A Killing Frost

by R D Wingfield

  “Me? It was Skinner’s case.”

  “You knew he was dead. Who else could go in his place apart from you?”

  “Things were a bit bloody abnormal last night,” retorted Frost. “We did have other things to worry about.”

  Mullett fluttered a dismissive hand. “Excuses, excuses, always excuses. The case files are on DCI Skinner’s desk. I want you to take them over for the time being until we get a replacement. This, as I am sure you will appreciate, makes no difference to your joining Lexton division, although that will depend on the result of the inquiry into Skinner’s death. I can’t back you up there, as you know, so your future in the force is in doubt. And in that respect, County want a full report from you on what happened last night. Detailed, Frost—not a couple of lines of your usual scribble.”

  “Right,” said Frost, rising from the chair. “Was that all?”

  Mullett patted some papers into a neat pile on his desk. “There is one other thing . . . the funeral. There will be a police presence, of course. You—er—have got another suit? That one is hardly appropriate.”

  “I’ll rake out my old Teddy Boy suit,” said Frost. “It should still fit.”

  Frost mooched into Skinner’s office and shivered. The room felt cold. Why did a dead person’s office have a different feel to a living person’s office? He crossed to the filing cabinet where Skinner kept his fiddled car expenses and gave the top drawer a tentative tug, but it was locked. None of the keys on his ring worked, neither did his nail file or an opened-out paper clip. Skinner had had an expensive new lock fitted. Shit!

  He sank into Skinner’s chair and tried the deep filing drawer. It slid open to reveal a couple of bottles of Johnny Walker. Serendipity! Well, Skinner wouldn’t want them any more. He took them out and scurried back to his own office, hid them in his desk drawer, then returned to Skinner’s room.

  A small stack of case files awaited his attention. He pulled them towards him. The one on the top was for the Fielding rape and murder case, which Skinner had had ready for his court appearance. Frost opened it and idly flicked through the contents, pausing as he reached all the old papers from that distant Christmas when the girl’s body was discovered in that frozen churchyard. He shivered again, the cold of the room transporting him back to that frosty Christmas morning with hard-packed snow scrunching underfoot. And it put him in mind of his return home and his young wife, in that red dress . . . He shook his head to shake away the memories.

  He closed the file and pushed it to one side. Then he paused. Something inside his head was telling him that he had spotted something in the file, something significant. There was something he had skimmed over, which had subconsciously registered in his brain. So what the hell was it?

  He opened up the file again. Among the top papers were the computer printouts of Fielding’s petty criminal record—all minor traffic offences. Nothing there—or was there? Speeding . . . dangerous driving . . . Manchester. Manchester! He stared, snatched up the file and scurried into the Incident Room, waving the folder at Collier and Morgan, who were seated by the computer.

  “Come and have a look at this.”

  They crowded round him as he opened up the file. “This is the list of Fielding’s past offences, right?”

  “Pretty trivial stuff though, Guv,” said Morgan. “Motoring offences.”

  Frost jabbed a finger. “This one. Dangerous driving, Manchester, 22 September.” He looked at them expectantly. They looked back, puzzled.

  “Are we missing something?” asked Collier.

  “The date,” said Frost. “The bloody date!”

  They still stared back blankly.

  “September 22nd. The day that girl went missing. The girl whose body we found on the railway embankment. Fielding was in Manchester the day the girl went missing.”

  “Coincidence?” suggested Morgan.

  “I don’t believe in flaming coincidences, especially when they don’t suit me,” said Frost. “The girl was abducted on the 22nd September and we reckon she was abducted by someone from Denton. We have someone on a rape and murder charge who comes from Denton.”

  “Possible,” conceded Collier begrudgingly.

  “Try not to be too bleeding enthusiastic,” said Frost “There’s other motor offences in other towns. I want you to check back with the forces concerned and see if any girls went missing or if there were rapes or attempted rapes on the day of the offences.”

  “Right,” nodded Collier, taking the file and picking up the phone.

  Wells came in. “Mullett wants you again, Jack.”

  “What, again? He’s man-mad,” said Frost.

