Winter Frost (52 page)

   
"Cash?" queried Frost. "That was big money in those days—something over thirty thousand quid today." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "In arrears with her rent, then suddenly comes up with that sort of money?"

   
"Tell you what I was thinking, guv," offered Morgan. "Suppose she had her son insured and killed him for the insurance money?"

   
"Insurance companies don't pay out without a death certificate and you don't get one if you dump the body in someone else's back garden." He worried at his scar. "We haven't time to sod about with ancient history, but we can't leave it like this. A body's planted in the garden next to her and her son goes missing. Then she suddenly comes into three and a half thousand quid. I hate to say it, but sometime or other we'll have to go back to Shangri-la, or whatever she calls the bloody place." He downed the drink and wiped his mouth. "But some other time, not now. Let's get back to the station."

   
As they left, Morgan turned to wave to the dark-haired, bespectacled barmaid. "What do you reckon to her, guv?"

   
Frost gave her an approving look. "I wouldn't kick her out of bed on a cold night."

   
"You know what turns me on, guv?"

   
"Every bloody thing turns you on," said Frost, feeling a lot more cheerful now. Morgan always had this effect on him.

   "What turns me on is the thought of making love to a girl who wears glasses. She strips to the buff, but keeps her glasses on."

   
"Then you can breathe on the lens and she can't see how small your dick is," said Frost.

He was about to dart through the lobby when he saw the grim, angular figure of Doreen Beatty in earnest conversation with Bill Wells. Frost froze and waited in the corridor until she left, then hurried across.

   
"What did old mother Beatty want?"

   
"She wanted you," replied Wells. "Reckons a man's been stalking her all around the town." He glanced at the description he had noted down. "Dirty, shifty-eyed, loose-mouthed and oozing lust."

   
"Sounds like Mullett," grunted Frost, pushing through the swing doors. "He always fancied a bit of rough."

   
He went through his usual ritual of riffling through the papers in his in-tray. The only item of interest was a copy crime report from Lexton Division concerning three robberies from private houses where pillows were found in the middle of the beds and the pillow cases missing. The pillow case burglar was working further afield. Frost hoped Lexton would have more luck than he did. If they caught the man it would automatically knock his outstanding crime figures down to a respectable level. There was also a request from Belton Division asking that the case of Big Bertha be added to the Denton Division list of unsolved crimes as the killing undoubtedly took place in Denton District, the body being simply dumped in Belton. A good argument, but it wouldn't help Frost's crime figures, so he buried it deep under all the other papers. He looked up as Detective Sergeant Arthur Hanlon came in.

   
"How did the post-mortem go?" asked Hanlon, dragging a chair over to the inspector.

   
"Told us nothing we didn't know already, Arthur," grunted Frost. "The poor cow died from a heart attack probably brought on from the terror of knowing what the bastard intended to do to her. There was something bloody weird there, though."

   
"What was that?" asked Hanlon.

   
"It was when Drysdale scooped out her stomach contents."

   
Hanlon pulled a face. He knew he wasn't going to enjoy hearing this.

   
"She'd been dead over twelve hours and yet in her stomach was this undigested sandwich." He dug in his pocket and pulled out the remains of his sausage sandwich which he held up, parted the bread and looked inside. "A sausage sandwich." As Hanlon gaped in horror, Frost popped it in his mouth and gulped it down. "Doesn't taste bad considering . . ."

   
Hanlon went green and shuddered, but Frost couldn't keep a straight face any longer and broke into a broad grin. "You bastard!" Hanlon shrieked as Frost nearly fell off his chair laughing. "You're having me on. I won't tell you what we found out from the cab firms now."

   
Wiping tears from his eyes, Frost passed his cigarette packet over. "If I couldn't find something to laugh at about that damn autopsy room, Arthur, I'd go stark, staring bonkers. The poor bitch lying there like so much meat and Drysdale slicing her open." He flicked his lighter. "Tell daddy about the cab firms."

