A Killing Frost (15 page)

   Mackenzie had heard this chestnut many times before, but he went along with it. ‘No nose? How does it smell?’

   ‘Bloody horrible,’ said Frost, cackling at the ancient joke.

   ‘You’ll have to get yourself some new material,’ said the doctor, as Frost stood to one side to let him enter the tent first.

   ‘This job’s full of laughs,’ said Frost, filling his lungs with fresh air before following Mackenzie in. ‘I don’t need new material.’ He nodded at the body. ‘It’s not in tip-top condition, so I want to know if it’s male or female, age, cause of death, and how long, to the nearest minute, it has been dead.’

   Mackenzie, his handkerchief clapped over his mouth, took a quick look at the body. ‘If you think I’m going to touch that for the sort of money the police pay me, Jack, you’ve got another thing coming. It’s dead . . .’ He bent and peered at it. ‘I think it’s female, probably young, but I’m not prodding about to find the cause of death. Let Drysdale enjoy himself doing that.’ Drysdale was the Home Office pathologist, very much disliked by Mackenzie.

   ‘Has she got two feet, Doc?’ asked Frost.

   Mackenzie blinked in astonishment. ‘Eh?’

   ‘We’ve been finding bits of a chopped-off foot. I want to know if it came from her.’

   Mackenzie parted the overgrown grass and peered down. ‘She’s been chewed about by more animals than you can shake a stick at, but both feet seem to be there.’

   ‘How long has she been dead?’ asked Frost.

   Mackenzie shrugged and spread his hands. ‘Weeks, months - you tell me.’ He looked down again. ‘There’s no clothing on the body. It could have been torn off by animals or stripped before being dumped, but I’d guess he or she was stripped before being dumped here. Drysdale will tell you.’

   He stepped out of the marquee and took a deep breath. ‘God! Doesn’t fresh air taste good? I’ll send in my bill, and make certain they pay it promptly this time. They made me wait weeks for the last cheque.’ He clambered up the embankment to his car.

   Harding from Forensic, who was in charge of the fingertip search, approached Frost. ‘We’ve thoroughly searched the area up to the bridge, Inspector. We’ve found plenty of junk, but not a scrap of clothing. Do you want us to widen the search area?’

   Frost tugged at his lower lip, then shook his head. ‘No. It’s my gut feeling she - if it is a she, Mackenzie wouldn’t say for sure - was stripped naked before she was dumped here. My other gut feeling is that the clothes we found in the lake belong to this poor cow.’ He shook a cigarette from the packet and lit up. ‘Drysdale should be able to give us some idea as to how big she was and we can see if the clothing would fit.’

   ‘I think Drysdale’s retired or cutting down his hours,’ Harding told him.

   Frost brightened up. ‘Ah well, not all bad news then.’ He would have to let Dr Mackenzie know. He beckoned Morgan down.

   The detective constable slithered down the embankment. ‘Do you want me to get you some thing to eat, Guv?’

   Frost nodded at the open flap of the tent. ‘Stick your nose in there, Taff, and tell me if you feel like eating.’ He looked up. A plumpish woman in her early forties, wearing slacks and a thick windcheater, had clambered over the bridge wall and was cautiously making her way down. ‘Who the bleeding hell is that, Taffy? You’re supposed to be up there, stopping any fat tart who feels like it from coming down for a sniff.’

   ‘You told me to come down here,’ protested Morgan.

   ‘I don’t care what I said - get rid of her.’

   Morgan clawed his way up to head her off, but to Frost’s annoyance soon made his way down again with the woman in tow.

   ‘I thought I told you to get rid of her,’ hissed Frost.

   ‘You don’t know who she is, Guv. She’s the new Home Office pathologist.’

   Frost gaped. ‘Flaming heck, Taff. There is a God after all!’ He introduced himself to the woman. ‘Detective Inspector Frost.’

   She flashed a smile, showing perfect teeth. ‘Dr Ridley. What have you got for me, Inspector?’

   ‘We’d better look at the body first,’ said Frost with a giggle. He hesitated at the flap. ‘It’s a bit whiffy in there.’

   She opened her bag and took out a gauze mask that covered her mouth and nose, then stepped inside, her forehead wrinkling in distaste as she saw the body. At first she seemed as reluctant as Mackenzie to actually touch it. ‘Not much I can tell you until I get her on the autopsy table.’

   ‘She?’ queried Frost. ‘Definitely female?’

   ‘Yes, female. She’s been dead anything up to a month, could be more. Animals have had a good old go at her.’

   ‘Any idea of age?’ asked Frost.