  The Superintendent was standing in Frost’s office, the bottles of whisky from Skinner’s filing cabinet on the desk before him. Mullett was glowering and pointing an accusing finger at them.

  “When I went into DCI Skinner’s office this morning there were two bottles of whisky in his drawer. When I checked just now, they had gone. I come into your office and there they are. This is outrageous, Frost. Stealing from the dead—absolutely outrageous.”

  “I thoroughly agree with you, Super,” said Frost. “Sneaking into someone’s office and going down their private drawers. I expected better of you.”

  “Me?” croaked Mullett, pointing a finger at himself in shocked outrage. “Me? You take whisky from a deceased colleague . . . a colleague in whose death you are deeply involved. This is despicable, Frost. It is nothing short of theft.”

  Bloody right, thought Frost, his mind racing, trying to think of a way to get out of this one. Then he had an idea. He pulled open a desk drawer and took out the note Sandy Lane had sent with the whisky he had given him. “If you had looked more carefully, in DCI Skinner’s drawer, Super, you would have found this note from Sandy Lane of the Denton Echo.” He handed Mullett the scribbled note, which read: ‘You kept asking for whisky in return for inside information, so here it is.’

  “Skinner seems to have been taking bribes from the press. I’m sure even you wouldn’t have wanted that to come out, Super.”

  Mullett frowned at the ‘even you’.

  “In respect to the Detective Chief Inspector’s memory.” said Frost, wiping away a non-existent tear, “I thought it best to remove the evidence. I’m sorry you found out, Super, but the last thing I expected was that you would sneak into my office and rummage in my drawers, trying to prove I was a thief. I’m afraid I thought better of you.”

  Mullett’s mouth opened and closed like a gulping goldfish. “My dear Frost . . . what can I say?”

  “You’ve hurt my feelings, but your apology is enough,” said Frost. “In your own way, you probably meant well.”

  Mullett squeezed out a smile of gratitude. “What do you intend doing with the whisky?”

  “I shall take it to a charity shop,” said Frost, putting the bottles back in the drawer. “I think Skinner would have wanted that.”

  “Charity shop?” Mullett frowned. He didn’t know charity shops took whisky, but being wrong-footed by the inspector had completely thrown him. He nodded. “A good idea, Frost . . . yes, an excellent idea.” He made a hurried exit.

  Frost looked up hopefully as Collier came in. The PC shook his head. “Nothing on record for any of those dates, Inspector.”

  “Damn. I suppose it was too much to hope he would oblige us by getting tickets everytime he did a bird in.” He drummed his fingers on his desk. “It’s him. He’s our rapist and killer. I just know it. His DNA matches that old murder and rape case, he was in Manchester when the other girl went missing and turned up dead, and his car was picked up on CCTV when that girl was raped in the car park. It’s just too much of a flaming coincidence.”

  “His DNA didn’t match the sperm sample from the girl in the car park,” reminded Collier.

  “Don’t put bloody difficulties in my path, son. The bastard did it.”

  “But we’ve got no proof.”

  “Proof? I don’t need proof. I just know.” He lea
nt back in his chair and sighed. “OK, son. Thanks for trying.”

  He opened up the next box file, which contained details of the Debbie Clark/Thomas Harris killings, as well as copies of the video tape, and the mobile phone. Skinner had dismissed Patsy Kelly and Bridget Malone as possible suspects. Skinner was probably right, but they were all that Frost had. And the mobile phone . . . was her mother wrong? Did Debbie leave it behind in her locker for Malone to steal? He held the phone aloft in its sealed plastic bag. “If only you could speak, you sod.”

