Frost 3 - Night Frost Read online

  By the dressing table a hooked-nosed woman in her mid-forties wearing a quilted dressing gown was talking earnestly to PC Jordan.

  The scene was familiar. This burglar seldom varied his technique. A quick in and out job. Straight for the dressing table to grab indiscriminately whatever jewellery was instantly available, then, starting with the top centre drawer, he looked for the "cleverly hidden" cache of notes which couldn’t be trusted to the bank and which were nearly always at the back of the top centre drawer. Then out again, the whole operation lasting a maximum of five minutes. A familiar scene, but this time with a difference. There was blood everywhere, on the floor, on the bedding and on the curtains.

  "How’s the old girl?" asked Frost.

  "Not good," said Hanlon, honking loudly into a handkerchief and dabbing a sore-looking nose. "Stab wounds and a possible fractured skull. The ambulance men don’t think she’ll regain consciousness."

  "Damn," muttered Frost, but his eyes were looking over Hanlon’s shoulder at the SOC man, who was offering an irresistible target. "Excuse me a moment." Frost tiptoed over and accurately jabbed a nicotined finger at the seam of the tight trousers. "How’s that for centre?" he roared.

  Roberts shot up, hitting his head on the window sill. He spun round angrily, only to grin when he saw Frost. "It’s you, Inspector. I might have guessed."

  Gilmore raised his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. A potential murder investigation and the fool was indulging in schoolboy games. Well, someone had to act responsibly. "What happened?" he asked Hanlon.

  "The victim is Alice Ryder, a widow aged eighty-one. She occupies the top half of the house, a Mr. and Mrs. Francis live downstairs. Mr. Francis is on night work—that’s the wife over there." Hanlon nodded towards the woman with Jordan. "She found the old lady." Sensing their eyes on her, the woman came over, anxious to relate her part in the drama.

  "I woke up about quarter-past three to go to the toilet and I noticed her light was still on. I was worried, so I went up to check. Her telly was going full blast and her bedroom door was open. I looked in . . ." She paused, shuddering at the recollection. "There she was, on the floor and blood everywhere. I couldn’t get to the phone quick enough. She was terrified of anyone breaking in . . . she must have had a premonition." She wrapped her dressing gown tighter around her. It was cold in the room with the window open. "That’s all I can tell you."

  "You didn’t see who it was who did it?" asked Gilmore. She gave him a thin smile. "I’d have mentioned it if I had—just in case it was important."

  "Sarcastic cow!" seethed Gilmore when she had gone.

  "I thought she was quite nice," observed Hanlon, who was irritated at the way the new bloke kept trying to take charge.

  "I didn’t like her nose," said Frost, "or her dressing gown." He nodded to the SOC officer. "Surprise me. Tell me that this time he left fingerprints."

  Roberts shook his head. "He wore gloves, as always."

  "Consistent bastard!" snorted Frost. "All right, Ted, paint me a word picture. Let’s have a reconstruction."

  "Right," said Roberts. "The old lady was in the front room watching the telly. Our intruder gets in through the bedroom window, but this time he was unlucky. She’d stuck that blue and white vase on the window ledge and as he clambered in, he knocked it over and it fell to the floor. The old lady heard it, came charging in to see what it was, so he went for her with this . . ." Roberts clicked open his "evidence case" and pulled out a sealed, transparent polythene bag. Inside the bag was a black-handled kitchen knife, its blood-smeared blade honed to razor sharpness. "It was on the floor, by the bed."

  "You’re saying he had this knife in his hand when the old girl came charging in?" When Roberts nodded, Frost shook his head. "I can’t buy that, Ted. If I was climbing through windows I wouldn’t want a lethal thing like that in my hand . . . I could cut my dick off."

  "He wouldn’t carry it in his hand when he was climbing. He’d have it in a tool bag."

  "All right," said Frost. "I’ll pretend to accept that for the moment. Then what happened?"

  "He stabs her, but she puts up a fight. He drops the knife in the struggle, punches her repeatedly in the face then finishes her off by smashing her skull in with a cosh or something."

  Frost’s finger prodded away at the scar on his cheek as he worried this over. "I can’t believe it’s the same bloke who did all the others. He’s never resorted to violence before."

