Morning Frost

  Frost was going to thump him. Wife’s funeral or not, any minute now he would bust the bleeder’s nose, just watch him.

  He shouldn’t have returned to the wake. After a stroll around the block to clear his head Frost had intended just to pick up his coat and car keys and leave, figuring he could make his peace with his mother-in-law some other time – if that were possible at all. But while fetching his coat he’d been collared by Winslow and agreed to have a drink in the study. Frost, surprisingly, got on fine with the bald, bespectacled ACC.

  Unfortunately, a few drinks had had the effect of turning Winslow into a bore, and after the customary condolences Frost found himself on the receiving end of a lecture on the coming of the computer age. It was enough to send him to sleep, so when Winslow paused for a pee, Frost made a break for it. He exited the study, intending to leave by the front door, but on entering the hall bumped straight into his brother-in-law. By Frost’s own generous standards Brazier had had a lot to drink. Rather like Winslow, this seemed to compel him to deliver lectures, but Brazier’s chosen subject was Mary Frost’s decline.

  Frost endured it for a couple of minutes, but it was clearly an encounter that was never going to end well. He heard all about Mary’s good breeding and the usual tosh about how he’d corrupted her. Usually he just shrugged off the views of people he considered idiots, but there was a faintly sleazy tone beneath Brazier’s drunken reproach, as he talked about that lovely girl and how wasted she’d been on an oaf like him, that gave him the mounting urge to plant one right between Brazier’s shifty eyes.

  ‘… And then she started drinking – which, as anyone knows …’

  That was it. Frost grabbed Brazier by the cravat and pulled down the leering face so he was level with it, and then headbutted him for all he was worth. Blood spurted from Brazier’s smashed nose and he staggered back against the hall table, knocking over some poncey china clown figurine which smashed on the floor. Frost felt concussed from the blow and was sure he was going to topple over. But just then he felt a firm grip on his shoulder and a calm voice saying, ‘Hey, Jack.’

  Frost looked up into the concerned eyes of DS John Waters.

  ‘John. Nice of you to pop by.’

  ‘Time to go, Jack.’

  ‘Probably should, eh?’ He smiled.

  ‘It’s highly likely they’re from the same body, and blood tests will corroborate this, though not prove it one hundred per cent.’ Drysdale continued: ‘They are, I think we can all agree, both from a male.’

  Simms regarded the pale hairy foot in the tray before him, and beside it the upturned hand, which was large and thick-set. Both articles he was having difficulty registering as real body parts; they looked more like props from The Addams Family.

  ‘We can also observe that the method of severing is consistent,’ said Drysdale.

  ‘The fingers look broken,’ Clarke mused. Drysdale nodded enthusiastically. Simms was put out – why the hell couldn’t he notice things like that?

  ‘Yes, quite! Now look at this,’ Drysdale added. ‘See the toenails – manicured, clean. And the palm of the hand, soft, indicating no manual work. Someone with a comfortable life, perhaps?’

  ‘I see,’ responded Simms, racking his brain for something useful to say. ‘Skin must tell you something, about age?’ he offered doubtfully.

  ‘Yes. Texture is a good indication.’ The pathologist stroked the severed limb, almost affectionately. ‘I would hazard that the victim is under thirty. There’s a powdery residue underneath the fingernails – I will need to run some tests …’

  ‘Any idea how long these have been lying there?’

  ‘A matter of days at most. The cold weather would slow the decomposition, but as the detective rightly mentioned, they couldn’t have been there very long as the birds would’ve had them. I shall be in touch with Forensics.’ The pathologist looked quite excited; unusual for him, thought Simms.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Sue,’ Simms said quietly, holding open the door. The showers had ceased and the sun hung low above the pine trees that bordered the lab grounds. Simms had always found the tranquil, picture-postcard setting of the County lab to be at odds with the morbid secrets it held inside.

  ‘No, not at all – I screwed up. I should have cordoned off the field when the foot appeared, I know that.’ She smiled tiredly. ‘Thanks for not making a meal of it – Mullett would have gone ballistic. Him and his procedure …’

  ‘He need never know,’ Simms reassured her, pulling out his cigarettes.

