Night Frost

Monday afternoon shift

Police Superintendent Mullett, Commander of Denton Division, gave his welcoming smile and nodded towards a chair for Gilmore to sit down. They were in Mullett’s spacious office with its blue Wilton carpet and the walls, with their concealed cupboards, panelled in real wood veneer. A striking contrast to the dark green paint and beige emulsion decor of the rest of the station.

He turned the pages of Gilmore’s personal file and nodded his approval. This was exactly the sort of man they wanted in the division, young, efficient and ambitious. He looked up as Station Sergeant Bill Wells tapped on the door and walked briskly in.

‘Mr Frost has gone home, sir,’ Wells announced. ‘I phoned his house, but there was no answer.’

Mullett tugged the duty roster from his middle drawer. Just as he thought, Frost was clearly marked down for afternoon duty.

‘He was on duty all last night and most of this morning, sir,’ explained Wells. ‘He’s probably grabbing some sleep.’

Mullett sniffed his disapproval. What was the point of having duty rosters if they were blatantly ignored? The envelope from County marked Strictly Confidential glowered up at him from his drawer as he replaced the roster. Frost was really in trouble this time.

‘I want to see the inspector the minute he gets in, Sergeant.. the very minute.’ Let Frost try to wriggle out of this one.

‘I’ve left instructions, sir. I’m off home myself now.’ Wells yawned loudly and rubbed his eyes to show how tired he was.

Again Mullett snatched up the roster and jabbed his finger on the afternoon shift which showed that Wells was the station sergeant on duty until six o’clock. He studiously consulted his gold Rolex wrist-watch. Half-past three!

‘I’m on again at eight o’clock tonight, sir,’ explained Wells. ‘I’m filling in for Sergeant Mason. He’s down with the flu.’

Mullett flapped a hand impatiently. He didn’t want all the fiddling details. ‘If you must alter all the shifts around, Sergeant, do me the courtesy of letting me know.’ He grunted peevishly as his red biro neatly amended the roster. ‘I can’t run a station in this slipshod fashion.’

Wells bristled. There he was, working all the hours God sent, doing double shifts, and all this idiot was concerned with was his lousy duty roster. ‘This virus thing is making it impossible, sir. We need more men.’

‘We have one extra man,’ beamed Mullett, nodding towards Gilmore. ‘And I’m sure, like me, he would like a cup of tea.’ He flashed his teeth expectantly.

‘Tea?’ spluttered Wells. ‘I’ve got no-one I can spare to make tea, sir. As you know, the canteen’s closed…’

Mullett didn’t know the canteen was closed and he wasn’t interested. ‘Two teas,’ he said firmly, ‘and if you can find, some biscuits… custard creams would be nice.’ What a sullen look the man gave him as he left. He would have to speak to him about it. He swivelled his chair to face Gilmore. ‘I’m having to plunge you straight in at the deep end, Sergeant. You’ll be working split shifts with Mr Frost, so you’re on again tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ echoed Gilmore in dismay.

‘That presents no difficulties, I hope?’

‘No, sir. Of course not.’ God, Liz would raise hell over this.

‘Good. One other thing.’ Mullett cleared his throat nervously and hesitated as he carefully picked his words. ‘If, when you are working under Mr Frost, you notice anything that you feel should be brought to my attention, you will find I have a very receptive ear.’ He lowered his eyes and began fiddling with his fountain pen.

Gilmore pulled himself up straight in his chair. ‘Are you asking me to spy on the inspector, sir?’

Mullett looked pained. ‘If you consider that what I have suggested constitutes spying, Sergeant, then of course you will forget I ever said it.’ He closed the green cover of the detective sergeant’s personal file. ‘You are promotion material, Sergeant, but to promote you, I need a vacancy.’

He stared hard at Gilmore. Gilmore stared back, holding Mullett’s gaze, then gave a tight smile and nodded.

They understood each other.

They were still smiling smugly at each other when Wells crashed in with the tea.

