First Frost (17 page)

‘He’s laid low with the flu – apparently.’ Mullett couldn’t help coughing again. ‘In fact I was just about to sign off his retirement date and pension paperwork. It’s one thing hiring someone, but the paperwork involved in retiring them is even more rigorous. Easier to sack them.’ Mullett tried to laugh.

‘What about uniform?’

‘Sorry, I’m not with you.’

‘Any strange behaviour? People behaving out of character? Anyone you don’t trust implicitly?’

‘For God’s sake, Nigel,’ Mullett said, exasperated, ‘I run a very tight ship. Impenetrable. How many times do I have to tell you? There are no weak links here.’

‘I hope you’re right. The thing is,’ said Winslow, ‘that’s not what my people are hearing, and with this armed gang on something of a roll, we need to put a stop to them before someone’s killed. I surely don’t need to remind you that in both robberies a couple of female tellers were brutally pistol-whipped. It’s only a matter of time before we’re dealing with murder as well.’

Mullett had the distinct impression he wasn’t being told everything. He reached for a Senior Service, before offering the pack to the assistant chief constable, who refused.

‘What I suggest, Stanley,’ Winslow continued, ‘is that you go through every member of staff’s credentials and their working practices with a fine-tooth comb. Check, and check again. Personnel records, the works. You’ll need to do it yourself, of course, can’t let on what we’re up to.’

How much time did Winslow think he had? His headache was getting worse by the minute. Mullett felt his forehead creasing under the strain.

Miss Smith pranced into the room, with news that the tea trolley was on its way, and did anyone want anything.

‘No,’ said Winslow sharply.

Mullett tiredly echoed him, his mind wandering briefly to Simms in his office suite last night, and that guff about waiting for Miss Smith. ‘I’ll do as you say,’ said Mullett to his esteemed visitor, once his secretary was out of earshot. ‘But don’t get your expectations up.’

‘Good man,’ said the assistant chief constable, rising from his chair and adjusting his heavily embossed cap. ‘Tell me’ – he paused by the door – ‘what’s the latest with this rabies business? You should know for sure today, shouldn’t you? People are starting to get rattled. I’ve had enquiries from both Fowler and Heseltine’s offices.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Mullett, realizing both that he hadn’t heard a thing about it from Frost, or anyone else in CID, for hours, and that Winslow, like himself initially, was addressing the scare with much more seriousness than it obviously warranted. If Winslow found out it was a ploy by Frost to circumvent the system he would undoubtedly bring Mullett’s judgement into question. Mullett couldn’t believe he’d let it slide. ‘Fingers crossed.’ He smiled lamely.

‘I hope you have your contingency plans as well defined as your renovation job,’ the assistant chief constable said smugly.

With his head splitting, Mullett watched Nigel Winslow amble out of his office. What more could possibly go wrong now? He pressed the button on his intercom. ‘Miss Smith, could you come back in here right away,’ he spat. ‘I’d like a word.’

Tuesday (4)

Frost was waiting for Clarke as she finally walked out of the Ladies, tucked away at the back of the station. ‘It’s not that bad in there, is it?’ he said. She looked as if she’d been crying.

Colour instantly rose to her cheeks. ‘New make-up. I think I’m allergic to it. What are you doing loitering around the women’s toilets, anyway?’

‘Waiting for you. Can’t find a woman, chances are she’ll be in the bog. Come on, we’re off to the hospital again. Wendy Hudson’s perked up and there’s a consultant I need to see.’

‘You need more than a consultant, Jack Frost.’

‘Less of that, love.’ He led the way, lighting up as they went. ‘I hear the assistant chief constable’s been in,’ he said. ‘Something’s going on.’

‘Mullett for the high-jump?’ Clarke said.

‘If only. Can’t see what that sod’s done wrong, apart from breathe.’ Frost took a deep drag. ‘I’d watch your back, that’s all.’ He exhaled though gritted teeth. ‘Don’t go chatting up the wrong blokes, if you know what I mean.’

‘No,’ huffed Sue Clarke. ‘Don’t know what the hell you mean.’ She’d flushed again.

Frost noticed she had mud all over her shoes and the bottoms of her trousers. ‘Been rolling in the hay again?’ he said. Clarke ignored him so he continued, ‘Sometimes it’s your closest friends who turn out to be your worst enemies.’ They were now walking across the lobby where Station Sergeant Bill Wells was on the telephone.

