R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘He’s not forcing me out,’ she said stubbornly.

Frost shrugged. ‘Fair enough. But if you ever change your mind

…’ He looked out into the rain again and noticed Lewis’s car was still parked outside. It should have been taken back to the station. Something else he had forgotten about. ‘Why aren’t you waiting inside, out of the rain?’ he asked.

‘I haven’t got the key,’ she told him.

‘Didn’t the bastards let you have the key – ’ began Frost, stopping suddenly as he realised the key was in his pocket. He was about to hand it over, but dropped it back into his pocket again.

‘Hell, why are we guarding this place? The autopsy’s over, no bits are missing and if anyone wants to break in and pinch any of that meat, they’re welcome. Hop in my car, I’ll drive you back to the station, then I’m off home to get my head down for a couple of hours.’

As he slowed down and waited for the traffic lights to change, he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her face was reflecting the red glow of the stop signal… red like the dress his wife wore that Christmas. God, the kid was a cracker. A stubborn little cow, but a cracker. She reminded him of his wife when she was that age.

The lights turned green and the car jerked for ward. You’re getting to be a bleeding maudlin old sod, he told himself.

Detective Inspector Jack Frost walked into his office to find DS Arthur Hanlon on a chair doing something to the overhead light.

‘Don’t jump, Arthur – think of your wife and kids. Why make them happy?’

Hanlon clambered down to put a blown light bulb on the desk. ‘I’ve changed the bulb. You couldn’t do it with your poor hand.’

Frost grunted his thanks. ‘If anyone says you’re not a little sweetie, Arthur, send them to me. Now piss off. I’ve got to get my head down for a couple of hours, otherwise I’ll be even more bleeding useless than usual.’ He riffled through his in-tray: all the usual junk from Mullett – memos marked ‘Urgent’ with lots of under linings in red ink. They could wait.

Hanlon grinned. ‘Manchester CID have been on the blower, Jack. They want to know what progress we’ve made with the murdered girl.’

‘Flaming heck,’ snorted Frost. ‘We’ve got enough on our plate with our own unsolved murders without trying to solve theirs.’ He plonked down in his chair, dragged the Emily Roberts file from his in-tray and flipped through it. ‘It suits them to work on the theory that the girl was picked up in Manchester and brought down here to be killed. Skinner wants her to have been killed in Manchester and the body dumped down here, so it’s Manchester’s pigeon. Between you and me, I’m inclined to go along with Manchester CID’s version. If she was killed there, why dump her here?’

‘They say you asked if she had done any modelling, or wanted to be a model. They can’t turn anything up that would support this.’

‘I was trying to tie her killing in with Debbie Clark. Both bodies on an embankment, both naked. And they both went to the same school in Denton, did you know that?’

Hanlon shook his head. ‘So what am I going to tell them, Jack?’

Frost worried away at his scar, deep in thought. ‘We’ve got sod all to go on, Arthur. A dumped body, that’s all.’ He rested his chin on his palm and chewed his little finger. ‘If the killer came from Denton, why would he go to Manchester to pick up a girl? There’s plenty of girls in Denton.’

Hanlon shrugged.

Frost held up a finger as a thought struck him. ‘Try this out for size, Arthur, as the bishop said to the actress – the killer was going to Manchester anyway. When he was there, he saw his chance and took it.’ He leant back in his chair. ‘And I’ll tell you something else, Arthur. If you were driving from Denton to Manchester you wouldn’t want to go there and back in the same day. You’d stay overnight in a hotel or a B amp;B, and when you stay somewhere you’ve got to register – give your name and address. Hotels are required by law to keep the records for six months or so – I can’t remember exactly how long. Get Manchester CID to check it out, see if anyone from Denton stayed in the area overnight the day the girl went missing. If we can find the name of anyone who worked for that modelling agency or worked in the office block, then bingo, two dicky birds with one stone.’

‘There’s a hell of a lot of hotels and B amp;Bs in Manchester, Jack. They won’t be too pleased.’

‘We’re not in the business of pleasing them. They know the area where she went missing. They can start from there. If they have more luck than I usually do, it could be the first one they try.’

‘Supposing he registered under a false name and address?’

‘Many of these places ask for car registration numbers – we could trace him through that. And the odds are he paid by credit card, so he’d have to give his proper name. Do what I say, Arthur, there’s a good boy. Get on to Manchester. It’ll keep them off our backs for a while.’

As Hanlon left, Frost’s phone rang. It was Marcus from the Crown Prosecution Service. ‘We’re taking Graham Fielding to court on Wednesday, Inspector. We understand his solicitor is going to ask for bail.’

‘Bail? On a murder charge? He won’t stand a chance.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure. The courts sometimes use their discretion. The crime happened a long time ago.’

‘That doesn’t make the poor cow he killed any less dead, does it?’

‘I suppose not,’ said Marcus grudgingly. ‘Do we oppose bail?’

‘Of course we bleeding well oppose it,’ said Frost. ‘Who’s our lawyer?’

‘Mr Jefferson.’

‘That useless prat! Well let’s hope he doesn’t sod this one up like he did the last one.’ He slammed the phone down and was reaching for his mac when Bill Wells came in.

‘Whatever it is, Bill, it will have to wait. I’m off home for a couple of hours.’

‘Just received this package,’ said Wells, dumping it on the desk. It measured about nine inches by five inches and was wrapped in brown paper and neatly sellotaped.

Frost picked it up and examined it. The typed label was addressed to: THE OFFICER IN CHARGE, DENTON POLICE STATION, DENTON

He looked up at Wells. ‘So? Why haven’t you opened it?’

‘I don’t like the look of it. It could be a bomb.’ Frost stared at him. ‘Why should it be a bleeding bomb?’

‘It’s the same size as that package Flintwell division had the other week. That was a bomb.’

‘It wasn’t a flaming bomb,’ said Frost. ‘It was a hoax… it was full of talcum powder.’

‘This may not be a hoax.’

‘Then call the flaming bomb squad, or give it to Mullett. Let him lay his life down for his men.’

Wells hesitated, still trying to get Frost to take the package.

‘Oh, give it here.’ Frost snatched it from the sergeant, grabbed a paper knife and slit the sealed ends. ‘Stand by for the explosion.’

Wells stepped back warily.

Frost held it down with his elbow and tore off the wrapping with his good hand. ‘Bloody hell!’ he cried. There was a shattering bang and bits of broken glass everywhere. Wells flung himself down on the ground.

‘Sorry,’ said Frost. ‘I must have accidentally knocked that dud light bulb on the floor.’

A glowering Wells stood up, brushing pieces of broken light bulb from his uniform. ‘You bastard, Jack. You did that on purpose.’

‘That’s either slander or libel,’ said Frost. ‘If I knew which it was I’d sue you.’ He stripped the brown paper away. Inside was a video cassette. There was no covering note. He slid the package over to Wells. ‘Get someone to play it. If there’s anything I should see, let me know when I get back. If it blows up and kills someone, tell them I’m sorry.’