Night Frost (16 page)

   Her husband touched her shoulder. "Tea for you, love?" She shook her head.

   Frost left Gilmore to keep the woman silent company and followed the man into the kitchen. Bartlett filled an electric kettle from the tap. "She’s been like this ever since we heard."

   "There’s something I must tell you," said Frost. He steeled himself to deliver the blow. The father steeled himself to receive it. "Your daughter was sexually assaulted before she died."

   The hand holding the kettle shook violently, splashing water all over the tiled floor. Gently, Frost took it from him and guided him towards a chair. Sobs, racked the father’s body.

   His face sharing the man’s pain, Frost could only watch and wonder what the hell to say next. The sobbing brought Mrs. Bartlett into the kitchen. She cradled her husband’s head in her arms and held him tight. "What is it, love?" But head bowed, tears streaming, he couldn’t answer. She looked enquiringly at Frost who had to force the words out again.

   "I had to tell him that . . . that Paula was raped."

   Husband and wife clung together, clutching each other like young lovers, saying nothing, their closeness consoling each other. Ignored by them both, Frost fidgeted and wished he was miles away. "If it’s any consolation," he told them, "your daughter was a virgin." Why the bloody hell did he say that? What possible consolation could it be that your daughter was a virgin before some bastard raped and choked the life out of her? He became aware that the father, his tears now of anger, was shouting at him.

   "Of course she was a virgin. She was only fifteen. A kid. She’d had no bloody life . . ." And then he was sobbing again.

   Hastily, Frost excused himself "I’ll be in the other room." In the living-room Gilmore, uncomfortable in a too-low chair, raised an eyebrow in query. "I sodded it up," Frost told him. "It’s the wailing bleeding wall out there." He flopped into a chair. No sign of an ashtray, but he had to have a smoke. He lit one up, offering the pack to Gilmore who declined.

   Barely two puffs later the woman was back, her eyes red. She seemed surprised that they were still there. He pinched out the cigarette and stood up. "Two more things, Mrs. Bartlett." She looked apprehensive. What further horrors could he inflict? "It’s just that we’re repeating the video made when Paula first went missing. It’ll be shown on the television news tonight."

   She nodded, relieved that it was nothing worse.

   "And—just for the record. Can you tell me what Paula ate on that last morning?"

   "Cornflakes and toast."

   "You’re sure? She wouldn’t have cooked herself anything?"

   "Oh no. I was down here with her . . . cornflakes and toast. That’s all she ever had for breakfast." As they moved to the front door, she clutched the inspector’s arm. "When can we put her to rest?"

   At first he didn’t understand what she meant, then realized she was asking about the funeral. "Not for a while, love," he said.

   "I’d like to see her," said Mrs. Bartlett, her eyes blinking earnestly behind her glasses.

   "No, love," said Frost firmly.

   "Please . . ." She gripped so tightly, it hurt.

   He gently disentangled her fingers from his sleeve. "She wouldn’t want you to see her as she is now, Mrs. Bartlett."

   "I don’t care how she looks. She’s my daughter. She’s my daughter . . .!"

   Her shouts followed them to the car. With the car door closed she stood in the doorway, still shouting, but they could only hear the rain thudding on the car roof. Then her husband appeared and led her back into the house.

   "That wasn’t an unqualified success, was it?" sighed Frost, sticking the cigarette end back in his mouth. "She had cornflakes for breakfast, Burton. What do you deduce from that?"

   "That you were right, sir. She must have had another meal after she was abducted," replied the detective constable.

   "Precisely." He scratched the match down the car window. "You’re a fifteen-year-old virgin, Burton. You’ve been abducted and taken somewhere. Would you have an appetite for chicken pie, peas and chips?"

   "It depends how long I’d been without food. She might have been held for hours without having anything to eat."

   Frost thought this over and nodded. "Cooked food, so it’s got to be indoors. And if he’s keeping the girl hidden there for any length of time, he’s got to be alone in the house. Lastly, to get her from his car to the house, he must be pretty certain he won’t be seen. Which means the house has got to be remote." He blew the end of his cigarette and watched it glow. "The schoolmaster who usually gave her a lift. Is his house remote?"

