R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

Frost groaned. ‘Don’t tell me some more has turned up.’

‘No. Got a customer for you, Jack. He wants to give himself up. He used to be a butcher. He reckons he killed his wife and cut her up in little pieces.’

Frost stared at Wells, who didn’t seem to be joking. ‘Tell him to come back tomorrow, we’re too shagged out tonight for confessions.’

‘I’ve put him in Interview Room Number One,’ said Wells.

‘You’re no fun any more,’ said Frost, pushing himself up off the desk and scooping up his pack of cigarettes.

He followed Wells to the Interview Room.

The man didn’t look anything like a typical butcher should. Far from being a fat, jolly, rosy cheeked man in a striped apron and straw hat, he was thin and pale and in his late forties. Sitting hunched up at the table, he leapt to his feet when Frost and Wells came in.

Frost waved him down. ‘Please sit down, Mr…?’ He glanced at the report sheet Wells had filled in, which told him the man was Albert Lewis of 23 Victoria Street, Denton. ‘Sit down, Mr Lewis.’ Frost stared at the man, who looked vaguely familiar. He riffled through the disorganised filing cabinet of his memory, but details eluded him. ‘Have we met before, Mr Lewis?’

Lewis shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

You’re lying, you bastard, thought Frost. He excused himself and went out to the main desk where PC Collier was standing in for Wells. ‘Check the computer, son. See if you can get anything on a Mr Albert Lewis, 23 Victoria Street, Denton. I’m in Interview Room Number One.’

Back with Lewis, he shook a cigarette from the packet and stuck it in his mouth.

‘Please don’t smoke,’ said Lewis. ‘It’s a filthy habit. It spreads germs. Germs kill.’

Frost groaned inwardly. This was going to be a bundle of laughs. You’d better have murdered your wife, mate, he said to himself. I hope I’m not sitting here fagless for one of those nutters who like to confess to all manner of crimes to get a bit of attention. Lewis looked as if he lacked attention.

He stuck the cigarette back in its packet. ‘I understand you’re a butcher, Mr Lewis?’

‘I was. Not now.’

‘Oh?’

‘For over twenty years I had a small shop in Ruckley Street. Quality meat. Good prices. People came from miles around. Then the bloody supermarkets started undercutting. I lost all my customers. I could barely scrape a living… couldn’t pay the rent. I was evicted.’

‘Sorry to hear that,’ sympathised Frost. ‘When was this?’

‘Six – nine months ago. I didn’t come here to talk about my shop.’

‘Of course not. My sergeant tells me you’ve murdered your wife?’

‘Yes,’ said Lewis flatly, as if it was of minor interest.

Frost waited for details, but none came. ‘And cut her up in little pieces?’

‘Yes.’

‘And when did this happen?’

Lewis wiped a hand over his face. ‘I don’t know – a week ago? I can’t remember.’

‘Not the sort of everyday incident that usually slips the mind,’ suggested Frost, casting a despairing glance at Wells.

‘We quarrelled. I lost my temper. I killed her.’

‘What was the quarrel about?’

‘I can’t remember.’

There was a tap at the door and PC Collier came in with a computer printout. Frost skimmed through it and nodded his thanks. He turned back to Lewis. ‘A quarrel so serious you killed her, but you don’t remember it?’

Lewis stared blankly at the inspector. ‘That’s right.’

Frost yawned. This was all a bleeding waste of time; he was dying for a cigarette and the chance to get his head down. ‘But you definitely remember killing her? Can you give me the odd detail?’

Lewis stared into space for a while before replying. ‘Something snapped. We were in the kitchen. There was a rolling pin. I must have hit her and hit her. I don’t remember doing it. There was screaming and suddenly there was silence and she was on the floor and there was blood all over her and blood on the rolling pin and blood on me. I couldn’t believe I’d killed her.’

‘You were sure she was dead?’

Lewis nodded slowly. ‘Oh yes. Her skull was smashed. There was blood and brains…’

‘Then what?’

‘I dragged her body to the bathroom and managed to get her into the bath.’

‘Why did you do that?’

Lewis screwed up his face as if in pain and shook his head to ease the memory. ‘I had to dispose of the body. I had to cut her up.’

‘You cut her up?’ echoed Frost.

‘I managed to undress her, then I got some sharp knives and a bone-saw. I used to be a butcher. I still had my tools. I sawed off her arms, then her legs… then her head.’ Again he shuddered and winced at the memory. ‘I can still hear the sound of the saw going through her bones.’

Frost winced too. It dragged back the memory of the post-mortem on the two kids. ‘Right. So you cut her up into bite-sized chunks. Then what?’

‘I turned on the bath taps to flush away the blood. I put her remains in two plastic dustbin sacks and I disposed of them.’

‘Where?’

Lewis dropped his head. ‘I don’t remember.’

Frost yawned again. ‘I wonder how I guessed you were going to say that.’

‘I said it because I don’t remember,’ retorted Lewis.

‘You don’t remember, Mr Lewis, because it never bloody well happened, did it? You’re making all this up, aren’t you?’

Lewis blinked rapidly in astonishment. ‘What are you talking about? I’m telling you, I killed my wife.’

‘The only crime you’ve committed is wasting police time,’ Frost told him. He waved the computer printout. ‘I thought I remembered you. Last year you came in here and said you’d murdered your wife. You said you’d strangled her with the flex from the electric iron.’

‘And you didn’t believe me.’

‘I believed you – right until we went round to your house and your wife opened the door to us. Even someone as thick as me could work out that she wasn’t dead then.’

‘I was on medication then. I had depression after losing my business. I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s all different now. I really I killed her. I’ll show you.’ He plunged his hands under the table and brought up a plastic shopping bag. Shit, thought Frost, recoiling. I hope the sod hasn’t brought her bleeding head to show us.

Lewis upturned the bag and shook it. A large meat cleaver thudded on to the table. ‘That’s what I used.’

Frost picked it up and ran his thumb along the cutting edge. It was razor sharp – definitely sharp enough to sever a head from a body. He moved it well away from Lewis. ‘I can’t see any blood on it.’

‘I washed everything in the dishwasher, even the bone-saw’

‘Tell you what,’ smiled Frost. ‘Why don’t we all go back to your house and take a look around. If your wife is there she can make us all a nice cup of tea.’

Lewis’s house was a one-bedroomed bungalow down a quiet side street. Morgan parked the car outside and they pushed open the iron gate and scrunched up the gravel path to the front door. Lewis fumbled in his pocket and brought out a bunch of keys. He opened the front door, then stepped back.

‘I don’t want to go in,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ said Frost, gripping him by the arm and pushing him inside. ‘I’m afraid I must insist.’

They stepped into a small hallway with a phone on a side table against the wall. Frost shivered. There was a distinctly, hostile, unwelcoming atmosphere to the place. Everything was clean and cold to the point of sterility and reeked of furniture polish and pine disinfectant ‘Mrs Lewis,’ he called. ‘Are you there?’

No answer. The house screamed emptiness.