Frost 3 - Night Frost

by R D Wingfield

  The door slammed to punctuate an angry Gilmore’s return. "That damn Sergeant Wells!" He flung himself into his chair.

  Frost stifled a groan. He had enough troubles of his own. “What’s the matter now, son?"

  "That phone call from Mrs. Compton. Her husband’s away and she’s alone in the house."

  "It sounds a bloody good offer," said Frost. "We’ll flip a coin to see who has the first nibble."

  Gilmore’s scowl cut even deeper. "It’s not funny. She’s had another threatening phone call. The bastard told her tonight will be her last night on earth. She’s frightened out of her wits. I’ve told Sergeant Wells I want a watch kept on the house tonight and he says he can’t spare anyone."

  Frost picked up the internal phone. "I’ll have a word with him."

  At first Wells dug his heels in. He wasn’t going to let any jumped-up, know-nothing, aftershave-smelling detective sergeant tell him how to organize his own men. And did the inspector know how many men he had available to cover the whole of Denton—the whole of bloody Denton? Four! Two in cars, two on foot. The others had to be kept in to answer the flaming phones which were ringing non-stop after that stupid Paula Bartlett video on television. Frost put the phone down on the desk and let Wells rant on, while he lit up another cigarette. When the whining from the ear-piece stopped, he picked up the receiver and made a few sympathetic sounds with the result that Wells now grudgingly admitted that perhaps he could spare one man and one car to keep a spasmodic watch on The Old Mill, but he couldn’t guarantee one hundred per cent coverage.

  "You’re a prince, Bill," said Frost. "Your generosity is exceeded only by the size of your dick." He hung up quickly before Wells could change his mind then twisted his chair round to tell his sergeant the good news, but if he expected thanks, he was disappointed.

  "What a bloody way to run a station," snarled Gilmore, stamping out of the room.

  The office was too cold to stay in for long so Frost sauntered along to the Murder Incident Room where the temperature wasn’t much better. Two WPCs and one uniformed man, all well wrapped up against the cold, were beavering through the senior citizen burglary files and answering the spasmodic phone calls that were still coming in following the TV broadcast. Another WPC was slowly working through the vast computer print-out of light vans and estate cars, either blue or of a colour which could be mistaken for blue under street lamps. "Mr. Mullett’s orders," she explained.

  "You don’t need to tell me," sniffed Frost. "Anything stupid and useless, it’s always Mr. Mullett’s orders." Even if a blue van was involved, it could well have been repainted but still be registered under its original colour.

  He dipped into the filing tray and read a couple of the messages. Paula was still being sighted. A woman had spotted her in France, and a man was positive that Paula was the same girl who had delivered his paper that very morning.

  At a corner desk, DC Burton, a sandwich in his hand, was reading the Sun. He stuffed it away hastily as Frost approached and busied himself with the senior citizen files "On my refreshment break, sir," he explained. He accepted a cigarette. "Hoskins and the girl have been charged. We’re holding them in the cells overnight pending the result of the forensic examination."

  Frost nodded and plonked himself down on a chair. "I want to get filled in on the Paula Bartlett case, but I’m too bleeding lazy to read through the file. Start right from the beginning."

  "September 14th," said Burton. "She was on her paper round. Left the shop at 7.05."

  "Hold it," interrupted Frost. "Five past seven? Her parents said she usually started her round at half-past seven."

  "That was when her teacher gave her the lift. She would have had to cycle to school that day, so she gave herself more time."

  Frost blew an enormous smoke ring and watched it wriggle lazily around the room. "I’m still listening."

  "At five o’clock her parents are expecting her home from school. By half-past five they’re phoning around and are told she hadn’t been to school at all that day. At ten past six they phone us."

  "And two months later, we found her," commented Frost, wryly.

  Burton grinned patiently. "Anyway, we sent an area car. They got details of her delivery route from the paper shop and followed it through with the customers. As you know, she never made the last two houses." He heaved himself from his chair and crossed to the large-scale wall map. "Her last delivery was here at around 8.15." His finger jabbed the map. "Her next delivery should have been Brook Cottage . . . here. She never made it,"

  Frost joined him at the map which was studded with yellow thumb tacks marking Paula’s progress. "She was doing her round half an hour earlier than usual?"

