Frost poked a cigarette in his mouth and smoked to delay making a decision. Sod it, he had no flaming choice. He’d come this far and he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep not knowing whether or not bite-sized chunks of the missing nurse were rotting away in there.
Chucking his cigarette away, he stepped out into the cold street. He patted his pocket. The key! Sod it, he’d forgotten the flaming key! The perfect excuse to go back home and leave it until the morning. But he’d opened countless doors before when he didn’t have a key.
Clicking on the torch, he studied the lock. It didn’t look too substantial. A couple of well- placed kicks might be the Open Sesame. He gave the handle a tentative turn, just in case, and to his surprise the door swung open, creaking like something from a Hammer horror film. Frost paused, screwing his face in thought, trying to remember if he had locked up when he was here earlier. He could swear he had. He seemed to remember turning the key, then trying the door to make sure it was properly locked. Well, it wasn’t locked now, so he clearly hadn’t. Pushing the door open further, he stepped into the foul-smelling, hostile dark.
Bang on cue, just when he needed it most, his torch gave a death rattle, flickered and died. Sod it! He knew it was on its last legs, so why the hell hadn’t he changed the battery? Another good excuse for leaving the search until later – perhaps even sending Taffy Morgan in. He shook the thought away. One of the penalties of rank was that you didn’t ask your subordinates to do things you wouldn’t do yourself.
Frost gave the torch a couple of slaps against the side of his leg and frightened it into spitting out a feeble, quivering beam, which waited until he was inside the refrigeration room before cutting out completely. All his shakings and bangings failed to give it the kiss of life.
A clunk. The damn door had shut itself behind him, enclosing him in pitch blackness you could cut with a butcher’s cleaver. His shoe slithered on something slimy and nasty and the smell in the enclosed space was making him gag. He fumbled in his pocket for his cigarette lighter and flicked it on, hoping the gas would last out. The flame threw out hardly any light, but at least he could now locate the heap of rotting meat. How the hell was he going to examine it? One thing was sure – he wasn’t going to touch that heap of smouldering putrescent muck with his bare hands.
He gave a rotting carcass a tentative kick and it tottered to the floor with a squelch, exposing something white behind. What the hell was it? He bent and held the cigarette lighter closer, then his heart skipped a beat before hammering away at top speed. Marble-white and stained with blood.
It was a hand. A severed human hand.
Frost stepped back in horror and disgust, then suddenly he felt his feet give way from under him. As he tried to regain his balance, the lighter and the torch dropped from his grasp, landing with a squelch in the heap of putrid filth. There was a thud as his back hit the floor, then a louder thud as his head cracked on a tile. He was momentarily stunned. White dots did a frantic dance in the darkness. His hand, which he had automatically used to try to break his fall, was hurting like hell, firing up bursts of teeth-gritting pain. He must have broken his flaming wrist.
He tried to move his head but a stab of pain made him stop. It hurt. Bloody hell, how it flaming hurt, and his back wasn’t much better. He was smothered in muck which stank to high heaven, and he was in agony. He couldn’t see a bloody thing and he wasn’t going to delve down blindly in the heap to try and find his lighter.
At first, pushing himself up with his good hand didn’t work. His feet slithered from under him and he was once more on his back. The pain almost made him sick. His clothes were a sodden mess and he tried not to think of the fat, bloated maggots he had seen crawling over their food supply earlier that day, the sodding maggots that had made him return for another look. Why the bloody hell had he come back? More importantly, why the bloody hell had he come back on his own?
At last he managed to scramble unsteadily to his feet. His head spun. He had lost all sense of direction. Where the hell was the door? He wanted to get out bloody fast. The back of his head was still stabbing with pain. He touched it gingerly, but didn’t know if the sticky mess he felt was from his own blood or the animal remains. A shake of the head to try and clear it made it ache even more.
Completely disorientated, he stretched an arm out in front of him and carefully moved forward, inch by inch, to avoid stepping on anything that would send him crashing down again, trying to locate the wall. Where the hell was it? It seemed miles away. Then his fingers touched cold tiles. The wall – but which way was the door? Pressing a sweat-soaked hand on the tiles, he followed the wall in a clockwise direction.