   
"We could be on to something, Jack. We've checked them all and on every night a torn went missing, one of them answered a call, but no-one was waiting for them when they arrived."

   
Frost punched his palm with his fist. "I knew it! He's listing in on a all band radio and if it's a call from a women on her own, he gets there first. We're going to nail the bastard."

   
"How?" asked Hanlon

   
"We use decoys, Arthur. Lots of lovely, juicy nubile policewomen as decoys." Sod all the gloom. He was now feeling on top of the world.

"Decoys?" repeated Mullett, scrubbing away at the lens of his glasses to give himself time to think. "I don't understand."

   
"We want to lure this bastard into a trap," explained Frost. "We dress up policewomen as toms, plant them in the red light district, and get them to phone for cabs. We keep them under surveillance all the time. If the right cab turns up, we simply follow them to the destination, then bring them back to try again. But if it's a rogue taxi, we tail and get ready to pounce."

   
Mullett pinched his nose and thought for a while. He was beginning to have nagging doubts about asking County to send a senior officer down to take over the case. He had been hoping for a chief inspector at most, but Chief Superintendent Bailey out-ranked him and would probably take command of everything, commandeer his office, spend way over Denton's limited budget, leave Mullett to take the blame, then hog all the credit if he was successful. For all his faults, Frost was now looking the much better option. If Frost could pull this off quickly, so County were kept out, there would be no question of the credit being shared. He tugged off the cap of his Parker pen and steeled himself for the worst. "How many people would be involved?"

   
"Not too many. Crowds at that time of night would arouse suspicion. Say two or three girls and four or five, maybe six cars to watch and trail."

   
Mullett jotted some figures down and winced. "And all on overtime?"

   
"Yes," agreed Frost. "The sod doesn't like raping and killing in office hours."

   
Mullett added up the sums again, but couldn't make them any less. Perhaps he should let Bailey come after all, and let him take the responsibility for spending all this money. But it would still come out of Denton's budget. "We've got to keep costs down. When the girls book a taxi, I'm only paying for the minimum distance—and no tipping." He scribbled some more figures down. "Eight men—three women per night—maximum. And I want receipts, receipts for everything."

   
"Of course," Frost assured him, standing up quickly before the superintendent changed his mind. "It's all agreed then?"

   
"No, it's not all agreed," said Mullett. "Sit down." He took off his glasses and pinched his nose. Sanctioning large sums of money made him nervous and when Frost didn't put up objections about it being too little, it made him feel he was giving too much away. "If I'm to justify this sort of expenditure, I've got to show it's cost effective. I want a result."

   
"You shall have one," said Frost. The result could well be that the whole operation was a disaster, but it would still be a result even if it wasn't the one Mullett wanted.

   "
And this isn't open-ended. I'm agreeing three nights only, then I pull out the plug."

   
"Agreed," said Frost, knowing that if they needed more time, he'd argue about it when it happened. "We might even get a result tonight."

   
"That would make a pleasant change," said Mullett, sourly. "Results are something sadly lacking from you at the moment. What is the position with the child killings?"

   
"We've come to a bit of a dead end there, Super," admitted Frost. "All our leads seem to have fizzled out." Mullett pulled a knowing face, implying this was only to be expected from Frost. "And the skeleton in the garden? I understand you've tracked down the woman with the missing son?"

   
Frost told him about the visit to Nelly Aldridge.

   
Mullett's eyes gleamed. "We're on to something there, Frost."

   
"Ancient bloody history," said Frost. "Not worth wasting our time on."

   
Mullett's lips tightened. "You're so damned negative. No wonder you're making no headway. We've found a skeleton, her son is missing and she has no satisfactory explanation. On top of which, she has acquired, apparently out of nowhere, money to buy a smallholding. Bear down on her. She's your best bet for an early clear-up, and goodness knows, you need one."

   
"All right," sighed Frost. "I'll see her first thing in the morning."

