Morning Frost

by James, Henry

  ‘The country is awash with nine-millimetre automatics from the Continent and the States,’ a Forensics officer cut in. ‘Walthers, Berettas, Lugers.’

  ‘Quite. But this is Denton, not New York. The proximity of the crimes makes it certainly possible, plus both were perpetrated by a female.’ He pointed to the artist’s impressions on the boards. ‘Perhaps one and the same.’

  ‘But they look totally different!’ a WPC remarked.

  ‘Our artist can’t draw for toffee,’ Frost snapped. ‘Be thankful he’s not colourblind too.’

  ‘The descriptions are different, granted,’ said the duty sergeant who was perched on the desk to Frost’s right, ‘but one consistency is that witnesses to both crimes reported the assailant to be heavily tarted up.’

  Frost picked up the thread: ‘So, under all the warpaint, it could be the same woman in disguise – not that you’d make that connection from these Rolf Harris doodles.’ He gestured disparagingly at the artist’s impressions. ‘However, what do we make of the reported age difference? One’s described as a girl in her mid-twenties – the one at Baskin’s – the other at Gregory’s payroll is said to be thirty or forty …’

  ‘Jack, are you saying it’s the same woman or not?’ Hanlon asked, confused.

  ‘Anything’s a possibility! We should keep an open mind. No money was taken from the Baskin hit, so it seems odd that the very next day our would-be assassin would hold up a payroll. But remember, both these crimes happened very quickly, and in such circumstances that even a scant disguise could trick a victim. According to the payroll clerk’s statement, though unsure of the attacker’s age judging by her appearance, he did notice her youthful agility.’ He paused to light a cigarette. ‘Which brings me on to the fine young man who took that statement.

  ‘As you will all know, Detective Constable Derek Simms was brutally murdered, practically on my own doorstep, shortly after midnight this morning.’ As Frost recounted the sequence of events for the second time that day, it finally sunk in that the boy was dead, and he was truly sorry.

  ‘OK, so, going forward, I will continue with the Baskin case and take over the payroll robbery. DS Waters will continue on the two rapes with DC Clarke, when she returns. Officially DS Waters will take on DC Simms’s murder, a point which no doubt Hornrim Harry will ram home tomorrow – but, unofficially, all of us are working on this one. Anything else?’

  ‘Simms was working on the dead paperboy,’ someone in uniform said.

  ‘Noted.’ Realistically there was no possible way Frost could take on anything more, and he certainly didn’t want that case to get sidelined, but he had to prioritize – had to get a result. ‘I’ll look into it. Anything else?’

  ‘Counterfeit money?’ someone else offered.

  ‘Balls to that,’ Frost snapped dismissively.

  ‘We’re with you all the way, Sarge,’ an unshaven PC, tie askew, said emotively. ‘We’ll nail whoever killed Derek Simms.’ Miller, of course, Simms’s mate from uniform, who shared a flat with him in police housing.

  ‘Cheers, son, appreciate your support.’ Frost noticed the mood had lifted. ‘OK’ – he clapped his hands – ‘onwards!’

  As the scraping of chairs signalled the end of the ad hoc briefing Frost leaned back against the wall, his arm nudging the board, and lit another cigarette. The sense that he had them on side made him feel pleased.

  DS Waters had come late to the meeting, unseen by Frost, and was also standing with his back against the wall looking at the bustling room. He sidled up.

  ‘Ah, John, where the hell have you been? Old Bill was babbling on about something about a punch-up?’

  ‘Well … it’s not how it seems.’

  By now Frost had turned and clocked his colleague’s bashed-in nose. ‘Bloody hell, not again. Something about you, isn’t there?’

  Sunday (5)

  After her weekend away, Detective Constable Sue Clarke felt good. She arched her back and stretched before getting out of the car. It had been dark for several hours and her eyes felt the strain of driving the long distance. She reached back inside the car and pulled out the duffel bag containing her overnight stuff. Shutting the car door with a contented sigh, she reflected on her time away as she climbed the stairs to her flat.