   Burton nodded. "It’s all on its own—miles from anywhere."

   "Then we’ve got the bastard."

   "What are you suggesting?" asked Gilmore who was feeling left out of the discussion. This was typical Frost, plucking a suspect from thin air, then forcing the facts to fit.

   "I’m suggesting that bloody schoolmaster met her in his car and took her back to his house."

   "The schoolmaster was at his wife’s funeral that day," Burton reminded him.

   "This was around eight in the morning. The funeral wouldn’t have been until ten at the earliest."

   "But he didn’t have to go in the car and fetch her," said Burton. "She was due to call at his house with the paper anyway."

   "He was impatient," said Frost, stubbornly. "Burning for a bit of the other and couldn’t wait."

   "So impatient," scoffed Gilmore, "that he gives her chicken pie, peas and chips at eight o’clock in the morning before he has it away with her and then trots off to his wife’s funeral."

   Frost sank down in the car seat and expelled smoke. "All right, so that’s shot that theory up the arse. But I’d still like to have a word with this schoolmaster. Do you know where he lives, Burton?"

   Burton nodded.

   "Then take us there. Follow the route the girl went. Point out the houses where she delivered. Show me where her bike was found."

   Burton backed out of Medway Road and cut through some side streets. Gilmore tried to orientate himself, but soon got lost. And then, after a few minutes, the area looked familiar and the car was splashing through Merchant Street. He looked up as the house flashed by, noting that the bedroom curtains were still drawn. Liz would be sleeping, making sure she would be fully refreshed, ready to renew her moaning when he finished his shift. God, what a cynic he was becoming. How he hated this lousy little town.

   The car juddered over cobbles as it negotiated a steep hill, then cut through the market place, empty of shoppers in the heavy rain. The houses they passed became fewer and further between and soon they were skirting the woods.

   "She made her first deliveries here," said Burton as they crawled past a small, walled estate of some forty houses and maisonettes built by the New Town Development Corporation. "You don’t want to see the individual houses, do you?"

   "No," replied Frost, "just a general outline of the route."

   They left the estate and drove on to the Forest View area where old Victorian properties had been converted into flats, then they headed away from the wood, along bumpy lanes flanked by hedges, past little clusters of old cottages. Burton slowed down and stopped outside a green-roofed bungalow. "She made her last delivery there—the
Daily Telegraph
and a photographic magazine. The lady of the house saw Paula pedalling away down the lane about a quarter past eight. That was the last time she was seen alive."

   Frost stared at the bungalow, then signalled for Burton to drive on. The car sloshed in and out of puddles and turned into an even narrower lane where overgrown branches on each side slashed spitefully at the car as it squeezed through. Burton braked. "This is where we found her bike and the abandoned newspapers."

   They climbed out and stood looking down at a deep ditch running beneath an overhanging hedge. The ditch was brimful and covered with a thick layer of emerald green scum, through which the wheels of an upturned supermarket trolley protruded.

   "The bastard must have been waiting for her just about here," said Burton.

   Frost nodded glumly. He had hoped that visiting the actual locale would give him some magic flash of inspiration. He stood in the pouring rain, looking down into the green slimy water, and decorated it with his discarded cigarette end.

   Back in the car he asked Burton where the girl’s bike was. "Locked up in the shed at the station. The two newspapers she didn’t deliver are in the exhibits cupboard."

   "Only two more houses," said Burton, as the car bumped into an extra deep puddle which sent a spray of dirty water all over the windscreen.

   "Mind what you’re doing," barked Gilmore, who hadn’t had a chance to put Burton in his place for some time.

   Burton’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, but he controlled his temper. He pointed up a small side lane which crawled up to a two-storeyed house standing on its own. "That’s called Brook Cottage. They would have had the Sun but she never made it."

   Brook Cottage looked a mite dilapidated. They could hear a dog barking as they passed.

   The lane widened and passed through empty scrub land. After some minutes a red-bricked house lurched up in front of them. It was an old, solid-looking property and stood alone in extensive grounds. A shirt-sleeved man was working in the garden seemingly oblivious to the pouring rain. "She finished her round here," announced Burton as he switched off the engine. "The man in the garden is Edward Bell, Paula’s schoolteacher."

