Winter Frost

'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 Ј600 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.'

'An act of kindness,' smirked the lawyer.

'You make me feel a swine for ever doubting you,' said Frost. He took the photograph back and swapped it for one of Mary Adams. 'Recognize this one, Mick?'

Mickey stared at the photograph then shot a quick glance to the lawyer who, with a barely perceptible shake of the head, told him to say no.

'No.'

'Her name is Mary Adams, trade name Lolita. She operated from a flat in Clayton Street. Ever been there?'

'Never.'

'When business was slack she used to go after the crumpet hunters in Denton Parade and King Street, an area on which Harry Grafton felt he had monopoly trading rights. Harry told you to warn her off, didn't he — to rough her up a bit?'

'No. And if she says I did, she's lying.'

'Yes — she's lying… in the bleeding morgue, Mickey. You went too far this time. She's dead.'

'Dead?' Mickey blinked with indignation. 'That's rubbish. I never touched her. I never went near her.' He turned to the lawyer for support but Kirkstone appeared to be busying himself writing copious notes on a sheet of A4 paper. Mickey was on his own with the murder charge.

'You like to phone them up after you pay them a visit, don't you, Mickey? You thought you'd phoned this girl, but she couldn't answer the phone as she was dead. You actually spoke to one of my women officers. You boasted about beating Mary up.'

Mickey's head was being violently shaken from side to side. 'No. It's bloody lies.'

'You phoned her, Mickey. We've got you on tape.' Frost was picking his words carefully in case of future legal arguments. He only had Mickey on tape for the hospital call. 'Couple more photographs you might recognize.' These were of the other two prostitutes, the ones who were tied and tortured. The solicitor leant over to look at them and shuddered, moving his chair slightly, distancing himself even more from his client. Mickey was staring aghast. 'Oh no — you're not pinning all your bloody unsolved crimes on me. All right, I beat up the kid in hospital, but I never laid a finger on Mary Adams.'

'But you phoned her, Mickey. You told her next time it would be really serious.'

Mickey stared at Frost, his eyes blinking rapidly, but before he could answer, the solicitor intervened.

'If my client had killed this woman, Inspector, why would he phone her up with further threats?'

'He phoned,' said Frost, 'to see if she was still alive.'

'No!' shouted Mickey. 'I phoned to tell her about her bloody car.'

'Her car?' echoed Frost, wondering what the hell this was about.

'I'd phoned a few times warning her to stay off of Harry's patch, but she took no notice. I was going in to give her a going-over but she wasn't in, so I decided to do her car in instead. I slashed the tyres and gave it a few welts with a sledge hammer. It was a warning. If that didn't work, next time it would be her; that's what I was phoning about.'

'Naturally,' smarmed Kirkstone, 'my client will pay for any damage he inadvertently did to the car.'

'You smashed her car,' said Frost, 'and then you went up to the flat to tell her what you had done. She went for you with a knife and you killed her.'

'Like I said, she wasn't in — out tomming on Mr Grafton's patch, I reckoned. I left it a couple of hours, then I phoned her and that's the honest, bloody truth!'

Kirkstone leant back in his chair and flashed Frost an ingratiating smile. 'Might I ask how this young lady was killed, Inspector? It's probably slipped your mind that you neglected to tell us.'

Frost groaned inwardly. It hadn't slipped his mind. This was the weaker part of his case against Mickey. 'She was strangled.'

'Strangled?' exclaimed Kirkstone in mock surprise. 'You're saying she wasn't beaten to death?'

'No,' grunted Frost.

'And these other two unfortunate women — did they show any signs of being punched… beaten with fists?'

'No,' admitted Frost grudgingly.

'So their injuries are not at all consistent with those of the young girl in hospital?'

'Correct,' muttered Frost.

'I take it there is nothing to connect my client with the two deaths?'

Frost nodded gloomily. The bastard had him on the ropes.

'So we can dismiss that allegation entirely. The only connection he has with the death in Clayton Street is the phone call which he admits to making and for which he has given a satisfactory explanation.'

'He's given an explanation,' said Frost, clutching at what little bit of straw was left, 'but it may not be the true one. I want the clothes he was wearing that night for forensic examination.'

'I was wearing the clothes I've got on now,' said Mickey, starting to take off his jacket. 'I take it you're not interested in my underpants and socks?'