A Killing Frost

Chapter 10

‘You look bloody rough, Jack,’ grinned Wells as Frost made his pale-faced entrance. ‘Drive you too hard, did she?’

Frost poked a cigarette in his parrot’s cage of a mouth and lit up. The smoke sandpapered his raw throat as he sucked it down. ‘The only body I got my hands on last night had a surprised expression on its face and a carving knife in its gut.’

‘What – Ronnie Knox? Skinner’s cock-a-hoop. He squeezed a confession out of Gregson. He’s charged him with murder.’

‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’ said Frost.

‘Skinner wants to see you, Jack. The minute you got in, he said.’

‘The bloody man’s insatiable,’ said Frost.

Skinner frowned angrily as Frost sauntered in and flopped heavily in a chair, showering cigarette ash everywhere.

‘Please sit down,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Don’t wait to be asked.’

‘Thanks,’ grunted Frost, the sarcasm just bouncing off him. ‘You wanted to see me?’

Skinner pulled open a drawer and took out a blue form which he slid across the desk. ‘Your request for a transfer. Just sign it at the bottom, would you?’ Seeing Frost hesitate, he added, ‘I got another batch of your expense claims from County last night. From a quick look through them it seems there are quite a few other items we could query if we really wanted to be sods.’

Frost withstood the urge to smash the bastard in the face and tried to look as if it was of no importance to him. You’ve already got me, you bastards. Why turn the screw? He scratched his signature at the bottom without bothering to read the form and slid it back to Skinner, who gave it a cursory glance and smiled with smug satisfaction as he replaced it in the desk drawer. Frost dragged down more smoke and mused over painful ways of slowly killing the sod.

‘Good,’ said Skinner, taking a key from his pocket and locking the drawer. ‘Have you put your house on the market yet?’

Frost looked blank. ‘Eh?’

‘You should be starting in Lexton by the beginning of the month. You won’t be able to flaming commute, will you? You’ll have to move – buy yourself a place in Lexton.’

Frost tried to hide his dismay. Lexton was even more of a shit-house than Denton.

‘To speed things up, I’m getting details of properties for sale sent to you. Nothing pricey – I’ve seen your place and you won’t get much for it. And I’ve asked a couple of estate agents to contact you about selling.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ muttered Frost with all the insincerity he could muster. The bastard had him on the ropes, but his time would come.

‘By the way, I got that case tied up last night.’

‘Oh?’

‘It was murder. Knox had run off with Gregson’s wife and Gregson faked the burglary’

‘I wish I had your brilliance,’ said Frost. ‘That never occurred to me for one second.’

Skinner paused for a moment, but decided to accept this as a genuine compliment. ‘Mind you, he wasn’t very clever. When I went round to Knox’s house to break the sad news, who do you think opened the door?’

‘Camelia Parker-Bowles what was?’ asked Frost.

‘Gregson’s wife. He didn’t stand a chance of getting away with it.’

‘You were too smart for him,’ said Frost.

Again Skinner stared hard. Like Mullett, he was never sure when Frost was taking the piss. He again decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘Thanks.’ He looked up as his office door opened, ready to snarl because no one had knocked first, but it was Mullett, who gave Frost his customary scowl, then beckoned Skinner to join him outside.

Jerking his head significantly at Frost, Skinner gave Mullett a quick thumbs-up sign to show that the dirty deed with the transfer form had been done. As the door closed behind them, Frost debated whether to press his ear against the door to find out what they were talking about, or take the opportunity to have a rummage through Skinner’s in-tray. He settled for the rummage, but had hardly started when the detective chief inspector returned. Frost pretended he was blowing cigarette ash from the in-tray’s papers.

‘Superintendent Mullett has kindly invited me to join him at his club later for a celebratory lunch,’ he told Frost, pulling the in-tray out of reach. ‘And I’m steering clear of oysters.’

‘What are you celebrating?’ Frost asked, knowing damn well it was his signing of the transfer request.

Skinner hesitated, his mind whirling in search of an alternative reason. ‘The… er… the way I tied up that stabbing case last night.’

‘And without any help,’ added Frost.

Skinner pretended not to hear. ‘Keep an eye on things when I’m out. We still haven’t found those missing teenagers and I’m getting bloody worried. Go and see how the search is going.’

