R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘Frost… What?… Bloody what?’ He collapsed back in his chair. ‘Then how the flaming hell…?’ He glanced up at the wall clock. ‘Shit! Thanks for telling me.’ He clicked off the phone and rammed it back in his pocket. ‘Tomorrow isn’t another bleeding day. It’s tomorrow already. The bastard’s withdrawn another five hundred quid.’

‘I thought he couldn’t withdraw more than five hundred a day,’ said Jordan.

‘He can’t. But it’s gone midnight. It’s tomorrow. He’s a cleverer bastard than I thought. Still, he can’t take out anymore until Wednesday, so we’ve tomorrow night off. And now we know what time he usually makes withdrawals, we can concentrate our efforts.’

‘Providing he follows the same pattern,’ said Jordan.

‘Oh, he must,’ yawned Frost. ‘He knows I’m relying on him.’ He turned to Morgan. ‘Don’t they have CCTV cameras covering those cashpoints?’

‘On some, Guv, not all.’

‘Then let’s hope this is one of them. First thing tomorrow – or today, rather – nip down to the building society and use your slimy Welsh charm to get hold of the tape.’ He tipped the contents of his ashtray into the waste-paper bin. ‘Let’s go home.’

They didn’t make it. As he reached the door, his phone rang again. It was Lambert from Control.

‘Another girl’s gone missing, Inspector. Jan O’Brien, thirteen years old.’

‘Shit!’ said Frost.

‘May have nothing to do with it, Inspector, but at 23.52 we had a phone call from a man using the public phone box in the town square. He sounded drunk, but insisted he had just heard a girl screaming round the back of the multi-storey car park – where that other girl was raped. He hung up without giving any more. I sent an area car round there, they’re touring the area, but there’s no sign of anything yet.’

‘Double shit,’ said Frost.

‘She hasn’t gone missing, you stupid cow,’ yelled the man.

‘How can you be so bloody complacent?’ shrieked his wife. ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning. She left Kathy’s house at ten o’clock – that’s four hours ago. She should be here by now.’

‘She’s been late before.’

‘Not this bloody late, she hasn’t.’ Frost, sitting between the couple in their tiny dining room, his head moving from side to side like the audience at a tennis match, raised a weary hand. ‘Shut it, you two. Let’s have a few facts.’

‘You give him the bloody facts,’ snarled the man to his wife. ‘You brought the bleeding police in. When she comes waltzing back and saying she’s sorry, we’ll be a bloody laughing stock.’

‘I’d rather be a bloody laughing stock than the mother of a raped and murdered girl.’

‘Rape? That little madam is more likely to rape the boy. She comes and goes as she damn well pleases and does what she likes. If you want to make a fool of yourself to the police, good luck – count me out!’ With a slam of the door he was gone, only, to reappear almost immediately to shake a finger at his wife. ‘Tell that copper how many other times she’s come in late when I’ve been tramping the flaming streets looking for her. “Sorry, Dad, I should have phoned.” Little cow! And what about the time she didn’t come home until the next afternoon? Tell him that. I’m going to bed.’ The door slammed behind him again, making Taffy Morgan, who was nearly asleep in the chair next to Frost, open his eyes with a start.

Mrs O’Brien jumped up, opened the door and yelled up the stairs, ‘Good riddance, you bastard!’ The bedroom door slammed.

Frost, whose head had started to throb, winced at each door slam and lit up another cigarette. ‘Perhaps ‘we could have a few details, Mrs O’Brien. You’ve checked with her friends?’

‘Yes. She left Kathy’s house at ten o’clock. No one has seen her since.’

‘Your husband suggested this isn’t the first time Jan has been out very late?’

‘That was last year. She hasn’t done it since. I had a talk with her and she promised she would always let me know if she was going to be delayed.’ She wiped her eyes and sniffed. ‘Something’s happened to her, I know it has.’

‘And the time she stayed out all night?’ Frost asked.

‘An all-night party at her friend’s house. She said she’d be back by eleven, without fail. We gave her the money for a cab. The next morning her bed hadn’t been slept in. Sid raised the flaming roof. She was still round at her friend’s. She said she phoned for a cab, but it never came, so she thought it was safer to stay the night.’

Frost sucked down a lungful of smoke as he absorbed this. ‘Your husband suggested she was sexually precocious.’

‘She’s physically developed for her age. But that’s not her fault, is it? And she puts on make-up when she goes out with her friends and wears tight T-shirts, but all kids do that. Sid says she’s a tart, but she’s not. She’s a little innocent. Don’t you think I know my own daughter?’

Frost nodded, as if in agreement, and studied the photograph of the ponytailed Jan given to him by her mother. The kid looked like a right little goer to him. ‘Has she got a mobile phone?’

‘We’ve tried it. It’s switched off. She always leaves it on.’

‘Have you checked her room to see if she’s left a note, or taken any clothes or anything?’

She jumped up. ‘No. I’ll do it now.’

‘We’ll come with you,’ said Frost, nudging Taffy Morgan awake and following her up the stairs.

A typical young girl’s bedroom. Pop posters, a hi-fl with twin speakers and a fourteen-inch TV. A single bed, unmade, pyjamas and school clothes on the floor, and a chest of drawers with two of the drawers pulled out. ‘She’s so untidy,’ said Mrs O’Brien, picking the pyjamas up, folding them and laying them on the bed. She opened the wardrobe and riffled through the clothes swinging on their hangers. ‘All her things seem to be here.’ She looked around the room. ‘And no sign of a note.’

‘Does she have a bank book?’

Mrs O’Brien opened a drawer, rummaged around and pulled out the bank book.

Frost nodded gloomily. It was too much to expect that this would be a nice, simple run-away-from-home, with missing clothes and a note on the mantelpiece. ‘She’s probably with a friend,’ he said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘I’ll get our patrol cars to keep a look-out for her, and if she hasn’t come home by tomorrow, we’ll start a full-scale search. But my bet is she’ll be back full of apologies.’ Some flaming bet! he told himself. ‘Try not to worry.’ Empty bleeding words. ‘You said she had gone round her friend Kathy’s house. Where does Kathy live?’

‘Moorland Avenue.’

Shit, thought Frost. Jan would have had to go round the back of the multi-storey car park, where we got that report of a girl screaming. But what credence could you put on it? A bloody drunk phoning! Let’s hope and pray the kid’s home by morning. He looked round for Taffy Morgan, who was studying a photo of the girl in a skimpy swimsuit. He took it from him and jerked his head. ‘We’re going

… and you’re dribbling.’ He turned to the mother. ‘If your daughter comes back, phone the station – but I’ll be sending someone round tomorrow anyway.’

She saw them out and stood at the open door watching until the car drove away and disappeared round the corner.

‘What do you reckon, Guv?’ asked Taffy.

‘I reckon you ask too many stupid bleeding questions,’ said Frost. Another thirteen-year-old girl was missing. Anything or nothing could have happened to her. But he was worried. Bloody worried. There was a rapist on the loose. The kid was sexually precocious, the sort of girl who’d attract the wrong sort of dirty bastard and Denton was full of dirty bastards. Yes, he was I worried.