Frost at Midnight Read online

  But would Mullett have her back? Frost was of the opinion that a return to CID was a mere formality. She thought Frost blasé; the super was not the compassionate type – he wouldn’t give a fig if she and little Philip were on the breadline. Mullett cared only for order and discipline; her behaviour last November would not be easily forgotten, regardless of what Jack Frost thought.

  Sunday (2)

  An early morning start was the only way to play golf in the summer, so Superintendent Mullett was disappointed with today’s arrangement for a 9 a.m. tee-off at the Denton & Rimmington Golf Club. If – no, when – he assumed the role of club chairman, there’d be no more of this 9 a.m. nonsense; the club would be open by seven prompt, even on a Sunday. He spied his companions ambling idly towards the green; ‘come on, come on,’ he willed them under his breath. It was already ten past, and who was it they’d been waiting for? The outgoing chairman himself, of course: Hudson, that corpulent old toad of a bank manager. Rumour had it he was set to retire by the end of the year, too. Bennington’s Bank could certainly do with fresh blood …

  The sun already had strength in it, and Mullett felt beads of perspiration forming underneath the peak of his golfing cap as he watched the trio grow nearer. Sir Keith, MP for Denton and Rimmington, graciously slowed his step to allow the gasping financier to catch up. Harry Baskin, the local nightclub owner, bowled along full steam, gesticulating with a cigar and talking animatedly to no one but himself.

  ‘Ah, good morning, gentlemen,’ Mullett greeted them tightly when they eventually reached the first hole. Each nodded. Hudson was deeply flushed and for a second the superintendent wondered whether he was quite well enough to make it round the course. He better bloody not cark it yet, not until he had cast his all-important vote. Like it or not, he needed that man’s blessing.

  Mullett stepped back to allow Baskin on to the green.

  ‘We were just talking about that London sort who’s doing up the Old Grange out at Two Bridges,’ Harry said.

  ‘Oh, I hadn’t heard. Who would that be?’ Mullett’s knowledge of the comings and goings in Denton was poor despite his standing in the local community.

  ‘Has a pretty penny, I can tell you,’ Hudson wheezed. ‘In fashion, or some such.’

  Fashion was a subject on which the four golfers were unified in their ignorance.

  Mullett despised the way the banker would drop snippets about clients like that into conversation. Granted, golf was the vehicle the town’s dignitaries used to swap and share information – indeed Mullett learned practically all he knew of the town out on the greens. Still, he thought divulging personal financial details like this the height of professional discourtesy. Not least because moving house had left him mortgaged up to the eyeballs, and the thought of them all chuckling away at that titbit around the tee-off made him cringe.

  ‘Yeah,’ Baskin was saying, ‘and flashing it about he is, too. But not, I might add, my way.’

  ‘Oh, how so?’ Mullett feigned interest as the four moved on to the first green.

  ‘Ripping the place apart, improvements left, right and centre. Massive swimming pool now,’ Baskin said, disgruntled.

  ‘Ha, yes, the local residents are not best pleased with their new neighbour,’ Sir Keith added. ‘But we want to encourage new wealth to settle out here and stimulate the community somewhat. I say the City pound is more than welcome in Denton.’

  The politician himself lived on an expansive estate near Two Bridges; no disruption short of an earthquake would trouble him all the way out there.

  Hold up, thought Mullett. ‘This the fellow who threw a huge party that went on a bit?’ he said, pleased to have something to offer. And indeed, it transpired, it was. Mullett recalled an area car call-out that way the previous evening, a disturbance of some sort. Mullett thought maybe the locals had overreacted, and was inclined to agree with Sir Keith; some degree of tolerance was necessary to encourage the prosperous into town.

  The game proceeded thus, but the banter and jokes were not as fluid as usual, the chatter somewhat subdued. Mullett (not usually the most sensitive of souls) discerned a slight edge to the morning’s round. By the time they’d reached the last hole, they were playing in virtual silence. Indeed, Hudson and Baskin had barely exchanged a word all game.

