A Killing Frost (35 page)

   ‘I think I’m a prat for letting Lambert talk me into this. We’re either going to have to pay for the smashed door, the ruined carpet and the bottle of milk you poured all over the bloody place, or lie our bloody heads off and say it was like this when we came.’

   ‘That last bit sounds good to me, Guv,’ said Morgan.

   ‘The first bit never stood a chance,’ said Frost.

It was gone five when Morgan dropped him off. The damn phone started ringing the minute he opened the front door. ‘Dr Shipman’s surgery,’ he grunted. ‘Do you want a house call?’

   ‘Too early in the morning for flaming jokes,’ said Station Sergeant Johnny Johnson. ‘The hospital have phoned again, Jack. They’re still worried about that nurse.’

   ‘Then book her in as a missing person. She’s only been gone a couple of days.’

   ‘It’s longer than that, Jack.’

   ‘There were only three bottles of milk on the step and there was nothing suspicious in the house.’

   ‘She was supposed to have gone off on holiday for two weeks, sharing an apartment with a nurse from another hospital. They’ve managed to get hold of the other nurse. Our one never turned up. She’d paid for the holiday and she never turned up. She was mad keen to go. All she’d been talking about was this flaming holiday and she never turned up.’

   Frost tipped back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. ‘I agree with you, Johnny, it don’t sound too good. Bloody hell. We’ve got enough to flaming well do without this. Well, we can’t do any more tonight. I’ll send Taffy over to the hospital first thing tomorrow to get details.’ He hung up and trudged upstairs to bed.

He couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned, smoked innumerable cigarettes, then gave the pillow a couple of punches and tried to concentrate on drifting off. It didn’t work. He kept thinking about the missing nurse. Supposing she didn’t know Lewis’s wife had left him? Supposing she drifted over one evening for a cup of coffee and a chat and Lewis and his bleeding butcher’s knife were waiting for her? He shook the thought out of his head. It was all conjecture.

   He tried to focus on something more pleasant - that fat pathologist, for a start. He cursed him self for missing his flaming chance there - he bet she was hot stuff under the sheets. His attempt to conjure up a picture of the naked pathologist failed . . . all he kept getting was a bloodstained, maggot-ridden corpse.

   He sat up straight in bed. Something was nagging away. Something important. Something he had missed.

   Maggots! Why were there bloody maggots? The Maggot Man had said flies wouldn’t touch a long-dead body. The meat in the refrigeration room had been rotting for months, so why were there maggots?

   He squirmed back on to the pillow and pulled the bedclothes over him. Whatever the reason it could wait until morning. He sat up again. Sod it. It couldn’t wait, not if he wanted to get any sleep. Another look at the alarm clock. Twenty- two minutes past five, pitch black and cold outside. If he got up and nosed around the butcher’s shop now, it would be too late to go back to bed after he’d found it was all a bleeding waste of time.

   He swung his feet on to the floor and dragged on his clothes.

  
Please let it be a bleeding waste of time.

Even the lamp-post had been vandalised: a jumble of coloured wires dangled forlornly from the switch box. The Council had obviously seen no need to spend money on repairing it in a deserted street, so the road was in total darkness as his car slithered to a halt outside the boarded-up butcher’s shop. His headlights picked up the shape of an abandoned car further up the road. That’s all this place was now - a dumping ground for unwanted junk and, perhaps, unwanted bodies. It was a bitterly cold night, but warm inside the car with the heater going full blast. He leant back in his seat. Couldn’t this wait until the morning?

   Frost poked a cigarette in his mouth and smoked to delay making a decision. Sod it, he had no flaming choice. He’d come this far and he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep not knowing whether or not bite-sized chunks of the missing nurse were rotting away in there.

   Chucking his cigarette away, he stepped out into the cold street. He patted his pocket. The key! Sod it, he’d forgotten the flaming key! The perfect excuse to go back home and leave it until the morning. But he’d opened countless doors before when he didn’t have a key.

   Clicking on the torch, he studied the lock. It didn’t look too substantial. A couple of well- placed kicks might be the Open Sesame. He gave the handle a tentative turn, just in case, and to his surprise the door swung open, creaking like something from a Hammer horror film. Frost paused, screwing his face in thought, trying to remember if he had locked up when he was here earlier. He could swear he had. He seemed to remember turning the key, then trying the door to make sure it was properly locked. Well, it wasn’t locked now, so he clearly hadn’t. Pushing the door open further, he stepped into the foul-smelling, hostile dark.

