A Lethal Frost

by Danny Miller

  When his sleep-gritted eyes had slowly wedged themselves open, he was welcomed with the vision that was Eve Hayward, easing herself into the wide-shouldered jacket of her navy-blue trouser suit. He just caught sight of the silhouette of her majestic chest in the pristine white blouse before she fastened the brass buttons of her jacket. She looked magnificent, fresh and efficient, and ready to go. She had matched him pint for pint, nightcap for nightcap, and he felt like death. He just about got himself into an upright position, but the manic circular motion of the room sent him straight back down on to the pillow. He knew that the hangover he was embroiled in was an all-encompassing monster; all the others had just been rehearsals for this one.

  As his fogged mind scrolled back, he watched Eve Hayward go through some paperwork on the dressing table and transfer some files into her black attaché case, all the while humming an unrecognizable little tune, and seemingly unaffected by the booze they’d both put away last night.

  Did we? Did we actually …?

  Frost’s bloodshot eyes surveyed the room, trying to piece together how he’d got here. There was only one bed, a double, and it looked like they had shared it. He was in his underpants. His good ones, he’d made sure of that, just in case. Not that he was expecting anything to happen between him and Eve Hayward, but you never know, stranger things happen at sea, and landlocked Denton had been known to throw up a few surprises. And this was his problem right now, he really didn’t know. Everything sort of went blank after the third … or the fourth, or maybe even the fifth cognac. Is it really possible? he asked himself, with his throbbing head sinking into his hands.

  ‘You’d better get your kit on, Jack, DC Clarke is picking us up in five minutes.’

  ‘Jesus-bloody-Nora,’ groaned Frost, his eyes lifting from the carpet just in time to see Eve Hayward slip out of the door with a cheery ‘See you downstairs!’

  Frost made his way to the hotel lobby feeling as crumpled as the contents of his pocket, the ciggies that, like the booze, he swore he would never touch again. His mouth felt as if it was lined with tar and his tongue furred with shag tobacco. A new, healthier regime was called for.

  Before he could ask the receptionist where Ms Eve Hayward was, he spotted her in the dining room with Sue Clarke, enjoying some coffee and chatting away. They looked faintly conspiratorial; maybe they were comparing notes on him. He marched in to face them.

  ‘Morning, Sue.’

  She gave a welcoming smile that concealed a mischievous smirk.

  ‘I’ve just been filling Sue in on what happened last night,’ said Eve Hayward.

  Frost pulled out a chair and joined them. He was genuinely confused. ‘What did happen last night?’

  ‘Eve told me all about it,’ said Clarke, ‘I’ve even seen the photos.’

  Frost felt like his bones had been stripped from his body and he almost slipped off his chair. ‘Photos? What bloody photos? You took photos …?’

  He then caught sight of a stack of pictures hiding behind the tall silver coffee pot. They were the ones Waters had taken of Hayward undercover in her blonde Debbie Harry wig.

  Clarke, barely containing her mirth, teased him: ‘What photos were you thinking of, Jack?’

  Frost ignored the question and stiffened his back to try to reassert his authority and get on with more pressing matters. ‘Has Inspector Hayward filled you in on who she is and what she’s doing here?’

  ‘Most of it.’

  Frost hoicked up the sleeve of his jacket to check the time on his Casio. It made for ungodly reading – it was 7.15 a.m.

  ‘OK, Mullett’s briefing is in an hour and a half,’ he said, pouring himself a black coffee. ‘We better make sure we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet.’

  ‘The plan has to be to find a strong enough connection between Bomber Harris and Tommy Wilkins, who are dealing the heroin, and Eamon Hogan. If we pull those two in, and even if they do talk, where’s the evidence? There’s a good chance they may not even know who Hogan is, and I bet they’ve not met him, just his two lieutenants, Colm and Shane. He usually likes to send them in first.’

  Clarke then asked, ‘Who else knows you’re undercover?’

  ‘Just you two, and that’s how I want it to stay. It has to, or I might as well go home.’

  ‘So there’s someone you don’t trust in Denton CID, is that it?’ wondered Clarke.