He stopped dead.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
There was someone else in the pitch-dark room with him.
He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t hear anything. But he knew. He just bloody knew…
That flaming car parked up the road. What a stupid prat he was. Of course the sodding thing wasn’t abandoned. It was in too good nick to be abandoned… and the unlocked door…
Lewis! Who else would be lurking around at this time of night? It had to be Lewis, standing there in the dark, probably running a testing thumb along the blade of his butcher’s knife to make sure it was sharp enough to chop up a nosy-parker, flat-footed copper.
Frost cleared his throat. ‘I can see you. I’m a police officer
… Let’s have a bit of light, please.’
The tiled walls flung his words back. All he could hear was the hammering of his heart.
‘Don’t sod me about, Mr Lewis. I know it’s you. Let’s get out into the open and talk about this.’
Nothing… unless… Breathing – he thought he could hear breathing…
He held his breath until his lungs ached and listened, ears straining to detect the slightest sound… Nothing. There was no one there. His bleeding imagination was playing tricks again.
He expelled his breath in a sigh of relief and gulped down a lungful of fetid air. Frost slid his sweaty hand along the tiles, still seeking the elusive door that would let him out of this stinking hell hole and into the fresh air.
Then the blinding beam of a torch hit him in the face.
He couldn’t move. The shock made him freeze. He tried to say something. The words wouldn’t come.
A voice broke the silence. ‘What are you doing here?’
Frost screwed his eyes up against the blinding glare. Through half-closed eyes, with torchlight bouncing off the wall, he could just about make out the figure of Lewis. And his worst fear was realised – the bastard had a knife in his other hand.
‘We had a report someone was trying to break in, Mr Lewis. They sent me to check it out.’ He tried to sound convincing.
The torchbeam shifted from his face over to the heap of carrion in the corner. It lit up the severed hand before flashing back to Frost’s face.
‘She killed my son,’ said Lewis sadly. ‘You’ve seen too much.’
‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ said Frost. ‘I’ve already phoned for back-up. They’re on their way now.’
‘Liar!’ said Lewis. ‘You haven’t used your phone since you’ve been in here.’ Then he choked back a sob. ‘Lies! Everyone lies to me. The hospital told me lies. My little boy never told lies.’ Then he lunged at Frost with the knife. Frost side-stepped to avoid the blow, but felt his feet shoot from under him again and crashed to the floor. The impetus of the missed knife blow made Lewis plunge forward and lose his balance. As he thudded to the slippery tiled floor, his arm jerked up, sending his torch soaring in the air, to comet-tail down before hitting the floor. A tinkle of broken glass and the room was in complete darkness again.
Frost rolled desperately away from Lewis, who was struggling to get back on his feet and making chilling moaning noises.
As Frost rolled, his hand felt a gap… a space. Thank God! He’d found the bloody doorway. But as he staggered unsteadily to his feet, Lewis
was at him again. The knife whistled past Frost’s head, just nicking his ear – warm blood trickled down his ice-cold cheek. Scrabbling frantically, Frost located the door handle, but his blood-slippery hand couldn’t get a grip. He snatched at his mac and wrapped that round the handle. It turned, but the door wouldn’t budge. He charged it again and again with his shoulder. The pain was excruciating, but the door stayed firmly shut.
Sounds indicated that Lewis had regained his footing. Although Frost couldn’t see him, he could hear the rasp of his breath. He hurled himself in the general direction, managing to hit Lewis in the chest and sending them both down to the floor again. They rolled, one on top of the other, Frost grunting with pain as their combined weights pressed on his injured wrist. He tried to grab the arm holding the knife, but again couldn’t get a grip and Lewis easily managed to wrench his hand free. Frost was just able to roll to one side as the knife again cut through the darkness, this time slashing his cheek. Blood poured into his mouth. With a heave, he managed to send Lewis crashing back, giving himself time to stagger to his feet. He remembered where the door was, even after all the rolling about, threw himself towards it and again wrestled with the handle. It still wouldn’t budge. He shook his head and tried to think. Of course, you flaming fool! It opens inwards. The bloody door opens inwards. He pulled and sighed with relief. It opened easily.