  As they loaded up their various cars, the banker called over to the policeman. Mullett was delighted; he was hoping for a quiet word about the succession. Disillusioned with the Freemasons, dismissing them as nothing but a bunch of bawdy drunken junior officers, Mullett was now channelling his energies into improving his status through the golf club. The AGM was on Wednesday evening and he was pretty sure he was a shoo-in; his aptitude for procedure made him a favourite, surely.

  ‘Yes, Michael.’ He hurried across the gravel to the Jaguar, where Hudson was struggling to load his clubs into the car’s capacious boot. ‘Might I help you there?’

  ‘Very kind.’

  ‘Not at all.’ The trolley was sizeable. Mullett took the strain. The clubs weighed a ton. He couldn’t begin to imagine how much this armoury must have set Hudson back.

  ‘Thank you.’ Hudson touched Mullett’s sleeve lightly, then whacked the boot shut with an expensive-sounding click.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ Mullett hovered, expectantly.

  ‘As it happens, there is.’

  Mullett leaned in.

  ‘What do you know of the goings-on at the Coconut Grove?’

  The superintendent stepped back, bemused; this was unusual. A blast of car horn caused him to turn round.

  ‘Harry’s place?’ Mullett indicated with his chin the passing Mercedes.

  Hudson nodded affirmatively. ‘In particular, what the young ladies get up to.’

  Mullett frowned into the sun; the conversation was not heading in the direction he had hoped for.

  St Mary’s Church in Denton was considered by many to be one of the most beautiful buildings in the town. Not that it had vast competition. Denton was a so-called ‘new town’ – knocked up in the sixties in a hurry to feed the growing London overspill. Much of the original village had been trampled on and replaced with cheap housing. Nevertheless the church – an elegant Norman construction set back from the road, largely concealed from view by sweeping yew trees and dense pine – was indeed beautiful. A pleasant reminder of a forgotten past.

  Jack Frost slammed the Vauxhall door, startling a flock of doves from nearby conifers and sending them scattering into the warm August morning. Though the church’s gentle splendour was lost on him, the place itself held significance for Frost. He had married his wife in St Mary’s; and he had recently buried her there too. Not that he thought much on Mary Frost now; their marriage had been far from ideal. All the same, a brief flit of something he thought must be shame touched him for an instant as he considered the noble building.

  Outside the main entrance to the grounds, near a wooden gabled porch set within the stone-wall boundary, there stood twenty or so individuals that he assumed made up that morning’s congregation.

  ‘Busiest day of the week,’ Frost mumbled to Waters.

  Father Hill, a tall octogenarian with a shock of white hair, appeared from the midst of his flock.

  ‘Ah William, good morning, my son. I’m sorry to bring you here under such dreadful circumstances,’ the vicar said gravely. ‘And to you, Sergeant Waters.’

  Frost bristled at the use of his Christian name. With Mary now gone the old churchman was the only one who addressed him so. ‘What have you got for us, Father?’

  ‘Come this way,’ Hill said. The congregation parted to allow them through. ‘The poor soul is around the side.’

  He guided them along an ancient path through crooked headstones which had long ago ceased to reveal who lay beneath. The earliest of Denton’s forefathers were buried at the front of the building, the more ornate seventeenth-and eighteenth-century memorials clustered around the middle of the graveyard, and right the way round the back, in the ‘n
ew’ section, lay Frost’s wife herself.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Frost said, spotting a middle-aged man with a sparse ginger beard.

  ‘That’s Mr Weaver, the verger, who found the body. He opens the church first of a morning.’

  Weaver, standing solemnly, retreated a step respectfully as they approached the body.

  ‘Here she is,’ the vicar pronounced unnecessarily.

  ‘Aha,’ Frost said. He’d seen a lot in his time, but the prostrate body of a beautiful young woman dressed in black and white on top of a Victorian tomb in such an unnatural position sent a shiver down his spine. She lay on her stomach, her head turned back at an impossible angle to face them. The right leg lay across the left, in a way that indicated a double-jointed knee.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Frost said under his breath.

  He took a step closer and crouched down. Her eyes were shut, and her mouth ever so slightly open – as though emitting a gentle sigh. A small trickle of blood had run from ruby lips across the alabaster skin.