  ‘Not for me, thanks.’

  ‘Given up?’ He flicked the Zippo top up, lighting one.

  ‘Yep, sort of …’

  ‘Lots are. At seventy pence a packet, no wonder …’ He sensed something awkward in her manner. ‘Right, I’ll drop you off, you look beat.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll head back to the station, see if the SOCOs have turned up anything interesting from the Coconut Grove, then wait for Harry to come round.’

  ‘You want that case badly, don’t you, Derek? I know they’re all out and it seems like your chance – but don’t get too excited; once Frost is back in the land of the living …’

  Simms frowned at her unfortunate turn of phrase, but she misread it as boyish dejection and reached out to touch his cheek. He pulled back in surprise – she was never touchy-feely at the best of times, so he hardly expected that! He could never work her out. He looked at the dark smudges under her eyes and said, ‘C’mon, you’re shattered, we’d best get you home.’

  Thursday (5)

  ‘Thanks for that, John. Things might’ve got out of hand.’ Frost slumped in the Vauxhall’s passenger seat.

  ‘What do you mean might’ve? You just headbutted your brother-in-law.’

  ‘Nah, that was more of a smooch.’

  His relief at being whisked away from the ugly scene at his in-laws’ helped him make light of it, but inwardly Frost cringed at his loss of control. After Mary’s death he’d assumed that his relationship with the Simpsons couldn’t suffer any more damage, and might even be repaired, so he was furious with himself, particularly for having given that spiv Julian the satisfaction of causing his latest disgrace.

  As they accelerated along the Rimmington Road towards Denton he pushed away these gloomy thoughts by turning his attention to Waters. ‘Anyway, what are you doing here? Aren’t you on duty?’

  ‘Yep, but I thought you’d want to hear the latest news. Harry Baskin’s been shot.’

  ‘Bugger me!’ Frost exclaimed, the surprise causing an unpleasant reflux of Scotch up his windpipe. ‘Where?’

  ‘At the Coconut Grove.’

  ‘How bad?’

  ‘We wait to see … he’s only just come round. Simms and Clarke took the call earlier.’

  ‘So are they at the hospital?’

  ‘Nope, at the lab. A different case. A couple of severed limbs have been found in a field outside Denton. But anyway—’

  ‘Severed limbs?’ Frost puffed out his cheeks. ‘Blimey, take the morning off to bury the old lady and chaos breaks out. Let’s go and see the old blighter first – I could do with cheering up.’

  Waters followed Frost past rows of beds towards the curtained corner at the far end of the ward. He watched the detective totter worryingly close to a medication trolley, and sneakily pat a nurse’s bottom, causing her to jolt upright from tucking in sheets at the foot of a patient’s bed. Perhaps it hadn’t been wise to bring him here in his semi-inebriated state.

  A uniformed officer looking bored sitting outside the drawn curtains indicated that this was their man. Baskin was to be moved to a private room later that day; the police presence was unsettling the other patients. Frost parted the curtains dramatically as if making a stage entrance.

  ‘Harry!’ he said loudly with mock concern.

  Baskin shrugged. Aside from a slight pallor the corpulent gangster did not look remotely unwell, let alone like the victim of a gunshot. However, he did
look profoundly pissed off.

  ‘Bitch won’t let me smoke,’ he grunted. ‘Says it’s not allowed.’

  ‘It’s not good for you, Harry,’ Frost needled, pulling up a visitor’s chair, ‘or so I’m told.’

  ‘Neither’s getting shot. What’s he doing here?’ He gestured with his chin at Waters who remained standing at the foot of the bed.

  ‘You’ve met DS Waters, haven’t you?’

  Baskin narrowed his eyes. ‘Monkeys aren’t allowed in here either.’

  ‘Rather a monkey than a fat white slug,’ Waters replied. ‘Where’s the salt? Maybe we can put you out of your agony.’