   
"You've wasted enough time," snapped Mullett. "Do it today. If she doesn't come up with a satisfactory explanation, bring her in." He picked up his pen and began signing his correspondence to signal that the interview was over.

   
Frost slouched out, passing through the outer office where Ida Smith, Mullett's faithful secretary, who had overheard everything, was smiling smugly to herself at the way her superior had put that awful man in his place. Frost gave her a nod as he passed. "I quite agree with you, Ida—he's a real right bastard."

"I don't think this is a very good idea, guv," moaned Morgan as his foot squelched in a rain-filled pot-hole.

   
"It's a bleeding lousy idea," agreed Frost, "but we're flaming well stuck with it." They were slithering and sliding in the pitch dark up the muddied lane leading to the smallholding. "Not far now—I can smell the privy."

   
They stumbled on and soon could see a feeble orange glow from a flickering oil lamp fighting its way through a dirt-caked window. Frost hammered at the door. "Open up, Mrs. Aldridge. It's the police." They waited. He tried the door handle, but the bolts and chains inside held firm. "Let's try our luck round the back."

   
They picked their way round to the rear of the house. No lights showed and the door was again firmly locked.

   
"No-one in, guv," said Morgan.

   
"She's in all right, Taffy—probably straining over the slop bucket even as we speak." He rattled the door handle and yelled again. "Open up, Mrs. Aldridge—police."

   
A bitter wind suddenly roared round the house. Morgan shivered. "Let's leave it until the morning, guv. This place gives me the willies."

   
"Talking of willies," said Frost, "yours is going to have a rest tonight. I've booked you in for overtime." He banged the door again. "Sod it," he grunted. "After coming all this way I'm not going back without chatting up the old cow." He shook the door. "I don't think it's bolted." He tugged a key ring from his Pocket and, with a bit of wiggling, the second key he tried did the trick. The door swung open. "Oh, look," he exclaimed in a loud voice. "This door's been left open. We'd better check to see if the occupant is all right."

   
They stepped inside, Morgan's torch beam probing the darkness. "I'm not happy about this, guv."

   "
You didn't join the force to be happy," Frost told him as he led the way through to the hall. He pushed doors open and steered Morgan's torch inside. Miserable, dank rooms stacked with junk.

   
"Guv!" Morgan, at the room nearest the front door, was calling him over. "I think there's someone in here."

   
The room was pitch dark, but there was the sound of breathing and the smell of a recently extinguished oil lamp. Tentatively, Morgan stepped inside. "Mrs. Aldridge?" called Frost, following him in.

   
Suddenly a cry from Morgan as the torch was knocked from his hand. Pitch darkness. Another cry from Morgan as he was sent crashing to the floor. A plea for help: "Guv!"

   
Frost couldn't see a damn thing. Frantically he scrabbled for the light switch and as he realized there wasn't one, he was sent crashing against the wall as two bodies cannoned into him. His torch! Where the bloody hell was his torch? It had slipped through a hole in the lining of his mac and was refusing to come out. At last he yanked it free and clicked it on. It flickered fitfully, dimly lighting up the figure of a wild animal of a man, all matted beard and greasy hair, stinking to high heaven. He had Morgan in a bear hug and was crushing the life out of him.

   
Morgan's face was distorted with pain and he was gasping for breath. Frost crooked an arm round the attacker's neck and tried to yank him back, but was smashed against the wall as the man effortlessly shrugged him off. Frost grunted as all the air was forced from his body. "Police!" he croaked, as if he expected that to make the man immediately surrender. He just managed to jerk his head to one side as an elbow missed him by inches and smashed into the wall.

   
Frost gripped the torch and brought it down with all his might on the man's head. A cry of pain as the torch went out and the sound of a heavy body crashing heavily to the floor. Pitch dark again. He shook the torch and, to his surprise, it flickered back on illuminating the lifeless form sprawled out on the floor, a big, dirty, hairy smelly beast of a man. The beam moved to Morgan who was staggering to his feet and rubbing his ribs. "You all right?"