Night Frost (20 page)

   "You’ve already asked me, sir. Just the girl’s and the schoolmaster’s."

   Frost paused. Why did little buzzes of intuition whisper in his ear every time the schoolmaster was mentioned?

   The rest of the file consisted of negative forensic reports on the bike and the canvas newspaper bag, plus statements from Paula’s school friends—no, she had never talked of running away; no, she wasn’t worried or unhappy about any thing no, she had no boyfriends. In the early days of the investigations, as no body was found, it was hoped that she had dumped her bike and, like so many kids of her age, run away from home. There were reports from various police forces who had followed up sightings of Paula look-alikes, teenage girls on the game or sleeping rough. A few missing teenage girls were restored to their families, but the Bartletts just waited, and hoped, and kept her room ready exactly as she left it.

   He closed the file and handed it back to Burton, then pulled the cardboard box towards him. Inside it, loosely folded in a large transparent resealable bag, was the black, mould-speckled plastic rubbish sack, Paula’s shroud, ripped where the knife had cut through to reveal her face.

   "A rubbish sack," commented Burton. "Millions of them made. No clue there."

   "Tell me something I don’t know," gloomed Frost, taking the next item from the box. A canvas bag which had held the newspapers. The stagnant smell of the scummy ditch in which it had been immersed wafted up as he examined it. He slipped his arm through the shoulder strap. The bag was too high and uncomfortable. Paula was much smaller than he was. What the hell does that prove? he thought. He shrugged off the strap and put the bag on top of the rubbish sack. Next were the brown, fiat-heeled shoes, the stained laces still tied in a neat double bow.

   "Naked, raped and murdered, but still wearing shoes," muttered Frost. "It doesn’t make sense."

   "What’s going on?" Gilmore was staring pointedly at Burton. "I thought I told you to go through the senior citizen files."

   "He’s helping me," said Frost. He held up the shoes. "Why was she wearing shoes and sod all else?"

   "She tried to get away," offered Gilmore, not very interested. Mullett had told them to forget the Paula Bartlett case. "She put on her shoes so she could make a run for it, but he came back and caught her."

   "She’d been raped," said Frost. "She was terrified. If she wanted to run, she’d bloody well run barefoot. She wouldn’t waste time putting on shoes and tying them both with a double bow."

   "Then I don’t know," grunted Gilmore, moving away and busying himself with the senior citizen files, making it clear that he knew where his priorities were, even if others didn’t.

   The brown shoes refused to yield up their secrets, so Frost put them to one side and took out the last item in the box, a large plastic envelope which held the two undelivered newspapers, the
Sun
and the
Daily Telegraph
, each folded in two so they would fit the canvas bag.

   Frost slipped them from the envelope. The same stagnant smell as the bag, both papers yellowed and tinged with green from their immersion. With great care he unfolded the
Sun
which the soaking in the ditch had made slightly brittle. Scrawled above the masthead in the newsagent’s writing was the customer’s address,
Brook
Ctg
. He turned to page three and studied the nude dispassionately. She too was stained green. "There’s a green-tinged pair of nipples to the north of Kathmandu," he intoned, closing the paper, careful to ensure it settled along its original folds.

   He nearly missed it. It caught the light as he was returning it to the envelope. A quarter of the way down the back page, running across the width of the paper. A roughened, corrugated tongue-shaped tear an eighth of an inch wide and barely a quarter of an inch long. He pulled out the school master’s
Telegraph
and scrutinized the back and front pages. Nothing on that, so back to the Sun. It was telling him something, but he didn’t know what. "What do you make of this, Burton?"

   Burton made nothing of it.

   "Come and look at this, Gilmore," called Frost.

   Making clear his resentment at being dragged away from more important work, Gilmore took the newspaper, gave it a cursory glance and handed it back. "A bit of damage in the handling," he said.

   No, thought Frost. Not damage in the handling. It was more than that. A faint bell began to tinkle right at the back of his brain. The drunken fat woman earlier that day. Her paper was jammed tight in the letter-box. He’d had to pull it out and he’d torn it. A very similar tear to that on the back page of the undelivered
Sun
. Or was it undelivered? Hands trembling, he took up the newspaper and gave it a second, loose fold. The rough corrugated tongue ran exactly down the line of the new fold.

