Night Frost (9 page)

   Six or seven weeks? Frost frowned as he worried this through. So the kid must have been hidden there almost immediately after she was killed. So it was vandals Turner saw running away. They had nothing to do with the girl. The grin returned to his face as he turned up the volume of the radio where Mullett was still in full flow.

   ". . . If you had been doing your damn job you'd have caught the murderer in the act of dumping the damn body . . ."

   "Hold on, Super," Frost interrupted. "How could I have caught him in the act of dumping the damn body tonight when it's been stinking the flaming vault out for eight weeks?"

   So knocked off balance was Mullett by Frost's explanation that he completely forgot that his orders had been disobeyed and ended up by apologizing. "Forgive me if I was too hasty, Inspector . . . the strain of work, you know."

   "You're forgiven, Super," said Frost grandly.

   "The family will have to be informed, of course."

   "It's half-past midnight," said Frost. "I was thinking of leaving it until the morning."

   But Mullett was adamant. "The press have already got hold of the story. The family mustn't learn of it through the media."

   Frost groaned. Mullett was right, of course. "Right, sir. We're on our way."

The Bartlett house was in darkness, but a low-wattage light burnt hopefully in the porch.

   Even as they walked up the drive to the front door, Frost kept hoping the girl's parents would be out, preferably staying with friends in some other division so that someone else would have the pleasure of breaking the news. But an upstairs light clicked on to dash his hopes. Sleeping fitfully, the Bartletts must have been awakened by the slam of the car door.

   It was the mother who opened the door, a dressing gown over her nightdress. Ignoring Frost, she looked over his shoulder to Gilmore, the young man she had seen earlier. "It's about Paula, isn't it?"

   His face grim, Gilmore nodded.

   "You've found her? I knew you would. I told you you'd find her. Thank God!" She was weeping with happiness.

   Flaming hell! thought Frost. This is an unmitigated balls-up. That bleeding clairvoyant, I could tear his dick out by the roots.

   Behind the woman, her husband, a sad-looking man, read the message in Frost's expression, a message his wife was refusing to see. He moved forward and put his arm around her. She looked at him puzzled, not understanding why he wasn't rejoicing with her . . . and then she looked at Frost again. And then she knew.

   "Do you think we might come in?" asked Frost.

They were in Paula's bedroom where everything had been left exactly as it was on the day she went missing. The bed was made, blue pyjamas folded neatly on the pillow and the alarm clock, wound each day ready for her return, set to ring at 6.45 so she wouldn't be late for her paper round. From downstairs the heart-tearing wail of Mrs. Bartlett, her grief for her daughter sounding uncannily like that of the mother of the fifteen-year-old who had killed herself. It reminded Frost that they had to visit the mortuary to see the marks on Susan Bicknell's body. He felt in his inside pocket for something to jot a reminder down on and felt an unfamiliar wad of papers. His car expenses. Something else he had forgotten about. How the hell was he going to find the time to get the proper copies made that bloody County were demanding? He stuffed them back in his pocket and forgot about them again.

   "What are we doing here?" asked Gilmore.

   "I don't know," said Frost wearily. "I just wanted to have a think away from all the bloody crying." He looked around the room. Everything plain and simple, just like the dead girl. No posters, no pop records. On the bedside cabinet was a framed photograph of her mother and father. A small bookcase held some children's books, her school textbooks, a Collins Concise Encyclopedia and a Pocket Oxford Dictionary. Inside the bedside cabinet, standing on its end, was a black and green Adidas nylon holdall. He unzipped it and looked inside. Some gym clothes, a track suit and a couple of exercise books. He stuffed it back again. On the floor by the cabinet was a wastepaper bin. The bin contained a crumpled Milky Way wrapper and a small cardboard carton that had once held a lipstick.

   "You're right, son," he said. "We're wasting our bloody time here."

   He opened the door and they went downstairs.

   The crying went on and on.

   They let themselves out.

Monday night shift (2)

Sergeant Wells stared glumly at the cold scummy tea left in the cup, palmed two aspirins into his mouth and flushed them down in a shuddering swallow. It was just a headache. He envied those lucky devils who had gone down with the flu virus and were tucked up in their nice warm beds, leaving mugs like him to do the extra duties they were being paid for. He had been on duty since half-past nine, no-one to help him, the heating on the blink, no canteen and Mullett demanding cups of tea or coffee every five minutes.

