Night Frost (29 page)

   Frost stared at the packets, feeling even more depressed. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find, but certainly not this. This would effectively shoot his case against Green way right up the anal passage. He went to the shed door and swore bitterly into the rain and the wind and the dark.

The Interview Room now reeked strongly of stale shag tobacco smoke and cheese and onion crisps. There was a spit-soaked, thin hand-rolled cigarette end in the ashtray. Some one else had been interviewed since Frost’s questioning of Greenway.

   "All right, all right. Stop shoving." Greenway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with a neatly bandaged hand, stumbled into the room, urged roughly from behind by a foul-tempered Gilmore. Frost waited until the man was sitting down, then he pulled a packet of Benson and Hedges from his pocket and pushed it across. Greenway stared at it for a while, turned the packet gingerly with a finger so he could confirm the absence of the health warning. "You took your bloody time finding them," he grunted.

   Frost retrieved the packet and shook out a cigarette. He lit up and sucked in smoke. "Feel like talking?"

   Greenway helped himself to a cigarette and accepted a light from the inspector. "I take it I’m no longer being charged with killing the school kid?"

   "No. The bloke you coshed has identified your photograph."

   Greenway thought for a moment. "All right. I’ll give you a statement."

   But as Gilmore turned the pages of his notebook, Frost waved a hand for him to stop. "This isn’t our case. Detective Inspector Skinner from Shelwood Division is on his way over. You can give a statement to him."

   Gilmore snorted in exasperation. "Would someone mind telling me what this is about?"

   "Sorry, son," apologized Frost. "On the day Paula Bartlett went missing a van-load of Benson and Hedges king-size cigarettes for export was hijacked on its way to the docks. The driver was flagged down, coshed, and his load nicked. This happened on the motorway at Shelwood, miles outside Denton Division."

   "But Greenway told Inspector Allen he never went out that day," protested Gilmore.

   "I think he was lying," said Frost. "People don’t always tell us the truth."

   "Of course I was lying," said Greenway. "The bloody van, full of nicked fags, was standing outside my house when the other inspector called that evening. I thought he was on to me, so when he asked me, I said I hadn’t been out all day. But it was about the missing kid . . ."

   "Can you help us at all about the girl?" asked Frost.

   Greenway shook his head. "I left home at six in the morning . . . didn’t get back until nine o’clock at night. The paper hadn’t arrived when I left and it wasn’t there when I got back."

   A tap at the door. "Detective Inspector Skinner is here," announced Sergeant Wells.

   Skinner, a burly man in a trench coat, looked exactly how a detective inspector should look, a contrast to the rag-bag Gilmore had to work with. His sergeant, lean and mean, looked like a detective sergeant who would always be in his boss’s shadow, not how Gilmore intended to end up. "Understand you’ve got a little present for us, Jack?" said Skinner, his eyes on the prisoner.

   "He’s all yours," said Frost. "I can’t solve any of my own cases, but I solve other people’s." He offered his cigarettes around and Skinner nearly choked when he was told he was smoking some of the stolen property.

   Wells returned with papers to be signed for the transfer of the prisoner and whispered to Frost that Mr. Mullett would like to see him in his office.

   "Shit," muttered Frost. "It’s been a rotten enough day already."

   In fact Mullett was hovering outside in the corridor and was full of charm and smiles for the two detectives from Shelwood. "Delighted to have been able to help," he smarmed. But as soon as they had gone, his smile froze to death. "My office!" he hissed and spun on his heel away.

   Frost was dead tired, but he kept his eyes open to pretend he was listening as Mullett droned angrily on. "You’ve made me look a complete and utter fool in the eyes of the Chief Constable . . ."

   He let his gaze drift around the old log cabin and noticed to his horror that there was a foil take-away food container, yellowed with cold curry sauce, poking from under Mullett’s desk. He moved forward, looking very contrite, and nudged it out of sight with his toe.

   ". . . and it wasn’t even our case. We’ve improved Shelwood’s crime figures, which made ours look sick anyway, and done nothing for our own. What on earth am I going to tell the Chief Constable?"

   The drone of Mullett’s voice roared and faded and Frost had to jerk his head up to keep awake. He fought back a yawn. This was all his life seemed to be lately, making balls-ups, getting bollockings from Mullett, and then sent out to make a fresh balls-up.

