First Frost (32 page)

‘I can’t go into too much detail, for security reasons,’ said Patterson, straining to see exactly who’d asked the question. ‘Though these code words do occasionally get out over time, and certain opportunities arise. With the help of Mr Murphy here, I’ll be looking at all links, active and inactive.’

‘Could a former Provisional be at work?’ Clarke persisted. ‘Someone who was a terrorist but who’s since swapped bombing people for robbing them?’

‘We’ll be looking at that possibility,’ Patterson replied. ‘But that’s not to say former Provos are any less dangerous, or don’t still have a vested interest in the cause. With these people there are a lot of grey areas.’

Trying to take it all in, Hanlon was being badly hampered by his hangover, and the uncomfortable sensation of whisky repeating on him. He turned to see how Frost was faring, but he had disappeared.

PC Simms marched up from the cells feeling more than pleased with himself. He’d all but nailed a case for Sue, and now he’d just thumped the jerk – the child killer who’d upset her so much yesterday evening – bang on the nose.

Passing Bill Wells on his way out, Simms shook his sore right hand in triumph. ‘Mr Trench down there seems to have had an accident.’

Wells looked up from a black bin bag, a limp bunch of gladioli in his fist, like a casualty from a wedding. ‘You’ll get yourself into trouble one day, son,’ said Wells. ‘Stupid young hot-head.’

‘Someone seems to have kicked over a pot of paint, as well,’ Simms said, before exiting the building.

*

Frost could hear one hell of a racket coming from the cells below. Trying to ignore it he nodded brightly at the uniform guarding the door, and slipped into Interview Room Two where Lee Wright had been waiting for some time. Wright was younger than Frost expected, short, thin, with receding hair a touch too long. Even clearly having been in something of a scrap – there were grazes and bruises on his face and tears to his clothing – he didn’t look like he’d done a ten-year stretch for armed robbery. After all the fuss, Frost expected someone more substantial.

‘Morning,’ Frost smiled. ‘I’m DS Frost.’

‘Afternoon, more like,’ said Lee Wright.

‘Been in the wars?’ said Frost, searching his pockets for his cigarettes, eventually flinging the packet on to the desk.

‘Wars?’ Wright shrugged. ‘Seems like war’s breaking out all over round here.’

‘How do you mean?’ Frost asked.

‘Bank robberies, bomb scares – in a quiet little town like Denton. What’s happened to the place?’

‘Let’s not forget the kidnapping of a minor, too,’ said Frost, pressing the Record button on the cassette player. ‘Right, Lee Wright, let’s work backwards, shall we? Why were you turfed out of the Coconut Grove late last night? Couldn’t hold your booze after all that time inside? Got too friendly with the entertainment? History with the owner, Harry Baskin?’

‘I should press charges against that bastard Harry Baskin,’ Wright mumbled. ‘Him and his heavies. Baskin’s got way too big for his boots.’

‘What do you mean, exactly?’ Frost leant forwards, and stabbed the Off switch on the tape recorder. ‘Come on, Lee, you’re in one hell of a lot of trouble. You help me, and I’ll see what I can do for you.’

‘Tell me where Julie is first. I want to see my daughter.’

‘Of course you do,’ said Frost, gently. ‘She’s being well looked after.’

‘By her mum? Has Wendy got her?’

‘You haven’t heard?’ said Frost.

‘Heard what?’

‘Wendy’s in Denton General. Fractured jaw, among other injuries.’

Wright slumped in his chair, the colour draining from his battered face. ‘I didn’t do it. I didn’t harm her. I wouldn’t. Would never. She’s the mother of my child.’

‘It’s all right, Lee, I don’t think you did do it.’

‘That wanker of a husband of hers,’ Wright said, ‘it was him, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah.’ Frost offered Wright a Rothmans. ‘It was him.’

Wright took the cigarette. ‘I’ll have him.’

‘You’re in enough trouble. Don’t push it.’

‘So where’s Julie? With my mum?’

‘I believe Social Services are in charge of her for now,’ said Frost, ‘until Wendy’s better. Your mum’s still got a few questions to answer.’

‘They better bloody well be looking after her,’ Wright fumed.

‘Like you did? Whipping her away from her mum at Aster’s? Down a fire escape?’

Wright looked at Frost quizzically with his one good eye. ‘She came quite willingly,’ he said, ‘once she knew who I was.’