   "Two teas and a fairy cake, please, Sergeant." Wells jerked two fingers up at Jack Frost who came bouncing in with that aftershaved ponce, Gilmore.

   Frost ambled over and pulled out his cigarettes. "Bleeding cold in here, Bill. It was warmer down the crypt."

   "Only the people who matter get heat. It’s like St Tropez in Mullett’s office. And he wants to see you"

   "He can’t get enough of me," said Frost, trotting off to the inner sanctum.

   "Gilmore!" Wells called as the detective sergeant headed for the office. "Your wife phoned about two hours ago. Wanted to know when you were coming home."

   "Thanks," said Gilmore. "if she phones again . . ."

   "If she phones again," cut in Wells, "
you
talk to her. I’m off in fifteen minutes." In any case, he wasn’t acting as messenger boy for a lousy jumped-up ex-detective constable.

It wasn’t cold in Mullett’s office. The 3-kilowatt heater purred happily, and Frost had to flght to keep awake in the hot room as he gave the Divisional Commander a brief update, sparing none of the details.

   "Burnt with a blow-lamp?" gasped the shocked Mullett. "That’s depraved . . . You kept it from the parents?"

   "Yes," said Frost. "And I want it kept from the press—that and the fact she was wearing shoes." There’d be the usual spate of nutters coming up with false confessions based on details they’d read in the papers.

   "And the pathologist is quite certain the body wasn’t placed in that crypt tonight?" asked Mullett, reluctant to let the inspector off the hook.

   "The poor little cow was dumped weeks ago . . . that’s why she’s stinking to high heaven now."

   Mullet winced and moved his chair back slightly. Frost’s description of the advanced state of decomposition had been so graphic, he was sure he could smell it. Or perhaps the stench was clinging to that dirty old mac Frost insisted on wearing. Frost took a cigarette end from behind his ear and pushed it into his mouth. He struck a match on his fingernail. Mullett sighed deeply. This case would get extensive press and TV coverage. He daren’t risk exposing this slovenly, foul-mouthed lout to the media as typical of the Denton constabulary.

   He cleared his throat. "I have decided to take full executive control of this case, Inspector."

   The lighted match paused an inch from the end of the cigarette. "Executive control?"

   "Yes. You will be responsible for the day-to-day routine, but under my direct control. Do you understand?"

   I do all the work and get the bollockings when things go wrong, and you take all the credit when they go right, thought Frost grimly. "Yes, I understand," he said aloud.

   "I’ve promised the Chief Constable an early result. This must be our number one priority. What do you need to achieve an early result?"

   "A lot of bloody luck and some more men."

   "We can’t have any more. Normal schedules will have to go by the board. Everyone will have to follow my lead—work that little bit harder, push themselves to the limit." He yawned and glanced at his watch. Time he was back home and in bed. "Everyone must pitch in. We’re all one big team." He gleamed white teeth at Frost in a crocodile smile as he stood up and slipped on his overcoat.

   The phone rang. Mullett answered it and passed it over to Frost. The pathologist. He had a heavy schedule for the morning, so he was doing the post-mortem on the newspaper girl in an hour’s time.

   "I’ll be there," Frost said, yawning.

   "Good," nodded Mullett, moving to the door. "Well, I must try and snatch a few hours’ sleep so I can be fresh for the morning. Report to me tomorrow at nine and we’ll go over our plan of campaign." He clicked off the heater and, when Frost had left, turned out the light and locked the door. As he passed through the lobby he saw Wells moodily staring at the clock. The wretched man was—clock-watching. He would have a word with him about it in the morning. He responded with a curt nod as the sergeant called good night to him.

   Miserable sod, thought Wells. It was 2.59 a.m. Sergeant Johnnie Johnson, who had the morning shift, was coming in three hours early to relieve him. Usually Johnnie was early, arriving a good five minutes before the start of the shift, but Wells wasn’t worrying yet. He began stuffing away his pens and notepads in the drawer to leave a clean desk for his relief. The phone gave a timorous, half-hearted ring. "Denton Police, Sergeant Wells speaking."

   "Hello, Bill. It’s Doreen."

