R. Wingfield - Winter Frost

A large cellar stretching the length of the kitchen. In one corner a diesel-powered generator throbbed away. Up against one wall was a single bed with a mattress and pillow. Frost sniffed the pillow. Perfume. Liz's perfume. She had been here, on this bed. He thudded up the wooden steps and yelled to the men outside. 'She's been here… search again.'

She had to be somewhere near. The two women would have spotted the police teams crashing about and would have had to get Liz out of the house quickly. She had to be within walking distance, but there was no trace of her.

'We need those two cows back here now!' said Frost, but before he could radio Burton headlights and the sound of a car straining up the hill. Burton and the two women returning.

He waited in the kitchen. Burton was in first, humping in an exhausted-looking red setter bitch in its basket. 'Mother and kids doing fine,' he announced proudly. Behind him the two women, beaming all over their faces, carried in a large cardboard box which they lowered gently to the floor. Frost looked down on five newly born red setter puppies. 'Panic over,' smiled Lily. 'Jessie didn't need a Caesarean after all.' The smile abruptly froze on her face. With his foot, Frost was slowly pushing the cat's basket to one side. The two women watched as if hypnotized.

'We've found the cellar,' said Frost grimly.

The thin woman shot a warning glance to Mavis, clicked her smile back on and turned to Burton. 'Put the basket there, please.' She indicated the recess by the Aga. 'They must be kept warm.'

'I said we've found the cellar,' repeated Frost.

The two women busied themselves putting the puppies in the basket with their mother. 'There's nothing down there,' said Mavis, in a matter-of-fact voice. 'Just a spare bed and the generator. No-one could have got down there without our knowledge.' She held out a puppy to Frost. 'Isn't he a little darling?'

'Don't sod me about,' snapped Frost. 'Where is the woman police officer you brought here tonight?'

Mavis gave him a look of puzzled innocence. 'We haven't been out at all tonight, Inspector. How could we pick anyone up?'

'You're a lying bitch!' snapped Frost.

The thin woman came forward. 'Inspector, I appreciate you are concerned about your colleague, but you are wrong if you think she is here. We know nothing about her, I give you my word!'

The word of a bitch who tortures and kills, thought Frost. We've searched everywhere, so where the hell is she? He creased his face in thought. The women would have spotted the search party and had to get Liz out of the house bloody quickly. Where could they hide her? And then it hit him. 'Of course,' he exclaimed. 'Of bloody course!' The one place they hadn't looked and it was so flaming obvious. The boot of the car. What a prat he was. The car doors had been left wide open and he hadn't thought of looking in the boot! He held out his hand. 'Your car keys, please.'

Mavis nestled the puppy next to its mother, then dug deep in her coat pocket. Frost hurried out with the keys, but didn't like the relieved look which had returned to both the women's faces.

The boot was empty.

He was now at the brink of utter despair. Back to the house. 'Where is she?' he shouted.

Mavis shook her head and gave him a pitying smile. 'I'm afraid we don't know, Inspector.'

Frost tugged Burton to one side. 'Did you let either of them out of your sight even for a bloody second when you went to the vet's with them?'

'No,' said Burton.

Frost raised his head and swore bitterly at the ceiling. 'Shit, shit, shit. Tell me exactly what happened.'

'We drove to the vet's-'

'Who drove?'

'The skinny bird. I was in the back with Fatty and the dog. When we got to the surgery, the lights were on inside and the main door was open. It was peeing with rain, so she drove the car right up to the surgery door. I humped the dog out, the fat one came in the vet's with me while the other woman parked the car.'

Frost's eyes glinted. 'She parked the car? Where?'

'The parking area just round the back of the surgery.'

'She'd have to walk back through the peeing rain. Why didn't she leave the car where it was?'

Burton frowned. 'I don't know. I was more concerned with getting the dog inside. But she was only out of my sight for a minute or so.'

'That's all she'd flaming well need to drag Liz out of the boot, hide her somewhere and when we'd left, go back and pick her up again.'

Burton stared at him. 'Do you think she's still alive?'

'I hope so, son, I bloody hope so.'

He quickly briefed the others, then jerked a thumb at the two women. 'You're coming with us.'

Mavis looked concerned. 'Jessie-' she began.

Frost nodded at Collier. 'The constable will look after the dog.'

He hustled them into his car where they sat pressed together in the back seat gripping the armrests tightly as Morgan drove at speed down the bumpy incline. The car lurched and juddered, rain hammering on the roof, the windscreen wipers squealing as they tried to cope with the downpour.

At the vet's, now in darkness, Morgan swung the car into the rear car-park and braked violently. He and Frost were out, shoulders hunched against the driving rain as the following cars skidded to a halt behind them.

Frost opened the passenger door and leant in. The two women smiled up at him, seemingly not in the least concerned. 'We're going to find her anyway, so why not speed things up and tell us where she is?'

Mavis oozed with sincere concern. 'If we knew, Inspector, don't you think we would say?'

He slammed the car door and turned to meet the others.

'Where do we start?' asked Burton.

He surveyed the empty expanse of car-park, putting himself in the place of the skinny woman who would have been frantically searching for somewhere to hide the body in the boot. There weren't many places. His eyes fastened on the row of dustbins and large metal rubbish containers stacked along the rear of the surgery. 'Try over there.'

Much activity. Jordan and Simms managed to clamber up and get inside one of the large containers which held a mass of black plastic sacks, too small for a woman's body. They ripped a couple open. Dead animals for disposal. They climbed out, shaking their heads.

He'd got it wrong. He'd got it bloody wrong again. He tried to conceal the surge of panic building up inside. From the car the two women watched impassively. 'She's got to be somewhere near,' he said. 'That skinny bitch couldn't have carried her far.'

'Assuming she was here in the first place,' muttered Burton, voicing the unspoken opinion of most of the team. Like so many of Frost's hunches this was going to prove a disastrous waste of time.

The rain showed no signs of easing up. Frost's scarf, a sodden mass around his neck, added to his mood of misery and depression. He screwed his eyes against the stinging rain and took one last look around. Then he smiled. 'We've been too flaming clever. The skinny bitch wouldn't have had the strength, nor the time, to hump her up to those bins. She'd just drag Liz out of the boot and dump her.' He pointed to the long wet straggling grass just beyond the low, chain link fence forming the perimeter of the car-park. 'She's over there.'

No-one had any confidence in him any more. They slouched across and did a half-hearted search. It was Jordan, yelling and waving frantically, who found her. 'Over here!' He was shuffling off his greatcoat to cover her as they reached him.

She was naked, rain-soaked, blue with cold and not moving. Her wrists and ankles were bound with wire and a gag bit deeply into her mouth. There were angry red marks on her stomach — cigarette burns. Next to her was a plastic carrier bag. A quick look inside revealed Liz's clothing and other objects. Frost dropped to his knees in the muddy ground and felt for a pulse. He could have cried with relief. She was still alive. His penknife sawed through the wire and cut the binding to the gag as Jordan swaddled her in his greatcoat.