He charged through the gap as Lewis made one final lunge. Frost slammed the door shut behind him. He heard a sickening scrunching sound, a scream of agony and a clatter as knife dropped to the floor.
‘My hand – you’re crushing my hand!’ shrieked Lewis.
Frost opened the door and dragged Lewis out, kicking the knife well out of his reach. He winced as the pain from his injured wrist intensified.
In the early-morning light he could see that the butcher’s hand was a mangled mess. ‘As if we haven’t got enough bleeding blood,’ he muttered, fishing a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and locking Lewis’s good wrist to his own good wrist. A couple of bleeding walking wounded, he thought. Everything hurt – his head, his back, his wrist – and blood was trickling down his face and neck from his slashed ear and cheek. He was totally exhausted. He didn’t think he could make the journey across to his car without a rest. He slid down to the pavement and leant back against the shop front, sucking in lungfuls of clean air. The butcher was now sobbing softly.
‘Is that how that nurse screamed when you cut her up?’ asked Frost.
Lewis stopped sobbing. ‘She killed my little boy,’ he said, as if that explained everything.
‘Let’s get you to the car,’ said Frost, pushing himself to his feet and bending as he tried to drag Lewis up. Suddenly, catching Frost off balance, Lewis plunged back into the shop, dragging Frost with him, and made a desperate lunge for the knife on the floor, almost toppling Frost as he grabbed it. One hand handcuffed, the other out of action, Frost swung out his foot, catching Lewis on the side of his head. Lewis went limp and the knife clattered to the ground. The butcher was out cold.
Totally drained, Frost slithered down beside the unmoving Lewis and rummaged in his pocket for a cigarette. Then he remembered that his lighter was buried amongst the offal. Sod it. His matches were in the car, so was his radio. He lifted one of Lewis’s eyelids and just saw the whites of his eyes. The man was definitely unconscious. He unlocked the handcuffs, made it to the car and radioed for back-up.
The little Asian pharmacist in the twenty-four-hour chemist’s was anxious to get Frost – and the smell of him – out of his shop as quickly as possible. ‘Your wrist is not broken, only badly sprained,’ he said, strapping it up tightly and selling Frost some extra-strong painkillers. ‘Should be prescription only, but for you, Inspector Frost, I make an exception. Do not take more than six in any twenty-four hours.’
The pharmacist cleaned the cut on Frost’s face with something that stung like mad; then slapped a sticking plaster on it. He held open the shop door and ushered Frost out, before hastily snatching an air-freshener from a shelf and spraying it liberally around.
The tablets, extra flaming strong or not, didn’t seem to be having much effect on the pain, neither did a shower and change of clothes have much effect on the aroma. The smell of death clung tenaciously.
Frost got back in the car and drove to the butcher’s to see how things were going. It was bloody painful driving, but it would be just as painful sitting behind his desk.
He parked behind the generating van that was pumping electricity to light up the inside of the butcher’s so that Harding and his forensic team, plus SOCO, could see what they were doing and what it was they were smelling.
He’d had more than enough of the inside of the place so he stayed in the car and smoked, gritting his teeth against the throbbing agony of his sprained wrist. Bloody hell – it wouldn’t have hurt as much as this if it had been broken.
After the second cigarette, Harding, the head of Forensic, staggered out, tearing the white filter mask from his face before being violently sick in the gutter.
‘I hope you’re going to clean that up before you go!’ called Frost. ‘Someone’s dog might eat that!’
Harding raised a green, sweaty face and forced a grin, mopping his brow as he approached the car, talking to Frost through the open window.
‘It’s the body of a woman, Inspector – bits of one foot missing – almost certainly the bits you’ve been finding in Denton Woods. Throat cut, stab wounds all over her. Been dead a couple of weeks, I reckon.’
‘That fits!’ nodded Frost. ‘It’s the nurse who lived next door.’ He turned his head at the lights of an approaching car, which slid to a halt behind him. Sandy Lane of the Denton Echo got out. ‘Put a bit of rotting meat out and the bleeding vultures soon arrive,’ muttered Frost as Lane approached the car.
