Frost at Midnight

by Henry James

  The shop was long shut by the time they arrived; the traffic was appalling even in Somerset and it had been a good two hours’ drive.

  Waters rapped on the glass door of Always Flowers. Movement from inside indicated that the proprietors had waited for them.

  ‘Thank god for that,’ Clarke said.

  ‘Do come in,’ a small, dapper man said politely.

  Immediately Clarke’s senses were overwhelmed by a dozen different scents. ‘Thanks for waiting for us.’

  ‘Our pleasure, how exciting, a visit from the police!’ A taller man appeared from behind a huge display of lilies, sporting what Clarke recognized as a wedge haircut – a male version of a bob with a side parting – and beckoned to them.

  ‘Yes, well … Now, Mr Holland, you know him well?’

  ‘I should say, since Design College in seventy-five.’

  ‘How was the party?’

  ‘A riot! Boy, does the man know how to entertain! I’m Matthew, by the way,’ Wedge-head said, offering a well-manicured hand.

  ‘And I’m Bruce,’ said the little fellow, who had a surprisingly deep voice.

  ‘Yes, even out in the boondocks, Dom really knows how to throw a good one,’ Matthew continued, clearly the chatty one of the pair.

  ‘Hmm, I’m sure, he’s quite the one,’ Clarke said. ‘So you’ve been to Mr Holland’s parties before?’

  They both nodded emphatically. ‘But never to one outside SW3.’

  Clarke glanced at Waters, who clarified, ‘Chelsea.’

  ‘Absolutely. But all the usual crew were there.’

  ‘So you knew everybody?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Matthew answered boastfully. She’d never come across two such affected men in her life.

  ‘There were no surprise new faces, then. No local colour?’ Waters asked.

  Matthew’s expression grew perplexed. ‘Err …’

  ‘How can we help?’ Bruce said evenly. ‘It’s a long way to come just to ask whether Dominic can throw a good party.’

  ‘Do you remember this lady being there?’ Clarke held out a photo of Rachel Curtis. The pair shuffled together to take a look.

  ‘It was a bit of a frenzied affair. It’s all a bit of a blur …’ Matthew said.

  ‘We think she may have arrived with a man on a motorbike,’ Waters offered.

  ‘I remember something about a bike. A man lost his cool because he couldn’t find his lady friend at the party. He was supposed to pick her up, at whatever time it was …’

  ‘At midnight,’ Bruce said, ‘and there was quite a kerfuffle outside over it all. He was charging about looking for her.’

  ‘But you do recognize the lady in the photo?’ Clarke insisted.

  Matthew frowned. ‘Maybe, I’m not sure.’

  ‘I’m afraid they all look the same to us,’ Bruce said haughtily.

  ‘Who do?’ Waters asked.

  ‘Women,’ Clarke answered quickly, though she didn’t actually believe them. Then she added, ‘Would you recognize the man on the bike if you saw him again?’

  ‘Yes, big fella – tanned. She was supposed to meet him outside, apparently,’ Bruce said.

  ‘Ooh yes, it’s coming back to me: he got in an awful strop, just awful.’

  ‘Big fella with a tan?’ Clarke said as they got back in the car.

  ‘Gary Benson.’ Waters started the engine. ‘But Gazzer doesn’t strike me as the fairy godmother type.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Cinderella. Insisting on her leaving at midnight.’

  ‘But she’d already left before then, he couldn’t find her, that’s the whole point.’ Clarke flicked down the sun visor. ‘You’d think he might have brought this information to us by now, given Jack’s got his mum banged up?’

  Mullett stood on the golf-club veranda. It was a beautiful evening, the sun dropping down below Denton Woods in the distance, the faint smell of cut grass in the air, and the sky an array of pinks and oranges. Still, the superintendent hadn’t come here to admire the view. The board of the club had assembled for the AGM and related dinner. The nominations were in, but the voting couldn’t proceed without the presence of the outgoing chairman … And Hudson was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Where the devil is he?’ the superintendent muttered.