‘They’re dead,’ said Frost flatly.

‘For once I agree with you,’ said Skinner. ‘As if we didn’t have enough on our plates…’

Back in his office, Frost was getting ready to check up on the search parties when PC Lambert from Control came in waving two sheets of paper. ‘The body on the railway embankment, Inspector. Manchester reckon it might be one of their missing teenagers.’

‘Good. They can have her,’ said Frost. ‘Wrap her up and stick her in the post. Anyway, you want Skinner, not me.’

‘Skinner’s gone out. He said you’d attend to anything that might crop up while he was away.’

Frost took the papers. The first was a fax from Manchester Police.

… The body of a girl – Unknown Corpse All Stations Request D107 – could be missing teenager Emily Roberts, 19, reported missing by her parents six weeks ago (Sept 22). Can you confirm time of death please? Photograph etc. following.

The other sheet was a colour printout of a young girl. Frost stared at it. There was no way he could associate the bloated, slimy, rotting body with this bubbling young girl, dark-haired and smiling, showing a perfect set of teeth. ‘The teeth look as if they match,’ he said, ‘but there was nothing left of the rest of her to compare. We’re waiting for the Maggot Man to give us an accurate time of death.’

He was halfway up the stairs to the canteen when Bill Wells called him back. He pretended not to hear, but the sergeant was persistent. ‘Gentleman to see you, Jack.’

Frost sighed. ‘I was going to get something to eat. Who is it?’

‘The Forensic Entomologist.’

Frost blinked. ‘Who?’

‘The Maggot Man.

‘Shit,’ said Frost.

Frost wasn’t enjoying his meal, but the Maggot Man, bubbling over with his sole topic of conversation – detailed tit-bits about his profession – polished off his plateful with relish. ‘When a body decomposes it releases volatile compounds and that’s what attracts the flies.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Frost flatly, eyeing the piece of meat on his fork with distaste.

‘Blowflies and maggots thrive on putrefying flesh.’

‘Whatever turns them on,’ muttered Frost, pushing his unfinished meal away.

‘But,’ continued the Maggot Man, ‘when the odours of decomposition disappear, the flies leave the corpse, so by calculating the age of the maggots and the larvae and working back we can accurately pinpoint the precise date of death.’

‘Did I tell you the joke about the bloke who drank the spittoon for a bet?’ asked Frost.

‘What’s up with the Maggot Man?’ asked Wells. ‘He looked green when he left here.’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Frost. ‘He was all right until I told him my joke.’

‘Not the spittoon joke – you didn’t tell him the spittoon joke?’ Wells was horrified.

‘I was fed up with hearing about the sex life of blowflies. Who cares how a bluebottle gets its flaming leg over? Get on to Manchester and tell them that the six-weeks death date has been confirmed, so it looks as if we’ve got their missing teenager – and tell them not to send the parents down to identify her – there’s nothing to bloody identify. Send us something for DNA matching.’ He buttoned up his mac. ‘I’d better go and give the search party my moral support.’

The sliding panel behind Wells slid open and Lambert called to Frost, ‘Inspector, phone call from a farm worker – Flintwells Farm – he reckons he’s found two bodies.’

Frost picked his way through a ten-acre field of corn, half of it cut and strewn with straw ready for bailing. A cloud of choking dust and the smell of diesel fumes hung over the area, through which he could dimly make out a combine harvester and a tractor towing a high-sided trailer alongside. He stepped gingerly through the stubble and approached the vehicles. A leathery-faced farmer in threadbare faded corduroys and a battered trilby hat was yelling at the driver of the combine harvester, who seemed unconcerned at the tirade.

‘Couldn’t you have waited until you’d finished the bloody field before phoning the police? We’re never going to get it done now before it bloody rains.’ He spun round at Frost’s approach. ‘Who are you?’

‘Police,’ announced Frost, flashing his warrant card.

‘About bloody time,’ moaned the farmer. ‘Get these bloody bodies out of here so we can finish cutting the corn.’ He pointed a thumb up at the darkening sky. ‘If that lot comes down before we’re finished, I lose the lot.’

‘Tough,’ said Frost unsympathetically. ‘Was it you who phoned?’

‘No, him.’ The farmer jerked his head up at the combine-harvester driver towering above them both in the driving seat.

