Morning Frost

by Henry James

  ‘Yes,’ Wells concurred. ‘Good family, too. I bet the mother was a looker in her time.’

  Mullett glanced again at Beryl Simpson and found himself nodding in agreement; she was trim, attractive even, and clearly took care of herself. Perhaps the coloured hair was in a style too young for her years, but it was a minor blot on what was overall a fine example of the mature English rose. Bitterly he downed his schooner of sherry. How on earth Frost had managed to worm his way into such a superior family was a mystery, and, of course, staggeringly unfair. But now death had broken the connection, and he regarded it almost as an act of poetic justice.

  Thursday (2)

  Nev Sanderson pointed authoritatively with a large wooden stick. ‘That there is a foot.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Sanderson,’ said DC Clarke as she winced, ‘I’m inclined to agree.’

  She took a tentative step forward, her feet sticking in the mud.

  ‘Do you think you could get your dog away? It won’t help the lab if the’ – what was the right word? It couldn’t really be classed as a corpse – ‘object is drenched in dog saliva.’

  The Border collie snuffled enthusiastically around the pasty limb as though contemplating taking a bite.

  ‘Fenton, here, boy,’ the farmer said half-heartedly. He was swigging from an unmarked bottle she took to contain some form of scrumpy. He certainly had the complexion to match. The dog continued to sniff the prominent big toe. Sanderson leaned on his stick and smirked.

  ‘Constable, remove the dog,’ ordered Clarke. She was tired and had no patience for the farmer’s lack of respect. Ridley moved to grab it, but at Sanderson’s slap of his thigh the dog came to heel.

  ‘Ah,’ Clarke said with some dismay, looking across the field at the SOCOs trudging in the distance and what was likely to be Maltby. Not used to being first on the scene, she desperately needed to make some useful observation before Forensics arrived and disturbed the crime scene irrevocably. Frost always lectured everyone on how important these early moments were, although he qualified this by his own admission that he himself was seldom first anywhere.

  ‘When did you first see the foot?’

  ‘I see it from tractor o’er there,’ he said, pointing to the becalmed machine twenty yards away.

  ‘How? You must have pretty incredible eyesight to have spotted it from that distance.’ Clarke frowned.

  ‘It were the birds. The gulls. They were fighting over it.’

  ‘I see. So you didn’t unearth it, then? You’re saying it was sitting on the surface?’

  ‘I guess so.’ He shrugged, his attention now drawn to the approaching entourage.

  Perhaps it was left here last night, she thought. But, why here? And where was the rest of the body – dead or alive?

  ‘Wait a minute. You said “gulls”. But we’re at least seventy miles from the coast. Are you sure they weren’t crows?’

  Sanderson rolled his eyes. ‘I know the difference, ma’am. Reckon maybe they came from the reservoir.’ He nodded towards the horizon. Denton reservoir, yes, of course, although there was nothing to see from this aspect; it was somewhere beyond these acres of softly undulating arable farmland.

  ‘Yes, perhaps.’ Clarke sighed, struggling for inspiration. Frost also said to take in a crime scene fully before focusing on the body, so as not to be unduly influenced in any way by the sight of the corpse. But this was just a field, and this was just a foot. She stepped forward. Yep, it was a foot, all right. She regarded the naked, lily-white limb, flecked with abrasions. What the hell should she do now? The farmer coughed impatiently.

  ‘Detective Clarke,’ wheezed a familiar voice.

  ‘Doctor Maltby.’ She was glad it was someone she knew. Next to him stood a visibly unimpressed young SOCO with a whisper of a moustache.

  ‘Is that it, then?’ the lad said, looking from Clarke to the foot and back again. Clarke raised her eyebrows and shrugged; she instantly loathed this upstart, pathetic bum-fluff and all.

  ‘This does not constitute a “body”,’ added Maltby irritably.

  ‘Well, I didn’t call you,’ Clarke countered defensively, but she was distracted by Sanderson, who had turned his back on them and was making for the tractor.

  ‘Mr Sanderson, wait … Mr Sanderson …’ The departing figure paid her no heed.

  The Forensics men regarded her expectantly.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ she snapped, furious with everyone, including herself. She mustered some latent authority and, raising her voice above the roar of the tractor, shouted, ‘Bag it, then!’

