Night Frost djf-3

by R D Wingfield

  ‘Can you help us at all about the girl?’ asked Frost.

  Greenway shook his head. ‘I left home at six in the morning.. didn’t get back until nine o’clock at night. The paper hadn’t arrived when I left and it wasn’t there when I got back.’

  A tap at the door. ‘Detective Inspector Skinner is here,’ announced Sergeant Wells.

  Skinner, a burly man in a trench coat, looked exactly how a detective inspector should look, a contrast to the rag-bag Gilmore had to work with. His sergeant, lean and mean, looked like a detective sergeant who would always be in his boss’s shadow, not how Gilmore intended to end up. ‘Understand you’ve got a little present for us, Jack?’ said Skinner, his eyes on the prisoner.

  ‘He’s all yours,’ said Frost. ‘I can’t solve any of my own cases, but I solve other people’s.’ He offered his cigarettes around and Skinner nearly choked when he was told he was smoking some of the stolen property.

  Wells returned with papers to be signed for the transfer of the prisoner and whispered to Frost that Mr Mullett would like to see him in his office.

  ‘Shit,’ muttered Frost. ‘It’s been a rotten enough day already.’

  In fact Mullett was hovering outside in the corridor and was full of charm and smiles for the two detectives from Shelwood. ‘Delighted to have been able to help,’ he smarmed. But as soon as they had gone, his smile froze to death. ‘My office!’ he hissed and spun on his heel away.

  Frost was dead tired, but he kept his eyes open to pretend he was listening as Mullett droned angrily on. ‘You’ve made me look a complete and utter fool in the eyes of the Chief Constable…’

  He let his gaze drift around the old log cabin and noticed to his horror that there was a foil take-away food container, yellowed with cold curry sauce, poking from under Mullett’s desk. He moved forward, looking very contrite, and nudged it out of sight with his toe.

  ‘… and it wasn’t even our case. We’ve improved Shelwood’s crime figures, which made ours look sick anyway, and done nothing for our own. What on earth am I going to tell the Chief Constable?’

  The drone of Mullett’s voice roared and faded and Frost had to jerk his head up to keep awake. He fought back a yawn. This was all his life seemed to be lately, making balls- ups, getting bollockings from Mullett, and then sent out to make a fresh balls-up.

  ‘… and, in any case, I had told you to concentrate on the senior citizen killings. So leave the Paula Bartlett case for Mr Allen and try and find that other suspect you let slip through your fingers. I want no more mess-ups.’ He leant across his desk, his chin thrust out. ‘Are you receiving me, Inspector?’

  ‘Loud and clear,’ said Frost. ‘Loud and bloody clear.’

  1.15 a.m. The lobby had a sour smell. A mixture of stale beer and spilt whisky. Wells was shouting at PC Jordan who, helped by young PC Collier, was struggling with a man in evening dress. The man’s legs kept giving way and he seemed ready to collapse in the pool of vomit at his feet. At last they managed to sit him down safely on the bench.

  ‘Anything in from the Met on Simon Bradbury?’ asked Gilmore.

  ‘How the hell do I know?’ snapped Wells, irritably. ‘I don’t keep track of every bit of paper that comes in and out of this building. And another…’ He stopped short and yelled, ‘Take him outside! Quick!’ The drunk was being sick again. Jordan and Collier grabbed him, but too late. More vomit pumped out and they jumped back just in time as it splattered on the lobby floor. Eyes squinting, the drunk tried to make out what the mess was at his feet.

  ‘Bloody marvellous!’ cried Wells, and he looked around for someone to vent his anger on. PC Collier decided this was a good time to take a refreshment break and sidled out towards the rest room, but didn’t quite make it.

  ‘And where do you think you’re going, Collier?’

  ‘Refreshment break, Sergeant.’

  Wells consulted his watch and found, to his disappointment, that Collier was entitled to his break. ‘Right. When you come back you can clean up this mess.’

  ‘That’s not my job, Sergeant,’ Collier protested, firmly.

  ‘Your job is to do what I bloody well tell you to do,’ yelled Wells as Collier stamped out, slamming the door behind him. Red-faced Wells charged, fists clenched, after him. ‘I’ll have you, Collier.’

