Night Frost djf-3

by R D Wingfield

  ‘He’s an old man, eighty-one years old. His wife, Audrey, died last week.’

  Gilmore still appeared mystified, but the penny dropped for Frost. ‘The wreath was stolen from her grave?’

  ‘Yes, Inspector. The old boy’s very upset — wants to know what the police are doing about it.’

  The police are sitting on their arses cracking dirty jokes, thought Gilmore. He waved Burton away with an irritated flap of the hand then skimmed through a report from Forensic reporting that the death threats to the Comptons had been cut from copies of Reader’s Digest.

  The office door crashed open and a flustered-looking Johnny Johnson burst in. ‘Mr Mullett is screaming for you, Jack.’

  Frost quickly checked through the newly forged car expenses, then stood up, moving the knot of his tie to some where near the centre of his collar. ‘I’m ready for him now. Do I look innocent and contrite?’

  ‘You never look innocent and contrite.’ Johnson replied.

  As he breezed through the lobby on his way to the old log cabin, he passed an old man sitting hunched on the hard wooden bench by the front desk. The man looked familiar, but Frost couldn’t place him. He sidled over to Collier who was standing in for Johnny Johnson and jerked a thumb in query.

  Collier leant forward, ‘His name’s Maskell.’

  Frost clicked his fingers. ‘Jubilee Terrace — Tutankhamun’s tomb — mummified body?’

  Collier nodded. ‘He refuses to accept that his wife is dead. He keeps coming in to report her missing.’

  Sensing their attention, the old man looked up. ‘Her name’s Mary. I left her in bed, but she’s not there any more.’ He cupped a hand to his ear so he wouldn’t miss a word of their reply.

  ‘She’s dead, Mr Maskell,’ said Collier.

  But the old man refused to hear what he didn’t want to hear. ‘Her name’s Mary Maskell — 76 Jubilee Terrace, Denton.’

  Frost moved on hurriedly, leaving Collier to deal with him. He was half-way up the passage to Mullett’s office when… 76 Jubilee Terrace… Upstairs bedroom. The old girl’s dead… The tiny tape recorder at the back of his mind had been triggered into replaying, over and over, that mysterious phone call in the pub. How had the caller known about the old girl? Maskell wouldn’t have let him in. She was upstairs and the bedroom windows were heavily curtained. The only way in would have been through the same window Frost had used. Upstairs bedroom. The old girl’s dead. The voice. He knew that damned voice. He screwed up his face trying to squeeze his memory into action. Then it clicked. Wally Manson… Wally bloody Manson! He spun round and raced back to his office.

  Johnny Johnson, gazing out of the window, saw Frost with the new bloke tagging behind, dashing across the car-park. The interview with Mr Mullett must have been a brief one, he thought. His internal phone rang. ‘Yes, Mr Mullett?’ His face froze. ‘You’re still waiting for him?’ Through the window the Cortina belched smoke as it roared towards the exit. ‘I think he’s just gone out, sir.’

  The grey Vauxhall Cavalier bumped up a side lane, stopping well short of the cottage. Tony Harding, a junior technician with the Forensic Laboratory, climbed out of the car and walked purposefully up the garden path of the isolated building, a clipboard in his hand. He hammered loudly at the door and took a pen from his pocket as if ready to conduct a market survey. The knocking rumbled through an empty house and awakened a dog in the back garden and started it yapping. Harding waited, then, to play safe, knocked again and called, ‘Anyone in?’

  With one last look around to make certain he was unobserved he knelt by the letter-box. The paint was black. Parts of it were flaking. With a pocket knife he gently scraped off a tiny portion into an envelope.

  In half an hour he was back in the lab where the spectroscope was already set up.

  ‘Who’s Wally Manson?’ asked Gilmore, swerving to avoid a road-crossing dog.

  ‘Small-time villain who’s been in and out of the nick most of his life. Stealing cars, shop breaking, receiving stolen goods, assault with a dangerous weapon. Wally’s never turned his hand to burglary before, that’s why I never reckoned him for those senior citizen larks. But it was definitely him who phoned me at the pub.’

  Gilmore slowed down at the traffic lights. ‘So what does that prove?’

  ‘How did Wally know there was a date-expired corpse on the bed? Even the bloody neighbours didn’t know. The only way he could have found out would be by doing what I did — climbing through the back window and sneaking into the bedroom.’

  At last Gilmore twigged. ‘He was going to rob the place?’