The driver, a, ruddy-faced, dark-haired man in his mid-thirties, shouted down to Frost, ‘You won’t be able to see them from down there. You’ve got to be high up.’ He pointed over the uncut corn to the far end of the field, where an embankment was heavily overgrown with bushes and shrubs and straggling grass. On top of the embankment, traffic roared past on the road to Denton. ‘There’s a naked body just behind that bush between the two trees. There’s another body about ten yards to the right. Want me to show you?’

‘No,’ said Frost. ‘You stay there.’ The only way to reach the embankment was by trampling across the uncut corn.

‘I want compensation for any damage,’ called the farmer.

You wait until half the clod-hopping Denton police force come trampling through your corn. That’s the time to talk about compensation, thought Frost as he headed over the field. And a fat chance you’ll have of getting any.

He clambered up the embankment. Why can’t people dump bodies on level flaming ground? he asked himself, looking back as the tractor-driver shouted and signalled that he should go more to the right.

He nearly tripped over the girl; she was well hidden in the long grass. It was Debbie Clark. She was on her back, naked, staring sightlessly at the rain clouds which were getting darker and darker. He gently touched her face. Icy cold and damp. So what the hell did he expect – warm, vibrant flesh? He shook his head in sadness. Twelve bleeding years old. ‘What bastard did this to you, my love?’ he muttered. He looked up at the road above, where traffic was speeding past. She had probably been chucked down here from a car or a van.

Pushing his way through the long dank grass which made his trousers wringing wet, he soon found the boy’s body. Again, it would have been dropped from the road – it had rolled down and become wedged by the thick stem of a bush, intertwined with bramble. Thomas Harris, fully dressed, also was on his back. There was blood on his face, his trouser knees were jagged and torn, and the flesh beneath the holes was covered with bloody abrasions. His face was badly bruised and swollen. Frost looked up again at the road above. Traffic was still speeding past. No one looking down from the road would have been able to see the bodies – they would have been completely obscured by overgrown grass, brambles and bushes. They had both been dead for days.

He tugged out his mobile and called the station, requesting SOCO, Forensic and the full murder team. As he waited, smoking, the first heavy drops of rain plopped on his head. He shucked off his mac and draped it over the boy to stop the blood being washed away from his face. Within minutes he was drenched.

A thin line of police officers in yellow water proofs, backs bent, were painstakingly carrying out a fingertip search of the area. The road above the embankment had been closed and more police were carefully searching through the grass verge. Frost, sitting in his car after having returned home to change out of his rain-soaked clothing, watched the forensic team erecting marquees to protect the bodies. He grudgingly admired the efficiency and thoroughness of the operation, but thought it a complete waste of manpower and time. Whoever dumped the bodies would have been in and out of the car or van in a matter of seconds and would hardly have left any impression on an area where junk, accumulated over the ages, was lying thick and plentiful. Rusty tin cans, spent matches, scraps of paper would all have to be logged and grid- referenced, then filed away unread. A waste of everyone’s time.

At last the two blue plastic marquees had been erected. ‘Starting to look like a bleeding camping site,’ muttered Frost as he picked his way over the trampled corn. The forensic photographer was busy snapping in the marquee where the girl’s body lay, so Frost moved to the other one, where Morgan, keeping out of the rain that was drumming on the tent roof, was looking at the body. ‘No sign of his bike, Guv. The girl’s was in the lake, but no sign of his.’

‘If we look for it, all we’ll find is more bits of flaming chopped-up leg. Let’s start looking for leg – we might find the bike,’ grunted Frost, bending down over the body. He lifted a skin- scraped hand, then turned it over. The knuckles were badly bruised and bloody. He dropped the hand, then lifted the head by the hair to feel round the back of the skull. It was wet and sticky. His fingers came away dark with the boy’s blood. He wiped them with a tissue. ‘He’s been hit hard round the back of his head. We’re not supposed to touch the body, so try and look surprised when Drysdale tells us.’

‘I thought Drysdale had retired, Guv,’ said Morgan.

‘You’re right,’ exclaimed Frost, brightening up. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’ Of course. It would be the roly-poly, bum-waggling Carol Ridley. He hoped he would be able to sweet-talk her into reinstating the promised leg-over.

The door flap opened and Dr Mackenzie, shaking rain from his trilby hat, pushed into the tent. ‘You’re getting to be my best customer, Jack.’ Then he saw the body and his face softened. ‘Is it the missing boy?’