  After begging a fag from Beryl Simpson, who quickly moved on to an ancient aunt, Frost found himself standing with the Braziers and the cravat-wearing stranger. Frost groaned inwardly; he didn’t like his brother-in-law at all, never had done. A tall, sort of handsome but smarmy individual with greying, bog-brush hair, Julian Brazier had always irritated the hell out of him.

  ‘So, Julian … how’s business, then?’

  ‘We’re doing great, aren’t we, Jules?’ Elizabeth, Mary’s less attractive younger sister, cut in. ‘Opening another showroom, here in Denton, aren’t we, darling?’

  Frost reached for the nearby Scotch bottle and poured himself another drink. He offered the bottle around, well aware they were drinking wine or sherry.

  ‘Yes, so I heard. That place on the Bath Road. I nicked the last motor dealer to have it.’ He knew the reference would rile them, but Jesus, ‘showroom’ was an exaggeration even for them; a shabby Portakabin with a forecourt were the sum of it.

  ‘William, allow me to introduce you to Charles,’ said Brazier, ignoring the remark. ‘Charlie is from France.’

  ‘Hello, Charlie from France.’ Frost took a limp hand. He knew that the Braziers had friends in France, and Mary had been to stay with them in the Dordogne before she became very ill. ‘It’s very kind of you to come all this way.’

  ‘He’s come for more than the funeral, Will,’ Brazier said.

  ‘Yes, my business partner and I have opened an antiques shop in Denton; we opened early last month.’ The Frenchman smiled cordially.

  ‘Really?’ said Frost, unimpressed. ‘Well, I’m not sure we’ve got the requisite clientele for such’ – Frost searched for the words – ‘overpriced knick-knacks.’ Just then he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and a blast of hot, boozy breath on his ear. ‘Arthur, say hello to Charlie from France.’

  Hanlon lurched forward and winked at the Frenchman. ‘Spain: three–one,’ he chided.

  ‘Eh?’ Frost said, baffled.

  Charles smiled politely at Hanlon’s remark, turned back to Frost and bowed gracefully. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he said before rejoining Brazier, who was deep in conversation with some town official Frost vaguely recognized.

  ‘What was all that about Spain?’ Frost asked, spearing a cocktail sausage from the buffet table.

  ‘The World Cup, Jack! You know, football? Just a couple of months back. England trounced the Frogs three–one. Where’ve you been?’ Hanlon guffawed.

  ‘Hospital, in the main.’ Frost waved away Hanlon’s sudden embarrassment. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be the first time we trounced them in Spain. 1812. Salamanca.’

  ‘Not with you, Jack.’

  ‘Not many are, Arthur, not many are,’ Frost said, feeling suddenly very alone.

  Detective Constable Derek Simms, having dropped off DS Waters in Denton High Street, now found himself snarled up in traffic. He regarded the almost black Georgian buildings that lined the northern perimeter of Market Square; he’d never before stopped to consider how filthy the place was. Perhaps it really was turning into a dump, as his mother constantly bemoaned. Denton’s former glory as a very pretty market town seemed a distant shadow, not that he’d remember – his parents always complained how it had been ruined by a splurge of building in the mid 1960s, transforming it into what government officials called a ‘new town’, the purpose of which was to generate new business and industry. Much of
that ‘transformation’ started and finished with the Southern Housing Estate, a sprawling urban mess of council houses, purpose built for the London over-spill. Twenty years later, Denton’s population had swelled and with it a tide of crime and unemployment, but very little in the way of increased prosperity, leaving the town very much the poorer relation to upmarket Rimmington, which remained untouched by the developers’ hands. Not that Simms minded. The more crime, the more experience for him and the more fun the job; though he could curse the bleeding traffic. Given the recession and high unemployment, why were there so many motors on the road?

  And he needed a pee, badly. Prior to dropping Waters off the pair had stopped in at the Bird in Hand, to shake off the solemnity of the church service, and to warm up – St Mary’s had been cold as a tomb. They’d reflected on how depressing it all was. Dead at thirty-six. Although, being only twenty-four, thirty seemed old to Derek Simms.

