A Killing Frost (40 page)

   ‘You’re not fooling me one bit, you lazy Welsh git,’ snapped Frost. ‘Run that video again.’

   He waited impatiently as Taffy opened shut drawers before locating the cassette.

   Frost steeled himself, but found himself wincing, shuddering, sharing the kid’s pain and terror. ‘Hold it, Taff. Go back to the bit just before she screams.’ He moved closer to the monitor. She’s saying something.’

   ‘But we can’t hear her,’ said Taffy.

   ‘You have a gift for stating the bloody obvious.’ snarled Frost. ‘Maybe we can’t make out what she’s saying, but I bet a flaming lip-reader could.’ Frost buzzed Johnny Johnson, the night-duty station sergeant. ‘Johnny, this is urgent. I want a lip-reader here, now.’

   ‘Now?’ echoed Johnson. ‘You won’t get any one until the morning.’

   ‘Morning? What flaming office hours do they work?’

   ‘Jack,’ said Johnson patiently. ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning.’

   Frost focused bleary eyes on his wristwatch to check. ‘Bloody hell. Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself?’

   His mobile rang. Sandy Lane.

   ‘Yes, Sandy?’ asked Frost excitedly.

   ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Jack. She hasn’t phoned. It’s late. I’m going home.’

   ‘All right,’ sighed Frost. ‘I can’t see her phoning now.’

   Back in his office, he killed the last drop of whisky, shrugged on his mac and walked unsteadily out to his car.

A traffic car stopped him on his way home.

   ‘Your car’s been lurching all over the road. I’ve reason to believe you’ve been drinking, sir.’

   Frost smiled sweetly at him and slurred, ‘Not only have I been drinking, officer, I have a funny feeling I’m pissed.’

   The PC shone his torch. ‘Oh, it’s you, Inspector Frost.’ He yelled back to his partner in the traffic car, ‘Follow us, Charlie. I’m driving the Inspector home. Move over, sir.’

After three attempts to get the key in the lock, Frost eventually managed to open the front door. There were two messages on his mat from estate agents wanting to make appointments to view the house. He kicked at them but missed, then stumbled upstairs and flung himself, fully dressed, on the bed. He fell instantly asleep.

   He dreamt he was watching the video again, but this time there was sound, ghastly sound. The girl’s screams echoed and echoed round and round in his brain before turning into the shrill ringing of the alarm clock.

He was definitely not at his best when Sergeant Wells ushered in the lip-reader, a bird-like woman with a sharp nose and greying hair screwed back untidily into a bun. She sat uneasily in the offered chair, clutching a large handbag protectively to her chest, looking nervously at the liverish Frost, whose headache was giving him gyp. He palmed a couple of aspirins from a container and washed them down with the dregs of his tea. She declined the offer of a cup for herself, anxious to avoid anything that would delay her getting out of this dreadful place.

   Frost forced a smile. ‘We’ve got a pretty rotten job for you, I’m afraid, love.’

   He received a sour smile in return. ‘Miss Pelham if you don’t mind,’ she corrected. ‘I was told you wanted me to lip-read someone on a video tape without sound.’

   ‘It’s a pretty harrowing video,’ Frost warned her.

   ‘I’m not easily shocked, Inspector.’

  
Then I won’t show you my dick
, thought Frost. Aloud he said, ‘Neither am I, but this shook me bloody rigid.’ He briefly explained what was involved.

   She went white and shook her head firmly. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m the right person for this, Inspector. There must be other people who can lip-read. I don’t think I could bear to watch it.’

   ‘Please,’ wheedled Frost. ‘Time is of the essence. We’ve got to catch the bastards who did this to a twelve-year-old kid. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t absolutely vital . . . Please . . .’

   A reluctant nod. She stood up, still clutching her handbag, and followed him to the Incident Room.

   Frost signalled to PC Collier, who switched the video player on and started the tape.

   Miss Pelham gave a gasp of horror, turned her head away from the screen and stood up to go, inching towards the door. ‘I’m sorry I can’t watch this . . . I can’t . . .’

   ‘Then we’ll never catch the bastard,’ said Frost. ‘He’ll get away with it. He’ll be free to do this again to some other poor kid.’

   She hesitated then sat down again, bit her lip tightly and nodded. ‘All right.’ She was shaking violently.

   Collier restarted the tape. The woman’s face went chalk-white as she stared at the screen, her lips moving in sync with the girl’s. Frost, leaning over her shoulder, also watched, but even he had to turn his head away as the girl slumped to the floor.

