Night Frost djf-3

by R D Wingfield

  Frost’s chair crashed down, the sudden noise almost making Greenway leap from his seat. ‘Flat-chested, was she? When you stripped her off you saw she was flat-chested.’ He jabbed a finger at Gilmore who was busy with his notebook. ‘Underline that, Sergeant.’

  ‘You don’t have to strip anyone off to see if they’re flat chested or not,’ sneered Greenway. ‘That kid used to deliver here in the summer wearing only a T-shirt. You could see she had nothing.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ Frost agreed. ‘She didn’t have much to show when I saw her stretched out on the slab in the morgue. It didn’t stop you raping her, though, did it?’

  ‘Rape?’ He snorted a hollow laugh. ‘You must be bloody hard up for suspects.’

  Frost pulled a sheet of typescript from the folder. ‘This is the statement you gave to my colleague, Inspector Allen, the miserable-faced git. You say you’re a self-employed van driver?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You were asked to account for your movements for September 14th, the day Paula went missing.’ He let his eyes run over the typed page. ‘You said you didn’t go out at all that day. Is that correct?’

  ‘Bang on! There was no work for me.’ Greenway flicked his ash on the floor and looked as if he was enjoying the questioning. His expression said, ‘Ask what you like, pigs, you’ll get nothing out of me!’

  Frost scratched at his scar. ‘The girl usually delivered your paper — the Sun — around eight o’clock?’

  ‘Yes. But that day, she didn’t turn up.’

  ‘And you didn’t get a paper?’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Greenway, sarcastically.

  Frost produced the copy of the Sun in its transparent cover. ‘This is the paper you say wasn’t delivered. And this…’ He fluttered the forensic report, ‘is scientific evidence which proves you are a lying bastard.’

  Greenway snatched the report, his head moving from side to side as he skimmed through it. He gave a scoffing laugh and handed it back. ‘A load of balls.’

  Gilmore moved forward. ‘Solid scientific evidence. The court will love it.’

  Greenway smiled disarmingly. ‘All right. Let’s pretend it’s genuine. So the newspaper was pushed through my letter-box and pulled out again. That doesn’t prove the girl was in my house and it doesn’t prove I bloody touched her.’

  ‘We’ll soon have all the proof we want,’ said Frost. ‘A Forensic team is going over your place inch by inch right now. One hair from her head… a thread of cotton from her clothes, and we’ve got you, you bastard.’

  ‘Tell you what then,’ smirked Greenway. ‘If you find any thing, I’ll give you a full, sworn confession. Now I can’t say fairer than that.’

  Frost switched on his sweetest smile. ‘We’ll find it,’ he said, trying to sound convincing. But he was worried. Greenway was too damned cock-sure. He looked up with irritation as the door opened and Wells beckoned. The sergeant didn’t look the bearer of good news. ‘Just heard from the Forensic team, Jack. They’ve been all over the cottage and found nothing.’

  Frost slumped against the wall. ‘There’s got to be something.’

  ‘It’s been over two months since she was there,’ said Wells. ‘Forensic are bringing in more men to go over the entire place again, but they’re not optimistic. Are you getting anything from Greenway?’

  ‘Only the bleeding run-around.’

  Mullett’s office door opened. He saw Frost and hurried towards him. ‘What joy?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘No joy, all bloody misery,’ replied Frost. ‘Unless Forensic can come up with something quick, the best I can charge Greenway with is dangerous driving.’

  Mullett’s smile flickered and spluttered out. ‘I hope this is not going to be another of your foul-ups, Frost. I’ve really stuck my neck out with the Chief Constable on this one.’ He spun on his heel and marched back to his office.

  ‘Let’s hope the bastard chops it off for you,’ muttered Frost to the empty passage.

  Back to the Interview Room where Greenway was making great play of nursing his injured hand. ‘I’m in agony. I want medical treatment and I want to go home. You’ve got nothing to hold me on.’

  ‘Lock the bastard up and get him a doctor,’ said Frost. He felt tired and miserable and even more incompetent than usual.

