Frost at Midnight (DI Jack Frost Prequel)

by James, Henry

  ‘Toothpick?’

  ‘Yes, a tiny wooden sliver, but that’s what I think.’

  ‘Really? That is interesting.’ Frost sighed. So what – she had good oral hygiene? ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Her feet tell us a lot. This woman was not used to going barefoot, for a start. The soles of her feet are soft, hence the thin fragile splinter – it would not have pierced a more hardy foot. Also, I think this woman had been running.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yes, her feet are marked, you see. There are indications of pressure being applied – small pocks and indents such as might be sustained while running. There are traces of what I think is bitumen from a recently tarmacked road. Yes, I think this lady ran along a newly laid road surface some time shortly before her demise.’

  Frost perked up. This was more like it. ‘Perhaps to evade capture?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘The broken ankle, could that have happened from a fall while running? I’m thinking if the surface was tough underfoot …’

  ‘Very possibly. Though one knee is scuffed, which would mean …’

  ‘Maybe she fell twice?’

  ‘Yes, quite.’

  ‘Thank you very much indeed, Doc.’

  Frost hung up, moving off the desk. ‘Ooh, hello sir, didn’t see you there. You gave me a fright,’ he said to Mullett behind him.

  ‘I thought I told you to get down to—’ Mullett said loudly then, suddenly aware there were others in the room, continued quietly through gritted teeth, ‘I thought I told you to get Karen Thomas out of the Coconut Grove.’

  The commander’s face was puce with annoyance.

  ‘Sir, you oughtn’t get so het up, not with your condition.’

  The remark stopped Mullett dead in his tracks.

  Frost decided not to push his luck; it was one thing winding him up in the privacy of his own office, but another in the general CID office.

  ‘If I recall, sir, you asked me to find out whether she works there. I can confirm she does.’ He grinned.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘She’s a corker, if you get me.’ He winked playfully, to alleviate the situation.

  ‘Well that explains it.’ The super frowned.

  ‘Explains what?’

  ‘Nothing, other than the situation has escalated; get Baskin to fire her immediately.’

  ‘What—What for?’ The two men stared at each other. Frost knew Mullett well enough by now to know that the situation was not straightforward.

  ‘Come with me,’ Mullett said at last.

  Monday (6)

  After dropping off Richard at his aunt’s, DS Waters had discovered that Jane Hammond’s Rimmington punter – the one who lived a street up from her sister Clare – enjoyed equally enviable circumstances. He found the property empty, but managed to extract some details from an elderly neighbour he caught peering anxiously from a bay window. The old dear had clearly been troubled by the sight of a big black guy in denims sniffing around the next-door house. Once he’d flashed his badge at her window, the sixty-year-old widow was so relieved not to be robbed, raped and murdered, she dashed into her kitchen to fetch a business card.

  Mr Rupert T. Cox was a lawyer at Cox, Drake & Elgin, whose offices were in Rimmington High Street. Waters flexed the card in his fingers behind the wheel of the Vauxhall; he didn’t want to embarrass the man at work, but he was damned if he was going to wait for the lawyer to knock off.

  Cox’s neighbour’s reaction was not surprising; Rimmington was posh, middle-class and white – very white. Apparently Frost had an Indian GP here – on the rare occasion that Jack mentioned his doctor, he described him as the ‘outstanding Dr Mirchandani’, a reference not only to the man’s ability but also to his status as the only Asian in town. A statement that appeared to be true; Waters had never once seen a brown face here. The high street was populated with independent retailers – not for Rimmingtonians the Bejam, International and other chain retailers. No, the family-run greengrocer and the jolly local British butcher with his prime cuts, these were more suited to the discerning clientele around here. Waters stopped to buy a peach from one such place before entering the law firm.

  Cox, Drake & Elgin operated out of the top floor of an imposing stucco-fronted Georgian building at the heart of the high street. Waters took a bite out of the ripe fruit and eyed the building with a hint of mischief.

  ‘Well, Tufty, let’s see what you’ve got to say for yourself,’ he said, mounted the steps to the building and pressed the bell.

