Winter Frost (23 page)

   
"Eureka!" exclaimed Frost, his tiredness suddenly vanishing.

   
"We've still got quite a few names to check. He might not be the one."

   
"Even if he isn't the right one, he'll bloody do for me," said Frost. "What's his address?"

   
"56B Gorge Street, Denton."

   
He scribbled it on the wallpaper. "I'm on my way. Meet me outside his house."

Gorge Street was crammed with parked cars and he had to double park alongside the area car as Collier and Howe came over to meet him.

   
"Which house?"

   
Collier pointed to a dilapidated building with steps leading down to a basement area. "Down there. 'B' stands for basement."

   
"I thought it stood for bum-holes," muttered Frost. They peered down the stone steps to the area where mist swirled around overflowing dustbins, soggy cardboard boxes and other junk. "These bastards never live in rose-covered cottages, do they?" sniffed Frost. "Is there a back way?"

   
"A yard of sorts and a broken-down brick wall," Howe reported. "We did a recce as soon as we got here."

   
"Get round there," Frost told Collier. "He might make a run for it." He pushed open the rickety iron gate to the steps, the rusty screech setting his teeth on edge and, with Howe following, descended the steps. A single sash window was almost opaque with the grime of ages and his torch beam bounced off the glass when he tried to see inside. He found his penknife and tried to manipulate the sash lock.

   
"What are you doing?" Howe whispered.

   
"I want to get inside," whispered Frost. "If he's got the kid in there, we need to get to her before he does. I don't want a bloody knife to her throat and the demand for a fast car and Concorde to Buenos Aires." Sweat poured as he worked away with the penknife, but he had to admit defeat. The window was held tight in the iron grip of multiple layers of ancient paint. "I think I'm going to have to accidentally smash the glass," he said, looking round for something suitable. "Don't want to wake the bastard though."

   
"Guv!"

   
Frost froze and looked up. Morgan—bleeding Morgan—was swaying unsteadily at the top of the steps, peering blearily down. "What are you doing, guv?"

   
Frost groaned and hissed for silence just as Morgan managed to kick a milk bottle and send it crashing down the stone steps.

   
"Have another go," snarled Frost. "I don't think the people in the next street heard you."

   
"Sorry, guv," said Morgan, then a yell as he missed his footing and went crashing down the steps.

   
A light came on from an upstairs window. "What's going on down there?"

   
"Police," called Frost, shining his torch on Howe so the man could see his uniform. Howe was groaning inwardly. Why did events with Frost all too often turn into farce? As the man's head withdrew another light came on—this time from the basement window.

   
"Shit," said Frost, "we've woken the sod up!" Not much element of surprise now. He hammered on the door. "Open up—police!" He kicked the door and yelled again. "Open up or we'll break the door down." This proved easier said than done. The door was locked and heavily bolted and Howe's shoulder was getting numbed and bruised from charging at it in the confined space of the area. Frost's radio crackled. PC Collier. "I've got him, Inspector. He was trying to climb over the back wall."

   
Morgan was dumped back in the car. Frost and Howe hurried round to the rear entrance to find a triumphant Collier holding the handcuffed arm of red and white striped pyjamaed, bare-footed Bernie Green.

   
"Hello, Bernie," said Frost. "We were passing so we thought we'd drop in." Green, teeth chattering, didn't answer. "Get him in the house," Frost told Collier.

   
He took a quick look round the yard which held an outside toilet and a brick-built coal bunker, and waited while Howe's torch explored the interiors. No sign of the girl. They followed Collier and Green down the stairs to the basement flat, a miserable room, cold and damp from the mist which had crept down from the open door. The single room held a bed, a table, two chairs and, in the corner, a tiny cooker and a sink. Nowhere to hide a body. Frost switched on an ancient electric fire which glowed dimly, but did little to raise the temperature. Green was still shivering violently, so Frost snatched the eiderdown from the bed and wrapped it round him. "Don't want you dying of cold before we beat a confession out of you, Bernie," he said.

   
Green looked up at the inspector, his face a picture of misery. "I never touched him, Mr. Frost. I swear to God I never laid a finger on him."

   
Frost said nothing. He held his hands out to the electric fire and gave the man his disbelieving stare.

   
"How is he, Mr. Frost?" asked Green at last.

   
"He's dead," said Frost bluntly.

   
"Dead? Oh God." He buried his face in his crooked arm, his shoulders shaking. "I never did anything."

   "That's right," nodded Frost. "You did sod all—you just left him to die in the middle of the road." He shuddered. The cold and damp and squalidness of the miserable little room were getting to him. "Take him down to the station. This place is giving me the creeps."

"I swear on a stack of bibles I never touched him, Mr. Frost . . . He suddenly ran out of the car—for no reason."

   
Frost dribbled smoke from his nose and looked contemptuously at Bernie Green who cowered in the chair opposite him, a blanket over his pyjamas. "Don't lie to me, Bernie," snapped Frost. "I'm not in the mood. I'm tired, I've had a lousy day and I don't give a sod whether I keep my job in the force or not, so I might ask this nice constable to step outside for a moment while you accidentally smash your face against all four of these walls."

   
Howe gave a warning cough to remind Frost the interview was being taped.

   
But Frost's outburst had the required effect. Bernie's tongue flickered over dry lips. "I was going to do something—I never do things against their will. I offered him money if he'd let me do something. That's when he ran out. I swear I never laid a finger on him." He pointed to his case file on the table. "You check my file . . . I always ask them first . . . I always get their consent."

   
Frost flipped through the file, fingering its pages by their edges as if they were too dirty to touch. "Yes, but most of the poor little mites were below the age of consent, Bernie." He showed him a page. "This little girl of six, for example. I don't suppose she had any idea what you wanted in exchange for the bag of jelly babies."

