A Killing Frost (17 page)

   ‘I’d been with her a couple of times before, Inspector. At her climax she liked to rake your bare back with her nails. It gave her pleasure. It gave me a bit of pleasure at the time too, but it bloody well hurt afterwards. Some women are like that.’

   ‘Yes, some like to bite your dick off, but I’ve never met any, thank God. So where did you have this back-lacerating sex?’

   ‘Denton Woods.’

   ‘Where in the woods?’

   ‘By the lake.’

   ‘Right, so what happened after you disentangled your lacerated body?’

   ‘I dropped her off just outside Denton and we arranged to meet on Boxing Day.’

   ‘Why didn’t you take her home?’

   ‘She said she had to meet someone and they’d give her a lift back.’

   ‘Who?’

   ‘I can’t remember, Inspector. It was a long time ago.’

   ‘It’s a long time ago now, son, but it wasn’t then. When you heard she’d been murdered, why didn’t you tell the police the name of this bloke she was meeting?’

   ‘I don’t know, Inspector. I think she muttered a name which meant nothing to me and I could hardly make out what she was saying. Perhaps I didn’t ask her . . . it was a bloody long time ago . . .’

   ‘All right. Let’s say I’m stupid enough to believe you. The next day, Christmas Day, she is found stripped naked, beaten up, raped, strangled, and dumped in a churchyard. The police put out appeals for help. Her parents are crying their bleeding eyes out. Why didn’t you come forward then?’

   ‘Because I was bloody scared. I was only seventeen. You don’t believe me now. I’d have been lynched if I’d gone to the cops then. They were screaming for blood.’

   ‘I was on duty at the time,’ Frost told him. ‘I had to break the news to the girl’s parents. I’d have lynched you my bloody self. So you’re trying to tell me that you had willing sex, had your back torn to ribbons, dropped her off and someone else murdered her?’

   ‘Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

   Frost shook his head sadly. ‘If I were you, son, I’d make sure you get yourself a bloody good lawyer.’

   Fielding scowled. ‘You don’t believe me?’

   ‘It’s not my job to believe you, that’s the jury’s job. But if I were on the jury, I wouldn’t have to retire to find you guilty.’

   ‘It’s true,’ Fielding shouted, banging his fist on the table.

   ‘Then be prepared for a gross miscarriage of justice,’ said Frost, ‘because you will certainly go down for life.’

   ‘My client’s story sounds perfectly plausible to me,’ said the solicitor. ‘I intend to demand bail.’

   ‘My colleague, Detective Chief Inspector Skinner, will be back tomorrow. He will question your client, take a statement and formally charge him. You can then ask the magistrate for bail.’

   ‘I didn’t do it,’ insisted Fielding.

   ‘Most of the people I arrest say that,’ Frost told him. ‘Funnily enough, the ones who confess are usually lying.’

He was in the car, driving to Denton Woods to check on the search team, when his mobile rang. It was Taffy Morgan.

   ‘Guv, I’m outside that paedophile’s house. We’re just about to serve the search warrant.’

   ‘I didn’t ask for a flaming running commentary - just serve the flaming warrant.’

   ‘You should hear this, Guv, it’s important.’

   ‘It had better be flaming important,’ cut in Frost. ‘I’m driving and on my mobile. It’s against the law. I might have to arrest myself.’

   ‘You’ll like this, Guv. Guess who’s just gone into the house?’

   ‘Prince Philip?’

   ‘No - better than him.’ He paused for effect. ‘Harold Clark - Debbie Clark’s father.’

   Frost rammed his foot on the brake and swung the car into a screeching U-turn. ‘Stay put. Don’t do anything, Taff. I’m on my way . . .’

The lay preacher’s house was tucked down a quiet, tree-lined side road. It was an imposing dwelling, ivy clad and with a stone wall running round the perimeter. Clark’s car was parked in the driveway by the front door.

   Frost drove slowly past, then spotted DC Morgan’s car tucked down an adjoining side street. He nosed the Ford in behind it and waited while Morgan and a bespectacled, worried-looking man, whom Frost took to be the computer expert, climbed into the back.

   Morgan made the introductions. ‘This is Harry Edwards, the computer man, Guv. Clark’s still inside. It’s that big house round the corner.’

   ‘I saw it,’ grunted Frost, holding his hand out for the search warrant to check Taffy hadn’t made one of his par-for-the-course sod-ups. All seemed to be in order. He opened the car door. ‘Right. Let’s frighten the shit out of them.’