  Frost cut across to bar his way. ‘Hold it, Bill. Hold it,’ he said, soothingly. ‘We’re all tired and overworked.’ He poked a cigarette in the sergeant’s mouth and led him back to the desk. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’

  ‘There’s a kettle in the rest room,’ said Wells. ‘You might bring me one.’

  The only occupant of the rest room was Collier who was huddled in a chair in front of a 14-inch colour TV set, warming his hands round a mug of instant coffee and brooding over the injustices of working under Sergeant Wells. On the screen, a young girl in pigtails who didn’t look much older than twelve was sprawled naked on some grass, sun bathing. The camera moved to show a man with a riding crop watching from the cover of some bushes. Behind the man a board read Trespassers Will Be Punished.

  ‘Where did you get that video?’ demanded Gilmore, sharply.

  Snatched too abruptly from his morose meditation, Collier started, spilling instant coffee down the front of his uniform. He reached out to switch off the set, but Frost grabbed his wrist. ‘Leave it, son. Where did you get it?’

  ‘We only borrowed it, Inspector. We were going to put it back.’ He held up a video case which had the typed label A Thrashing For Fiona. It was one of the haul of pornographic videos removed from the newsagent’s.

  On the screen the naked girl was on her knees, pleading with the man who was slapping the riding crop against his leg.

  ‘Go and fetch Sergeant Wells,’ ordered Frost, dragging another chair in front of the set.

  Collier registered dismay. It was unlike the inspector to report people. ‘I only borrowed it, sir.’

  Dragging his eyes from the TV set where the girl was across the man’s knees, being thrashed with the riding crop, Frost gave a reassuring grin. ‘Don’t worry, son. I’ll tell him I took it. Just send him in.’

  Gilmore spooned instant coffee into three mugs and filled them with boiling water. He passed one to Frost and sat beside him in the, chair vacated by Collier.

  A clatter of footsteps up the passage and Wells came in. ‘Look, Jack, I haven’t got time…’ He stopped dead as he caught sight of the screen. ‘Bloody-hell…!’ He grabbed the other chair and sat down.

  Engrossed, Frost gulped down his coffee, unaware that he hadn’t added his usual three heaped teaspoons of sugar. The man was now using the riding crop to do something unspeakable. ‘He caught her trespassing,’ Frost told Wells, explaining the plot.

  ‘Serves her bloody right,’ said Wells. ‘She’ll think twice before she does it again.’

  The video finished abruptly. Frost fed another one in. The title read Animal Passions. An interior scene this time. The same pigtailed girl, naked and with a dog, a large white and brown Great Dane with a torn left ear, its tail wagging furiously. The girl lay on her back. The dog, slowly and deliberately, was licking her.

  ‘I bet he prefers that to Pedigree Chum,’ croaked Wells.

  ‘Who wouldn’t,’ said Frost.

  Gilmore looked at his watch. Nearly two o’clock. He’d told Liz he’d try and pop in during the shift, even if it was only for half an hour. He tried to catch Frost’s attention as the fool sat there, eyes bulging, like a schoolboy with a dirty book. ‘Do you mind if I take a break, Inspector? About half an hour or so? I’d like to pop home.’

  ‘Sure,’ muttered Frost, his eyes glued to the screen where the dog, tongue lolling, whites of eyes showing, was coupling with the girl.

  This was too much for Gilmore who turned away in disgust. As he reached for the door handle it was abruptly snatched away from him as the door opened and there, framed in the doorway like an avenging angel, stood a furious and angry Mullett.

  The in
ternal phone rang.

  Gilmore stared at Mullett, open-mouthed. Bloody Frost had dropped him in it again. He was sure the Divisional Commander had gone home.

  Frost and Wells, eyes fixed rigidly on the screen, were blissfully ignorant of this visitation and Gilmore could do nothing to alert them.

  Mullett pushed Gilmore to one side and strode into the rest room. He stood between the two men and the TV set and glowered down at them, his face thunder black.

  Wells nearly had a heart attack.

  ‘Hello, Super. This is a pleasant surprise,’ said Frost, managing an unconvincing grin.

  The phone kept on ringing. Glad of something to do, Gilmore answered it. It was Collier warning them that the Divisional Commander was on his way in.

  ‘Thank you,’ hissed Gilmore through clenched teeth, “but we know.’

