R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘This is preposterous,’ spluttered Alman, trying to head them off. ‘I’m a lay preacher. I’m about to hold a Bible class.’ When he realised that Frost was ignoring him, he raised his voice almost to a shout. ‘It’s the police, with a warrant to search the house.’

From a room at the far end of the hail came a thud of footsteps, then a lock clicked as someone inside turned the key. Frost rattled the handle. It didn’t budge. He turned to Alman. ‘It seems to have suddenly locked itself from the inside. Do you have a key?’

Alman made a pretence of trying the handle. ‘Oh dear. It often does that – the wind slams it shut and the lock clicks. I’m afraid I haven’t got a key – but there’s nothing in there.’

‘Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling the truth?’ asked Frost. He stepped back and nodded to Morgan. ‘Kick it in.’

Alman moved in front of the DC. ‘You’ve no right to do this!’ he shouted.

‘Then I’m exceeding my authority’ snapped Frost, pushing him out of the way. ‘Give it some boot, Taff.’

Morgan swung an ineffectual kick at the hinge side of the door, then leapt back, clutching his leg in pain.

‘Prat!’ hissed Frost, kicking hard just under the lock. There was a splintering of wood and the door crashed open.

They plunged into the room, where a semicircle of empty chairs faced a computer. Debbie Clark’s father was bent over the keyboard. On the screen, lists of names were rapidly vanishing. Harry Edwards pushed past Frost and clicked the computer off.

Clark shot a smug, knowing nod to Alman. ‘I don’t know how I did it,’ he said, trying to sound apologetic, ‘but I think I’ve accidentally erased everything on the hard drive. I’m terribly sorry.’

‘These things happen,’ said Alman. He stepped back and waved an expansive hand at Frost. ‘If you’d like to search this room, Inspector

…’

Frost groaned inwardly and turned appealingly to Edwards, who beamed back a reassuring smile.

‘It’s a lot harder to delete things on a computer than one would think,’ said Edwards, sitting down and switching the computer back on. He frowned impatiently at the monitor as the computer seemed to be taking forever to boot up. ‘Come on, come on,’ he urged. At last the ‘Welcome’ screen appeared, but repeated clicking of the mouse brought nothing else up.

‘You need the password,’ Alman told him. ‘But in all this excitement and upset, I’m afraid I’ve completely forgotten it.’

‘No need to apologise,’ said Edwards. ‘Nearly everyone seems to forget their password when I’m around. Now let’s see if we can jog its memory and make everyone happy.’ His fingers blurred over the keyboard as Frost held his breath. Lines of text flashed across the screen, only to vanish and be replaced by more text. Frost hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on, but hoped Edwards did. It was taking so long, he was beginning to lose hope. Alman seemed to be sighing with relief, but his optimism was short-lived.

At last Edwards stopped, and pushed the chair back from the screen. ‘I’ve got it all back, ‘Inspector,’ he announced.

‘What do you want – applause?’ grunted Frost. ‘If you’ve got it, let’s flaming well see it.’

Edwards slid the mouse across its pad and clicked away. The screen rapidly filled up with postage-stamp-sized coloured images with text underneath, all too small for Frost to make out what they were. One small picture was selected, a magnifying-glass icon was clicked and the image filled the screen.

Frost screwed up his face in disgust at the photograph of a naked, hairy man forcing a naked child of no more than seven or eight on to a bed. The child was terrified and tearful.

Frost swung round to Alman in disgust. ‘So what’s your text for today, Father Alman? “Suffer the little children to come unto me”?’

Alman flushed deep red, but said nothing. Clark, pretending to be disinterested, was edging towards the door.

‘That’s one of the milder ones,’ Edwards told him. ‘Take a look at this.’ He brought up another image.

‘Leave it,’ cried Frost. ‘It might give these two bastards a sexual thrill, but I’m ready to throw up. I’ve seen enough.’ He turned to Alman. ‘You, sunshine, are under arrest.’

Clark cleared his throat. ‘Look, Inspector, this has got nothing to do with me. I just popped in to visit a friend. I know nothing about these images, so if you will excuse me…’ He scooped up his briefcase and moved towards the door, but Frost blocked his path and held out a hand. ‘I’d like to see what you have in your briefcase, Mr Clark, if you don’t mind.’

‘I’m afraid I do mind, Inspector,’ said Clark. ‘This has absolutely nothing to do with me. I came here for a Bible class. I had no idea Alman was involved in anything like this. You may have a search warrant to search this house, but not the property of innocent people who are only visiting.’

‘I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong,’ Frost told him. ‘The search warrant covers everyone and everything that happens to be in the house at the time.’ He spoke with all the conviction he could muster, but wasn’t sure of the facts himself and hoped he was right. The bleeding law was so tricky, but he didn’t have time to mug it up. Again he extended his hand. ‘Your briefcase, please.’

With a snarl, Clark hurled the briefcase at Frost and looked away as if isolating himself from its contents. Frost opened it. Inside was a laptop computer.

‘I wonder what we’re going to find on here?’ beamed Frost. ‘I’m all agog.’ He passed the lap top over to Edwards.

The computer man cleared a small table of papers and positioned the laptop. He opened the lid, pressed some keys and little coloured lights flashed. It took less time to boot up than the desktop model. He stroked the touchpad, clicked on an icon and the screen filled with thumbnail images similar to those on the desk top. He enlarged one. Another small child being abused.

Frost waved an agitated hand in disgust. ‘Switch the bleeding thing off.’ He turned to the two men. ‘Well, well, well. Two dirty bastards for the price of one. No Bible class for you, I’m afraid, Mr Clark – I’m arresting you as well. I hope your friends in high places won’t get too upset.’

Alman shook off Morgan’s hand. ‘This is outrageous! We’ve done no harm. These were bought for our private and personal use. Think we are perverted if you like, but we have harmed no one.’

Frost jabbed a finger at the desktop computer. ‘Done no harm? If bastards like you weren’t prepared to pay through the nose for this filth, bastards like that hairy sod wouldn’t be putting kids through such torment.’

The doorbell rang. Alman and Clark exchanged worried glances. Frost twitched the curtain and looked out. A thin, middle-aged man clutching a laptop-sized briefcase was waiting on the doorstep. ‘Another student for the Bible class,’ said Frost. ‘Show the gentleman in, Taff.’ He peeked through the curtains again. Another car pulled up outside and another man, also holding a briefcase, got out and made for the house.

Frost beamed with delight. ‘This is like shooting fish in a barrel. I’ll have to get some more back-up. I think this is going to be our lucky day.’

Sergeant Wells slammed the cell door shut and turned the key. ‘We’re going to run out of cells at this rate, Jack,’ he moaned.

‘The price you have to pay for my brilliant success,’ said Frost. ‘Five of the bastards. All we had to do was wait for them to ring the doorbell and then run them in.’

‘Inspector Frost!’ Clark was calling from the end cell. ‘Can I have a word?’

Wells unlocked the door and Frost went in. Clark was sitting on the bed, looked deflated and dejected.