,” Collier pointed out. “The time lock. She wouldn’t be able to get in after four and she left home at half seven.”

  “Good point,” said Frost. “Bloody good point. You’ve shot my theory right up the fundamental orifice, but . . .” He stopped. “There must be some way of overriding the time switch. Supposing some silly sod got themselves locked inside the building and wanted to get out? Phone the caretaker and ask him. The rest of you, downstairs.”

  As they clattered down the stairs, Frost yelled after them, “Keep your grubby paws off the hand rail. If he had a spark of bleeding decency, our killer would have left prints.”

  The lobby by the main entrance where Frost had been the previous night was the only part of the building that was fitted out. Its floor was covered with heavy-duty green carpeting and it was equipped with visitors’ chairs. Frost nodded at the two ivory phones on the reception desk. “Check them.”

  “Wiped clean,” reported Norton. “But the phones are dead, so they could have been cleaned months or more ago.”

  “Right, now check the lift-summoning button and the button inside for the fourth floor.”

  Norton checked and shook his head. “Blurred prints all on top of each other. I reckon the caretaker uses it every day.”

  “You’re bleeding useless,” said Frost. “Check the handrail to the fourth floor.”

  Collier hurried down the stairs. “The caretaker says you can set and un-set the time switch from the lobby. The switch box is under the reception desk.”

  Frost bent and looked. There it was. A white switch box with buttons setting ‘on’ and ‘off’ times and days of the week. A green button was marked ‘Emergency Override’.

  Frost called Norton over. “See if you can get any prints off that. The rest of you, search this place from top to bottom. See if you can find some trace—anything—that the girl was here or that something dodgy was going on, or can find the weapon that knocked the boy’s brains out. I know she was bloody well here, but I can’t bloody prove it . . . Apart from that, I’ve got this case tied up.” He shook his head. “Whoever killed her knew this place. He knew how to get in—how to work the time lock. He knew he could do what he liked with her and she wouldn’t be heard. But why did she come? It must have been someone she trusted . . . or thought she could trust. Her father? That bastard—he’s involved in this somehow. We know he had it in for the boyfriend.”

  “Perhaps Debbie saw her dad kill Thomas Harris and had to be silenced, Guv?” offered Morgan.

  Frost rubbed his scar. The cold in the unheated building was making it ache. “She wasn’t just killed, Taff, she was beaten and raped.” Would a father kill his own daughter? The sort of bastard who could hand photographs of his young daughter in the nude to a gang of paedophiles would certainly be capable of it, and if he lusted after her, he might be capable of rape, but the beating? He hadn’t faced Clark with the photograph yet. Something else on the long list of vital things he wasn’t doing.

  His mobile phone rang.

  It was Bill Wells from the station.

  “Jack, you’ve got to get this sod Beazley off my back. He’s doing his nut. He wants you and he’s blaming me for not getting you to contact him. He’s taken my name, address and number and is going to report me to the Home Secretary, the Queen, the Prime Minister, Carol Vorderman, the bloody lot. He’s not going to wait much longer.”

  Frost groaned. Yet another addition to the long list of vital jobs he just didn’t have time for.

  “As soon as I can, Bill, I promise you. As soon as I can.” That was a bleeding lie for a start. He’d put it off as long as he could. He switched the phone off and dropped it back in his mac pocket, then yelled for PC Collier.

  “Leave what you are doing, son, and come with me. We’re going back to the nick. There was another withdrawal from the cashpoint last night. Pick up the CCTV footage from Fortress and get more CCTV videos of cars in the vicinity at the time. A common factor must show itself up.”

  Frost waltzed through the doors of the station. “Honey, I’m home,” he called to Bill Wells, who had now taken over from Johnny Johnson.

  “Your dinner’s in the oven and there’s a gentleman here to see you,” said Wells, nodding to a man sitting on the bench opposite his desk.

  Frost groaned. It was Lewis. “I’m rather busy, Mr. Lewis,” he began as the man rose to meet him.

  “I want to be arrested,” said Lewis. “I’ve killed my wife.”

  “We’ve been through all this, Mr. Lewis,” began Frost, edging for the door.

  “You think I’m mad, don’t you?”

  “Of course not,” said Frost. “Just absent minded. As soon as you remember where you put the pieces, come and see me.” He put his hand on Lewis’s arm and gently led him to the doors. “You go home now, Mr. Lewis.”

  “She’s dead,” said Lewis softly. “I killed her.”

  “I know,” nodded Frost. “And you can’t prove it. It’s a sod, isn’t it?” He propelled the man through the doors and firmly pushed them shut behind him. “He’s getting to be a bleeding nuisance,” he told Bill Wells.

  “He might be telling the truth, Jack.”

  “She’s in London, drawing money out of the bank on her cash card. Bit difficult to do that when you’re cut up in little pieces.”

  “Someone’s been drawing cash. It could be Lewis.”

  “It could be Elvis bleeding Presley, but it isn’t,” snapped Frost. “It’s her.” He said it as if he was convinced. Why were bleeding doubts still gnawing away?

  “Have you seen Beazley yet?” asked Wells. “I get palpitations each time the phone rings.”

  The phone rang. Wells stepped back and loo
ked at it apprehensively.

  “You’d better answer it,” said Frost. “It might be Tom Champagne.”

  It was Beazley.

  “He’s on his way to you now, Mr. Beazley,” croaked Wells. He moved the phone away from his ear as a stream of invective poured out. The tirade stopped. “On his way now, Mr. Beazley, I promise you.” He hung up quickly and looked appealingly at Frost. “Please, Jack.”

  “I want to have a word with Clark,” said Frost. All right—it was a delaying tactic. But he did have to talk to him.

  “Why can’t I have bail?” demanded Clark.

  “Where would you go?” asked Frost. “Your wife won’t have you back with her.”

  “The house is in my name,” said Clark. “She’ll do what she is damn well told.”

  “You don’t like people going against your wishes, do you?” said Frost.

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “You told your daughter she wasn’t to go out with Thomas Harris. She went against your wishes. Now she is dead and the boy is dead.”

  Clark stared at Frost, eyes wide, mouth open. “Are you suggesting I killed . . . killed my own daughter? I’m not saying another word unless my solicitor is present.”

  Staring back at Clark, Frost took the childhood photograph of Debbie from his pocket and thrust it in Clark’s face. “Is this your daughter, Mr. Clark?”

  “You know damn well it is. Where the hell did you get it from?”

  “It was on the computer of your paedophile chums. Did you share it around so they could all dribble over it?”

  The colour drained from Clark’s face. He took the photograph and gaped at it in disbelief. “Inspector, you’ve got to believe me . . . I never . . . I . . .” He shook his head. “Wait . . . I did send it to one of our group. This was long before I knew of their . . . our special tastes. I was proud of her. I was just showing her off. This was years ago . . . I never dreamt . . .”