  Eve Hayward gave a non-committal shrug. ‘I know how Eamon Hogan works, he’s a corrupter. And if he’s moving his operation to this area, he may very well have someone on the force on his payroll already.’

  ‘And you thought it was Jack?’

  Eve Hayward threw her a wink. ‘I think I’ve established it isn’t.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘Oi! Do you mind not talking about me like I’m not in the room?’

  ‘You don’t think it’s—’

  Frost cut her off. ‘We don’t think it’s anyone in particular yet, Sue, we’re just playing our cards close to our chest.’

  ‘Not telling even Mullett?’

  ‘Especially not Mullett.’

  They drank their coffee in silence as they considered the prospect of a bad apple potentially right under their noses. Frost broke his vow not to indulge in any of his vices and sparked up a crumpled cigarette. As the smoke hit the back of his throat, he really could have done with a stiff drink too, a hair of the dog, a pick-me-up, something alcoholic to cut through the fog.

  ‘The search at George Price’s threw up some interesting information and items,’ Clarke reminded him.

  ‘I’d almost forgotten about that,’ muttered Frost. ‘Go on, then.’

  Sue Clarke reached down to her handbag and pulled out an A4 photocopy that she handed to him.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s a list of the stock that was stolen in the Rimmington jewellery-shop robbery.’ Clarke explained to Eve about the diamond and emerald necklace that she’d discovered in Melody Price’s handbag. ‘The description matches what I saw perfectly. I bet there’s a picture of it somewhere for insurance purposes. Or, even better, we just nick her and—’

  ‘No,’ said Frost emphatically.

  ‘Why not?’

  Frost gave Eve Hayward the nod to take over.

  She responded to her cue. ‘Because Eamon Hogan isn’t just a drug dealer, he’s a well-rounded villain who likes robbing jewellery stores, too. And if what you saw is from the Rimmington haul, and I believe you’re right, that connects Melody Price to Eamon Hogan. And the George Price shooting, and the Jimmy Drake killing.’

  Frost glanced at his watch again: not long now to Mullett’s morning briefing. He would have to sit and listen to Hornrim Harry, knowing that the super didn’t have a bloody clue what was really going on. And, of course, they couldn’t enlighten him – because of their suspicions that Hogan had got his hooks into someone on the County force. They didn’t know who it was, or even how high up they were. It could be anyone. It almost didn’t bear thinking about, as all their current cases seemed to be growing multiple strands and also turning in on themselves, to become one big toxic heap with Eamon Hogan at the top of it.

  A fresh thought hit Frost and he returned his attention to Sue Clarke. ‘What else did you find after I left?’

  ‘Still nothing on Socks and Winston yet, but looking through the Prices’ business files, we discovered that Melody Price owns Video Stars, the rental shop that Michael Price works at. Which is something neither Michael Price nor Melody bothered to mention.’

  ‘Any coffee left? I’m gasping!’

  They turned towards the bulky figure coughing his way towards them – it was DC Arthur Hanlon.

  Frost’s brow creased at the sight of him. ‘How did you know I was here?’

  Hanlon winked. ‘Clever detective work.’

  ‘I’ll repeat the question: how did you know I was here?’

  ‘Me, probably,’ said Clarke. ‘In case anyone needed to find you I left a message at the st
ation last night that you’d be here.’

  When he’d finally picked his jaw up off the carpet, he asked, ‘And how the bloody hell did you know?’

  ‘Clever detective work?’

  Frost’s eyes flicked between Clarke and Hayward, feeling like an innocent in some greater female conspiracy.

  Hanlon pulled out a chair and joined them at the table, then proceeded to pour himself a coffee in Frost’s empty cup, which was met with no resistance from Frost, as Arthur looked like he needed it. Those four or five steps up to the hotel entrance could really take it out of you.

  Once refreshed, Arthur Hanlon said, ‘I thought I’d tell you in person, guv. We pulled a body out the river last night.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  Thursday (2)

  Superintendent Stanley Mullett had increased the pressure and the manpower on the Southern Housing Estate. Especially since there now seemed to be a media van representing some TV channel or other almost permanently parked there, just waiting for the latest bad news so a photogenic young hack could spring out of the back of it, microphone in hand. The Assistant Chief Constable’s mantra was simple – not only must they resolve the situation, they must be seen to resolve the situation, at least until the media and cameras had gone away.

