Winter Frost (9 page)

   
"I'm sorry guv. It's all my fault."

   
"No. In a way, you've helped, Taffy. You've made me look at it from another angle. If he was that bloody clever, why would he run away? Why would he give us a fake name and address?" He stood up. "I don't think he did it. We let him go. We can always pull him in again if we're hard up for another suspect." He yawned. "What a bleeding night; false gen about the missing kid, the pillow burglar strikes again, an armed robbery and a dead tom. If it wasn't for Mullett's car being smashed it would be a complete wash-out." He snapped his fingers. "Mullett! Let's see what he wants."

Mullett was in the car-park examining what those drunken hooligans had done to his Rover. The wing was crumpled, the rear light smashed. It was in no state to be driven to County tomorrow. He'd be a laughing stock. He would have to borrow his wife's Honda. Ah, at last! Frost shuffling out of the station and coming over to him. The same scruffy mac, that same tired scarf. Hadn't the man anything else to wear? But that wasn't the main thing on his mind. He wanted to find out about the prostitute killing. He had the awful thought the victim could have been the harridan who approached him when he was stopped at the traffic lights. There weren't many blue Rovers in Denton. What if someone had seen her approach him? Headlines about kerb-crawling top policeman kept flashing in his mind.

   
"Nasty," said Frost, nodding at the damage.

   
"Yes," agreed Mullett through clenched teeth. That stupid Sergeant Wells. He was commanding a Division of incompetents.

   
"It must be hard to say no to a drink at these County meetings," muttered Frost, bending to take a closer look himself. "Your best bet is to say it was parked and some drunken sod ran into it."

   
"That's exactly what did happen," snapped Mullett.

   
"Good for you!" nodded Frost approvingly. "I almost believe you myself and I can always see through a lie." He straightened up, fingering the car expenses form in his pocket, anxious to gauge the opportune time to present it to Mullett for his signature. "You wanted to see me, Super?"

   
"Ah . . . yes." Mullett tried to sound disinterested. "This prostitute killing. Was she young . . . old . . . ?"

   
"Early twenties," said Frost. "Dark-haired, medium height. Why—do you think you know her? We're trying to trace her regulars."

   
"No, no . . ." said Mullett hastily, relieved that she didn't sound at all like the same one. "Of course I don't know her. I want this case cleared up quickly, Frost. We now have a second dead prostitute. We don't want panic because there's a serial killer on the loose."

   
"We don't know it's the same bloke," said Frost. "The victims are toms but there seems no other connection."

   
"I understand you've handed the case over to Acting Inspector Maud? You didn't think of clearing it with me first?"

   
"I didn't believe it necessary. The first dead tom was investigated by Inspector Allen and she's taken over from him."

   
Mullett waved a dismissive hand. "I know all about that, but we're talking serial murder. What are they going to say at County tomorrow when they learn that a woman—I mean an acting inspector is in charge of such an important case? No. I want you to take it over."

   
"She can handle it," insisted Frost.

   
"Allow me to be the judge of that," snapped Mullett. "She's an inexperienced woman officer."

   
"Who's got to gain experience."

   
"But not at our expense, Frost. If this blows up in our face it will be my head on the chopping block. She can work under you if you like, but you are in charge."

   
Frost looked up as a grey Nissan bumped its way into the car-park. "There she is, Super. Shall I call her over so you can tell her yourself?"

   
"No," said Mullett hastily. "Better if it comes from you. It will underline that you're in charge . . ." He tugged open the door of his Rover. "Got to go . . . early start tomorrow."

   "Hold it, Super." Frost grabbed the car door, preventing it from closing. "Before you go, would you OK my car expenses?"

   
Mullett stared in annoyance at the claim form with its wad of scruffy petrol receipts attached. For some reason Frost never seemed to patronize petrol stations who provided a printed receipt. He fingered through them doubtfully.

   
"Got a minute, Liz?" called Frost, beckoning her over. Mullett snatched the pen from Frost's hand and scribbled his signature. "Keep me posted," he muttered as he slammed the car door and drove off.

