Winter Frost

'She's alive and well, guv. Lives in a smallholding at Hill Lane on the outskirts of Denton. No sign of a son.'

'She must be pushing eighty. I bet her nipples aren't worth looking at now.'

'She's a tough old bird by all accounts, won't let anyone go near the place. The Social Services lady tried to call and got the chamber pot emptied all over her for her trouble.'

'We'll have to send Mr Mullett round in his best uniform. How long has she been there?'

'Over forty years. The previous owner died and the council had the place down in their records as empty and derelict. They only recently realized someone was living there.'

'How did they find out?'

'The old girl fell and broke her wrist. She got herself to Denton Hospital and they wanted to keep her in, but she refused. That's why they sent the Social Services lady round there.'

Frost checked his watch. If they could get this one tied up and out of the way they could concentrate on more important things. 'Right, Taffy. You and me will pay her a visit and see if she remembers burying her son in a neighbour's garden.'

Hill Lane was narrow, rutted and steep, and tested the car's springs to the limit. A bumpy, uncomfortable ride, so it was almost a relief when the lane petered out to a muddied footpath and they had to get out and walk, fighting their way, heads down, against a driving wind. A dank and desolate area with hostile branches and brambles scratching and tearing as they sloshed their way through rain-filled pot-holes. The lane twisted and started getting steeper. 'Are you sure this is right?' asked Frost. It doesn't seem to be leading anywhere.'

'It's definitely up here somewhere, guv,' Morgan told him. 'Not easy to reach, the lady said.'

'Ladies never say that to me,' said Frost. 'Ah..' They had reached the summit and were looking down on the untidy sprawl of the smallholding, mud dotted with piles of rubbish and battered corrugated sheeting.

Rusty wire held in a few scrawny chickens who squawked in protest at the invasion of the two detectives. From somewhere behind the chicken shed they could hear a goat bleating. The small house looked neglected with boarded-up windows, peeling paint and sections of guttering hanging limply down like a broken arm.

As they scrunched their way down a swampy cinder path, Morgan screwed up his face in disgust. 'What's that smell, guv?'

Frost indicated a small brick outhouse with a corrugated iron roof. 'That's an earth privy — a wooden seat and a bucket. If she offers us rhubarb and custard, say no.'

There was no knocker or bell push on the cracked front door so he thumped with his fist. They waited. Nothing.

'Perhaps she's out,' suggested Morgan, wishing they'd never started this.

'Perhaps she's filling up the chamber pot,' said Frost, stepping well back. 'You take over the knocking.'

Nervously, Morgan gave the door a tentative rap, then tried to look through the window, but the thick grime barely let him see through to the drawn, dirt-heavy curtains and all he saw was his own blurred reflection. He hammered the door again. 'Police — open up.'

'Clear off!' An old woman's voice. The upstairs window had opened.

Morgan hopped back quickly as a bucketful of something nasty splattered down. 'I don't think she's too keen to see us, guv,' he muttered.

'It's just her way,' said Frost as the window slammed shut again. He gave the door a savage kick. 'Open up, missus, or we'll kick the bloody door in.'

The window again creaked open. 'Go away. I'm sick.' The voice was weak and quavering.

'You'll be a bloody sight sicker if you don't let us in,' bellowed Frost.

They waited as footsteps slowly descended the stairs, then countless bolts were drawn and the front door slowly creaked open.

She was very old, leathery skin, wispy grey hair, wearing a bloodstained sacking apron over a faded floral dress. Her deeply wrinkled face was dirt-grimed and she studied Morgan's warrant card suspiciously with red-rimmed eyes, then jerked her head for them to come in.

Frost peered into the dark depths and sniffed gingerly. The earth privy seemed preferable. He took one last lungful of cold, clear air, then stepped inside. 'Thanks.'

They followed her over the bare boards of a dingy passage, their noses assailed by a mixture of smells, stale fat, ancient food, paraffin, and a lurking, earthy odour of something worse.

She led them into the kitchen, a smelly little room with a tiny window too high to see out of and too dirty to let much light in. A Primus stove stood on a rickety rusted metal stand next to a chipped, brown-stained sink piled high with dirty dishes encrusted with ancient food. Hanging from a nail on the wall, a recently killed, scrawny chicken dripped blood from its beak on to the gritty stone floor. She sat herself down at a scarred-topped wooden table, picked up a lethal-looking kitchen knife, wiped it on her sacking apron and started hacking away at the corpse of another plucked chicken which lay beside a pile of feathers. 'Sit down, if you like,' she grunted.

Frost glanced around. None of the chairs looked particularly appetizing. 'No thanks. You used to live in Beresford Street?'

'Yes.'

'When was that?'

'A long time ago.'

'When did you move here?'

'A long time ago.'

Frost raised his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. 'Can't you give us some idea of dates?'

'No.' The knife crashed down like a guillotine blade and the severed head of the chicken dropped into a bin half-filled with food debris.

'Where's your son, Mrs Aldridge?'

For the briefest of moments the old woman froze, then the knife began sawing away as she dismembered the bird's legs. 'Haven't got a son.' The yellow, muddy legs joined the neck in the bin. She hacked off blooded chunks of meat and dropped them in a battered saucepan.

'Come on, love,' said Frost, through clenched teeth. 'You had a son when you lived at Beresford Street.'

'My son is dead,' she said bluntly, wiping blood from the knife with her sacking apron then dragging some carrots and onions towards her. The vegetables looked as if another wash under the tap wouldn't do them any harm.

'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Frost, not sounding it.

'When did he die?'

'A long time ago.'

'What, five, ten, twenty years?1

'I don't remember.'

Let's have a look at his death certificate and we'll be off.'

'Don't know where it is.' She began slicing the vegetables, the knife a blur, barely missing her fingers as she pushed them under the blade.

'Then where is he buried?'

'Don't remember.' A handful of sliced vegetables were tossed on top of the blooded chunks of meat in the saucepan.

Frost was losing patience. 'Come on, missus. You might forget a lot of things, but not where your only son was buried. Was it in Denton?'

She pulled more vegetables towards her. 'I'm old. I forget things. It might have been, or perhaps he was cremated somewhere.'

'Well, that narrows it down,' snorted Frost. He tried a different tack. 'What was his name?'

A sad smile. 'Boy. I called him Boy.'

'What was his proper name?'

She raised her head. 'Boy. That was his proper name.'

'Would Boy be buried in a garden in Nelson Road?' Her head dropped. The hand holding the knife shook for an instant before she steadied it and slowly and deliberately gave all her attention to cutting up more vegetables, although already there seemed to be more than enough in the saucepan. 'No.'

'Only we found a body.' He was watching her closely.

'Nothing to do with me.' Chop, chop, chop.

'Do you have any living relatives who might have better memories than you?' Taffy asked.

'There's no-one.'

'What about Boy's father?'

'Dead. Everyone's dead.'

'What was his name?'

'Don't remember.'

'How old was your son when he died?'