  ‘I know this woman,’ he said.

  ‘An old flame?’ Waters whispered right behind him, giving him a start, like a scene out of a Hammer horror film.

  ‘Cut that out!’ Frost tutted and stood back, regarding the grave again. ‘You know her too, if you stop to think for a second, instead of pratting about putting the willies up me.’

  ‘Christ, you’re right,’ Waters gasped, ‘how the hell …’

  The woman’s clothing appeared ruffled; short black miniskirt askew, revealing bare pasty legs. Her white blouse was off one shoulder, and a black bra strap visible. He thought back to the girl found by the train tracks a year ago: the position was not dissimilar. Could she have just landed there? Jumped? He turned to judge the distance from the church roof; a good leap would make it possible.

  ‘The roof, Father; is it accessible?’ The lead from up there had been stolen several times so it was not out of the question.

  ‘Not from inside the church, Inspector – there are no steps. Though, as you know, the building has been scaled from outside over the years.’

  ‘She’s hardly dressed for burglary, is she – what, and barefoot,’ Waters remarked.

  Frost hadn’t even noticed the lack of shoes. He forced himself to turn away from the dreadful twist of her body, spun towards the verger and said sharply, ‘Seen any shoes lying about on your morning perambulations?’

  The poor man shrunk away in alarm. ‘Err … I … no. I’ve not seen a thing – I …’

  Frost reached out and hushed him with a touch on the shoulder; Weaver was obviously shaken and who could blame him.

  Frost knelt down on to the wet grass. On closer inspection she was lying on a jacket, a black denim number. She was well made-up, as though she was going out with friends – or perhaps on a date? Her lipstick was smudged. Snogging in the graveyard? Or worse …

  He pulled out a cigarette and addressed the corpse: ‘Well Rachel, honey, what on earth has happened to you?’

  Ben Weaver watched the shirt-sleeved detective shuffle off down the uneven, overgrown path, the large black man at his side dodging men in overalls hurrying Weaver’s way. Inspector Frost was the least likely-looking policeman he could imagine; an ordinary sort of chap you’d find behind the counter at Halfords. His big companion was equally surprising; he’d never seen a darkie in Denton. But these were small beer compared to the shock discovery of the dead woman that he’d stumbled upon earlier that morning.

  He’d been going about his usual business; opening up the church, laying out the vestments, when he’d heard a dog barking ten to the dozen outside in the grounds. Inwardly cursing, Weaver had scurried out to see what all the commotion was about. Father Hill strongly disapproved of dogs anywhere on sacred soil, and Weaver was keen to shoo away the intruder before the priest arrived.

  And there he found her, flat out on the tombstone, dead. He had nearly passed out on the spot. For an instant he thought it was her, placed there by the Lord himself – his crime laid bare, the victim prostrate for all to see, the stray dog sniffing around her feet. He’d leaned over to get a closer look. Of course it wasn’t the same girl; Janey had long auburn locks and this girl had shortish black hair. There was no way it could be her, but he had peered even closer, just to be sure. Janey was twenty-seven, this woman might be a bit older.

  Weaver remembered the relief. And then remembered … and though his heart had been pounding mightily, instinct had made him reach out and touch her leg, touch that creamy skin, just the way he had done with Janey after it happened.

  ‘I shall send an area car, that usually does the trick,’ Wells said.

  ‘We don’t want any trouble …’ the caller said uncertainly.

  ‘A police presence in these circumstances will, I’m sure, prevent the situation from escalating. I’m certain there’ll be no further trouble.’

  The caller was reassured and hung up. A biker gang at the Cricketers pub on the Wells Road had grown rowdy, and had apparently hurled abuse at a neighbouring house because the man’s dog was barking at them. Six of one and half a dozen of the other, the desk sergeant thought. As far back as Wells could remember, Denton had always been a stopping-off place for armies of bikers on their way to the coast during the summer months. Despite a somewhat menacing appearance and their sheer number, the leather-clad hordes had never really caused a problem and Wells wasn’t particularly disturbed by the call.