‘This will be your office.’ Detective Constable Joe Burton, stocky, twenty-five years old and ambitious, tried to keep the resentment out of his voice as he showed the new detective sergeant around. Gilmore stared in amazement. The poky room he was expected to share with that scarecrow, Frost, was a complete shambles with papers and files everywhere but in their proper place, dirty cups perched on the window ledge and the floor littered with cigarette stubs and screwed-up pieces of paper that had missed the target of the waste bin. ‘And this is your desk,’ added Burton.

The spare desk, the smaller of the two, was awash with papers and ancient files. Gilmore’s jaw tightened. His first job would be to put this pigsty into some semblance of order. The internal phone rang. At first he couldn’t locate the instrument which was buried under a toppled stack of files on Frost’s desk.

‘Control here,’ said the phone. ‘Got a dead body for you — probable suicide. 132 Saxon Road. Panda car at premises.’

Gilmore scribbled down the details. He could fit it in on his way home. He told Burton to come with him.

On their way out to the car-park, they passed Mullett who was talking to a scowling Sergeant Wells. ‘You should be off duty, Gilmore.’

‘Possible suicide, sir. Thought I’d better handle it personally.’

Mullett beamed. ‘Keenness. That’s what I like to see. A rare commodity, these days. All some people think of is getting off home.’ His pointed stare left Sergeant Wells in no doubt as to who he was referring to.

Wells kept his face impassive. ‘Crawling bastard!’ he silently told Gilmore’s retreating back.

Rain hammered down on Frost’s blue Cortina as it slowly nosed its way down Saxon Road, a street of two-storey terraced houses in the newer part of Denton. He spotted a police patrol car at the far end and parked behind it. One last drag at his cigarette, then out, head down against the rain, as he butted his way up the path to number 132.

A worried-looking woman opened the door. Behind her, the bitter sound of sobbing. She looked enquiringly at the scruffy figure on the doorstep who was fumbling in the depths of his inside pocket. ‘Detective Inspector Frost,’ he said, showing her a dog-eared warrant card.

She peered doubtingly at the card. ‘I’m just a neighbour. Do you want to see the parents?’ She inclined her head towards the back room from which the sobbing continued unabated.

‘Later,’ he said. And he wasn’t looking forward to it.

Up the stairs to the girl’s bedroom where a white-faced uniformed constable stood outside. This was PC John. Collier, twenty years old. Collier, still very green and usually working inside the station with Wells, had been pitched out on patrol because of the manpower shortage. He hadn’t yet got used to dead bodies.

The bedroom door opened, releasing a murmur of angry voices. DC Burton came out. He seemed relieved to see the inspector and carefully closed the door behind him.

‘What have we got?’ asked Frost, shaking rain from his mac.

‘Suicide, but our new super-sergeant is treating it as a mass murder.’

‘He’s new and he’s keen,’ said Frost. ‘It’ll soon wear off.’

The bedroom was small, neat and unfussy, with white melamine furniture and pink emulsioned walls. A glowering Gilmore was watching Dr Maltby, red-faced and smelling strongly of alcohol, who was pulling the sheet back over the body on the single bed. Gilmore scowled at Frost’s entrance. He’d asked for a senior officer. He didn’t expect this oaf. ‘I thought you were off duty,’ he muttered.

‘They dragged me out of bed. So what’s the problem?’ Gilmore opened his mouth to speak but the doctor got in first. ‘There’s no problem, Inspector. It’s a clear case of suicide.’ He jerked his head towards a small brown glass container on the bedside cabinet. ‘Overdose of barbiturates. She swallowed the lot.’ He glared at Gilmore as if daring him to contradict.

‘You don’t look very happy, Sergeant,’ observed Frost, wondering why the man had requested a senior officer to attend a routine suicide.

‘There was no suicide note,’ Gilmore said.

‘It’s not obligatory,’ snapped the doctor. ‘You can commit suicide without leaving a note.’ He was tired and wanted another drink. What he didn’t want was complications. ‘It’s suicide, plain and simple.’ He moved out of the way so the inspector could get to the body.