  Laughter erupted in the lounge behind him. Dawson, the treasurer, had no doubt made some lewd joke, causing the secretary, Captain Hughes, to regale them all with his vulgar bellow. Dawson had a mind like a sewer; juvenile, seaside-postcard sense of humour. Since Dawson was an accountant at a respectable firm in Market Square, Mullett was of the opinion that he should have left that sort of puerile nonsense behind him. Mullett’s wife, who bore his complaints on a regular basis, would always say a chap needed to unwind from a busy day at the office and that was Dawson’s release. Letting off steam the super understood, but reverting to playground humour? Hell’s teeth, he got enough of that at the station. Was there no respite?

  ‘Come on, Stanley, have a drink?’ Captain Hughes said.

  ‘I’m just worried about Michael.’ That was patently untrue; the overweight banker was always late.

  Then, as if on cue, in he walked, puce-faced and sweaty. ‘Robbed, I’ve been robbed!’

  ‘A bank robbery?’ Mullett said, aghast.

  ‘No, you fool, me personally!’

  This was a surprise; the man’s house was like Fort Knox.

  ‘When, how and what?’ Mullett stepped back from the perspiring portly man.

  ‘My safe – empty!’

  ‘Calm down, Michael, take a seat.’

  ‘Don’t you tell me to calm down! This is your fault, Mullett. Denton is a thieves’ paradise!’ He glared at him with little piggy eyes. ‘You have no business being here at the club with the town in such a lawless state.’

  With that, Hudson turned his back and went off to join the others, drown his sorrows and no doubt drag Mullett’s name through the mud. The evening was not going as planned.

  The superintendent marched to the bar and ordered another double gin and tonic.

  ‘Gary Benson,’ Frost muttered and replaced the telephone receiver.

  Waters had stopped at a motorway café to call the station, and Frost now decided to wait for his pal at Eagle Lane. He was beginning to wonder whether he’d been focusing on the wrong Benson; that Gary might have had a relationship with Rachel and had not been forthcoming about it cast a very different light on the matter. He sighed and yanked the ringpull on a can of lager, took a swig and started leafing through the Tête-à-Tête appointment book on his desk. Adam King’s sister had indeed been obliging; she had readily met Frost at her salon and lent him the diary.

  ‘Well now, Mr Holland, this is very useful,’ Frost mumbled to himself; nothing like a good old gossip at the hairdresser’s. Tête-à-Tête was one of these upmarket joints, where punters had to make a booking, not like Ted the Shear’s place on Finger Alley, where Frost could stroll in for a trim whenever the mood took him (not that it took him often). In the appointment book, in neat curly writing, there was a record of every client. Holland, it transpired, had been in on the Friday; the hairdresser said he came in fortnightly for a beard trim.

  Frost was half expecting Rachel Curtis’s name to leap out at him, but was relieved that it didn’t. It must have been another customer who got wind of Holland’s party, someone who would presumably still be alive and together enough to remember something useful. Tête-à-Tête was pricey. It struck Frost as unlikely that the sort of clientele that could afford the salon would also be the sort to crash a party out of town … but there must be a connection. Frost recognized a number of names but one in particular stood out: Mullett. Chuckling to himself, he reached for the Rolodex. He checked his watch: eight o’clock.

  ‘Got to start somewhere.’ Frost stuck his nicotine-stained finger in the dial.

  After three rings a polite female voice answered the phone.

  ‘Ah good evening, Mrs Mull
ett, it’s Jack Frost at Eagle Lane.’

  ‘Inspector Frost, this is becoming a habit,’ she tittered. Of course, he’d called on Sunday. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I was wondering about your last trip to the hairdresser’s,’ he said obscurely.

  ‘Well … that is an extraordinary question.’

  ‘Did you happen to hear about a party in Two Bridges on Saturday night?’

  ‘Saturday just gone?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘No, I’ve not been in since July, actually. Why?’

  ‘Oh,’ Frost said, thrown, ‘you didn’t have an appointment at Tête-à-Tête?’

  ‘Goodness, no. Mind you …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Stanley had a trim Saturday, but I thought he went to the barber’s at the end of the road … Tête-à-Tête’s a bit extravagant for him.’

  Frost couldn’t help but snigger at the thought of Mullett getting his whiskers trimmed at such a place.

  Suddenly there was a commotion at the other end of the line, and he heard Mullett’s wife exclaim, ‘Stanley!’ This surprised Frost – Mullett was back? He thought the super was off with his golf chums for the evening.

