Winter Frost (10 page)

   
Bill Wells came into the incident room. "Got a woman for you in the lobby, Inspector."

   
"She'll have to wait," grunted Frost. "I never have intercourse immediately after a bacon sandwich."

   
Wells grinned. "You'll want to see this one. She's a tom . . . and her flatmate has gone missing."

   
Frost's eyes lit up. "Hold it, everyone. We might be getting a name."

The pungent smell of the perfume she was wearing fought a losing battle with the pine disinfectant that had been sloshed down on the interview room floor after the ravages of the night before. She was in her late thirties, but without make-up looked a lot older. Straw-blond hair, skin darkly tanned, and fingers that matched Frost's for nicotine staining. She was sucking heavily on a cigarette as he entered. He sat opposite her and put the file with the dead prostitute's photograph inside on the table in front of him. He smiled. "Your flatmate's gone missing? Since when?"

   
"I don't know." She snatched the cigarette from her mouth and flicked ash all over the floor. "I've been away for two weeks' holiday in Spain with my boyfriend. I came back last night expecting to find her in the flat. No sign of her."

   
"What does your flatmate do for a living?"

   
She glared at him, smoke streaming from her nostrils like an angry dragon. "You bloody well know what she does . . . same as me . . . we're on the game. She's had some weird clients in her time. I reckon one of them's done her in."

   
"Where did she take her clients?"

   
"A room in those flats in Clayton Street. We shared it."

   
"I see." Frost tried to keep his face impassive. He opened up the folder and took out the photograph. "Is this your friend?" he asked gently.

   
She looked at it and shook her head. "No."

   Frost frowned. "Are you sure?"

   
"I ought to know what she bleeding looks like, didn't I? That's one of the other girls . . . down on the second floor, I think."

   
"You know her?" said Frost excitedly. "What's her name?"

   
"I don't know her bleeding name. I've passed her on the stairs a couple of times. She hasn't been there long. Look—sod her whoever she is, it's my flatmate I'm worried about." She opened her handbag and took out a photograph of a fat, blowsy, ginger-haired woman in her fifties.

   
"Flaming heck," exclaimed Frost, recognizing the woman immediately. "It's big bleeding Bertha—ten ton of tit and tongue." Bertha had been arrested quite a few times for soliciting, drunk and disorderly and for assaulting a police officer.

   
"A bit of bleeding respect," snapped the woman. "She helps pay your flaming wages. She's missing. Something's happened to her."

   
"She could have gone away for a few days—perhaps she wanted a holiday too."

   
"No bloody way. We've got a dog—little Chummy. Bertha idolizes it. When I got back to the flat last night, there's dog's mess all over the floor and the poor thing was starving, no water, no food, nothing. Bertha would never have left it to starve. That dog was like a kid to her."

   
Frost scratched his chin. This wasn't looking too good. "You said she had some weird clients?"

   
"Yes. She's no glamour puss, she has to grab what she can get. Some of the rubbish she brought back to the flat! I'm not fussy, but I wouldn't go within a mile of them. Some wouldn't take their boots off in bed and there were others you wished they'd bleeding well kept them on."

   
"Are her belongings still in the flat?" 

   "Yes. All her clothes, her bank book . . ."

   
"Credit cards? Cash?"

   
"She always kept them with her—in her handbag."

   
"Any idea what she would have been wearing?"

   
"Her red dress and her long black fur coat."

   
"Have you checked your room in Clayton Street?"

   
"Not yet."

   
"We'll do that," said Frost, taking details. He stood up. "We'll do what we can. If she turns up in the meantime, let us know."

   
She lit up a fresh cigarette for the street and shook her head with concern. "I really am worried about her."

   
Frost nodded. He was worried too.

   He escorted her out and went back to Wells in the lobby. He showed the sergeant the photograph. "She's gone missing."

   
Wells studied it. "Best thing that could have happened to her."

   
Frost grinned. "Her flatmate thinks she's been done in and I've got one of my nasty feelings that says she might be right. Circulate details and get someone to check her place of business in Clayton Street; there might be a body there we missed." He looked up at the wall clock. Time was racing by and so much still to be done. "Any idea where Liz Maud is?"

   
"She crept in late then went straight in to see Mullett," Wells told him.

Mullett made a great show of pushing the pile of papers to one side to let Liz know she was tearing him away from much more important matters, then put on his 'tired, overworked, but my staff come first' expression. "You wanted to see me, Sergeant . . . er, Inspector?" He knew what it was about, of course. These damned women always claiming sex discrimination. WPCs were fine for searching female prisoners but promote them, give them a bit of authority, and the minute something happened they didn't like they started screaming 'sex discrimination'.

   
"The murdered prostitute . . ." began Liz.

   
Mullett frowned and pretended to consult a note on his desk. "Ah yes. The one in Clayton Street. Inspector Frost is handling that, I believe." He consulted his Rolex. "I hope this won't take long. I want to look in on his briefing meeting."

   
"It should be my case," insisted Liz. "It could be the same killer as the prostitute murder Inspector Allen was handling—a case I've taken over from him."

   
Mullett expressed surprise. "Mr. Frost didn't think they were connected."

   
"Well, I do."

   
He took off his glasses and made great play of polishing them as he gave Liz his warm, friendly, open smile. "Teamwork, Inspector. That's the keyword, teamwork. No cowboys, no Indians, no generals, no privates—all one big team." These were the words the Chief Constable had used in yesterday's meeting at which Mullett had nodded his fawning agreement. He was surprised that Liz didn't seem to be doing the same. "You and Frost will make an excellent team."

   
"But it will be his case, not mine."