‘Yes,’ said Frost. ‘The girl’s in the other marquee.’

The doctor shook his head sadly. ‘When I see what these bastards do to kids, it always hits me, Jack. I suppose big-head Drysdale’s on the way?’ Mackenzie nursed a deep and well-nurtured hatred of Drysdale, the Home Office pathologist, who had once tried to discredit the doctor’s evidence in court.

‘It won’t be Drysdale,’ said Frost. ‘He’s retired. Just wait until you see who comes in his place. I’m on a promise of a bit of the other.’

Mackenzie grinned. ‘About time they got shot of that big-mouthed bastard. I’d love to do a post-mortem on him – I wouldn’t even bother to wait until he was dead.’ He dumped his bag on the grass and bent to examine the body.

A voice interrupted from the tent flap. ‘I’d be obliged, Inspector Frost, if you would not let any Tom, Dick or Harry maul the body before I’ve seen it.’

Frost turned his head and his heart sank. Drysdale, thin, austere and glowering, was standing by the tent opening.

Mackenzie stood up and glowered back. ‘I don’t consider myself to be any Tom, Dick or Harry.’ He snapped his bag shut and turned to Frost. ‘He’s dead. That’s all I’m paid to certify. I’ll take a look at the girl now.’ At the tent flap he paused. ‘I don’t envy you your bit of the other,’ he said.

Drysdale frowned after him. ‘What was that about?’

Frost shrugged. ‘No idea, Doc.’ He nodded a greeting to Drysdale’s faded-blonde secretary; who followed the pathologist into the marquee, her mackintosh running with rain. As Drysdale started his examination, she kept well back to avoid being snapped at for dripping rain all over the corpse.

‘You’re lucky to get me,’ Drysdale told Frost. ‘I was just finishing an autopsy over at Lexford, otherwise you’d have got that overweight woman.’

‘I don’t deserve such luck,’ muttered Frost bitterly.

‘Killed elsewhere and deposited here,’ dictated Drysdale to his secretary, her pen writhing over the loops and whirls of Pitman’s shorthand. ‘Probably thrown down from the road up there.’

Brilliant. Tell us something we don’t flaming well know, thought Frost.

Drysdale ran his hands down the boy’s trouser legs. ‘Both legs broken.’ He stared at the face. ‘He’s smashed up pretty badly. I’d say he’s had a fall – and from quite a height.’

‘You mean before he was dropped here?’ asked Frost.

Drysdale grunted his agreement.

‘And the fall killed him?’

‘No. He was still alive after he fell.’ Drysdale felt round the back of the head. ‘His skull’s caved in.’

‘From when he fell?’

Drysdale shook his head. ‘He fell face-down. Look at the abrasions, bruises and blood on he face and embedded grit.’ He touched the nose with his forefinger. ‘Broken. He fell face-down. He was hit on the head after he fell.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ Frost asked.

Drysdale pointed. ‘See how the blood from the head wound has trickled down over the face and over the bruises and abrasions? The blow to the head was struck when he was face-down on the ground after the fall.’

Frost gave a grudging nod of approval. Drysdale might be a lousy, stuck-up bastard, but he knew his job.

The pathologist had now lifted the boy’s arms. ‘Both arms broken – from the fall, I imagine – he would have tried to save himself before he hit the ground.’ He took the hands and studied them closely, front and back. ‘Palms of hands badly bruised and abrased and embedded with particles of small stones or gravel. Arms broken, as I said.’ He turned the hands over and stared again. ‘Bad bruising across the knuckles and the back of the fingers. They’ve been hit hard – very hard, but the knuckles haven’t broken – by a stick or rod of some kind.’

Frost leant over Drysdale’s shoulder to get a closer look. ‘Deliberately hit? That must have hurt, Doc.’

Drysdale winced at the ‘Doc’. ‘The pain would have been excruciating. Death occurred some forty-eight hours ago.’

Frost nodded. ‘That ties in with the day he disappeared.’ He filled the pathologist in on the details of the disappearances.

Drysdale straightened up. ‘I’d like to see the girl now. When your people have finished you can remove this body to the mortuary.’