  Frost had invited them both back to his in-laws’ house for what by the sounds of it was going to be a full-blown wake, lasting the whole day, but they excused themselves on account of being technically on duty, even though Waters had arranged to see his girlfriend and view a flat. After only six months the pair were moving in together. Jesus, talk about a whirlwind romance. Wouldn’t catch me doing that, Simms snorted, fumbling in his pocket for cigarettes. He figured the big man was on the rebound from his recent divorce, but wouldn’t dream of saying so. They certainly had tongues wagging around Eagle Lane; interracial relationships were unheard of, especially within the police force. John Waters, the token black member of the Denton force, and diminutive blonde Kim Myles turned heads on a daily basis.

  As Simms waited for the lights to change, Morrison’s, the undertakers, caught his eye, causing him to reflect again on the morning. He had seen Mary Frost only once, years ago, when she had stormed into the station late one night demanding to know where the hell Jack was. She’d been pretty but scary, with bright red lipstick and elaborate 1950s-style hair – fiery but somehow still quite cute. She clearly thought Frost had been out all night misbehaving; it transpired he’d been sleeping in the cells. That was marriage for you.

  He turned on the police radio, feeling slightly guilty that he hadn’t done it sooner, but then for all Johnson knew he was still at the funeral. Within minutes it crackled into life.

  ‘Yep, Simms here.’

  ‘Where the dickens have you been?’ Johnson sounded out of sorts.

  ‘At the funeral, Sarge, along with everybody else. What’s wrong, the daylight not agreeing with you?’

  ‘Less of your lip, laddy. The service was over an hour ago. You were supposed to be on call after that. You’re needed; Sue Clarke has gone off straight from her nightshift to check out what might be a human foot in one of Nev Sanderson’s fields. And that’s not the half of it.’

  ‘Eh?’ Simms scratched his head. ‘OK, sorry, it was hard to get away – you know how it is at these things. Anyway, what else is up?’

  ‘There’s been a shooting,’ Johnson stated coldly. ‘At the Coconut Grove nightclub. Two in intensive care.’

  ‘You’re having me on!’ Simms’s pulse quickened. A serious incident, no one else on call, just him to pick it up. It was a gift. ‘The Coconut Grove, eh? Bet Big H ain’t happy about that.’

  ‘Too right,’ Johnson said sombrely. ‘He’s one of them that got shot.’

  ‘I know you turn your nose up at Julian and Elizabeth, William,’ said Beryl Simpson. Her green eyes were misty, Frost wasn’t sure whether from booze or genuine emotion; probably both. The afternoon was waning, and he wished it would all end. ‘And despite what you think of us, and all this’ – she waved the glass unsteadily around her – ‘we’re not precious about money. Certainly the girls were well educated, and that’s because of George. George worked hard to provide them with opportunities he never had.’ Mrs Simpson looked to the vicar for confirmation of this statement. Father Hill, of whom Frost was fond, nodded encouragingly, and then endeavoured to steer the conversation away from family feuds by clasping her shoulder and adding something about generous donations to the Church.

  However, Frost’s emotions were running high as well, and he wasn’t finished with her yet.

  ‘I’ve never said a thing, Beryl,’ he replied, prompting Father Hill to give him a scathing look.

  ‘You don’t have to, it’s in your manner,’ she almost sneered, revealing the lines decorum and powder had hidden. She suddenly looked her age – just when he was almost beginning to fancy her again. ‘And for all your high-mindedness you never took proper care of Mary. Whereas Julian’ – her glass indicating the favoured son-in-law, lounging on the sofa with legs sprawled apart – ‘he may only be a car dealer to you—’

  ‘He is a car dealer, Beryl!’ Frost exclaimed, looking expectantly at the vicar for a sign of solidarity. ‘To everyone!’ Father Hill studied the marble floor, unwilling to get involved.

  ‘You know damn well what I mean – the point is, he loves Elizabeth … and …’

  Frost stared intently. Don’t you dare try and claim he’s never cheated on her, he thought.

  Beryl Simpson held herself, and touched her bottom lip, as if to check it was still there. He thought for an instant she was going to continue her tirade, but all she said was, ‘Just get me another drink.’

  ‘Do you mind if we discuss the particulars another time, Sidney? I don’t feel it appropriate to go into such things here.’

