Frost 5 - Winter Frost Read online

  Drysdale's lips tightened at the 'doc'. 'Another prostitute?'

  'Yes, doc, and we've got a name this time so you can put a tag on her toe.'

  The pathologist bent over the body and nodded his recognition. 'We had one like this a couple of months ago - one of Inspector Allen's cases, if I recall.' He knelt on the plastic sheet covering the grass and peered at the burns and wounds on the stomach. 'Exactly the same.' He stared hard at the face. 'She'd been gagged - you can see where the cord bit into her mouth.'

  'Yes,' agreed Frost. 'The bastard who did this didn't want her screams to disturb the fun of his cigarette stubbing.'

  Drysdale snapped his fingers as an order to his secretary to provide him with surgical gloves, which he slipped on for a brief internal examination. 'Sexual activity took place shortly before death . . . From the bruising around the thighs I'd say she resisted it.'

  'I wouldn't expect her to welcome the bastard with open legs,' said Frost. 'DNA sample?'

  Drysdale shook his head. 'I don't think so. He seems to have used a condom.' He straightened up. 'Can we turn her over, please?'

  Frost nodded to the two uniformed men to do this. The girl's white back and buttocks were marked with a criss-cross pattern of blooded weals and cuts and mottled with yellowing bruises.

  'Buttocks and back beaten with a thin cane . . . exactly like the other girl. As before, I'd say you're looking for some kind of sexual pervert.'

  'Well, that lets the vicar off the hook,' grunted Frost. 'Cause and time of death?'

  'Cause - suffocation, like the other one, probably a pillow held over the face. Time of death?' He shrugged. 'Twenty-four to forty-eight hours.' He peeled off the surgical gloves and dropped them into the plastic bag his secretary was holding out. 'I'll do the post-mortem tomorrow - eleven o'clock. You can move the body when you like.' With a jerk of his head for his secretary to follow, he marched back to the Rolls-Royce.

  Frost stuck a cigarette in his mouth and watched as the body was lifted into a cheap coffin by the two undertaker's men, one of whom shuddered as they lifted her.

  'Someone's given her a right going-over.'

  'She wouldn't answer our questions,' grunted Frost.

  Morgan ambled over. 'Who would treat a woman like that, guv?'

  'A bastard who likes inflicting pain,' said Frost. 'She might have been willing, up to a point - let herself be tied up, but then it went too far. He was enjoying himself too much to stop.' He looked at his watch. Three thirty in the morning. 'Let's get back to the station.'

  He pinned up the photograph of Angela Masters alongside the others on the wall of the murder incident room and waited while Morgan handed out copies. 'I'm sorry it's so late. If that bleeding motorist could have controlled his bladder, she might have been found at a more convenient time. I'm briefing you now so you can go off home for some kip then go straight out tomorrow morning knocking up toms. We need to know if they've had any kinky clients who wanted to tie them up and welt them with a cane. If so, we want details. When did they last see Angela Masters? Did anyone see her go off with a punter?' He turned to the pin-board. 'She was killed, beaten and used to stub out fags in exactly the same way as Linda Roberts, eight weeks ago. Inspector Allen questioned all the toms about Linda without any luck, and we're probably going to have the same flaming luck, but that won't stop us from asking all over again. Warn the girls they should only go with customers they know. This bloke did it once, he liked it and did it again. We're no longer looking for a punter who went too far. We're now looking for a serial killer.' He nodded to Arthur Hanlon who was waving a hand. 'Yes, Arthur? Not going to confess, are you?'

  Hanlon grinned. 'The girl who was killed in Clayton Street - do you think there's any connection?'

  Frost shook his head. 'No, Arthur. We're pinning that one on Mickey Harris. Mickey likes using women as a punch bag. He hits them with his fists and he doesn't tie them up first.' He turned back to the Pin-board and pointed to Big Bertha. 'We've now got to start worrying about Bertha. If a torn goes missing, from now on, we fear the worst, so ask around, find out when was the last time anyone saw her, who was she with. You know the drill.' He looked at the other two photographs on the wall; the skull dug up under the shed and the gap-toothed Vicky Stuart. Two cases that would have to be pushed into the background until they caught the torn killer. 'Right, off you go.'

  As they filed out, he jabbed a finger at Morgan. 'You be here at nine tomorrow so we can pick up Mickey Harris. He's been known to put cops out of action when they try to arrest him and you can be spared more than anyone else.'

