R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘You think you’re so bloody funny, don’t you?’ snarled Skinner.

‘I’m my greatest fan,’ said Frost.

As he closed the door behind him, Frost paused. Identification of the bodies. Shit. Who the hell should he get for the girl? The mother was in no fit state and the father was banged up on paedophile charges. Sod it. It would have to be the father. Well, no point in delaying telling him his daughter was dead. But even though there was no point in delaying, he lit up another cigarette and sucked hard on it, before summoning up the resolve to break the news.

The cigarette dangling from his mouth, he looked into the Incident Room where Harry Edwards, the computer man, was printing out the downloaded photographs of child pornography recovered from the various houses of the prisoners. He looked up as Frost came in and shook his head in disgust. ‘I don’t know how much more of this I can take, Inspector. I’ve got kids of my own.’

Frost nodded sympathetically and idly picked up one of the printouts. It showed a young girl of around four or five, wearing only a vest, seated on a chair with her legs parted.

‘How can anyone get a kick out of looking at an innocent kid like that?’ asked Edwards bitterly.

Frost nodded. He was about to toss the photograph back on the pile when, he paused and looked closer. Behind the child was a window with nursery-rhyme curtains. The curtains were open and the garden outside could be seen clearly. He had looked through that same window on to that same garden only two days ago. The nursery was now Debbie Clark’s room. The four-year-old was her.

‘They’ve all got one of those photos on their laptops,’ said Edwards, noticing Frost’s interest.

The bastard! seethed Frost to himself. Drooling over his own four-year-old daughter with the rest of those dirty sods. ‘I’ll borrow this,’ he said, stuffing it into his pocket.

Clark, who had been sitting hunched up on his bunk, jumped up angrily as Frost came into the cell. ‘When am I going to be let out of here?’ he demanded.

‘Depends on whether the magistrate grants you bail,’ Frost told him, his hand closing on the photograph in his pocket. Not perhaps the time to bring it out. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news for you, Mr Clark.’

‘Bad news?’ shouted Clark, still angry. ‘I…’ He stopped and the colour seeped from his face. ‘You mean…?’ He forced himself to say it. ‘Debbie?’

Frost nodded. He’d lost count of the number of times he had had to break news like this, but it never got any easier. ‘We’ve found a body.’

Clark just stared, his mouth gaping open, then he began to shake his head vigorously. ‘No… no… Please… no…’

‘We’re pretty certain it’s Debbie, I’m afraid, but we need formal identification. Do you feel up to it?’

Clark collapsed on to the bunk, covering his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking. ‘This will kill my wife.’

‘Would you break the news to her?’ asked Frost hopefully. Please, he silently pleaded. It was an ordeal he didn’t want to have to go through.

Clark’s head shake was emphatic. ‘She hates me. She’ll blame me

… I couldn’t…’

Shit! thought Frost. That bastard Skinner…

Clark raised a tear-stained face. ‘How did she die?’

Again Frost’s hand touched the print in his pocket. Were these crocodile tears? Did you get the other dirty bastards to give you an alibi for the night she went missing? Did you kill your own daughter for fear she would tell people what you had been doing to her, and then the boy to keep his mouth shut? ‘We believe she was strangled. There will be a post mortem.’ He didn’t want to disclose any other details at this stage. There was always a chance that Clark might blurt out something he shouldn’t know about. Frost wound his scarf around his neck. ‘So if you’re ready, Mr Clark…?’

He went to the cell door and yelled for Bill Wells to let them out.

The mortuary attendant, with skill born of much practice, surreptitiously parked his chewing gum under the desktop and slid his dog-eared copy of Playboy under some papers before opening the door to Frost and Clark.

They followed him through to the refrigerated section. He pulled open a newly labelled drawer, folded back the covering sheet and stepped respectfully back.

Clark steeled himself to look. He stared, bit his lip and shuddered, then nodded.

‘Debbie?’ whispered Frost.

Again Clark nodded. ‘Yes.’ He moved his hands to caress the face.

‘Don’t touch her,’ yelled Frost, making the father start and jerk back. If this bastard had indeed killed his daughter, he didn’t want evidence on the body to be jeopardised because Clark had mauled her. ‘Don’t touch her,’ repeated Frost, more gently, but more firmly.

‘I can’t touch my own daughter?’

‘Not at this stage,’ said Frost, pulling him back and nodding for the attendant to close the drawer. He shivered at the burst of refrigerated air that was expelled as the drawer slid home.

Clark straightened up and shook Frost’s hand off. ‘Who did this? Who did this to my little girl?’

Frost stared back at him, hoping to see some vestige of guilt, but Clark wouldn’t meet his gaze. ‘We’ll get the bastard who did this, Mr Clark,’ said Frost emphatically. ‘I promise you. We’ll get the bastard, whoever he may be.’ The print in his mac pocket crackled. What should be his next Skinner-donated treat – to confront Clark with the photograph or break the news to the girl’s mother? Breaking the news to the mother would be the greater hell, so he decided to get the worst over first.

Frost had taken Clark back to his cell and had been sitting outside the house for nearly half an hour, smoking cigarette after cigarette, trying to pluck up the courage to walk up that drive and knock on the door. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Clark… I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Clark…’ He kept muttering the words to himself as if repetition would make them come out any easier. He had brought WPC Kate Holby with him, but was not setting her a good example. She sensed his anxiety and sat in the seat next to him, saying nothing. ‘You never bloody get used to it,’ said Frost. ‘Sod it. It has to be done, so let’s sodding well do it.’ He snatched the cigarette from his mouth, crushed it and stepped out of the car. ‘Here we go then. Over the bleeding top.’

It was even worse than he had feared. She screamed, she cried, she became hysterical, pounding him with her fists. Then she insisted on being taken to the mortuary to see the body, and when she saw it, her grief was uncontrollable and her body-racking sobs and screams echoed round the empty building. Enough to wake the bleeding dead, thought Frost. He could see that Kate Holby was even more shattered than he was and wished he hadn’t asked her to accompany him, but the poor cow had to get used to the joys of policing in case she thought it was all bleeding fun and games. He tried to catch her eye, then decided a reassuring smile would be out of place. He felt so shattered, he wanted to get outside, away from the piercing screams that were drilling holes through his skull.

Mrs Clark’s tears were now splashing down on the cold, white face of her daughter. Frost decided enough was enough. He put his arm around her and drew her back, motioning for the mortuary attendant to cover the face and close the drawer. ‘Come on, love,’ he soothed. ‘Let’s get you home.’

Angrily she shook his arm away. ‘He killed her. That perverted bastard of a husband of mine killed her… his own daughter…’

‘If he did, we’ll get him,’ said Frost.

‘If?’ she screamed. ‘What do you mean, if? Of course he did it. He lusted after her. He took photographs…’