   Bang on cue, just when he needed it most, his torch gave a death rattle, flickered and died. Sod it! He knew it was on its last legs, so why the hell hadn’t he changed the battery? Another good excuse for leaving the search until later - perhaps even sending Taffy Morgan in. He shook the thought away. One of the penalties of rank was that you didn’t ask your subordinates to do things you wouldn’t do yourself.

   Frost gave the torch a couple of slaps against the side of his leg and frightened it into spitting out a feeble, quivering beam, which waited until he was inside the refrigeration room before cutting out completely. All his shakings and bangings failed to give it the kiss of life.

   A clunk. The damn door had shut itself behind him, enclosing him in pitch blackness you could cut with a butcher’s cleaver. His shoe slithered on something slimy and nasty and the smell in the enclosed space was making him gag. He fumbled in his pocket for his cigarette lighter and flicked it on, hoping the gas would last out. The flame threw out hardly any light, but at least he could now locate the heap of rotting meat. How the hell was he going to examine it? One thing was sure - he wasn’t going to touch that heap of smouldering putrescent muck with his bare hands.

   He gave a rotting carcass a tentative kick and it tottered to the floor with a squelch, exposing something white behind. What the hell was it? He bent and held the cigarette lighter closer, then his heart skipped a beat before hammering away at top speed. Marble-white and stained with blood.

   It was a hand. A severed human hand.

   Frost stepped back in horror and disgust, then suddenly he felt his feet give way from under him. As he tried to regain his balance, the lighter and the torch dropped from his grasp, landing with a squelch in the heap of putrid filth. There was a thud as his back hit the floor, then a louder thud as his head cracked on a tile. He was momentarily stunned. White dots did a frantic dance in the darkness. His hand, which he had automatically used to try to break his fall, was hurting like hell, firing up bursts of teeth-gritting pain. He must have broken his flaming wrist.

   He tried to move his head but a stab of pain made him stop. It hurt. Bloody hell, how it flaming hurt, and his back wasn’t much better. He was smothered in muck which stank to high heaven, and he was in agony. He couldn’t see a bloody thing and he wasn’t going to delve down blindly in the heap to try and find his lighter.

   At first, pushing himself up with his good hand didn’t work. His feet slithered from under him and he was once more on his back. The pain almost made him sick. His clothes were a sodden mess and he tried not to think of the fat, bloated maggots he had seen crawling over their food supply earlier that day, the sodding maggots that had made him return for another look. Why the bloody hell had he come back? More importantly, why the bloody hell had he come back on his own?

   At last he managed to scramble unsteadily to his feet. His head spun. He had lost all sense of direction. Where the hell was the door? He wanted to get out bloody fast. The back of his head was still stabbing with pain. He touched it gingerly, but didn’t know if the sticky mess he felt was from his own blood or the animal remains. A shake of the head to try and clear it made it ache even more.

   Completely disorientated, he stretched an arm out in front of him and carefully moved forward, inch by inch, to avoid stepping on anything that would send him crashing down again, trying to locate the wall. Where the hell was it? It seemed miles away. Then his fingers touched cold tiles. The wall - but which way was the door? Pressing a sweat-soaked hand on the tiles, he followed the wall in a clockwise direction.

   He stopped dead.

   The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

  
There was someone else in the pitch-dark room with him.

   He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t hear anything. But he knew. He just bloody knew . . .

   That flaming car parked up the road. What a stupid prat he was. Of course the sodding thing wasn’t abandoned. It was in too good nick to be abandoned . . . and the unlocked door . . .

   Lewis! Who else would be lurking around at this time of night? It had to be Lewis, standing there in the dark, probably running a testing thumb along the blade of his butcher’s knife to make sure it was sharp enough to chop up a nosy-parker, flat-footed copper.

   Frost cleared his throat. ‘I can see you. I’m a police officer . . . Let’s have a bit of light, please.’

   The tiled walls flung his words back. All he could hear was the hammering of his heart.

   ‘Don’t sod me about, Mr Lewis. I know it’s you. Let’s get out into the open and talk about this.’

   Nothing . . . unless . . . Breathing - he thought he could hear breathing . . .