  Burton nodded.

  "Then unless the bloke who abducted her knew that, it must have happened by chance—he saw her, acted on impulse and grabbed her."

  Burton destroyed that theory. "She’d been doing it half an hour earlier for the previous four days, sir. Mr. Bell stayed away from school when his wife died, so Paula didn’t get her lift in."

  'Whoever it was, he must have had a car. He either bundled her in and dumped the bike, or it was someone she knew and trusted. Someone, perhaps, with a wispy beard who offered her a lift. The bike went in the boot and he dumped it later."

  A tolerant smile from Burton. Inspector Allen had reasoned all this out months ago. "If she was picked up in a car, sir, it couldn’t have been by Mr. Bell. He never left the house before the funeral. His wife’s parents confirm it."

  "He’s still got a wispy beard," said Frost, "and I don’t trust the sod." He returned to his desk. "Right. She’s reported missing. What happened from there?"

  "Mr. Allen took over the case at 20.15. The area between Grove Road and Brook Cottage was searched. At 23.32 we found her bike and her newspaper bag with the two undelivered papers, dumped in the ditch. The ditch was dragged in case the girl was there as well. It was then too dark to continue so it was resumed at first light with the search area extended to include part of the woods. Mr. Allen had all known sex offenders, child molesters, flashers and the like brought in for questioning." He pulled open a filing cabinet drawer jam-packed with bulging file folders—the results of the questionings.

  Frost regarded them gloomily. Far too many for him to read through.

  "There’s more," said Burton, tugging open a second drawer.

  Frost winced and kneed them both shut. "Say what you like about Mr. Allen, but he’s an industrious bastard. I take it he cleared them all?"

  "Yes."

  "Then that’s good enough for me." He struck a match down the side of the filing cabinet and lit up another cigarette. “Where’s the bike?"

  Burton led him to the freezing cold evidence shed in the car-park and unlocked the door.

  The bike, swathed in dimpled polythene, was leaning against the wall. Burton pulled off the covering and stood back. A neat little foldable bike in light grey stove-enamel with dark grey handle-grips and pedals. Frost stared at it, but it told him nothing. He waited while Burton replaced the dimpled polythene, then followed him back to the Incident Room.

  "Let’s see the physical evidence."

  Unlocking a metal cupboard Burton took out a large cardboard box that had once held a gross of toilet rolls and dumped it on the desk. Then he pulled a bulging box-file down from the shelf and handed it to the inspector. "The main file."

  Frost opened it. From the top of a heap of papers a serious-looking Paula Bartlett regarded him solemnly through dark-rimmed glasses. The school photograph provided by the parents when she first went missing, which was used for the 'Have You Seen This Girl?’ poster. There were many more photographs, including those taken at the crypt and at the post-mortem. Frost shuddered and dug deeper, pausing to examine the flashlight enlargements showing the handlebar of the bike poking through the green scum of the ditch. "Any prints on the bike?"

  "You’ve already asked me, sir. Just the girl’s and the schoolmaster’s."

 
; Frost paused. Why did little buzzes of intuition whisper in his ear every time the schoolmaster was mentioned?

  The rest of the file consisted of negative forensic reports on the bike and the canvas newspaper bag, plus statements from Paula’s school friends—no, she had never talked of running away; no, she wasn’t worried or unhappy about any thing no, she had no boyfriends. In the early days of the investigations, as no body was found, it was hoped that she had dumped her bike and, like so many kids of her age, run away from home. There were reports from various police forces who had followed up sightings of Paula look-alikes, teenage girls on the game or sleeping rough. A few missing teenage girls were restored to their families, but the Bartletts just waited, and hoped, and kept her room ready exactly as she left it.

  He closed the file and handed it back to Burton, then pulled the cardboard box towards him. Inside it, loosely folded in a large transparent resealable bag, was the black, mould-speckled plastic rubbish sack, Paula’s shroud, ripped where the knife had cut through to reveal her face.