  His office was a hostile dung-heap of bulging files, snarling memos, and complicated-looking returns. Rain splattered against the window and drummed on the roof. He stared out to the rain-swept car-park, and was puzzled be cause he couldn’t see his Cortina, then remembered it had been towed away for repairs after Greenway smashed into it. Gilmore poked his head round the door. He had his hat and coat on in the hope he could nip back home for an hour or so. He’d been on duty solidly since six and a busy night was still looming ahead. ‘Greenway wants to know what’s happening about his dog.’

  ‘A dog-handler’s on his way to pick it up and take it to kennels,’ Frost told him. ‘You off home then?’

  ‘Yes… only for an hour… if it’s all right with you.’ Gilmore’s tone implied that it had better be all right.

  ‘Drop me off on the way, would you, son. I haven’t got wheels.’

  Gilmore readily agreed. It was only when he turned the car into the Market Square to take the short cut to the inspector’s house that Frost broke the news that he wanted to be dropped off at Greenway’s cottage. It was miles off Gilmore’s route, but all right, he’d dump Frost off and then get the hell out of there. Frost could find his own way back.

  Lights were spilling from every room of the cottage. From the backyard the dog kept up its monotonous yapping. The Forensic team were busy. Hardly any surface was free of fingerprint powder, small vacuum cleaners whirled gulping up dust, hairs and fibres for analysis, men crawled over the car pet with tweezers. Tony Harding, in charge of the team, looked up wearily as Frost entered. Gilmore hovered impatiently behind, scowling at the inspector who had said he would be a couple of minutes at the most and wanted a lift back.

  ‘Still no joy,’ said Harding, ‘but we haven’t finished yet.’ Frost received the news gloomily. ‘Keep looking. Any clue — no matter how small. A pair of schoolgirl’s knickers, a confession, a half-eaten chicken and mushroom pie.’ He scuffed the carpet with his foot ‘At the moment, all we’ve got is the paint samples on the newspaper.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Harding, sounding shamefaced. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’ He took the inspector by the arm and led him to one side. ‘The paint sample evidence might not be as conclusive as we first thought. It might not have come from this letter-box.’

  A cold shiver of apprehension trickled down Frost’s back. ‘What do you mean? You did a spectrograph analysis. You told me it was conclusive.’

  ‘Yes… well… it was… up to a point…’

  Frost’s shoulders slumped. ‘Get to the bad bloody news. I don’t want the death of a thousand cuts.’

  ‘We did a spectrograph analysis of the paint sample from the newspaper. There were traces of three layers of paint, the bottom layer brown, the middle a grey undercoat, the top layer black. The spectrograph analysis of the sample taken from Greenway’s letter-box showed three identical paint layers, same colours, same chemical composition.’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Frost. ‘That’s the point in the story where I started believing Forensic weren’t the big, useless twats I’d always thought them to be.’

  Harding’s faint smile accepted the rebuke. ‘The test was fine as far as it went, but we should have tested other letter-boxes on the girl’s delivery route. This I’ve now done.’

  ‘And?’ asked Frost, ready to wince, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.

  ‘Quite a few letter-boxes came up with identical spectrograph readings.’

  ‘But how the hell…?’

  ‘Most of the properties on the girl’s route are owned by the Denton Development Corporation. Every four years their maintenance department repaint exteriors… standar
d colours, standard specification. What I hadn’t appreciated was that Greenway’s cottage is also owned by the Development Corporation. They bought the land some twenty-five years ago for a new housing estate, but haven’t yet found the money.’

  ‘So it’s received the same coats of identical paint every four years as all the other houses?’

  Harding nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. And that means that the girl could have pushed the newspaper through any of those letter-boxes by mistake, then tugged it out again. It doesn’t have to be this cottage.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ muttered Frost bitterly, knowing that Mullett would blame him for this. ‘So unless you can find evidence that the girl has actually been inside here, we’ve got sod all to hold Greenway on?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ agreed Harding.

  Frost wandered across to the window and looked out on to the puddled, muddy back yard where a black shape prowled up and down like a caged wolf. At the end of the garden a sorry-looking shed crouched under pouring rain. ‘You done the shed yet?’

  ‘Not with the Hound of the Baskervilles out there,’ replied Harding. ‘We’re waiting for the dog-handler.’

  As if answering his cue, the dog-handler’s van drew up outside and a short stocky man wearing a padded jacket and thick leather gloves came in, swinging a muzzle and a leash. “What sort of dog is it?’

