by Henry James
The pair scarpered, leaving their prey mystified but alone and safe.
‘Detective Waters,’ came a broad Glaswegian accent from behind him. ‘That’s some whistle you have there.’
‘Mr Fergusson, thanks for sparing the time.’
‘Not at all. Please.’ Fergusson, tall and thin, stepped back to allow the detective in.
‘It’s serious, I’m afraid, hence the house call.’ Waters walked into a spacious lounge-diner.
‘Please take a seat.’
Pulling out a chair from an oval table, Waters sat. There was dreary classical music playing in the background.
‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ Fergusson said plainly.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Why else would you be here?’
‘She might have skipped town,’ Waters suggested.
‘But then I’d be the one calling you?’
‘Ha, yes.’ Waters stretched his legs in front of him. Fergusson himself remained standing. ‘You don’t sound surprised?’
‘I’m not. She was heading for a crash, that one.’
‘Why?’
‘Her mental health: she was clearly traumatized. What happened was the result of years of cruelty from that thug of a boyfriend, Nicholson.’
‘You believe that?’
‘What I believe is irrelevant – it’s highly uncommon that someone guilty of such serious crimes would be released without a very good reason.’
‘True,’ the DS conceded. ‘But then why not transfer her to a secure mental health unit, for her own safety if nothing else?’
‘I’m not a judge, Sergeant. Though I believe the intention was that her mother would step in – from somewhere up north.’
‘Sheffield. When was the last time you saw Rachel?’
‘Thursday, 9 a.m. Billy’s Café.’
Waters thought the probation officer remarkably detached. ‘How long had you been meeting Rachel?’
‘It was only our second meeting; once on the Tuesday when she got out, and then again last week on Thursday.’
‘And how did you find her?’
‘Lively.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Relieved to be out.’
‘Any indication of what she was planning to do?’
‘No, she had no immediate plans.’
‘And so you thought her mental state was, what, disturbed?’
‘My role, Sergeant, is to try to keep them out of trouble, and offer guidance. She was released on grounds of mental cruelty,’ he said, finally pulling out a chair, realizing this might not take just a few minutes after all.
‘I’m just trying to assess what frame of mind she was in. You might have been the last person to have seen her alive.’ Waters didn’t think so, but he wanted to impress upon Fergusson the importance of his last meeting with the deceased.
‘Of course, of course.’ Fergusson sighed. ‘I’m not being a tremendous help, am I?’
Waters shrugged and smiled. ‘It’s not easy.’
The remark put the ageing probation officer at ease. ‘She was certainly troubled.’
‘How so?’
‘Worried about reprisals from the victim’s family. There was a big outcry when she was let off so lightly, you know. She decided it would be better to put the house on the market.’
‘Yes, I read about the uproar in the Echo and Gazette. Did she come into contact with any of them?’
‘She did mention the wife of the man she shot, I can’t remember the context exactly – she brushed over it, didn’t want to talk about it when I asked her. Maybe she felt remorse, I couldn’t say … but I tell you who would know.’
‘Who?’
‘Sandy Lane.’
Sandy Lane, Denton Echo’s scurrilous chief hack. Interesting – but tricky. The press would find out about Rachel Curtis’s death at the super’s briefing tomorrow. If he visited Lane about it now, it could be front-page news come Monday’s cornflakes. Could he trust him to keep it under wraps? Somehow Waters sensed that, slippery though he was, if they wanted Lane on side they’d best bring him into the loop now.
‘Good heavens, Susan, open the window!’ Patricia Clarke waved a handkerchief dramatically under her nose. It was nearly two and Sue’s mother had arrived late from Colchester due to dreadful traffic. ‘It smells, of … I don’t know what.’
I know exactly what it smells of, Sue fumed silently to herself. She’d had the windows open all morning but it clearly was not enough to combat the subtle but undeniable Parfum de Frost: takeaway food, cigarettes, stale body odour, feet – all subtly blended and ingrained for ever in the very fabric of her flat.
‘Did you have a party last night? Poor Philip.’ Patricia cooed at the boy on the carpet. Her mother had been in the flat a mere five minutes, and already Sue felt totally inadequate.
