R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘She can’t answer you,’ said Lewis. ‘She’s dead.’

A door to the right took them into the lounge, a prim and proper room with an uncomfortable-looking brown three-piece suite, and a long-unused coal fireplace with a gleaming brass fender and a beige, marble-tiled surround. At the side of the fireplace stood an old sixteen-inch television set. Frost imagined Lewis and his wife sitting stiffly side by side, frowning disapprovingly at the images on the tiny TV.

There was a photograph on the mantelpiece: A small boy sat grinning in a toy pedal car. Standing beside the boy, looking down proudly, was a younger version of Lewis, every inch the happy father, Frost picked up the photograph to examine it more closely. ‘Your son, Mr Lewis?’

Lewis snatched it from Frost and clutched it tightly to his chest. ‘Matthew,’ he whispered. ‘Little Matthew. He died… five years old… meningitis.’

‘I’m sorry,’ mumbled Frost, completely wrong-footed.

‘Are you?’ asked Lewis tonelessly, taking a long look at the photo before wiping Frost’s fingerprints from the glass with a spotlessly clean handkerchief and carefully replacing it in the exact spot from where Frost had removed it. ‘Please don’t touch any photographs. Especially those of my son.’

‘Where’s the kitchen?’ asked Frost.

Without a word, Lewis steered them through another door, which led to the dining room with its dark oak table, two chairs and sideboard. A door from this room took them into a small kitchen with an imitation-pine laminated floor, gleaming grey plastic worktops and a strong smell of bleach. Frost thought of Sadie’s kitchen with its sinkful of dirty dishes and soiled washing everywhere – but even hers was more welcoming than this sterile cubicle.

‘So this is where it all happened?’ asked Frost.

‘Yes,’ said Lewis, wiping an offending speck of dirt off the worktop with his handkerchief. ‘Germs get everywhere,’ he muttered. ‘They breed.’

‘Dirty little sods,’ said Frost. ‘But back to your wife…’

‘She was standing here when I hit her. She fell to the floor there.’ He pointed.

‘I see,’ said Frost, who was dying for a cigarette, but knew there was no chance of having one in this operating theatre of a kitchen. ‘So where is the bathroom?’

Lewis opened a door to the passage. A door to the left opened on to a small bathroom, tiled from floor to ceiling with blue and white tiles, reminding Frost appropriately, of a butcher’s shop. The white bath glimmered, the plughole gleamed, as did the taps.

‘What did you do with her clothes?’

‘I burnt them.’

‘You must have got blood all over yourself and your own clothes?’

‘Yes. I had to burn my clothes as well, then I bathed and bathed and scrubbed and bathed.’

Frost scratched his chin. ‘Right. Now we come to the crunch. What did you do with all the bits?’

‘I took them to the car. It was night. No one could see me. I drove around and threw them away.’

‘Where?’

Lewis shook his head ‘I don’t remember. I keep trying to remember. That night was just like a bad dream.’

‘Where’s your bedroom?’ Frost asked. ‘If your wife is fast asleep in there your bad dream could have a happy ending.’

Lewis pointed. ‘First door on the left.’ He leant over and turned on the cold tap, watching the water splash and gurgle down the plughole. Frost pulled his hand away and turned the tap off. ‘Just in case you’re telling us the truth, Mr Lewis, don’t touch anything!’

There were two single beds in the bedroom, their sheets crisp and blindingly white like those in a hospital ward. Folded candy-striped pyjamas lay on the pillow of one, nothing on the other. Frost opened the wardrobe door: men’s clothes on one side, women’s on the other, all strictly segregated. Frost closed the door. What was he expecting to find – the wife’s body swinging from a coat-hanger?

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

‘I don’t know,’ said Frost. ‘This whole place is so bleeding clean it gives me the creeps. You feel you want to break wind just to give the place a homely atmosphere.’

They returned to the bathroom, where Lewis had just finished blotting offending drops of cold water from the bath. ‘I’ve just remembered something, Inspector. I think I buried the head in Denton Woods. I might be able to recognise the spot if you drove me there.’

‘It’s far too late for those larks, and it’s peeing with rain,’ Frost told him. ‘We’ll have a look tomorrow when we’re all a bit more alert.’

‘What’s going to happen to me?’ asked Lewis plaintively. ‘I’m not staying here.’

‘We’ll find you a nice warm cell for tonight,’ said Frost, ‘then give your place a thorough going-over in the morning.’

‘Find the gentleman a cell,’ called Frost to Wells. ‘Suspicion of murder.’

‘I’ve only got one vacancy,’ said Wells, leading them to the cells. ‘Bookings have been heavy tonight.’ He opened the door to a small cell with a bunk bed.

‘Here you are, Mr Lewis,’ said Frost. ‘No single supplement. If you want anything, just yell and my sergeant here will tell you to shut up.’

Lewis looked around him with distaste. ‘Could I have a mop, a bucket of hot water and some disinfectant, please? This place is full of germs.’

‘Our germs won’t hurt you,’ said Wells.

Lewis looked pityingly at the sergeant, who obviously didn’t understand. ‘Germs kill. They killed my son… my five-year-old son.’

‘Give them to him,’ said Frost.

‘Do you really think he’s killed his wife?’ asked Wells.

Frost sucked deeply at his cigarette and expelled a lungful of smoke. ‘It’s anyone’s guess at this stage. He’s capable of doing it. The poor sod is obviously mentally disturbed. He lost his kid, then his business – more than enough to push him over the edge. And if you wanted to kill someone and cut them up, you couldn’t find a more suitable place than that abattoir of a house. But a couple of things niggle. He says he can’t remember where he dumped the pieces, which I find bloody strange, because he remembers lots of other details. ‘And

…’ He scratched his chin. ‘This is trivial. You murder your wife, cut her up and scrub the place from top to bottom. But would you take her nightdress from the pillow and put it away?’

‘That’s right, Guv,’ put in Morgan. ‘Her night dress wasn’t there, was it?’

‘Perhaps she slept in the nude?’ suggested Wells.

‘It’s not the sort of house where anyone would sleep in the nude,’ said Frost. ‘The poor cow would die of frostbite.’ He shrugged. ‘If she walked out on him she’d take her nightdress with her and I reckon that’s what has happened. He became impossible to live with, so she did a runner. Mind you, if we find her buttocks marinating in the deep freeze tomorrow, I’ll admit I’m wrong.’ He turned to Morgan. ‘Our first job tomorrow, Taff, is to give that place a real going- over.’

‘I thought we were supposed to start looking for the murder site,’ said Morgan.

Frost clapped a hand to his brow. ‘Shit! I forgot about that. All right, but take Lewis for a tour of Denton Woods first. He reckons he might remember where he got rid of some of the bits. And make sure you’re back by seven.’

Morgan looked dismayed. ‘But Guv, by the time I drop you off and get my head down, that would mean I’d only get three hours’ sleep.’

Frost checked his watch and beamed. ‘You’re right, Taff. Your maths is impeccable. Don’t be late.’

A bleary-eyed Morgan sat fuming in the office as Frost breezed in just after eight. ‘Did I say seven?’ asked Frost innocently. ‘I could have sworn I said eight. There wouldn’t have been enough people here at seven to do the search. Well, were the teddy bears having a picnic in the woods or did Lewis turn up trumps?’