They pushed through the double doors to the car park just as a panda car sped through the gates, siren blaring. ‘Still, don’t think they’d be able to catch you, not with your driving,’ said Frost, as Clarke unlocked the Escort.

‘Actually, Jack,’ she said, getting comfortable behind the wheel, ‘I’ve got something to tell you. A bit of luck.’

‘You’re getting married?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Oh, well, that’s a relief. I’m still in with a chance, then.’

‘I thought you were married?’ She swiftly reversed the car out of the tight parking slot, rammed the gear stick into first and accelerated forward.

Frost found himself, once again, clutching the sides of his seat. ‘On paper.’ He began humming, before suddenly stopping, remembering that it was his wedding anniversary on Friday. What a stretch already.

He looked over at Clarke, taking in her young fresh face. Fortunately she appeared to be concentrating on the road ahead. ‘So what did you have to tell me, then?’ he said.

‘I went back to the canal – where the blind man, Graham Ransome, was found.’

‘When?’

‘Earlier today.’

‘DC Clarke, you should have informed either Arthur or myself first. Attractive young woman like you – the canal is not the safest place to be on your own, in plainclothes. Look what happened to poor old Graham.’

‘Who said I was on my own?’

Frost laughed. ‘Don’t tell me, while you were
in flagrante delicto
– as they say in Spain, or is it Italy? – you came upon a piece of evidence, which should have been spotted the day before.’

‘Forget the
in flagrante
stuff, but yes, I did find something. It’s already with Forensics.’

‘Don’t spare me the sordid details, then,’ said Frost. ‘Reveal all.’

Bill Wells had tried calling after DS Frost, but Frost seemed preoccupied with DC Clarke as they’d sauntered through the lobby on their way out of the building.

Control had dispatched an area car to the scene now, anyway. A fatality, RTA probably, down a farm track some eight miles from Denton, wasn’t really a matter for CID.

Though the fact that the body was found in a Cortina was making Wells feel decidedly uneasy.

‘Hello, Mrs Hudson,’ said Frost gently. ‘Been in the wars, have we?’

Propped up in bed, the woman’s face was mostly obscured by bandages, bruising and tubes, though she did manage to nod a grim affirmative.

‘I’m DS Jack Frost, from Denton CID, and this is my colleague DC Sue Clarke, who you’ve met before.’

Clarke smiled at the woman.

‘We’d obviously like to ask you a few questions,’ continued Frost, ‘if you are feeling up to it.’ Or not, he might well have added.

The woman nodded. She still hadn’t opened her mouth, and Frost was suddenly beginning to think she couldn’t, with a broken jaw among her injuries – the duty nurse hadn’t volunteered any such information, nor, he realized, had the consultant. It was a wonder anything got done in this hospital at all.

Frost looked at his watch; Julie Hudson had been missing for almost exactly seventy-two hours.

‘I hope they’re looking after you OK,’ said Clarke. ‘Got everything you need?’

Really, thought Frost, there was a time and a place for such inanities and this wasn’t it. He’d brought Clarke along because he knew the questioning would get personal and Wendy Hudson might be more willing to open up to a woman – plus Clarke had interviewed her originally.

As it was, Wendy Hudson wasn’t opening up to anyone.

‘Mrs Hudson,’ said Frost, moving closer to the woman’s bed, ‘Mr Hudson, that is, your husband, Steve, is now missing, as well as your daughter. You’re in here, beaten black and blue. So what’s been going on?’

Wendy Hudson stared straight ahead and slowly shook her head from side to side. She appeared to try to lift her right hand, but could barely raise her fingers from the blanket.

‘Perhaps she’s not able to talk,’ said Clarke, who was now on the other side of the bed with all the various drips and attachments, and reaching for the woman’s left hand, which she lightly took hold of.

‘You won’t get any useful information from feeling her pulse,’ muttered Frost, turning away. ‘She is alive.’ The tatty Venetian blinds were askew, those that were still in place, that is, revealing a view of the rain-swept car park, three floors below. A van with a very large aerial protruding from the roof sat in a far corner. Squinting, Frost could make out the letters
BBC
on the side.

‘Was it Steve,’ Clarke was saying, ‘who did this to you?’

Frost looked back and noticed the woman twitch. Was that a yes or a no? ‘Seems like you’ve got the magic touch, Sue,’ he said. ‘Ask her again.’

Clarke repeated the question and the response was much the same. ‘What the hell does that mean?’ said Frost.

‘I think it means: maybe,’ said Clarke, smiling kindly at the woman.