  ‘A bloody man-eater,’ said Frost, leading him to the back door.

  The dog-handler opened the door a fraction, squinted through the crack, then closed it firmly as the door bulged inwards when the dog hurled himself at it. He didn’t look very happy. ‘I hate Dobermanns. They’re vicious sods.’ He zipped up the padded jacket and pulled the gloves up over his wrists, then nodded. ‘Right. Here goes.’

  ‘Geronimo!’ said Frost, opening the door just wide enough for the handler to squeeze through. He then shut it quickly and listened to the noises off — several minutes of ill-tempered barking and a lot of swearing.

  ‘OK. I’ve got it!’

  The bedraggled dog, muzzled and shaking with rage, snarled as it was pulled through by the leash. It charged at Gilmore then shook rain all over him as it was dragged off.

  Frost beckoned to Gilmore who, frozen-faced, waited with ill-concealed impatience. ‘Let’s take a quick look in the shed, son.’

  Shoulders hunched, they splashed to the end of the yard. The rusty padlock which secured the shed door yielded to the first key from Frost’s bunch.

  The torch beam danced over rubbish. The shed was stacked roof-high with junk. The dirt-encrusted frame of a deck-chair rested against a rusting lawn-mower. Twisting, crumbling remains of old chicken wire strangled sodden strips of mouldering carpeting, rotting fence posts and jagged-edged sheets of warped plywood. The torch beam bounced from item to item. Junk. Stacks of half-empty paint tins, torn bags spewing damp fertilizer. Useless, hoarded rubbish. Frost tugged at the deck-chair, but this caused paint tins to topple and he had to jump back quickly.

  ‘Satisfied?’ asked Gilmore, smugly.

  Frost’s shoulders drooped. ‘Yes, I’m satisfied, son. A quick poke around the house, then we’ll go.’

  He really thought he had found something in the kitchen. On the work top, thawing from the freezer and ready to be popped into the microwave, was Greenway’s planned evening meal. A box of microwave crinkle-cut chips and a chicken and mushroom pie. ‘Stomach contents,’ exclaimed Frost delightedly. He yelled for Harding, who listened and shook his head.

  ‘They don’t help us, Mr Frost.’ He picked up one of the packets. ‘Both common brands… the market leaders. Even if we could prove the girl’s last meal was an identical product, the supermarkets sell tens of thousands of these every week.’

  ‘Damn!’ growled Frost.

  ‘You ready to go yet?’ asked Gilmore pointing yet again to his watch.

  ‘A quick sniff around the bedroom and then you can get off to your conjugals,’ Frost promised.

  The bedroom reflected the state of the rest of the house with the bed and the floor strewn with dirty clothing and unwashed, food-congealed crockery. Was this where Greenway dragged her and raped her? Was this pigsty of a room the last thing that fifteen-year-old kid saw before he choked the life out of her?

  One of the Forensic team pushed past him and began stripping the clothing from the bed. ‘We’re taking the bed clothes for further examination, Inspector, but I get the feeling they’ve been washed during the past four weeks or so.’

  ‘I only wash mine once a year,’ said Frost gloomily, ‘whether they need it or not.’

  Another long, deep, irritating sigh from Gilmore.

  ‘All right, son,’ said Frost. ‘We’re going now.’

  In the hall, Harding looked even gloomier than Frost. ‘We haven’t come up with a thing, Inspector. There’s no evidence at all that the girl was ever in the house.’ He plucked a Dobermann hair from his jacket. ‘There’s dog’s hairs all over the place. Would have been helpful if we’d found some on the girl, but we didn’t.’

  ‘Find me something, for Pete’s sake,’ pleaded Frost, ‘otherwise I’m in the brown and squishy up to my ear-holes.’

  Gilmore put his foot down hard on the drive back in case the inspector thought of some other outlandish spot to visit. Frost slumped miserably down in the passenger seat, stared at the rain-blurred windscreen, smoked and said nothing. Gilmore could almost feel sorry for him.

  Then Frost sat up straight, pulled the cigarette from his mouth and rammed it into the ashtray. ‘I’m a number one, Grade A twat!!’ he announced.

  Tell me something I don’t know thought Gilmore, slowing down at the traffic lights in the Market Square.