‘Must have been quite a shock for her, all the same.’

‘She’s a big girl. Put up with all sorts at home by the sound of it. Her mum was never happy. Her stepdad was always knocking someone off – a tart bang across the road most recently. Can you believe that?’

‘Julie tell you this? Or Wendy herself when you popped round there last week?’

‘How do you know I was there?’

‘Fingerprints.’

‘Right. Yeah, well, so I did go to see Wendy, to see whether we could come to some arrangement. But she was terrified of what her bloke would do if he found out Julie wasn’t his kid.’

‘For good reason, it turns out,’ said Frost. ‘So you decided to steal your daughter, then?’

‘I wouldn’t put it like that. Look, I’d been away a long time. Things go round and round in your head. I couldn’t wait. I didn’t mean for her mum, for Wendy, to get bashed up. Look, I’m sorry.’

‘Half the division was out looking for Julie, too,’ said Frost. ‘One way or another, you’ve taken up a lot of our time.’

‘Look, I said I’m sorry. I just wanted to see my daughter.’

‘So what were you doing at the Coconut Grove last night?’

‘Drowning my sorrows, I suppose. When I knew you lot had been to my mum’s and taken Julie – I saw you – I didn’t know what to do.’

‘And Harry Baskin didn’t like the look of you? Come on, Lee, you’ve got to help me now. Missing your appointment with your probation officer in Bristol is one thing, kidnapping a minor another altogether. As I see it right now, bit of spin here and there from us, and we can play it either way.’

‘I was drunk. I don’t know, Baskin obviously didn’t want me around.’

‘Why would that be?’

‘I don’t know, I really don’t.’ Wright reached for another of Frost’s cigarettes. ‘Can I?’

‘Sure,’ said Frost. ‘The thing is, you and I both know there are some new faces – or even old, should I add – in town. And Harry Baskin will no doubt be doing his best to provide some scantily clad entertainment. Now he’s not going to want an old lag stumbling around, mouthing off.’

‘Not my style anyway,’ said Wright.

‘Isn’t it? That’s how you got caught the first time, wasn’t it?’

‘I’ve changed, Mr Frost. I don’t want any trouble.’

‘Really? So you kidnapped a twelve-year-old girl?’

‘You know what I mean. I’ve given up all that big stuff – I only ever got involved in one serious job anyway.’

‘And screwed that up too.’

‘I don’t want to go back inside.’

‘From where I’m sitting, that looks exactly where you’re headed,’ said Frost. ‘It’s just a quick call to your probation officer.’

‘Please,’ pleaded Wright, ‘give me a chance.’

‘All right,
one
chance,’ warned Frost. His conversation with Lee Wright’s mother, Joan Dixon, had been on his mind the whole time. ‘Who’s the Irish fellow you saw in town the other day … when you shat your trousers?’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘OK,’ said Frost, grabbing his cigarettes and standing, ‘have a good trip back to Bristol.’ He stepped over to the door, turned the handle.

‘Wait,’ Wright called out.

Frost swung back round, faced the room and the sad, pathetic figure of Lee Wright.

‘This could get me killed.’

‘It’s your choice,’ said Frost, pulling the door open.

‘Joe Kelly,’ Wright said. ‘I was banged up with him for a short while in Dartmoor. Him and George Foster.’

‘I’ll see what I can do for you,’ said Frost, walking out of the room.

What had Derek Simms done now?

Sue Clarke, in the general CID office, stood up and walked over to the window. Jack Frost was getting into his car in the station yard.

Apparently Simon Trench was screaming blue murder down in the cells, claiming that PC Simms had broken his nose. Clarke was hardly going to feel sorry for the child-killer, but she didn’t trust Simms’s motives one little bit.

She supposed she should have thanked Simms for nabbing Kevin Jones, and putting two and two together over the little tyke’s ripped Denton FC scarf, in the new away colours, and Graham Ransome’s death.

But she was still livid with herself for getting involved with Simms – talk about possessive. And now, with his assault on Trench, was Simms trying to ingratiate himself further, knowing how upset she’d been yesterday?

Frost’s car pulled out of the yard and disappeared up Eagle Lane. Clarke returned to her desk despondently. Despite the sudden progress with the Graham Ransome case – she was just waiting for Forensics’ opinion on the scarf before she formally interviewed Kevin Jones – she couldn’t help feeling marginalized.

