Winter Frost

He dropped the torch so he could have both hands free and managed to hold off her talons, then hissed with pain as she kicked him sharply in the ankle. 'I am the bleeding police,' he yelled, pushing her roughly aside and fumbling for his warrant card. As she charged forward again he shoved the card in her face. 'Look at it, you silly cow!'

She blinked at the warrant card in disbelief, then at him, keeping her distance. 'You don't look like a policeman.'

'And you don't look like a flaming mule, missus, but you've got the kick of one.' He rubbed his ankle. 'Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?'

'I'm Mrs Maisie White… Ada's sister.'

'Ada? Who's Ada?'

'Little Charlie's mother. I'm his Aunt Maisie.'

Frost dug in his pocket for his cigarettes. 'You've lost me,' he said, proffering the packet.

She waved it away. 'None of the family smoke — it used to affect Charlie's chest.'

Of course, thought Frost. Why am I being so thick? 'Little Charlie. You mean Charles Weaver, the bloke who lives here?'

'Lived here,' she corrected, dabbing her eye with a tiny lace-edged handkerchief. 'I can't believe it. First little Charlie, then Ada.'

'Ada? His mother? She's dead?'

The woman nodded. 'Early this morning. The nurse said she kept asking for him, but they didn't tell her… she never knew.'

'I'm sorry,' said Frost. He sat down, but realized he was on the commode chair, so quickly moved to the bed.

'A merciful release,' she said. Her expression changed. 'Are you the policeman who drove little Charlie to suicide?'

Frost winced. He wished she wouldn't keep calling the man that. It was hard to keep the image of Weaver as a child killer and rapist when he was called 'little Charlie'. 'We found photographs,' he told her. "The little girl was in his house the afternoon she went missing and he lied to us. Until we could eliminate him, he was our prime suspect.'

She sat on the bed beside him. 'He didn't do it, Inspector. Believe me, I know. He was sweet, gentle and kind. As soon as he knew his mother was ill, he had her moved in here. He devoted himself to her. A lovely boy.' Her lip trembled and she started to sob again.

Frost sucked at his cigarette. He saw Weaver as a murdering bastard, she saw him as a sweet little Charlie. 'The little girl who was raped and killed was a lovely girl.'

She dried her eyes. 'I know that boy. I brought him up. His mother wasn't married. It's commonplace now, but it was a dreadful thing then. The father deserted her and she had to go out to work, so I brought him up. Charlie loved children, not in a nasty way, but as a kind, gentle man. He didn't harm that little girl, Inspector, but you made him take the blame, and that was more than poor little Charlie could stand.'

Frost stood up. 'The case is still open,' he told her. 'If he's innocent, I won't keep it a secret.'

She looked at him. 'Too late for that now. Inspector.' She pushed the sodden handkerchief back in her pocket. 'It will be a double funeral. If you would like to come…?'

It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he nodded his thanks and didn't ask for details. 'I'll leave you to it then. Sorry if I gave you a start.'

At the front door he hesitated, then, on impulse, retraced his steps to the back door, the door through which Weaver had told him Jenny had left the house on the last afternoon of her short life. Unbolting it, he stepped out into the tiny walled garden, squeezed past the dustbin and out through the door which led to a narrow alleyway, hemmed in on both sides by high brick walls. If, as Weaver claimed, Jenny was alive when she left, was the real killer waiting here for her to come out?

Doubt after doubt crowded in. Had he been wrong about Weaver all the time? Mullett was right, he was always in too much of a hurry, making up his mind too quickly and then bending the facts to fit. He looked back at the house where the light was shining behind the curtains of the mother's bedroom. Auntie Maisie was tidying up for little Charlie's funeral.

The blue car! Weaver claimed the blue car, the car that brought Jenny to the house, was waiting outside all the time. Bernie Green claimed he had dropped the kid off and driven away after some ten minutes. Which of the two lying sods was telling the truth?

He hurried to his car and radioed through to Control, telling them he wanted Green brought in again for questioning right away.

A weary, fed-up Morgan was in the office waiting for him. The DC's jaw was swollen and his tongue kept finding the gap where a tooth used to be. 'I had the tooth out, guv.'

'Good.' Frost squinted through his in-tray. Nothing of interest. 'Bung it under your pillow for the tooth fairy.' He tried to remember what he had sent the DC out for. Ah yes, the bristol-flaunting woman with her simple-minded son. 'What joy, Taff?'

'None at all, guv. I've walked my feet down to the bone and knocked on every door in that street. I've been to the council, been through electoral rolls going back to the war. No Mrs Aldridge shown as ever living in Nelson Road.'

'The girl could have got the name wrong,' suggested Frost. 'It might be something similar like Shuffle-bottom.'

'I've checked everyone who ever lived in the street guv… married women with kids, single women with kids, the lot.'

'What about widows with kids? I'd even settle for a man in drag without kids.'

Morgan rubbed his jaw. 'Take it from me, guv, I've checked everything.'

Frost nodded and yawned. Tiredness was creeping up on him and he didn't want to waste any more time on this. 'OK, Taffy, leave it for now. Go off home and get some sleep in your own bed for a change and we'll make an early start tomorrow.'

Morgan smiled gratefully, but his early night was not to be. A tap on the door. PC Jordan looked in. 'We've picked up Bernie Green, Inspector. Where do you want him?'

'No. 1 interview room,' said Frost, grabbing the files. He jerked his head at Morgan who was trying to sidle out unnoticed. 'Come on, Taffy, suspect to interview. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours

The interview room was cold: the radiator had died and had to be kicked into life. Frost gave a welcoming smile as Green was brought in, a smile that was not returned.

'Why have I been dragged here again?' the man demanded. 'I've told you everything.'

'We've got lousy memories,' said Frost. 'We want to hear it all again.' He waited while Morgan started up the tape. 'Right, Bernie boy, you're on talk radio, every lie you tell us is being recorded.'

'You're condemned before you open your bloody mouth in this place,' Green protested sullenly.

'I know,' beamed Frost. 'It saves all that sodding about getting evidence.' He took Green's earlier statement from the folder. 'Right. You say you took the kid to Weaver's place, watched her go in, then after ten minutes, drove away?'

'That's right.'

'But we have a witness, Bernie, who says you didn't drive off… you parked outside.' He didn't tell Bernie that the witness was the dead suspect.

'He's lying, Mr Frost. I drove straight off again.'

'Not straight off, Bernie. It must have slipped your mind, so let me remind you. You left the car and waited in that back alley. When the kid came out, you grabbed her, forced her in the car, then raped and strangled her.'

'As God is my witness, Mr Frost, she never came out while I was there. All right — I did get out of the car and waited round the back. I waited half an hour, but she didn't come out so I gave up.'

'You waited half an hour… in the freezing cold… Why?'

Green hung his head and drew little circles on the table top with his finger. 'Can this be off the record?'