  ‘Turn the car around,’ ordered Frost. We’re going back to the cottage.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ gasped Gilmore, looking at Frost whose face was bathed red by the traffic signal.

  ‘Under my bloody nose and I missed it… All that junk in the shed. You’d expect it to be dry, but it was wet, dirty, muddy and rusty. It must have been out rotting in the open for months… so why gather it up and bung it in the shed?’

  ‘Perhaps he just wanted to tidy up his garden,’ said Gilmore.

  ‘Do me a favour. His place is a rubbish tip, just like mine. I’d never tidy up my garden and neither would he. That junk was dumped in his shed to hide something… so let’s go and find out what.’ Frost’s face was now bathed in green. Wearily, Gilmore spun the wheel round and headed back to the cottage.

  The Forensic team had almost completed their work and Harding shook his head at them as they passed through. ‘Nothing. We’re now going to try the shed.’

  ‘Then you can give us a hand,’ Frost told him. ‘Bring a torch.’ Harding slipped on a plastic mac and followed them down to the bottom of the yard.

  ‘This would be easier in the morning,’ moaned Gilmore as rain trickled down his collar.

  ‘Shouldn’t take us long,’ said Frost dragging out the deck-chair frame and flinging it into the dark of the garden.

  It took nearly half an hour. As one item of useless junk was removed more and more was revealed.

  ‘I can’t think why he bothered to keep this,’ grunted Harding, struggling with a muddy iron-framed bedspring, heavily corroded with rust.

  It was not until the shed was nearly empty that they found what Greenway had been hiding. Stacked high against the far end of the shed, white cardboard boxes, piled almost to the roof. Frost moved back to let Gilmore reach up and drag one down. He tore open the stapled lid. Inside, tightly packed, were cartons of Benson and Hedges Silk Cut cigarettes. Gilmore took out a carton and tossed it over to Frost who ripped off the wrapping. No ‘Government Health Warning’ on the side of the packets. These cigarettes were made for export.

  Frost stared at the packets, feeling even more depressed. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find, but certainly not this. This would effectively shoot his case against Green way right up the anal passage. He went to the shed door and s
wore bitterly into the rain and the wind and the dark.

  The Interview Room now reeked strongly of stale shag tobacco smoke and cheese and onion crisps. There was a spit-soaked, thin hand-rolled cigarette end in the ashtray. Some one else had been interviewed since Frost’s questioning of Greenway.

  ‘All right, all right. Stop shoving.’ Greenway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with a neatly bandaged hand, stumbled into the room, urged roughly from behind by a foul-tempered Gilmore. Frost waited until the man was sitting down, then he pulled a packet of Benson and Hedges from his pocket and pushed it across. Greenway stared at it for a while, turned the packet gingerly with a finger so he could confirm the absence of the health warning. ‘You took your bloody time finding them,’ he grunted.

  Frost retrieved the packet and shook out a cigarette. He lit up and sucked in smoke. ‘Feel like talking?’

  Greenway helped himself to a cigarette and accepted a light from the inspector. ‘I take it I’m no longer being charged with killing the school kid?’

  ‘No. The bloke you coshed has identified your photograph.’

  Greenway thought for a moment. ‘All right. I’ll give you a statement.’

  But as Gilmore turned the pages of his notebook, Frost waved a hand for him to stop. ‘This isn’t our case. Detective Inspector Skinner from Shelwood Division is on his way over. You can give a statement to him.’

  Gilmore snorted in exasperation. ‘Would someone mind telling me what this is about?’

  ‘Sorry, son,’ apologized Frost. ‘On the day Paula Bartlett went missing a van-load of Benson and Hedges king-size cigarettes for export was hijacked on its way to the docks. The driver was flagged down, coshed, and his load nicked. This happened on the motorway at Shelwood, miles outside Denton Division.’

  ‘But Greenway told Inspector Allen he never went out that day,’ protested Gilmore.

  ‘I think he was lying,’ said Frost. ‘People don’t always tell us the truth.’

  ‘Of course I was lying,’ said Greenway. ‘The bloody van, full of nicked fags, was standing outside my house when the other inspector called that evening. I thought he was on to me, so when he asked me, I said I hadn’t been out all day. But it was about the missing kid.. ’