Night Frost (15 page)

   "We’re not coping," said Frost. "We’re struggling and sinking bloody fast."

   "Shelwood . . ." began Mullett.

   "Sod Shelwood Division," chopped in Frost. "Shelwood haven’t got three major murder enquiries on the go."

   Mullett breathed on the lenses of his glasses and polished them carefully. With his glasses off, the blurred image of Frost didn’t look quite so scruffy. But when he replaced them, there was the man, creased, crumpled and slovenly in sharp focus. "The reason we are not coping, Inspector, is because of sloppiness and inefficiency."

   "You’re doing your best, sir," said Frost generously.

   Mullett glared. "No-one can accuse me of inefficiency, Frost. I prepare the rotas, but no-one sticks to them. I never know who is on duty and who isn’t. We’ve got to organize ourselves . . . allocate the tasks, use our resources to the best advantage. I’ve prepared new duty rosters." He pushed a neatly typed list across the desk. "And they will be strictly adhered to. I will not tolerate any deviation . . . any excuses."

   Frost picked up the roster and studied it. Like most of Mullett’s edicts, it was beautifully laid out, but would be impossible to adhere to.

   "We’ll all have to work that little bit harder," cajoled the superintendent, "but it won’t be for long. Mr. Allen will be off the sick list next week and you’ll hand the Paula Bartlett case back to him. Other men are coming off the sick list all the time." He flashed his 'be reasonable’ smile. "It will only be for a few days."

   Right, you sod, thought Frost. We’ll play it your way. He yawned and heaved himself up. "I see from the roster I’m off duty, so I’ll slope off home and get some kip."

   "Wait!" Mullett waved him back to his chair. "I need an update on the cases you are working on." He listened distastefully as Frost spared him none of the gory details of the stabbing and the post-mortem. "One victim’s still alive—so it’s only two murders."

   "She’s eighty-one," said Frost, "and her skull’s fractured. The hospital don’t reckon she’ll pull through. I’m anticipating on this one."

   Mullett clenched his fist angrily. "Catching this swine must be our number one priority, even to the exclusion of other cases." He pulled his notepad towards him. "I’m holding a press conference at two on the Paula Bartlett case. No joy with your plumber?"

   "Not unless we can pick holes in his story, and I don’t think we will."

   "A pity," said Mullett pointedly, as if it was Frost’s fault. "Have you told the parents yet that she was raped? I don’t want them to find out from the media."

   Damn! thought Frost. He’d completely forgotten this aspect. "No, sir. I don’t want to sod up your nice new roster, so as I’m off duty I’ll leave that for you."

   The Parker pen doodled in the air and dotted an imaginary 'i'. "I’d do it willingly, Inspector. But you’ve got their confidence. They don’t want a stranger breaking such bad news. I’ll leave that in your capable hands."

   Frost smiled his "you bastard!" smile. "Of course, sir."

   Mullett studied his list. "Only one case demands urgent attention. This maniac with the knife. He’s got to be caught before he kills again. That’s the case we deploy our manpower on. The rest can go on the back burner until we’re back to full strength."

   "But what about Paula Bartlett?" protested Frost. "She’s been murdered and raped—do we stick her on the back burner?"

   Mullett nodded emphatically. "She’s been dead for over two months. The trail’s gone cold. Waiting a week until Mr. Allen returns is sensible and won’t make the slightest bit of difference." At Frost’s continued hesitation, he added, "It’s a question of priorities, Inspector. Face facts! We haven’t the manpower to handle more than one major investigation. By concentrating our resources, I’m looking forward to an early arrest."

   Frost pulled a cigarette stub from behind his ear and poked it in his mouth. "I’ll give it a whirl," he muttered doubtfully. He wasn’t happy at back-pedalling on the school kid. His every instinct screamed for him to go all out to find the bastard responsible. But Hornrim Harry was right for once. They didn’t have the resources for more than one big case and they weren’t going to get any help from County.