‘I’m glad it’s simple,’ said Frost, pulling back the sheet, ‘I’m not very good when things are complicated.’ Then his expression changed. ‘Oh no!’ he said softly, his face crumpling. ‘I never realized it was a kid.’

‘Fifteen years old,’ said Gilmore. ‘Everything to live for.’

She lay on top of the bed. A young girl wearing a white cotton nightdress decorated with the beaming face of Mickey Mouse. Over the nightdress was a black and gold Japanese-style kimono. Her feet were bare, the soles slightly dirty as if she had been padding about the house without socks or shoes. A Snoopy watch on her left wrist ticked softly away. It seemed wrong. Almost obscene. Mickey Mouse and Snoopy had no place with death.

Frost gazed down at her face, trying to read some answers. A pretty kid with light brown hair gleaming as if newly brushed, spread loosely over the pillow. Gently, as if afraid to wake her, Frost touched her cheek, flinching at the hard, icy cold feel of death. ‘You silly bloody cow,’ he said. ‘Why did you do this?’

He switched his attention to the bedside cabinet. Standing on top of it was a bright red, twin-belied alarm clock, its alarm set at 6.45, a pair of ear-rings, a Bic pen, an empty, brown pill bottle and, over to one side away from the bed and almost on the edge of the cabinet, a tumbler with an inch of water remaining. Frost crouched to read the label on the pill container. Sleeping Tablets prescribed for Mrs Janet Bicknell.

‘They were prescribed for the mother,’ Gilmore explained. ‘There were about fifteen or so left. The kid got them from the bathroom cabinet.’

Frost sank down on the corner of the bed and lit up a cigarette. ‘Any doubts it’s a suicide, doc?’

‘If the post-mortem shows a lethal dose of barbiturates in her stomach, no doubts whatsoever. If you could speed things up, Jack, I’d like to get off home. I’ve had one hell of a day.’

‘Right,’ said Frost. ‘How long has she been dead?’

‘Rigor mortis hasn’t reached the lower part of the body yet. That and the temperature readings suggest she’s been dead some nine to ten hours.’

Frost checked his watch. It was now a few minutes past five. ‘So she died between seven and eight o’clock this morning?’

‘She was still alive at half-past seven, this morning,’ interjected Gilmore.

‘Then she was dead pretty soon after,’ snapped the doctor. His head was throbbing and Gilmore was getting on his damn nerves.

‘Slow down,’ pleaded Frost. ‘Let’s take it step by step, starting with her name.’

Gilmore opened up his notebook and read out the details. ‘Susan Bicknell, fifteen years old. In the fifth form at Denton Comprehensive.’

‘And who found the body?

‘Her stepfather, Kenneth Duffy.’

‘Stepfather?’

‘Yes. Her father died two years ago. Her mother married again in March.’ Gilmore paused, then added significantly, ‘He’s a lot younger than the mother.’

‘Ah,’ said Frost. ‘I’m getting the scenario… teenage girl, randy young stepfather. But let’s get the doc out of the way first. I don’t want to shock him with our rude talk.’

‘I’ve got nothing more to tell you,’ said Maltby, dropping a thermometer in his bag and snapping it shut. ‘You’ll have my written report today. Any joy with our poison pen writer?’

‘No,’ Frost told him. ‘I’ll go and see Wardley in hospital when I get a chance.’ The doctor lurched towards the open door. A curse as he appeared to miss his footing on the stairs.

‘He’s drunk!’ hissed Gilmore.

‘He’s tired,’ said Frost. ‘The poor bastard is over worked. He never refuses a call day or night and people take advantage of him.’ He whispered something to Burton who chased after Maltby and called, ‘Give us your keys, doc. I’ll drive you home.’ Maltby handed them over without a murmur.

‘Follow on in the Panda and take Burton back to the station,’ Collier was told. Frost lit up another cigarette. ‘So what’s on your mind, son?’

‘The suicide note’s missing,’ said Gilmore.

‘What makes you think there was one?’

Gilmore steered the inspector across to the bedside cabinet. ‘One ballpoint pen.’ He pointed. On the floor, by the bed, was a pad of Basildon Bond writing paper. ‘One notepad.’