  The receptionist buzzed him in over the intercom but, clocking him in person, she became immediately suspicious. Mr Cox was, she decided, about to become very unavailable. Her legal environment encouraged mistrust. Waters’ credentials might look authentic – but a forged or stolen identity seemed more probable.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he advised, as she froze at her typewriter when he bore down on her, resting his knuckles on her desk, ‘just pick up the phone and tell Mr Cox I’m here to see him about “Tufty”, and if he doesn’t want to see me, fine, I’ll go away and leave you my number.’

  She picked up the phone and spoke in urgent hushed tones. In less than thirty seconds, Waters was ushered into a corner office to meet a man in his late forties with longish sandy hair, wearing an open-necked shirt. An abundance of chest hair poked out over the top button.

  ‘Mr Cox, thank you for finding the time.’ Waters held out his hand.

  ‘Thank you, Cynthia, that will be all,’ the lawyer said, and shook Waters’ hand limply. Once the door was shut he continued, ‘Something has happened to Jane, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ Waters asked simply, settling into an easy chair.

  ‘Come now, Sergeant,’ Cox said, ‘unless you are a fraud and out to blackmail me.’

  Waters gave a slight laugh. ‘Ha. Yeah, I guess there’s not much that gets past you boys. You’re right. Jane Hammond is missing.’

  ‘Since when?’

  Waters filled him in with what he knew.

  ‘I see.’ The man seemed shocked. ‘And all your information would point to me as her last port of call. But I didn’t see her last Saturday, she didn’t show.’

  ‘Can you prove it?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I cannot.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Does that make me a suspect?’

  ‘Suspect? Suspect for what? She’s only missing …’

  ‘Don’t play games with me, Sergeant Waters. Janey always caught the same bus over; she even knew the driver’s name. Kev. Why not check at the bus depot?’

  ‘All in good time.’ The man was rude, but to be fair, he was holding up well. ‘On a usual Saturday, when would you part company?’

  ‘She’d arrive at four, and be on her way by five thirty.’

  After the initial shock, the lawyer gave the impression of concern. He had known Janey three years, and was not ashamed of the relationship, it seemed. He was single, after all. Waters didn’t see the guy in the frame, and emphasized that he was most interested in tracking the woman’s movements. After five minutes he rose to leave.

  ‘And Sergeant, please keep me informed. I want to help in any way I can. How’s the boy?’

  ‘He’s being taken care of.’

  ‘Of course, her sister Clare.’ The lawyer pondered this, then added, ‘As I said, I’m willing to help where possible, and that extends to the boy.’

  Waters nodded and left. The man was a better person than he was prepared to credit when he’d arrived in Rimmington. You never can tell, he thought, and headed back to Denton.

  Clarke sat in the bay window of the elegant Edwardian townhouse with Clare Hammond. The woman, though pleasant enough, had an unhealthy pallor and instinctively Clarke had her marked as ill.

  They had been discussing Richard’s schooling, in a circuitous way; whether he should return to school given the uncertainty of his mother’s whereabouts, and if so how he would get to Denton. Cla
re Hammond didn’t drive. Clarke thought this a social services issue, but it was not quite the end of the summer holidays, so would not be an immediate problem, unless one was to take the bleakest view, and she was reluctant to pursue that with the boy within earshot at the far end of the room.

  ‘I haven’t got any money,’ Clare said abruptly, reaching for the teapot, which sat on a small oval table between them.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The house was left to us both by my father. I’ve not been able to work for some time.’ Her hand shook as she poured tea into what Clarke thought to be a bone-china cup. ‘I’m sure you must think it odd, me living here, and her and the boy over there in that flat.’

  ‘Families are all very different,’ Clarke said, thinking of her own small one. ‘In any case, it’s not our job to judge.’ She reached for her cuppa. The ornate porcelain handle was too tiny for her fingers, and it slipped as she raised it.

  Clarke watched as brown liquid splashed across a knitted tea cosy. Clarke thought the cosy – white, with a contrasting pattern in green – rather twee, verging on the ugly.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, it’s ghastly anyway,’ said Clare. ‘Jane gave it to me for Christmas.’