   ". . . and, in any case, I had told you to concentrate on the senior citizen killings. So leave the Paula Bartlett case for Mr. Allen and try and find that other suspect you let slip through your fingers. I want no more mess-ups." He leant across his desk, his chin thrust out. "Are you receiving me, Inspector?"

   "Loud and clear," said Frost. "Loud and bloody clear."

1.15 a.m. The lobby had a sour smell. A mixture of stale beer and spilt whisky. Wells was shouting at PC Jordan who, helped by young PC Collier, was struggling with a man in evening dress. The man’s legs kept giving way and he seemed ready to collapse in the pool of vomit at his feet. At last they managed to sit him down safely on the bench.

   "Anything in from the Met on Simon Bradbury?" asked Gilmore.

   "How the hell do I know?" snapped Wells, irritably. "I don’t keep track of every bit of paper that comes in and out of this building. And another . . ." He stopped short and yelled, "Take him outside! Quick!" The drunk was being sick again. Jordan and Collier grabbed him, but too late. More vomit pumped out and they jumped back just in time as it splattered on the lobby floor. Eyes squinting, the drunk tried to make out what the mess was at his feet.

   "Bloody marvellous!" cried Wells, and he looked around for someone to vent his anger on. PC Collier decided this was a good time to take a refreshment break and sidled out towards the rest room, but didn’t quite make it.

   "And where do you think you’re going, Collier?"

   "Refreshment break, Sergeant."

   Wells consulted his watch and found, to his disappointment, that Collier was entitled to his break. "Right. When you come back you can clean up this mess."

   "That’s not my job, Sergeant," Collier protested, firmly.

   "Your job is to do what I bloody well tell you to do," yelled Wells as Collier stamped out, slamming the door behind him. Red-faced Wells charged, fists clenched, after him. "I’ll have you, Collier."

   Frost cut across to bar his way. "Hold it, Bill. Hold it," he said, soothingly. "We’re all tired and overworked." He poked a cigarette in the sergeant’s mouth and led him back to the desk. "Any chance of a cup of tea?"

   "There’s a kettle in the rest room," said Wells. "You might bring me one."

   The only occupant of the rest room was Collier who was huddled in a chair in front of a 14-inch colour TV set, warming his hands round a mug of instant coffee and brooding over the injustices of working under Sergeant Wells. On the screen, a young girl in pigtails who didn’t look much older than twelve was sprawled naked on some grass, sun bathing. The camera moved to show a man with a riding crop watching from the cover of some bushes. Behind the man a board read
Trespassers Will Be Punished
.

   "Where did you get that video?" demanded Gilmore, sharply.

   Snatched too abruptly from his morose meditation, Collier started, spilling instant coffee down the front of his uniform. He reached out to switch off the set, but Frost grabbed his wrist. "Leave it, son. Where did you get it?"

   "We only borrowed it, Inspector. We were going to put it back." He held up a video case which had the typed label
A Thrashing For Fiona
. It was one of the haul of pornographic videos removed from the newsagent’s.

   On the screen the naked girl was on her knees, pleading with the man who was slapping the riding crop against his leg.

   "Go and fetch Sergeant Wells," ordered Frost, dragging another chair in front of the set.

   Collier registered dismay. It was unlike the inspector to report people. "I only borrowed it, sir."

   Dragging his eyes from the TV set where the girl was across the man’s knees, being thrashed with the riding crop, Frost gave a reassuring grin. "Don’t worry, son. I’ll tell him I took it. Just send him in."

   Gilmore spooned instant coffee into three mugs and filled them with boiling water. He passed one to Frost and sat beside him in the, chair vacated by Collier.

   A clatter of footsteps up the passage and Wells came in. "Look, Jack, I haven’t got time . . ." He stopped dead as he caught sight of the screen. "Bloody-hell . . . !" He grabbed the other chair and sat down.

   Engrossed, Frost gulped down his coffee, unaware that he hadn’t added his usual three heaped teaspoons of sugar. The man was now using the riding crop to do something unspeakable. "He caught her trespassing," Frost told Wells, explaining the plot.

   "Serves her bloody right," said Wells. "She’ll think twice before she does it again."

