Night Frost (2 page)

   "The disinfectant is from the cleaners," the sergeant informed him. "We had drunks throwing up all over the place last night. And the poncey scent is from the new boy’s aftershave." He jerked his head at Gilmore, who scowled back. "Mr. Mullett’s been asking for you."

   "He’s always asking for me. I think he fancies me. He likes, a bit of rough." He unbuttoned his mac to expose a crumpled blue suit with two buttons missing. The red tie beneath the frayed shirt collar had a tight, greasy knot and looked as if it had been put on by being pulled over his neck like a noose. He turned to Gilmore and held out a nicotine-stained hand. "I’m Detective Inspector Jack Frost."

   Gilmore shook the proffered hand, his mind racing. A detective inspector! This rag-bag was a detective inspector? A joke, surely? But no-one seemed to be laughing. "You’ll be working with me," continued Frost.

   Now that just had to be a joke. He waved his itinerary. "I’ve been assigned to Mr. Allen."

   "All been changed—Allen’s got the pox," said Frost.

   "He’s down with flu," corrected the station sergeant. "Half the damn station’s down with it, most of the others are on sick leave following Friday’s punch-up and the rest of us silly sods are dragged in on their rest day and working double shifts." The internal phone buzzed.

   "If it’s Mullett . . ." said Frost, backing towards the exit doors.

   It wasn’t Mullett. It was Control for the inspector. "The Comptons—the couple receiving the hate mail. They’ve had a fire—someone’s tried to burn their summer house down."

   "On my way," said Frost, banging down the phone. He jerked his head at Gilmore. "Come on, son. If you like rigid nipples you’re in for a treat—the lady of the house is a cracker."

   "But I’m supposed to report to the Divisional Commander," Gilmore protested.

   "You can do that when we get back."

   The internal phone rang. This time it was Mullett.

   Frost grabbed Gilmore’s arm and hurried him out into the rain.

Frost’s old Ford Cortina was tucked out of sight, round the corner from the station car-park where, hopefully, Mullett wouldn’t spot it. While Gilmore waited in the pouring rain which was finding its way through his new raincoat, Frost cleared the junk from the passenger seat, including two mud-encrusted wellington boots which he tossed into the back of the car. "In you get, son."

   Gilmore scrubbed pointedly at the seat with his handkerchief before risking its contact with his brand new suit. His head nearly hit the windscreen as Frost suddenly slammed the car into gear and they were away.

   "Where are we going?" he asked, hastily clicking the buckle of his seat belt as the car squealed into Market Square, shooting up spray as it ploughed through an unexpectedly deep puddle.

   "A little village called Lexing—about four miles outside Denton." A blur of shops zipped past then the engine was labouring and coughing as it clawed up a steep hill and there was a smell of burning oil. Frost sniffed and frowned. "Do you know anything about engines, son?"

   "No," said Gilmore, firmly. There was no way he was going to mess up his new suit poking under the bonnet of Frost’s filthy car. They were now passing a heavily wooded area, with sagging, rain-heavy bushes.

   Frost jerked a thumb. "Denton Woods. Right over the far side is where that schoolgirl went missing. She was doing a newspaper round, but never finished it. Her bike and her undelivered papers turned up in a ditch, but no trace of the kid."

   "Had there been trouble at home? Could she have run away?"

   "Don’t know, son. It was Mr. Allen’s case until he conveniently got the bloody flu. Now I’m lumbered. We’ll have to start reading through the file when we get back." He scratched a match down the dashboard and lit up, then remembered he hadn’t told Gilmore about the case they were driving to. "Married couple, in their mid-twenties, live in a converted windmill. Some joker’s been frightening the life out of them."

   "How?" Gilmore asked.

   "Lots of charming ways. Sending fake obituary notices—tombstone catalogues and things like that. They even had an undertaker call on them last week to collect the husband’s body. His poor cow of a wife went into hysterics."

   The car was now jolting and squelching down a muddied lane and the smell of burning oil was getting stronger. Frost wound down the window to let in some air, then pointed. "There it is!" Looming up before them, imperfectly seen through the Cortina’s mud-grimed wind screen, was a genuine old wooden windmill, its sails removed, and painted a smart designer black and white.

   Gilmore leant forward and craned his neck to take it all in. He was impressed. "That must have cost a few bob?"

