A Killing Frost (45 page)

   ‘What are you getting at, Inspector?’ Collier asked.

   ‘I bet there’s hardly any coins in that coin box and they’ll all have fingerprints on them, and one will have the dabs of our lady caller.’ He pulled his penknife from his pocket and began to saw away at the flex on the handset.

   Collier looked on, horrified, turning his head from side to side in case anyone could see what Frost was up to.

   Frost examined the flex. His knife had made hardly any impression. ‘I don’t know how these bleeding vandals do it,’ he said. ‘There’s a pair of wire-cutters in the glove compartment of my car. Fetch them for me, son.’

   The cutters sliced through the flex in one go. ‘Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job,’ said Frost in his Churchill voice.

   ‘Why did you do that?’ asked Collier.

   ‘Because I don’t want anyone else using this phone until we’ve got all the coins out of the box for testing. When we get back to the station, phone British Telecom. I want one of their engineers to liaise with someone from SOCO at the crack of dawn. I want the coins removed and fingerprinted.’

   ‘But she could have been wearing gloves,’ said Collier.

   ‘If she was wearing gloves, my son, she wouldn’t have had to wipe the handset clean after using it. Oh, and you can tell BT that some vandalising bastard has hacked the handset off - give them Skinner’s description if you like.’

Skinner charged out of the Interview Room and yelled down the corridor to Wells, ‘That bleeding woman’s thrown up all over me. Get her to Denton General. Look at my suit - it stinks of puke.’ His jacket was splattered with vomit.

   ‘Dear, dear,’ tutted Wells, trying not to laugh.

   ‘Get me a tea towel or something to wipe this off. Where’s Frost?’

   ‘Gone home, I think,’ Wells told him.

   ‘The bastard’s never here when you want him. What about the rest of the team?’

   ‘I believe Inspector Frost sent them home. He said you’d instructed him to do so.’

   ‘He picks and chooses what flaming orders he wants to obey,’ snorted Skinner. ‘Sod it. I haven’t got time to waste on a drug-possession and petty-thieving case. Bang Kelly up and I’ll finish questioning him in the morning.’

   ‘What about the dead girl’s phone, sir?’ asked Wells.

   ‘That Malone woman probably nicked it. She threw up when I asked her. She claims she nicked the other stuff from lockers at the school. She also says there’s about half a ton of bog rolls she knifed in their garage. If Frost had done a proper search he would have found them. I can’t see anyone who nicks bog rolls being a killer, somehow. Bloody Frost. The sooner he’s out of Denton the bloody better . . .’

The hands on the wall clock in the Incident Room crawled round to five fifty-eight. Frost yawned and rubbed his stubbled chin. His team had returned with the registration numbers of the few vehicles that had been spotted, but none had had woman drivers or passengers, so they didn’t look at all promising. He yawned again. ‘We’ll check the CCTV footage later. Might find some thing we missed on there.’ He stretched his aching back. ‘The important question of the moment is this: do we go home and grab a couple of hours’ kip before reporting to Skinner for a bollocking, or do we go down to the all-night café and have a fry-up?’

   'I’m starving,’ said Lambert.

   ‘Then you speak for all of us,’ said Frost, reaching for his scarf. ‘Let’s go.’

   He turned his head as Morgan, looking well satisfied with himself, sauntered in. ‘Sorry it took so long, Guv. Something came up.’

   ‘Something went up, you mean,’ said Frost. ‘You were supposed to take that tom to the hotel and come straight back. Skinner will have your guts for garters if he finds out he’s not a first-footer.’

   ‘She didn’t want to go to the hotel, Guv. She wanted to go home. She was shagged out.’

   ‘And we all know by whom,’ grinned Frost. ‘Care for some brekker?’

He slept for a couple of hours at his desk and was woken by the clanging of the cleaners’ buckets as they mopped up the corridor outside. He clicked on his desk lamp and looked at the wall clock. Eight forty-five. He’d had barely two hours’ sleep and felt shagged out and dirty. He rubbed his eyes, reached for his cigarettes then pushed the packet away. He’d smoked himself sick last night and his mouth tasted like the contents of a week-old ashtray. The fried food from Nick’s café was churning away in his stomach and making him feel queasy. Coffee, that’s what he wanted. He detoured to the washroom on his way to the lobby, to splash cold water on his face. He looked at the weary drawn, grey face staring back at him from the mirror. ‘You poor old sod,’ he muttered, dabbing himself dry.

   The coffee helped a little. Johnny Johnson grinned as Frost came down the stairs.

