Frost at Midnight

by Henry James

  The builder stood outside the front of the house, wearing a flat cap in the drizzle. Though his face was weathered by years of toil outside, shock and fear were still discernible on the worn features.

  ‘I just come round to see the guy, you know, after the money went missing … to see what could be done.’

  The panel van’s side door was open and Waters suspected the man had come to collect gear he’d left behind, rather than to enquire after Holland’s well-being or to negotiate a reasonable settlement.

  ‘I found him, just lying there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Round the back. In the pool.’

  At the excavation site, Waters peered over the edge and winced. Dominic Holland lay skewered through the stomach on a steel rib jutting skyward from the earth eight feet below.

  ‘He might have fallen?’ Todd offered. ‘You know, after having a few.’ He gestured to the glass tumbler lying on the grass. The two men stared at one another.

  Forty-five minutes later the entire pool area was cordoned off and crawling with Forensics. The property backed on to fields, and was easily accessible from there – Saturday night’s party had reached the perimeter hedgerow, as was evidenced by the discovery of discarded drinks bottles and condoms.

  Waters was in conversation with Harding, the forensics officer. ‘If an attacker approached from out there, there’s the risk Holland would have seen them coming.’

  ‘Well, there are no footprints through the house – looks like the place has just been scrubbed from top to bottom,’ said Harding. ‘I imagine the garden gate was used – and of course this all presumes there was another person involved. There is only one glass. He could have fallen backwards. There’s a half-empty bottle of Bacardi over there. Or he could have been pushed. I would suggest he was taken by surprise either way. I will let you have a summary tomorrow.’

  The old houses were secluded enough, set back on a leafy road, for the neighbours not to be aware of all the comings and goings. This much they’d established from the Curtis investigation. Waters watched Todd finish giving his statement to a PC. Todd readily acknowledged he’d been put in touch with Holland by the neighbour, Reg Stirling, gruffly admitted he now wished he’d never taken the job, then immediately apologized for his insensitivity.

  The builder caught Waters’ eye and strolled over. Harding made to go inside.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ Todd said, playing with his cap. ‘But know where to find me. I’m sorry about earlier.’ He fumbled and dropped his cap to the ground. ‘Oops.’

  Waters bent to pick it up. ‘Here.’

  The man gave a slight laugh, and fixing on the hat said, ‘I wonder if he ever got one.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mr Holland. Was thinking of getting ’imself one of these.’

  ‘Oh yeah, why would that be?’

  ‘He told me he’d seen someone else wearing one. He said it was a taxi driver who came to the house Saturday night to collect someone. Same cap as me. Thought it might help him blend in, you know, with Denton life.’

  ‘A taxi driver?’ Holland claimed to have passed out at nine, Waters recalled. ‘What time? To collect who?’ Could this have been Rachel Curtis’s departure?

  ‘Didn’t say.’

  Should be easy enough to trace. Then Waters asked, ‘And where did you advise him to get one? A cap like yours?’

  ‘Castleton’s, in the town.’

  ‘You know, I’ve a good mind to make an official complaint,’ Detective Clarke said, arriving at her desk with a bucket of warm soapy water she’d brought across from the canteen.

  Waters didn’t respond. He wore a frown as he sat at the desk opposite, clearly in the middle of something: he’d already been phoning round taxi firms when she’d first arrived in the CID office ten minutes earlier.

  ‘What’s up?’ she prompted.

  He looked up. ‘Dominic Holland is dead.’

  On reflex she raised her hand to her mouth in surprise. ‘You’re kidding. How?’

  She listened to his account of Todd’s discovery at Two Bridges.

  ‘Of course, it could have been an accident, he could have slipped, but with everything else leading to his doorstep, you can’t help but think …’

  ‘He was pushed,’ she finished his sentence.

  Waters nodded in agreement. ‘Where’s Jack?’

  ‘He was at the doctor’s first thing.’

  ‘Doctor’s? He’s not had a day off sick since I’ve known him. What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Oh, forget him,’ Clarke said dismissively. ‘What about Holland?’

  Waters sighed. ‘Can’t do anything on that yet, but if it turns out it’s suspicious you can bet it’s tied up with Rachel Curtis’s murder.’