   The tape ended. Miss Pelham looked up at him. ‘Would you run it through again, please?’

   When it finished again, she fished a tiny handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed her eyes, then turned to the inspector. ‘Most of the time she is crying and saying nothing, but just before she is . . .’ She hesitated and forced her self to continue, ‘. . . strangled, she looks at whoever is filming and says, “
Please . . . something . . . stop him
.” ’

   ‘Something?’ snapped Frost. ‘That’s no bloody good.’

   ‘Her head jerks away . . . it’s difficult . . . Something like “Millie” or “Molly”. It isn’t clear.’

   ‘Could it be Maggie or Minnie or Maisie?’ asked Frost.

   ‘No - I am almost certain it isn’t any of them.’

   ‘ “
Please, Millie . . . stop him
,” ’ muttered Frost to himself. ‘ “
Please, Molly . . . stop him
.” You’re sure about that?’

   ‘Of course I’m not sure I can only say it’s something like that, Inspector. I can’t be definite. She moves her head away.’

   ‘
Millie, Molly
,’ mused Frost. ‘Mandy? What about Mandy?’

   She thought this over. ‘It could be, but I don’t think so. There’s an “L” sound there. There’s lots of strange names for girls now that I don’t know, it could be any of them . . . but I still think it’s Millie or Molly or something similar.’

  
A woman operating the camera
, thought Frost.
Probably the same woman who made the phone call to Sandy Lane
. He thanked her. ‘Send in your bill, love. I’ll see it’s paid quickly.’

   She paused at the door and shook her head.

   ‘Just find the killer and lock him up for life, Inspector. That’s all the payment I want.’

Frost paced up and down the Incident Room in front of his assembled team, voicing his thoughts out loud. ‘Millie . . . Molly . . . first names. Someone she knew . . . someone she was on first-name terms with. Someone she bloody trusted and who was so flaming trustworthy she filmed Debbie being strangled.’

   ‘Could it be one of the girls at school?’ suggested DC Morgan.

   ‘The voice on the tape last night wasn’t that of a schoolgirl,’ said Hanlon.

   ‘Taffy might have a point,’ said Frost. ‘The caller might not be the only woman involved. And as far as the phone call is concerned, Forensic reckon the woman is disguising her voice and is not the low-life bitch she sounds like, so all of Taffy’s girlfriends are out of the frame.’ He sat on the corner of the desk and wished his head would stop aching. ‘This is what we do. I want someone to get a book listing girls’ names - they’re usually books for mothers with babies. See if there are any more names that would fit. Then I want someone to go on the computer and print out a list of all the people called Millie and Molly or something similar who are on record. Then I want all of those women visited and questioned about where they were and what they were doing the night Debbie Clark went missing. Any cocky cows who don’t answer, arrest them on any charge you can think of and bring them into the station. Sod civil bloody liberties. And someone go through the list of people who used to work at that office block and see if any of them have a name that matches.’ He nodded at DS Hanlon. ‘You organise that, Arthur. I’m going to get something to eat, then I’m off to Debbie’s school to see if any of the girls there are called Molly or Millie.’

   He made it to the canteen, but the smell of greasy fried food made his stomach churn so he decided to skip breakfast - lunch as well, probably.

   ‘I’m off to the school,’ he called out to Bill Wells.

   Wells held up the telephone, waving it urgently. ‘Mr Beazley’s on the blower. Wants to talk to you urgently - ’

   He was talking to a swinging lobby door.

Miss Robins, the headteacher, a mannish, middle-aged woman in a tailored suit and sensible shoes, surveyed the dishevelled figure hunched up in the chair opposite her with frowning disapproval. ‘What you are asking is impossible, Inspector. The Data Protection Act - ’

   Frost cut her short. ‘All right. When we find another kid raped and strangled like Debbie Clark you can say, “Too bad - but at least I didn’t violate the Data Protection Act.”

   She flushed. ‘That’s moral blackmail, Inspector.’

   ‘Yes,’ snapped Frost. ‘I’ll use any means not to see another kid’s body on a slab in the morgue. I’m even prepared to break into your lousy school tonight and steal the bleeding records.’ He fumbled in his inside pocket. ‘Would you like to see a photograph of how Debbie looked when we found her?’ He didn’t have the photograph on him, but the bluff worked.

   She held up her hands in protest. ‘No please. If you could tell me exactly why you want a computer printout of all our pupils.’