  ‘Now, Harry, no need for those kinds of comments, or I shall lose my sympathy very quickly. Where’d they get you?’ Frost poked the gangster’s bandaged shoulder sharply. ‘Was it here?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Frost!’ He writhed in pain. ‘Bleedin’ bullet’s still in there.’

  ‘Well, just you watch your tongue, and be a good boy.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ He nodded at Waters while gently rubbing his bandaged torso. ‘Sorry, son. I’m not my usual rational self, for some reason.’

  ‘Now.’ Frost stretched back, placing his hands behind his head. ‘Why would anyone want to take a pot-shot at you?’

  ‘Why indeed, that’s what I want to know—’

  ‘Could it have been …’

  ‘It was some bird.’

  Frost raised his eyebrows. ‘“Some bird”. That narrows the field.’

  Waters pulled out his notebook. ‘Can you give us a description?’

  ‘Didn’t get much of a chance – it all happened so damned quickly.’ Baskin winced irritably as he tried to adjust himself in the bed. ‘Cecil says there’s a stripper to see me, next second he’s splattered across me financials. And I’m lying in a pool of me own claret. It was a bit of a shock, I can tell you.’

  Frost got up as if bored and stared out of the window, tapping his foot impatiently. Was he listening? Difficult to say. He didn’t make a comment, so Waters continued: ‘But you must have noticed something – height, hair colour?’

  ‘About five six or five eight. Blonde – peroxide blonde. A bob – with a fringe.’ Baskin marked a line across his forehead. ‘Striking cheekbones. Tasty bird; big hooters.’

  ‘Only you would remember her breasts, Harry,’ Frost said, turning back to him. His eyes looked devastatingly tired, the eyelids a livid red under the unforgiving hospital strip lights. Must be the booze, Waters thought.

  ‘Me? Nah. Seen one tit, you’ve seen them all. Cecil alerted me to it – last words the poor bugger said. There’ll be hell to pay from my sister Phyllis for getting her boy shot. And from my wife.’ He sighed.

  ‘Age?’ Waters asked.

  ‘Couldn’t tell you. She was well made up, a bit over the top, in fact. If I’d taken her on ’arf the warpaint would’ve had to go.’

  ‘So she really was a stripper you think?’ Waters asked.

  ‘Could be … but why one would take a pop is beyond me; I’ve always been good to the girls, don’t knock ’em around. There’s been ups and downs over the years, but like any business, really. I’ve taken good care of ’em mainly.’

  ‘Yes, like a kindly uncle,’ Frost said with distaste, stepping back from the window. ‘OK, let’s ignore your chequered past for now; we start trawling through that we’ll never get out of here. Let’s start with who you could have annoyed recently, right? Where have you been in the last twenty-four hours?’

  ‘At the Coconut Grove,’ Baskin said sardonically.

  ‘What, you’ve not even been home?’

  ‘We had a card game going.’

  ‘Cards.’ Frost shook his head regretfully. ‘So, you’ve been fleecing the punters.’

  ‘No money was taken from the crime scene,’ Waters interjected.

  ‘Precisely, to allay any obvious suspicion that money was the motive … but it’s unlikely anyone would rub you out over a little game of poker … unless you’ve moved into a bigger league, Harry?’

  ‘Oi, I’ve not been rubbed out,’ complained Baskin from the bed. ‘No, nobody I’d not played with before.’

  ‘You’re still with us, granted, but your nephew is not in such good shape, he’s lost a lot of blood. Come on, I want those names. It’s a start.’

  Waters took the names down in his notebook, but he instinctively agreed with Frost; it seemed unlikely Baskin had been shot over a card game. These local types – Jeremy Tile who ran the bookie’s in London Street; Raymond Shooter, the publican of the Bird in Hand; Harvey Evans, the alcoholic Welsh coach of Denton RFC, and Gavin Cribbs, a solicitor on Gentlemen’s Walk – were hardly a threatening bunch. Plus they were all men.

  ‘We’d better check out the girls too – disgruntled employees, any that have left under a cloud in the last month, and so forth. Where do you keep your personnel files?’

  Harry snorted. ‘Records are pretty sketchy … it’s all cash in hand; part-time in the main. The women we get, very few of them are actually dancers.’