   ‘Had a rough night, Jack?’

   ‘Bleeding rough,’ nodded Frost. ‘Has Skinner charged Kelly and the cockle-seller yet?’

   ‘He’s charged Kelly with the drugs, but the woman was taken violently ill and is in Denton General.’

   ‘Ill?’

   ‘Food poisoning, I think. She threw up all over Skinner’s best suit.’

   ‘I’m beginning to take to her,’ said Frost. ‘I think I’ll nip over to Denton General and have a few words with her. What did she say about the phone?’

   ‘He couldn’t get much sense out of her.’

   ‘And she’s in Denton General? I’ll just nip over and try and jog her memory.’

   ‘Skinner won’t like it,’ said Johnson.

   ‘Which adds to the pleasure,’ smirked Frost.

The cleaners were mopping and polishing the seemingly endless corridor that crawled round the hospital to Nightingale Ward, where Bridget Malone was a patient. The staff nurse in charge had just come on duty and had to refer to the admission doctor’s notes.

   ‘Nothing too serious. Food poisoning. She can go home today.’

   ‘I’ll just pop over and cheer her up,’ said Frost. Bridget Malone’s complexion was still tinged with green. A plate of cold, congealed porridge lurked sullenly on a tray beside her. She was sipping a bright-yellow mug of hospital tea with obvious distaste.

   ‘We left a urine sample in a yellow mug on a tray near here,’ said Frost, dragging a chair to the side of the bed. ‘You haven’t seen it by any chance?’

   ‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked, then she remembered. ‘You’re the copper who was at the house last night.’

   ‘Once seen, never forgotten, love,’ said Frost. ‘I want to talk about that mobile phone.’

   ‘What mobile phone?’

   Frost sighed deeply. ‘Don’t sod me about, Bridget. You know damn well what phone. The mobile we found in your airing cupboard. The murdered girl’s phone.’

   The woman’s jaw dropped. She stared wide-eyed at Frost. ‘Dear Sweet Mother of God. Not little Debbie - not that poor girl?’

   ‘Yes, that poor girl.’

   ‘Dear Mother of God. I never knew . . .’ She crossed herself. ‘May I die in the bed I’m lying in, Inspector - I never knew. I’d never have taken it had I known.’

   ‘Taken it? From where?’

   She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

   ‘You don’t bleeding know? Don’t sod me about!’ roared Frost.

   There was a clatter of footsteps as the staff nurse came over. ‘Please keep your voice down. There are sick people here.’

   ‘Sorry love,’ muttered Frost. He turned back to the woman. ‘If you can’t remember where you got it, I’m arresting you for murder and you’ll be doing porridge as well as bleeding eating it.’

   ‘Murder? I wouldn’t have touched a hair on that poor innocent child’s head. Those girls, they just left stuff lying around. They were just asking for it to be pinched.’

   ‘You stole stuff from the kids’ lockers?’

   ‘All the lockers. I was teaching the school a lesson. I was going to put it all back.’

   ‘I bet you bleeding were,’ sniffed Frost. ‘So when did this happen?’

   ‘On my mother’s life, Inspector, if I hadn’t been taken sick, I’d have put it all back.’

   ‘You’re a lying cow, Bridget. When did you nick it?’

   She screwed her face in thought. ‘Let me see . . . Wednesday . . . Yes, it was Wednesday, the day before I was taken sick.’

   ‘You’re a bleeding liar, Bridget. Debbie was killed on Tuesday night and she had her phone with her. You and Kelly killed her, didn’t you?’

   Her eyes spat fire. ‘Don’t you dare accuse me of a thing like that, Inspector. You can go to hell. If you want to talk to me, get my solicitor. I’m not saying another word.’

   Frost stood up and scraped his chair back against the wall. ‘I’m going for now, Bridget. But remember what big Arnie said . . . “
I’ll be back
.”

Back in the car, he radioed the station to send a WPC to stay with Malone until she was discharged and take her straight to the station. Then he turned the car off the main road and headed down the side streets to Debbie’s house.

Mrs Clark was haggard with grief. Her hair was uncombed as before, her dress not buttoned properly. The house felt cold and empty - it felt like a place where someone had died. She took him into the living room. Cards of condolence were strewn on the carpet.

   ‘It’s about your daughter,’ began Frost uneasily.

   She stared at him as if deeply surprised. ‘She’s at school. My Debbie is at school . . .’ Then her body shook and she collapsed into a chair. ‘She’s not at school . . . she’s dead. My Debbie is dead.’