Frost led him to the other marquee, the secretary in hot pursuit. Drysdale snapped a finger at her in mute summons to provide a small sheet of plastic from his medical bag so he could kneel beside Debbie Clark’s naked body on the damp grass. He felt the throat. ‘Broken. Manual strangulation.’

Like the other poor cow, thought Frost.

Drysdale’s hands travelled down the rest of her body. ‘She’s been sexually assaulted – brutally assaulted. No sign of semen. Her assailant must-have used a condom. How old did you say she was?’

‘Twelve,’ Frost told him. ‘A day off her thirteenth birthday. I’m going to get the bastard who did this if it’s the last thing I do. The courts will probably fine him ten quid and endorse his driving licence.’

Drysdale gave a sour smile. ‘Have photographs been taken of the body in this position?’

‘Yes, Doc.’

‘Would you turn her on her side, please. Her hands seem to be caught underneath her.’

Frost called in Morgan to help him and they turned the body on its side.

‘Her hands are tied together,’ said Drysdale.

‘Eh?’ Frost leant over. The girl’s hands were bound together at the wrists with twine which had cut deeply into the flesh. ‘Flaming hell!’ hissed Frost. ‘Look at her back!’

Her back was criss-crossed with blooded stripes.

‘She’s been beaten,’ said Drysdale. ‘With a thin cane or a riding crop.’

Drysdale took temperature readings, which weren’t of much help. ‘She’s been dead some forty-eight hours or more, the same as the boy.’ He stood up and held out his hands for his secretary to peel off his surgical gloves. ‘Get the bodies formally identified and I’ll do both autopsies at three. I’ve a very heavy schedule. It would be a welcome change if you were there on time.’ He snapped his bag shut and, with a curt nod, padded after his secretary back to his car.

Frost followed him out, then clambered up the embankment to the road, where Harding from Forensic was beckoning. Harding, who was taking photographs of a section of the fencing, pointed to a small particle of black plastic sheeting which had snagged and torn off on the rough woodwork of the fence rail. It was dead in line with the spot where the girl’s body had ended up.

‘That’s only been there for a couple of days, Inspector. I’ll lay odds the girl was dropped down from here. The body would have been wrapped in black plastic sheeting while it was transported, then lifted from the car or van, laid on the top of the rail, the sheeting pulled away and the body rolled down.’

Frost chewed this over. ‘If we managed to find the plastic sheeting, would you be able to say for sure that it was the one used?’

‘Without a doubt,’ said Harding.

‘And there was me thinking you were bloody useless,’ grunted Frost. ‘There’s bits of gravel embedded in the boy’s hands. Take a sample. It might help us find where he fell.’ He looked down at the lines of policemen searching painstakingly through the scrubland surrounding the bodies. ‘Waste of bleeding time,’ he muttered, deciding he was of no further use here. He yelled down to Morgan, ‘Phone the morgue and get them to pick up the bodies. I’m off to the station.’

‘Skinner wants you,’ called Sergeant Wells as Frost passed through the lobby. ‘He says it’s urgent.’

‘Right,’ nodded Frost. He hoped Skinner would take over and attend Drysdale’s post mortem and would also volunteer to break the news to the kids’ parents about finding the bodies, but he wouldn’t be holding his breath. He was picking up his mac from the floor, after hurling it at the hook on the wall and missing, when the phone rang. It was Sandy Lane, the chief crime reporter from the Denton Echo.

‘I understand you’ve found Debbie Clark’s body.’

He obviously hadn’t heard about the boy. Good. ‘We’ve found a body,’ replied Frost warily, ‘but it hasn’t been identified yet.’

‘Is it Debbie Clark?’

‘It hasn’t been identified yet,’ repeated Frost.

‘Cause of death?’

‘That will be determined when the post mortem is carried out.’

‘You’re not giving much away,’ moaned Sandy.

‘The Denton Echo didn’t give much away last Christmas,’ Frost reminded him. ‘A lousy Christmas card and a bleeding ballpoint pen that didn’t work. So who got my whisky?’

‘Times are hard, Jack. Our budget was slashed.’

‘Talking of slashes, I’ve got to do one, so if you’ll excuse me.’ He banged down the phone and scratched a match on the desk to light up a cigarette. As he took a drag, Skinner crashed in.

‘You were told I wanted to see you urgently.’

‘I’ve only just got in. I haven’t even done a wee yet.’