  "A rubbish sack," commented Burton. "Millions of them made. No clue there."

  "Tell me something I don’t know," gloomed Frost, taking the next item from the box. A canvas bag which had held the newspapers. The stagnant smell of the scummy ditch in which it had been immersed wafted up as he examined it. He slipped his arm through the shoulder strap. The bag was too high and uncomfortable. Paula was much smaller than he was. What the hell does that prove? he thought. He shrugged off the strap and put the bag on top of the rubbish sack. Next were the brown, fiat-heeled shoes, the stained laces still tied in a neat double bow.

  "Naked, raped and murdered, but still wearing shoes," muttered Frost. "It doesn’t make sense."

  "What’s going on?" Gilmore was staring pointedly at Burton. "I thought I told you to go through the senior citizen files."

  "He’s helping me," said Frost. He held up the shoes. "Why was she wearing shoes and sod all else?"

  "She tried to get away," offered Gilmore, not very interested. Mullett had told them to forget the Paula Bartlett case. "She put on her shoes so she could make a run for it, but he came back and caught her."

  "She’d been raped," said Frost. "She was terrified. If she wanted to run, she’d bloody well run barefoot. She wouldn’t waste time putting on shoes and tying them both with a double bow."

  "Then I don’t know," grunted Gilmore, moving away and busying himself with the senior citizen files, making it clear that he knew where his priorities were, even if others didn’t.

  The brown shoes refused to yield up their secrets, so Frost put them to one side and took out the last item in the box, a large plastic envelope which held the two undelivered newspapers, the Sun and the Daily Telegraph, each folded in two so they would fit the canvas bag.

  Frost slipped them from the envelope. The same stagnant smell as the bag, both papers yellowed and tinged with green from their immersion. With great care he unfolded the Sun which the soaking in the ditch had made slightly brittle. Scrawled above the masthead in the newsagent’s writing was the customer’s address, Brook Ctg. He turned to page three and studied the nude dispassionately. She too was stained green. "There’s a green-tinged pair of nipples to the north of Kathmandu," he intoned, closing the paper, careful to ensure it settled along its original folds.

  He nearly missed it. It caught the light as he was returning it to the envelope. A quarter of the way down the back page, running across the width of the paper. A roughened, corrugated tongue-shaped tear an eighth of an inch wide and barely a quarter of an inch long. He pulled out the school master’s Telegraph and scrutinized the back and front pages. Nothing on that, so back to the Sun. It was telling him something, but he didn’t know what. "What do you make of this, Burton?"

  Burton made nothing of it.

  "Come and look at this, Gilmore," called Frost.

  Making clear his resentment at being dragged away from more important work, Gilmore took the newspaper, gave it a cursory glance and handed it back. "A bit of damage in the handling," he said.

  No, thought Frost. Not damage in the handling. It was more than that. A faint bell began to tinkle right at the back of his brain. The drunken fat woman earlier that day. Her paper was jammed tight in the letter-box. He’d had to pull it out and he’d torn it. A very similar tear to that on the back page of the undelivered Sun. Or was it undelivered? Hands trembling, he took up the newspaper and gave it a second, loose fold. The rough corrugated tongue ran exactly down the line of the new fold.

  Frost felt his excitement rising. "Did Mr. Allen notice this?"

  "I don’t know, sir. "Why, is it important?"

  "It could be bloody important, son. The papers are folded once so the girl can fit them in the canvas bag. But they have to be folded again so they can be poked through the letter-box." Frost pointed to the tear. "I’d stake my virginity that this paper has been pushed through a letter-box and then pulled out again."

  The DC took the paper and twisted it in the light to examine the abrasion. It was possible. Just about possible. "But we know it wasn’t delivered," he said.

  'Who lives at Brook Cottage?"

  Burton pulled the details from the folder and read them aloud. "Harold Edward Greenway, aged 47. Self-employed van driver. Lives on his own. His wife walked out on him a couple of years ago."