  9.10 a.m. Morgan was late. Frost chomped tastelessly at the fatty bacon sandwich, dropping crumbs all over the lead story as he skimmed through the Denton Echo.

  HOUSE OF HORROR REVEALS ITS GRISLY SECRETS, screamed the headline. The news about the dead prostitute had arrived after the paper had gone to press, so they were making a meal of a lesser story. The phone rang. 'Young lady to see you, Inspector,' said Bill Wells. 'I've put her in No. 1 interview room.' Before Frost could ask who it was, Wells had rung off. Damn. He hoped this wouldn't take long; there was more than enough to get through as it was.

  No sign of Wells in the lobby, but the swing doors banged open and Morgan, just finishing knotting his tie, charged in and looked shamefacedly at Frost. 'Sorry I'm late, guv, but-'

  'I'll hear your lies in a minute, Taffy - we've got a young lady to see first.' He pushed open the door of the interview room, Morgan following quickly, running a comb through untidy hair as he did so. Shit! Sitting there, grim-faced, handbag clasped to her chest, was old mother bloody Beatty. I'm being stalked,' she said.

  'Oh,' said Frost, trying to sound concerned. 'Give the details to the sergeant outside and we'll look into it.' He backed to the door.

  'No,' she snapped. 'The sergeant said I was to talk to you.'

  With a resigned sigh, Frost slumped down in the chair opposite her. 'Describe him.'

  She leant forward. "That's just the point,' she said earnestly. 'He never looks the same. Sometimes he's thin and clean-shaven, sometimes he's fat with a moustache.'

  'Sounds like Laurel and Hardy,' said Frost.

  She glared. 'This is not funny, Inspector. He was outside my house last night, walking up and down the street, staring up at my window, hoping to see me undressing. I feel his eyes on me as I go to the shops. I turn, but there's no-one there. He's too clever for that.'

  'Right,' said Frost, nodding gravely, 'I think I know who it is.' He stood up. 'Leave this to us. He won't trouble you again.'

  She didn't look too convinced as he ushered her out. 'That bastard Wells!' he snarled.

  'You said you know who he is?' said Morgan.

  'Yes, I do, Taff. He's a figment of her bleeding imagination. See her getting undressed? I'd pay a hundred pounds not to.' He opened the door a crack to make certain she had left. 'Come on. Let's go and arrest Mickey Harris.'

  Still no car parked outside and the milk on the step hadn't been taken in. Just to make sure Frost hammered at the door and gave it a couple of kicks, then crouched down and peered through the letter box at the morning paper with its HOUSE OF HORROR headlines lying on the mat.

  'Where now, guv?' asked Morgan, hoping the inspector would say 'Back to the station' so he could calm his rumbling stomach with a canteen breakfast. But Frost had other ideas.

  'We're going to call on super-ponce Harry Grafton. He's the one who tells Mickey which toms to beat up.'

  The wages of sin had definitely paid off for Harry Grafton. Denton Grange was a large brick gabled house in mock Tudor, set well back behind a small spinney which sheltered it from the vulgar gaze of people driving along the main road - probably on their way to one of Harry's prostitutes. They passed a 'Warning!! - Guard Dogs' sign and coasted through the spinney and on to the main entrance. Four expensive cars were parked in front of the house. The doors of a mock Tudor garage were open and a heavily built man, carefully polishing an already gleaming silver grey R
olls-Royce, looked up as Frost's Ford juddered to an exhaust-coughing halt. He put down his chamois leather and walked over to them. 'If you haven't got an appointment, piss off.'

  'I've got something better than an appointment, Jeeves,' said Frost. 'I've got this.' He flashed his warrant card. 'Kindly inform your master the fuzz want to see him.'

  The man scowled at the card, then led them inside the house to an oak-panelled hall. 'Wait,' he grunted as he disappeared down the passage.

  'Did he say "Feel free to look around"?' asked Frost. 'Let's see how the rich pimps live.' He pushed open a door which led into a large room with bay windows overlooking a lawn and a covered swimming pool. The room held the rich smells of expensive leather, wool and cigar smoke. Their feet sank ankle deep into thick-piled carpeting on which stood a five-seater settee in pale blue hide and four matching armchairs. Frost sniffed in the heady aromas. 'The smell of opulence, Taff,' he said, dropping down into one of the armchairs, his eyes taking in the forty-two-inch wide-screen digital TV set with surround sound, the massive corner bar, complete with beer pumps, then up to the ceiling which was painted a midnight blue and decorated with silver stars. 'All it wants is a slop bucket and a spittoon;' he decided, 'and it would be a proper home from home. I wonder how many dicks had to work overtime to pay for this little lot.'