Skinner jerked his head for Frost to follow him back to his office, then nodded at a chair. ‘You’ve found the bodies. Fill me in.’

Frost sat down and gave him the details. ‘The post-mortem is at three.’

Skinner looked at his watch. ‘I won’t have time. I’ve got to get back to my old division to clear up some loose ends that the prats there don’t seem able to handle. You go – and take that useless WPC tart. I won’t have time to break the news to the families, so do that as well – and get the bodies identified.’

‘Right,’ said Frost, getting up out of the chair. ‘As long as you don’t think I’m creaming off all the plum jobs.’

Skinner ignored this. ‘I’ve had all the newspaper boys on the phone so we’ll have to give them an official briefing. Arrange a press conference for six o’clock.’

‘You want me to do it?’

‘No I bloody don’t. This is my case, sunshine, not yours.’

It’s your bleeding case when you’re in the spotlight, thought Frost, not when it comes to attending bloody post-mortems and telling people their kids are dead.

‘I’ll be back in good time, so you can update me on the post-mortem results. You’re just doing a watching brief.’

‘I like watching briefs,’ said Frost, ‘especially on half-naked women.’

‘You think you’re so bloody funny, don’t you?’ snarled Skinner.

‘I’m my greatest fan,’ said Frost.

As he closed the door behind him, Frost paused. Identification of the bodies. Shit. Who the hell should he get for the girl? The mother was in no fit state and the father was banged up on paedophile charges. Sod it. It would have to be the father. Well, no point in delaying telling him his daughter was dead. But even though there was no point in delaying, he lit up another cigarette and sucked hard on it, before summoning up the resolve to break the news.

The cigarette dangling from his mouth, he looked into the Incident Room where Harry Edwards, the computer man, was printing out the downloaded photographs of child pornography recovered from the various houses of the prisoners. He looked up as Frost came in and shook his head in disgust. ‘I don’t know how much more of this I can take, Inspector. I’ve got kids of my own.’

Frost nodded sympathetically and idly picked up one of the printouts. It showed a young girl of around four or five, wearing only a vest, seated on a chair with her legs parted.

‘How can anyone get a kick out of looking at an innocent kid like that?’ asked Edwards bitterly.

Frost nodded. He was about to toss the photograph back on the pile when, he paused and looked closer. Behind the child was a window with nursery-rhyme curtains. The curtains were open and the garden outside could be seen clearly. He had looked through that same window on to that same garden only two days ago. The nursery was now Debbie Clark’s room. The four-year-old was her.

‘They’ve all got one of those photos on their laptops,’ said Edwards, noticing Frost’s interest.

The bastard! seethed Frost to himself. Drooling over his own four-year-old daughter with the rest of those dirty sods. ‘I’ll borrow this,’ he said, stuffing it into his pocket.

Clark, who had been sitting hunched up on his bunk, jumped up angrily as Frost came into the cell. ‘When am I going to be let out of here?’ he demanded.

‘Depends on whether the magistrate grants you bail,’ Frost told him, his hand closing on the photograph in his pocket. Not perhaps the time to bring it out. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news for you, Mr Clark.’

‘Bad news?’ shouted Clark, still angry. ‘I…’ He stopped and the colour seeped from his face. ‘You mean…?’ He forced himself to say it. ‘Debbie?’

Frost nodded. He’d lost count of the number of times he had had to break news like this, but it never got any easier. ‘We’ve found a body.’

Clark just stared, his mouth gaping open, then he began to shake his head vigorously. ‘No… no… Please… no…’

‘We’re pretty certain it’s Debbie, I’m afraid, but we need formal identification. Do you feel up to it?’

Clark collapsed on to the bunk, covering his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking. ‘This will kill my wife.’

‘Would you break the news to her?’ asked Frost hopefully. Please, he silently pleaded. It was an ordeal he didn’t want to have to go through.

Clark’s head shake was emphatic. ‘She hates me. She’ll blame me

… I couldn’t…’

Shit! thought Frost. That bastard Skinner…

Clark raised a tear-stained face. ‘How did she die?’