  ‘Or the thief that took the money from the cement mixer.’

  ‘Huh, yeah,’ he said, shifting in his chair. ‘You’re right, maybe they came back for more dosh, we’ve sweet FA to go on there … but we are learning more about who knew about that party of his. Turns out Rachel found out from a neighbour of hers.’ He hefted the phone book to one side and got up.

  ‘Where you off to?’

  ‘Castleton’s.’

  ‘In the High Street?’

  ‘So it would seem. Why?’

  ‘It’s an outdoor-clothing place, for farmers and—’

  ‘Excuse me, chaps.’ The round face of Sergeant Wallace appeared.

  ‘Yes, Wally, what’s up?’

  ‘Superintendent Mullett, he’s suspended me.’

  ‘You’re late.’ They had seen each other recently in Market Square, and Mullett himself had arrived only minutes earlier, just time enough to summarily suspend Wallace. He felt better for it; not being disposed to hear the buffoon out, he issued his marching orders pending an immediate inquiry. And now from one incompetent to another.

  ‘Sorry, sir, doctor’s appointment.’

  ‘Oh.’ This was unexpected; he’d never known Frost to have a day off sick during his whole tenure as superintendent at Denton – he wondered what it would take to prompt a man like him to visit a GP. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, his mind suggesting all sorts of terminal possibilities.

  ‘Just age, I’m afraid,’ Frost said, ‘sore back, mainly.’

  ‘Well, there’s no escaping age; what age are you exactly?’ Mullett said, sagging with disappointment.

  ‘Forty.’

  ‘Is that all? Never mind.’ He himself was fifty-three and wearing it considerably better. The super touched his moustache lightly in smug satisfaction and tapped out a Senior Service. ‘If there’s nothing to worry about,’ he puffed, ‘then we’ll continue with the business at hand.’

  ‘No, I’ve a few more years left.’ Frost beamed. ‘Strong as an ox, in fact.’

  ‘Fabulous. Have you seen the newspaper this morning?’

  ‘No, why?’

  Mullett slid the morning paper across the table. ‘Read there.’ He pointed to the second paragraph, alongside a picture of Maria Benson.

  ‘“Maria Benson, forty-seven, who has been recuperating at her home off the Wells Road from an operation on her ankle following a motorcycle accident was arrested by—”’ Frost stopped. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘Oh indeed. Ankle operation. Unlikely to leap off a porch roof now, is she?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought that reporter Sandy Lane was a chum of yours?’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘Well, what do you have to say for yourself?’

  ‘The arrest wasn’t made public. Sandy’d see that as fair game, I suppose. Had I told him we’d got her, then maybe …’

  Frost scratched the back of his neck. Mullett noticed Frost was in the same polo top he’d been wearing at the start of the week, and he doubted the pink Fred Perry had seen the inside of a washing machine yet.

  ‘I’m not interested in why Lane didn’t talk to you. Be thankful he didn’t report on Wakely too. What is your next move going to be? Are you going to ar
rest another motorcyclist at complete random?’

  ‘I think we slow things down.’ Frost laced his fingers together and twiddled his thumbs. ‘All this charging around isn’t getting us anywhere. Look at the situation from a different angle. Forget motorbikes. The person I saw bolting from the house might just have been a common-or-garden house-breaker. There’s other avenues to explore.’

  Mullett sat back in disbelief, trying to remain as calm as possible. ‘So you suggest taking your foot off the pedal’ – he leaned further back in his executive chair – ‘and taking time to think the situation through?’

  ‘You could put it like that, sir. And let’s be honest, it’s a bit hot to be charging around here there and everywhere.’ Frost ran a finger round the inside of his collar.

  ‘I see. And Weaver, Jane Hammond’s murderer, who has disappeared; we just leave that, too, and hope he pops up somewhere?’

  Frost suppressed a yawn. ‘Yep, we’ve done as much as we can.’

  ‘That’s not good enough. All leave is cancelled until you get a result.’