  "He hasn’t been disturbed before," offered Hanlon. "His other victims were damn lucky they never heard anything." He sniffed and dabbed his nose. "I think I’ve got the flu."

  "No, you haven’t," said Frost firmly. "We’re too busy. Do we know what’s been taken?"

  Jordan stepped forward. "Same as all the others. Bits and pieces of jewellery—Mrs. Francis has given me a description—and money. Mrs. Francis doesn’t know how much, but says the old lady always kept a fair amount of cash by her—a couple of hundred at least."

  "I want this bastard," said Frost. "People who kill for a couple of hundred lousy quid are dangerous." He looked at the bed, knocked askew with splodges of blood all over the pillows and sheets. Someone must have heard or seen something. "Get as many men as you want from Bill Wells and start knocking on doors."

  "I’ve already asked. He says he can’t spare anyone until the next shift."

  "He’s bloody well going to have to. We’re not going to wait for her to die, Arthur, she might sod us about and linger. We’re going to anticipate. This is a murder enquiry as of now. I want a team knocking on doors, I want Forensic, I want someone by the old girl’s bedside night and day in case she can give us a description, if I’ve forgotten anything, I want that as well."

  While Hanlon radioed the station, he ambled over to the open window and looked out on to a small rain-puddled yard. Below him was the dustbin used by the man to gain entrance. It reminded him of the yard in Jubilee Terrace and the mummified corpse. What a bloody night this had turned out to be. First the mummy, then Paula Bartlett . . . Paula . . . Flaming heck! The autopsy! He daren’t be late for that. He was in enough trouble with the pathologist as it was.

  He checked his watch. Ten to four. They could just do it if they ignored fiddling details like adverse traffic lights. "I’ve got to leave you to it, Arthur. Just solve the case and tie it all up before the end of the shift." He dashed across to the door. "Come on, Gilmore. We’ve got an autopsy to watch and ten minutes to get there."

  At four o’clock on a cold, dark, rainy morning, the mortuary lights gleamed across the driveway to the hospital and bounced off the black, supercilious shape of the pathologist’s Rolls Royce. Frost’s mud-coated Cortina shuffled in and parked alongside. "Don’t forget . . . ours is the one on the left," he reminded Gilmore.

  The night porter, a gangling twenty-year-old with an embryonic moustache, snatched a cigarette from his mouth and dropped it to the floor as the two detectives walked in. He thought it was that toffee-nosed pathologist who had already rebuked him for smoking on duty.

  "Midnight matinée," said Frost, flashing his warrant card. "Paula Bartlett."

  "We should get paid double for handling bodies in that condition," complained the porter, leading them through to the autopsy room which was in darkness apart from the and table where the overhead lights poured down on a mass of decomposing and charred flesh that was once a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. "Dockers get dirty money, so should we." He opened a side door and called, "Police are here, doctor."

  "Overture and beginners, doc," yelled Frost, perching himself on a stool for a good view. Gilmore, not so eager, moved back out of the splash of light.

  The pathologist, his faithful secretary in tow, entered, scowling. He found nothing about his job amusing. The smile would be wiped off Frost’s face when he read a copy of the report he was sending to his Divisional Commander complaining that the inspector had allowed every Tom, Dick and Harry to maul the body before he had had a chance to see it.

  "D
o you reckon he sleeps with her?" whispered Frost to Gilmore as the secretary adjusted the lights over the end autopsy table to her master’s satisfaction. "It must be off-putting, banging away at someone, knowing you’re shaking up her stomach contents and her internal organs."

  Gilmore pressed further back into the blackness, not wanting to get involved in Frost’s coarse asides.

  While the porter turned on the extractor fan above the autopsy table, the pathologist allowed his secretary to help him on with his green gown and heavy plastic apron. He fiddled with a control under the perforated table top and as water gurgled and trickled, he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and flexed his fingers. He was ready.

  First, he carefully examined the body from top to bottom, without touching any part of it. "Body of a female in advanced state of decomposition," he intoned. Miss Grey’s pencil zipped across the page of her notebook. He eased open the mouth with a spatula and shone a small torch inside. "Age about . . ."