Again Frost’s hand touched the print in his pocket. Were these crocodile tears? Did you get the other dirty bastards to give you an alibi for the night she went missing? Did you kill your own daughter for fear she would tell people what you had been doing to her, and then the boy to keep his mouth shut? ‘We believe she was strangled. There will be a post mortem.’ He didn’t want to disclose any other details at this stage. There was always a chance that Clark might blurt out something he shouldn’t know about. Frost wound his scarf around his neck. ‘So if you’re ready, Mr Clark…?’

He went to the cell door and yelled for Bill Wells to let them out.

The mortuary attendant, with skill born of much practice, surreptitiously parked his chewing gum under the desktop and slid his dog-eared copy of Playboy under some papers before opening the door to Frost and Clark.

They followed him through to the refrigerated section. He pulled open a newly labelled drawer, folded back the covering sheet and stepped respectfully back.

Clark steeled himself to look. He stared, bit his lip and shuddered, then nodded.

‘Debbie?’ whispered Frost.

Again Clark nodded. ‘Yes.’ He moved his hands to caress the face.

‘Don’t touch her,’ yelled Frost, making the father start and jerk back. If this bastard had indeed killed his daughter, he didn’t want evidence on the body to be jeopardised because Clark had mauled her. ‘Don’t touch her,’ repeated Frost, more gently, but more firmly.

‘I can’t touch my own daughter?’

‘Not at this stage,’ said Frost, pulling him back and nodding for the attendant to close the drawer. He shivered at the burst of refrigerated air that was expelled as the drawer slid home.

Clark straightened up and shook Frost’s hand off. ‘Who did this? Who did this to my little girl?’

Frost stared back at him, hoping to see some vestige of guilt, but Clark wouldn’t meet his gaze. ‘We’ll get the bastard who did this, Mr Clark,’ said Frost emphatically. ‘I promise you. We’ll get the bastard, whoever he may be.’ The print in his mac pocket crackled. What should be his next Skinner-donated treat – to confront Clark with the photograph or break the news to the girl’s mother? Breaking the news to the mother would be the greater hell, so he decided to get the worst over first.

Frost had taken Clark back to his cell and had been sitting outside the house for nearly half an hour, smoking cigarette after cigarette, trying to pluck up the courage to walk up that drive and knock on the door. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Clark… I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Clark…’ He kept muttering the words to himself as if repetition would make them come out any easier. He had brought WPC Kate Holby with him, but was not setting her a good example. She sensed his anxiety and sat in the seat next to him, saying nothing. ‘You never bloody get used to it,’ said Frost. ‘Sod it. It has to be done, so let’s sodding well do it.’ He snatched the cigarette from his mouth, crushed it and stepped out of the car. ‘Here we go then. Over the bleeding top.’

It was even worse than he had feared. She screamed, she cried, she became hysterical, pounding him with her fists. Then she insisted on being taken to the mortuary to see the body, and when she saw it, her grief was uncontrollable and her body-racking sobs and screams echoed round the empty building. Enough to wake the bleeding dead, thought Frost. He could see that Kate Holby was even more shattered than he was and wished he hadn’t asked her to accompany him, but the poor cow had to get used to the joys of policing in case she thought it was all bleeding fun and games. He tried to catch her eye, then decided a reassuring smile would be out of place. He felt so shattered, he wanted to get outside, away from the piercing screams that were drilling holes through his skull.

Mrs Clark’s tears were now splashing down on the cold, white face of her daughter. Frost decided enough was enough. He put his arm around her and drew her back, motioning for the mortuary attendant to cover the face and close the drawer. ‘Come on, love,’ he soothed. ‘Let’s get you home.’

Angrily she shook his arm away. ‘He killed her. That perverted bastard of a husband of mine killed her… his own daughter…’

‘If he did, we’ll get him,’ said Frost.

‘If?’ she screamed. ‘What do you mean, if? Of course he did it. He lusted after her. He took photographs…’

They managed to get her back to the car, where she resisted all the efforts of the WPC to comfort her. ‘I’ll kill him,’ she kept muttering. ‘If he comes near me, I’ll kill him, so help me…’

They dropped her back home. She didn’t want anyone with her. Her hands were shaking so much she couldn’t get the key in the door. Frost took it from her and turned it in the lock. She barged past him, slamming the door shut on them without a word. He could still hear her screams and sobs as he walked back to the car. He slid into the passenger seat and told Kate to drive to the boy’s parents’ home. God, this was a sod of a day.

