R. Wingfield - Winter Frost

Mavis, the fat one, looked worried. 'I hope the calving doesn't take long, Lily.' She shuffled over to the sink and filled a brown enamel kettle, stepping carefully over the cat's basket to plonk it on the Aga. 'Would you like a cup of tea, Inspector?'

'If you twist my arm,' yawned Frost, loosening his scarf. The heat was making him sleepy. He nodded at the mobile. 'Aren't you on the phone?'

'The phone company quoted over a thousand pounds to run a line up here and the electricity people wanted double,' Lily told him. 'We haven't got that sort of money, so it has to be the mobile.'

'We look after cats for the Cats' Defence League,' added her companion. 'So a phone is vital.' She frowned at the noise of dragged furniture coming from above. 'You surely don't think she is in this house?'

'Not really,' smiled Frost. 'But we have to search everywhere, just to be thorough.' They each took one of his offered cigarettes. He lit up. 'One of your neighbours mentioned she often hears your car late at night.'

'Oh dear,' said Mavis, sounding very concerned. 'I hope we don't wake her up. We're always having to dash off to the vet's. Animals seem to have a habit of being taken ill in the middle of the night.' She slurped milk into the cups, the cigarette dangling from her lips. Frost's eyes narrowed. He had seen her somewhere before. She bent and poured milk into the cat's saucer. The cat eyed it blearily and decided she would leave it until later.

'All the doors and windows of your car were wide open as we drove up,' said Frost.

Mavis smiled and nodded. 'One of the cats made a mess inside it. I'm hoping the smell has gone by now.'

An explanation for everything, thought Frost, then suddenly his see-sawing spirits soared. He remembered where he had seen the fat woman before.

Their mobile phone chirruped. Mavis snatched it up. 'The vet,' she told the thin woman. 'On his way to the surgery now. He wants us to bring the dog over.'

I'll get someone to go with you,' said Frost. They protested that it wasn't necessary, but he insisted. He called Burton down and drew him to one side. 'Go with them to the vet's. Don't let them out of your sight for a second and bring them straight back. I'll explain later.'

He saw them out to the car, then dashed back to the house just as Detective Sergeant Hanlon returned from searching the outhouses. 'Nothing, Jack, not a sniff.'

'Then we'll just have to sniff a bit harder, Arthur. Bring in everyone — pull them off what they're doing. I want every inch searched again. She's here, alive or dead — Liz is here, I'm bloody certain!'

Hanlon stared at him. 'How can you be so sure?'

'That fat tart. She works in the control room of Denton Minicabs. Left her old man to live with her lady lover — that'll be skinny Lizzy. I spoke to her at Denton Minicabs, told her what we were investigating, but she never said a word about it today. She was hoping I wouldn't recognize her until they got Liz out of the way.' He turned to Morgan. 'Could Fatty Arbuckle have been driving the cab that picked Liz up?'

'Could have been, guv. I didn't really get a proper look.'

'It was her, I'd stake my last packet of fags on it. They said they would have heard a car if it came to dump Liz, but we come straining up the hill in two motors making one hell of a row, and they pretend to be taken by surprise. They'd seen the torches, they couldn't miss them from up here, and the fat tart would have recognized Liz. They knew we were coming. They were ready for us.' He rubbed his hands together briskly. Action, this was what he liked, action. 'Get everyone in, Arthur. We are now going to search on the basis that Liz is definitely here and we are definitely going to find her. Pull out cupboards, rip up floorboards, sieve the cats' flaming litter trays, never mind the damage, just find her.'

He watched for a while in the pouring rain as the teams went through the outhouses and sheds, then returned to the dryness and warmth of the house, getting in everyone's way as he mooched around. Back to the kitchen where he swilled down his mug of tea, watched by the nursing cat with its sleeping kittens.

The all too familiar negative reports rattled in, non-stop: nothing… nothing… nothing… His gloom returned. She was here, he knew she was here, but what was the bloody good of knowing if they couldn't find her? Then he went cold. Up against the wall, near the sink, draped with a cloth and stacked with crockery as if it was a table, a large chest freezer, amply big enough to hold a woman's body. He piled the crockery in the sink and tried to lift the lid. Shit! It was locked. A tuppenny-ha'penny lock, but none of his skeleton keys worked. There was a poker by the Aga. Leaning over the cat, he snatched it up and levered off the lock, taking a deep breath before raising the lid, then forcing himself to look inside. Fish, meat, loaves of bread. No body. He let the lid drop with a thud, not knowing whether to feel relieved or dejected. He sank back in the chair and stared through the window to the night sky. Already daylight was scratching at the edges. He was sucking moodily on his fifth cigarette when Hanlon returned, looking as tired and dejected as Frost. 'We've torn the place apart, Jack. She isn't here.'

Frost scrubbed weariness from his face with his hands. 'I've sodded it up again, Arthur. We've been wasting our time, looking in the wrong place.'

'It was our best shot, Jack.'

'Which missed the bleeding target by miles.' Wearily, he pushed himself out of the chair. 'Nothing to do now but wait until someone reports finding a body.' His mobile rang. His heart skipped a beat. Good news? Bad news? It was Mullett asking, 'What progress?'

'None,' reported Frost. 'Not a sodding thing.' He clicked Mullett off in mid-moan and dropped the phone back in his pocket, now feeling almost suicidal. Another death on his conscience. Well, he'd give Mullett the treat of his life when he got back to the station, his resignation with immediate effect.

Hanlon sensed his mood. 'You did your best, Jack. You couldn't have done more.'

'I let it happen, Arthur. If that's doing my best, I'm bleeding useless.' Shoulders slumped, he made his way outside where the rain-soaked teams were assembled, waiting for his further instructions. He was about to send them all home when he stopped dead in his tracks and clapped a hand to his forehead. 'What a bloody, bloody fool! The generator!'

Blank expressions.

'They're not on mains electricity, yet they've got a fridge, a deep freeze, lights. They must have a generator. Did anyone find it?'

Heads were shaken. 'We looked everywhere,' said Hanlon.

'We couldn't have looked everywhere. You can't make electricity out of thin air. There's got to be a generator.' He stared upwards. No overhead power lines. 'It's got to be inside the house.'

They followed him back into the kitchen where the mother cat yawned annoyance at having her sleep disturbed yet again. He looked around. 'Where the hell is it?' As he spoke the thermostat on the deep freeze clicked and the motor started to hum. 'Switch that thing off and listen. If there's a generator we should be able to hear it.'

Morgan clicked the switch. The humming stopped. They strained their ears. Silence broken only by the mewing of one of the kittens. Hanlon shook his head. 'Can't hear anything, Jack.'

Morgan dropped to his knees and pressed his ear to the stone-flagged floor. 'I can!' he called excitedly. 'It's coming from underneath.' Frost joined him. He could hear it too. A low, throbbing sound just about audible through the thick slabs. 'There must be a cellar!'

Frost straightened up, eyes darting round the kitchen, stopping at the cat and its offspring in the basket, bang in front of the Aga. He remembered fat Mavis stepping over it with the kettle. 'If I had a cat with kittens, I think I'd stick the basket in that recess alongside the stove, not bang in front of it where I'd have to step over it every time.' He tugged at the folded blanket on which the basket rested, sliding it, with the cat and kittens, to one side. 'Bingo!' The blanket had been covering a wooden trap door. Morgan heaved it open. Wooden steps led down to darkness. Frost fumbled and found a light switch.