  Her parents had received the news of her pregnancy better than expected. Clarke had been vague about why she was opting for motherhood so early in her career. She didn’t say it was planned, and she didn’t say it was an accident – but she conveyed such a sense of excitement that the rationale behind it was a matter of little interest. And yes, she really was excited. At first the heightened emotion had been produced for her mother’s benefit, but she’d quickly found the reflected enthusiasm infectious, and before she knew it, she was gaily debating names over tea and scones.

  On the question of the father, she answered truthfully that he was a policeman, and confessed that she was hoping to settle down with one Derek Simms. Travelling alone yesterday had given her time to filter her thoughts, and to get a perspective on life outside the police force, something she’d been immersed in since the age of sixteen. The warm welcome at her parents’ reinforced this; there was a richness to family life that made her acknowledge for the first time her desire for it on top of her career.

  Clarke had been born in Denton, but throughout her teens her mother and father had shuttled to and from Colchester to attend to her ailing grandmother, and eventually formed an attachment to the place. Following her father’s retirement from his law firm, with Clarke at the police college in Hendon, they’d decided to up and move. It was irritating to have to go so far to visit them, and would probably be all the more so with a baby in tow, but she couldn’t criticize them for doing what they wanted. She recognized that streak of determination in herself.

  Wearily she forced the stiff Yale lock and shoved open the door. The light on the answering machine blinked manically at her from the small phone table in the hall. ‘Yes, I will,’ she whispered affectionately to the small bright red light, expecting it to be her lover; for she had decided she would marry Derek Simms. The euphoria had not diminished since Saturday morning, and though tired after a four-hour drive back from Essex, she dearly wanted to see Derek.

  You have twenty-one new messages. Blimey, you are keen, she thought, pressing Play and moving across the flat to run a bath.

  ‘Louise, darlin’, slow down.’

  She paced Palmer’s office angrily, pausing to glare through the smoked glass at the youths around the snooker tables below as if they were in some way responsible for her predicament. She was furious he had cancelled her hit on Baskin that morning – killing Frost was one thing, but that was personal, and it didn’t pay for a flight to Spain.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything last night?’ Palmer continued.

  ‘I tried to talk to you and you said not to discuss business!’ she snapped back.

  ‘But you could have waited until Charles and Brazier left – they weren’t here late. Why were you in such a hurry anyway?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I wanted to think things through.’ Which was actually true to a degree. She couldn’t understand it – why would Pumpy give the same tip about the robbery to someone else? Was he trying to stitch her up? She just couldn’t work out his game. ‘I did not rob the Gregory payroll; understand?’ she spat out venomously.

  ‘Well, who the bleeding hell did?’

  She caught a glint in the shadows, behind Palmer: Nicholson’s spectacles. She hadn’t even noticed that Palmer’s number-two was in the room. Nicholson hated her, of that she was sure; although she’d never been quite sure why; perhaps he was jealous of Palmer’s affection for her. Maybe they were lovers.

  ‘I don’t know – somebody beat me to it,’ she explained. ‘After they left the bank I followed them on a bike. I overtook them and hid the bike, but then came back to see another woman waving a shooter around: the minder was already on the ground, and the gun was in the kid’s face.’<
br />
  ‘Some bird?’ Marty replied, surprised.

  ‘Yes, “some bird”.’ Louise perched on the expansive desk, running a ruby-painted fingernail along the folds of his hefty jowls. Surely she could squeeze him for a couple of quid too? ‘I just wondered whether you tipped off every girl who walks through here, that’s all.’

  He shifted in the chair. ‘I don’t know any birds with the balls you’ve got to pull off a job like that in broad daylight – that’s a man’s game.’

  ‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘it wasn’t a man – I saw it with my own eyes: a woman dressed like an old dear.’

  ‘An old biddy?’

  ‘That’s what I thought, until I saw how fast she legged it across the road – a woman, all right, but not old. Uncanny disguise, though; she even had a headscarf on like me. I felt a right idiot.’

  Palmer snorted. ‘To think blokes are so unimaginative, just shoving on a lady’s stocking when they’re pulling a job. Girls have so much more panache – why not make an effort with a headscarf and a pair of shades.’

  ‘I’m serious, Marty.’

