Fatal Frost

  ‘Excuse me. Is there a problem with the trains?’

  ‘They’ve been suspended all morning,’ she sniffed. ‘Only just started running again. One just went out; bloody heaving, it was.’

  Everett glanced at the indicator board. The next was delayed and wasn’t due out for an hour. Bloody hell – he had to be back for a viewing at three. This was hopeless. He’d have to give it a miss today.

  Monday (3)

  DCS SUE CLARKE and Kim Myles turned off Market Square on to Foundling Street. It struck Clarke that the empty streets and bright bank holiday sunshine gave Denton an almost picture-postcard look – a far cry from the booze-and-kebab-stained aura of a typical Saturday night. But as Myles brought the Escort to a juddering halt, she realized it was merely a trick of the light.

  The Pink Toothbrush was a single-storey building with a tall chimney stack, overshadowed to the west by the four-storey Aster’s department store on the corner of Foundling Street. A laundry company had previously occupied the site of the new sauna place, Clarke recalled. Harry Baskin had acquired the premises the previous year. The fascia boasted a gaudy neon sign saying Sauna and Massage, which, although switched off, still resonated with the same seedy feel as Baskin’s nearby nightclub, the Coconut Grove.

  The complaints had come from residents of Baron’s Court. Once an opulent Victorian mansion, this relic of the past had stood by while Denton New Town, in all its ugly, slipshod glory, had grown up around it. Now broken up into flats and bedsits, Baron’s Court was mainly tenanted by pensioners. The area had certainly seen better days, thought Clarke. Even in the handful of years since she’d left school, the south of Denton had deteriorated visibly. Eventually the listlessness of the swelling unemployed on the Southern Housing Estate had begun to spread north, crime and vandalism flowing with it. The pubs were getting rougher, and Foundling Street now had not one but two sex shops – nothing wrong with that in itself, but was it just a coincidence that complaints about the number of kerb-crawlers had risen dramatically?

  The old folk must feel the world is closing in on them, Clarke reflected as she stepped out on to the pavement.

  ‘Looks quiet enough to me,’ said Myles, pulling her shoulder-length blonde hair up into a ponytail.

  ‘The complaints came in at eleven at night, not eleven in the morning,’ Clarke responded sharply. She noted there were two vehicles in the car park – a mustard Austin Allegro and a white Mercedes convertible.

  ‘Want one?’ Myles said, offering a Silk Cut, which Clarke declined as they walked towards the door. Why Mullett allowed her companion to wear skirts that short was a mystery to Clarke. Myles had been at Denton two months now, and was still as brazen as the first day she’d sashayed into Eagle Lane, fluttering her eyelids at DI Allen. Rumour had it that the pair were already an item, now that Allen had split from his wife. Not that she was in any position to make judgements.

  Myles rapped on the door. Nothing. The place felt shut. They’d not checked the opening hours.

  ‘Let’s try the back,’ said Clarke. They walked round the building and there, on the step by the fire door, was a young Chinese girl having a cigarette. She looked up, startled.

  ‘We no open!’ she barked.

  ‘Police,’ Clarke snapped back. She was struck by the girl’s beauty, but also by her age – no more than sixteen, if that.

  ‘We no open!’ she repeated, as though not hearing or understanding.

  ‘Dumb Chinky. Where’s Harry?’ Myles said. Clarke bristled and shot her an admonishing look. ‘Well …?’

  The girl sat in silence on the step, looking fearful. Why was she so terrified?

  Clarke bent down and spoke gently. ‘Is Mr Baskin in?’

  ‘Mr Baskin, boss,’ the girl replied, momentarily soothed.

  ‘Yes, love – but is he in? Is he here?’ Clarke persisted.

  ‘No boss here.’

  ‘Whose is the white Merc out front, then?’ Myles interjected impatiently. ‘Yours?’

  ‘Well, well, what do we have here?’ Baskin bellowed, suddenly looming in the open doorway. ‘Hop it, Mai Ling,’ he said to the timid girl, who scurried inside.

  Clarke squared up. ‘We’d like a word with you, Mr Baskin, about your activities on these premises.’

  Baskin looked amused. ‘Fancy a rub-down? Nice girl like you, we could give you a discount. Or if you’re looking for a bit of pin money after hours …’ He grinned lasciviously, toking on a huge cigar.