‘So she had the means to write a suicide note,’ said Frost. ‘But it doesn’t follow she wrote one. I don’t have to do a pee just because I pass a gents’ urinal.’

‘Look at the glass with the water in,’ continued Gilmore. ‘Right on the edge of the cabinet. If she was lying in bed when she took the pills, she’d have replaced the glass on the side nearest to her. If she took them before she lay on the bed, she’d have put the glass somewhere in the middle.’

‘I’m sure this is all significant stuff,’ Frost said, ‘but I’m such a dim sod I can’t see it.’ He wandered over to the window and opened it to let out the smell of tobacco smoke. In the darkened street below, the street lights were just coming on.

Gilmore sighed inwardly. He knew the man was thick, but surely he didn’t have to explain every detail. ‘I’m saying the glass was moved by someone else. I’m saying she left a suicide note and weighed it down with the glass. The stepfather found the body, saw the note and because it implicated him, he destroyed it. There’s two sets of prints on the glass. I’m laying odds they’re the girl’s and the stepfather’s.’

Frost squinted at the glass. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yes,’ said Gilmore. ‘I’ve got a feeling about the step father. He’s hiding something. I just know he is.’

Frost nodded. Feelings and hunches were things he knew all about. His eyes slowly traversed the room. Yes, there was something wrong. He could sense it too. ‘All right, son, let’s go and have a chat with the stepfather.’ He pitched his cigarette out of the window and closed it, then took one last look at the still figure on the bed before covering her with the sheet.

They were in the lounge, a large, comfortable room with heavy brown velvet curtains drawn across a bay window. From the other room the heart-breaking sound of sobbing went on and on. Frost stared gloomily at the blank screen of a 26-inch television set and wished they could get this next part over. He looked up as the stepfather, Kenneth Duffy, a dark-haired, boyish-looking man, in his late thirties, came in.

Duffy’s eyes were red-rimmed and his cheeks glistening wet. He had been crying. Drying his face with his hands, he dropped heavily into an armchair opposite the two detectives. ‘My wife’s too upset to talk to you.’

‘I quite understand, sir,’ murmured Frost, sympathetically. ‘I know you’ve already explained everything to my colleague, but I wonder if you’d mind telling me. I understand you’re a van driver with Mallard Deliveries?’

‘Yes.’

‘And it was you who found Susan?’

‘Yes.’ His voice was so low they had to lean forward to catch what he was saying. ‘I found her.’

‘What time would this be?’

‘Time? This afternoon… just after four. She was on the bed. I touched her. She was cold.’ He broke down and couldn’t continue.

Frost lit a cigarette and waited until Duffy was ready to go on. ‘Tell me what happened this morning. Right from the beginning.’

‘Susan always got herself up… made her own breakfast. She had a half-term holiday job in the new Sainsbury’s supermarket… shelf-filling and sometimes helping out on the check-out. She had to clock in at eight and left the house at half-past seven. I’d wait until I heard the front door slam, then I’d get up.’

‘You wouldn’t come down until after she had gone?’

‘I don’t start work until 8.30. We’d only get in each other’s way.’

‘I see,’ said Frost, wondering if there was more to it than that, if Susan was deliberately avoiding being alone with her stepfather.

‘I heard her going up and down the stairs this morning, but now I think of it, I never heard the slam of the front door. She always slammed it when she went out. Today she must have gone back upstairs to her bedroom. I came down a little after 7.30, washed, dressed and went to work.’

‘And you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?’

‘No. There was nothing to suggest she hadn’t gone to work.’

‘You didn’t look in her bedroom before you left?’ asked Frost, looking for somewhere to flick his ash.

‘I had no reason… but in any case, she hated people going into her room when she was out. So I went to work and my wife went to work and Susan was upstairs dying.’ Again he broke down.

‘So what made you go into her bedroom at four o’clock this afternoon?’ asked Frost.

