R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘Without me telling you to,’ said Frost. ‘Get back up here.’

As he thought – from the double-glazed fourth floor, the poor girl could have screamed and screamed until the whole floor echoed to her pleas, and no one outside would have heard her, even if anyone was about in this remote area.

Norton reported marks on the rail, but no distinguishing prints. ‘If he was gripping the rail, Inspector, and someone then cracked his knuckles, he would have released his grip, his hand would have slid open and smeared whatever prints were there.’

‘No matter,’ shrugged Frost. ‘We know he was here, prints or not.’

‘There’s specks of blood. I’ll get Forensic to match it.’

‘If you want,’ said Frost. ‘We know whose blood it will be.’

Jordan reported back. ‘The caretaker said the blinds are never shut, Inspector.’

‘Then the killer shut these,’ said Frost. ‘That clinches it. The boy would have seen the lights come on and then the blinds close – that’s why he shinned up here.’

The searchers, now at the far end of the floor, had found nothing, except for a few bits of ancient rubbish.

Frost dug his hands in his pockets. ‘She was here. The poor little cow was stripped, beaten and raped. She screamed her bleeding head off and no one heard. All right, let’s retrace our footsteps. Let’s assume she came in by the main entrance…’

‘She couldn’t do that, Inspector,’ Collier pointed out. ‘The time lock. She wouldn’t be able to get in after four and she left home at half seven.’

‘Good point,’ said Frost. ‘Bloody good point. You’ve shot my theory right up the fundamental orifice, but…’ He stopped. ‘There must be some way of overriding the time switch. Supposing some silly sod got themselves locked inside the building and wanted to get out? Phone the caretaker and ask him. The rest of you, downstairs.’

As they clattered down the stairs, Frost yelled after them, ‘Keep your grubby paws off the hand rail. If he had a spark of bleeding decency, our killer would have left prints.’

The lobby by the main entrance where Frost had been the previous night was the only part of the building that was fitted out. Its floor was covered with heavy-duty green carpeting and it was equipped with visitors’ chairs. Frost nodded at the two ivory phones on the reception desk. ‘Check them.’

‘Wiped clean,’ reported Norton. ‘But the phones are dead, so they could have been cleaned months or more ago.’

‘Right, now check the lift-summoning button and the button inside for the fourth floor.’

Norton checked and shook his head. ‘Blurred prints all on top of each other. I reckon the caretaker uses it every day.’

‘You’re bleeding useless,’ said Frost. ‘Check the handrail to the fourth floor.’

Collier hurried down the stairs. ‘The caretaker says you can set and un-set the time switch from the lobby. The switch box is under the reception desk.’

Frost bent and looked. There it was. A white switch box with buttons setting ‘on’ and ‘off’ times and days of the week. A green button was marked ‘Emergency Override’.

Frost called Norton over. ‘See if you can get any prints off that. The rest of you, search this place from top to bottom. See if you can find some trace – anything – that the girl was here or that something dodgy was going on, or can find the weapon that knocked the boy’s brains out. I know she was bloody well here, but I can’t bloody prove it… Apart from that, I’ve got this case tied up.’ He shook his head. ‘Whoever killed her knew this place. He knew how to get in – how to work the time lock. He knew he could do what he liked with her and she wouldn’t be heard. But why did she come? It must have been someone she trusted… or thought she could trust. Her father? That bastard – he’s involved in this somehow. We know he had it in for the boyfriend.’

‘Perhaps Debbie saw her dad kill Thomas Harris and had to be silenced, Guv?’ offered Morgan.

Frost rubbed his scar. The cold in the unheated building was making it ache., ‘She wasn’t just killed, Taff, she was beaten and raped.’ Would a father kill his own daughter? The sort of bastard who could hand photographs of his young daughter in the nude to a gang of paedophiles would certainly be capable of it, and if he lusted after her, he might be capable of rape, but the beating? He hadn’t faced Clark with the photograph yet. Something else on the long list of vital things he wasn’t doing.

His mobile phone rang.

It was Bill Wells from the station.

‘Jack, you’ve got to get this sod Beazley off my back. He’s doing his nut. He wants you and he’s blaming me for not getting you to contact him. He’s taken my name, address and number and is going to report me to the Home Secretary; the Queen, the Prime Minister, Carol Vorderman, the bloody lot. He’s not going to wait much longer.’

Frost groaned. Yet another addition to the long list of vital jobs he just didn’t have time for.

‘As soon as I can, Bill, I promise you. As soon as I can.’ That was a bleeding lie for a start. He’d put it off as long as he could. He switched the phone off and dropped it back in his mac pocket, then yelled for PC Collier.

‘Leave what you are doing, son, and come with me. We’re going back to the nick. There was another withdrawal from the cashpoint last night. Pick up the CCTV footage from Fortress and get more CCTV videos of cars in the vicinity at the time. A common factor must show itself up.’

Frost waltzed through the doors of the station. ‘Honey, I’m home,’ he called to Bill Wells, who had now taken over from Johnny Johnson.

‘Your dinner’s in the oven and there’s a gentleman here to see you,’ said Wells, nodding to a man sitting on the bench opposite his desk.

Frost groaned. It was Lewis. ‘I’m rather busy, Mr Lewis,’ he began as the man rose to meet him.

‘I want to be arrested,’ said Lewis. ‘I’ve killed my wife.’

‘We’ve been through all this, Mr Lewis,’ began Frost, edging for the door.

‘You think I’m mad, don’t you?’

‘Of course not,’ said Frost. ‘Just absent minded. As soon as you remember where you put the pieces, come and see me.’ He put his hand on Lewis’s arm and gently led him to the doors. ‘You go home now, Mr Lewis.’

‘She’s dead,’ said Lewis softly. ‘I killed her.’

‘I know,’ nodded Frost. ‘And you can’t prove it. It’s a sod, isn’t it?’ He propelled the man through the doors and firmly pushed them shut behind him. ‘He’s getting to be a bleeding nuisance,’ he told Bill Wells.

‘He might be telling the truth, Jack.’

‘She’s in London, drawing money out of the bank on her cash card. Bit difficult to do that when you’re cut up in little pieces.’

‘Someone’s been drawing cash. It could be Lewis.’

‘It could be Elvis bleeding Presley, but it isn’t,’ snapped Frost. ‘It’s her.’ He said it as if he was convinced. Why were bleeding doubts still gnawing away?

'Have you seen Beazley yet?’ asked Wells. ‘I get palpitations each time the phone rings.’

The phone rang. Wells stepped back and looked at it apprehensively.

‘You’d better answer it,’ said Frost. ‘It might be Tom Champagne.’

It was Beazley.

‘He’s on his way to you now, Mr Beazley,’ croaked Wells. He moved the phone away from his ear as a stream of invective poured out. The tirade stopped. ‘On his way now, Mr Beazley, I promise you.’ He hung up quickly and looked appealingly at Frost. ‘Please, Jack.’

‘I want to have a word with Clark,’ said Frost. All right – it was a delaying tactic. But he did have to talk to him.