  ‘Does she knit?’

  ‘Not that I know of, God knows where she got the damn thing … a jumble sale, probably. Do you have children yourself?’ Clare asked suddenly.

  ‘Why, yes, I have a baby.’

  ‘Ah, I thought so.’

  ‘Why?’ She must look shattered, massive rings under her eyes.

  ‘Oh nothing, just the way you look at Richard.’ She nodded slightly towards the boy, who was sitting at a large table at the far end of the room drawing, his silhouette framed by the light coming through French doors at the back of the house.

  Clarke’s gaze dropped to the puddle in her saucer. ‘I suppose I hadn’t really thought of children as, as … anything beyond babies.’

  ‘Oh, I understand that. Jane certainly never gave it a moment’s thought. How could she?’

  Clarke was surprised by the sharpness of her tone. ‘Are you and Jane close?’

  ‘You think I’m unsympathetic?’

  ‘I …’ Clarke stuttered to a halt. A silence hung in the neat Edwardian house for a long second.

  ‘We are close, actually.’ Clare Hammond’s tone softened, eyes down on the teacup in her lap. ‘I see her most weeks. I don’t like the way she makes her living, but I do respect her; she’s tough … and how she cares for Richard – never a mother more devoted … But this eventuality has always lurked at the back of my mind, that something would happen …’

  ‘Do you think something has happened to her?’

  Clare Hammond raised her eyes, and met Clarke’s anxious stare. ‘Of course, don’t you?’ She cleared her throat. ‘I pray nothing has, but … but I’m steeling myself. I’m sorry if you find me hard-hearted … One reads about things in the papers all the time that happen to girls like Jane.’ Her voice quivered ever so slightly on her sister’s name.

  ‘Has Jane ever confided that she’s felt threatened?’ Clarke said. The honesty was hard to absorb.

  ‘No, not that I can recall. Ironically, she’s often said she feels perfectly safe there in those flats. Protected from above and below by people like herself, looking out for one another. She’d not tell me anyway. And she never discusses her clientele. I only know there is one around here; and that’s usually when I see her.’ Clare smiled bravely. ‘After work.’

  Clarke was finding the episode depressing and wondered whether the time away had made her go soft, or if not soft, then vulnerable emotionally. She’d thought that with Frost staying so often at her flat she’d somehow maintain a rapport with CID. But he was seldom really present: he just ate and drank, made a mess and snored in front of the television. She felt a need to be back at Eagle Lane, back amid the chaos and coarse unpleasantness; let it toughen her up again. There was little more to do here. She didn’t deem it necessary to talk to the child – in fact, she found the very thought conflicted with her maternal instincts. She scribbled down the social services number on the back of her own card and did her best to reassure the woman that her sister would reappear. Clare Hammond’s expression was doubtful; her principal concern was at being landed with her sister’s kid – something she felt at best ill-equipped for, and at worst pretty angry about. This suppressed anger was, Clarke thought, the overriding mood as she left the aunt and nephew.

  Within the confines of his office, Mullett took a deep breath and settled into the comfort of his executive chair. He forced himself to regain his composure and not be riled. He knew Frost was baiting him, but he would rise above it. Miss Smith brought in a tea tray, and the superintendent politely encouraged Frost to partake.

  ‘Now, how can I put it?’ Mullett asked with more honesty than he’d intended. ‘It would be beneficial to us all if Karen Thomas were no longer in Harry’s employ.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘How what?’

  ‘How would it be beneficial to us all?’

  He sat there, slurping tea noisily, wearing that simpleton expression that drove Mullett crazy. After all their years of enduring one another, how was it Frost still had the power to wind him up so? (And – more urgently – how on earth did Frost know of his condition?)

  ‘Let’s just say it would help me in one way, and you in another.’

  Frost set the teacup down with a clatter and reached forward for the heavy desk lighter. Even that gesture was carefully judged to annoy him! He knew full well the barbarian carried a Zippo; but no, why use that when there’s an opportunity to scuff up his highly polished desk? The man was an ape.

  ‘How would it help me?’