  ‘Really?’ Frost exclaimed. ‘And there’s me thinking they were trained by the Royal Ballet. So, what kind of women do you get?’

  Baskin shrugged. ‘All kinds, really; most do it for a bit of pin money, working the circuit – pubs, football club, Labour club and what have you. There’s only two girls on the books fulltime. Kate and Rachel.’

  ‘Kate and Rachel?’ cut in Waters, pen poised.

  ‘Kate Greenlaw – she was there when it happened. Good girl, been with me two years, sees it as the route to something better. Lord knows what. Always practising her routine. And Rachel Rayner, a diamond, but getting on, doesn’t get her kit off much these days – runs the bar.’

  Frost smiled. ‘Such a way with words you have, Harry. What do you mean by “getting on”? Early forties?’

  ‘Nah, late twenties.’

  Waters laughed. ‘That’s hardly getting on, is it? That’s younger than me! When you get to Jack’s age, that’s when you’re really over the hill.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Baskin sniffed. ‘Nobody’s going to fork out to see Jack in the buff, are they?’

  After half an hour Baskin had grown tired, and Frost left him to doze. For all his light-heartedness, he was still in a state of shock and completely clueless as to who’d taken a pot-shot at him.

  Waters had dropped Frost off on the corner of Eagle Lane and driven on to interview one of Harry’s girls. Frost had to get back to the nick; a press frenzy was growing over the body parts found in a field. He’d spoken to Johnny Johnson on the squawk-box in the car and said he’d handle it.

  Frost had decided to walk the remainder of the way to clear his head. He needed to take command of the situation. Mullett was AWOL, possibly still at his wife’s wake, hard to imagine though that was. The weather too had cleared and the last of the sunset was a deep bruised pink. He passed the Eagle pub, the policemen’s boozer, which he noted was getting a lick of paint. He nodded approvingly to a man in overalls folding away a ladder. Eagle Lane was not exactly the prettiest of Denton’s streets and could do with tarting up. The station itself, an eyesore of sixties design, loomed into view. Flamin’ hell, was that a TV van parked up?

  Frost slipped discreetly through the mob of cameras and microphones and up the front steps, where two uniform stood stoically to attention. This lot could easily be palmed off, he thought cunningly, and spun round to address the press.

  ‘Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. How can I help?’ He beamed.

  Everyone bellowed at once, like over-excited children eager for the teacher’s attention. ‘One at a time, please.’ Frost pointed to a familiar face at the front of the crowd, ‘Let’s start with you – Sandy?’

  ‘Is it true that body parts have turned up in a farmer’s field outside Denton?’

  ‘That’s correct,’ Frost said, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Can you say exactly what has been found?’

  ‘Nope,’ Frost said blu
ntly.

  ‘Why not?’ Sandy Lane asked, taken aback. ‘Nev Sanderson said there was a foot and—’

  ‘Why you asking me, then?’ Frost snapped. ‘Next – yes, young lady?’ He singled out a young woman, admiring her lustrous hair – straight off the Harmony hairspray advert.

  ‘Have you a body?’

  ‘This is it. What you reckon?’ He drummed his chest playfully.

  ‘No, I meant …’ She stuttered to a halt, embarrassed.

  ‘Jack, c’mon,’ Lane insisted. ‘Got to be a murder inquiry, surely? Somebody hacked to death. Sanderson reckons—’

  ‘Sandy! Not necessarily.’ Frost held up his hand. ‘We need to investigate this thoroughly; murder is a possibility, but first I want to rule out an accident.’

  ‘Accident?’ Harmony said.

  ‘Yes, we will be conducting a thorough search of Mr Sanderson’s farm and equipment. There’s a chance that some poor sod got run over by his combine harvester – nothing more sinister than that.’ And with that Frost turned on his heel and entered the building wearing a grin; serve the gobby farmer right, he thought.

  Thursday (6)

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Simms said sulkily. ‘I’m gutted. Didn’t you tell him I was handling Baskin? That I’d been to the Coconut Grove?’