‘No, just a friend over for a takeaway – I did have the window open but thought the breeze might be too chilly for Philip.’ She looked down at the boy in dismay as he sucked on a Dinky Toy. Another inappropriate present from Frost – as if Philip would know who Captain Scarlet was. ‘I do wish he’d not put everything he touched in his mouth,’ she said, wincing as she remembered the underwear this morning.
The flat, unlike the kid who lived there with his mum, was spick and span. This came as no surprise to Frost. No self-respecting Denton prostitute would dream of keeping an untidy place of business and Jane Hammond was just like the others – she’d not risk putting off a punter for the sake of a few hours with a tub of Shake n’ Vac and a duster. If the place was clean, so was the girl, local logic seemed to have it. The fact that her son went unwashed, and wore the same shirt all week, was no revelation either. No, Richard Hammond’s lot was at best to keep out of the way, ignored, to the point of non-existence. The men who came to call at Jane’s flat would not welcome such a reminder of domesticity.
Frost and the WPC crossed the threshold. He’d already briefed WPC Mitchell to search the mother’s room while he occupied the boy’s attention.
‘Where’s your room, sonny?’ Frost said, as upbeat as he could muster.
‘Through here.’
Frost pushed open the door to a boxroom. Something crunched underfoot as he entered. ‘Didn’t have Lego in my day,’ Frost said enviously, surveying a sea of plastic bricks broken only by the small bed against the wall, ‘it was balsawood aeroplanes and lead soldiers all the way, until packets of Woodbines and bottles of stout took over.’ He moved gingerly across the floor to the bed, above which was the room’s only tiny window. He looked out on to what appeared to be wasteland; tyres, prams and shopping trolleys, punctuated with tree-sized buddleia, crowned by clouds of butterflies in the hot afternoon.
‘Ever play out there?’ Frost asked, thinking it a veritable adventure-land for a kid Richard’s age.
‘Yeah, but my mum doesn’t like me out there too late.’
‘Why’s that then?’
‘She thinks I’ll fall in the canal.’
‘The canal?’ By now the lad was standing on the mattress, shoulder to shoulder with Frost. ‘Where’s that?’
‘Back of those bushes.’
‘Of course it is.’ The Denton Union Canal, the unofficial border between the Southern Housing Estate and Denton town itself, lay invisible two hundred yards away behind a scrub of bushes; beyond them the towpath, and then the old industrial estate on the other side. The abandoned mill sat shimmering on the horizon, majestic in its ruin. Frost sighed and moved back from the window, a bitter taste in his mouth at the prospect of having the canal dragged.
‘When your mum pops out, who looks out for you?’
‘Mrs Ridley next door. She’s retired.’
Not ideal; Frost wanted the boy out of the area.
‘Is there anyone else you can stay with while we find your mum?’ he said, suddenly keen to be out of the child’s room.
‘Me aunt in Rimmington.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Frost had hoped for a f
ather, but didn’t bring it up. ‘This aunt, does your mum keep in regular touch?’
‘Now and then. Some Saturday nights she might stay over, after … work.’
‘But not this Saturday?’
‘Nah.’ The boy picked up a Lego spaceship from the floor, and pushed a loose wing back in place determinedly. ‘She’d have said before she left. She never doesn’t tell me where she’s going.’ He held the toy firmly, staring at it and not meeting Frost’s gaze. ‘Never.’ He said the word again with a hint of anger.
‘You’re close to your mum, aren’t you, Richard?’
The boy was struggling with his emotions; he wanted to be cross with her for going off without a word, but couldn’t quite believe she’d do that, and the alternative, which hid just beneath the surface, scared him. ‘We’ve only got each other, and if—’ he started to say to the Lego.
‘Sir,’ WPC Mitchell interrupted softly from the doorway, ‘found something.’
He could hear movement next door. It could only be the police. He stepped up close to the wall.
The boy would have grown concerned when Janey didn’t materialize in the morning. She often stopped out, on a Saturday night – that’s what he hated most, the idea of her spending a night out with another man; when she clock-watched with him like a hawk. And that’s when he’d done it, when she was on her way out; like an accident, almost. Except it was no accident. It was pure rage.