  The door clicked open and Harry Grafton came in, a swarthy-skinned man in his mid-forties, dark hair balding, a thin black moustache and cold eyes which failed to match the oily smile. He wore a scarlet dressing-gown and could barely close his mouth over the fat cigar between his lips. The car polisher was at his side.

  'Inspector Frost. An unexpected pleasure.' He clicked his fingers and pointed to a cassette recorder on a side table which his sidekick switched to record. 'I hope you don't mind, gentlemen. I like to have all conversations recorded, in case there is any dispute as to what has been said.'

  'A wise precaution, Harry,' nodded Frost. 'It stops me from lying my bloody head off. We want to see Mickey Harris.'

  Grafton pulled the cigar from his mouth and studied the glowing end. 'Mickey? Why?'

  'Grievous bodily harm. He beat up a torn last night.'

  Grafton smiled as if the idea were preposterous. 'And what makes you think it was Mickey?'

  'She fingered him.'

  Harry Grafton frowned, then clicked the smile back on. 'She was mistaken, Inspector. Mickey was here all night, never went out.'

  Frost shook his head and tutted. 'God can hear you telling these lies, Harry.'

  Grafton walked over to the cassette recorder and pressed the pause button. 'Off the record, Inspector, I do look after a few girls. It's hard enough for them to make a living at the best of times without these young amateurs muscling in on their territory. There's not enough trade to go round, so sometimes we have to give them a little slap on the wrist and suggest they would be better opening up shop elsewhere.'

  'This was more than a little slap, Harry. Mickey put this seventeen-year-old kid in hospital. Broken nose, cracked ribs - she was coughing up bits of blood and teeth when I saw her. Put me right off my black pudding for breakfast.'

  It was Grafton's turn to do the head-shaking and tut-tutting act as he released the pause button on the recorder. 'Disgraceful, Inspector. The animals who do that should be put inside - but it wasn't Mickey. As I said, he was here all night. I have witnesses.'

  'Who?'

  'Myself and six of my employees.'

  'Quantity, but not quality, Harry. A rich pimp and six of his hired thugs.'

  'As against the evidence of a single prostitute.' He smiled smugly. 'I think we both know which of us the courts would believe. But to show my good faith, even though I am not involved in this in any way and just to ensure my good name should not be smirched, I will personally see that the unfortunate girl is well compensated.'

  'I'm sure you could buy her off, Harry, but there was another girl Mickey had a go at.'

  'Oh?'

  'Mary Adams. Had a place in Clayton Street.'

  A brief flicker of recognition instantly suppressed as Grafton again studied the glowing end of the cigar and shook his head vaguely. 'Name means nothing to me. When was this supposed to have taken place?'

  'The night before last.'

  Grafton smiled. 'Then again it couldn't have been Mickey. He was here all that night as well.' He turned to the car polisher. 'Isn't that right, Richard?'

  Richard nodded his vigorous agreement. 'Dead right, Mr Grafton.'

  'Mickey didn't stop at slapping her wrist, Harry. He killed the poor cow.'

  The cigar drooped as Harry's mouth gaped open. 'Killed . . . ?'

  'We're talking murder, Harry, and we've got Mickey well and truly in the frame. Before we start discussing perjury and perverting the course of justice, do you still want to give him an alibi?'

  Grafton's finger crashed down on the stop key of the recorder. He rewound the tape then waited while it erased before turning back to Frost. 'I know nothing about any killings. I don't want anything to do with this.'

  'So Mickey wasn't with you the two nights in question?'

  'No.'

  'Is he here?'

  Grafton jerked his head to his sidekick. 'Fetch him.'

  As the man sidled out, Grafton snatched the cigar from his mouth and squashed it out in an ashtray shaped like a naked, recumbent woman. Frost winced. It reminded him of the cigarette burns on the dead girl's stomach. Footsteps outside and the sidekick returned with Mickey Harris, a thickset brute of a man in his forties with a boxer's flattened nose and thick ears. He scowled at Frost before turning to Grafton. 'You wanted me, Mr Grafton?'

