The station was dead and yawningly empty, the phones were quiet and the flaming heating wasn’t working properly. He had phoned home a couple of times, trying to make the peace, but she had slammed the phone down on him. And then a phone bell suddenly ripped through the silence. Some drunk with enough fright in his voice to sound genuine was saying, ‘There’s a stone-dead naked tart in St Mary churchyard.’ Before Frost could answer, the man had hung up. There was no one else to send and it was probably warmer outside than in this freezing station, so he wound his scarf around his neck and went out to check. Let it be a bloody hoax, he kept telling himself. Let it be a bloody hoax. But it wasn’t.
Lying in the straggling overgrown grass of the old churchyard, amongst the lop-sided, moss-covered headstones of the long dead, was a recent dead, a very recent dead, a young girl, cold as ice, stark naked, a crumpled dress at her fret, staring wide-eyed up at a clear Christmas sky. Somewhere in the distance church bells were ringing.
Bert Williams, the DI in charge of the case, was a dead loss; drunk most of the time and always letting others do all the work. Williams was out of his depth with the Casey Turner murder although even a good copper wouldn’t have had any luck solving it. They had no suspects. Nothing. And all their leads fizzled out.
The DI couldn’t face breaking the news to the family, not that they would have appreciated a man unsteady on his fret, reeking of whisky. Williams had taken another swig from his hip flask behind a crumbling stone angel in the hope that it would bolster his courage to face the dead girl’s family. But it didn’t. ‘You do it, Jack. You’re so much better at this sort of thing than I am…’
Frost sensed someone looking over his shoulder. Taffy Morgan.
‘That’s an ancient case, Guv.’ He picked up the photograph of the body and shook his head sadly. ‘She’s only a kid.’
Frost took the photograph back. ‘Christmas morning. Christmas bloody morning. Get your coat, Taff. We’re going to arrest the bastard who killed her.’
He let Morgan do the driving, his brain still in the past.
Reinforcements were still being drafted in, so he had to make the call to the girl’s house on his own. He had parked outside, in the road, for some fifteen minutes, smoking to delay the moment when he would have to knock at the door. Get it bloody well over and done with. He snatched the cigarette from his mouth and hurled it out of the window, stepped out of the cur and knocked at the front door.
From inside the house came the sound of cheerful music on the radio – Frank Sinatra singing ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’… Casey’s mother opened the door, looking happy and excited…
‘That’s the house, Guv.’ Morgan’s voice snatched him roughly back to the present and he had to shake his head to get rid of the ghosts of the past. It was like waking from a realistic nightmare.
Taffy parked the car in front of the driveway. Frost studied the house. A nice-looking, three bedroomed property no more than ten years old, fronted by a small, neat lawn, in the centre of which an incongruous palm tree flourished. In honour of the palm tree, the house was called The Oasis.
As they scrunched up the gravelled path, a dog barked frantically inside. Frost stood back and let Taffy thumb the doorbell. The dog sounded hungry.
From inside the house a child’s voice yelled at the dog to shut up. The door opened. A dark-haired boy, about ten years old, frowned up at them.
‘Who is it?’ called a man from upstairs.
‘Is that Mr Fielding? Could we have a word, please?’ called back Frost. ‘Denton police.’
A dark-haired man in his late forties thudded down the stairs. ‘Police? Who am I supposed to have raped now?’ he grinned.
‘Casey Turner,’ said Frost.
A puzzled frown, then the man’s head snapped back as if he had been hit. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened in shock. He shook his head as if to compose himself, his tongue flicking over dry lips. ‘Who?’ he croaked, trying to keep his voice steady.
‘Might be a good idea if we came inside for a few minutes,’ answered Frost. ‘Rape isn’t some thing you discuss on the doorstep.’
‘Yes, of course, but I don’t know what the hell you are talking about.’
‘Who’s at the door, Graham?’ called a woman from the back of the house.
‘It’s the police, Mum,’ the boy answered before Fielding could stop him. ‘They say Daddy raped a girl.’
‘It’s all right, dear,’ cut in Fielding hurriedly. ‘Just that old business again.’
‘But they cleared you of that,’ she called.
‘I know,’ he replied. ‘They’re just tidying up the paperwork. Just routine.’ He snapped at his son, ‘Go out and play – now!’ He waited as the boy sullenly shuffled off, then beckoned the two detectives into the lounge and firmly shut the door. ‘Now, perhaps you’ll tell me what the hell this is all about.’
‘You know what it’s all about, don’t you, son?’ purred Frost, giving his deceptively friendly smile. He took the black-and-white photograph from his mac pocket and held it up to Fielding’s face. ‘Casey Turner, fifteen. Never got her Christmas presents. You stripped her, raped her, beat her up and killed her. Christmas Day, thirty years ago.’
‘This is preposterous. Me? You’re trying to make out I killed this girl?’ blustered Fielding, pushing the photograph away. ‘I don’t know her. I’ve never seen her.’
Frost sank down into one of the armchairs. ‘Before you tell us any more porkies, let me tell you what we’ve got.’ He balanced the photograph on the arm of the chair, then pulled out a photostat of the DNA test report. ‘As you know, you very kindly gave my Welsh colleague here a DNA sample following that rape in the car park.’
‘And I was cleared. The test said it wasn’t me.’
Frost nodded. ‘Very true. But we’re pugnacious bastards, I’m afraid. We compared your sample with an old semen sample taken from the body of Casey. It matched perfectly.’ He proffered the DNA test result. ‘Here it is, if you don’t believe me.’
Fielding stared at the sheet, then dropped down in the armchair opposite Frost. ‘I never raped her. I never killed her. It was so long ago.’
‘Look, on the bright side, son,’ said Frost. ‘You’ve had thirty years of freedom. Take that as a bonus you didn’t bleeding well deserve. And now I’m going to take you down to the station for further questioning.’
The man remained in the chair. He bowed his head and spoke to the floor. ‘We had sex. She was alive when I left her. Someone else must have killed her.’
Frost shook his head sadly. ‘I’m pretty gullible, but even I can’t swallow that. Still, don’t waste time explaining to me. It isn’t my case, thank God. I’m just here to take you to the station.’ He stood up. ‘Graham Fielding, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the rape and murder of Casey Turner on the twenty-fifth of December 1977.’ He jerked his head to Morgan, who intoned the standard caution. Frost still hadn’t got the hang of the new wording.
There was a hesitant tap at the door. Fielding’s wife, an attractive woman with chestnut hair carrying a baby in her arms, came in. She looked at the three men and felt the tension in the air. ‘Graham – what’s wrong?’
Fielding looked up at Frost. ‘Could I have a few words with my wife in private, please, Inspector? In the kitchen?’
‘Of course,’ said Frost.
When they left, he let his eyes travel round the room. There were wedding photos, family photos, holiday photos, baby photos: everyone smiling, everyone happy. He picked up a picture of Fielding’s wife in a very brief bikini and nodded admiringly. ‘The poor cow’s in for a shock.’ He carefully replaced the photograph on the shelf. ‘I bet he’s cursing the day they invented DNA.’