   "Good man!" Mullett smoothed his moustache with his two forefingers. "But we must keep a high profile with the public. We mustn’t let them know we are marking time on the Bartlett case." His eyes gleamed and he snapped his fingers triumphantly. "I’ve got it! There’s a video somewhere that Mr. Allen had made when the girl first went missing. I’m sure we could get the TV companies to run it again." The video showed a Paula Bartlett look-alike, wearing similar clothes and riding the identical bike along the route of Paula’s newspaper round. It was hoped it would jog someone’s memory, but it hadn’t been successful. As Paula did her round every day, same route, same time, there was much confusion in the minds of people who had come forward as to the actual day they had seen her. The usual reports of strange men in slow-moving dark cars, but none of the leads had led anywhere.

   "If it didn’t work when memories were fresh, I can’t see it working two months later," said Frost, "but I’ll arrange it if you like. I could do an appeal to the public."

   "Leave it all to me," cut in Mullett hastily. "You’ve got far too much to do." There was no way he was going to let Frost appear on TV, slouching in front of the cameras in that terrible suit, retrieving half-smoked cigarettes from behind his ear. He beamed at Frost. "See the parents, then go and get some sleep. And remember, we concentrate only on vital things. Nothing else matters."

   Frost had almost reached the door when Mullett called him back, waving the complicated inventory return from his in-tray. "You might fit this in when you have an odd moment, Inspector."

   Frost’s gave the return a dubious stare. "It doesn’t look vital to me."

   Mullett’s smile didn’t waver. "Shouldn’t take you long, now that I’ve lightened your work load. County want it back this week."

   County can bleeding want, thought Frost morosely as he walked back to his office. He buried the inventory return in his in-tray, screwed up the new duty roster and hurled it at the waste bin, then kicked shut the door and sank wearily into his chair. In two minutes he was fast asleep.

Tuesday afternoon shift

Frost, cold and stiff from an uncomfortable sleep, staggered into the Murder Incident Room where Gilmore and Burton, seated at adjacent desks behind mounds of green folders, barely gave him a glance. They were transferring details from the folders on to roneoed forms which were then collected by WPC Jill Knight who fed them into the computer for collation.

   A large-scale map of Denton, well-studded with coloured pins, had been fixed to the wall alongside the computer and Frost wandered over to take a look at it. The pins marked the scenes of all the recent senior citizen burglaries. On the far wall hung the map compiled by Inspector Allen showing the route of Paula Bartlett’s last paper round. A newly added black thumb tack pin-pointed the crypt where the body was found. A beefy little blonde WPC brought in another armful of green folders and dumped them on the desk.

   "You seem to have things well organized," said Frost.

   "Someone had to do it," grunted Gilmore who was in a sour mood. A little over three hours’ sleep and then treated to a dose of Liz whining and moaning at being left on her own so much and then, when he reported for duty, he had found Frost sprawled asleep in his office without having done a damn thing about getting the Murder Incident Room set up.

   "Thanks," acknowledged Frost. Organization was not his strongest point. "Well, the good news is that according to Mr. Mullett’s new roster, we’re all off duty until tonight. The bad news is, we’re far too busy to sod about with his rubbish." He wandered across to Burton and Gilmore, both occupied with their green folders. "What’s all this in aid of?" He dropped a cigarette on each desk, then poured himself a mug of tea from Burton’s thermos.

   Gilmore looked up from his folders. "I’m initiating a computer program. What it does . . ."

   Frost’s hand shot up. If it was to do with computers, then he didn’t want to know. "Please don’t explain how it works, son, then I won’t have to pretend I understand what you’re talking about."

   But Gilmore explained anyway. "We’re feeding the computer with details from all the recent break-ins and burglaries and attacks involving senior citizens to see if we can build up some sort of pattern . . . why did the burglar pick on them, and so on."

   Frost peered over Jill Knight’s shoulder, watching the cursor fly across the monitor screen, leaving a complicated trail of facts and figures. "Any pattern emerging so far?"

   "A lot of the victims, seem to belong to senior citizens’ clubs," she told him.

   "Perhaps that’s the sort of club that senior citizens join," said Frost, unimpressed. He flicked through a file half-heartedly, then pushed it away and jabbed a finger at Burton. "You were going to check with the vicar about Mary Haynes."

   "I left a report on your desk," protested Burton. 

   "You know I don’t read reports. Tell me what it said." 

   "She’d been a member of the church senior citizens’club for nearly six years. No relatives as far as the vicar knows. She kept herself to herself, never invited anyone back to her place and didn’t have any close friends."