  ‘But Waters is off on honeymoon—’

  ‘No, I mean it. Dominic Holland’s demise precipitates a crisis. As I said, all leave is cancelled,’ Mullett reiterated. It felt good saying it. ‘I’m sure you’ll explain the situation. Or maybe you can tell Waters that his best man’s usual slipshod approach has landed the whole team in hot water; do you even begin to comprehend the mess we’re in? The mess you’ve put us in? That woman found in the churchyard made the national press! The nation is watching us, and all they can see is your bumbling incompetence.’

  Mullett felt light-headed as Frost left the room. Maybe it was the heat. Where were his pills? He seemed to be losing his cool every instant … He clutched at his chest. Booting Wallace out was a short-lived relief. His doctor had warned him about displacement behaviour. He tried a light laugh. It didn’t work. Damn Hudson. Damn the golf-club chairmanship. Damn bloody Jack Frost.

  Frost was incensed at Mullett’s pigheadedness over his decision to cancel all leave. It was directed at him and he knew it. He had to try to let it go. He made his way back to his own office, rather than the general CID office, and sat down to study the forensics report on Sandpiper Close from Tuesday. He couldn’t engage with Holland’s death or anything else, not until he’d got as near to the bottom of the Curtis case as he possibly could. Though he’d told Hornrim Harry he was exploring new avenues on the Curtis case, he was still sure the motorcyclist held the key, and that the rider was Gary Benson. Maria Benson might not be strong enough to leap out of windows, but she was steady enough on her feet to ride a motorcycle, though he hadn’t picked Mullett up on that – it didn’t matter anyway as he was now thinking it should be Gary, not the mother, they should be after. But if it was Gazzer tangled up in this, Frost had to be one hundred per cent sure – he couldn’t face Mullett again unless he was certain.

  Fingerprint analysis was what he was after. He flicked open the manila folder from Forensics and lit a cigarette. There were a number of miscellaneous prints taken from around the front door (possibly his own, or the cleaner’s), but the person he’d seen leg it might have been wearing gloves – he wasn’t sure … In any event there was not much to glean from the report in front of him now; it was disappointingly short. The cleaner had earned her two quid, it seemed; the house was practically free of prints. There was nothing that could link Benson or his mother to the place, and the report concluded there had been no forced entry.

  The intruder must have had a key? Gary might have had one, if they were dating—An exaggerated knock broke his concentration. It was Waters. He couldn’t tell him yet about Mullett’s ban on all leave. Damn Maria Benson and her son. The evidence might be thin, but instinct was telling him it was Gary. Maybe the mother knew, or was on some level complicit, and hence the over-the-top behaviour, allowing herself to be arrested …

  ‘All right, pal?’ Sergeant Wallace’s grim news had delayed Waters heading into town. ‘What a morning!’

  ‘Hornrim Harry is overdoing it, that temper of his is getting worse,’ Frost said, ‘it’ll do his blood pressure no good. I’ve been on the receiving end in the past, now poor Wally got it today.’

  ‘And how about you, are you OK?’

  ‘Of course I’m OK, why wouldn’t I be?’ Frost said, surprised.

  ‘The doctor’s …’

  ‘Pah, fit as a fiddle.’ Frost reached for his cigarettes, and then jabbed at the open file before him. ‘The house at Sandpiper Close is clean of prints, but then our boy may have worn gloves and could have let himself in with a key. The mother’s out of the frame on account of a gammy leg, but I’m now thinking young Gazzer … I’m working on the idea that if he was courting our Rachel, that would fuel the mother’s hatred, and perhaps explain her peculiar behaviour.’

  ‘But at the same time explain why she was protecting him, by keeping shtum?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘That makes sense. I checked in the Cricketers. Taffy confirmed a lock-in Saturday night but was hazy on specifics: who was there until when.’

  ‘Did he vouch for the Bensons?’

  ‘Yep, they were there to start with …’

  ‘It takes about fifteen minutes to get to Two Bridges from there,’ Frost said.

  Waters smiled. ‘As any taxi driver would corroborate.’

  ‘You’ve got something.’ Frost put the file to one side. ‘What are you not telling me?’

  ‘Todd, the builder, remembers Holland talking about a taxi driver who came to the house on Saturday night. It’s all to do with caps, but you don’t need to know that bit.’

  ‘Caps?’