   Frost crushed his cigarette in the ashtray, then turned up the collar of his mac. "Let’s have a word with the bastard."

The man, wrenching up weeds from the heavy soil, gave a cry of pain as the sharp thorns of a hidden bramble pierced his palm. He stared angrily at the bright red globules welling from the punctures. The damned briar was everywhere. As fast as you cleared it from one section it appeared somewhere else. Well, if it thought it was going to defeat him, it was making a damn mistake. He tore up a thick clump of grass and wrapped it round the briar as protection then pulled and tugged, swearing out loud as the bramble resisted. It took a great deal of effort but at last he tore it free of the rain-sodden earth and hurled it on to the growing pile of garden refuse. His hand was sticky with blood and rain and sweat. He sucked salt and mowed on to the next section, only dimly aware of the sound of slamming car doors and approaching footsteps.

   "Mr. Bell?"

   "Eh?" He straightened up and eased the pain in his back. There were two men, one dark-haired, young and neatly dressed, the other older, hair starting to thin, wearing a crumpled raincoat that had seen better days. The younger one held up a piece of plastic bearing a coloured photograph. "Police, Mr. Bell."

   "Is it about Paula?" he asked. "Has she been found?"

   "Let’s talk inside," said the scruffy man.

   The house was cold and unwelcoming. They passed through the kitchen, its sink and draining board stacked with dirty saucepans and crockery. On top of the fridge stood a half-bottle of lumpy milk. The room was a mess. It reminded Frost of home.

   Muttering apologies for the untidiness, Bell opened one door, decided against it and took them into a musty-smelling lounge. Rain streamed down the patio window, blurring the view of the garden beyond. A miserable room. Frost would be glad to get out.

   "Not too cold for you, is it? I haven’t had the heating on. I suppose I should, but it seems pointless . . ." Bell’s voice trailed off.

   "This is fine, sir," said Frost without conviction, winding his scarf tighter. He and Gilmore sat side by side on the beige Dralon settee, facing Bell who was squatting on a footstool, dripping rain on to the pink carpet.

   Bell, who wore a rain-blackened checked shirt and baggy corduroy trousers, was in his late thirties. Thin and nervous-looking, his face was framed by unstyled light brown hair and a few tufts of a scraggy beard. A hint of dark rings around his eyes suggested he hadn’t been sleeping too well.

   Unaware of Frost’s scrutiny, Bell unwrapped the blood stained handkerchief, studied his palm, then wrapped it again. Suddenly he remembered the reason for their calling.

   "Paula’s been found, you say? That’s splendid. How is she?"

   Frost’s eyes flicked to Gilmore, who sat impassive. This was too naive. Surely Bell must have heard about the discovery of the girl’s body? "Don’t you read the papers, sir?"

   "Papers?" He shook his head. "They don’t deliver papers here any more. The parents won’t let their children do it."

   "Don’t you listen to the radio? Or talk to your colleagues?"

   "It’s half-term and I’ve been too busy in the garden these past few days to listen to the radio. So what has happened?"

   "Paula is dead, sir," said Frost bluntly, carefully watching Bell’s reaction. The man jerked back as if he had been hit, then his face crumpled.

   "Oh no. That poor child. Oh no!" His grief and shock at the news seemed genuine.

   Without taking his eyes from the teacher, Frost slowly lit a cigarette. "She was murdered, sir. Raped and murdered."

   Bell stood up. He took the soiled handkerchief from his hand and stuffed it into his pocket. Nervously, he paced the room. "She was only fifteen."

   "Kids mature earlier these days," said Frost. "They have sex earlier, they get raped earlier, they get murdered earlier." He exhaled smoke and watched it disperse. "What sort of girl was she?"

   The man dropped back on the footstool and thought for a moment. "Quiet. Didn’t mix much. An excellent scholar."

   "Why did you start giving her lifts to school?" asked Gilmore.

   "It was her parents’ request. Her newspaper round took her some five miles in the opposite direction. Sometimes the papers would be late which could make her late for school and they didn’t want her to miss any of her lessons. I would meet her at the top of the lane and give her a lift from there."

   "What did you do about her bike?" This from Frost.