R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘And might I know the name of this reliable source?’

‘I had to give him an assurance that his name wouldn’t be revealed and I know you wouldn’t want me to break my word. As soon as you sign this warrant, we’re going straight to the house and I am 200 percent certain that, thanks to your cooperation, we will find the evidence we are looking for to convict the poor girl’s killer.’

She looked at the warrant again and shook her head. ‘I don’t like this, Inspector, I don’t like it one little bit.’

‘It does you credit, mum,’ said Frost, ‘that even though you don’t like it, you realise that catching the murderers of two schoolkids overrides any doubts you may have.’

She pursed her lips, still reluctant to do anything to help someone who dragged her out of bed at three in the morning. But it was cold standing at the front door in her dressing gown and her warm bed was beckoning and she was too tired to argue. She took Frost’s offered Bic and scrawled her signature.

She blinked and realised she was standing alone, empty-handed, without a word of thanks, hearing the sound of a car roaring off at speed. ‘Not even a thank-you,’ she sniffed as she made her way upstairs to bed.

The lights were still on in Kelly’s house. Frost sent Jordan and Simms round the back to block that escape route, then nodded for Morgan to hammer at the knocker and jam his finger on the doorbell. ‘Open up. Police,’ he bawled.

Footsteps rang down the hall, a chain slipped on and the door opened a fraction. ‘What the hell is it this time?’

Frost waved the warrant at the partially open door. ‘Open up, Kelly. I’ve got a warrant to search these premises.’

‘A warrant?’ The warrant was snatched through. ‘Wait a minute. ..’ The footsteps retreated up the hall.

‘He’s going to flush his drugs down the karzy,’ said Frost. ‘Smash the door in.’ He stepped back as Lambert swung the ram at the door. At the second blow the door crashed open and they charged in. Kelly was at the top of the stairs with an armful of polythene packets, hammering frantically at the bathroom door. ‘Open up, you silly cow. The cops are here!’

From inside came the sound of retching.

Frost strode up the stairs, his hand out stretched.

‘Are those packets for me, Patsy?’ he smirked, then nodded at the bathroom door as the sound of vomiting continued. ‘Morning sickness? Congratulations. Call him Jack after your favourite cop.’

‘You think you’re so bloody funny,’ snarled Kelly, peering down the stairs as the sound of crashing and banging came from below. ‘What are they looking for?’

‘Other illicit substances you might have overlooked, Patsy.’ Frost ripped open one of the packets. ‘And what have we here?’ He dabbed a finger into the powder and licked it. ‘I don’t think it’s sherbet. I do believe it’s coke.’ He turned to PC Lambert. ‘That’s against the law, isn’t it, Constable, or am I thinking of parking on a yellow line?’

‘I’ve never seen these packets before in my life,’ said Kelly, moving slightly to one side to block the airing-cupboard door.

‘I spy with my little eye an airing cupboard,’ said Frost, pushing him out of the way. ‘What have you got in there that you don’t want me to see?’ He shoved Kelly to one side and flung open the door. Then he did a double take and his heart sank. The box containing the phone – it wasn’t there! He knew where he had left it and it wasn’t there. There were two other boxes that hadn’t been there before. He pulled them out and lifted the lids. More packets of coke – Kelly’s visits to the Blue Parrot were clearly made to collect fresh supplies. Sod the drugs – what had Kelly done with the bloody phone? Had the bastard forestalled him? Had he moved it?

A stack of folded tea towels had toppled over. Had it fallen on the box containing the phone when he hurriedly rammed it back earlier? It had to be that. It just had to be.

Holding his breath, he lifted up the tea towels. He breathed again. The box was there! He pulled it out. ‘What’s in here then, Patsy?’

Kelly gave it half a glance and shrugged. ‘No idea. Something you’ve planted, I expect.’ Frost shook his head in mock sadness. ‘Come now, Patsy. We only do things like that as a last resort.’ He riffled through the contents, leaving the phone until last. ‘Watches, credit cards, debit cards… all sorts of flaming cards, but none in your name. I wonder why that is? Flaming credit-card companies – they never seem to get your name right.’ He held one aloft. ‘This one’s made out to Susan Carter.

‘I’ve never seen them before in my life,’ repeated Kelly.

‘I must be a mind-reader,’ beamed Frost. ‘I knew you were going to say that.’

He continued his rummage. ‘More watches… keys… and, hello – what’s this?’ He carefully lifted out the mobile phone.

‘It’s a mobile phone,’ said Kelly. ‘I don’t nick mobile phones.’

‘Someone else got the franchise?’ asked Frost. He held the phone aloft. ‘Now I wonder whose phone this is?’ He turned to Jordan, who had by now come in through the back door to join him. ‘Isn’t there some way a phone will tell you its own number so we can check the owner’s name with the phone company, because Mr Kelly says it isn’t his?’

‘Yes,’ nodded Jordan. ‘I’ve got one exactly like that.’ He carefully took the phone from Frost and turned it on. He frowned, switched it off and on again, then shook his head. ‘Battery’s dead.’

‘Where’s the charger?’ Frost asked Kelly.

‘You should have brought the flaming charger along when you planted the phone,’ he answered.

‘I always forget little things like that,’ grinned Frost. ‘There’s one back at the nick. We’ll finishing searching your gaff, then we’ll nip down to the station.’

The toilet flushed, the bathroom door opened and a sweaty, green-faced Bridget Malone staggered out. She was dark-haired and plump, in her mid-forties. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘I knew that lobster was off,’ she snarled at Kelly. She focused blurry eyes on Frost and his team. ‘What are the flaming police doing here?’

Frost held up the mobile phone. ‘Ever seen this before, Bridget?’ She stared, then shook her head, not looking at him. ‘No.’

Guilty as arseholes, thought Frost. ‘We’re going to continue this little tete-a-tete down the station. Get your coats.’

‘I’ll go in a separate car to her,’ said Kelly. ‘She spews up every five minutes. My car’s swimming in it.’

‘Good point,’ nodded Frost. ‘Taffy – take her in your car.’

Frost stirred his mug of tea with his Bic pen, sucked the sugar from the cap and sighed. ‘All this sodding hanging about.’

‘Kelly won’t talk to you until his brief arrives, Jack, you know that,’ said Sergeant Wells.

‘Give me back the good old days,’ said Frost. ‘If your suspect wouldn’t talk you kneed him in the groin, wrote his statement yourself and forged his signature.’ He sighed deeply. ‘The golden days.’ He looked up at the clock. Four thirty ‘How’s Jordan getting on with that flaming phone?’

‘Still looking for a battery-charger, Jack. Our one is the wrong sort.’ He drained his mug and lowered his voice. ‘Are you sure it’s the girl’s phone?’

‘Of course I’m bleeding sure,’ answered Frost. ‘I checked it before I got the flaming warrant.’

Wells looked alarmed and moved hurriedly to close the open door. ‘For Pete’s sake, Jack, I don’t want to know.’

Frost sank into a chair. ‘I wish he’d hurry up with that charger. Even when Kelly’s brief Slippery Sam arrives, without confirmation that it’s Debbie’s phone I can only question him on the drugs and the piddling jewellery and credit cards, nothing else – and that other kid, Jan O’Brien, might still be alive.’