  So it was against this backdrop that John Waters and a small army of plainclothes and uniformed officers, armed with warrants, had descended to search the homes of suspects as well as the warren of garages and lock-ups on the estate. Mullett knew that there was nothing that put the public more at ease than news footage showing dozens of coppers dressed like stormtroopers battering down doors, then emerging with some ne’er-do-well in pyjamas and handcuffs and throwing them unceremoniously into the back of a paddy wagon.

  The search of the Southern Housing Estate had been planned to start at 7.30 a.m. sharp. Word must have spread fast, because when an hour later Waters and PC David Simms descended on a row of lock-ups to the far east of the sprawling estate, they found one already open, and parked in its entrance was a rusty maroon Reliant Scimitar shooting brake, into the back of which the owner was furiously loading boxes.

  He was in his early fifties with a barrel chest and broad shoulders, and he had an impressively fulsome, heavily greased and suspiciously jet-black quiff, to match his black cap-sleeved T-shirt that showed off his muscly and elaborately inked arms. There were lots of tattoos celebrating girlfriends and ex-wives, his love for his old mum, and the various ports he’d visited in his days serving in the Royal Navy, from which he’d been dishonourably discharged. His name was Barry Sutton, but no one called him that.

  ‘How’s it going, Sinbad?’

  Barry ‘Sinbad’ Sutton looked up sharply and banged his quiffed head on the hatch of the estate car he was loading, which resulted in him dropping the cardboard box he was holding. This crashed to the ground with the clatter of broken crockery. He winced with pain, seemingly not for the bump on the bonce, but for whatever had got smashed in the box.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, it probably doesn’t belong to you anyway, right?’

  Sinbad hunkered down, his quiffed head turning sharply in either direction, obviously looking for an escape route.

  ‘Don’t even think about it; as the old saying goes, you’re a big man, but you’re out of shape.’

  Sinbad straightened up and beamed a crooked-toothed smile. ‘Mr Waters, fancy seeing you here at this time of morning.’

  Waters and Simms made their way to the lock-up down the small grass verge they’d been watching from, and went in to find a veritable treasure trove of stolen goods. Barry Sutton described himself as a trader and a dealer, a hawker and a pitcher. Down at Eagle Lane he was simply known as a receiver.

  John Waters approached one of the stacks of cardboard boxes.

  ‘What can I help you with, Officer?’

  The detective turned to Sinbad, and it may have been the exertion of lifting the boxes, or it may have been the stress of being up at such an unlikely hour, but his forehead glistened with beads of guilty perspiration.

  ‘Nothing, Sinbad, I think I’ll help myself,’ said Waters, flipping the lip of one of the boxes, dipping his hand in and pulling out a silver candelabrum.

  PC Simms said, ‘Looks Georgian to me.’

  The DS looked impressed. ‘Very good, PC Simms, been watching Arthur Negus on the telly, have we?’

  ‘No, Sarge, been doing my research, hope to make the antiques robbery squad next year. Inspector Frost said it’s good to specialize.’

  Sinbad joined the conversation. ‘Well, there’s no hallmarks on it so you can’t date it, but it’s probably Sheffield silver plate, definitely not Georgian, a Victorian copy, of not bad quality. You can read all the books you like, son, but’ – he tapped the side of his bulbous red nose with an equally bulbous forefinger – ‘you need a nose for these things. I can sniff out a quality antique a mile away.’

  Simms grinned. ‘Well, when I get back to the station, Sinbad, I’ll look it up on the stolen-items database, and then we’ll see how good your nose is.’

  Waters smiled at the young PC’s cheek. ‘He’s right. Then we’ll see if you’re Sinbad or Ali Baba.’

  Sinbad’s face creased in confusion. ‘Ali who?’