   The pathologist shook her head. ‘She’s in too poor a condition - you can just about tell the sex. I’d guess she’s in her late teens or early twenties, but it’s only a guess at this stage. Don’t ask cause of death, because again, I don’t know yet.’

   ‘Sexually assaulted?’ asked Frost.

   ‘The state the body’s in, we will probably never know, but again, wait for the autopsy. Any ID?’

   Frost shook his head. ‘We retrieved a dustbin sack full of girl’s clothes from the lake in the woods yesterday. I’m hoping they tie in with the corpse.’

   ‘Get them over to the autopsy room. I’ll try to match them up with the body.’ She took a last look at the remains. ‘Nothing more I can do here.’ She straightened up, snapped her bag shut and squeezed through the tent flap to the fresh air outside. She tore off her mask and sucked in gulps of air. ‘Some pathologists take it in their stride, but I can never get used to it.’

   She dictated a few brief notes into a small cassette recorder, then dropped it in her pocket and zipped up her windcheater. ‘Where do we do the post-mortems?’

   ‘The mortuary at Denton General,’ Frost told her. ‘Meet me at Denton nick first and I’ll take you there.’

   ‘No need. I’ve got a map.’ She consulted her wristwatch. ‘Too late to do it now. Tomorrow afternoon - say one o’clock.’

   ‘I’ll be there,’ called Frost, admiring her plump little bottom which was wiggling provocatively as she walked away.

   ‘Cor. I couldn’t half give her one,’ whispered Morgan.

   ‘That’s because you’re a randy Welsh git,’ snapped Frost. ‘And in any case, I saw her first so it’s droit de seigneur, my little leek-muncher.’ He returned the wave she gave him as she clambered over the bridge wall, then called Harding over.

   ‘The pathologist’s doing the PM tomorrow afternoon. Get the body to the morgue as soon as you’ve done your stuff. We might have to get the Maggot Man in to tell us how long she’s been lying there, so bring the creepy crawlies as well. Did you get any DNA from those clothes we found in the lake?’

   ‘Yes,’ Harding told him.

   ‘Good. Let’s hope we can match it up with the body. But get them over to the morgue. The pathologist might be able to tell us if they would fit.’

   ‘Did she give any indication as to the cause of death?’ asked Harding.

   ‘No. Hopefully the autopsy will tell us.’

   ‘So at this stage, for all we know, it could be natural causes?’

   ‘The poor cow’s naked. You don’t take off all your clothes, lie down on a railway embankment and die of natural causes.’

   ‘There’s chunks of her missing, Inspector. Animals could have torn her clothes off.’

   ‘If you find bits of clothes underneath her when we shift the body, then it’s possible. But if animals had done it there’d be shreds of clothing in the vicinity and you didn’t find any. It’s her clothes we fished out of the lake. I just know it.’

   His mobile trilled. ‘I’m busy - what is it?’ he snapped.

   ‘Is that you, Frost?’

  
Bloody hell!
It was Mullett. ‘Yes, Super, but I’m rather busy . . .’

   ‘What on earth is going on? I’ve had Debbie Clark’s father on the phone threatening to go to the Chief Constable. This is intolerable . . . absolutely unforgivable!’

   ‘Sorry about that, Super,’ breezed Frost, apologising on autopilot while trying to work out what the hell he was supposed to have done now.

   ‘Sorry? Being sorry isn’t good enough,’ spluttered Mullett.

  
Then I’m not flaming sorry
, thought Frost, still wondering what it was all about.

   ‘His daughter is dead and he has to find out from a third party. Even by your standards, this is disgraceful.’

   Frost frowned. What was the prat on about? ‘Dead? Debbie Clark dead? Flaming heck, Super, I didn’t know that.’

   ‘Didn’t know? What are you talking about? You find her body, but you tell the press before you tell the family? The first they know of it is when a reporter from the
Denton Echo
hammers on their doorstep to ask for a photograph of their dead daughter - ’

   ‘Hold on, Super,’ cut in Frost. ‘We haven’t found his daughter’s body. The poor cow we’ve found is maggot-ridden. She’s been dead for at least a month.’

   ‘Then why tell the press it was Debbie Clark?’

   ‘I never told the press.’

   ‘Don’t try and get out of it, Frost. I’ve checked. Even for you this seemed unbelievable, so I phoned the
Denton Echo
myself. They assured me that their reporter was informed by the police that it was Debbie . . .’

   ‘Then he’s a bleeding liar,’ said Frost. ‘I’ll ring you back.’ He cut Mullett off, dialled the
Denton Echo
and asked to be put through to the editor.

   ‘What the hell are you playing at, Sandy,’ he demanded, ‘sending one of your reporters round to the Clarks and telling them we’d found their daughter’s body?’

   ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Lane asked.

   ‘We haven’t found her bleeding body, that’s what’s wrong with that.’

   ‘Balls, Jack. She checked with one of your men and was told categorically you had found Debbie Clark’s body. I’m running the story under her byline now.’

   ‘She? It’s a bloody she?’

   ‘Yes, Jack. A new girl, very keen. She’ll go far.’

   ‘Not bleeding far enough, if I get hold of her. If she says she’s checked with one of my men, she’s lying.’

   ‘Jack,’ insisted Lane, ‘she may be new but she knows the ropes. She would never go ahead with a story like that if she hadn’t been given the facts.’

   ‘Sandy, I and another officer viewed the body, which definitely wasn’t Debbie Clark, and we certainly didn’t speak to a reporter.’

   ‘I’m sorry Jack. She spoke to one of your men.’

   ‘None of my men would be so stupid,’ began Frost - then he remembered that Taffy Morgan had been chatting up a young woman as Frost was slithering down to view the body. He went cold. ‘I’ll call you back, Sandy.’ He dropped the phone in his pocket and yelled for Morgan to come over.

   ‘Press, Guv?’ said Morgan. ‘No, I haven’t spoken to the press.’

   ‘Well, some silly sod has and you’re the only silly sod around here.’

   ‘Not guilty this time, Guv.’

   ‘Did you speak to anyone?’

   ‘No, Guv. Definitely not.’

   ‘Someone with big tits, perhaps?’

   Morgan opened his mouth, then shut it again as his eyes widened ‘Ah . . .’

   ‘Ah bleeding what?’ asked Frost.

   ‘There was this girl, Guv . . . a right little cracker . . .’

   ‘With big tits?’

   ‘Now you come to mention it, Guv . . . and she had this tight sweater on.’

   ‘I don’t want to know how the cow was dressed. What happened after you dribbled all over her dugs?’

   ‘She asked if the body was Debbie Clark.’

   ‘And what was your negative reply?’

   Morgan pursed his lips and shrugged. ‘I just said something vague.’

   ‘Something vague? Like “Yes it is, no bloody doubt about it”?’

   ‘Of course not, Guv. I just said something like . . .’ His voice dropped to a mumble. ‘Something like, “Yes, we believe it is.”

   ‘
We believe it is!
’ echoed Frost shrilly. ‘You gave that reply to a reporter who thought she was talking to a bona fide member of the police instead of to a stupid Welsh prat?’

   ‘Reporter? I didn’t know she was a reporter, Guv.’

   ‘Why not? Because she wasn’t carrying a Speed Graphic camera and you thought the word “Press” on her sweater was an invitation?’

   Morgan shuffled his feet and put on his whipped-puppy look.

   Frost sighed in exasperation. ‘In future, keep your bloody Welsh mouth shut, Taffy. Madam flaming Big Tits went straight round to the Clarks’ house and asked for a photograph of their dead daughter so she could splash it all over the front page.’

   Morgan stared down at his feet. ‘Sorry, Guv.’

   ‘You don’t know how bleeding sorry you’re going to be,’ snarled Frost. ‘I’ve got to go round there now and squirm and apologise to Debbie’s mum and dad for causing them this flaming grief and get a bollocking from her loud-mouthed father. You stay here and give no more exclusive interviews to the press.’

   ‘You can rely on me, Guv,’ said Morgan.

   ‘You’re the last person I can bleeding well rely on,’ retorted Frost.

The front door crashed open as soon as his car pulled up in the drive. Clark, his face crimson with rage, bellowed at Frost. ‘You! I might have bloody guessed. Detective flaming Inefficiency. Thanks to you, my wife is in a state of collapse.’

   ‘I’m sorry,’ said Frost. ‘The reporter had no business coming to you.’

   ‘No bloody business,’ shrieked Clark. ‘She was told by the police that they had found my daughter’s body.’

   ‘She made a false assumption.’

   ‘She said she was told by the police, and was surprised you lot hadn’t been to us first.’

   ‘She made a false assumption,’ insisted Frost again.

   Clark slammed the front door shut behind the inspector. ‘Don’t try to bluff your way out of this. She said she was categorically told this by the police.’

   ‘She asked one of my colleagues, who had not yet seen the body, if it was Debbie. My colleague said, “We think so.” She knew he hadn’t seen the body so this was conjecture, not fact.’

   ‘This is not bloody good enough, Detective Inspector whatever your bloody name is. If he didn’t know, he should have told the reporter he didn’t know. My wife is having hysterics. Nothing I do or say can convince her that it was a police balls-up.’