  ‘We’re given to believe you may be offering more than a rub-down.’ Clarke was determined not to be intimidated by the large club owner, who from the fire-door threshold towered over them both.

  ‘I see,’ he sniffed, his grin replaced by a sour stare. ‘Those moaning old biddies in the flats, was it?’

  ‘It’s not important where the accusation came from – and we’re not getting heavy, there’s no actual evidence …’

  ‘You’re damn right, there’s no evidence,’ Baskin growled, on the edge of losing his cool, ‘because there’s fuck all going on here! Now piss off, and tell those old boots they can piss off too!’

  ‘Mr Baskin, wait …’ But he’d already slammed the fire door in their faces.

  Clarke hammered on it angrily. Baskin hollered back an obscenity, followed by something, too muffled to catch, about Frost. ‘Fat bastard,’ she hissed.

  ‘That went well,’ said Myles.

  Clarke shrugged her shoulders, turning away from the door. Baskin’s notoriety was such that Eagle Lane would generally pull out the big guns – Jack Frost and DI Allen – to deal with him, and she’d guessed a pair of young female DCs were unlikely to be taken seriously. Sexist pig.

  ‘Without any firm accusations I’m not quite sure what we were meant to achieve …’ Clarke began, but as they rounded the corner of the building she was stopped in her tracks.

  ‘Oi!’ screeched Myles. The Escort door was open and a youth was rummaging around inside. Two more hooded figures on bikes were hovering next to the car, one with his hand on the door.

  Clarke and Myles ran at the hoodlums; the two on bikes sped off, the athletic Myles giving chase, but the other was initially trapped inside the car. Galvanized by her lack of success with Baskin, Clarke grabbed the kid by his sweatshirt as he tried to push past her. The pair of them crashed to the ground, Clarke sprawling on her back beneath the snarling boy. She had hold of him firmly, and was just about to read him his rights when a searing pain jolted through her thigh, so severe that she released her grip. The hooded youth scrambled up and legged it, screeching expletives as he went, while Clarke could do nothing but writhe on the tarmac, her thigh pulsing in white-hot agony.

  ‘Jesus, little bastard!’ Myles stood above her, trying to catch her breath. ‘What a mess. We’d better get you seen to.’

  * * *

  It was Simms’s belief that Forest View, for all its leafy desirability, had a basic flaw: the properties on the east side backed on to Denton Woods, and as such were easy targets for burglars. He and Waters pulled up on a vast drive of thick shingle that crunched beneath their shoes as they walked to the door. Well, at least it stops the villains approaching from the front, thought Simms, although clearly that hadn’t helped much in this case. The doorbell sounded with elaborate chimes, and a well-dressed, attractive woman in her mid-forties appeared.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, surprised.

  ‘Mrs Hartley-Jones? Denton CID.’

  She took a step back, regarding them both suspiciously, her look lingering on Waters. ‘Can I see some identification?’ she asked, frowning.

  Simms pulled his badge from inside his leather jacket and then waited uneasily while Waters patted his denims, eventually retrieving his credentials from his back pocket.

  The woman peered at the ID. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said at last.

  ‘Only if it’s no trouble,’ quipped Simms sarcastically. Spiky tart, he thought. Did she want her sparklers back or not?

  ‘No, no trouble
. But we’ve already had the police in. They were in uniform,’ she said pointedly. How ironic, Simms thought sourly; to her mind the real police were those in uniform. This time last year he was uniform. ‘Come this way. Mind those.’

  Simms stepped over what appeared to be a pile of large candles. ‘Yes, the officers were taking details. Myself and DS Waters are taking charge of the investigation.’

  ‘My husband plays golf with Mr Mullett, you know,’ said Mrs Hartley-Jones as she led them down a large, parquet-floored hall. Simms recalled that these were friends of Mullett’s, though the concept of the super having mates was a hard one to swallow. They certainly seemed his type, though; he could well imagine Mullett residing in a grand place like this. That’s why he’s so anxious, Simms thought and smiled to himself – he’s worried he’ll be next.

  ‘I can only tell you what I told those other chappies. They have a full list of all the valuables that are gone.’ She ushered them into the living room. ‘Nothing else is missing as far as I can tell. Michael thought his shotgun had been taken but we found it in the boot of the car. And Mr Tibbs has not come back to life,’ she added bitterly.