  ‘That’s what I reckon, son… and I bet he ruined a perfectly good pair of underpants when he saw the sleeping bloody beauty. Round the corner, here.’

  This was part of the newer section of Denton, modern two-storey houses with front lawns in a street lined with sapling trees. ‘Last but one on the right,’ said Frost. Then he leant back and almost purred with satisfaction.

  Parked outside the house was a battered van. It was a dark blue colour.

  Belle Manson, Wally’s wife, was a plump, bleached-haired woman of around forty with heavy ear-rings hanging, like tarnished brass curtain rings, from ear-lobes which looked as if they had been pierced with a 6-inch nail. She was on her knees, scrubbing the front doorstep, her over-sized breasts swinging in sympathy with the gyrations of her scrubbing brush. Without pausing in her labours, she scrutinized the two pairs of shoes plonked in front of her, one pair scruffy, unpolished, cracked and down at heel, the other so highly burnished she could see her fat face in them.

  She didn’t need to look up to see who it was. She’d seen those broken-down shoes many times before. The scrubbing brush worked vigorously at a stubborn spot in the corner. ‘He’s out. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know when he’ll be back. I haven’t seen him for days.’

  ‘Thanks very much, Belle,’ said Frost, stepping over the wet patch into the hallway. ‘We’d love to come in.’ She snorted annoyance and straightened up, flinging the scrubbing brush into the bucket and splashing Gilmore’s trousers with dirty water in the process.

  ‘You got a warrant?’ she screamed.

  ‘Would I come in without one?’ asked Frost in a hurt voice, patting the forged car expenses in his inside pocket as he marched up the passage and into the kitchen.

  ‘Yes, you bloody would,’ she yelled, charging after him.

  Frost drew a chair up to the formica-topped table and plonked himself down. He jerked his head for Gilmore to have a quick look round for a lurking Wally.

  ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ she yelled as Gilmore clattered up the stairs.

  ‘He wants to use the toilet,’ Frost explained. ‘He had curry for breakfast and it’s given him the runs.’

  Ear-rings and breasts quivering, Belle glowered. She flopped down in the chair opposite him. Frost gave her a friendly smile. ‘You’re looking well, Belle.’

  ‘You’re not,’ she snapped. ‘You’re looking old and scruffy.’ She waved away the offered cigarette. ‘I don’t smoke.’ Then her face softened. ‘Sorry to hear about your wife.’

  ‘Thanks,’ muttered Frost. An awkward silence. She’d thrown him off balance. He lit up and waited for Gilmore’s return.

  A kettle on the gas-ring rattled its lid and whistled. Belle heaved herself up and turned off the gas.

  ‘Two sugars in mine,’ said Frost.

  ‘You’ve got the cheek of the bloody devil,’ she snapped, banging three mugs on the table and hurling a tea-bag in each. Gilmore came in, shaking his head. Wally wasn’t in the house. ‘What did I tell you? I haven’t seen him for days.’ smirked Belle, filling the mugs from the kettle and slopping in milk ‘Help yourselves to sugar.’ She slid the mugs over.

  ‘So where is he, Belle?’ said Frost, spooning out the dripping tea-bag and depositing it on the table.

  ‘I’ve told you, I don’t know.’ She leant back to reach an opened box of Marks and Spencer’s Cont
inental chocolates from the dresser and wrenched off the lid. A chocolate truffle disappeared into her mouth and was washed down by a swig of tea.

  ‘When did you last see him?’ persisted Frost.

  Her face contorted as she gave her impression of thinking deeply. ‘Last Friday. He goes away a lot on business. I hardly ever see him. He only comes back for you know what and that only lasts five minutes on a good day.’

  Frost nodded sympathetically. ‘We’ve got him down in our files as a quick in and out merchant, Belle.’ His finger worried away at his scar. ‘He doesn’t take his van when he goes away, then?’

  ‘His van?’

  ‘The blue one outside.’

  ‘Oh that,’ sniffed Belle. ‘No. It’s broken down.’ As she spoke, the front door slammed. Her head jerked round. She looked worried. Quick footsteps along the passage. At a sign from Frost, Gilmore was up out of his chair, standing by the door, ready to grab the newcomer.

  ‘Mum, have you… Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were with clients.’ It was a young girl.

  Belle forced a smile. ‘It’s the police, Diedree… I was just telling them we hadn’t seen your dad since Friday.’