  ‘Oh, is the superintendent there?’

  ‘Yes, I just heard the door – hello, dear, it’s Inspector …’

  The familiar nasal rasp of his boss echoed down the line. ‘That woman,’ he barked, ‘has gone tonto.’

  ‘Your good lady? She seems all right to me. Probably a bit miffed at you selling the MG.’

  ‘This is not the time for japes, Frost.’

  ‘But it’s out of office hours?’ Mullett had been drinking, Frost could tell. Perfect: he’d enjoy winding him up.

  ‘Karen Thomas.’ The mention of the name swept away any levity. ‘Frost? Are you listening? Have you seen her recently, he thinks someone’s spoken to her?’ Mullett said, and then muffling the receiver, added, ‘Grace, fetch me a gin and tonic. Now!’

  ‘Sorry, sir? I don’t think I … “He”? Who is he, sir?’

  Silence. Then a big sigh. ‘Hudson, the bank manager. Has been robbed. At home.’

  Frost spat lager all over the paperwork in front of him; so it was Hudson, the filthy manipulative git, who had lost Karen her job. That was what Sandy Lane had been hinting at on Sunday evening; Frost, already having enough on his plate, wasn’t interested in gossip and had only half listened to the newspaper hack’s intriguing.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Mullett asked, taken aback at the choking sounds.

  ‘Why … would she need …’ Frost stuttered, ignoring the super’s question. The fact that there was a relationship between Karen and Hudson, however warped, had struck home.

  ‘Eh? I have no idea what you mean, but now you know as much as I do.’

  ‘Far from it – what does Hudson have to say about the theft?’ Frost said, regaining his composure.

  ‘He says there is no way Karen would have done it unless someone put her up to it.’

  ‘“Put her up to it”? What are you implying?’

  ‘I’m repeating what he said.’ Mullett slurped noisily on his drink. ‘The fool believes the woman is in love with him, and wouldn’t do anything to harm him unless coerced.’

  ‘Do me a favour!’ Frost snorted. ‘Cavorting with Hudson? She must be crazy!’

  ‘It takes all sorts,’ Mullett replied defensively; his own involvement in the saga must be beginning to grate.

  ‘I have heard that, yes. But there are limits!’

  ‘Have you seen her since the unfortunate incident in front of the cameras?’ the super asked.

  ‘Briefly.’ Frost thought it best to admit this now while Mullett was weakened by booze, rather than risk it later when he was sober and irritable.

  ‘And?’

  ‘She apologized.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘I didn’t tell her to turn over Hudson, if that’s what you mean.’ But I might have done, if I’d known, he thought, and fumbled with a pack of Rothmans. It was beyond belief that a woman like that could consider Hudson in an amorous way. But what was even more deplorable was the way Hudson, a wealthy bank manager, thought he could control the young woman’s life, having her fired and thus causing her to lose her independence. As Mullett relayed the conversations he’d had with Hudson, it became obvious that what the banker craved was total ownership of the girl; he was driven by lust and jealousy, like that crazed loon who sought to embalm the dead prostitute in his bath. Not that anyone would see it that way, of course; this perverse parallel would slip by unnoticed.

  ‘What’s she made away with?’ Frost said finally, feeling battered by a wave of exhaustion.

  ‘Contents of his safe. Jewellery, chiefly.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whose jewellery? If she’s the love of his life? Whose are the baubles?’

  A pause. ‘Michael Hudson is leaving his wife of thirty years for this individual.’

  ‘I see, really,’ Frost said caustically, not believing a word. ‘Well, maybe Karen Thomas wants to make sure he does? Pretty stupid though, to give her the combination to his safe, eh?’

  ‘If you hear from the woman again, make sure you recover Hudson’s property,’ Mullett said stiffly, and hung up.

  Frost rocked back on the chair, and sucked long on the cigarette. He didn’t know what to think. Nothing, that was probably the best course of action. Karen Thomas had been on his mind since he first saw her under the lights of the Coconut Grove – but he had to remain detached … Though it was difficult to avoid unpleasant speculation over her entanglement with the Bennington’s Bank manager. Forget about it, and do the job.

