Winter Frost

Tm rarely out of it,' said Frost.

Harding from Forensic was waiting for him in the murder incident room. He wasn't smiling. 'You're just pretending it's bad news, aren't you?' said Frost. 'You've nailed him, haven't you?' He swilled down the dregs of cold tea on the desk, then spat it out hurriedly. He had forgotten he had dunked a cigarette end in it.

'Nothing on his clothes. Fibres from her fur coat adhering to the driver's window of the Honda, but nothing else.'

'She would have leant on the car to stick her titties through the window,' said Frost. 'You sure you found nothing inside — a 60B bra or a pair of open crotch knickers?'

Harding gave a tired grin. I wouldn't have kept it from you if we had, Inspector. I like to be frank and open.'

I'd prefer you to be lying and bleeding devious,' said Frost. 'If she got inside that car there should be bits of fur all over the seat.' He had a sudden thought. 'He's got a place where he usually takes them. Perhaps he's got a car vacuum cleaner. Could he have cleaned it out before he drove back home?'

Harding shook his head. 'It would have to be a super vacuum cleaner to remove every trace, Inspector.'

'You're bleeding useless,' said Frost.

'We can't find what isn't there,' protested Harding, 'and you can take it from me, there was nothing.'

'Perhaps he's got a second car hidden away somewhere," Burton suggested. 'Changes cars when he picks up toms, then changes back to the Honda when he drives home.'

'And changes his flaming suit as well?' said Frost, shaking his head. 'It's too complicated. Either we've got the wrong man, or we're missing something. In any case, it's too bloody late and I'm too tired to think.' He buttoned up his mac. 'First thing in the morning we contact all the toms who work in that area and find out if any of them saw Sarah going off with anyone.' He stretched his arms and yawned. I'm for bed before any more bodies turn up.'

He got as far as the corridor.

'Frost!'

He winced. Bloody Mullett. Half-past four in the morning and there was Hornrim Harry, uniform razor-creased, face all shining and squeaky clean, making Frost feel dirtier and more dishevelled than ever.

'Super?'

'My office… now!'

Frost followed him to the old log cabin and flopped wearily into the visitor's chair. Mullett marched to his desk and sat ramrod straight behind it, treating the inspector to a long, disapproving glare. What the hell have I done now, thought Frost, digging in his pocket for a cigarette and finding the note Bill Wells had given him in-the interview room. Mullett demanding to see him urgently. Knickers! He'd forgotten all about it.

'I was just about to phone you when you called out,' lied Frost, thinking Sod it, a couple of minutes earlier and I'd have made it to the car-park and been off home. He put on his tired, overworked copper face. 'This won't take long will it, Super? It's been one hell of a night.'

'Not only for you. Frost. I too have had one hell of a night. Woken up in the small hours by the press demanding my comments on the latest killing and asking if it was true that we had arrested a man in connection with the serial killings. And I didn't know a damn thing about it.'

Frost frowned. 'I didn't know the press had got the story. They didn't phone the station.'

Mullett picked up his paper knife and beat a gentle tattoo on his desk top. 'Er… no… I had arranged that all press calls were to be diverted to me. I wanted to spare you the burden of having to deal with them.' He wouldn't look Frost in the eye as he said this. His concern was firstly that he didn't trust Frost to deal with the media, dreading seeing some of the man's more outrageous comments spread across the front pages of every London daily, but more important, it didn't do his own career any harm to have his name featured as spokesman in such an important case — and it also gave him the opportunity to deflect blame and misdirect credit.

'You spoil me, Super,' murmured Frost, who wasn't fooled for one minute.

Mullett modestly shrugged off what he took to be a compliment and returned to the attack. 'I couldn't give them answers, so I had to stall them. I asked you to phone me immediately you were free, and you ignored me. Then… then…' He banged the paper knife down on the desk to show the importance of his next point. '… the Chief Constable phoned me. The press had gone through to him. He demanded answers which, thanks to you, I was unable to provide.'

'Sorry about that, Super,' mumbled Frost, sounding just like Morgan.

'Sorry isn't good enough, Frost. I've been made to look a complete idiot.'

Frost bit his tongue and said nothing.

'I told the Chief Constable that the suspect you are questioning had, at my instigation, been under surveillance and that, although I didn't have the details, I was sure you had caught him red-handed and this was yet another feather in Denton Division's cap. He complimented me and is waiting for my return phone call to tell him we have formally charged this man with the serial murders.'

'You stuck your neck out a bit, Super,' reproved Frost. 'We're questioning Ashby, but he denies everything and we haven't yet got enough to charge him.'

'But you had him under surveillance. You must have seen him dumping the body?'

'We had him under surveillance,' said Frost, blandly, 'but we lost him.'

Mullett's face turned to stone. 'You lost him?'

'Yes,' agreed Frost. 'By the time we found the body, he was back home.'

'You lost him?' Mullett could think of nothing else to say. 'We set up an expensive surveillance operation, but at the vital moment, you lose him?' The enormity of how he was going to explain all this to the Chief Constable was tempered by the thought that he could put all the blame for this monumental mess-up on Frost's bungling. He waggled a reproving finger.

'There is no way County will overlook this, Frost. Heads will roll.'

'You mustn't blame yourself, Super,' said Frost, sounding very concerned. 'You meant for the best and it's not entirely your fault.'

Mullett blinked rapidly. His fault? How could the blame be put on him? 'What on earth are you talking about? You're the one who lost your prime suspect.'

'As I said to you at the time, Super, you hadn't given us enough men to do the job properly.' 'Not enough men? Three of you to tail one man?' 'At two in the morning there's hardly another car on the road. It was vital he shouldn't know he was being tailed. We had to keep well back so he wouldn't keep seeing the same two cars wherever he went. He suddenly put on a bit of speed and we lost him. Two more men in another car and we would have nailed him, but obviously, with County watching the pennies, the money angle took precedence over stopping another killing. Let's hope they see it's their fault and don't try to blame you. I'll back you up, Super.'

Mullett's head was in a flat spin. Frost always seemed able to wrong-foot him. How to wriggle out of this? 'But I've told the Chief Constable you would be charging him.'

'He has opportunity and motive. We just need a bit more evidence.'

'And how do you propose to get it?'

'We'll be questioning the local toms tomorrow. One of them might have seen him drive off with Sarah. If so, we've got him.'

'And if not?'

'If not, we let him go and hope we catch him next time.'

He left a stunned Mullett staring at the telephone, mentally drafting out his call to the Chief Constable.

'Frost seemed to think three men were enough. I urged him to take more…'

Frost didn't make it to the car-park. Bill Wells called him into the cell area. 'Ashby wants to speak to you. Jack.'

His tiredness evaporated. A confession. It had to be. He waited as Wells unlocked the cell door. Ashby was sitting on the bunk bed, arms folded defiantly. 'I'd like you to know, Inspector, that first thing in the morning, I am instructing my solicitor to instigate proceedings against you and this lousy police station for false arrest and wrongful imprisonment.'