  ‘In loose, unquantifiable terms.’ Mullett gesticulated airily.

  ‘Really? As beneficial as that?’

  ‘Does everything have to be clear cut?’ He leaned forward. ‘You’ve got Clarke back, haven’t you – can’t you be satisfied with that?’

  Frost drew deeply on the cigarette. ‘OK.’

  ‘OK? OK what?’

  ‘I’ll get Harry to sack Karen Thomas.’

  ‘Really?’ Mullett was speechless; he expected at least to have to twist Frost’s arm, or come down hard. This was a surprise. ‘Jolly good, thanks, Jack.’

  Frost smiled back. ‘That’ll be all, sir?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He sat back, satisfied. ‘Let me know when it’s done.’ Frost nodded and left the room, leaving Mullett feeling relieved, but nervous. Why would he agree so readily? It was not in his nature to do anyone any favours, him least of all, especially after their confrontation this morning. Surely? Unless he was stupid. Though Frost was many things, but not stupid. He must be up to something … The super scratched around irritably for his pills.

  Monday (7)

  With Waters out, Frost had seconded PC Simms to run him across Denton. Frost loathed driving, and was always on the look-out for an unsuspecting chauffeur. They parked outside the down-at-heel row of shops, and Frost exited the panda car with alacrity.

  ‘I’m peckish,’ he quipped over the car roof.

  Andreas was a handsome man in his early forties, bald on top but with a heavy beard; powerfully built and wearing a tight white T-shirt to emphasize his physique, he was the proprietor of the Codpiece chippy on the Southern Housing Estate. With a lugubrious air he took an order from two teenagers in biker jackets.

  ‘Hello, Mr Happy,’ Frost teased.

  ‘Frost? Jesus, what do you want – how many times do I need to tell you, you’re bad for business? You frighten the customers away. Damage my saveloy margins.’

  Frost had briefed PC Simms in the car, said the man was of noble European birth; well-educated, well-travelled but had had a professional mishap, which had landed him here in Denton. What Simms saw before him was a fast-food chef, stuck behind a deep-fat fryer in thirty-degree heat, with little patience for sarcastic policemen. Andr
eas served the boys their chips, then removed his steel-rimmed spectacles and wiped them on his T-shirt.

  ‘You can have a battered sausage left over from Saturday, but that’s it. You’ll have to clear off.’ He spoke well and was clearly not intimidated.

  ‘Talking of Saturday night …’ Frost gestured to Simms.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, sir, but would you happen to remember this lady?’ Simms flashed a picture of Rachel Curtis, which they’d lifted from her house.

  ‘Cute.’ Andreas replaced his glasses. He raised his shoulders in a pronounced shrug. ‘Maybe, when?’

  ‘Saturday evening, between seven and eight?’

  ‘Saturday evening there was a stream of biker gangs. Not local. Is she local?’

  ‘Sort of … she’s been away,’ Frost said diplomatically.

  ‘Sorry, are you saying she is in a gang or not?’

  ‘Let’s just say she was not from this part of town; we think she was with a man.’

  ‘Couples … there’s tons of couples come through.’ He banged the metal chip fryer with a frown.

  ‘Or she might have been on her own?’ Simms put in, raising his voice. Frost shot him a glance with a cocked eyebrow.

  ‘How was she dressed?’

  ‘Short black skirt, white blouse. Too smart for those scruffy layabouts,’ Simms said pointedly, nodding towards the two lads.

  ‘A woman did come in on her own, I recall; it might have been her.’

  Frost was impressed with young Simms. He showed promise in all the ways his older brother had but without the chip on his shoulder. He stood outside the Codpiece and watched the lad climb inside the area car as he sank his teeth into a saveloy. If Rachel Curtis had been here, it gave them no real clue as to where she went next. Beyond the Southern Housing Estate was the countryside. There was nothing closer than the village of Two Bridges over to the south-east, approachable only by narrow lanes. The Codpiece itself sat on a crossroads. Frost watched two bare-chested men in hard hats pass the police car and glance vaguely in his direction. He polished off the saveloy and tossed the newspaper wrapper in the bin.