  The last file was on the missing teenager Jan O’Brien. They’d searched everywhere they could and found sod all. They’d reported her as a missing person. Nothing. She could have run away from home as she had done so many times before, but she’d always come back before. She had no money and, like Debbie Clark, they had found her mobile phone. Skinner had scrawled ‘Don’t waste too much time on this one’ across the main report sheet. Frost wasn’t so sure. The woman who had phoned Sandy Lane about the video of Debbie Clark had mentioned a video of the other girl. Was she talking about Jan O’Brien? If so, were they still holding her, or was she dead? Shit! Bridget and the mobile were the only leads they had got. They were not going to get anywhere until they could clear up the mystery of the phone. If Mrs. Clark was right and Debbie took it with her that night, then the only way Bridget could have got it was from the girl. If the mother was wrong, then Bridget could have pinched it from Debbie’s locker. But back to Jan O’Brien. There was nothing they could do until they either heard from the girl or found the poor kid’s body. He shuddered. They had enough young girls’ dead bodies. He didn’t want any more. What next? The flaming detailed report County wanted. Shit. He was in no mood for that.

  Bill Wells poked his head round the door. He had an envelope in his hand. “Like to contribute to Skinner’s wreath, Jack?”

  “No,” snapped Frost. “I hated the bastard.”

  Wells grinned. “We all did, Jack, but we’re still chipping in.”

  “Because you haven’t got the courage of your flaming convictions. Now pee off. I’ve got a detailed report to write for County about the shooting. How do you spell ‘Good riddance’? And I want to stress that Mullett, the senior officer, was there throughout—how do you spell ‘slimy bastard’?”

  “Be careful how you write it, Jack,” warned Wells. “They’ll be looking for a scapegoat.”

  “If I caused his death, I’d be proud to take the credit,” said Frost. “The silly sod killed himself. Creeping into a house he’d never been in before, knowing that the bloke inside was round the bend and armed—he was a prat.”

  “He didn’t deserve to die in that way, Jack.”

  “No—he deserved to be eaten to death by rats. This was too good for him.” He looked at the blank report sheet with distaste. “Sod it. County will have to flaming well wait.” He tossed it into his in-tray and pulled the files towards him. “As a reward for killing Skinner, Mullett is moving forward my transfer. The new Inspector—a friend of Skinner’s, so he’ll be a charmer—arrives at the end of next week.”

  He drummed his fingers on the files. “I want to get these outstanding, cases cleared before I go, but there’s little chance of that.” He tucked the files under his arm. “I shall miss this bloody place.”

  “We’ll miss you, Jack,” said Wells.

  “Bleeding car expenses,” snorted Frost. “It wasn’t as if I needed the money. It was my way of jabbing two fingers up at the system. And now the bastards are jabbing two fingers up at me.”

  “You got anything black for the funeral?” called Wells after him as he left the office.

  “Yes—black fingernails and a black look for Hornrim Harry.”

  Frost surveyed his team in the Incident Room. Most of them looked as tired as he felt. “Right, let’s stop sodding about. I’m definitely being booted out in a couple of weeks and I want to tie up at least one of our outstanding cases before that happy day.”

  He passed his cigarettes around and perched himself on the corner of a desk. “Debbie Clark and Thomas Harris. We’ve missed something. I don’t know what it is, but we’ve bloody missed something. So let’s go over it, step by step. If anyone has any bright ideas that I can pinch as my own, don’t be coy—shout them out.” He flipped open the file. “Right. Girl beaten, raped and strangled on video. Woman phones wanting us to tell the press about the video. The theory so far, a snuff movie. They haven’t got an up-to-date photo of Debbie so they don’t get any money unless we confirm it is her. The boy went with her, was caught and killed to keep his mouth shut. The girl took a bikini and we reckon was expecting a photo session—she always wanted to be a model. Whoever killed her must have known this. There’s at least two people involved—a man and a woman. The girl calls out a name—Millie, Molly or something similar. The mother is positive the girl took her mobile with her. Bridget Malone reckons she pinched the mobile from the kid’s locker the day after the girl disappeared—kids should lock their lockers, but too often they don’t bother, so she just helped herself.”

  “Guv—” Taffy Morgan was waving a hand.

  Frost looked up wearily. “You should have done one before you came in.”

  “Not a wee, Guv. If you remember, I searched Debbie’s locker the morning after she went missing.”

  “And the phone wasn’t there?”

  “That’s right, Guv . . . just an envelope with a fiver inside, for a school outing.”

  Frost frowned. “Hold on, Taff. A fiver? How come Bridget didn’t pinch that? She took the mobile. She would have taken the readies too, surely.”

