R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘It’s possible,’ said her mother. ‘She often went swimming there.’

‘Right, we’ll check it out,’ said Frost, winding the scarf back round his neck, ready to leave. ‘Oh – do you have a recent photograph?’

Mrs Clark stared at her husband, who paused before mumbling, ‘Nothing recent, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh?’ said Frost. ‘A school photograph, perhaps?’

‘No,’ said Clark, not looking Frost in the eye. ‘There are no school photographs.’

‘Oh?’ repeated Frost, waiting for an explanation, but none came. ‘I see,’ he said eventually. But he didn’t see.

‘I take it you are going straight back to the station to organise a full-scale search for my daughter?’ demanded Clark.

‘As I said, it’s a bit too early for that at this stage,’ Frost told him.

‘Too early?’ echoed Clark angrily. ‘Too bloody early? She’s been missing since last night. How much longer are we expected to wait while you sit on your bloody arse, shuffling papers, while my daughter is out there, probably in the hands of some sexual pervert.’

‘I appreciate your concern – ’ began Frost.

‘Then bloody well do something about it.’

‘I’ve been involved in over a hundred missing teenager cases, Mr Clark. All the parents were worried sick, quite rightly, and in nearly every case the parents refused to accept the possibility that their child might have left home of their own accord. But in over 95 per cent of cases that is exactly what happened and their kids were only too glad to creep back home after a couple of days.’

‘You can quote your lousy statistics at me until you are blue in the face, but I want a full-scale search carried out now – this very minute…’

‘I’m sorry – ’ began Frost, but before he could continue, Clark moved towards him, his face contorted with rage.

‘You’re sorry? I’m the one who’s bloody sorry. I’ve been sent a useless, do-nothing idiot. Get out of my house. I’m having you taken off this case. I’ve got friends in very high places, as you will soon find out.’

With a nod to the weeping mother, Frost jerked his head for Jordan and Simms to follow him. They left the house.

Back in the car, Frost lit up a much-needed cigarette. ‘Friends in high places,’ he mused. ‘I bet they live on the top floor of a tower block.’

‘What do you reckon, Inspector?’ Jordan asked.

Frost exhaled smoke. ‘I don’t know. I still think she’s having it away with the boyfriend, but I’ve got a nagging suspicion that something nasty has happened to her. If we had more manpower down here instead of on loan to flaming County, courtesy of Superintendent bloody Mullett, I’d start searching – but we haven’t. Right, after you drop me off, go to the boyfriend’s house, check his hands for bra marks and check that Debbie isn’t there. Then go and see this girl Audrey, see if she knows more than she is telling – and find out why she stopped coming for sleepovers. Oh – and check the swimming baths. See if anyone remembers Debbie there last night. I still reckon she’ll be back in time for her birthday party, but we might as well pretend we’re thorough for a change.’

Superintendent Mullett, the Denton divisional commander, held the phone away from his ear. The shouting from the other end was overpowering.

‘… And I want a proper detective on the case, not that scruffy, rude, ignorant individual you saw fit to send to me this morning.’

‘Inspector Frost is a very capable officer,’ said Mullett, trying to sound as if he believed it.

‘Inspector Frost is an incompetent, ignorant oaf. A disgrace to the force. Are you going to organise a search party to look for my daughter, or do I have to go direct to my friend, the Chief Constable.’

Mullett straightened up in his chair at the mention of the Chief Constable.

‘He’s Debbie’s godfather – did you know that?’

Her godfather! Mullett’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Leave it to me, Mr Clark. I’ll get a search party organised right away.’

‘Is that a promise?’

‘You have my word,’ floundered Mullett, nodding furiously to emphasise the fact.

‘Good, because I have recorded this conversation.’

A click and the dialling tone.

Mullett carefully replaced the receiver, mopped his brow and picked up the internal phone to summon Frost.

Frost’s radio gave an attention-snatching cough as he coasted into his place in the station car park. It was PC Jordan reporting.

‘Inspector, we checked the swimming baths. Yesterday was senior citizens’ night. A twelve- year-old girl in a bikini would have stuck out like a sore thumb.’

‘Lots of other things would have stuck out as well,’ said Frost.

‘Next, we went round to the boyfriend’s house. No reply. I checked with the neighbours. His parents are away for a couple of days and he is looking after himself. They saw him cycle off around seven yesterday evening, but didn’t see him come back and didn’t see any lights come on. There’s milk on the doorstep, the paper’s in the letter box, and no answer to our knocks.’

‘Have you spoken to that girl, Audrey?’

‘We’re on our way there now.’

‘Right. Let me know what she says.’ He clicked off and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Boy missing, girl missing, both on bikes. It was looking more and more obvious that they had done a bunk together. But a nagging doubt kept chewing away.

As he opened the door to his office, the insistent ringing of his phone greeted him. Before he could pick it up, Sergeant Wells burst in.

‘Just had Beazley – the boss of the supermarket – on the blower, Jack. They’ve heard from the blackmailer – he wants fifty thousand pounds.’

Frost re-buttoned his coat. ‘Tell him I’m on my way.’ As he left the office, he jerked a thumb at his phone. ‘Answer that, would you?’

‘It came this morning,’ grunted Beazley, a short, piggy-eyed man in his late fifties. ‘The bastard wants fifty thousand quid.’ He passed a sheet of paper with an envelope clipped to it over to Frost.

Frost held it carefully by the edges and skimmed through it. Like the previous note, it was handwritten in block capitals:

THAT WAS ONLY A TASTER. I’VE PLENTY MORE POISONS LEFT. PEOPLE WILL DIE. TO STOP ME PAY?50,000 INTO ACCOUNT NUMBER FDZ32432, FORTRESS BUILDING SOCIETY. DO IT TODAY OR THERE’S MORE POISON TOMORROW.

As Frost was reading, Beazley stripped the wrapping off an enormous cigar and lit up. ‘I phoned the building society to get the bastard’s name. They wouldn’t give it to me. Said they had to respect their client’s confidentiality. The sod’s trying to screw me for 50K and they want to respect his bleeding confidentiality

This is a copycat crime, thought Frost. There had been a similar extortion case in London some years before, where the blackmail money was paid into a building society account which the villain had opened with a false name and address. But today building societies insisted on proof of identity so this bloke, obviously an amateur, must be a real prat giving away a traceable number.

‘Are you going to pay it?’ he asked as a cloud of cigar smoke drifted across his face.

‘You tell me,’ grunted Beazley. ‘I’m not risking a single penny unless you can guarantee you can catch him. The sod could take the money and do it again.’

‘Pay it,’ said Frost. ‘He’s got to contact the building society to withdraw it. We’ll catch him.’

Beazley shook ash from his cigar and stared at Frost in disbelief. ‘Pay him? You’re saying I should cough up 50K on the off chance you might catch the sod as he withdraws it? Supposing you are up to your usual standard of efficiency and he draws the lot out while you’re arresting some poor sod for a parking offence? No way.’