‘Understand you’ve found a body, Jack?’ He sniffed and screwed up his face. ‘What’s that bloody awful smell?’
‘It’s my new aftershave,’ said Frost. ‘It stops randy reporters from putting their hand on my knee.’
‘Well, it’s working for me,’ said Lane, flapping a hand in front of his nose. Who is it, Jack? Is it the other missing teenager?’ He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Sod it. Too flaming late to make the London dailies.’
‘If you’d given me some decent whisky,’ replied Frost, ‘I’d have kept the body on ice until a more convenient time.’
‘But is it the missing girl’?’ insisted Lane.
Frost shrugged. ‘She hasn’t been identified yet.’
‘Don’t sod me about, Jack. I’ve been up all night and I’m tired.’
Frost smiled up at him. ‘That whisky you gave me was like cat’s pee.’
‘All right,’ sighed Lane. ‘Two bottles of Johnnie Walker.’
‘It’s not the missing schoolgirl,’ said Frost. ‘We are working on the possibility that it may be connected with our investigations into a nurse reported missing from Denton General Hospital.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘Off the record, multiple stab wounds. For the record, we are awaiting the result of the post mortem, but suspicious sods that we are, we suspect foul play.’ After Taffy Morgan’s foul-up with the press, Frost was treading on eggs.
‘Was she raped?’
‘The bit I saw wasn’t raped,’ answered Frost, ‘but then it was only her hand.’
Lane’s eyes widened. ‘The bit you saw? You mean she was dismembered… cut into pieces?’ He jerked a thumb. ‘And in a butcher’s shop?’ His face brightened. ‘Wow! We’ve got a terrific story here, Jack. The London papers would die for this. Give me some details?’
‘That’s all you’re going to get for now, Sandy, but you can say that a forty-six-year-old man is helping us with our inquiries. We’ll be issuing a press release after the autopsy and after we’ve had positive identification.’
‘Three bottles of whisky, Jack?’
‘Piss off.’
Lane grinned, waved his goodbyes and went bac
k to his car. As he pulled out, a gleaming black Rolls Royce purred round the corner and filled Lane’s vacated parking space. It was Drysdale, the Home Office pathologist. ‘Where’s my little fat roly poly?’ muttered Frost to himself as he stepped out to meet him.
‘Mucky one for you this time, Doc,’ said Frost.
‘Your ones usually are,’ sniffed Drysdale. ‘Lead the way, please.’
‘Follow your nose,’ said Frost, taking a deep breath as he bade a temporary goodbye to fresh air and led the way in, followed by the pathologist and his faded blonde secretary
The harsh emergency lighting hammered off the white tiled walls. Seeing the mess made the smell seem stronger than ever. Frost found a cigarette and lit up, only to be stopped by Drysdale.
‘Put that out, Inspector,’ he snapped. ‘I can’t smell what I want to smell.’
‘Whatever turns you on, Doc,’ muttered Frost, spotting a box of face masks on a chopping block and slipping one on thankfully. Drysdale disdained the offer and his secretary, following her master’s lead, shook her head, although she was looking distinctly green.
Even with the mask on, the smell seeped through. There were too many people inside the tiny room, making it hotter than ever. ‘The bleeding place seemed twice the size in the dark,’ muttered Frost to himself. ‘Everyone wait outside,’ he called. ‘The doc can’t appreciate the bouquet with all you sweaty sods in here.’
They needed no second bidding. With the lights streaming down, the scene looked even gorier than before. Forensic and SOCO had done a good job of sorting out the bloody pieces, which were laid out on green polythene sheeting like a macabre jigsaw puzzle. The head and limbs had been sawn from the trunk, which was naked. The hands and feet had been sawn from ‘the limbs. Parts of the foot were missing – obviously the pieces that had been turning up in Denton Woods. The throat had been slashed, the stomach split and organs removed. It was like something out of Jack the Ripper
‘Is she dead, Doc?’ asked Frost.
Drysdale, who didn’t appreciate Frost’s humour, gave him a cold glare and bent down to examine the carnage more closely. He prodded the trunk with his finger.
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