  ‘What the devil is going on here?’ spluttered Mullett. ‘I look in on my way back from a function and what do I find? The lobby floor plastered with vomit, a junior officer left on his own to cope and the station sergeant and other officers in the rest room, watching…’ His eyes bulged as he looked over his shoulder to see just what they were watching, obscene, bestial videos.’

  Wells was on his feet, his mouth opening and closing in the hope that his brain would provide him with something mitigating to say. Gilmore wished the ground would open and swallow him. At the first opportunity he would request an interview with Mullett to explain that he was not there from choice.

  Frost didn’t appear to be paying his Divisional Commander much attention, but leant forward to study the antics on the screen more closely.

  Mullett’s lips compressed as he bottled up his rage. This was the last straw. ‘Would you please wait outside,’ he asked the other two men. A mad scramble for the door as they raced to comply, leaving the inspector as hostage for the superintendent’s fury.

  Frost dragged his chair closer to the TV set. Angrily, Mullett pushed in front of him, blocking his view. ‘If I might have your attention,’ he began icily then nearly burst a blood vessel as Frost had the temerity, the brazen-faced in subordinate impudence, to reach out and push his Divisional Commander to one side.

  ‘How dare you,’ he spluttered when the words finally came.

  Flapping a hand for Mullett to be quiet, Frost roared out, ‘Gilmore… in here! Quick.’

  The detective sergeant came back in the room, looking first at the purple-faced, rage-quivering Mullett, then at Frost who was on his knees operating the rewind button on the video recorder. Like a silent film in reverse, the naked girl and the dog moved jerkily backwards at high speed.

  ‘Watch,’ ordered Frost, releasing the rewind. The dog, panting with excitement, again approached and straddled the girl.

  ‘For the last time, Inspector…’ roared Mullett.

  Curtly jerking his hand for silence, Frost jabbed the pause button. On the screen, in full close-up, the vacant face of the girl froze, quivering slightly as the video head passed over and over the same section of tape.

  ‘The pigtails and blonde hair are a wig, son,’ said Frost, his hands moving to block them out.

  Gilmore stared hard at the girl’s face, her lips slack, eyes glazed and unseeing, tiny flecks of sweat on the forehead.

  ‘Recognize her, son?’

  Gilmore nodded. Yes, he recognized her. The suicide. The Snoopy watch. The Mickey Mouse night-shirt. Fifteen-year-old Susan Bicknell. The marks of the beating were now explained.

  Frost straightened up. ‘Come on, son. I think we should ask her stepfather a few questions.’

  ‘I demand to know what this is all about!’ shrieked Mullett. But they were gone, the door slamming firmly shut behind them, leaving him alone in the room. Behind him the dog had worked itself up into a frenzy. He tried to switch it off, but none of the buttons, seemed to work. He pushed the door open and thundered down the corridor. Tomorrow. He would see Frost tomorrow. And then it would be his turn. The lobby wall suddenly zipped upwards and the ceiling stared down at him as his back hit the floor. His feet had found a slippery patch of vomit.

  ‘Whatever you do,’ hissed Frost to Wells, just before he darted out to the car-park, ‘don’t laugh.’

  A cold black night, made blacker by purple rain clouds that covered the face of the moon. They didn’t have to drag anyone out of bed. A downstairs light was still on at the house and a shirt-sleeved Kenneth Duffy, tired and drawn, opened the door to them.

  ‘Remember me, Mr Duffy?’ asked Gilmore, showing his warrant card.

  Duffy stared through the card and nodded.

  ‘We’d like to come in, please,’ said Gilmore. ‘Just a couple of questions.’

  Duffy twisted his head. ‘It’s for me, love,’ he called, ushering the two detectives into an unheated lounge. ‘I don’t want my wife troubled,’ he explained. ‘She’s broken up about this. We both are.’ He dropped into a chair and stared at the drawn red curtains. He shivered. ‘Sorry there’s no heat.’

  Frost sat down on the settee, facing Duffy. ‘You’re up late?’

  ‘My wife can’t sleep. I stay up with her. I don’t like leaving her alone.’

  Frost gave a sympathetic nod and looked up for his sergeant to start the questions.

  ‘We’re worried at the absence of a suicide note,’ Gilmore said.

  ‘Oh?’ He tried to rub some warmth into a shirt-sleeved arm.

  ‘You’re quite sure there was no note?’

  ‘Positive.’