The movements next door seemed to have stopped, so he backed away from the wall. The socks he was knitting for his mother lay innocently on the sofa, one needle tip proudly poking from the wool. Beside it sat a shrouded figure. She was still stiff. Weaver felt a pang of guilt in his chest. Poor Janey. He dared not try and move her yet. He shook his head and proceeded to pace the floor of the cramped flat anxiously.
Oh God, he never meant for this to happen. Any of it! He just wanted her to stop working. Working – that was what she called it but what she did wasn’t work. She was defiling herself. Degrading herself. She’d tease him, saying there were plenty of prostitutes in the Scriptures. As if the Lord Himself had given her His seal of approval! Weaver would remind her of Proverbs 23:27: ‘For a prostitute is a deep pit and a wayward wife is a narrow well. Like a bandit she lies in wait, and multiplies the unfaithful among men.’ But, as the Lord was also fond of saying, and Ben was equally fond of pointing out, the harlot was not beyond salvation. Oh yes, Benjamin knew his Testaments, Old and New, and was fond of quoting from both – when it suited his purpose … He preferred not to think of Proverbs 5:3, for instance: ‘For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey.’ It only reminded him of the allure of beauty – reminded him, painfully, of that over which he had no control.
Whatever. He just wanted her to STOP. Rage pumped through him again, like it had before. He could feel his temples throbbing, a jealousy so powerful he thought he was going to throw up again. Calm, Benjamin, calm. All he ever wanted was her to stop for a little while …
He kept telling himself it was an accident. But the police would never see it like that; especially not now. He could hear someone with a hacking cough next door – it must be the coarse one he’d met in the churchyard this morning. It would only be a matter of time before they discovered that he, Ben Weaver, was Janey’s neighbour. He must tell them – it would be expected, a man in his position. But not today. No, not today. He needed time to compose himself and come up with a plan about the – here he gave an involuntary shiver – the body. He’d need to be careful, what with the police crawling all over. He had to think of something subtle, something that didn’t involve hauling her out of Clay House … In the meantime, if they came knocking, as they surely would, he’d keep silent and wait for them to go away. They weren’t going to break down the door, she’d only been missing twenty-four hours. Tomorrow, he’d go tomorrow, to see the police. The scruffy one had given him his card in the churchyard …
Sunday (5)
‘Had she … you know?’ Mullett enquired.
Frost raised an eyebrow, feigning incomprehension. The evening sun sliced through the blinds, projecting bars across the far wall. Cigarette smoke drifted lazily towards the ceiling.
‘Well?’
Frost cleared his throat, and said, ‘Yeah, quite a bit actually.’
The superintendent winced, he couldn’t conceive of what Frost’s interpretation of ‘quite a bit’ might be versus his own. ‘Rape?’
Frost shook his head in a pronounced way. ‘Dr Death thinks not. There are no marks to indicate a struggle. In fact, there are no marks anywhere.’
‘What, over the whole body?’
‘Apart from the back of the head. Where she could have hit her head on the tombstone.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘Yes, for now.’ Frost stubbed out his cigarette.
Why must he make me squeeze every single thing out of him, Mullett thought. ‘So what’s your assessment?’
‘At this stage?’
‘Yes, at this stage.’
‘I think young Rachel was in there for a bit of how’s-your-father, got carried away and bang’ – he clapped his hands – ‘smashes her head on the tombstone. The fella panics, and scarpers.’
‘I find that rather hard to swallow, Frost,’ he said sternly. ‘But I’d rather that than any hocus pocus.’
‘How do you mean, sir? She’s wasn’t sawn in half.’
‘You know – witchcraft, devilry, satanic ritual; found in the churchyard and what have you. Remember those young girls in Denton Woods? Prancing around in the middle of the night, chanting, and so on.’
‘Ah, I don’t think that’s the case here, sir.’
‘She should never have been released,’ Mullett said to himself. ‘Some do-gooder judge makes a mess and now we have to clear it up.’
‘Well, if that’s all, I …’ Frost motioned to go.