  ‘Mr Tibbs?’ Waters asked, halting near the chesterfield.

  Mrs Hartley-Jones sighed. ‘My sweet angel.’

  ‘The cat,’ Simms said.

  ‘Yes, my poor cat. What are they going to do with him? One of your better-dressed colleagues took him away in a polythene bag!’

  ‘Yes,’ Simms confirmed, ‘to ascertain how he … er … how he passed away.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We’re still waiting.’ Simms preferred not to enlighten her about the cheese wire.

  ‘Well, can I have him back when your friends have finished prodding him around? He needs to have a proper burial, underneath the sycamore.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Simms uneasily, wondering whether the feline carcass had already been tossed in the incinerator. ‘And where was Mr Tibbs discovered, exactly?’

  ‘Don’t you people communicate?’ Mrs Hartley-Jones said, vexed. ‘It’s most upsetting, having to go through this again. In the fridge, poor dear.’

  ‘The fridge? Of course, yes, I am sorry. I’m sure there’s a note of it somewhere.’ Simms made a play of fiddling with his notepad, knowing the pages to be mostly blank. He’d been far too preoccupied with Waters’ arrival to pay much attention to the incident report from uniform. Focus, Derek, he told himself, you’re CID now. He checked what notes he did have.

  ‘Mind if we look around?’ asked Waters. Simms watched him stride across the room and peer into the cavity of the TV cabinet. With his faded denim jacket, afro and flared jeans he certainly looked out of place in this middle-class suburban home. Mrs Hartley-Jones looked quite perturbed as the big man fingered the severed cables that until recently were attached to a VCR.

  ‘Why cut them?’ Simms asked.

  ‘Save time. There’s a mass of wires: video recorder and all the hi-fi stuff, amp, cassette deck, turntable, speaker cable; he’d be here all night untangling all this stuff at the back of the cabinet. SOCOs come up with anything?’

  ‘No prints – clean as a whistle. So, broadly, it was just the VCR and jewellery that were taken?’

  ‘Yes. And an amplifier, I believe. I don’t know much about the hi-fi. I do hope the video recorder was covered by the insurance. It was terribly expensive.’

  ‘Had it long?’ enquired Waters.

  ‘A couple of weeks! Michael had only just mastered recording off the television. The instructions for these things are so complicated, don’t you find?’

  ‘Can’t afford one on a copper’s salary, unfortunately,’ Simms said. ‘And the jewellery – was there anything specific, an antique or heirloom? Those are sometimes easier to recover.’

  ‘My mother’s engagement and eternity rings. I took some photos of them some time ago, if that’s any use?’

  ‘Yes, please, it all helps.’ Simms asked if they could look around further, although he didn’t expect to find anything. He thought the woman’s manner was vague and disinterested. Apart from concern for the cat she didn’t seem to mind that much. They made for the kitchen, where the thief was thought to have entered through the large, latticed rear window. Each of the three main panels was made up of six smaller panes. One such pane, in the middle of the central panel, had been replaced with a cardboard rectangle.

  ‘Impossible to get a glazier out on bank holiday Monday,’ the woman said.

  ‘So,’ concluded Simms, ‘the thief broke a pane, then reached through and lifted up the lever. Then he climbed in through the window.’

  Mrs Hartley-Jones was nodding, but Waters shook his head, sucking air in through his teeth. He reached up and removed the piece of cardboard. ‘Mind if I go outside a sec?’ he asked. Mrs Hartley-Jones unlocked the back door.

  Simms watched, impatient, as Waters stuck his arm through the splintered pane and reached for the nearest latch, at the bottom of the right-hand panel. It was a stretch, but he managed to open the window and stood facing them both from the garden.

  ‘What exactly was the point of that?’ Simms asked.

  ‘If I was going to break in, I’d probably have broken the pane right next to the latch, wouldn’t you?’ He tapped the unbroken section of the window. ‘Save reaching through and risk cutting yourself?’

  ‘Good point,’ Simms said, annoyed he’d not considered that. ‘But it was dark.’