  Deidree Manson, fifteen years old, in a leather jacket and a short skirt, was a scaled-down replica of her plump mother, even down to small, curtain-ring ear pendants, but with sandy-coloured hair which had not yet made the acquaintance of the bleach bottle. She stared blankly at her mother. ‘Dad? Oh yes… of course. We haven’t seen him for days.’

  Frost flicked ash into his tea mug. ‘Clients? Are you back on the game, Belle?’

  ‘Thank you very much!’ mouthed Belle to her daughter. To Frost she said airily, ‘I oblige the odd gentleman. Just for pin money.’

  ‘Yes. Some of your clients are bleeding odd,’ said Frost, pushing his mug away. ‘I hope you disinfect your crockery.’ He swung round to Deidree. ‘No school today?’

  ‘Half-term,’ she replied laconically, helping herself to a strawberry cream.

  ‘What school do you go to?’

  ‘Denton Modern.’

  The same school as Paula Bartlett. Frost asked Deidree if she knew her.

  Her tongue snaked out to catch a straying dribble of chocolate juice. ‘She was in my class. Bit of a drip. Nose always stuck in a book. Had no interest in boys or sex or pop music or anything.’

  ‘What about the teacher, Mr Bell?’ asked Frost casually. ‘What sort of a bloke is he?’

  Deidree chomped and shrugged. ‘Boring. I think Paula had a crush on him. Two drips together.’

  A brisk rat-tat-tat at the door made Belle frown and consult her wrist-watch. She beckoned Deidree over for an enigmatic message. ‘If it’s “you-know-who” for “you-know-what”, tell him it’s inconvenient at the moment. Can he call back later?’

  Frost watched Deidree’s plump little bottom wriggle through the door and wondered how long it would be before she was invited to join the family business. ‘We’re going to have to search the place, Belle. Wally’s been naughty.’ He stood and signalled for Gilmore to follow.

  Belle leapt up to block their path. ‘I want to see your warrant, first.’

  He pulled his car expenses from his inside pocket and flashed them under her nose. ‘Satisfied?’ Before she had a chance to examine them, they were back in his pocket.

  ‘All right,’ she nodded reluctantly. ‘But don’t make a mess — and don’t pinch anything.’

  A door in the hall led to the lounge. ‘We’ll start in here, son.’ They were about to enter when there was a sudden angry burst of protestations from the disappointed client at the front door. ‘If he won’t go away,’ called Frost, ‘tell him I’ll cut off his “you know what” and stuff it up his “he knows where”.’ Silence. The front door slammed.

  It was a smallish room jam-packed with Belle’s pin-money purchases of new furniture and dominated by an enormous 28-inch twin-speakered colour TV and a stereo video both housed in a mahogany-veneered, Queen Anne style cabinet. Frost nudged Gilmore and pointed. On top of the cabinet lay a familiar-looking box holding a video cassette. The box was white with a typed label which read: Till The Blood Runs — Canings amp; Whippings. The same title as one of the porno graphic videos removed from the newsagent’s. ‘Belle!’ he yelled.

  ‘I know nothing about it,’ said Belle as she waddled in. ‘Something Wally brought home.’ She looked at the label. ‘Canings and Whippings? A bit too strong meat for my clients — it would give the poor old sods a heart attack. If you want to know about dirty videos, ask our Deidree. Some bloke wanted her to make one.’

  The young girl was called in. ‘Pornographic videos,’ said Frost. ‘Your mother says you were approached. Tell me about it.’

  Deidree leant against the door frame and eased some toffee away from her back teeth with her finger. ‘Nothing much to tell. We were coming out of a disco one night when this bloke came across from a posh car and asked me if I wanted to earn myself fifty quid posing in the nude with him for a video. I told him to stuff his video camera right up his arse.’

  ‘I’ve always brought her up to be a decent girl,’ said Belle proudly.

  ‘What did he look like?’ asked Frost. ‘Would you know him again?’

  ‘Old — about forty. Dressed to the nines — shirt and tie and all that stuff: Darkish hair. I might recognize him again, but I’m not sure.’

  Frost dismissed them both with a flick of his hand. He couldn’t waste time on this — porno videos were very low on his list of priorities. A quick search of the lounge revealed nothing. ‘Right, son. Up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire.’

  He sat on Belle’s soft-mattressed double bed with its plump purple eiderdown and watched Gilmore opening and shutting drawers. A packet of Hamlet cigars lay on the dressing table. Frost shook it hopefully. It rattled. There was one left. He lit it, stretched out on the bed and contentedly puffed smoke across to the detective sergeant.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Gilmore huffily, annoyed that Frost wasn’t helping. He leant over to tug open the drawer of the bedside cabinet. Packets of contraceptives… small aerosol cans. He seized one of the cans and showed it to the inspector. ‘Look at this!’