   
"Someone's got to be in charge," said Mullett, "and he is, er . . ."

   
"A man?"

   
"A more experienced officer."

   
"So he's the general and I'm the private? I see." She stood up abruptly. "I see."

   
"Thanks for being so understanding," said Mullett. "I knew you'd understand."

   
"Yes," hissed Liz, breathing fire at him. "I understand perfectly."

   
The door closed behind her as Mullett sank back in his chair and raised his eyes. "Women!" he protested to the ceiling.

Frost pinned the enlargement of Bertha's photograph next to the photograph of the dead woman from the night before. "Some of you may recognize her. Big Bertha—Bertha Jenkins. She's gone missing. It may not tie in with last night's dead tom, but they both plied for hire from the same building in Clayton Street." He filled them in on the details. "Two dead prostitutes and now one missing, so I'm worried . . ." He paused. All heads turned as the door opened and Police Superintendent Mullett, shiny and gleaming in his 'going to County' best uniform, marched in. Everyone sprang respectfully to their feet. Mullett signalled for them to be seated, noting with annoyance that Frost had made no effort to raise himself from the corner of the desk.

   
"If I could have a few words, Inspector?"

   
"Right," barked Frost. "Super's going to say a few words. Try and look as if you're paying attention."

   
Mullett gave a tight smile. "I want this one cleared up as soon as possible. Crimes involving women of the street get maximum attention from the press and this, in turn, stirs up cries from the respectable members of the community demanding we clean up the red light area. Even at this early hour I have received numerous phone calls complaining about kerb-crawling . . . predatory motorists looking for women, not watching where they are going, causing accidents."

   
Frost looked up. "The Super smashed his car up last night."

   
"It happened in the station car-park," snapped Mullett, ignoring the sniggers.

   
"I didn't know the details," said Frost.

   
Mullett's angry glower bounced harmlessly off Frost's expression of utter innocence. "Now that we're adopting this excellent team work initiative of County's I'm looking for improved results. Our unsolved crime figures are appalling and I want them brought down. The fewer unsolved crimes, the better the figures. So the best of luck and let's hope for some good news when I report to County." With a curt nod to Frost, he marched briskly out.

   
As the door closed behind the Divisional Commander, Frost got to his feet. "The Super has put his finger on it as usual. The more unsolved crimes we have, the worse our unsolved crime figures—so what's the answer?"

   
"Fiddle the unsolved crime figures?" suggested Morgan.

   
"I've already done that," said Frost, "and they're still bad, so let's try the hard way. You all know what to do, so go out and do it."

   
He swilled down the cold dregs of his tea, drowned his cigarette end in the mug and ambled back to his office to rake half-heartedly through the pile of paper in his in-tray. Lots of memos from Mullett demanding all sorts of answers, which were shuffled down to the bottom of the pile. A letter handwritten in green ink caught his attention. He plucked it up and held it disdainfully at arm's length between thumb and forefinger as he read it.

   
"What's that, guv?" Morgan had followed him in.

   
"One of our local nutters who reckons he's got second sight. He's telling us where to find Vicky." Frost nodded to the 'Missing Girl' poster on the wall. "Listen—'The missing girl will be found on grass, near trees under a blue sky.' That narrows it down, doesn't it?" He screwed up the letter before hurling it in the general direction of his waste-paper bin. The search for Vicky Stuart had come to a dead end. They had searched everywhere, dragged the canal and the river, pleaded for information over the media, followed up hundreds of sightings; the girl had been seen with long distance lorry drivers, with a black-bearded man in France, with a convoy of New Age travellers . . . All had proved negative. And now this flaming soothsayer wanted to get in on the act. He looked across at Morgan who was sitting at his desk flicking through the phone directory. "Aren't you supposed to be out working?"

   
The DC held a hand to his jaw. "Sorry, guv—got a tooth giving me gyp. Do you know the name of a good dentist?"

   
"There are no good dentists," said Frost. "They're all sadistic bastards. Tie a bit of string to it with a brick on the end and drop it out of the window."

   
The office door crashed open and slammed shut and there was Liz Maud, snorting fire. She jabbed a finger at Frost. "You told Mr. Mullett you didn't think the two prostitute murders were connected."

   
"Yes, love," nodded Frost ruefully, "and if I had known the sod was going to put me on the case, I'd have lied. I didn't want to get up at the crack of dawn and see Drysdale filleting that poor cow."

   
"You knew I wanted that case. By rights it should be mine."

   
"We'll work together on it," said Frost. "If I sod it up, I'll take the blame. If we crack it, you can take the credit."

   
She gave a grudging nod. Unlike her, she knew the inspector didn't want to rise any higher in the force.

   
Morgan finished a phone call and called over to Frost: "Is it all right if I take a bit of time off to visit the dentist, guv?"

   
"Sure," nodded Frost. "Take all the time you like—as long as you do it in your lunch hour." Back to Liz. "How's your armed robbery going?"

   
She suddenly felt a wave of nausea ripple through her stomach and sat down heavily in the spare chair.

   
"You all right, love?" asked Frost.

   
"Just a stomach upset," she muttered. She'd been putting it off, dreading the result, but as soon as she got back to the flat she would use the pregnancy testing kit. "The armed robbery? I haven't got very far yet. A description of the two men, but no sign of the car they hijacked. The old boy who tackled the gunman demanded to see me last night to tell me nothing we didn't know. I'm on my way now to the hospital to talk to the husband." She shot an accusing glance at Morgan. "You were supposed to be checking the background of the cashier."

   
"Was just about to do it as you came in, ma'am," said Morgan, scuttling out of the office.

   
Frost grinned to himself. Morgan was picking up his own bad habits.