  ‘A cat burglar without a torch? C’mon.’ Waters then turned to Mrs Hartley-Jones. ‘You reported the burglary very early this morning. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, correct. We’d been on the South Coast – caravan site – we keep a caravan there and go quite often … We didn’t get back until late last night.’

  ‘Who was feeding Mr Tibbs? One of the neighbours?’ DS Waters asked.

  ‘No, my niece, Samantha.’

  ‘When was the last time she fed him?’

  ‘Well, there’s the funny thing. She should have been the first to discover the break-in, on Sunday morning. But when I called my sister that morning, she said that Sam hadn’t come home on Saturday night. We rang again in the afternoon. Sam wasn’t back, so we decided to come home early, as we were worried about Mr Tibbs. That reminds me, I must call my sister.’

  Desk Sergeant Bill Wells glanced at the lobby clock. Only midday and he was starving already. During the refurbishments last year, when the canteen had been closed, the trolley service had been a real bonus. He could conveniently grab a bite whenever Grace trundled by. But the superintendent had not seen fit to redeploy meals-on-wheels while Eagle Lane recovered from bomb damage, and went mental if Wells so much as left his post for a pee.

  ‘Ah, Wells.’ Mullett appeared before his eyes, as if the mere thought of the super was enough to make him materialize. ‘What’s the matter, man, wake up – you’re in a daydream. Where’s DS Frost?’

  ‘Somewhere by the train line still, maybe – a body—’ The phone rang, cutting him off, and he looked at Mullett expectantly.

  ‘Well, answer it then, man,’ the super snapped angrily.

  Wells picked up the phone. ‘It’s for you – Mr Winslow.’

  Mullett’s face fell. ‘Give it here. Morning, sir. Yes … Yes, he’s here. Nice chap. Yes … Tall, yes …’

  Wells watched the super intently, guessing the subject of the conversation was DS Waters. There had never been a black officer at Eagle Lane before and the station was buzzing with gossip. Not that Denton was unique in its prejudices. When it came to attitudes towards ethnic minorities, the force’s record was dubious at best. Wells clearly remembered the scandal at Hendon when a bloke had been bound and gagged by a bunch of cadets dressed as Ku Klux Klan. Made the headlines. Nasty business.

  ‘Here … here!’ The super was waving the receiver at him, irritably pulling at his moustache with the other hand. ‘Now – where was I?’

  ‘On the way to the Gents, sir?’ Wells said hopefully.

  Mullett ig
nored him. ‘Get Frost to call me.’ He shot Wells a stern look and was gone.

  The phone rang again as if to remind Wells of its presence.

  ‘Is that the police?’ said a man in angry tones, barely pausing for a reply before firing off his grievance in a voice so shrill with emotion that Wells had no idea what he was saying.

  ‘Calm down, sir. I can barely understand you.’

  ‘My shop has been robbed! Are you deaf? Robbed! At gun point!’ The caller had a strong Indian accent.

  ‘Sir, please calm down. Now, can you describe the assailants? How many of them were there?’

  ‘Don’t patronize me, you … you desk jockey. There were two.’

  ‘And can you describe them, sir?’

  ‘Short!’

  Wells waited, but nothing more was offered. ‘Any further description to go on? Do you know if they were black or white, for example?’

  ‘They was wearing bloody balaclavas – how the hell would I know? All I know is, they were short. Very short.’

  ‘The fridge?’ Frost’s voice sounded distant. The line was so dreadful you’d think he was calling from Timbuktu, not a phone box a couple of miles away. Mullett heard the pips go, followed by cursing as Frost struggled to find some change. Then the line went dead.

  Mullett drummed his fingers thoughtfully on his polished, spartan desk. ‘Yes, the fridge,’ he repeated to himself, and pivoted round on his chair.

  But his golfing chum’s cat was not the main thing on his mind. At the time of Frost’s call, Mullett had been reflecting on the morning briefing. If he’d had the presence of mind, he’d have done better to hold DS Waters back and quietly assign him to Frost, but the jeering had flustered him, and his ill-considered act of handing the DS to a rookie like Simms in front of the whole division was one he now regretted. The men had respect for Frost; partnering him with Waters would have reflected far better on the visiting policeman.

  The phone flashed again.

  ‘Sorry, sir, ran out of change.’

  ‘Where exactly are you?’ Mullett asked, exasperated.