Winter Frost

'Have you ever considered how useless you are, Arthur?' asked Frost, dropping into a chair and fishing out his cigarettes. 'A serial killer of toms who loves inflicting pain, and we haven't got a single flaming lead.'

Hanlon took the offered cigarette. 'Most of the girls are demanding police protection.'

'They can flaming well demand. If they're that worried, they can stay indoors.'

'Couldn't we ask Mr Mullett to authorize extra patrols of the red light district?'

Frost exhaled smoke. 'And what good would that do? Uniforms in cars buzzing around every five minutes would scare the sod off. And what are they looking for? How would they know he was not a genuine punter?'

'We could take notes of all car registration numbers,' suggested Hanlon, 'then follow them up if there's another killing.'

Frost chewed this over. 'Better than sod all, I suppose. We could give it a whirl.'

The Phone rang. Hanlon held it out to the inspector. Liz Maud for you, Jack.'

Frost went cold. The two missing kids. What kind of a bloody detective was he? He had completely forgotten about the kids. He snatched the phone grabbing for his scarf with his free hand. 'On my way, he began, but this time, for a change, it was good news. "The kids are all right, Inspector. They were with the father although he's denied right of access. Uniform are dealing.'

A hot surge of relief flooded through his body. 'Thanks, Liz,' he croaked. His hand was shaking as he put the phone down. What if they had been killed and he hadn't even remembered they were missing? God! The thought made him shudder.

'Jack!' Bill Wells had poked his head round the door. 'Bloke called Scrivener in the lobby, asking for you.'

'Unless he's come to confess to something, I haven't got time.'

'He works for the Samaritans and said there was a message on his answering machine asking him to contact you.'

Scrivener was on duty Friday night with Helen Stokes and they had been trying to contact him. 'On my way,' said Frost.

Scrivener, a nervous, twitching individual, was furtively smoking a cigarette hidden in his cupped hand, like a man having a sly fag at a petrol dump. He kept shaking his head in disbelief. 'Shocking, bleeding shocking,' he told Frost. 'I was only speaking to Helen Friday night. Came home today and there she is all over the local paper.'

'You didn't know until today?' Frost asked.

'I've been away. After I finished my stint at the Samaritans, I drove straight down to my weekend cottage in Cumbria. It was a rough bloody night and I needed a break, otherwise I might have ended up doing myself in.'

'I know how you feel,' sympathized Frost. 'I've got the Samaritans' phone number pasted inside my gas oven, just in case.'

'She never hurt a living soul, spent all her spare rime helping these poor sods and this is what happens to her.'

Frost nodded sympathetically. 'We've been trying to get in touch with you.'

'Sorry about that. Mervyn left a message on my answerphone, but when he said the police wanted to talk to me I thought he'd reported me for the lousy five quid from the petty cash. I'd only borrowed it, for Pete's sake.'

'I know nothing about that,' said Frost.

'I wouldn't put it past the sod to call in Interpol,' continued Scrivener. 'He might be good for the Samaritans, but he does everything by the flaming book. I'd have paid that money back. Does he think I'm short of five lousy quid?'

'Yes, well…' began Frost.

'And he hates anyone smoking.' Scrivener's eyes flicked from side to side as he raised the cupped cigarette to his lips, looking as if he expected Mervyn to burst in. 'The minute you light up he starts coughing and clutching his throat and flinging windows open in the middle of flaming winter-'

'Yes,' cut in Frost. Talk of smoking opened a nasty wound. It was in this very interview room that Weaver had asked him not to smoke. 'You were probably the last person, apart from the killer, to see Helen alive, Mr Scrivener. Mr Adams tells us she had an upsetting telephone call just before she left. Any idea what it was about?'

'Yes,' said Scrivener. 'It was that flaming pervert Sam. If ever I got my hands on him I'd string him up by his flaming privates.' She told you about the call?'

'She was in tears. These bastards think it's a joke to get you upset. If I get the call I always hang up on the sod. Mervyn doesn't like that, he says this could be the one time it's genuine, but I know a slimy faking bastard when I hear one.'

'You're losing me,' Frost told him. 'He phones, usually late at night when we're at our lowest ebb. Says he can't go on living, that he's going to chuck himself under a train — we should be so bloody lucky!'

'Why?' asked Frost.

'It's all a flaming act. He calls again, says he's on the railway bridge and is about to jump. You can hear the train getting nearer and nearer. Whoever he phones is yelling, "Don't jump — let's talk." Then there's a scream, the train roars past, then silence. The first time it happened Mervyn went berserk. He called the police and they traced the call to a public call box on a railway bridge. The phone was swinging from its cord, but no mangled body, no sign of the bastard. He's back home having a good laugh. He's done it to other Samaritans as well. Week before last he was on the phone to me. I said, "Jump, you bastard, jump" and got a right ear-wigging from Mervyn.'

'And this was Helen's caller?'

'Yes.' Scrivener lit up another cigarette from the stub of the old. 'Does this help you at all?'

'I don't think so.' Frost sighed smoke. Another dead end. 'And that was the last you saw of her?'

'Yes — except when she came back to phone for a taxi.'

Frost's head jerked up. 'She came back?'

'Yes — couldn't get her car to start so she called a cab. She didn't have any cash on her for the fare, neither did I, so I borrowed five quid from the petty cash box.'

Frost's brain went on overdrive. This knocked all his previous assumptions to smithereens.

'Mervyn never told us she came back.'

'He didn't know. He was brewing up tea in the kitchen. He would have made such a stink about us borrowing from the petty cash, so I never told him.'

'She called a cab?'

'They said it would be along in five minutes, so she went down in the street to wait.'

'Do you know what cab firm?'

'Denton Minicabs.'

Frost scribbled this down on the back of his cigarette packet. 'She went down in the street and waited?'

'Yes. I kept an eye on her through the window. The cab was there in a couple of minutes. She got in and off it went.'

Frost stood up, almost shaking with excitement. A cab! She was picked up by a cab! This altered everything. 'You've been a great help, Mr Scrivener.' He called PC Collier in to take a statement and dashed back to the murder incident room. 'We've got a new lead.' He filled them in on Scrivener's statement. 'We could be on the wrong track looking for someone posing as a punter. Our killer could be a cab driver. Go out and chat up the toms again. Find out if any of them have had nasty experiences with cabbies. Inspector Maud and I will cover Denton Minicabs.' He nodded at Taffy Morgan whose hand was raised to attract his attention. 'Yes, you can do a wee, Taffy, but wash your hands afterwards.'

Morgan grinned. 'I've had a phone call from my contact in the council, guv. We could have a lead on Nelly Aldridge.'

'Wow!' exclaimed Frost. 'And who the hell is Nelly Aldridge?'

'The lady with the nipples in that old photograph,' explained Morgan. 'The one with the missing son."

The skeleton in the garden. He hadn't time to sod about with that. 'Make my day, Taffy… tell me she's dead.'

'Sorry, guv. It looks as if she's still alive and living in Denton.'

'If a lady wasn't present,' said Frost, nodding at Liz, I'd say, "Shit!" All right, follow it through. The rest of you, chat up toms.'