R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘It was definitely taken in that office block,’ said Simms. ‘The same walls.’

‘Yes, I noticed that,’ said Frost. He snapped his fingers as a thought struck him. ‘She was sitting in a chair. They wouldn’t have brought one with them, so they must have taken one from the lobby.’ He jabbed a finger at Jordan and Simms. ‘As soon as you’ve finished your booze, get over there. I want all the chairs collected and taken to Forensic. If our luck’s in for a change, there might be prints.’

‘The hands strangling her,’ offered Hanlon, ‘definitely a man – bare hairy arms.’

‘The sod was probably naked and hairy all over,’ said Frost. ‘The poor cow had already been beaten and raped.’ He drained his cup and decided against a refill. The room was hot, he was overtired and the drink was going to his head. It was important to keep a clear mind.

‘Did you notice how he was keeping well to one side so as not to obstruct the view of the camera?’ asked Kate.

‘He wanted to make certain he couldn’t be identified,’ said Hanlon.

‘How could we identify him? We only saw his hands. No, it was more than that,’ said the WPC. ‘He was making certain the camera got a clear view of the girl.’

Frost spun round in his chair. ‘You’re right, girl, you are bloody right. Let’s take another look.’ They drained their mugs and followed him into the Incident Room.

They crowded round the monitor. There was silence as the tortured face of the girl appeared. Silence until the tape ended.

Frost turned to Kate. ‘You’re dead right, love. Everything is arranged so we get a clear view of the girl. Nothing else matters. There’s a bit there where it judders and jerks. I reckon they stopped the camera because she moved her head, pulled it round to the camera again and restarted filming. I think we now know what’s behind that.’

‘Perhaps I’m a bit thick…’ began Hanlon.

‘Don’t be so bleeding modest, Arthur,’ said Frost. ‘You’re more than a bit thick, you’re bleeding thick. I reckon those bastards were making a snuff movie.’

‘What?’ asked Wells.

‘There are perverts, Bill, who get their kicks out of seeing people die – preferably painfully killed. They’d pay a bomb for a video if they were sure it was genuine. I reckon the whole point of the killing was to make a snuff movie, either for kicks, for money or for both.’

‘Bloody hell,’ hissed Wells.

‘My sentiments exactly,’ said Frost, picking up the phone on its first ring. It was Harding from Forensic.

Frost cradled the phone on his shoulder, wedging it with his chin as he lit up another cigarette. ‘What have you got?’ He listened, grunting from time to time. ‘Yes… we blood’s well knew that… Fingerprints?’ His expression changed. He grabbed the phone and pressed it tighter to his ear. ‘Are you sure? If anyone says you’re flaming useless, tell them it’s only most of the time.’ He slammed the phone down and turned to the others, who were looking at him expectantly.

‘Right. The videotape was brand new – never been used before. The bit we saw had been copied from the video-camera tape. It was copied with the audio lead out, either by accident or design. Harding agrees it had been stopped and started a couple of times, probably to re-arrange Debbie’s face so the camera could get a clear look at what the poor cow was going through. He confirms the background is the wall of the office block on Denton Road, which we flaming well knew. He’ll check it out, but is almost certain it’s the floor the boy fell from. I don’t think there’s much flaming doubt about that either. Right, now we come to the fingerprints. There were two clear dabs on the cassette – Sergeant Wells and Collier, so I’m arresting them both on suspicion. Clearly whoever sent it wiped it clean before wrapping it up. After they wrapped it and sealed it down, they wiped it again. It’s now smothered in dirty finger marks, but the odds are they came from the postal staff, plus Bill Wells who brought it to me, and me, who opened it. So far, so bleeding bad. But it looks as if they wiped off the prints after they stuck it down, so they couldn’t get to the prints on the taped folds and couldn’t wipe them off. Forensic have found two lovely clear dabs.’

‘Too much to hope they are on record?’ asked Hanlon.

‘Yes, Arthur,’ nodded Frost. ‘Too much to hope. But thanks to Forensic it narrows the field down. Before this, we didn’t have the faintest idea who did it, but now we can eliminate every one who has got a criminal record!’ He sighed, took a last drag at his cigarette and ground it underfoot. ‘We’re still no further forward. Why did they send us the tape? To brag about what they had done, or to torment us for being a load of twats? – as if we didn’t know that already.’ He sighed. ‘Come on, let’s kill that bottle of whisky.’

As Frost pushed himself up out of his chair, the door burst open and Sandy Lane came in. ‘No one at the desk, so I let myself in,’ he beamed. He pointed to the monitor. ‘You been watching the videotape of the girl?’

Frost’s jaw sagged. He stared at Lane, then dropped back into the chair. ‘What videotape?’ he asked. How the hell had Lane got wind of this? Had some bastard been blabbing to the press? He shot a suspicious look at Morgan.

‘The tape of the dead girl – Debbie Clark,’ replied Lane, as if it was obvious what tape he was talking about.

‘I know nothing about any bleeding tape,’ lied Frost. Who had told the sod?

Lane dragged up a spare chair and sat next to the inspector. ‘Come off it, Jack. We’ve just had an anonymous phone call. A woman. She said, “If you want a scoop, ask the filth about the video we sent them. Ask them if they’d like a video of the other girl.” As soon as she said filth, I thought of you.’

Frost leant back in his chair and stared at the reporter, his mind racing. ‘What other girl?’

Lane shrugged. ‘That’s all she said before she hung up. I presume she meant that girl you found on the railway embankment.’

‘Or she might have meant that other missing teenager, Jan O’Brien,’ said Frost anxiously. ‘You record all incoming calls, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ nodded Lane. He dug in his pocket and pulled out an audio cassette and held it aloft. ‘But as you haven’t received the video, there’s no point in my giving you this.’ He snatched his hand back as Frost tried to grab it. ‘Come on, Jack. Give me a flaming break. A story like this – I could get it in all the London dailies with an exclusive byline.’

‘Sod your bylines,’ snarled Frost. ‘My only concern is to nail these bastards. That other poor cow might still be alive. I want to find her before they do to her what they did to Debbie. I want that tape, Sandy!’

‘No way,’ said the reporter firmly.

Frost beckoned to Kate Holby. ‘Run the video for him.’

As she fed the tape into the machine, he grabbed the reporter’s sleeve. ‘This is off the record, Sandy, strictly off the bleeding record. If you breathe a bloody word of it outside…’ He let the threat hang.

But Lane was unaware of Frost. He was transfixed, staring at the screen. Towards the end he turned his head away. ‘Christ!’ he muttered as the tape flickered to a close. ‘I’ve seen some shitty things in my time, Jack, but this…’

‘We don’t yet know why it was sent to us,’ Frost told him. ‘But until we do, we’re keeping shtum. They want us to acknowledge it, that’s why they got on to you, but we’re not going to. Nothing appears in the press, Sandy, and I want that audio cassette now.’

Without a word, Lane handed it over. Frost gave it to Kate, who loaded the cassette recorder.