  ‘No, quite.’ Mullett flushed. What was he thinking in pursuing it? He must’ve had more sherry than he thought. The elderly Mason had acknowledged him and that should suffice for now. So as not to add to the embarrassment, he didn’t correct the old boy on his name.

  ‘Besides, you could start looking closer to home,’ Simpson added. ‘The force is no stranger to our organization.’

  A woman approached with a sherry bottle. She was slightly chubby but with a hard face, and Mullett surmised that she must be the other daughter, whose name he couldn’t remember. ‘Top-up?’ she asked. He’d probably had enough but it was rather good sherry, so he grinned amiably and watched the bronze liquid flow. One more, then he really must be off to the station.

  ‘You’re Will’s boss,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘Sergeant Frost?’ He smiled as generously as he could. ‘Yes, I have the honour of having William serve under me.’

  She looked surprised. ‘You call it an honour? We’ve been led to believe he’s a royal pain in the backside, eh, Dad?’

  Simpson senior merely raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Well, he has his own inimitable style, and yes, we do have our ups and downs,’ Mullett admitted. He took a proffered cigarette. ‘But he is dedicated.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her look softened. ‘So it wasn’t all an act, then.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not with you,’ Mullett said.

  ‘Gave Mary a hard run, didn’t he, Dad?’ she said. The old man sighed. Mullett wasn’t altogether sure he was listening. ‘Good to know it was all for a reason; that he was just being good at his job …’

  Mullett wasn’t aware that he’d said that, but he was touched by how the young woman took comfort from his words. He suddenly felt a peculiar closeness to this grieving family, with whom his only connection was through a man who was the bane of his life. Perhaps it was a sign that to be around these kinds of people was his rightful place? Or perhaps it was just the sherry.

  ‘I’ve got nothing more to say to you. You ruined my daughter’s life, you selfish, selfish man.’

  Beryl Simpson shook her bowed head, clutching the kitchen work surface. That wasn’t true and she knew it – until the cancer had taken her, Mary was happy-go-lucky despite their ups and downs. Or so he’d convinced himself anyway. Frost felt his relationship with Mary was misunderstood. Perhaps it was time to address this with the in-laws, reassure them that Mary wasn’t the unhappy, downtrodden victim they thought. He picked up the picture of his late wife resting on the dresser in a gilded f
rame; it had been taken some years ago – fiery red hair, the brightest red lipstick imaginable, lively eyes and a full bosom. She was a cracker all right.

  ‘But for years … she, she carried on with that bleedin’ plumber,’ he said absently. He realized his mistake as soon as the words had left his lips.

  ‘Get out! Out of my house. How could you say that?’

  She broke down in sobs. Frost’s head spun. He felt despair and frustration rising up inside. He had to leave – he needed air. On impulse he grabbed one of the many bottles of spirits on the worktop.

  Frost barged through a throng of people still in the hall, drunken laughter ringing in his ears. If it wasn’t for the prevalence of black clothing it could well have been a party, not a wake. Perhaps that was the way a send-off should be? Despite coming into contact with death on a regular basis, he’d attended very few funerals.

  ‘Jack, you all right?’ Frost had collided with a red-nosed Arthur Hanlon.

  ‘Fine, fine, just need some air.’ He could hear himself slurring hiswords.

  ‘That much “air”?’ said Hanlon, pointing to the bottle. Before Frost could respond an equally smashed Bill Wells had clutched him to his chest, squeezing the wind out of him.

  ‘We love you, you know,’ Wells said to his scalp.

  ‘Get off, you great soppy oaf. I’ll be back.’ Then, opening the front door, he muttered to himself, ‘Hmm … or was he an electrician?’

  Thursday (3)

  Clarke pulled up at the Coconut Grove, next to DC Derek Simms’s red Alfa Sud. Baskin and Cecil had long been whisked off in an ambulance to Denton General. Simms was outside the club talking to a girl in a red miniskirt.

  The sky was overcast and there was rain on the way again, giving the place an even seedier air than usual. Clarke avoided the puddles as she made for her colleague.

  ‘Who’s this?’ she asked. Simms turned away from the distraught-looking girl. Mascara streaked her puckered cheeks, and her hair was in disarray. A WPC patted her shoulder.