‘I’d finished early and was home just before four. I phoned Susan at Sainsbury’s to remind her about the groceries we needed and they told me she hadn’t been in to work all that day. I suddenly remembered I hadn’t heard that front door slam. I went upstairs and looked in her bedroom.’ He knuckled the tears from his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ He was apologizing for crying. Frost gave a sympathetic nod and made a mental note to check with Duffy’s firm about him finishing early.

‘Have you any idea why Susan should want to take her own life?’

‘There was no reason — no reason at all.’

‘Was she worried about anything?’

‘She seemed a bit edgy over the last couple of days. We thought something had gone wrong at school… a row with a friend or something… nothing serious.’

‘Did she have a boyfriend?’

‘Stacks of them — no-one steady.’

‘She must have had some reason for killing herself,’ Frost insisted. ‘Family trouble, perhaps? Girls don’t always get on with their stepfathers.’

‘We got on fine,’ insisted Duffy. ‘She was happy at home… doing well at school… everything was right for her.’

‘If everything was right,’ said Frost, ‘she’d still be alive.’ He stared at Duffy until the man had to turn his head away. ‘We couldn’t find her suicide note.’

The knuckles of Duffy’s hands whitened as he gripped hard the arms of the chair to try to stop his body from shaking. ‘There wasn’t one.’

‘My colleague here is pretty certain there was.’

‘If there had been a note, I’d have found it.’

‘Of course,’ said Frost, treating Duffy to an enigmatic smile. ‘Of course you would.’ He studied the glowing end of his cigarette, then casually asked, ‘Was she pregnant?’

‘Pregnant? Girls don’t kill themselves these days just because they’re pregnant.’

‘It depends who the father is,’ snapped Gilmore. Duffy’s head came up slowly, angry patches burning his cheeks. He sprang to his feet, fists balled. ‘What are you suggesting? What filth are you bloody suggesting?’

Frost stepped between them and pushed Duffy back into the chair. ‘We’re suggesting nothing, Mr Duffy. The post-mortem will tell us if she was pregnant, in which case we might want to talk to you again.’

‘I’d like to talk to Susan’s mother,’ said Gilmore. ‘No!’ Duffy leapt from the chair and stood by the door to bar their way.

‘It’s all right, sir,’ said Frost. ‘It won’t be necessary.’ He jerked a thumb at Gilmore. ‘Let’s go, Sergeant.’

Gilmore glared at Frost. Right, you sod. Mullett wants the dirt on you, I’ll find it for him. With a curt nod at Duffy, he followed the inspector out. The sobbing from the kitchen was much softer, weaker. The mother had cried herself to exhaustion.

Outside in the car they watched as a hearse pulled up to collect the body for the post-mortem. Two undertakers in shiny black raincoats slid out the coffin.

‘Well?’ asked Gilmore, impatiently. ‘What do we do about it?’

‘We do nothing,’ said Frost. Before Gilmore could protest, he explained. ‘Look, son, just on a hunch and without any evidence, you expect me to believe that Duffy’s been having it away with his unwilling, fifteen-year-old, schoolgirl stepdaughter.’

‘Yes,’ replied Gilmore, biting off each word, ‘that’s exactly what I expect you to believe.’

Frost took a long drag at his cigarette. ‘If it’s any consolation, son, I agree with you all the way. I reckon he put Suzy up the spout and that’s why she killed herself and that’s why stepdaddy destroyed the suicide note. But we could never prove it. She never made a complaint and now she’s dead.’ He wound down the car window and jettisoned his cigarette end into the gutter. ‘There’s sod all we can do about it.’

‘You want proof?’ said Gilmore, his hand on the car door handle. ‘I’ll get you proof. Let me go and talk to the mother. She must have noticed something.’

‘No!’ Frost grabbed Gilmore’s hand and pulled it away from the handle. ‘You do not breathe a word of this to the mother. Don’t you think the poor cow’s suffered enough? Let it drop, son. That’s the end of it.’

Gilmore stared at the rain. ‘So the bastard gets away with it?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Frost. ‘The bastard gets away with it.’ He started the engine.

The undertakers were sliding the coffin into the back of the hearse.

The light in the upstairs bedroom window went out.

The rain bucketed down.