R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

Scrabbling in his mac pocket, he located his torch. At first it wouldn’t work – he’d been meaning to change the battery – but a couple of shakes and a bang made it flicker reluctantly to life and give out a feeble yellow beam which threatened to die at any minute. He steered the beam around the shop. The light bounced off white tiled walls, then picked out another partly open door which led to the refrigeration room. That was where the smell was coming from. He wished he still had some of that Vicks to shove up his nose, but all he had was an inadequate handkerchief which he clasped to his face. Gritting his teeth, he took a tentative step into the dark, watching the torchbeam creep across a blood-smeared, tiled floor, then his stomach heaved. In the corner was a heap of rotting, green, slimy putrescent flesh, crawling with maggots and dotted with bloated bluebottles.

He crashed his way outside and was violently sick, leaning against the wall of the shop as his stomach churned and churned. Even out in the open he could still smell and taste that stench. It was much worse than the first girl’s body they had found. That had been out in the open. This was in a confined space. So he was right: Lewis was a nutter. He had killed his wife and cut her up as he would an animal carcass. He shakily lit a cigarette, but after one puff threw it away. The smoke reeked of death. Wiping his mouth with his handkerchief, he fished out his mobile to call the station. Let the boys from SOCO and Forensic throw up their dinners. Why should he have all the fun?

Bill Wells answered the phone. ‘Flaming heck, Jack, where have you been? We’ve been calling and calling – ’

Frost impatiently cut him short. ‘I know, but – ’

But Wells wouldn’t listen. ‘She’s here, Jack.’

Frost frowned. ‘Who? Who are you talking about?’

‘Mrs Lewis. The butcher’s wife. She’s alive and well. The Met managed to trace her. She wants to talk to you.’

Frost stared at the phone in disbelief. ‘Say that again.’

‘Mrs Lewis isn’t dead… and to prove it, she’s here! She wants to see you about her husband.’

‘On my way,’ croaked Frost, his mind in a whirl. If she was alive, then who the hell was rotting away in the refrigeration room, stinking the place out? He lit up another cigarette to delay the moment when he would have to go back and take a closer look. He shuddered. Maggots. How he hated maggots.

This time the smell seemed even stronger and the beam from his torch even weaker. He had almost to stick his nose in the rotting mess to see what it was. A quick flick of the torch on to the heap told him. Stupid bloody fool!

He hurried out, slamming the refrigerator-room door firmly behind him and staggering out to the street to suck down lungfuls of fresh air. He shook his head and laughed at his flaming stupidity. He would have expected Morgan to make such a mistake – but not that he himself would have jumped to the wrong flaming conclusion. The remains weren’t human. They were fly-blown animal carcasses – just what he should have bloody well expected from a butcher’s shop that had been abruptly closed. A shiver ran down his back as he realised what a prat he would have looked had he called out the full murder team to look at a couple of dead pigs.

Even with the car windows open and the wind blowing through, he could still smell the reek of rotting meat on his clothes.

Mrs Lewis was overweight and in her late forties, with dark-brown hair and a raw-meat complexion; she looked like a typical butcher’s wife. Nicotine-stained fingers circled her third cup of police tea and the ashtray was full of cigarette stubs.

‘What the hell is going on?’ she demanded as Frost came in. ‘Bloody police knocking on my door. The neighbours must think I’m a prostitute or something.’

Only if they need glasses, thought Frost. Aloud he said, ‘Sorry about this, Mrs Lewis. Didn’t the Met explain what it was all about?’

‘No they bloody well didn’t. Dumped me in a police car and drove me straight here.’ She pushed her cup away. ‘And after all that I’m left sitting here drinking cat’s pee.’ She snatched at the cigarette Frost offered her. ‘I never used to smoke, but he drove me mad. So what the hell is this all about?’

Frost lit up for both of them. ‘Your husband came in here and told us he had killed you and cut you up into little pieces.’

Her mouth sagged, the cigarette clinging to her lower lip. ‘Again? And you bloody well believed him?’

‘He was most insistent,’ said Frost. ‘Trouble was, he couldn’t remember where he had dumped all the bits. We didn’t believe him, but we had to take it seriously, just in case…’

‘He’s round the twist,’ she said. ‘He always was a bit weird, but he went right over the top when we lost our little boy.’ Her voice faltered and she stared hard at the table top. ‘My lovely little Matthew…’ She shook her head, pulled a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed her eyes. ‘Might not have been quite so bad if I could have had any more kids, but I couldn’t. I was as upset as he was, but I didn’t get any comfort from him. He started blaming me for Matthew’s death. Said I should never have let him go to the hospital. Meningitis – he had meningitis. So what was I supposed to do – leave him at home? He reckoned it was the hospital that killed him. All right, I know he loved Matthew – loved him a bit too much, if you ask me – but he was taking his death out on me. Then he started being rude to the few customers we had in the shop, and when the landlord kicked him out he really went weird muttering to himself, sharpening his bloody knives over and over. I used to be friendly with the woman next door. She was a paediatric nurse and that was enough for him – he blamed nurses for Matthew’s death. She soon stopped coming over, he frightened her so much.’

Frost nodded sympathetically. ‘You’ve had it rough, love.’

She dropped her sodden handkerchief into her handbag and snapped it shut. ‘Can I go now?’

Frost nodded. ‘Yes. Thanks for coming.’ He held the door open for her.

‘So how do I get back to London?’ she asked.

‘See the nice sergeant in the lobby,’ Frost told her. ‘He’ll either arrange a car or give you the money for your train fare.’

At the doorway she paused. ‘I used to love him once. But he changed…’

Frost nodded. Hadn’t this happened with his own wife? God, how they had loved each other at the beginning and how they had hated each other at the end. He shook his head and wiped his hand over his face. It was all my fault, he told himself. If only… He mentally compared the beautiful young cracker he had married with the drawn figure, her lovely dark hair now streaked with grey, dying in the hospital side ward, where she could be wheeled out on a trolley and taken down in the lift to the mortuary without alarming the other patients. All my sodding fault.

As he pushed his way through the swing doors, he could hear Bill Wells explaining to Mrs Lewis that he just didn’t have the transport or the cash allocation to get her back to London, while she was explaining to Wells that that scruffy inspector had told her he would do it, so he had bloody well better do it, and bloody soon. Frost backed out and decided to use the rear exit.

Mullett’s gleaming blue Porsche was parked by the exit, reminding Frost that he should have reported to Hornrim Harry ages ago. There was a gleaming pearl-grey Mercedes sprawled across two parking places next to the Jaguar, with the registration number BEA 001. Bloody hell. He must be here, chewing the privates off Mullett. Frost quickened his step. He nearly made it. He was climbing into his battered Ford when Mullett’s voice roared out from an open window: ‘Frost! My office – now!’