   Frost felt his excitement rising. "Did Mr. Allen notice this?"

   "I don’t know, sir. "Why, is it important?"

   "It could be bloody important, son. The papers are folded once so the girl can fit them in the canvas bag. But they have to be folded again so they can be poked through the letter-box." Frost pointed to the tear. "I’d stake my virginity that this paper has been pushed through a letter-box and then pulled out again."

   The DC took the paper and twisted it in the light to examine the abrasion. It was possible. Just about possible. "But we know it wasn’t delivered," he said.

   'Who lives at Brook Cottage?"

   Burton pulled the details from the folder and read them aloud. "Harold Edward Greenway, aged 47. Self-employed van driver. Lives on his own. His wife walked out on him a couple of years ago."

   This was getting better and better. Frost rubbed his hands with delight. "Has he got an alibi for the day the girl went missing?"

   Burton turned a page. "According to his statement he had no jobs lined up, so he stayed in bed until gone eleven, then pottered about the cottage for the rest of the day. He never saw the girl and he didn’t get a paper."

   "And we believed him?"

   "We had no reason to doubt him, especially when we found her bike and the papers in the ditch."

   Frost sat on the corner of the desk and shook out three cigarettes. "OK. Try this out for a scenario. Harry boy lives all on his own. Wife’s been gone for two years and his dick’s getting rusty through lack of use. One morning, what should come cycling up his path but a nice, fresh, unopened packet of 15-year-old nooky with his copy of the
Sun
. She rolls it up and pokes it through the door. The sexual symbolism of this act hits him smack in the groin. He invites her in, or drags her in, or whatever. She can scream if she wants to, there’s no-one for miles to hear. Afterwards, when all passion’s spent and she’s screaming rape, he panics, and strangles her."

   Burton, caught up with Frost’s enthusiasm, could see where the plot was leading. "Greenway puts the newspaper back in the bag, dumps it with the bike in a ditch and we all think she never made the delivery."

   Even Gilmore looked impressed. "It’s possible," he decided reluctantly, "but it still doesn’t explain the shoes."

   "Sod the shoes," said Frost, hopping down from the desk. "Let’s get our killer first, then get explanations." He stuffed the papers back into the plastic envelope and handed it to Burton. "Tell you what you do, son. Send both newspapers over to Forensic. Tell them our brilliant theory and get them to drop everything and make tests."

   "And then come back and get down to these bloody files," called Gilmore. "We’re never going to get through them at this rate."

The stack of folders didn’t seem to be getting any lower. Gilmore ticked off the squares on the roneoed form and dropped it into the filing basket ready for the girl on the computer. Something sailed past his nose. It was a paper aeroplane which attempted to soar upwards before losing heart and nose-diving with a thud to the ground at his feet. He bent down and picked it up. The paper looked familiar. He unfolded it. One of the roneoed forms. He turned suspiciously to Frost who grinned back sheepishly.

   "Sorry, son."

   Frost was bored. He’d been staring at the same robbery folder for the past forty minutes. He was dying for an excuse to get out of the station, but the phone stubbornly remained quiet. "About time Forensic came back to us on those news papers."

   "They’ve only had them five minutes," said Gilmore.

   "How long does it bloody take?" asked Frost peevishly, pulling the phone towards him and dialling the lab.

   "Give us a chance, Inspector," replied Forensic testily. "We’ve got half our staff down with this flu virus thing. We’re still working on the clothing and other items collected from 44 Manningron Crescent. Negative so far."

   "That old rubbish can wait," said Frost. "It’s not important. Get cracking on those newspapers."

   A scowling Gilmore looked up. "We’re supposed to be concentrating on the senior citizen murders and you’re telling Forensic it can wait?"

   Frost was saved from answering by the phone. WPC Ridley from Intensive Care, Denton Hospital. Alice Ryder, the old lady with the fractured skull, had regained consciousness.

The moon, floating in a clear sky, kept pace with the car as they raced to the hospital. Frost, puffing away nervously in the passenger seat, was willing the old dear to stay alive until they could question her. A detailed description of her attacker would be worth a thousand of those lousy forms they had been filling in for the computer. A detailed description! He was kidding himself. She was eighty-one, concussed and dying. The bastard had attacked her in the dark. The poor cow would tell them sod all.