Frost was preoccupied – with Williams’s death, she presumed – while everyone else was tied up with the Fortress investigation. It was reaching fever-pitch, with the top brass down from London and County, and all this talk of undercover operations, inside knowledge and the IRA.

Even though she’d tried to make herself heard at the briefing, she felt she was being kept out of the loop. Also, it had just been confirmed that Simon Trench and Liz Fraser were to be dealt with by officers from National with psychiatric training.

While the Prime Minister might be a woman, Clarke decided policing was still far too much a blokes’ world.

She’d have to toughen up.

Thursday (5)

It was approaching mid afternoon, the light already fading. Frost sat on a cold, damp swing in the kiddies’ play area of the all but deserted Denton Rec.

Mike Ferris, Frost’s contact at the British Telecom exchange, had come up trumps. Though now Frost needed to think, somewhere quiet and on his own.

Frost stared at the names and addresses Ferris had provided, along with a series of logs detailing the dates and times of the calls between those numbers and the phone box on Bert Williams’s road.

The information would probably have taken weeks to get had Frost had to apply for individual warrants. And while not all of it made sense, a couple of key things stood out.

Saturday last, there’d been two calls between Aster’s department store and the phone box. There’d also been a number of calls between Aster’s and an address on Carson Road, registered to the one and only George Foster. Frost had a suspicion that this was the house opposite Steve Hudson’s, with the gleaming Jag outside and the underdressed floozy inside.

Over a period of several weeks, there’d also been numerous calls between this Carson Road address, number thirty-seven, and Hudson’s Classic Cars.

Frost knew he couldn’t go arresting people for making phone calls, particularly when he wasn’t legally in possession of that information. Yet a clear picture was emerging: Blake Richards, Aster’s new security guard with, of course, the very chequered career as a Met detective, had to have been in contact with Bert Williams on the day that Bert disappeared. It looked likely that Richards was also in contact with someone at 37 Carson Road – probably former Denton hardman and one-time Coconut Grove bouncer George Foster.

The number of a Bath Hill telephone box also kept cropping up. Frost’s money was on it being where Joe Kelly, the ex-IRA gunslinger, ex-Dartmoor inmate and now full-time bank robber, kept in touch.

Bert’s death and the masked gang were linked, of that Frost was increasingly sure, though he still didn’t know why Bert had kept so quiet about it all. What was also rankling was the fact that Frost had had no idea that George Foster still owned a property in Denton; for such a big-time name, who’d been in and out of the nick, it should have been common knowledge at the station. Such people needed to be kept an eye on.

Frost lifted his head to see a couple of mothers pushing babies in prams in the freezing late-October gloom. Bert had children, Frost found himself thinking; he’d been a grandparent. Everybody had somebody, until they were dead.

A woman in a headscarf approached the play area with two small children, tutting at the sight of Frost taking up one of the swings. He took a final drag on his cigarette, flicked it wearily to the ground and got up, smiling at a small boy who giggled nervously back at him. The mother tugged the child towards the slide. Frost sidestepped an old, white dog turd and walked slowly away.

He was arching his back, feebly attempting to stretch some life into his knackered body, when a couple of people a short distance away caught his eye. They were walking slowly down the central path that crossed the recreation area.

A woman, in her thirties, blondish, short, plump, was with a man, much taller, thinner, of a similar age but already balding.

Frost hurried towards them, nearly tripping over a Golden Retriever as he crossed the wet grass. The dog bounced off happily enough.

‘Mind if I join you?’ Frost asked, catching up with them.

The pair recoiled. ‘Mr Frost?’ the man said nervously.

‘Mr Litchfield. Coping all right?’ Frost looked into the lean man’s cold, pinched face, his eyes red-rimmed. ‘And Mrs Cooper, isn’t it, from St Mary’s? Out for a stroll?’

Mrs Cooper nodded at Frost, but said nothing.

‘It’s not what you think,’ Maurice Litchfield said defensively, his voice strained and shaky.

‘You know what I think?’ Frost said. ‘Please do tell me. Because I don’t, half the time.’

Litchfield stopped and turned to face Frost. The woman wandered to the side of the path.

‘Shouldn’t you be out catching whoever murdered my wife?’ Litchfield said firmly, collecting himself.

‘Haven’t quite worked out who that is yet, I’m afraid,’ Frost said, sniffing. ‘So far, it seems it could be any number of people. I’m guessing your friend over there might have some idea, the circles you two swing in.’