  ‘Forget caps for a moment. I just checked with every taxi firm in Denton, and guess what? There were no calls out to Two Bridges that night. Whoever it was that arrived at Holland’s was pretending to be a taxi, which has to be significant?’

  ‘I hear you. Crack on with that line of enquiry then. Meanwhile, I’m going to nail our Gazzer once and for all.’

  Waters was concerned that Frost was growing obsessed with the Bensons, to the point where he was not giving alternative possibilities sufficient consideration. ‘Glad you’re OK,’ he said, leaving the office.

  The inspector, muttering curses under his breath, didn’t answer.

  Thursday (3)

  David Simms entered High Fields care home rather sheepishly. Why he felt now he should hide his profession he did not know. He was proud to be a policeman. Nevertheless, it was now nearly eleven, an hour later than he usually visited. He made his way through the day room, smiling at the pale-faced residents as he went. Frost was right, the patients here might benefit from some fresh air; he was sure they had the heating on even though it was still August. He requested a wheelchair for his mother and helped her climb in. The beautifully landscaped grounds to the rear of the home were empty, unbelievably, apart from a couple of nurses smoking underneath a willow tree.

  He found a small rose-clad arbour and pulled up a chair. As was his practice, Simms told his mother about his week. However, he lacked his usual enthusiasm and his voice was tinged with sadness; her disorientation at seeing him in uniform yesterday had given him grave doubts as to whether she actually understood a thing he said – did she even realize he was a policeman?

  ‘You know it’s me, Mum, right?’ he said directly to the shrunken woman. A frail hand reached out to touch his cheek. He thought he saw a sparkle pass across the surface of the heavily medicated pupils.

  The moment was then interrupted by a male nurse approaching at some speed. ‘Mr Simms?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The gentleman your colleague was interrogating yesterday, Mr Cassidy?’

  Simms had to pause. Yesterday. Frost. Yes, Weaver’s patient. Though ‘interrogating’ was a bit strong. ‘Yes?’

  ‘His speech, you see … He’s talking,’ said the nurse. ‘Coherently,’ he added, with emphasis to denote the significance.

  �
�Right. Mum …’ He looked uncertainly at the nurse. ‘She always did like the sun, loved her garden.’

  ‘Of course. You can leave her here, she’ll be fine. I’ll make sure.’

  The nurse gave Simms a brief outline of Neil Cassidy’s history as he followed him back inside the building. Cassidy was in rehabilitation after suffering two massive strokes. His recovery had been plagued by seizures, which could leave him speechless for weeks.

  ‘Often what he’s thinking is not what comes out; the right words elude him. So yesterday he was repeating the same word over and over again, because it wouldn’t come out right.’

  The man in his sixties turned and greeted them with a broad smile. ‘Caravan!’ he said brightly, then after a pause, added, ‘Water … Caravan.’

  The nurse nudged Simms. ‘Pleased as punch he is.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The PC wondered what bearing this might have, if any, on the Ben Weaver case. Frost hadn’t got a word out of Cassidy. The man then pointed to a pot plant.

  ‘He wants his plants watered?’ Simms said. ‘Have you a phone I might use?’

  Cassidy remained at the window repeating the word ‘caravan’ elatedly to the wider world beyond as Simms hurried to the reception desk.

  ‘Won’t be a tick,’ Wells said, heading for the Gents at a brisk trot. Clarke was processing the release of Maria Benson at the front desk with PC Miller and Smythe the solicitor.

  ‘That’s it, you’re free to go.’ Clarke signed the final papers. ‘Inspector Frost will speak with Gary. Please remember it’s for the best.’

  The woman remained silent but Smythe nodded; he had impressed on his client the necessity of questioning her son. Frost had gone on ahead, in the hope of having a word before the mother returned home and possibly escalated the situation.

  Clarke watched pensively as Maria Benson left Eagle Lane.

  The detective might not be well disposed towards Frost at present, but she did not enjoy seeing him make a hash of things. And, unfortunately, this was how people were seeing the Curtis case unfold. She wondered whether had he not stumbled upon an intruder at Curtis’s place the investigation might have developed in other directions. Because when it boiled down to it, that’s all it was: there was an intruder, probably thieving, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the woman’s murder.