Fatal Frost (9 page)

DC CLARKE MOVED
stiffly in the breakfast queue in the Eagle Lane canteen, where service had finally resumed. Though she had lost quite a lot of blood, the wound she’d sustained yesterday was largely superficial, and there seemed no reason not to return to work immediately. Better than feeling sorry for yourself in a miserable little flat, she thought; after all it was just a graze by some kid, albeit a bloody one.

Earlier Control had patched through a Missing Person call. Desk Sergeant Bill Wells had taken details from an upset mother. Apparently she’d returned from a weekend break – a very nice trip to the Lakes by all accounts – and her sixteen-year-old son was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t too concerned, as he was always sloping off to some burger bar or to the Rec with his friends, returning after dark reeking of cigarettes and cheap aftershave. The worrying thing was that as of this morning he’d still not reappeared, and he should have been at school today. Although she dutifully took the details and accepted the
request
to follow it up, Clarke had struggled to be sympathetic; the truth was she was still preoccupied with Frost.

She looked across the canteen, and found herself recalling the events of last autumn again, as she had in bed last night. Frost lying prone in Denton Woods, her horror at thinking he’d been shot, and then, as he lay in hospital, the bomb taking out the TA building and damaging the station. Who’d have thought a slovenly, married detective could leave her feeling so exposed. And there he was now, shovelling down a plateful of bacon and eggs and not even bothering to look at her.

Well, she thought, it didn’t really matter. Given his blatant lack of concern for her welfare, she’d finally resolved to ditch him, or at least bring matters to a head. She had in her bag a letter she’d written last night, expressing her anger and explaining that unless things changed dramatically, she no longer wanted to see him. She would give it to him today.

She paid at the till and made a beeline for his table before any curious well-wishers could distract her. Noisily she slid her tray across the surface, nudging Frost’s breakfast plate.

He gave a start before smiling briefly. ‘Morning, love,’ he said. ‘Good to see service has resumed – Dunkirk spirit and all that – Grace is a marvel. Mind you, it was six months ago, so you’d expect things to start improving by now.’

Typical, she thought. He doesn’t even ask how I am! She was all set to admonish him for his lack of concern but was drowned out by the sudden clatter of workmen beyond the serving hatch.

Frost folded the
Sun
. ‘I’m a
Times
man myself, but you can’t beat the redtops for a bit of chest-beating.’ He pointed with his fork to the
GOTCHA!
headline on the paper and gave a wry smile.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?’ she said incredulously.

He looked up blankly. ‘Is there something up?’

‘Don’t act as if you didn’t know – I’ll … !’ She clenched her
teeth,
barely able to control her anger. ‘I was
stabbed
yesterday morning. Stabbed, Jack.’

‘Hey, calm down. I thought it was a more of a nick … you know, just a flesh wound.’

‘Don’t tell me to calm down,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘A flesh wound? Who told you that? I lost a pint of blood! Half a dozen stitches, I needed.’

‘Really? But when Bill called me yesterday afternoon, he said you’d …’ Frost paused, trying to find an expression that wouldn’t get him into more trouble. He wisely gave up. ‘But you’re all right, though? No lasting damage?’

‘Didn’t it occur to you to find out how I was?’ she hissed. ‘To find out if I wasn’t a little upset by this … this
flesh wound
? No. Instead, while I suffered alone in my flat you were at home with her!’ Too late she realized that the building work had stopped and that her voice sounded loud above the canteen chatter. She felt suddenly embarrassed.

Frost put down his knife and fork and smiled a pathetic smile. His eyes were on hers, and for a moment they just looked at each other.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said calmly. ‘I didn’t finish until late. I had to ID the girl found down by the railway track yesterday morning.’

‘What girl?’ said Clarke in spite of herself.

‘A teenager, Samantha Ellis. She was found with a broken neck about a mile outside Denton. Mullett would like it to be suicide, but I’m not so sure—’

‘Jack …’ interjected Clarke.

‘See, Drysdale found skin under the fingernails, which seems to suggest—’

‘Jack, please!’ she said, insistent. He stopped mid-sentence. ‘What are we going to do?’

Frost raised his eyebrows in puzzlement.

‘You said we’d be living together.’

‘No need to rush things.’

‘What do you mean,
rush
– you said it would be by Christmas! New Year at the latest. Look at us, it’s now May, and you’re still playing the happily married man!’ She felt like a tired record, the grooves blurring from overuse.

‘Mary’s ill,’ he said gravely.

‘What do you mean,
ill
? How ill? You always say that. She’s been ill since I’ve known you.’

‘Always been a pain, I’ll grant you that.’ He suddenly looked tired, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand and sighing. ‘I don’t know. She’s out of sorts.’

‘Out of sorts? C’mon Jack, don’t be obtuse. Had enough of you, more like.’

He wiped his mouth with a napkin. ‘I don’t know, Sue,’ he said firmly, meeting her stare. ‘Really. And now is not the time.’

‘It’s never the time.’ She sat down wearily opposite Frost.

‘Aye aye, what’s this, lovers’ tiff?’ said Derek Simms, grinning down at them inanely. ‘Mind if we join you?’

‘Actually, yes, piss off,’ Clarke snapped. After last night she’d briefly felt favourably disposed towards Derek Simms, but as usual he revealed himself to be a total arse in front of his mates at the station.

‘Touchy,’ Simms said. ‘And after I looked in on you last night, too.’

Clarke glanced at Frost: no reaction.

Waters loomed up behind Simms, holding a tray. ‘Hey, how’s that leg?’

‘Sore.’

‘I’ll bet.’