  This was getting better and better. Frost rubbed his hands with delight. "Has he got an alibi for the day the girl went missing?"

  Burton turned a page. "According to his statement he had no jobs lined up, so he stayed in bed until gone eleven, then pottered about the cottage for the rest of the day. He never saw the girl and he didn’t get a paper."

  "And we believed him?"

  "We had no reason to doubt him, especially when we found her bike and the papers in the ditch."

  Frost sat on the corner of the desk and shook out three cigarettes. "OK. Try this out for a scenario. Harry boy lives all on his own. Wife’s been gone for two years and his dick’s getting rusty through lack of use. One morning, what should come cycling up his path but a nice, fresh, unopened packet of 15-year-old nooky with his copy of the Sun. She rolls it up and pokes it through the door. The sexual symbolism of this act hits him smack in the groin. He invites her in, or drags her in, or whatever. She can scream if she wants to, there’s no-one for miles to hear. Afterwards, when all passion’s spent and she’s screaming rape, he panics, and strangles her."

  Burton, caught up with Frost’s enthusiasm, could see where the plot was leading. "Greenway puts the newspaper back in the bag, dumps it with the bike in a ditch and we all think she never made the delivery."

  Even Gilmore looked impressed. "It’s possible," he decided reluctantly, "but it still doesn’t explain the shoes."

  "Sod the shoes," said Frost, hopping down from the desk. "Let’s get our killer first, then get explanations." He stuffed the papers back into the plastic envelope and handed it to Burton. "Tell you what you do, son. Send both newspapers over to Forensic. Tell them our brilliant theory and get them to drop everything and make tests."

  "And then come back and get down to these bloody files," called Gilmore. "We’re never going to get through them at this rate."

  The stack of folders didn’t seem to be getting any lower. Gilmore ticked off the squares on the roneoed form and dropped it into the filing basket ready for the girl on the computer. Something sailed past his nose. It was a paper aeroplane which attempted to soar upwards before losing heart and nose-diving with a thud to the ground at his feet. He bent down and picked it up. The paper looked familiar. He unfolded it. One of the roneoed forms. He turned suspiciously to Frost who grinned back sheepishly.

  "Sorry, son."

  Frost was bored. He’d been staring at the same robbery folder for the past forty minutes. He was dying for an excuse to get out of the station, but the phone stubbornly remained quiet. "About time Forensic came back to us on those news papers."

  "They’ve only had them
five minutes," said Gilmore.

  "How long does it bloody take?" asked Frost peevishly, pulling the phone towards him and dialling the lab.

  "Give us a chance, Inspector," replied Forensic testily. "We’ve got half our staff down with this flu virus thing. We’re still working on the clothing and other items collected from 44 Manningron Crescent. Negative so far."

  "That old rubbish can wait," said Frost. "It’s not important. Get cracking on those newspapers."

  A scowling Gilmore looked up. "We’re supposed to be concentrating on the senior citizen murders and you’re telling Forensic it can wait?"

  Frost was saved from answering by the phone. WPC Ridley from Intensive Care, Denton Hospital. Alice Ryder, the old lady with the fractured skull, had regained consciousness.

  The moon, floating in a clear sky, kept pace with the car as they raced to the hospital. Frost, puffing away nervously in the passenger seat, was willing the old dear to stay alive until they could question her. A detailed description of her attacker would be worth a thousand of those lousy forms they had been filling in for the computer. A detailed description! He was kidding himself. She was eighty-one, concussed and dying. The bastard had attacked her in the dark. The poor cow would tell them sod all.

  The dark sprawl of the hospital loomed up ahead. "Park there, son." He pointed to a 'Hospital—No Waiting’ sign by the main entrance and was out of the car and charging up the corridor before Gilmore had a chance to switch off the ignition.

  Gilmore pushed through the swing doors in time to see the maroon blur of Frost’s scarf as he darted down a side corridor. With a burst of speed, he caught up with him. "Straight ahead," panted Frost, indicating a small flickering green neon sign reading 'Intensive Care’.