  Waters went over to another box and pulled out a video, Revenge of the Nerds, in its cellophane wrapper. ‘Any good? I’ve not seen it yet. Then again, no one has, have they? Not been released in this country yet.’ Waters pulled out more of the same. ‘You’re so nicked, Sinbad, it’s not even funny.’

  ‘The bullet is a 9mm. Ring any bells?’

  ‘That’s the same calibre as the one in George Price’s head,’ said Frost with a thread of relief running through his voice – at last things were joining up. And at this juncture, the relief came from not having a completely unrelated murder case to investigate which would stretch their already limited resources.

  ‘And at close range, to the head,’ said County’s chief pathologist, Gerald Drysdale, lowering a thin metal ruler into another wound on Little Stevie’s body: a three-inch puncture just below the sternum.

  A slab in the County pathology lab wasn’t a destination Frost would have wanted for the diminutive career criminal. They’d locked horns a few times but he had always enjoyed the banter that came with their ‘professional’ relationship; so DC Hanlon had been correct to deliver the news to him in person, almost a professional courtesy. But Wooder’s demise was no great surprise to Frost: men like him seldom died in their own beds. Yet surely he’d have hoped for a better end than this.

  There were over a dozen of these punctures all over the thief’s torso, and they all needed to be measured and assessed. Gerald Drysdale explained that the after-death stab wounds had probably been made in an attempt to puncture the lungs and get the body to fill with as much water as possible so it would sink to the bottom of the river. The human body, with all its gasses and powerful respiratory system – even when it was dead it was still an effort to keep it underwater. Weights were always a good idea to keep a corpse from bobbing to the surface, but even when weighed down, cadavers had still been known to slip their shackles and reappear.

  As he went about his work, Gerald Drysdale managed to hum the notes of something distinctly classical, Wagner perhaps. Frost glanced round at his colleague who was standing by the door, ready to make a quick exit. As big as DC Arthur Hanlon’s belly was, he didn’t have the stomach for these sights, and was uncomfortably shifting from foot to foot, concentrating on not puking up again as the smell of disinfectant clawed at his throat.

  ‘So, you’re absolutely sure he was already dead when he was stabbed?’ queried Frost.

  ‘Definitely, the bullet killed him outright. The knife wounds aren’t the work of a frantic maniac with a bloodlust, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Could have fooled me,’ Hanlon called out from the sidelines.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time, Arthur,’ replied Frost without taking his eyes
off the butchered corpse of Little Stevie.

  Gerald Drysdale continued, ‘All these wounds are strategically placed.’

  ‘How about the cuts to the face?’

  The little thief’s amiable good looks had been decimated with a series of slashes to his cheeks and brow.

  ‘To increase the rate of decomposition, and to attract fish and have them nibble away at him. You’d be surprised how quickly the features of a corpse can disappear out in the wild, in a river – can be almost gone in a couple of days.’

  Hanlon made a retching noise in the background.

  ‘Almost done, Arthur,’ said Frost with a wicked grin, ‘then we can get that breakfast … Sausages, sizzling bacon and a stack of black pudding, I reckon …’

  The DC heaved again and excused himself from the room. Frost thanked Drysdale and went to leave. Before he could, though, he felt Dr Death’s grip on him. The pathologist’s thin dry lips edged up into an approximation of a smile.

  ‘Not quite, Jack, I’ve saved the best for last.’

  He went over to a desk, retrieved a sealed plastic bag from a tray and handed it to Frost.

  ‘It was used to bind his hands and feet,’ said Drysdale. ‘I had the Forensics chaps look at it, and they can confirm that it’s the same nylon rope that was used to strangle Jimmy Drake. Same thickness, everything. Like I said before, common enough, and yet …’

  ‘And yet, coincidences don’t exist in murder cases. So Little Stevie now links us to the shooting of George Price and the murder of Jimmy Drake. And that gives us one perpetrator.’

  The pathologist nodded bleakly.

  His body was discovered by an early-morning dog-walker in the next county. He was hanging from the bough of a tree. It looked like suicide. When Ella Ross was given the news, the location confused her at first. What was he doing all the way out there? But as she talked it through, at first with the WPC and the social worker assigned to the case, then finally with Cathy Bartlett, it all made sense to her.