   
"I was punished for that, Mr. Frost . . . that's all over and done with. But the boy tonight was eleven. All he had to say was no and I wouldn't have touched him. I'd have driven him home. He had no need to go running out of the car like that."

   
"He was shit scared, Bernie. You take him to the woods in the middle of the night, you demand sexual bloody favours from a kid. He must have been terrified."

   
Green stared down at the floor. "I'm sorry. I just can't help myself sometimes . . ."

   
"And what about the two little girls from Denton Junior? Couldn't you help yourself with them either?"

   
The man raised his head and frowned. "What two little girls?"

   
Frost flicked two photographs across the table. "Vicky Stuart and Jenny Brewer."

   
Green stared open-mouthed, then shrank back. "Oh no, you're not pinning them on me."

   
"Where are they, Bernie?"

   
"I don't know. I want a lawyer."

   
"You'll want an armed bodyguard if we set you free and let the boy's father know where you live."

   
Again Howe gave a warning cough. A confession obtained as the result of threats would be thrown out of court. Frost ignored him. He knew he was skating on the thinnest of ice, but finding the girl alive was more important to him than a conviction. "For the last time, where are they, Bernie?"

   
Green leapt to his feet, the blanket falling to the floor. "I don't know anything about them!" he shouted.

   
Frost waved him back to the chair. "I'm not deaf, Bernie, you can lie to me quietly if you want to." He gave his benign smile. "Are they still alive?"

   
"I don't know anything about them."

   
"Did you take them to the woods in your car, like the boy? Are they buried in the woods?"

   
"I don't know."

   
"Your car was seen outside the school, Bernie." To be fair, a car the same colour as yours, he thought, but who's being fair? "Where did you take them?"

   
"I didn't take them anywhere."

   
"Did you take them back to your luxurious apartment, Bernie, to that smelly little basement flat? We can check, you know. We can go over every inch of the place."

  
 A look of relief flickered across Green's face. "You can do what you like . . . you won't find anything."

   
"And every inch of your car. If we find so much as a flake of skin, a hair even, from either of those two girls . . ."

   
Bernie jerked back as if he had been struck. "A hair?"

   
"That's all we need for DNA tests, Bernie." He smiled sweetly. "Not a problem, is it?"

   
Green buried his face in his hands. "Hold on, Inspector . . . give me time to think . . ."

   
Frost blew smoke up to the ceiling, then nodded happily at Howe. The confession was coming.

   
After a few seconds Green sat up and pushed the photograph of Vicky Stuart away. "I know nothing about her, Mr. Frost, but this one . . ." He tapped the photograph of Jenny Brewer. "I know something about her."

   
Frost turned Vicky's photo face down. "Then tell us about Jenny."

   
"I want to do a deal. I'm out on parole on condition I don't go near schools or approach kids. If I do, I have to go back and serve out my sentence. I don't want to go back to prison, Mr. Frost."

   
"You're already going back to nick for sodding about with the boy," said Frost, "so you've got damn all to lose. Tell us what you know and I promise you I'll do what I can." Which will be sod all, he told himself.

   
Green pointed to the photograph. "I might have given her a lift."

   
Frost's eyebrows soared. "Might? What do you mean, might?"

   
"All right. I did give her a lift so it's possible you might find one of her hairs in my car but it won't mean anything. I just gave her a lift, that's all it was, a lift . . ."

   
"And when was this?"

   
"Couple of days ago . . . the day she went missing. I was sort of driving past the school just as the kids were coming out and I sees this little girl in red trotting along, all on her own. It was peeing with rain and she had no mac so I asked if she wanted a lift. She said would I take her to Argylle Street."

   
"Argylle Street?"

   
"Yes, a few blocks away from the school. I drove her there. She told me she was going to have her photograph taken. I said, 'I've got some nice pictures at home, would you like to see them?' She said no and got out and ran across the road to this house. I watched her ring the bell, a bloke answered and she went in."

   
"What was the house number?"

   
"I don't know, but it was the one on the corner."

   
"You actually saw her go inside?"

   
"Yes. I waited ten minutes or so in case she came out, but she didn't, so I drove back home."

   
"You knew the kid had gone missing, you knew we were looking for her, so why didn't you come forward with this earlier?"

   
"How could I?" implored Green. "I wasn't supposed to approach kids. I'd have gone straight back in the nick."

   
Frost stood up. "Right, Bernie. As you've got your pyjamas on, you can retire to a nice warm cell and have a kip. We'll check your story out and God help you if you've been lying."

He had done it so many times before, he could almost do it in his sleep: walk to the front door, jab the bell push, pound the door with the flat of the hand and yell, "Open up—police!", then turn and stare down the street, not consciously seeing, but taking everything in. Argylle Street. Another street choked with parked cars, plus two double parked police cars. His radio paged him. "I'm in position, Inspector." Collier had been sent to the rear of the house to block any escape route.

   
Again Frost thumbed the bell push, letting it ring and ring and ring.

   
At last an upstairs light came on. A sash window was raised and a head poked out. "Who is it?"

   
"Police," yelled Frost. "Open up."

   
"Police? Oh my God!" The window slammed shut. Frost waited, shivering as the damp night mist bit through his clothes. Sounds of doors slamming and lights coming on in various parts of the house, but the front door remained closed. "He's taking his flaming time." He was about to radio through to Collier to warn him to be prepared for a dash to freedom when there was a clicking of locks and the front door opened to reveal a rotund little man in his mid-forties, fully dressed and zipping up a driving jacket. He seemed nervy and agitated. "Oh dear, how bad is she? Did they say?"