  Silence, broken only by the measured ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Then another sound. Frost had taken something from his mac pocket and was tapping it on his knee. It snatched Duffy’s attention away from his study of the curtains.

  The object was black, made of plastic, and Frost, a half-smile on his face, was tapping it slowly and regularly, again and again, on his knee.

  At first Duffy couldn’t make out what it was. Then his eyes widened and he sucked in air. It was a video cassette.

  ‘Woof woof,’ said Frost, and grinned.

  ‘You bastard!’ With a howl of rage Duffy hurled himself across the room at the inspector, his fists swinging wildly. Gilmore leapt forward to grab his wrists and fling him back into the chair.

  ‘Was it something I said?’ asked Frost in pretended puzzlement.

  ‘You bastard,’ repeated Duffy, this time near to tears. He shrank down into the chair and covered his face with his hands and his body convulsed with the sobbing he was no longer able to hold back ‘Don’t tell my wife. It would kill her.’ His voice was muffled by his hands.

  Gilmore turned away. Raw emotion embarrassed him. Frost dribbled smoke and tried to look as if he knew more than he did

  Kenneth Duffy knuckled his eyes dry. ‘What do you want to know?’

  Frost waved the video. ‘Tell me about it.’

  Duffy bowed his head. ‘I watched a few seconds — that was enough.’

  ‘Where’s the suicide note?’

  The man shivered again and folded his arms around him self. ‘I destroyed it.’

  ‘Why?’ snapped Gilmore who was standing behind him. ‘Because it incriminated you?’

  He twisted his head round and looked up at the sergeant. ‘No. Because Susan asked me to. The note was addressed to me.’

  Frost lit up a fresh cigarette from the stub of the old. ‘What did it say?’

  ‘It said, “The letter will explain. I can’t face mum after what I’ve done. Please help me. Destroy this. She must never know.”’

  ‘Letter? What letter?’

  ‘It was with Susan’s note. An anonymous letter.’

  Anonymous letter! Frost started, as did Gilmore. ‘Tell us about it.’

  Duffy paused to control his agitated breathing. ‘It was addressed to my wife. Susan must have known it was coming so she waited for the postman. She opened it, read it and…’ He shrugged as if referring to something trivial. ‘… and killed herself.’

  ‘I want that letter,’ said Frost grimly.<
br />
  ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t got it. I burnt it with the suicide note.’

  ‘Shit!’ said Frost vehemently. ‘Describe it. The notepaper, the handwriting.’

  ‘Is it important?’ asked Duffy wearily.

  ‘Yes, it bloody is.’

  ‘Blue notepaper. Typed. Posted in Denton.’

  Frost nodded grimly to Gilmore. ‘What did it say?’

  ‘What do you bloody think it said?’ replied Duffy again near to tears. ‘It said, “Dear Mrs Duffy. Did you know that your dear darling, pure daughter Susan has taken part in depraved, bestial practices with men, with other women… even with animals, and is so proud of what she did that she allowed herself to be filmed. If you doubt me, I’m sending you a video.” ‘He paused and listened to the clock tick.

  ‘And did he send a video?’ prompted Frost.

  ‘Yes. It came the next morning… the day after Susan died. Imagine the effect on my wife if she’d received it. I waited for the postman, just like Susan must have done.’ He shuddered. ‘It was the one with the dog.’

  All heads turned to the door as it clicked open. Mrs Duffy came in, a shrunken, stooped figure, face tired and lined, eyes red. Duffy rose from his chair. ‘It’s the police, love. Just asking a few questions.’

  ‘Routine,’ muttered Frost, avoiding her eyes. She’d have to know, but he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

  She forced a smile. ‘I’ll make some tea.’

  ‘We can’t stop, I’m afraid,’ said Frost. ‘Lots of things to do.’

  ‘I won’t be long, love,’ said Duffy, helping his wife out of the room. ‘You go in the warm.’ When he came back he said, ‘How old does she look? Sixty?’ Not far short, thought Frost. ‘She was forty last month and she never looked her age. Losing her only daughter was bad enough, but when this other business comes out, it’ll kill her. You’ll have another death on your hands.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell her,’ said Frost.

  ‘You bloody tell her,’ said Duffy. He went to the side board and opened a drawer where he took out a small box. ‘You see these?’ He rattled it. ‘The bloody doctor’s put her back on the same tablets Susan took.’