  ‘So am I – can’t have jobs being pulled off round here that I don’t know about.’ A vertical eyelet of podgy white flesh winked at her through the straining black shirt as he rocked back in the chair. ‘Still, if someone’s dumb enough to walk through the centre of town carrying a big bag of money, then I guess it’s to be expected. Forget about it, darlin’.’

  ‘What about Baskin?’ she said, anxious to get back on to the subject of her earnings.

  ‘Forget about him too – for now. There’s too much heat now that copper got done. Baskin is small beer, but keep your head down, Frost will be sniffing around – they’ll be shaking every tree in the orchard for this one.’

  ‘F-Frost?’ Louise Daley couldn’t help but stutter over his name. How could it be! He went down, she made sure of that. ‘Frost?’ she repeated in surprise – or was it another emotion, one she’d never experienced. Fear.

  ‘Why, you look surprised?’ The shadow, Nicholson, stepped forward.

  ‘Nah, he’s got it in for me – that’s all,’ she said.

  ‘Where did you go, eh? After leaving Mr Palmer’s last night?’ he said quietly. ‘I think she’s been a very naughty girl, Mr Palmer. I reckon it’s her that did that rozzer last night, thinking it was Frost.’

  Why would he say that? How could he know? Louise moved away from the desk, feeling insecure. Palmer scrutinized her. She couldn’t hide from his cunning, she knew.

  ‘Marty, look, I just need some cash to get out of Denton, lie low … Don’t listen to him, he hates me, you know that. Always has.’

  ‘Pumps, you got to distance yourself – she’ll bring the filth down on us and we can’t afford that. She’s already screwed up with Baskin.’

  She pleaded with Palmer, but uncertainty clouded his face; fond of her as he was, he wouldn’t allow her to put his business at risk, or himself in jeopardy. He said nothing. He didn’t even enquire whether she really had killed the policeman; Louise read it as he’d rather not know. Palmer was doing as his henchman advised – he was distancing himself from her.

  ‘You can have what I got on me,’ he said finally, reaching inside his jacket for his wallet, ‘then you’d best clear out for a while.’

  A man of Palmer’s stature had little need of cash – he had only sixty pounds in his pocket. Three twenties. Nicholson offered her nothing aside from a smile that resembled a sneer.

  She pocketed the notes, and was about to embrace Palmer, but his stony expression stopped her in her tracks.

  ‘Look after me mum, Marty?’ she said hopefully as she took her leave. ‘Please?’ But the big man’s attention was already elsewhere, beyond the mirrored glass of the office window.

  Sunday (6)

  Frost leaned on the cell door, squinting through the peephole.

  ‘He doesn’t look like much,’ he remarked, turning to peruse Waters’ injured face. ‘What were you doing, dozing? Or chatting up the bird?’

  ‘I didn’t expect the little git to spring me with a monster wrench.’ Waters massaged the plaster that spanned the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Suits you.’

  ‘They don’t come in my colour – apparently we never bleed.’

  Frost grunted, and turned again to view the wispy specimen sitting on the cell bunk clutching his knees. ‘How did a little fella like that get such a clean swing at a big bloke like you?’

  ‘Told you – I was caught by surprise.’

  ‘Really? Not as surprised as his solicitor is claiming.’

  ‘That’s bullshit, man. He is one lying bastard.’

  ‘I believe you, and the pretty girl says so too. Anyway,’ Frost said, reaching into his trouser pocket, ‘he’ll be the surprised one in a minute when I slice off his goolies with this.’

  Frost pulled out his Swiss army knife and waggled it behind his ear. He’d found it invaluable since his wife’s death for everything from bean tins to bottle tops. To his mind the fact that Windley was a teacher at Denton Comp was more than coincidence; he was sure they had their man. Suddenly he felt the knife whipped from his grip.

  ‘Yes, that would be just the sort of thing to do now, wouldn’t it, Frost?’ Superintendent Mullett stood behind him, tapping the Swiss army knife on his thumbnail. ‘Threatening to castrate a schoolteacher?’

  ‘Hello, sir, didn’t hear you creep up.’ Frost sighed. ‘Rapists, though, best thing for them – one way to guarantee they’ll never do it again.’

