Winter Frost

'We both work nights. I usually drive her to work and pick her up in the morning. I didn't go to work yesterday as I went up to London to see the big match.'

Wells jabbed a finger. 'I remember you now. You were here last night with those other yobbos in the coach. Was it you throwing up in the bloody corner?'

'No, it wasn't me throwing up and yes, I was here. Anyway, as I wouldn't be able to drive her, I told her to phone her work and say she was sick or something.'

'Why couldn't she drive herself?'

'Because she hasn't passed her driving test. If she had an accident or anything, the insurers wouldn't pay out. When I got back in this morning, no sign of her and more important, no sign of my car.'

'So what did you do?'

'What the hell could I do? I went to bed. I woke up about four this afternoon; still no sign of her. I waited until ten o'clock when she should be at the hospital and phoned them.'

'The hospital?' queried Wells.

'She's a nurse, does the night shift at Denton General — at least, that's what she told me. When I phoned them today they said they'd never heard of her.'

Wells rubbed a hand over his face. This was getting beyond him. 'Never heard of her? Was she an agency nurse?'

'I don't know — what difference would that make?'

'Some of these part-time agency nurses give false names to avoid having to pay income tax. She might have used a different name.'

'According to Denton General, the only nurses working nights in her ward were two West Indians and a nun…' He tugged a photograph from his pocket and stuck it under Wells' nose. 'Does she look like a bleeding nun?'

Wells squinted at a photograph of an attractive girl in a very low-cut dress, leaning forward to show yards of cleavage. The cleavage was so attractive, it took him a while to look at her face. He stared. 'Just give me a moment, sir.' He used the phone in Control, out of earshot of the man, and buzzed Inspector Frost. 'You'd better get out here right away, Jack.' He looked again at the photograph. She definitely wasn't a nun… she was the murdered tom.

Frost tapped a cigarette on the packet and lit up. He was leaning against the wall of the interview room, watching the man closely as Liz interviewed him.

'What the hell's going on?' asked the man. 'The wooden top outside says you're all terribly busy, now I get two detective inspectors falling all over me about a stolen car.'

Liz made an attempt at a reassuring smile. 'Just a couple of questions.' She glanced at the form on the table. 'You are Victor John Lewis, 2a Fleming Street, Demon?'

'Bang on, darling. I haven't changed my bleeding name and address since I filled that form in five minutes ago.'

Liz pointed to the photograph. 'And this is Mary Jane Adams, your girlfriend?'

'Yes.'

'You live together?'

'Yes.'

'How long have you been together?'

'Six months. What the hell has this to do with getting my car back?'

'Bear with us. Where do you work?'

'At the all-night petrol station in Felton.'

'When did you see Mary last?'

'Just after five o'clock yesterday afternoon when I left to pick up the coach.'

'When you woke up this afternoon and she wasn't back, weren't you worried?'

'Of course I was worried — she'd walked out on me before, but this time she took my bloody motor. When you find her, I want the cow charged.'

Liz shot a glance at Frost in case he wanted to ask some more questions before they told him about the girl. Frost moved into the chair next to Liz. 'I'm afraid we've got some bad news for you, Mr Lewis.'

The mortuary attendant parked his chewing gum on the underside of the table, put on his doleful expression and led them through to the refrigerated section. He pulled open the long drawer, twitched back the sheet and stood respectfully in the background. The face, washed clean of make-up, looked like that of a young schoolgirl. Lewis stared, then his face screwed up in pain as he turned away. He nodded to Frost. 'Yes… that's Mary.'

Lewis was knuckling tears from his eyes on the way back, but apart from a few" sympathetic grunts, Frost said nothing, his mind on other things. He wasn't being callous. He had driven grieving relatives back from the morgue so many times, it was almost a routine. He couldn't get involved in their grief, otherwise he would be grieving every bloody day and his job would become unbearable.

Back at the station Frost sat Lewis in the main interview room with a mug of strong tea while he nipped out to gather up the reports Morgan had been making for him. He picked through them. 'Another job for you, Taffy boy. Lewis says he used to drop her off and pick her up from outside the hospital at the end of her shift. If she was plying her trade in Clayton Street, how did she get there? It's too far to walk. Check with the local cab firms.'

'What for, guv?' asked Morgan.

'Lewis could be lying. He might have known she was on the game and dropped her off outside the flat at Clayton Street. If he dropped her off outside the hospital and then she called a cab that would suggest he had no idea she was a tom which would sod up my theory.'

He collected Liz on his way back to the interview room. 'Could Lewis be the bloke you heard on the phone last night?'

She shook her head. 'No. He's nothing like him.' She frowned. 'You don't suspect Lewis, do you?'

Frost shrugged. 'I've got to suspect someone, and he's all we've got at the moment.'

Lewis sat hunched at the table, sucking at a cigarette, the mug of tea cold, scummy and untouched. He raised his head as Frost and Liz came in. 'A prostitute! I still can't believe it.'

'I know,' said Frost, sounding truly sorry. 'And to make things worse we've got to ask you some searching questions.'

Lewis sniffed back a tear and nodded. 'Ask what you like. As long as it helps you catch the bastard who did it.'

Frost shuffled the reports on the table in front of him. 'We've been making a few inquiries about Mary, Mr Lewis. The nearest she got to being a nurse was working in the canteen at Denton General.'

Lewis stared, unable to take this in.

'Four months ago she got the sack,' continued Frost. 'She'd been putting the takings in her pocket instead of in the till.'

Lewis buried his head in his hands. 'You think you know someone and she turns out to be a prostitute, a liar and a thief.' He looked up. 'We were going to get married…'

Frost waited as Lewis lit up another cigarette. 'I know this has all come as a nasty shock, Mr Lewis, but just to eliminate you from our inquiries, could we have an account of your movements last night?'

The man wiped a hand over his face. 'As I said, I left the flat just after five and picked up the coach for Wembley — a crowd of us were going from the club. We saw the match and got tanked up. On the way back we stop at this off-licence place. There was a bit of a punch-up — some of the lads had tried to nip out without paying. We're off in the coach swilling down booze to get rid of the evidence. It all gets a bit hazy from there. I remember some cops picking us up and taking us to the nick. Then they bunged us back in the coach, but someone managed to hot-wire it and we got away. We all ended up in a pub somewhere near the motorway.'

'What pub?' asked Frost.

Lewis shook his head. 'No idea… it's all a blur.'

'How long were you there?'

'Couple of hours, I think.'

'How did you get back to the flat?' One of the blokes had, parked his car there. He drove a crowd of us back. Don't ask me who it was.'