  “That’s the point I’m trying to make, Guv. Debbie’s locker was locked. I had to get the key from the headmistress to open it.”

  Frost leant back in amazement. “Locked! You never mentioned this in your report.”

  Morgan looked shamefaced. “I didn’t think it was important, Guv.”

  “Every bleeding thing is important in a murder case, you prat. But locked? That tart Malone said she only went to the ones she could open and she wouldn’t have bloody well locked it up again.”

  “Exactly, Guv. What I’m saying is, if it was locked and there was no phone when I unlocked it, then Bridget Malone never got the phone from there.”

  “Then she’s lying,” said Frost. “The cow’s lying. Bring her in.”

  “This is harassment,” she screamed. “Sheer harassment.”

  “Shut up, Bridget,” sighed Frost. “You’re giving me a headache.” He slid Debbie’s mobile in its polythene bag across the table. “I want the truth about this phone.”

  She glared at him. “So I nicked a flaming phone. What am I going to get—life?”

  “You don’t know how right you are,” said Frost. “Only the charge won’t be nicking, it will be conspiracy to murder.”

  “Murder? You must be hard up for suspects. I told you, I pinched it from her locker.”

  “There was a fiver in an envelope. Why didn’t you take that as well?”

  “So I’m guilty of not taking a fiver now? This is all rubbish.”

  “No. Your story is rubbish, Bridget. There is no way you could have got into her locker. Debbie’s locker was locked. The only way you could have got hold of that phone was by taking it from Debbie the night she was murdered.”

  “Then it must have been in someone else’s locker. I don’t bother with locked ones, and I certainly wouldn’t have missed a fiver. Can I go now?” She stood up.

  Frost flapped a hand. “Sit down, Bridget.” He squeezed his chin in thought. Somebody else’s locker. Bloody hell. He should have thought of that. Bridget was a tea-leaf, but in no way a killer. He raised his head and looked thoughtfully at the woman. “Prove your story to me, Bridget. Think hard. Which locker did you get the phone from?”

  She shook her head. “As sure as there’s a God in heaven, I don’t know. I just went round quickly in case anyone caught me. I tried locker doors. If they opened I saw what was worth pinching and I
took it. It came from one of the lockers, that’s all I can tell you.”

  Frost nodded wearily in despair. “All right, Bridget. I believe you. But if you can remember . . .”

  She shrugged. “If I remember, I’ll tell you, but I don’t think I will. There were lots of lockers and it was all done in a rush.”

  “I’m clutching at flaming straws!” moaned Frost. “Her and Kelly are not the type to do this sort of thing. I know that, so why did I suddenly decide they were guilty?” He rammed a cigarette in his mouth. “Snuff movies. Bloody snuff movies, and the kick of seeing yourself doing these things to a kid.”

  “It’s lucky that bloke spotted the bodies,” said Morgan. “They were so well concealed, they could have remained there like the other one.”

  Frost stopped dead in his tracks, the match for his cigarette still in his hand. “I’m a prat, Taffy, a flaming prat. That’s what’s been nagging away at me all the time and I’ve not been listening. Get your car. We’re going round to where the bodies were.”

  They were in the field with its burnt stubble where the corn had been harvested. Frost had made Morgan bump his car into the heart of the field. “Stop here, Taff. This is about it.”

  Morgan stopped the car and switched off the engine. “Why here, Guv?”

  “Because my little Welsh wonder, this is where the tractor driver was when he spotted the bodies.” Taffy followed as Frost headed out into the field.

  Frost pointed. “They were behind that bush up there.” The blue marquee had been removed.

  “I know, Guv,” said Morgan. “I was here, remember?”

  “Don’t get snarky with me, you Welsh git. Debbie was wedged behind that bush, Taff. Now there’s no way you could have seen her body from here.”

  “The driver wasn’t on the ground, Guv. He was higher up, in the cab of his tractor.”

  “Right. Get on the roof of your car . . . come on.”

  Morgan looked doubtful, then clambered on to the bonnet. His foot slipped and his shoes scraped across the paintwork. “I’ve scratched the car, Guv,” he said plaintively.