   The cold tea curdled in his stomach. Doreen. Johnnie Johnson’s wife. What the hell did she want at this time of the morning?

   "It’s John, I’m afraid, Bill. We’ve had to have the doctor in."

   That bloody hypochondriac! A headache and he thinks he’s got a brain tumour. "Oh dear, Doreen. Nothing serious, I hope?"

   "The doctor thinks it’s this flu virus that’s going around."

   One sniffle and the bastard’s down with flu . . . typical. "Terribly sorry to hear that, Doreen."

   ". . .so he won’t be able to come in to work tonight, I’m afraid."

   "Of course not. We wouldn’t expect him to. You tell him to stay away until he is really fit." He slammed the phone down. "Skiving bastard!" Leaving the lobby unattended, he dashed off to Jack Frost’s office to have a moan.

   Gilmore was on the phone as the sergeant came in. He had rung Liz, hoping there wouldn’t be an answer, but she was still awake, staring at the clock and complaining about being left on her own for most of the day and half the bloody night. It was three o’clock, and he was overdue for a meal break. He told her he was on his way and she said she’d rustle up a quick meal for him. Not that he felt like eating at this time of the morning, but he didn’t want another row. He was shrugging on his overcoat when Frost bowled in and immediately Wells started his moaning.

   "It’s not on, Jack. I was supposed to be relieved. I’ve already done a double-bloody-shift. I’m not fit myself, but I stagger in. And what thanks do I get?"

   "Bugger all," said Frost cheerfully, not really listening. "You can’t slope off yet, Gilmore," he called. "Post mortem on the girl in a hour."

   "In an hour?" croaked Gilmore, dropping into his chair with a crash. He reached for the phone to dial Liz before she started cooking.

   "And Mullett doesn’t give a damn," continued Wells.

   Frost moved some files from his chair to the floor and sat down. "His door, like his bowels, is always open, Sergeant."

   "Sod Mullett!" snorted Wells.

   "The lobby phone’s ringing," said Gilmore, trying to concentrate on what Liz was saying.

   "And sod the phone," snarled Wells, stamping back to the lobby.

   Frost had a half-hearted forage through his in-tray which was filled to overflowing, but was thankfully interrupted by a phone call from Forensic. A preliminary report on the black plastic sheeting used to wrap Paula Bartlett’s body. It was made up of black plastic dustbin sacks, the standard Denton Council issue for refuse collection, of which more than two million had been issued to households over the past twelve months. Further tests were under way.

   "Thanks a lot," said Frost, gloomily. "That’s narrowed it down to the whole of bleeding Denton."

   "Actually it doesn’t," said Forensic. "Nearly all the councils in this part of England use an identical sack."

   "Just when I thought it was going to be easy," Frost said, hanging up. "I’ll be in the Murder Incident Room," he yelled to Gilmore who was doing a lot of listening on the phone and didn’t appear to be saying much.

   Two people only in the Murder Incident Room. DC Burton, a phone pressed tightly to his ear, his pen scribbling furiously, and WPC Jean Knight, a redhead in her mid-twenties who was waiting for the computer to finish a print-out.

   "Couple of odds and ends from Forensic," called Burton, waving his sheet of paper.

   Frost ambled over and poked a cigarette into Burton’s mouth, then offered the pack to the redhead who declined with a smile. "I know all about the dustbin sacks, son. I’m applying for two million search warrants."

   Burton grinned. "We can do a bit better than that, sir. Firstly, the padlock. Forensic reckon those screws were prised out at least twice before within the past couple of months and then hammered back."

   Frost’s cigarette drooped as his mouth fell open. "Twice before?"

   "Yes, sir. Someone could have got in on two or more different occasions, or it could even have been twice on the same day."

   "Forensic always seem to think they’re being bloody helpful," said Frost. "Now I’m more mystified than ever." He looked up as Gilmore came in. "Did you hear that, son? The padlock to the crypt had been forced at least twice."

   "Oh?" said Gilmore, not really taking it in. His ear was still sore from the phone and his mind was full of Liz’s moans and complaints.

   "There’s more," announced Burton. "Forensic found a footprint."

   "Ah," said Frost. "So we’re looking for a one-legged man."

   "It wasn’t exactly a footprint," continued Burton patiently. "It was more a clump of mud that had fallen from the sole of a shoe."