   "That wouldn’t have been worth reading a report, for," commented Frost moodily.

   "There’s more," continued Burton. "She visited her husband’s grave at the cemetery on Sunday . . ."

   Frost’s head shot up. The cemetery. That reminded him. "Get the car out—we’ve got to give her parents the good news that their daughter was raped."

   "If I could finish," said Burton. "Her husband’s grave had been vandalized . . . swear words sprayed on with an aerosol. She had a row with the vicar about it. She was always having rows. I’ve started a list of people she quarrelled with, but it’s all trivial stuff."

   "Follow it through anyway," said Frost. "Did anyone spot our famous blue van?"

   "No-one so far."

   A sudden thought. Something else he had forgotten. "Damn! We should have asked dry-cleaners to look out for bloodstained clothing."

   "Already in hand," said Gilmore, smugly.

   A messenger entered with a large envelope and a package for Frost. He ripped it open. The post-mortem reports from the pathologist, beautifully typed by his loyal secretary on expensive paper. Frost flipped open the first and skipped through it. It was for the suicide, the kid in the Mickey Mouse night-shirt, Susan Bicknell. Drysdale’s usual thorough job. He hadn’t missed the marks of the beating, but reported them without comment. His sole concern was the cause of death which was confirmed as barbiturate poisoning, probably self-inflicted. Signs of recent intercourse, but she was not pregnant.

   He gave the file to Gilmore who studied it grimly. "She didn’t kill herself because she was up the spout, son."

   "Then why did she?"

   "We’ll probably never know." Frost opened up the other folder. "I hope everyone’s had their lunch—because it’s stomach contents time." He quickly read the typed sheet. "Isn’t science wonderful? She’s been dead two months, yet they can tell us she died within half an hour of knocking back chicken and mushroom pie, chips and peas and—wait for it—a dollop of brown sauce."

   The plump blonde WPC pulled a face. "I had that for dinner yesterday."

   "If you get raped and strangled, we’ll know there’s a connection." He studied the report again. "Paula must have had another meal. She’d never have eaten all that for breakfast."

   "She was a growing girl," suggested Burton. "You’d be surprised what kids eat these days."

   "She died within half an hour of eating," Frost reminded him. "The meal wasn’t fully digested. I saw it. I can show it to you if you don’t believe me." At Burton’s shuddering refusal, he continued. "If she had eaten it at home, she would have to be dead by half-past seven."

   "We’ve got a witness who saw her at 8.15," said Burton.

   "Either the witness is lying, or mistaken, or Paula had another meal. A hot, cooked meal." He opened up the package. "I hope this isn’t the bloody stomach contents." They backed away as he plunged his hand inside but it was a polythene bag he pulled out. Inside were the shoes found on the body. He gave them to the blonde WPC and asked her to send them to Forensic. And that reminded him. "Bloody hell—I forgot to ask Forensic to send Drysdale the knife from last night’s stabbing."

   "Already done," said Gilmore. What an inefficient lout the man was.

   Frost nodded his thanks. Naked, but wearing shoes. Ate a hot meal. You couldn’t force a kid to eat. She must have gone willingly with her killer and that tended to rule the bald plumber out. But Mullett said they shouldn’t spend time on this case. Leave it for whizz-kid Allen. Sod Mullett. He’d do things his way. "Come on, the pair of you," he told Gilmore and Burton. "Let’s drive over the route she took for her paper round."

   There were a number of strange cars in the car park. Of course. Mullett’s press conference must be in full swing. Mullett would be telling them all about the suspected rape and he hadn’t broken the news to Paula’s parents yet. "We’ll call on them first," he said. "Let’s get it bloody over."

Burton waited in the car and watched Gilmore and the inspector make the short dash through the rain to the Bartletts’ house. The girl’s father, who answered their knock, was stooped and grey-faced and seemed to have aged some ten years since the previous night. He showed them into the living-room where his wife sat staring into empty space. She forced a ghost-smile of greeting. Frost stood uneasily by the door, not knowing how to begin.

   "Would you like a cup of tea?" Mr. Bartlett asked them.

   "We’d love one," Frost replied, hoping the mother would leave the room to make it. He wanted her out of the way while he broke the news of the sexual assault to her husband. But she sat, staring, unseeing, and didn’t move.