   Frost nodded. "Rumour has it that the Comptons paid close on a quarter of a million for the place. With the slump in the housing market it’s worth a lot less now."

   The car scrunched up the gravel driveway which led to a white-framed, black front door outside which a police car was already parked. Alongside the drive ran a lawn, once immaculate, but now a muddy, churned-up, tire-grooved mess a-slosh with dirty water. Their job done, firemen were clambering into a fire engine ready to drive off. In the middle of the lawn the Fire Investigations Officer, rain bouncing off his yellow sou’wester, was gloomily poking through a jumble of sodden ashes and burnt, paint-blistered wood, all that was left of the summer house. Frost paddled over to him, cursing as water found the holes in his shoes and ruefully remembering his wellington boots snug and dry in the back of the car. Gilmore stayed put on the path. He wasn’t ruining his shoes for a lousy burnt-out summer house.

   Frost flicked his eye over the smouldering remains. "I could have made a better job of putting it out by peeing on it."

   The fire officer straightened up and grinned. "We didn’t stand a chance, Jack. The wood was soaked with petrol. We got here twelve minutes after the call, but it had almost burnt itself out by then."

   "Petrol?" Frost picked up a chunk of wet burnt wood and sniffed it. It smelled just like wet burnt wood. He tossed it back on the pile and watched the fire engine drive away.

   "No doubt about it. I’m still checking, but it was probably set off by some crude form of fuse—a candle or something. I’ll be able to tell you more when I find it."

   "You know me," said Frost. "If it’s crude, I’m interested." He squelched back to the drive.

   Gilmore hammered at the front door while Frost scuffed moodily at the gravel path and tried out the rusty bell on an old-fashioned, woman’s bicycle which leant against the wall. The door creaked open on heavy, black, wrought iron hinges and a scrawny, leathery-skinned woman in her late sixties, carrying a mop and bucket, scowled out at them. She wore a man’s cap, pulled right down over her hair, and a drab brown shapeless dress, tied at the waist with string.

   Frost nodded towards the bucket. "No thanks, Ada—I went before I came out." He introduced her to Gilmore. "This is Ada Perkins, the Swedish au pair."

   The woman grunted. "You’re not half as funny as you think you are, Jack Frost." She jerked a bony thumb towards a door at the end of the passage. "There’s a policeman in the kitchen drinking tea."

   "Then let’s start in the kitchen," said Frost.

   It was a spacious, no-expense-spared kitchen, fitted out in solid oak with marble worktops, burnished copper cookware on the walls and miniature hand-operated water pumps instead of taps over the sink. A black Aga disguised to look like an old coal-fired cooking range breathed the warm crunchy smell of baking bread. Black-moustached PC Jordan, twenty-six, his tunic unbuttoned, was seated at a scrubbed pine designer table drinking tea from a thick designer mug. He jumped up to attention as the detectives entered, but Frost waved him to sit and dragged up a chair alongside him. Gilmore did the same.

   "I suppose you want some tea?" said Ada and, without waiting for their reply, poured two teas from a brown teapot, pushed the sugar bowl across, then shuffled out, muttering something about having work to do.

   Frost found a tea towel and dried his wet hair. "This is Frank Gilmore."

   "Hi, Frank," said Jordan, offering his hand.

   The hand was ignored. "Detective Sergeant Gilmore," came the icy correction. "And button up that jacket." Start as you mean to go on. Don’t let the lower ranks get too familiar or they’ll walk all over you.

   Frost passed round his cigarettes, then asked for a report. Jordan, stifling his resentment at Gilmore’s snub, flipped open his notebook. "I got the call from Control at 9.23. I arrived at 9.34. The fire brigade was already here so I left them to it and went straight in to Mrs. Compton."

   "Mrs. Compton?" interrupted Frost. "Not the husband?"

   "He’s away on business," said Jordan.

   A smile traversed Frost’s face. "Good. Then I won’t have to watch him fondling her bloody body . . . What’s she wearing this morning?"

   "That pink shortie nightie," said Jordan. "The one she wore the first time."

   Frost whooped with delight. "The shortie—wow! That’s the one that barely covers her bum. I must try and drop something on the floor for her to pick up." Then he remembered the serious business of the day and nodded for Jordan to continue.

   "She got up just after nine, picked the post up from the mat, made herself a cup of tea and went into the lounge. The first letter she opened was this." Jordan pushed across a transparent plastic bag. Inside it was a sheet of cheap quality A4 paper on which were pasted letters cut from a glossy magazine to form words.