  "We know how old she is, doc," Frost told him. "I even know her birthday. What I don’t know for sure is how she died."

  The pathologist’s eyes flashed. "Don’t interrupt!"

  "Sorry, doc," said Frost, quite unabashed, "but we’re operating at half-strength and I’ve got lots to do. Could you just give me the headlines? I’ll read all the boring bits in your report."

  "I don’t cut corners. Aged around fifteen." He snapped his fingers and demanded: "Dental records!’ Miss Grey passed him across a small typed card with marked diagrams. He studied it then handed it back. His spatula clicked on the teeth checking extractions and fillings. "From the dental record I can identify the body as that of Paula Bartlett, aged fifteen years and two months. Some traces of blood in her mouth." He wiped the mouth with a swab and dropped it into a container held out by his secretary.

  "She anticipates his every move," Frost whispered to Gilmore. "I bet he doesn’t have to tell her when to thrust or withdraw."

  Gilmore couldn’t even pretend to smile.

  Frost fidgeted with impatience as the pathologist plodded on, the swollen neck now receiving his painstaking scrutiny, fingers carefully prodding and probing.

  "Dr Maltby said death was due to manual strangulation," prompted. Frost. Why was this man so bloody slow?

  "If I was one of Dr Maltby’s patients," murmured the pathologist, his nose almost touching the neck, "I’d insist on a second opinion on everything he told me." To his secretary he said, "Signs of manual pressure applied to neck."

  "Ha!" exclaimed Frost. "So that’s what killed her."

  "I’ll tell you what killed her when I have completed the autopsy," said Drysdale, crushingly. "For all I know, there are eight bullet wounds in the stomach. Just keep quiet."

  Frost gave his watch a pointed stare, sighed deeply then went outside for a smoke. Gilmore was happy to join him. Even with the extractor fan working full blast, the atmosphere in the post-mortem room was foul and would worsen when Drysdale used the scalpel to open the body up.

  The porter brought them two mugs of tea and gratefully accepted a cigarette from the inspector. Through the swing doors they could see the autopsy proceeding. A bone saw screamed and Gilmore turned his eyes away, his teeth gritted against the noise.

  "Perhaps we could browse while we wait," requested Frost. "Have you got a Susan Bicknell in stock?"

  The porter flipped open his ledger and ran a nicotine-stained finger down the entries. "Suicide? Came in this afternoon? This way."

  They followed him to the refrigerated section. On a small side table near the door was a polythene bag containing a folded Mickey Mouse nightdress, a black and gold kimono and, separately wrapped, a Snoopy watch. Snoopy’s paws pointed to 4.29. "Her things," announced the porter laconically, jerking his thumb.

  He stopped in front of one of the bank of metal drawers, checked the name tag and pulled it open. Sliding on rollers, a sheeted body silently emerged. When the sheet was removed the girl was seen to be naked. A red label tied to her big toe seemed an obscene addition as if some joker had put it there for a laugh. Needle marks were clearly visible on her left arm.

  The porter folded the sheet and stared down in disapproval. "I hate seeing them so bloody young."

  "Give my colleague a hand to turn her over," requested Frost.

  Gilmore hesitated, then steeled himself and complied. He wasn’t prepared for the hard coldness of the flesh and nearly let her fall back. The porter gave him a scornful look. "She can’t hurt you. She’s dead. Bloody hell . . . look at that!"

  Now she was turned, they could see it. All across her buttocks, fading but still visible, deep, criss-cross lines of red weals and smudges of pale yellow bruises. They were the marks left by a thrashing, a vicious thrashing, from a whip or a cane. At least twelve weals could be counted. Frost winced. "It hurts just to look at it. Who the hell could have done this?"

  "That bloody stepfather," snapped Gilmore. "I’d like to meet him on a dark night."

  A firm shake of the head. Frost couldn’t buy that. "She was fifteen years old, for Pete’s sake. She’d never submit to that."

  A sniff from the porter who offered his worldly-wise opinion. "I reckon she was kinky. Perhaps she enjoyed being beaten."