‘We’re not going to get much of a statement, are we?’ sighed Frost. He lit a cigarette, only to spot a large no-smoking sign as he exhaled, advertising prosecution for offenders. He took another deep drag and carefully stubbed the cigarette out on the sole of his shoe, putting it back in the packet.

‘Is your husband with Julie?’ he asked, bending back towards the desperately sick woman. ‘Has he got her somewhere? Has he done something to her?’ Frost coughed.

Wendy Hudson suddenly began shaking her head. Again and again. Frost found just watching the poor woman exhausting enough.

‘I think that’s definitely a no,’ said Clarke.

‘Can she write?’ Frost asked. ‘Hand her your notepad and pen, love.’

Clarke promptly did as she was told, shifting round the bed and trying to rearrange Wendy Hudson’s fingers so she could clasp the pen on her own.

She held on to the pen, all right, Frost could see, but didn’t appear to have the dexterity or the energy to write anything legible. ‘We’re not getting very far,’ he said, as much to himself as to anyone.

Clarke said again, ‘Has Steve got Julie? Has he done something to her?’

There was a distinct shaking of the head.

‘But he beat you up. Is that right?’ pressed Clarke.

The response this time was different. Both a nod and a shake. Meaning, Frost suddenly decided, that Steve Hudson had attacked her, but Wendy Hudson felt somehow to blame. He could see pretty much exactly where this was heading, thinking again of his earlier suspicion, voiced to Hanlon, about Lee Wright coming back to Denton to claim what was his.

Taking a deep breath, Frost said, ‘He beat you up because he suddenly found out, after – what is it? – thirteen years that Julie was not his kid. That right? Julie’s real father being one Lee Wright – nice fellow – who just so happens to have been released from prison a few weeks ago and who paid you a visit, I’m guessing, just the other day. Popped round for a cup of tea, did he?’

Frost glanced over at Clarke, who looked startled. He continued, hearing Wendy Hudson begin to sob surprisingly loudly, ‘Sorry to be blunt, Mrs Hudson, but we urgently need to get to the bottom of this. Julie needs to be safely accounted for, and as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter whose father Steve Hudson is, or isn’t. Anyone responsible for beating up a woman with such brutality needs to be behind bars.’

Wendy Hudson was shaking her head one moment and nodding the next, giving Frost the impression that she disagreed.

‘You can’t blame yourself for everything,’ said Clarke.

Frost was pleased that the DC seemed to have picked up the same idea. Wendy Hudson was sobbing harder.

‘It’ll be all right,’ said Clarke, holding her hand again, ‘once you’re better and feeling stronger.’

‘And Julie?’ Frost coughed again. His mind was a little less clear, less made up on this point. ‘Is she with Lee Wright, her natural father?’

That nodding and shaking again, which Frost took to mean she didn’t know. He looked at Clarke again.

‘No?’ Clarke prompted.

Wendy Hudson seemed to nod more affirmatively this time.

Yes, thought Frost. ‘Lee Wright’s got her, hasn’t he,’ he said triumphantly. He still had no idea whether Wendy Hudson had known this all along. Perhaps she had made up the story about her daughter disappearing from Aster’s for Steve Hudson’s benefit. Or maybe she didn’t know for sure, but just hoped Lee Wright had her, and was keeping her safe.

Either way, Frost couldn’t imagine that an armed robber, recently released from a very long stretch inside, would make much of a father. ‘I need the phone,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Hanlon crossly, picking up the phone and half expecting it to be the hospital again, saying that Becky Fraser had in fact been discharged.

‘Hanlon!’ barked Mullett, clearly in a rage. ‘Where’s Frost?’

‘Sorry, sir, no idea.’

‘No idea?’ Mullett shouted. ‘He’s in charge of bloody CID at the moment, I need him
now
. There’s been an accident.’

‘An accident? What—’ started Hanlon.

‘Yes – a fatality. I want Frost,’ repeated Mullett, ‘urgently.’

Hanlon pushed aside the Fraser paperwork.

‘It’s one of ours,’ the super continued, a little more quietly this time. ‘Dead behind the wheel.’

Thinking there was no time like the present, Frost made for the payphone behind the tatty newsagent’s and gift shop in the lobby of the hospital’s main entrance.

While he dialled the station, Clarke wandered over to look at the magazines.

He was put straight through to Hanlon. ‘He’s got the girl,’ Frost said immediately, ‘as I suspected. Came back for what he thought was rightfully his. What was that last address you have for Lee Wright in Denton? He’s somewhere close, I can feel it in my bones.’