R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

He turned to Morgan and indicated a dilapidated rowing boat, half in, half out of the lake, its bottom awash with muddy water. ‘Feel like a row, Taff?’

Morgan stared at the boat in dismay. ‘Flaming heck, Guv, look at the holes in the bottom. It’s like a sieve. I can’t swim.’

‘I can’t play the violin,’ said Frost, ‘but I don’t moan about it.’ He signalled to Jordan. ‘Push the boat out. Have a prod around with Taffy. She might be in there.’

Jordan was equally unenthusiastic and surveyed the leaky rowing boat with apprehension. ‘Is that an order, Inspector?’

Frost shook his head. ‘Of course not, son. You’ve both volunteered.’

He sat in the car with the heater going full blast, sucking at a cigarette as he listened to the local news on the radio.

… Denton Police are appealing for help in tracing the whereabouts of two teenagers, Debbie Clark and Thomas Harris, who did not return home after a cycle ride yesterday evening. Anyone with information…

Bleeding Mullett, jumping the gun. Appeals to the public always brought an abundant crop of false sightings which some poor sod had to follow through. And I’ll be that poor sod, he thought ruefully.

His head jerked up. What was that? It sounded like Jordan calling. He groaned. God, they’d found her. They’d found the girl. He clicked the radio off and flung open the car door. The cry was repeated. But it wasn’t Jordan. It was the squawk of a flaming duck flying overhead. He sank back in his seat in relief. He didn’t want them to find her. He wanted Debbie to be safe and well. But she was dead… He just knew it.

He started to fidget. Sitting, doing nothing, wasn’t his way of working, so he mashed out the cigarette and climbed out of the car.

Another cry. But it wasn’t the duck this time. It was Jordan. ‘Inspector!’ It was the urgent cry of someone who had found something nasty.

The two men were near the far side of the lake, the boat tilting over at an alarming angle as they both leant over one side to try to pull something out of the water. They were in grave danger of capsizing the rowing boat. They were dragging something out of the lake. Not a body. It was a red cycle, which didn’t seem to have been in the water for very long.

Frost’s heart sank. Debbie’s bike was red. It had to be her bike.

For once, he didn’t want his gut feeling to be proved correct. Then he heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t Debbie’s. It was a man’s bike. And the boyfriend’s bike was blue, so it couldn’t be his.

‘Chuck it back,’ he called. ‘It’s a man’s bike… Women’s bikes don’t have bars in case it snags their bloomers.’

‘You’re behind the times, Inspector,’ yelled Jordan. ‘Bikes are unisex now.’

Frost went cold. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’

With a final heave they hauled the dripping bike into the boat. Jordan bent and examined it. ‘Same make and same serial number, Inspector. It’s Debbie Clark’s bike.’

Frost turned his back against the wind and lit up another cigarette. Shit and double shit. He waited impatiently while they rowed across, stepping back as they humped the bike out of the boat and laid it on the grass. He double-checked the serial number, but Jordan was right. He took another look at the murky, icy water. If her bike was there, the girl’s body could be there, caught up in jettisoned debris somewhere – perhaps the boy’s body as well, Why had he been so bloody cocksure in assuring the parents they’d soon be back home again, safe and sound. He shook his head to dispel the morbid thought. They’d found the bike, that was all. Debbie could still be alive and well, shacked up with the boy somewhere, miles away. But that didn’t make sense. Why dump the bike? She’d need it to get home again. And why chuck it in the lake so it wouldn’t be found? No. She had to be in that lake. There was enough evidence now for him to ask Mullett to call the police frogmen in and do a thorough search.

‘Get it over to Forensic,’ he told them. ‘I doubt if any prints have survived submersion, but don’t confuse them by adding your own.’

He pulled the mobile from his pocket and rang Mullett.

‘I’m at Denton Woods, Super. We’ve just fished Debbie Clark’s bike out of the lake. I think her body’s in there. We’re going to have to call the underwater search team in.’

He watched impassively. It was just a matter of time before they dragged the kid’s body up. Her thirteenth bleeding birthday. All her cards waiting to be opened. He dreaded going back to the house and breaking the news. Not many bloody laughs in this job.

The underwater team waded out and plunged under the surface. His heart juddered skipped a beat each time they hauled something up and dumped it in their rowing boat. As the boat filled it was rowed to the shore and its contents dumped. Soon the shore round the lake was littered with retrieved debris, including supermarket trolleys, a DVD player and a video recorder whose serial numbers tallied with goods stolen during an ancient burglary; and a long-dead fox.

Morgan and Jordan, in the small rowing boat, were keeping well out of the way of the frogmen, and were prodding the bottom with a large pole. ‘Over here,’ called Morgan, waving frantically at the frogmen. ‘I think it’s a body…’

‘Don’t let it be,’ pleaded Frost to himself ‘Please, don’t let it be.’

He had to force himself to look as two of the frogmen broke the surface, hauling up a bulging dustbin liner, water streaming from holes in the bottom. With difficulty, Morgan and Jordan got it into the boat and rowed over to where Frost was waiting.

‘Not heavy enough to be a body, Guv,’ reported Morgan.

‘Don’t sound too bleeding disappointed,’ snapped Frost. The sack was tied with string, secured by tight knots. He slashed the string with his penknife, stepping back quickly as evil-smelling lake water belched out. ‘You found it, Taff. To you the honour of looking inside.’

Very gingerly, Morgan slipped his hand inside and pulled out a sodden item of clothing. ‘Men’s trousers, Guv,’ he announced.

‘They’re girls’ slacks, you Welsh git. You’re so busy pulling them down from the scrubbers you go out with, you don’t notice they haven’t got a fly opening.’ But Debbie hadn’t been wearing slacks when she left the previous night, so unless she’d changed somewhere…

Morgan delved inside, again and pulled out more women’s clothes: a sodden yellow sweater, a bra, black tights, and a pair of trainers with half a brick wedged inside to make the plastic sack sink. Frost shook his head. ‘These aren’t Debbie’s clothes.’ He prodded the sodden sweater with his foot, then picked it up to examine it more closely. It was turned inside out as if it had been dragged off over the head. He then held up the bra. The fasteners were hanging by a thread as if the bra had been ripped off. This wasn’t looking too happy. It looked as if the clothes had been forcibly removed.

‘Any other girls reported missing recently, Guv?’ asked Morgan.

‘Girls are always being reported missing,’ grunted Frost. ‘And as far as “recently” goes, these clothes could have been dumped here months ago.’ He dropped the sweater on top of the rest of the clothes. ‘Stuff them back in the sack and let Forensic have a sniff. And when we get back to the station you can go through the records to see if the clothes match the description of any girl reported missing.’

‘Inspector Frost!’

He turned round. One of the underwater team on the far side of the lake was splashing to the shore, holding something aloft in his hand. At first Frost couldn’t make out what it was, then he cursed vehemently. ‘Shit!’