R. Wingfield - Hard Frost

He passed a florist's that was just closing and, on impulse, stopped and bought a small bunch of flowers. She loved flowers.

It was getting dark, but he managed to find the grave without much difficulty. A small white headstone. "Rebecca Cassidy aged 14 years." To his annoyance there was already a large, ostentatious bouquet of pink carnations lying by the headstone. The attached card read: "On your birthday, darling, from Mummy and Geoff." Geoff! The new bloody husband! He was shaking with rage. How dare that swine give my daughter flowers. He never even bloody knew her! Cassidy snatched up the bouquet and tore the card to shreds, then gently laid his own small offering in its place. Fourteen! Fourteen years old, all her life in front of her, and some bastard, probably drunk, had mowed her down and didn't bother to stop to see if she was alive or dead. And then Frost had sodded up the investigation.

He walked away, clutching the carnations, looking for a bin where he could dump them. He passed another grave, overgrown and neglected. He stopped. Talk of the devil! It was the grave of Frost's wife, the grass overgrown, long-dead stalks of flowers in a vase. The callous bastard hadn't been back to tend it since the day she was buried. As he tore up some of the long grass to make room for the carnations, he winced. The cold night air was getting to his wound, triggering off the hurt. He hurried back to the warmth of the car.

Mullett marched into the incident room and headed straight for Frost. "Another missing child?" he barked, making it sound as if it was all Frost's fault.

"Yes, sorry about that, super. I'll try and see it doesn't happen again." He scooped up some papers and headed for the door, but was called back.

"Traffic are talking about extra overtime. I haven't authorized it. Do you know anything about it?"

"Ah yes," said Frost, who had forgotten all about it. "I was going to come in and see you about that." But he was saved by the bell. Liz Maud came in, not looking at all happy, and behind was Flaming hell! Jim bloody Cassidy. Where did he spring from?

"Ah," said Mullett. "In case you don't know, our old colleague Mr. Cassidy is taking over as acting detective inspector only until Mr. Allen gets back. I'm sure we're all delighted to have such a worthy addition to our team."

The news was greeted with stunned silence, broken by Liz. "If I could have a word, sir," she said, her eyes smouldering with resentment. Mullett had as good as offered the promotion to her and she wanted to know why he had gone back on his word.

"Later, later," said Mullett, backing hurriedly to the door. "Make an appointment with my secretary. I'm a bit tied up just now." He scuttled back to his office and switched on the red "Engaged Do Not Enter' light. Cassidy might be trouble, but there was no way he was having a woman detective inspector in his division, even if the promotion was only temporary.

"Good to see you, Jim," said Frost. He didn't hold out his hand as he knew Cassidy wouldn't take it. He introduced him around. One or two people knew Cassidy from his previous time in Denton, but did their best to hide their dismay. "And, of course, you've met Detective Sergeant Maud?"

Cassidy flicked her a brisk nod. "I'd like an office on my own. Perhaps she could move in with you."

"Of course," agreed Frost. This wasn't the time or place to start a row.

"And I'd like someone assigned to me to do my filing and odd jobs and things." He pointed to Burton. "He looks a likely chap."

"We all do our own filing and odd jobs and things," said Frost. "I can't spare anyone we've got too much on."

Cassidy's expression did not change. "I see. Well, perhaps you had better brief me on just what you do have on."

He sat at a desk and listened, without comment, making neat, copious notes, as Frost gave him the details of the two boys, the dubious abduction, the weirdo who was stabbing sleeping kids and the body in the bunker. When Frost had finished, Cassidy capped his fountain pen and gave a sour smile. "You don't seem to have made much progress with any of them."

Before Frost could answer, the phone rang. Arthur Hanlon calling from the mortuary where the postmortem on the body in the bunker was taking place. "You'd better get down here right away, Jack. There's something odd about the body."

"Two dicks?" asked Frost. "I'll send Liz."

"The tops of three of his fingers have been chopped off. After death, the pathologist says."

Frost backed into the parking space outside the mortuary, squeezing in between Drysdale's Rolls-Royce and a hearse. The mortuary attendant, busy writing up records in his cubby-hole, waved him through. Frost was a frequent visitor.

At the far end of the darkened autopsy room, under the splash of overhead lights, a cluster of men stood at a discreet distance from the post-mortem table where a green-gowned Drysdale was bent over, cutting carefully with a scalpel. The atmosphere was oppressive and worsened rapidly when the pathologist opened up the stomach. Overhead the extractor fans whirred, but were fighting a losing battle. Drysdale's gloved hands removed something from the corpse.

"Got any pieces for the cat, doc?"

Drysdale stiffened. That damn Frost again, making his tasteless jokes. He affected not to hear and carried on with his task.

Frost's scruffy figure emerged from the gloom. "Bloody hell. He doesn't improve with keeping, does he?" The rasp of a match as he lit a cigarette.

"Please don't smoke," snapped Drysdale. "There are things I need to smell."

"Whatever turns you on, doc," said Frost, shaking out the match, but keeping the cigarette in his mouth. "So what's the verdict?"

"I have already given my preliminary findings to the sergeant," said Drysdale. "I am not in the habit of repeating myself."

A white-faced Arthur Hanlon came round the table to Frost. The post-mortem was making him decidedly queasy. "Dead for some time, Jack, two, even three months. Died as the result of a heavy blow to the back of the head which fractured the skull. Killed elsewhere and the body dumped in the bunker shortly after death."

"He died about an hour after consuming his last meal," added Drysdale, transferring something horrible to a jar and handing it to his secretary for labelling. "A substantial meal dinner or lunch." He stepped back and peeled off his rubber gloves. "I've finished with him. Sew him up, please."

Frost waved the mortuary technician back with a hand holding a match, ready to light his cigarette. "Give us a minute, please." He turned to Hanlon. "What's this about fingers cut off, Arthur?"

Hanlon indicated. He wasn't going to touch the puffed, squashy flesh. "His right hand, Jack."

Frost stared, then bent over to study the hand closer.

The thumb and little finger were intact, but the tops of the three middle fingers had been hacked off at the upper joint. "This couldn't have been an accident, doc shut his hand in a door, or something?"

"No," said Drysdale, bridling as always at being called doc. "No. This occurred after death and was deliberate. A knife, or something sharp, laid across the joints, then struck with a hammer or something heavy. Whoever did it had to have a couple of tries just below the joint there's the marks of an attempt that failed." He pointed to a bloodied indentation running parallel to the severed ends.

Frost straightened up. "I suppose the missing bits of finger weren't dumped in the coal bunker? You have looked, Arthur?"

Hanlon hadn't, but he fished out his radio and gave instructions for this to be done.

The body was of a man in his mid-forties, a little over six feet tall, overweight, with long, lank, water-blackened hair. "Biggish bastard, isn't he?" mused Frost aloud as he studied the bloated face with its purple lips, the eyes little more than wet swimming slits in the puffed and mould-stained flesh. A buzzer sounded at the back of his brain and tried to stir his memory. He stared at the face, trying to imagine how it might have looked in life. "I know this sod from somewhere. Any identification on him?"