‘I’ve not finished.’ Mullett himself rose. ‘There’s something else,’ he continued as he twiddled with the blinds. ‘The Coconut Grove, I feel it’s time to pay Baskin a visit. I hear rumours.’
‘Rumours? Why? About what?’
‘The unsavoury treatment of the young ladies within his employ.’
‘Sorry, sir, you’ll have to be more specific.’
Mullett spun round. ‘I have it on good authority the girls are … are …’ He paused, searching for the right word. ‘Are …’
‘Are what?’ Frost’s crumpled brow indicated genuine confusion.
‘Just … get down there and see if there’s anything going off.’
Frost lit a fresh cigarette. ‘The only things coming off, over there, are knickers. It’s a strip club, sir, in case you didn’t know …’
‘I know what it is.’ Mullett leaned across the immaculate desk, knuckles resting on its polished surface. ‘Just find out if there’s a Karen Thomas, twenty-two years of age, working there, and in what capacity.’
Frost shrugged. ‘Twenty-two? She’ll be working the pole like all the others, is my bet.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Working the pole, it’s all the rage – a new sort of strip dance.’ Frost blew smoke rings in his direction. ‘With a pole. Like what firemen use.’
Mullett dodged the smoke. ‘I’m not with you, Frost. How might one dance with such a thing?’
Frost stood, and clutched an imaginary pole. ‘They entwine themselves’ – he stuck a leg out inelegantly – ‘naked, poking legs at you in an erotic fashion. Like so …’
Mullett was at a loss. ‘How ridiculous.’ Was this what Hudson was getting in a fluster over? ‘Well, get down there and find out if she’s working there.’
‘What’s she done?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then why am I going to see her?’
‘Because I’m asking you to.’
Frost remained unmoved.
‘Very well. The girl may be involved in blackmailing a local businessman.’ Mullett felt he had to say something, and in a twisted
way, it might even be true.
Frost exhaled and stubbed out his cigarette, but said nothing.
‘I can’t add any more than that for now. We’ll catch up tomorrow – I know we’re lean on staff, but I know if there’s anything fishy, you’ll sniff it out,’ the super said, obsequiously.
‘Yes, we are lean on staff, sir, you’re right. Two men down.’
‘One, Jack, we’re one down.’
‘You’re one down, I’m two down – Derek Simms’s brother David is in uniform.’
‘The computers, Inspector, you’re forgetting the computers.’ Mullett smiled. ‘They make all the difference.’
Frost snorted. ‘Difference to what? The front desk may look like NASA Mission Control but Bill Wells looks as comfortable as John Hurt at teatime.’
Wells’ progress was painstakingly slow, that much was true, but that was not Frost’s concern and Mullett had had enough. ‘Be that as it may, progress will be made – and if you really can’t handle it, we can rely on Rimmington; Superintendent Kelsey informs me Inspector Allen has returned and may be called upon if necessary – Jim’s a good man …’
‘Forgive me, sir, but surely that’s simply not necessary. Detective Clarke is fighting fit.’
‘Clarke?’ Mullett sat back at his desk. ‘I’m not so sure of that. I’ve an appointment with Ms Clarke tomorrow. No, cast that from your mind. Jim Allen is our man.’
‘Mrs Mullett was bouncy this morning,’ Frost said, nonchalant as you like.
Mullett’s jaw dropped.
Frost continued, ‘Yes, she offered to take me for a spin in that MG of hers. Now the weather’s improved, she can put the roof down.’
Mullett stared hard at Frost and for an instant, Jack thought he’d overstepped the mark. Mullett’s wife was not a safe topic for conversation – but Frost felt confident he could push things a bit, given what he knew … He’d never had to bring up the paperboy hit-and-run incident – not yet – but it gave him some leeway.
‘We sold it months ago,’ Mullett said eventually. ‘Now, if you’ll be so good as to return to work, it would be greatly appreciated.’
Frost nodded and made for the door. There was a steeliness to Mullett’s tone he’d not heard before. Got to hand it to the super, he gives nothing away. Oh, well, he’d see how tomorrow panned out. On his way out he winked at Miss Smith, who rolled her eyes.