   ‘I know, love, I know,’ sympathised Frost. God, this was going to be bloody difficult. He sat him self down in a chair opposite her. ‘A couple of questions and I’ll be on my way . . . it won’t take long.’

   She stared at him intently, then leant forward dropping her voice. ‘Her father killed her. He lusted after her. He was jealous of that boy.’

   ‘You might be right,’ nodded Frost gravely, ‘but we’ve got to get a few facts straight before we can make an arrest. It’s about Debbie’s mobile phone. You said she took it with her the night she went missing?’

   She blinked at him. Her phone? I bought it for her twelfth birthday.’

   ‘Yes, love. But the night she went missing, did she take the phone with her?’

   ‘I made her take it. Every time she went out, I made her take it. I said terrible things might . . .’ Her body shook, racked with sobs, ‘. . . terrible things might happen.’

   ‘And she took it?’

   ‘I always made her show it to me. She held it up. She said, “Look, Mum, I’ve got it.”

   ‘You’re sure about this, Mrs Clark? It’s very important.’

   ‘Of course I’m sure.’

‘Skinner wants you,’ said Wells, ‘and he’s spitting blood.’

   ‘You did say “spitting”? I’m not going in if it’s the other end,’ said Frost. He groaned. ‘Ah, well. Let’s get it over and done with.’

   He took a quick look in his own office on the way down. A heap of niggling chase-up memos from Mullett lay in his in-tray, together with a report from SOCO about the coins removed from the call box. Only ninety pence in assorted coins. One of the l0p pieces had a segment of a finger print which matched the fingerprint on the video wrapping paper. The same woman each time. Big deal! They now knew it was the same woman, but still didn’t know who she was. But what else did he expect? He gave a deep sigh. Things were getting on top of him. The little unexpected lucky breaks that often came to his rescue seemed to be on unauthorised leave. He wished he was! Flaming fat-guts Skinner was no help. He’d dumped all the cases on him, ready to take the credit when they were solved and to bullock Frost when things went wrong. And talking of bollocking, he’d better go in and see what Chubby Chops wanted this time.

   The typewritten notice pinned on Skinner’s office door read DCI SKINNER. ROOM 12, with an arrow pointing down the corridor. Frost poked his head inside. It was empty of furniture and a white-overalled workman was splashing paint on the walls. He looked up at Frost.

   ‘You the gentleman from next door, squire?’

   ‘First time I’ve been called a gentleman,’ said Frost, ‘but yes.’

   ‘We’ll be starting on your office next week. Understand you’re leaving?’

   ‘In my own bloody time,’ snapped Frost, slamming the door. Bloody Skinner, ordering the coffin while the corpse was still phoning for an ambulance.

   Room 12’s door had a pinned notice: DCI SKINNER - KNOCK AND WAIT. Frost barged straight in.

   Skinner sat behind a paper-laden desk in a tiny room jam-packed with furniture from his office. He glowered at Frost. Standing in front of him was WPC Kate Holby. She was biting her lip hard and looked on the verge of tears.

   ‘I didn’t hear you knock.’

   ‘Ah - that’s why I didn’t hear you say “Come in”,’ said Frost.

   Another scowl from Skinner. He turned to Kate. ‘Now get out. You’ll hear more about this.’

   She brushed past Frost and left.

   Skinner leant back in his chair. ‘I’ll give that girl something to cry about. If she can’t obey orders, she’s out. I gave her a specific job to do and I find her out on surveillance at the Blue Parrot.’

   ‘I ordered her to do that,’ said Frost.

   ‘I don’t care a sod about you. She obeys my orders, not yours. She’s on probation. I’ve got to do a report on her suitability Well, I’m reporting that she’s unsuitable and that will be that.’

   ‘Even you wouldn’t do that,’ said Frost.

   A nasty grin crawled over Skinner’s face. ‘Wouldn’t I just?’

   ‘You wouldn’t,’ said Frost as he sat down, ‘any more than I would report you for having sex with an under-age prostitute and bringing her to the station. I wouldn’t stoop so low - unless I had to, of course.’

   The colour drained from Skinner’s face. ‘Under age?’ he croaked.

   Frost nodded. ‘Fifteen this year.’ He had no idea how old she was, but Morgan had taken her home last night so he knew where she lived, and he’d get her to lie if necessary.

   Skinner was trying to pull himself together. He gathered up the papers on his desk and patted them into a neat stack. ‘You’re too bleeding clever for your own good,’ he muttered.

   ‘Thank you,’ said Frost. ‘Praise from you is praise indeed. What did you want to see me about?’