   ‘We have good reason to believe that Debbie was going to meet someone called Millie, or Molly, or something similar the night she was killed. We want to trace that person and eliminate them from our inquiries. It could be a schoolfriend of Debbie’s, we don’t know, but we’ve got to check everyone, even if it means contravening the Data Protection Act.’

   The headteacher pressed a key on her intercom. ‘Janet, sorry to interrupt your free period, but do you think you could let me have a computer printout of the school roll?’

   Frost tapped her arm. ‘Let’s have the rolls for the past five years as well. It could be someone who has already left school.’

   ‘And rolls for the past five years,’ added Miss Robins. ‘And it is rather urgent.’ She flipped the key up. ‘A terrible business, Inspector.’

   ‘Yes,’ agreed Frost. Another thought struck him. ‘Have any of your teachers got a name like Millie or Molly?’

   She wrinkled her brow in thought, then shook her head. ‘No - none of them.’

   ‘What about other workers here - dinner ladies, cleaners and so on?’

   Again she shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, but I’m afraid I don’t know all their names - some of them come and go so quickly.’

   ‘Then let’s have a list of staff as well as teachers,’ said Frost. The number of possibilities was beginning to mount and he wasn’t even sure if the mysterious Millie or Molly was someone from the school. The school was clearly a no-smoking area, a factor which made the craving for a fag greater than ever.
Hurry up with these flaming lists
, he silently urged.

   A tap at the door. At last. A mousy-looking, buck-toothed woman in a brown cardigan with a goofy, jolly-hockey-sticks expression entered with a sheaf of computer printouts.

   ‘Thank you, Janet,’ said Miss Robins, passing the lists over to Frost. ‘Janet Leigh is our computer expert - she was Debbie’s form mistress.’

   Frost nodded a brief greeting as he stuffed the printouts in his pocket. ‘We’re hoping to trace someone called Millie, or Molly, or something very similar who was friendly with Debbie. It’s a slim chance, but it could lead somewhere. Any of your girls with names like that?’

   ‘Millie . . . Molly?’ The teacher shook her head. ‘None in my form. Offhand, I can’t think of any girls in the school with those names.’

   ‘Dinner ladies, cleaners, anyone?’

   Again she shook her head, then she waggled a triumphant finger at him. ‘Bridget Malone. The cleaner.’

   ‘Bridget?’ frowned Frost. ‘Perhaps I’m dim . . .’

   ‘The children all called her Molly - Molly Malone. You know, “Cockles and Mussels, alive alive-oh.” ’

   This sounded promising. ‘I’d like to talk to her,’ said Frost.

   ‘She’s not in today,’ said the headteacher. ‘She’s got a stomach bug.’

   ‘Give me her address,’ said Frost. ‘I might pop round and take her some grapes.’

‘Guv,’ called Morgan excitedly, ‘we’ve struck gold. I’ve run Bridget Malone through the computer. She’s got form!’

   Frost grabbed the computer printout, skimmed through it and tossed it to one side. ‘You got me going for a minute there, Taff. Pinching knickers from Marks and Sparks - hardly premium-league stuff.’

   ‘There’s something else, Guv, that should make your day.’

   Frost’s face brightened. ‘You’re going to resign, Taff? That’s terrific news. Put me down for 3p towards your leaving present.’

   Morgan grinned. ‘This might be even better news for you, Guv.’ He waved another computer printout. ‘She’s living with Patsy Kelly.’

   Frost snatched the printout from him.

   ‘Flaming hell, Taff. Don’t resign until tomorrow. Patsy Kelly’s a nasty, slimy bastard if ever there was one - he’d make Mullett look like a saint.’ He flipped through the pages. ‘I’ve put that bastard away a few times . . . GBH . . . Robbery with Violence . . . porno videos . . . obtaining money by menace, drug-dealing. That was his last one - drug-dealing - selling to school kids, by all accounts. I bet that’s what little Bridget was doing when she was supposed to be Ajaxing out the lavatory pans. He’s just the sort of bastard who’d kill a kid for money.’ He was getting excited now.

   ‘Shall we bring her in, Guv?’

   Frost played a drum roll on the desktop with his fingers. ‘We haven’t got enough on her, Taff - just that the kids call her Molly, and Debbie might or might not have said Molly.’ Another brief drum roll. ‘Didn’t you have to go to the school a few weeks back - stuff being pinched from the kids’ lockers?’

   Morgan nodded. ‘Yes. Couldn’t pin it on anyone, though.’

   ‘If you couldn’t crack the case, then no one could,’ said Frost. ‘She’s got form. Wasn’t she one of your suspects?’