Waters’ appearance seemed to jolt Simms into suddenly adopting a more professional air. Clarke felt he wore it like an ill-fitting suit – awkwardly and without grace. ‘John, you’ve met Detective Constable Sue Clarke. And this is Detective Sergeant Frost.’

Frost raised a hand in a nonchalant wave. ‘Welcome to Denton, son. It’s a hoot.’

Clarke moved over to allow the big man room next to her.

‘Heard a lot about you, Sergeant Frost,’ Waters said.

‘All lies, and please, call me Jack.’ Frost glanced cursorily at the new member of CID. ‘I could say the same about you. I’ve been meaning to catch up with you since you arrived, but there’s been rather a lot on. So, what do you make of it so far?’

Clarke switched off. No doubt it would all be blokish banter from here on, which left her cold at the best of times. She pushed away her untouched breakfast. ‘Sorry to run, but I’ve got to go out with Myles.’

‘You girls off to do a bit of shopping?’ Frost quipped, and the others laughed. God, she loathed him at times. Wincing as her stitches tugged, she gloomily left the table.

Frost observed Clarke’s painful exit. Cracking curves, that girl. Wounded leg or no, he still fancied the pants off her. And she had certainly been a pleasant contrast to these two ugly Herberts. He lit a cigarette and took a final swig of tea before switching his attention to the large policeman opposite him.

Frost felt genuinely sorry for the burly black detective sergeant, who might as well have been wearing a sandwich board saying, ‘Look at me, I’m different!’ so out of place did he seem in this parochial police canteen. It didn’t help that there’d been riots in Brixton only last year, causing racial tension everywhere, even in places like Denton where minorities were as rare as hen’s teeth. The police seemed to think it gave them licence to be rude to absolutely anyone not obviously Caucasian, from a Pakistani shopkeeper to the staff in Denton’s Chinese takeaway. Frost, however, would have none of it and had made it clear how dire the consequences would be for anyone he caught behaving inappropriately.

‘You must have upset someone mightily to get assigned here, pal.’

Waters was about to respond, but Simms cut in. ‘Did the super give you the school photo?’

‘Been missing two days. We visited her old dear last night, up on Bath Hill,’ Waters added.

The vision of the pretty blonde flashed in front of him once again, a far cry from the pasty corpse he’d seen in Drysdale’s morgue last night.

‘It’s her,’ he replied flatly.

‘The mother confirmed she’d not been seen since Saturday. She was meant to stop in to feed her aunt’s cat, but she clearly never turned up or she would’ve got a nasty surprise. By all accounts a nice girl; seems odd she’d leave on the spur of the moment, without so much as a toothbrush,’ Simms continued.

‘Why did nobody report it earlier?’ Frost asked; he hadn’t felt it appropriate to quiz the mother last night.

Simms shrugged. ‘I guess they figured she was old enough to look after herself. She’s nearly sixteen, after all.’

‘Yes, well, they figured wrong.’ He turned to Sergeant Waters. ‘Sorry we’ve not had time for a proper talk. I’ll be back in a couple of hours to give you a spot of direction.’

‘That’s OK, no rush – Mr Mullett has assigned me to Detective Simms here.’

‘Has he indeed?’ Frost glanced across at Simms, who had his knife wedged up the neck of an HP Sauce bottle. Even the super could go back on a bad decision once in a while. ‘Well, he’s had a change of mind.’ Simms froze in surprise, the bottle held aloft. ‘Seems that as of last night he wants
me
to hold your hand, for a while at least. I’ll be back for you about midday.’

As he got up to leave he realized what Simms had been referring to in mentioning the cat and the nasty surprise that would have greeted the girl. ‘This place that was done over on Saturday night – any progress?’

‘Nothing yet,’ Simms said.

Frost lit a cigarette, his fifth of the day. ‘Hmm, a burglar with a violent dislike for animals. Perhaps he’s allergic to them, like me.’

Tuesday (2)

SIMMS LED THE
way to the CID offices.

Frost had now moved into Bert Williams’s old office, and Simms had reluctantly inherited his shabby chair and rickety desk. Arthur Hanlon’s absence meant that the desk opposite was also free, so Waters had a base for the time being. The office itself was filthy. It wasn’t entirely Frost’s fault – the dust-caked windows and mould on the ceiling could hardly be pinned on him – but he was infamous for being pathologically untidy. The floor was considered an extension of his desk, and scruffy piles of paper spilled across the carpet, dotted with greasy crumbs and cigarette ash. Clearly, taking his detritus with him when he moved had been too much of an effort, so he’d simply left it behind, and for Simms it was a point of principle not to clear up after Frost.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ he muttered.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve seen worse.’ Waters shrugged.

Simms went to raise the blinds in order to open the window and let some air in. He’d not been in the office properly since
Friday,
and the full extent of the musty waste offended even him, although he’d managed to put up with it for a month. Perhaps it was another uncomfortable example of how Waters’ presence threw a less than flattering perspective on things. Despite his placid demeanour, Simms was convinced the taciturn officer was judging him, and he sensed he may not be coming out of it too well.

‘I know I’m only a guest here,’ Waters said, ‘an unwelcome one at that, but might I make a suggestion on the burglary case?’

‘Fire away,’ said Simms.

‘Maybe we should check again the method of the break-in on both of the recent cases. Apart from the dead animals, we may find other similarities.’

‘Already on it,’ Simms said, waving the file at the DS. ‘And no problem with making suggestions – we need all the help we can get.’ The path of least resistance – perhaps it was the best way forward. Waters was smart, and Simms could learn a lot from the more experienced man. There seemed little point trying to fight it. Besides, anything he came up with, Simms could take the credit for once the bloke returned to East London. Not that he’d have the man’s company for long, now Frost was in the frame. Simms wasn’t sure how he felt about that – should he feel slighted?