   The dark sprawl of the hospital loomed up ahead. "Park there, son." He pointed to a 'Hospital—No Waiting’ sign by the main entrance and was out of the car and charging up the corridor before Gilmore had a chance to switch off the ignition.

   Gilmore pushed through the swing doors in time to see the maroon blur of Frost’s scarf as he darted down a side corridor. With a burst of speed, he caught up with him. "Straight ahead," panted Frost, indicating a small flickering green neon sign reading 'Intensive Care’.

   The night sister looked up angrily and glared them to silence. She nodded grimly at Frost’s warrant card. "Mrs. Ryder is over there." A jerk of her head indicated a curtained-off corner.

   "How is she?" asked Frost.

   "She’s dying, otherwise I wouldn’t let you near her." As they moved across, she added, "Not too many of you. Send the WPC out."

   They slipped through the curtains. A concerned WPC Ridley was bending over the bed talking quietly. She looked up with relief at Frost’s appearance. "Her eyes are open, sir, but I don’t think she’s really with us."

   "Take a break, love," said Frost flopping down in the chair alongside the bed. Gilmore stood behind him. The old lady, a small frail figure, seemed unaware of their presence. She lay still, her head barely creasing the plumped hospital pillow, an irregular bubbling sob marking her shallow breathing. Her face was a dull grey against the starkness of the turban of bandages around her head. Taped to her cheek, a thin, transparent tube ran into her left nostril. Another tube descended from a half-filled plastic bag on an iron stand and dripped fluids through a hollow needle to a vein on her wrist. Her hand, a yellow claw, was trembling and making tiny scratching noises on the bed-cover.

   Everything was clean and white and sterile and Frost felt gritty and dirty and out of place. He leant forward. "Mrs. Ryder?"

   Her red-rimmed eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling. She gave no sign that she had heard him. Her head was twitching slightly as if trying to shake off the tube fastened to her nose which was clearly uncomfortable and worrying her.

   Why can’t they let the poor cow die in comfort, thought Frost. He brought his face close to hers. "Mrs. Ryder, I’m a police officer. If I’m to get the bastard who did this to you, I need your help." No response.

   "A description, Mrs. Ryder—anything. If you can’t talk, blink. A blink means yes. Do you understand?"

   If she understood, she didn’t respond.

   Undeterred, Frost plunged on. "The man who attacked you. Was he tall?" He waited. No response. "Short? Fat? Thin?"

   Her breath bubbled. Her fingers drummed. Her eyes, unblinking, were fixed on the ceiling.

   Frost slumped back in his chair. Why was he hassling her? She wasn’t going to tell him anything, so why not let the poor cow die in peace. He dug his hands in his pocket and felt his cigarettes. No chance of a smoke in here. The night sister would have him out on his ear.

   "Let me try," said Gilmore, but before Frost could answer the old lady made a choking sound. "I’ll get the sister," said Gilmore, trying to open the curtains.

   "No!" hissed Frost, grabbing his arm. "Wait!"

   The old lady was attempting to raise her head, but the effort was too much. Her eyes fluttered wildly and her lips quivered. She was trying to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Frost brought his ear right down to her mouth and felt the hot rasp of her faint breath on his face.

   "Try again, love. I’m listening."

   One word. Very faint. It sounded like 'stab’ but he wasn’t sure if he heard it correctly. "I know what he did, love. Can you describe him? Did you get a good look at him?" He kept his voice down. He didn’t want the sister running in to order him out.

   She nodded.

   "Was he taller than me?"

   Her lips moved, then her eyes widened and there was a choking noise at the back of her throat. And then she was still . . . dead still, the fingers no longer drumming.

   The old girl was dead. Damn and sodding blast. She’d told him nothing, He dragged back the curtains. "Nurse!"

   He signalled for WPC Ridley to take over and hustled Gilmore out of the ward.

   In the corridor outside he fumbled in his inside pocket to make a note of what the old lady had said and found he had pulled out those damn car expenses, the ones he had promised Mullett he would hand in tomorrow morning. Well, he’d have to think of yet another excuse for the Divisional Commander to disbelieve. Something was scribbled on one of the phoney petrol receipts. The name 'Wardley’. He racked his brains, but it meant nothing. "Who’s Wardley?"