  But Mullett ignored him. ‘And you, Sergeant Waters,’ he continued, ‘I’m glad to hear you feel able to make light of matters.’

  ‘Whoa there, sir,’ Frost countered, ‘that’s just not fair—’

  ‘Then what is fair, Jack?’ Mullett was spoiling for a fight. Frost could see the colour beginning to rise around the superintendent’s shirt collar. Usually Frost would goad him, but given the current circumstances he reined himself in. Mullett resumed: ‘From an outside perspective your prisoner’s actions seem perfectly reasonable – a landlord is dutifully fixing a leak when, startled by a large coloured man on his premises, he fears for his life and takes a swing.’

  ‘What’s his colour got to do with it?’ Frost argued.

  Mullett paused and looked at his shoes, then continued: ‘Windley claims it was the shock of seeing a black man that terrified him into violence. He’d only ever seen people like Sergeant Waters rioting on the television.’

  ‘And you believe that?’ Frost said incredulously. ‘Look at his face!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I believe, Frost.’

  ‘The girl saw it all,’ muttered Waters without much conviction.

  ‘I don’t give a tinker’s cuss what the girl says’ – Mullett’s voice was reduced to an angry hiss, to avoid being overheard by the cell’s occupant – ‘the fact remains that DS Waters here did not have ID when he entered the flat – and here the girl agrees.’ Mullett switched his attention to Waters. ‘That’s correct, is it not?’

  ‘I left my badge in the car, but she knew I was coming,’ Waters explained. ‘She let me in.’

  ‘That is not the point.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing. Sergeant Waters, I thought you understood by now that the suburbs of Denton are not the cosmopolitan melting pot you’re accustomed to. That being the case, someone in your shoes, presuming they had a lick of common sense, would follow procedure to the letter, and hence avoid any possible misunderstanding.’

  ‘Come off it!’ Frost snapped. ‘Any normal person doesn’t go clouting people in the face with a wrench!’

  ‘How could you possibly know what “any normal person” might do?’ Mullett said in honest amazement.

  ‘But the guy’s bound to say stuff like that if he’s guilty. C’mon, I got the result,’ Waters insisted. ‘If I’d played it by the book and knocked on his front door he’d have been composed and in control. What pushed him over the edge was tw
igging we’d already spoken to the girl: he realized we knew he was a knicker-sniffer—’

  ‘You have not got a result,’ Mullett countered. ‘You may ask him where he was at the time of the rape attacks, but after that he’s free to go. No reference can be made to his encounter with you. We’re lucky he’s not pressing charges for assault – and if he really is the man we’re after, you’d better walk on eggshells – we don’t want him going free on a technicality thanks to our bungling, hmm?’

  Frost said nothing, shooting a glance at Waters who had his eyes on the floor, knowing the super to be right.

  ‘I must say, I’m disappointed in you, Sergeant Waters. I fear you’ve been spending too much time in Frost’s orbit.’ And with that he turned on his heels and clipped off.

  Before reaching the stairs, he looked back. ‘In fact, I’m even surprised at you today, Frost.’ His voice echoed down the gloomy basement corridor. ‘It’s regrettable that even after the death of one of your colleagues you can’t manage some modicum of decorum.’

  Frost rubbed his bristly jaw thoughtfully. ‘OK, I’ll deal with this, John,’ he muttered. ‘You go off and orbit elsewhere.’

  Waters nodded and followed Mullett out, while Frost signalled to the PC at the end of the corridor to open the cell door. He had his angle pitched. If this man was the rapist who attacked Joanne Daniels they would need hard evidence; that Waters had spooked the pervert was not enough, especially in the muddle they found themselves in now. But if he could put the frighteners on him in connection with Marie Roberts, then he might just trip himself up.

  ‘Ah, good evening, Mr Windley.’ Frost shook the man’s hand but ignored the solicitor sitting in the corner. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Frost. I’m terribly sorry about this morning’s debacle—’

  ‘So you should be – disgraceful behaviour, attacking a man in his own home! Police brutality on a most unprecedented scale!’ Even Windley was taken aback by this outburst from his solicitor.