  "Maybe, but not as hard as this. She’d have been yelling blue murder after the first cut . . . and yet she took more than twelve of them."

  "She could have been into bondage as well," offered Gilmore. "Strapped down while it was done to her. Some women like that."

  Frost’s eyebrows shot up. "Blimey, Gilmore, what sort of women do you go out with? I never have such luck. I only have to blow in their ear-hole and they think I’m a pervert."

  "When you’ve quite finished your voyeurism . . ." The pathologist glowered disapproval, his gown stained and carrying the taint of the grave into the clean coldness of the refrigerated section.

  Back to the autopsy table where the body had been crudely stitched and the secretary was writing out neat labels for jars of removed organs. "She was trussed up and put inside the plastic sack within three or four hours of being killed," said Drysdale watching Gilmore note this in formation down. "Cause of death manual strangulation."

  "That’s what Dr Maltby said," beamed Frost.

  Ignoring him, Drysdale plunged on. "The killer’s two hands went round her throat like this." Obligingly, his secretary allowed herself to be used for a demonstration and stood still as he grabbed her throat, sinking his thumbs deep into her larynx. "The girl would have struggled desperately, fighting for her life. I imagine she grabbed his wrists, trying to break his grip but her killer, his hands still tight round her throat, swung her from side to side and smashed her head against a wall, probably hard enough to make her lose consciousness." He swung Miss Grey from side to side as illustration, but spared her the banging of the head. She looked disappointed as he released his grip, but carried on labelling jars of human offal.

  Indicating blood-matted hair and a discoloured area on the scalp Drysdale invited them to inspect the damage.

  "If she struggled, doc," asked Frost, "wouldn’t she have marked him . . . scratched him . . . gouged out chunks of flesh?"

  A tight smile. "If you’re hoping for pieces of tell tale flesh under her fingernails, I must disappoint you, Inspector." He lifted the girl’s misshapen right hand and displayed the fingernails. They were bitten down to the quick.

  "Damn," said Frost.

  Carefully Drysdale lowered the hand to its original position. "Clear evidence of sexual intercourse just before she died."

  Frost nodded glumly. He had expected this. "Rape?"

  "I think so," replied the pathologist blandly.

  "You think so?" echoed Gilmore, incredulously. "You only think so."

  "There is evidence of bruising that could suggest intercourse took place against her will . . ."

  "Then she was raped," cried Gilmore.

  "If I might be allowed to continue," grated Drysdale. "The girl was a virgin. She could have submitt
ed willingly, but have been tensed instead of relaxed. This might account for the bruising. Equally, she could have been raped. There is no magic way of knowing at this stage."

  "If she submitted willingly, doc," said Frost, "there would have been no real need to have wrung her neck afterwards."

  "That", snapped Drysdale, "is in your province, Inspector Frost, not mine. I give the medical facts. It’s up to you to speculate."

  Frost nodded ruefully. "Then give me some facts on the way the bastard burnt her so I can speculate how to catch the sod."

  "I was coming to that," said Drysdale testily. "As you can see, the genital area is badly charred. In my opinion this occurred very soon after death, within an hour, say."

  "Dr Maltby thought it could have been done with a blow-lamp."

  Drysdale frowned. "For once, Dr Maltby might have been right. To do that sort of damage you’d need some thing like a blowtorch."

  "But why would anyone do it, doc? Is it a new kind of sexual perversion?"

  "I’ve come across something like this once before. A murdered rape victim, a thirty-eight-year-old prostitute. She was found in some bushes near a railway embankment. The lower part of the body was badly burnt where her killer had doused paraffin over her and set it alight. It seems he had heard about genetic fingerprinting. You’ve probably read about it."

  "No," said Frost. "I only read comics and dirty books."

  "There’s a newly developed technique," lectured Drysdale, "that allows us to determine an individual’s genetic fingerprint from traces of body fluid—semen, say."

  Frost’s mouth dropped open. "You mean a dick print instead of a fingerprint?"

  The pathologist winced. "I wouldn’t put it as crudely as that, Inspector, but yes, by DNA testing we can positively identify the donor of a semen sample."

  "So if I produced a suspect . . ." began Frost, hoping Burton had traced the plumber.