   
She took the news badly, staring tight-lipped at Frost as if it was all his fault. "I presume you'll be covering the post-mortem tomorrow then?" she asked icily, before spinning on her heel and marching to her office.

   
"Unless you'd like—" said Frost, his sentence cut off as the doors slammed behind her. "I'll take that as a no," he muttered. Shit. What a lousy bloody night. He looked at his watch. 3.15 in the morning. In five hours he would be watching Drysdale slice the dead tom up. But sod it. That was tomorrow. Mullett had gone. He had the station to himself. Nothing he could do about the dead tom until the morning. An Indian takeaway, a handful of Mullett's fags from the hospitality box and the recording of the big fight on the telly in the rest room. Things could be worse.

"I'm sorry, guv," mumbled Morgan. "I'm truly sorry. I don't know how it happened."

   
"It happened, you Welsh nit," snarled Frost, "because you recorded the wrong flaming channel. We're all sitting there like a load of prats, expecting the big fight, and what are we watching? The flaming singing nuns in
The Sound of bloody Music
."

   
"Sorry, guv," said Morgan again.

   
"Sorry, guv! That's your catch phrase. I can forgive you letting that drunk maul the corpse last night, but sodding up the recording of the big fight . . ."

   
Morgan hung his head in shame.

   
"Chance to redeem yourself. Go and get me a mug of tea and a bacon sandwich and bring it to the murder incident room. If you turn up with cocoa and a fairy cake, you're sacked." Frost yawned. He'd had a rotten night. After the fiasco of the big fight video, he'd staggered off to bed just after four, but sleep had stubbornly eluded him. He just lay there, smoking, sucking hard on the cigarette from time to time so he could check the crawl of time on his wrist-watch in its red glow. When he finally drifted off to sleep he had dreams of the autopsy, but the body being hacked about by Drysdale was not the prostitute; it was Vicky Stuart, the little girl with the gap in her teeth, who suddenly sat up from the autopsy table and screamed, waking him in a cold sweat. And just as he was drifting off again, the flaming alarm clock shook him awake at 7.45, just in time to tumble out of bed, splash his face with water, a quick shave, then off to the mortuary to watch Drysdale slice open the unknown tom on an empty stomach.

   
Drysdale, methodical, waspish and impassive, was able to tell him little he didn't know already. Death due to manual strangulation and the stab wound probably self-inflicted as her attacker tried to wrest the knife from her.

   
Frost was puzzled that there were no traces of the assailant's skin under the long, unbroken fingernails. "Surely she would have tried to scratch the bastard's eyes out, doc?"

   
Drysdale lifted the head and indicated the swellings at the back of the skull. "Her head was banged several times against the wall with considerable force. This could have caused concussion at which point she would have been incapable of defending herself." He pointed to the livid yellow patch near the left eye. "She was punched."

   
"We've got the bloke who gave her the black eyes, doc, but we don't think he was her killer." His stomach rumbled noisily. "I need to get some stomach contents myself, doc . . . a bacon sandwich—so unless there's anything else you can tell me?"

   
There was nothing else. "A name would be a convenience," said Drysdale.

   
"As soon as we find out who she is, you'll be the first to know," Frost assured him. Flaming hell. Bad enough it was a murder inquiry without having to waste manpower trying to find the victim's name.

   
"Did you see the big fight on the telly last night?" the mortuary attendant asked as he made his way out.

   
"No, I bleeding well didn't!" snapped Frost.

He sat on the corner of the desk in the murder incident room warming his hands round the mug of tea Morgan had brought him. He chewed the last morsel of the bacon sandwich, wiped his hand down the front of his jacket, then nodded at the group of six men who formed his murder squad. Manpower was in short supply since Mullett had generously agreed to loan eight uniforms and a DC to County to help in their drugs bust operation. "Anyone seen Detective Inspector Maud?" he asked. All heads shook. "Ah well, we'll carry on without her." He lit up a cigarette. "We have one dead tom. Anyone found out who she is yet?" He looked up hopefully, but again heads were firmly shaken.