  Frost sat up and blinked at the label. ‘Nipple Hardening Spray! I don’t believe it.’ He examined the can from all angles. ‘This could make a man’s thumb obsolete.’

  ‘And this!’ Gilmore flourished another can.

  ‘Bloody hell, son, don’t point it at me. It’s the last thing I need at the moment. What else has she got?’ Happy now to join in, he was soon rummaging through the various sex aids and stimulants.

  The bedroom yielded nothing else of interest. The bed room next door was Deidree’s with its pop posters and record player. ‘Leave it, son,’ said Frost. ‘Wally wouldn’t have stuck any bent gear in here.’

  ‘It still wouldn’t hurt to look,’ said Gilmore stubbornly, dragging out the wardrobe so he could see behind it.

  ‘Whatever turns you on, son,’ said Frost. He ambled over to the window and opened it so he could jettison the cigar. Below was the back yard, a miserable patch of concrete landscaped with oily rain-puddles, a couple of rusty, bottomless buckets, and two treadless car tires. Car tires! The blue van! He’d forgotten all about the bloody blue van. That was the next thing to search. He watched the cigar butt nose-dive to its death.

  An excited shout from Gilmore had him spinning round.

  Gilmore had found a crumpled bundle of blue cloth. He opened it out. A pair of men’s jeans, grubby and thickly spattered with dried blood.

  ‘Belle!’ roared Frost, his bellow echoing down the stairs.

  ‘Won’t be a minute.’ She was talking to someone, her voice low and urgent.

  ‘I want you now!’ he yelled.

  ‘Coming.’

  The front door clicked shut and as it did a bell shrilled a warning deep in his subconscious. From outside, an engine coughed, then roared into life. A van engine.

  ‘Shit!’ cried Frost, gall
oping down the stairs two at a time, Gilmore hard on his heels. At the bottom of the stairs was Belle, lumbering up very slowly, deliberately blocking their way. Frost almost pushed her over as they charged for the front door. Outside an empty street. A patch of oil where the van had been standing.

  ‘Double shit!’ howled Frost.

  ‘There!’ pointed Gilmore. Something blue disappearing round the corner trailed by a billow of exhaust.

  The Cortina shuddered as they hurled themselves in and roared off in pursuit. Round the corner, but no sign of the van. Up to the main road. ‘Which way?’ asked Gilmore.

  ‘Left,’ said Frost. He had seen something blue jumping the lights. Drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, Gilmore waited for the lights to change. The blue van ahead was getting smaller and smaller in the distance.

  What a foul-up, thought Gilmore. The van was there when they arrived, but they’d ignored it. ‘That bloody fat cow,’ he muttered. ‘We ought to run her in for obstruction.’

  ‘He’s her husband, son,’ said Frost, mildly. ‘Your wife would have done the same to help you.’

  Would she? thought Gilmore bitterly. She certainly didn’t help me last night when bloody Mullett phoned. Before he could follow the thought further, the traffic lights flickered. He jammed his foot down, passing car after car after car. The blue van was getting bigger.

  ‘Control to Mr Frost. Come in, please.’

  Gilmore braked abruptly as an estate car shot out of a side turning right in their path.

  ‘Control to Mr Frost. Come in, please.’ repeated the radio.

  ‘Shut your bleeding row,’ said Frost to the radio as Gilmore swerved round the estate car. Frost twisted in his seat and jerked two fingers at the driver.

  More traffic lights ahead. The blue van had stopped.

  ‘Control to Mr…’

  Frost snatched up the handset. ‘Hold on, Control. We are… Shit!’

  ‘Say again?’ said Control.

  ‘I said, “Tut tut”,’ muttered Frost bitterly and feeling like banging his head against the windscreen. The blue van they had been chasing had the name of a dress shop written on the side and was being driven by a woman. Gilmore glared poison darts at the inspector as if it was all his fault. Frost was philosophical. ‘He’ll turn up. He’s got nowhere to go.’ He was much more used to cock-ups than the sergeant. He raised the handset to his ear. ‘Put out a call to all units. I want Wally Manson brought in. Last seen driving a blue Ford transit van about ten years old… I don’t know the registration number, but you should be able to get it from the computer.’