  He tutted, stubbed out the cigarette, and leaned forward to consult the hairdresser’s diary. He now realized he’d not quizzed Mullett about his own appointment at the weekend – he toyed with calling the super back, but thought better of it. Instead, he lethargically flipped back a page or two, through to the previous week. And there to his surprise one familiar name sprang out …

  Frost grinned. ‘Needed a haircut before you went on your holidays, did you?’

  Wednesday (8)

  ‘So, how do you want to play it?’ Waters was weary, the drive back had just about finished him off for the day. It was nearly nine o’clock. Only he, Frost and the night sergeant remained on duty at Eagle Lane. He’d dropped Sue back at home to see her kid.

  ‘So, do we pull Gazzer in? I mean, it’s a party – if he was there, he was there, right? He knows we’ll get a witness, set up an identity parade, if he won’t play ball.’

  Frost shook his head. ‘No, with the mother already in the clink we need to play it very carefully. We could maybe let Maria out on bail …’

  ‘Are you sure that’s wise? If she is the killer, won’t she do a bunk?’

  ‘Not if she’s worried about her son.’

  ‘You figure she’d not risk dragging him into it?’

  ‘That’s a theory.’ Frost sighed. ‘Maybe we let her sweat a bit longer. The fact that Gary has not come forward about his relationship with Rachel troubles me.’

  ‘Maybe he was hiding it from his old dear? That would only add fuel to the flames?’

  ‘Huh, I can’t imagine Maria Benson’s flames leaping any higher, can you?’

  ‘Good point, Jack,’ Waters conceded.

  ‘It could be an act: maybe they’re both guilty. One covering for the other? The fact that Gary’s been silent thus far is making me increasingly suspicious … Anyway’ – he yawned – ‘let’s leave it for tonight. There’s always tomorrow. Here – look at this before you go,’ Frost said and passed him an appointment book of some kind. ‘Your friend Dominic has been gassing at the hairdresser’s. I’ll bet you half of Denton knew about his party. Check out these names in the morning, see who else knew about this do.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  Waters made to go and Frost himself rose.

  ‘And remember, you’ve drinks with t
he lads tomorrow evening, before your special day?’ Frost said, picking his cigarettes up off the desk.

  ‘Hey now’ – Waters backed away – ‘no way – I promised Kim I’d …’

  ‘You’ll be making young Kimbo enough promises on Friday, and they’re the for-evermore kind. Trust me on that.’

  ‘What, and breaking them, just as fast?’

  For once Frost had made it home before they closed the kitchen. He thought he might even sit at a table and be served.

  ‘Ah Jack, good to see you,’ Kenny Fong said, as Frost shut the door behind him. ‘Can I have a quick word?’

  ‘Of course, Kenny. Do you reckon I can grab a bite to eat in the dining room? Been a while since I’ve sat down for a proper—’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ the boy said softly, ‘it’s just that—’

  ‘Flamin’ knickers!’ Monty the parrot announced proudly to the diners. Going by their faces, Frost could tell it wasn’t the first time he’d been vocal this evening, either.

  ‘Err, that’s what I wanted to talk about, Jack. He would never say things like that before you … it just wasn’t in his vocabulary.’

  ‘I see, oh dear.’ Frost rubbed his jaw in surprise. ‘I could correct his, err, unfortunate vocabulary, Ken … if there were a chance of getting a Kung Po with Extra Ping first?’

  He fiddled with the latch and pushed open the flimsy plastic door. Even now at just past ten, it wasn’t quite beyond gloaming and probably wouldn’t reach pitch black at all this time of year. Still, Weaver felt hidden enough to step outside. The sky was visible here and there, through patches in the oak-tree canopy. From the air the place was not visible. Likewise, the grounds were well hidden from the road. Unless one knew the caravan park was there you’d drive straight past it, maybe noticing only the old red-brick wall.

  Occasional lights twinkled through the trees, but all was silent. The caravans were well spaced out, the nearest one to his was quite some way off and appeared unoccupied. He breathed in the woodland air. Nice. He’d not ventured out since arriving that afternoon. The curtains remained pulled to, and with the car behind the toilet block he hoped there was nothing to suggest he was there.