   Frost read it, his face grim, then passed it across to Gilmore. The message was short and chillingly to the point. THE NEXT THING TO BURN WILL BE YOU, YOU BITCH.

   "Where’s the envelope?" demanded Gilmore. This case was looking a little more worthy of his attention now. Jordan handed over another plastic bag containing a manila envelope, 9 inches by 4 inches. The address, typed in capitals, read: MRS. COMPTON, THE OLD MILL, LEXING. It bore a first-class stamp and had been posted in Denton the previous evening. He motioned for Jordan to continue.

   "Next she heard this roaring sound from outside. She opened the lounge curtains and saw the summer house on fire, so she dialled 999." He closed his notebook.

   Frost drained his mug and dropped his cigarette end in it. "This is getting nastier and nastier. It started off with heavy-breathing phone calls, now it’s death threats. Right, Jordan. Nip down to the village and ask around. Did anyone see anything . . . any strange cars lurking about someone stinking of petrol." As the constable left, he stood up. "Buttock-viewing time," he told Gilmore. "We’re going to chat up Mrs. Compton."

   Gilmore followed him out of the kitchen, along the waxed wooden-floored passage and into the lounge, a large, high-ceilinged room which had a rich, rustic, new-sacking smell from the dark chocolate-coloured hessian covering its walls.

   Jill Compton, standing to receive them, looked much younger than her twenty-three years. She wore a gauzy cobweb of a baby doll nightdress which hid nothing, and over it a silken house-coat which flapped open so as not to spoil the view through the nightdress. Her hair, fringed over wide blue eyes and free-flowing down her back, was a light, golden corn colour. She wore no make-up and the pale, china doll face with a hint of dark rings around the eyes gave her a look of vulnerability. She smiled bravely. "I’m sorry I’m not dressed."

   "That’s quite all right, Mrs. Compton," said Frost, and there was no doubting the sincerity in his voice. "It’s a sod about your summer house."

   "It could have been the house," she said, her voice unsteady. "Did you see that letter?"

   Before Frost could answer the front door slammed and a man’s voice called, "Jill—I’m home! Where are you?"

   "Mark!" She ran out to meet her husband.

   "Damn!" grunted Frost. "The buttock-squeezer’s back!" Mark Compton was twenty-nine and flashily good-looking. Fair-haired, a bronzed complexion, although slightly overweight from good living, he looked like a retired life-guard out of Neighbours. Gilmore hated him instantly for his looks, his money, his perfectly fitting silver-grey suit, his arm around Mrs. Compton, but most of all for his hand caressing her bare arm.

   "A letter? My wife said there was a letter threatening to kill her."

   Frost showed it to him. His face went white. "Why are we being persecuted like this?" He sank down into a leather armchair. His wife dropped down on his lap and snuggled up to him.

   "That’s what I want to know," said Frost. "Why?" He and Gilmore were sitting, facing the Comptons, in a large leather settee. He fumbled for his cigarettes. "Whoever’s doing this must have a reason."

   "Reason?" said Compton "There’s no bloody reason. It’s the work of a maniac."

   "We’ve been receiving a spate of complaints about poison pen letters. 'Did you know your wife’s been having it off with the milkman?'—that sort of thing. I’m wondering if it could be the same bloke."

   "We’ve had death threats, Inspector, not stupid poison pen letters."

   "Run through the main course of events again," said Frost. "Just for the benefit of my new colleague here."

   Mark Compton slipped his hand under Jill’s house-coat and gently stroked her bare back. "OK. As you know, we run a business from this place . . . Jill was on her own one night when this bugger phoned."

   "What sort of business is it?" interrupted Gilmore.

   "Dirty books," said Frost.

   Compton glowered. "We’re fine art dealers," he corrected. "Mainly rare books and prints, a small proportion of which might be termed erotica, and manuscripts, but not many. There’s over a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of stock upstairs."

   Gilmore whistled softly to show he was impressed. "Safely locked up, I hope?"

   "We couldn’t get insurance if it wasn’t," Compton replied icily. "Your Crime Prevention Officer has given us the once-over and was quite satisfied. We’ve got a sophisticated alarm system with automatic 999 dialling. If anyone tried to break in, they’d set off the alarm at your police station."