R. Wingfield - Hard Frost

"Drysdale's on his way," said Frost.

The doctor snatched his bag and made for the door. "Then you can manage without me." Like Frost, he was not over-fond of the Home Office Pathologist.

Detective Sergeant Arthur Hanlon emerged from the door where all the wailing was coming from. Usually perky whatever the circumstances, he looked shattered. "It's a mess, Jack. Three little kids dead and the mother's gone missing."

Frost rested against the wall and fished out his cigarettes. He hated this type of case. "She killed the kids and did a runner? I wonder what drove the poor bitch to do that. We're looking for her, I hope?"

"Yes," said Hanlon. "I've circulated her description."

Frost rubbed his hands together to restore the circulation. The pervasive breath of death made the house seem very cold. Outside with that saw-edged wind it was colder. "How was she dressed? Was she wearing a coat?"

"No idea, Jack. Haven't been able to find anyone who saw her leave yet."

A row of clothes were hanging neatly from hooks in the hall: a man's raincoat and anorak, lots of brightly coloured children's coats and hats and, at the far end, a woman's thick red woollen coat with chunky black buttons. Frost patted the pockets and took out a suede leather purse which contained about 19. "I reckon this is the coat she would have worn, Arthur. So it looks like no coat and no money probably just wearing a dress. If we don't find her soon, the poor cow will freeze to death. Has she got any friends, or relatives living nearby, she might have gone to?"

Hanlon shrugged helplessly. "We can't get any sense from the husband and none of the neighbours have come up with anything yet, except to say she kept herself to herself and she loved the kids."

"Never mind," said Frost. Tdoubt if she's gone to anyone. I can't see her saying, "Can you put me up for a few days, I've done in the kids."

"I'll show you the bodies," said Hanlon

Frost took another deep drag at his cigarette. "There's no hurry they're not going anywhere." He coughed as the smoke irritated his lungs. "Fill me in on the facts, first."

"Married couple. Mark Grover, aged twenty-six '

"He's the one making that bleeding row?"

Hanlon nodded. "The father he found them. The missing wife is Nancy Grover, aged twenty-one. They had three kids, two boys and a girl, the eldest is three, the youngest that's the girl eleven months. Difficult to get details, but from what I can piece together, the husband is a self-employed carpet fitter. He had to go out at eight last night on a rush job."

"Funny bleeding time to lay carpets?"

"That's what I thought. Anyway, he came home just after two this morning and found the front door wide open. The back door was open as well. He dashed to the kids' room…" Hanlon straightened up. "I'll show you what he found."

Frost took one last, long drag at his cigarette and pitched it out into the street. "Let's go."

Hanlon opened the nearest door, which was painted a nursery blue. Frost followed him into the small children's bedroom with its nursery wallpaper and heavy duty orange and brown carpeting, also covered with plastic sheeting. It held two single beds and a cot. Frost found himself tiptoeing across and holding his breath as if afraid to wake the tiny children lying in them. At the nearest bed he touched the cold, slightly swollen, face of a boy who could not have been more than three. He was lying on top of the bedclothes and wore white, knitted cotton pyjamas with Dennis the Menace figures printed on them.

"His name was Dennis," said Hanlon in a soft voice, 'aged three."

"Was he found like this on top of the bedclothes?"

"No, Jack. When we arrived the father was cradling the dead kid in his arms. We had a job getting the boy away from him. We put him back here."

Frost nodded. The room had a lingering smell of Johnson's baby powder which reminded him of the little Chinese nurse. God, was that only last night?

They moved across to the other bed, by the window. Another boy, fair-haired and slightly chubbier than his brother. His eyes were wide open and there were small dots of blood in his ears and nose. The bedclothes were drawn up to his chin.

"Jimmy, aged two," murmured Hanlon.

Frost shuddered and shook his head. "Poor little bleeder!"

A crumpled pillow lay on top of the bedclothes at the foot of the bed. There was a slight discoloration in the centre. It had been used to smother the three children.

The sound of a car pulling up outside. Frost looked through the window to see if it was the pathologist, but it was a black Vauxhall which he didn't instantly recognize. He turned back and went over to the cot.

Sandy Lane, stamping his frozen feet on the pavement, looked up as a black Vauxhall pulled in behind Frost's car. The man who got out and scowled at the press looked familiar. Cassidy! Detective Sergeant Cassidy who had been transferred from Denton some four years back after his young daughter was killed in a hit and run accident. So what was he doing back here? Sandy made a mental note to ask around.

The baby in the cot, so still and small, looked like a child's doll. Her arms, covered by the sleeves of a pink nightdress, lay on top of the bedclothes.

"Linda, aged eleven months," said Hanlon.

Very gently, Frost touched the pale cheeks. They were ice cold. He felt he couldn't take much more and found something interesting to study out in the street, his eyes misting. Why the hell did he become a copper? "Poor little bastards!" he muttered. It was all he could think of to say.

Angry voices from the hall. He frowned and went to look. Cassidy was snarling away at young PC Packer.

"He was supposed to be guarding the front door," called Cassidy. "Any Tom, Dick or Harry could have walked in."

"Then we'd tell the bastards to walk out again," replied Frost. "I asked him to get statements from the neighbours."

"Well, I've told him to come back on the door."

Frost exchanged a sympathetic glance with Packer, but said nothing. He wasn't going to row over trivialities with three dead children in the house. He could have done without flaming laughing boy tonight. If he had known Cassidy would want to come he would cheerfully have let him handle the case.

Cassidy was out of sorts, annoyed that Frost had managed to get here before him. He went with Hanlon into the children's room, then emerged, tight-lipped, and they all went into the parents' bedroom with its large double bed and scarlet duvet. The bed, neatly made, its matching scarlet pillows plumped with nightdress and pyjamas folded on top, hadn't been slept in.

Frost wandered across to the window and parted the velour curtains to look out on to the rear garden which was lit up from the lights streaming from the bungalow. Beyond it there seemed to be fields and woodlands stretching to the horizon. At first he couldn't orientate himself as to where they were, then he realized he was looking at the golf course and on the far side was the bungalow of Mullett's golfing friend where the little girl was stabbed. "Get someone to search the golf course. The mother might have wandered out there."

"Doing it now," said Hanlon, pointing to little pinpricks of bobbing lights from distant torches.

They went back through the hall to the dining-room where the father was sitting by the table, staring straight ahead. He was quieter now that the sedative had started to work, but from time to time he shook convulsively and seemed to have no control over his hand which was drumming a tattoo on the table top. His zip-up suede jacket was grease marked and scruffy. There was the tiniest smear of blood across the front.

"From when he carried the body of his son out to the street," whispered Hanlon.

"Someone make some tea," said Frost, drawing up a chair to sit opposite the man. "Mr. Grover. My name is Frost. I'm a police officer."