   He held his breath until his lungs ached and listened, ears straining to detect the slightest sound . . . Nothing. There was no one there. His bleeding imagination was playing tricks again.

   He expelled his breath in a sigh of relief and gulped down a lungful of fetid air. Frost slid his sweaty hand along the tiles, still seeking the elusive door that would let him out of this stinking hell hole and into the fresh air.

   Then the blinding beam of a torch hit him in the face.

   He couldn’t move. The shock made him freeze. He tried to say something. The words wouldn’t come.

   A voice broke the silence. ‘What are you doing here?’

   Frost screwed his eyes up against the blinding glare. Through half-closed eyes, with torchlight bouncing off the wall, he could just about make out the figure of Lewis. And his worst fear was realised - the bastard had a knife in his other hand.

   ‘We had a report someone was trying to break in, Mr Lewis. They sent me to check it out.’ He tried to sound convincing.

   The torchbeam shifted from his face over to the heap of carrion in the corner. It lit up the severed hand before flashing back to Frost’s face.

   ‘She killed my son,’ said Lewis sadly. ‘You’ve seen too much.’

   ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ said Frost. ‘I’ve already phoned for back-up. They’re on their way now.’

   ‘Liar!’ said Lewis. ‘You haven’t used your phone since you’ve been in here.’ Then he choked back a sob. ‘Lies! Everyone lies to me. The hospital told me lies. My little boy never told lies.’ Then he lunged at Frost with the knife. Frost side-stepped to avoid the blow, but felt his feet shoot from under him again and crashed to the floor. The impetus of the missed knife blow made Lewis plunge forward and lose his balance. As he thudded to the slippery tiled floor, his arm jerked up, sending his torch soaring in the air, to comet-tail down before hitting the floor. A tinkle of broken glass and the room was in complete darkness again.

   Frost rolled desperately away from Lewis, who was struggling to get back on his feet and making chilling moaning noises.

   As Frost rolled, his hand felt a gap . . . a space. Thank God! He’d found the bloody doorway. But as he staggered unsteadily to his feet, Lewis was at him again. The knife whistled past Frost’s head, just nicking his ear - warm blood trickled down his ice-cold cheek. Scrabbling frantically, Frost located the door handle, but his blood-slippery hand couldn’t get a grip. He snatched at his mac and wrapped that round the handle. It turned, but the door wouldn’t budge. He charged it again and again with his shoulder. The pain was excruciating, but the door stayed firmly shut.

   Sounds indicated that Lewis had regained his footing. Although Frost couldn’t see him, he could hear the rasp of his breath. He hurled himself in the general direction, managing to hit Lewis in the chest and sending them both down to the floor again. They rolled, one on top of the other, Frost grunting with pain as their combined weights pressed on his injured wrist. He tried to grab the arm holding the knife, but again couldn’t get a grip and Lewis easily managed to wrench his hand free. Frost was just able to roll to one side as the knife again cut through the darkness, this time slashing his cheek. Blood poured into his mouth. With a heave, he managed to send Lewis crashing back, giving himself time to stagger to his feet. He remembered where the door was, even after all the rolling about, threw himself towards it and again wrestled with the handle. It still wouldn’t budge. He shook his head and tried to think.
Of course, you flaming fool! It opens inwards. The bloody door opens inwards.
He pulled and sighed with relief. It opened easily.

   He charged through the gap as Lewis made one final lunge. Frost slammed the door shut behind him. He heard a sickening scrunching sound, a scream of agony and a clatter as knife dropped to the floor.

   ‘My hand - you’re crushing my hand!’ shrieked Lewis.

   Frost opened the door and dragged Lewis out, kicking the knife well out of his reach. He winced as the pain from his injured wrist intensified.

   In the early-morning light he could see that the butcher’s hand was a mangled mess. ‘As if we haven’t got enough bleeding blood,’ he muttered, fishing a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and locking Lewis’s good wrist to his own good wrist.
A couple of bleeding walking wounded
, he thought. Everything hurt - his head, his back, his wrist - and blood was trickling down his face and neck from his slashed ear and cheek. He was totally exhausted. He didn’t think he could make the journey across to his car without a rest. He slid down to the pavement and leant back against the shop front, sucking in lungfuls of clean air. The butcher was now sobbing softly.