  'The fuzz want you for questioning,' snapped Wafton, underlining his instructions with a jab of his finger. 'Keep your mouth shut, don't say a bleeding word, don't even pass the bloody time of day until your lawyer gets there. Right?' Without waiting for Mickey's reply, he turned on his heels and stomped out of the room.

  Frost took Harris by the arm. 'Come on, Mickey. We're going walkies.'

  Frost thumbed through his in-tray as he impatiently waited for the brief to turn up. Harris wouldn't say a dicky bird until the solicitor arrived. He tugged out a report from Forensic. They hadn't found any traces of blood on the clothes and shoes from Lewis, the boyfriend of Mary Adams, so Mickey Harris was now his one and only prime suspect and somehow he couldn't see Mickey as a strangler. But he was all he had. A groan from Morgan attracted his attention. 'What's up, Taffy? You on heat again?'

  'No, guv, it's this damn abscess.' He rubbed his cheek and winced.

  'You know what they say, Taff - abscess makes the heart grow fonder.' Morgan quivered a wan smile. He didn't think that half as funny as Frost who was coughing and spluttering with laughter at his own joke.

  A tap at the door and Liz Maud entered carrying a couple of case files.

  'I thought you'd be away by now?' said Frost.

  'I've got to clear it with Mr Mullett first,' she told him, 'and he's not in yet.' She dropped the files on his desk. 'Could you baby-sit these for me until I get back? The only active investigation is the armed robbery.'

  Frost flipped the file open. 'You've found the getaway car, then?'

  She sat in the vacant chair. 'Wesley Division found it down a back street in the town. Blood all over the floor by the driver's seat which matches blood from the mini-mart and splashes of white paint everywhere.'

  Frost scratched his chin. 'Wesley? That's over twenty miles away.'

  'Yes. Wesley are checking on known villains in their Division.'

  'But why come all the way from Wesley to rob a tuppenny-ha'penny mini-mart in Denton? There must have been plenty of fatter targets closer to home.'

  She blinked. That aspect hadn't occurred to her. 'Maybe the cashier was in on it and they thought it would be easy.'

  'You checked out the cashier?'

  Liz nodded. 'We found nothing on her - but that doesn't mean to say she's clean.'

  Bill Wells poked his head round
the door. 'Mickey Harris's brief has arrived, Jack.' He gave Liz a curt nod. 'And Mr Mullett has just come in, Sergeant - sorry, I'm ten days premature - I meant Inspector.'

  Frost dropped down into the old, familiar chair which seemed to mould itself round him and watched Kirk-stone, the sleek and plump solicitor, dust his chair carefully with a handkerchief before allowing his £600 suit to touch it. Kirkstone grunted as Frost intoned the preliminaries and watched in a bored fashion as Morgan started the cassette recorder. Frost slid across a photograph of the seventeen-year-old Cherry Hall. 'Recognize her, Mickey?'

  Mickey gave it the briefest of glances before shaking his head. 'No.'

  'You don't know who she is? You don't know her name?'

  Mickey glanced at the lawyer, who nodded he should answer. 'Correct.'

  'She's a prostitute who'd been plying for hire on Harry Grafton's sacred turf. Did Harry ask you to warn her off?'

  Another check with the lawyer. 'No.'

  'Come off it, Mickey. Harry told you to warn her off but you were having such fun beating up a seventeen-year-old girl, breaking her ribs, knocking out her teeth, you just couldn't stop. Is that what happened, Mickey?'

  Kirkstone gave a little cough and a slimy smile. 'As my client doesn't know the young lady and has never met her, there is no way he could have hit her.'

  'Good point,' agreed Frost. 'But if he didn't know her and didn't beat her up, why did he phone the hospital to ask how the poor cow was?' As Mickey opened his mouth to answer, Frost's hand came up to stop him. 'Before you deny it, Mickey, you should know that the hospital tapes all calls and you came over loud and clear.'

  'A word with my client,' said the lawyer. Frost leant back and smoked as Harris and Kirkstone huddled together murmuring inaudibly, until the lawyer indicated that Mickey was ready to answer.

  'All right, Inspector. I didn't tell the truth because I was embarrassed. I was a client of hers a couple of nights ago. Someone told me she had been beaten up, so I phoned the hospital to enquire about her. I even sent her a bunch of flowers.'