R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

The trip back to the station to collect Morgan’s car took them past Denton Woods and along the road past the house of the other missing girl, Debbie Clark. The lights were still on. The poor mother was probably sitting by the phone, willing it to ring with good news. A black Mercedes Estate roared past them and turned into the drive

‘Hello, that’s Debbie’s father,’ said Frost.

‘What the hell is he doing out at this time of night?’ He looked at his watch. Half past three. The wee small hours of the flaming morning.

Back at the station car park, Frost slid into the driving seat vacated by Morgan and yawned.

‘What time tomorrow, Guv?’ asked Taffy hopefully.

‘You can have a lie-in, Taff,’ said Frost. ‘As long as you’re here, excreting Welsh charm, by nine on the dot. I want you to go straight to Fortress and collect their CCTV tapes.’ He looked again at the photo of ponytailed Jan O’Brien. ‘And if Jan hasn’t phoned her mum to say she’s safe and sexually satisfied, we’re going to have to make an early start with that one.’ He screwed up his face and slowly shook his head from side to side. ‘But somehow, Taff, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’ve got one of my nasty feelings… the same sort of feeling I had when they dumped you on us. “This Welsh git’s going to be a real right prat,” I said, and I was right.’

Morgan grinned. ‘You know you really love me, Guv.’

‘Only because it’s great to have someone who’s a bigger prat than me,’ said Frost. ‘I didn’t think it possible. Anyway, pleasant dreams.’

‘Pleasant dreams, Guv,’ echoed Taff, walking over to his car.

As Frost turned the key in the ignition, his mobile rang. It was Lambert from Control again.

‘That call from the drunk – I sent Evans and Howe out in the area car to check. They’ve found Jan O’Brien’s mobile phone.’

‘Where?’ asked Frost.

‘In the gutter, just outside the car park – where the drunk said he heard someone screaming.’

‘Excrement!’ Frost drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and shook his head vigorously to wake himself up. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning. A bit flaming late to do much. If the parents hadn’t reported the girl’s return first thing in the morning, he’d make media appeals for the drunk to contact Denton police. At the moment they had sod all to go on. And it was too late to check her girlfriend to find out what time Jan actually left. If the drunk heard her around midnight she either left her friend’s house much later than stated, or she went somewhere else first…

‘Are you still there, Inspector?’ asked Lambert.

‘Yes… sorry… I was thinking. The mobile phone – it’s probably been mauled about enough already, but don’t let anyone else touch it without gloves. I want it checked for prints. If she was attacked, she might have tried to use the phone and the bloke snatched it from her and chucked it. If our luck’s in for a change, it could have his dabs.’

‘Right, Inspector. Anything else?’

There was something else, but what the hell was it? He lit up a cigarette he didn’t want to help him think. ‘Yes. Check with the mobile phone company. I want to know all the calls she made on it tonight.’

‘The parents?’

‘We tell the parents sod all at this stage. If the kid hasn’t turned up by morning, then I’ll speak to them.’

‘Right. Is that all, Inspector?’

Frost yawned. ‘That’s all I can think of.’ He snatched the cigarette from his mouth and hurled it out of the car window. ‘I don’t want anymore calls. Not unless it’s a regicide or something funny like Mullett topping himself.’

‘OK, Inspector. Good night.’

‘Good night,’ said Frost. He fired the engine and headed for home.

The ringing woke him, slowly dragging him by the scruff of his neck out of a deep sleep and shaking him back to semi-consciousness.

Frost opened his eyes. It was still pitch dark and the ringing was boring into his ears. What bleeding time was it? He fumbled for the alarm clock on the bedside cabinet and succeeded in sending it crashing to the floor. The ringing went on.

Cursing, he climbed out of bed and snatched up the sodding alarm, bringing it up close to his sleep-fuddled eyes, trying to make out the time. Six flaming past seven on a dark and freezing- cold morning. He’d had barely two hours’ sleep. And why was the flaming thing ringing? He was sure he hadn’t set it before flopping into the unmade bed last night. He tried to switch it off, but the ringing didn’t stop – it was the downstairs phone in the hall. Shit! Phone calls at this hour of the morning were always bad news.

He padded in his bare feet across the cold lino and went to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. He shivered as he headed downstairs. The central heating hadn’t fired up yet and he was still in his pyjamas and a draught roared under the front door. He picked up the phone and basked for a few seconds in the resulting non-ringing silence.

‘Frost,’ he growled.

‘Jack,’ said Sergeant Wells. ‘The mother’s been on the blower. Her daughter hasn’t returned home.’

What mother? What daughter? His sleep wasn’t functioning properly. Then he remembered, and suddenly he was fully awake. Jan O’Brien. The teenager who hadn’t come home. The teenager whose mobile phone was found near the spot where the drunk claimed he heard a girl screaming. He knew this was going to be a bad one. He just knew it. ‘Shit!’ he hissed.

‘Sorry?’ asked Wells, not hearing.

‘I said I’ll be right over.’

In fifteen minutes he had washed, dressed and shaved and was on his second cigarette of the day. His hand was turning the front-door latch when he paused, suddenly dreading having to face Mrs O’Brien, telling her about the reported screams the finding of the phone. But sod this bleeding-pity This was one of the joys of the bloody job, just one step down from the joy of having to tell a mother they’d found her child body: a task he’d performed time without number since he joined the force. And it got worse, not easier.

It was as bad as he feared. The mother was hysterical and screaming, the father angry and belligerent, wanting to know why they hadn’t been told all this last night, as if it would have eased their pain one iota.

‘You will find her, won’t you?’ pleaded Mrs O’Brien.

'We’ll find her,’ Frost assured her, the same hollow words he always used. ‘Don’t worry love. We’ll find her.’

Back in the car, he tuned in to Denton FM, the local radio, as he drove back to the station.

Denton Police are anxious to contact the person who phoned them last night reporting hearing screams in the vicinity of the multi-storey car park…

He hoped the sod hadn’t been too flaming drunk to remember what he had heard.

Jordan was waiting for him as he pushed open the door of his office. ‘We’ve been round to that girl Kathy, Inspector.’

Frost frowned. ‘Who the hell is Kathy?’

‘Jan O’Brien’s friend – the girl she was with last night. She lied to Jan’s mother – didn’t want to get Jan into trouble. Jan was still there when the mother phoned and didn’t leave to go home until nearly midnight.’

‘Kathy lives at Moorland Avenue, doesn’t she?’

‘That’s right, Inspector.’

Frost spun round in his chair to check the wall map and jabbed a finger on Moorland Avenue. ‘So that could put her smack in the vicinity of the multi-storey when our friendly neighbourhood drunk heard the screams.’

Jordan nodded. ‘Yes, Inspector.’

‘Right,’ said Frost, ramming a cigarette in his mouth. ‘Then we need that bloody drunk.’ His hand was hovering over the phone, ready to call Bill Wells, when the station sergeant came in and forestalled him.