   Frost switched on his charming smile as the front door was opened by a middle-aged man in a brown tweedy jacket, who blinked in surprise to find three strangers on his doorstep. ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ he asked.

   ‘I wonder if you would mind reading this, Mr Alman,’ said Frost sweetly. ‘We’re police officers and this is a warrant to search your premises.’

   The man stared at the search warrant, then looked up at the inspector and shook his head in horrified disbelief. ‘I don’t understand. There must be some mistake.’

   ‘Could be,’ agreed Frost, ‘but we have to check it out. The FBI seem to think that someone from this address, with your name and your credit-card details, has been buying and down loading pornographic images of children from the internet.’

   The blood drained from Alman’s face. He attempted a dismissive laugh and failed. ‘It is a mistake, officer. I don’t even have a computer.’

   ‘Fair enough,’ purred Frost. ‘We’ll just come in and take a look at the computer you haven’t got, then we’ll turn your place upside-down, and if we don’t find what we’re looking for, you won’t believe the profuseness of our apologies.’ He pushed past Alman into the house, followed by Morgan and Harry Edwards.

   ‘This is preposterous,’ spluttered Alman, trying to head them off. ‘I’m a lay preacher. I’m about to hold a Bible class.’ When he realised that Frost was ignoring him, he raised his voice almost to a shout. ‘It’s the police, with a warrant to search the house.’

   From a room at the far end of the hail came a thud of footsteps, then a lock clicked as someone inside turned the key. Frost rattled the handle. It didn’t budge. He turned to Alman. ‘It seems to have suddenly locked itself from the inside. Do you have a key?’

   Alman made a pretence of trying the handle. ‘Oh dear. It often does that - the wind slams it shut and the lock clicks. I’m afraid I haven’t got a key - but there’s nothing in there.’

   ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling the truth?’ asked Frost. He stepped back and nodded to Morgan. ‘Kick it in.’

   Alman moved in front of the DC. ‘You’ve no right to do this!’ he shouted.

   ‘Then I’m exceeding my authority’ snapped Frost, pushing him out of the way. ‘Give it some boot, Taff.’

   Morgan swung an ineffectual kick at the hinge side of the door, then leapt back, clutching his leg in pain.

   ‘Prat!’ hissed Frost, kicking hard just under the lock. There was a splintering of wood and the door crashed open.

   They plunged into the room, where a semicircle of empty chairs faced a computer. Debbie Clark’s father was bent over the keyboard. On the screen, lists of names were rapidly vanishing. Harry Edwards pushed past Frost and clicked the computer off.

   Clark shot a smug, knowing nod to Alman. ‘I don’t know how I did it,’ he said, trying to sound apologetic, ‘but I think I’ve accidentally erased everything on the hard drive. I’m terribly sorry.’

   ‘These things happen,’ said Alman. He stepped back and waved an expansive hand at Frost. ‘If you’d like to search this room, Inspector . . .’

   Frost groaned inwardly and turned appealingly to Edwards, who beamed back a reassuring smile.

   ‘It’s a lot harder to delete things on a computer than one would think,’ said Edwards, sitting down and switching the computer back on. He frowned impatiently at the monitor as the computer seemed to be taking forever to boot up. ‘Come on, come on,’ he urged. At last the ‘Welcome’ screen appeared, but repeated clicking of the mouse brought nothing else up.

   ‘You need the password,’ Alman told him. ‘But in all this excitement and upset, I’m afraid I’ve completely forgotten it.’

   ‘No need to apologise,’ said Edwards. ‘Nearly everyone seems to forget their password when I’m around. Now let’s see if we can jog its memory and make everyone happy.’ His fingers blurred over the keyboard as Frost held his breath. Lines of text flashed across the screen, only to vanish and be replaced by more text. Frost hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on, but hoped Edwards did. It was taking so long, he was beginning to lose hope. Alman seemed to be sighing with relief, but his optimism was short-lived.

   At last Edwards stopped, and pushed the chair back from the screen. ‘I’ve got it all back, ‘Inspector,’ he announced.

   ‘What do you want - applause?’ grunted Frost. ‘If you’ve got it, let’s flaming well see it.’

   Edwards slid the mouse across its pad and clicked away. The screen rapidly filled up with postage-stamp-sized coloured images with text underneath, all too small for Frost to make out what they were. One small picture was selected, a magnifying-glass icon was clicked and the image filled the screen.

   Frost screwed up his face in disgust at the photograph of a naked, hairy man forcing a naked child of no more than seven or eight on to a bed. The child was terrified and tearful.