   The video finished abruptly. Frost fed another one in. The title read
Animal Passions
. An interior scene this time. The same pigtailed girl, naked and with a dog, a large white and brown Great Dane with a torn left ear, its tail wagging furiously. The girl lay on her back. The dog, slowly and deliberately, was licking her.

   "I bet he prefers that to Pedigree Chum," croaked Wells.

   "Who wouldn’t," said Frost.

   Gilmore looked at his watch. Nearly two o’clock. He’d told Liz he’d try and pop in during the shift, even if it was only for half an hour. He tried to catch Frost’s attention as the fool sat there, eyes bulging, like a schoolboy with a dirty book. "Do you mind if I take a break, Inspector? About half an hour or so? I’d like to pop home."

   "Sure," muttered Frost, his eyes glued to the screen where the dog, tongue lolling, whites of eyes showing, was coupling with the girl.

   This was too much for Gilmore who turned away in disgust. As he reached for the door handle it was abruptly snatched away from him as the door opened and there, framed in the doorway like an avenging angel, stood a furious and angry Mullett.

   The internal phone rang.

   Gilmore stared at Mullett, open-mouthed. Bloody Frost had dropped him in it again. He was sure the Divisional Commander had gone home.

   Frost and Wells, eyes fixed rigidly on the screen, were blissfully ignorant of this visitation and Gilmore could do nothing to alert them.

   Mullett pushed Gilmore to one side and strode into the rest room. He stood between the two men and the TV set and glowered down at them, his face thunder black.

   Wells nearly had a heart attack.

   "Hello, Super. This is a pleasant surprise," said Frost, managing an unconvincing grin.

   The phone kept on ringing. Glad of something to do, Gilmore answered it. It was Collier warning them that the Divisional Commander was on his way in.

   "Thank you," hissed Gilmore through clenched teeth, “but we know."

   "What the devil is going on here?" spluttered Mullett. "I look in on my way back from a function and what do I find? The lobby floor plastered with vomit, a junior officer left on his own to cope and the station sergeant and other officers in the rest room, watching . . ." His eyes bulged as he looked over his shoulder to see just what they were watching, obscene, bestial videos.

   Wells was on his feet, his mouth opening and closing in the hope that his brain would provide him with something mitigating to say. Gilmore wished the ground would open and swallow him. At the first opportunity he would request an interview with Mullett to explain that he was not there from choice.

   Frost didn’t appear to be paying his Divisional Commander much attention, but leant forward to study the antics on the screen more closely.

   Mullett’s lips compressed as he bottled up his rage. This was the last straw. "Would you please wait outside," he asked the other two men. A mad scramble for the door as they raced to comply, leaving the inspector as hostage for the superintendent’s fury.

   Frost dragged his chair closer to the TV set. Angrily, Mullett pushed in front of him, blocking his view. "If I might have your attention," he began icily then nearly burst a blood vessel as Frost had the temerity, the brazen-faced in subordinate impudence, to reach out and push his Divisional Commander to one side.

   "How dare you," he spluttered when the words finally came.

   Flapping a hand for Mullett to be quiet, Frost roared out, "Gilmore . . . in here! Quick."

   The detective sergeant came back in the room, looking first at the purple-faced, rage-quivering Mullett, then at Frost who was on his knees operating the rewind button on the video recorder. Like a silent film in reverse, the naked girl and the dog moved jerkily backwards at high speed.

   "Watch," ordered Frost, releasing the rewind. The dog, panting with excitement, again approached and straddled the girl.

   "For the last time, Inspector . . ." roared Mullett.

   Curtly jerking his hand for silence, Frost jabbed the pause button. On the screen, in full close-up, the vacant face of the girl froze, quivering slightly as the video head passed over and over the same section of tape.

   "The pigtails and blonde hair are a wig, son," said Frost, his hands moving to block them out.

   Gilmore stared hard at the girl’s face, her lips slack, eyes glazed and unseeing, tiny flecks of sweat on the forehead.

   "Recognize her, son?"

   Gilmore nodded. Yes, he recognized her. The suicide. The Snoopy watch. The Mickey Mouse night-shirt. Fifteen-year-old Susan Bicknell. The marks of the beating were now explained.