   
"I chatted up a couple of the girls last night," said Jordan. "One of them, had a room in the same block. She said the dead girl hadn't been there very long, a few weeks at the most. They hadn't spoken, so she didn't know anything about her."

   
"Very bleeding helpful. Have we checked the landlord?"

   
Detective Sergeant Hanlon raised a hand. "They're a limited company registered in the Cayman Islands. That block in Clayton Street is handled over here by local agents but they don't open until ten. I'm on my way there as soon as this briefing is over."

   
Frost nodded. "We want her name and home address—I presume they take up references."

   
"Odds are they don't bother," said Hanlon. "As long as the girls can pay a month's rent in advance, plus a hefty deposit, they're satisfied."

   
"Then find out how she paid them—cheque, credit card or greasy fivers red hot from the sweaty palms of her clientele."

   
"I'll check," said Hanlon.

   
"OK," said Frost, standing up. "Let's just run over what we do know. We know she had a row with this drunk who welted her one in the eye. He finds his wallet's been pinched and comes to us. While he's away, someone else calls and kills her."

   
"Gladstone could have killed her himself," put in Jordan. "I don't think we should have let him go."

   
"He could have done it, son, but I don't think he did. Anyway, we know where he lives in case we run short of suspects. Let's proceed on the assumption it was someone else—and someone who followed hard on Gladstone's heels because she hadn't had time to get dressed."

   
"Couldn't she. have got dressed, gone out and picked up her killer then got undressed for him?" asked Hanlon.

   
"Gladstone had given her a black eye," said Frost. "If she went out again to tout for trade, she'd have slapped some make-up over it; but she didn't. So, if she didn't go out to pick him up, he came to her. He knew where she worked . . . he'd been there before."

   
"Any fingerprints?" asked Simms.

   
"Fingerprints going back to the year dot," said Frost. "Every flaming client she's ever had, but we're checking them all out. Mullett went as white as a sheet when I told him."

   
"Is there any connection with this one and the murdered tom Inspector Allen was working on?" Jordan asked.

   
Frost patted the file on the desk. "Linda Roberts was tied to a bed by her wrists and ankles, gagged, then tortured, her stomach burnt with a lighted cigarette." He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and sizzled it to death in his mug. "For good measure she was raped and suffocated. Last night's tom was killed standing against a wall, strangled and no sign of torture. So unless he was fussy about stubbing out his fags on a bloodstained stomach, I don't think there's a connection, but we'll keep our options open."

   
He turned to the full-face photograph of the dead woman which had been pinned to the wall. "So what do we know about her? She hadn't been on the game long, by all accounts. We don't know if she's a local girl or not. Let's get her photograph circulated to the media . . . someone must recognize her. In the meantime, where does she live? Why hasn't someone reported her missing?"

   
"She could have lived where we found her, guv," said Morgan. "She had a bed, a phone, heat . . ."

   
". . . a sink and a toilet," continued Frost, "which gave the punters two places to pee down; but no fridge, oven, pantry, crockery. This poor cow had to eat. She lived elsewhere and she works late, so how does she get home?"

   
"She could live within walking distance," offered Jordan.

   
"Then why rent a flat? Why not take her clients to her house?"

   
"Perhaps her family would object." 

   "So what does her family think she's doing, working late at night, coming home with her handbag stuffed with tenners? A slight possibility she lives within walking distance, but what if she doesn't?" 

   "She's got a car?" said Morgan. 

   Frost jabbed a finger at the DC. "That's what I reckon, Taffy. So where is it? It's going to be parked near the knocking shop. There were cars nose to tail last night. This morning most of the owners will have driven off to work. I want someone to go and check all cars still standing and find out who owns them." He snapped his fingers as another thought struck him. "She might have come by cab. Check with all the local cab firms. Did they drop her off there last night—if so, where did they pick her up?"