  Sunday shifts manning reception at Eagle Lane were always a walk in the park for Desk Sergeant Bill Wells. Until now that is, and the dawn of the computer age at Denton following the edict from up on high. They claimed the new machines would save time, but the reverse was the case for station stalwart Wells. On the face of it, it should be clear-cut: to record all the incidents reported at the desk either over the phone or in person. The training course was all very well, and he could see the logic of the exercise in theory. But Wells was no typist and that’s what this whole computer lark required. He’d never in a million years be able to log an emergency quick enough on the computer, so in practice he’d scribble it all down as he’d always done for the last twenty years, then have to type it all up on extra shifts.

  Gone were the days he’d saunter in on a Sunday and have plenty of time to mull over the Racing Post and do the Pools. He sighed and continued doggedly bashing away at the keyboard with two fingers. Though the Police Federation were in consultation over changes to working conditions, he knew nothing would come of it. The irony was, the only person competent enough to operate this equipment was Mullett’s secretary Miss Smith, whose typing proficiency (an impressive 70 words a minute) would make mincemeat of all this guff. But, inevitably, she was deemed too lowly to be allowed near a computer.

  He still had the radio, though, through which a mournful Paul Young droned on relentlessly. Wherever I lay my hat … Wells chuckled to himself. Not that he liked the song – he didn’t – but it made him think of Frost; there was a running joke at Eagle Lane to whistle the tune in corridors when passing the homeless inspector.

  ‘Blast,’ he cursed to himself as he realized he’d typed a surname in the address field and the computer rejected his entry. Either that or he couldn’t read Johnny Johnson’s handwriting. They’d alternated running the desk for over ten years, but had never had the need to read the other’s scrawl. This dual recording of reports was a waste of time, in Wells’ view. ‘Bleeding machine, I’ll never get this done. And then there’s that flamin’ expenses report for Mullett – if the bloody printer will ever work—’

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  Wells turned round to see a lad of about nine or ten at the desk.

  ‘Hello there, young man,’ he said with a smile, ‘how can I help?’

  ‘It’s me mum.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She’s not come home.’

  Sunday (3)

  Though it was high summer and in the mid-seventies outside, the odour of a Sunday roast wafted through the Mullet
t household. Mullett himself had vetoed the idea of a salad – ‘Too continental,’ he had said disapprovingly to his wife, Grace. ‘We’re entertaining, we’re British, so it will and must be roast beef.’ But as the time drew near for them to take their places at the table, he felt a window or two might be pushed ajar, as it was stifling.

  The superintendent’s sister-in-law commented on how ravenous she was. Mullett smiled politely at the small pert woman perched on his settee guzzling Bristol Cream.

  ‘Yes, rather,’ he agreed, though in truth he had no appetite whatsoever. The conversation with Hudson in the golf-club car park still troubled him greatly. The banker wanted him to have a dancer, one Karen Thomas, removed from the employ of the Coconut Grove nightclub. Mullett chose not to press Hudson on his reasons – he was, after all, nearly three times the girl’s age … so how to tackle Baskin on such a … such a delicate matter? Frost, on the other hand, knew Baskin and the Coconut Grove well; he’d have to trust the matter to him – he couldn’t rely on any of the others. Still, the problem remained – how to present the situation to Frost? This Karen Thomas that Hudson was after hadn’t done anything …

  Mullett was so engrossed in the dilemma that he failed to hear the telephone ring. It was only his wife’s haw-hawing in the hallway (a noise that set his teeth on edge) that snapped him out of it. Who the devil was calling on a Sunday lunchtime?

  ‘Oh Inspector Frost, you are awful!’

  The words cut through him like a knife. Frost! On no account was Grace to speak to Frost! He darted out of the living room, ignoring his guest, into the hallway and snatched the telephone from his wife’s grasp.

  ‘Frost,’ he barked, his temper racing from 0 to 60 in a flash, ‘what is the meaning of this!’ Grace returned sheepishly to the kitchen to check on the spuds. Mullett knew that he was playing into Frost’s hands by flaring up like this. There should be no reason for a superintendent to be angry at being called at home by a colleague. No, this was all because of that incident concerning Grace, that paperboy getting run over …