Drained and washed out, Frost staggered back to his office with a ham roll and a mug of tea from the canteen. Sandy Lane was in the visitors’ chair, waiting for him; he pointed to two bottles of whisky on the desk. ‘Merry last Christmas,’ he said.

‘If I had any strength of character, I’d refuse them,’ said Frost, picking one up and surveying the label. ‘I’ll hide them away before anyone sees how cheaply I can be bought.’ He pulled open a drawer and dropped them in. ‘So what do you want to know?’

‘Was it the missing girl – Debbie Clark?’

Frost nodded.

‘Cause of death?’

‘Some bastard raped her, flogged her and strangled her, but that’s off the record until the post-mortem. You can say we’re treating this as a murder inquiry

‘And the boy?’

‘Skull caved in, but that’s not official until after the PM.’

‘I’m told you’ve arrested Debbie’s father.’

‘On an entirely different matter, Sandy. Keep him out of it.’

‘Are you going to charge him with possession of obscene photographs?’

‘You’ve had all that two bottles of cheap whisky can buy. Be satisfied.’

‘When will you be making the official press statement?’

‘Skinner’s doing that. It’s laid on for six o’clock tonight, I think. Now clear off.’

Sandy rose from the chair. ‘For those few meagre crumbs, my half-hearted thanks. Enjoy the whisky.’

‘Whisky? What whisky?’ asked Frost innocently, kneeing the drawer shut. As he took a bite of his ham roll, the phone rang. It was Mullett.

‘I understand we’ve found two bodies, Frost – the boy and the girl.’

‘That’s right, Super.’

‘Still no trace of the other girl?’

‘Not a trace.’

‘Right. I understand you’ve arranged a press conference for six o’clock tonight. I don’t want you there. I’ll be dealing with that.’ There was no way he was going to let slummocky Frost appear on the nation’s TV screens, with his scruffy mac and cigarette drooping from his lips, as a representative of Denton division.

Mullett clearly didn’t know that Skinner intended doing the conference. Frost decided not to tell him. ‘Right you are, Super.’

‘Put all the details on my desk and ask my secretary to get my best uniform from the dry-cleaner’s.’

No sooner had Frost banged the phone down than it rang again. This time it was Bill Wells.

‘Drysdale’s screaming blue murder down at the morgue, Jack. He seems to think you ought to be there.’

Frost looked at his watch and groaned. Ten past flaming three. Shit. ‘Tell him I’m on my way.’

There was a tap at the door and an agitated WPC Holby looked in. ‘We’re going to be late for the autopsies, Inspector.’

Frost grimaced. He had forgotten that Skinner had ordered her to attend. ‘Look, love, I know what Skinner said, but – ’

She cut him short. ‘I don’t want to be molly coddled. If it’s part of the job, then I’ve got to do it.’

‘All right, then,’ sighed Frost. ‘But if at any time you feel you want to walk out, do it – you won’t be the first, or the last.’

‘I won’t walk out,’ she said. ‘I won’t give him the satisfaction.’

‘What’s he got against you?’ asked Frost.

She hesitated. ‘My father was in the same division as DCI Skinner when they were both inspectors. He wanted my father to lie in court about some evidence supposed to have been found in a suspect’s house. My father refused and the suspect got off. Skinner never forgets a grudge. Getting at me is his way of getting his own back on my father.’

‘The man’s a bastard,’ said Frost. ‘The trouble is, he’s a bastard who’s a chief inspector and you’re only a probationer constable. He’s got the edge. He could tell lies about you and he’d be believed; you could tell the truth about him and you wouldn’t be.’ God, he wished he wasn’t going to be kicked out of Denton. He’d like to be able to stay and keep an eye on the girl, if only to spite Skinner. He had to find some way to foil the bastard. ‘Look – why not apply for a transfer? Come with me to Lexton.’

She shook her head defiantly. ‘There’s no way I’m going to run away from him. He would consider that a victory.’

‘It sometimes pays to run away, and come back and fight when the odds are better.’ But he was wasting his breath. She was as stubborn as he was. He would never run away, even if it was the most sensible thing to do – sensible things to do weren’t his style.

‘I’m staying,’ she said.

‘Good for you, girl,’ said Frost. Bloody hell, if a flaming nineteen-year-old kid could do it… ‘If I can find a way to do the bastard down, I’m staying as well.’