   Frost swung round to Alman in disgust. ‘So what’s your text for today, Father Alman? “Suffer the little children to come unto me”?’

   Alman flushed deep red, but said nothing. Clark, pretending to be disinterested, was edging towards the door.

   ‘That’s one of the milder ones,’ Edwards told him. ‘Take a look at this.’ He brought up another image.

   ‘Leave it,’ cried Frost. ‘It might give these two bastards a sexual thrill, but I’m ready to throw up. I’ve seen enough.’ He turned to Alman. ‘You, sunshine, are under arrest.’

   Clark cleared his throat. ‘Look, Inspector, this has got nothing to do with me. I just popped in to visit a friend. I know nothing about these images, so if you will excuse me . . .’ He scooped up his briefcase and moved towards the door, but Frost blocked his path and held out a hand. ‘I’d like to see what you have in your briefcase, Mr Clark, if you don’t mind.’

   ‘I’m afraid I do mind, Inspector,’ said Clark. ‘This has absolutely nothing to do with me. I came here for a Bible class. I had no idea Alman was involved in anything like this. You may have a search warrant to search this house, but not the property of innocent people who are only visiting.’

   ‘I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong,’ Frost told him. ‘The search warrant covers everyone and everything that happens to be in the house at the time.’ He spoke with all the conviction he could muster, but wasn’t sure of the facts himself and hoped he was right. The bleeding law was so tricky, but he didn’t have time to mug it up. Again he extended his hand. ‘Your briefcase, please.’

   With a snarl, Clark hurled the briefcase at Frost and looked away as if isolating himself from its contents. Frost opened it. Inside was a laptop computer.

   ‘I wonder what we’re going to find on here?’ beamed Frost. ‘I’m all agog.’ He passed the lap top over to Edwards.

   The computer man cleared a small table of papers and positioned the laptop. He opened the lid, pressed some keys and little coloured lights flashed. It took less time to boot up than the desktop model. He stroked the touchpad, clicked on an icon and the screen filled with thumbnail images similar to those on the desk top. He enlarged one. Another small child being abused.

   Frost waved an agitated hand in disgust. ‘Switch the bleeding thing off.’ He turned to the two men. ‘Well, well, well. Two dirty bastards for the price of one. No Bible class for you, I’m afraid, Mr Clark - I’m arresting you as well. I hope your friends in high places won’t get too upset.’

   Alman shook off Morgan’s hand. ‘This is outrageous! We’ve done no harm. These were bought for our private and personal use. Think we are perverted if you like, but we have harmed no one.’

   Frost jabbed a finger at the desktop computer. ‘Done no harm? If bastards like you weren’t prepared to pay through the nose for this filth, bastards like that hairy sod wouldn’t be putting kids through such torment.’

   The doorbell rang. Alman and Clark exchanged worried glances. Frost twitched the curtain and looked out. A thin, middle-aged man clutching a laptop-sized briefcase was waiting on the doorstep. ‘Another student for the Bible class,’ said Frost. ‘Show the gentleman in, Taff.’ He peeked through the curtains again. Another car pulled up outside and another man, also holding a briefcase, got out and made for the house.

   Frost beamed with delight. ‘This is like shooting fish in a barrel. I’ll have to get some more back-up. I think this is going to be our lucky day.’

Sergeant Wells slammed the cell door shut and turned the key. ‘We’re going to run out of cells at this rate, Jack,’ he moaned.

   ‘The price you have to pay for my brilliant success,’ said Frost. ‘Five of the bastards. All we had to do was wait for them to ring the doorbell and then run them in.’

   ‘Inspector Frost!’ Clark was calling from the end cell. ‘Can I have a word?’

   Wells unlocked the door and Frost went in. Clark was sitting on the bed, looked deflated and dejected.

   ‘What is it?’ asked Frost.

   ‘I know what you must think of me, but I’m still a father. Any news of Debbie?’

   ‘We’ve got teams out searching now, but nothing so far. As soon as there’s any news, you’ll be informed.’

   Clark’s head sank. ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled, knuckling tears from his eyes. ‘Thank you so much.’

   Wells closed the cell door and locked it again, then raised an eyebrow at Frost.

   ‘Crocodile tears,’ Frost told him. ‘Clark is my number-one, prime bleeding suspect. When we find his daughter she’ll be dead, and that bastard will have killed her.’

He looked in on the Incident Room, where Harry Edwards was now checking and priming out the contents of the confiscated computers.