Winter Frost

'How did the post-mortem go?' asked Hanlon, dragging a chair over to the inspector.

'Told us nothing we didn't know already, Arthur,' grunted Frost. 'The poor cow died from a heart attack probably brought on from the terror of knowing what the bastard intended to do to her. There was something bloody weird there, though.'

'What was that?' asked Hanlon.

'It was when Drysdale scooped out her stomach contents.'

Hanlon pulled a face. He knew he wasn't going to enjoy hearing this.

'She'd been dead over twelve hours and yet in her stomach was this undigested sandwich.' He dug in his pocket and pulled out the remains of his sausage sandwich which he held up, parted the bread and looked inside. 'A sausage sandwich.' As Hanlon gaped in horror, Frost popped it in his mouth and gulped it down. 'Doesn't taste bad considering…"

Hanlon went green and shuddered, but Frost couldn't keep a straight face any longer and broke into a broad grin. 'You bastard!' Hanlon shrieked as Frost nearly fell off his chair laughing. 'You're having me on. I won't tell you what we found out from the cab firms now.'

Wiping tears from his eyes, Frost passed his cigarette packet over. 'If I couldn't find something to laugh at about that damn autopsy room, Arthur, I'd go stark, staring bonkers. The poor bitch lying there like so much meat and Drysdale slicing her open.' He flicked his lighter. 'Tell daddy about the cab firms.'

'We could be on to something, Jack. We've checked them all and on every night a torn went missing, one of them answered a call, but no-one was waiting for them when they arrived.

Frost punched his palm with his fist. 'I knew it! He's listing in on a all band radio and if it's a call from a women on her own, he gets there first. We're going to nail the bastard.'

'How?' asked Hanlon

'We use decoys, Arthur. Lots of lovely, juicy nubile policewomen as decoys.' Sod all the gloom. He was now feeling on top of the world.

19

'Decoys?' repeated Mullett, scrubbing away at the lens of his glasses to give himself time to think. 'I don't understand.'

'We want to lure this bastard into a trap,' explained Frost. 'We dress up policewomen as toms, plant them in the red light district, and get them to phone for cabs. We keep them under surveillance all the time. If the right cab turns up, we simply follow them to the destination, then bring them back to try again. But if it's a rogue taxi, we tail and get ready to pounce.'

Mullett pinched his nose and thought for a while. He was beginning to have nagging doubts about asking County to send a senior officer down to take over the case. He had been hoping for a chief inspector at most, but Chief Superintendent Bailey out-ranked him and would probably take command of everything, commandeer his office, spend way over Denton's limited budget, leave Mullett to take the blame, then hog all the credit if he was successful. For all his faults, Frost was now looking the much better option. If Frost could pull this off quickly, so County were kept out, there would be no question of the credit being shared. He tugged off the cap of his Parker pen and steeled himself for the worst. 'How many people would be involved?'

'Not too many. Crowds at that time of night would arouse suspicion. Say two or three girls and four or five, maybe six cars to watch and trail.'

Mullett jotted some figures down and winced. 'And all on overtime?'

'Yes,' agreed Frost. 'The sod doesn't like raping and killing in office hours.'

Mullett added up the sums again, but couldn't make them any less. Perhaps he should let Bailey come after all, and let him take the responsibility for spending all this money. But it would still come out of Denton's budget. 'We've got to keep costs down. When the girls book a taxi, I'm only paying for the minimum distance — and no tipping.' He scribbled some more figures down. 'Eight men — three women per night — maximum. And I want receipts, receipts for everything.'

'Of course,' Frost assured him, standing up quickly before the superintendent changed his mind. 'It's all agreed then?'

'No, it's not all agreed,' said Mullett. 'Sit down.' He took off his glasses and pinched his nose. Sanctioning large sums of money made him nervous and when Frost didn't put up objections about it being too little, it made him feel he was giving too much away. 'If I'm to justify this sort of expenditure, I've got to show it's cost effective. I want a result.'

'You shall have one,' said Frost. The result could well be that the whole operation was a disaster, but it would still be a result even if it wasn't the one Mullett wanted.

And this isn't open-ended. I'm agreeing three nights only, then I pull out the plug.'

'Agreed,' said Frost, knowing that if they needed more time, he'd argue about it when it happened. We might even get a result tonight.'

That would make a pleasant change,' said Mullett, sourly. 'Results are something sadly lacking from you at the moment. What is the position with the child killings?'

'We've come to a bit of a dead end there, Super,' admitted Frost. 'All our leads seem to have fizzled out.' Mullett pulled a knowing face, implying this was only to be expected from Frost. 'And the skeleton in the garden? I understand you've tracked down the woman with the missing son?'

Frost told him about the visit to Nelly Aldridge.

Mullett's eyes gleamed. 'We're on to something there, Frost.'

'Ancient bloody history,' said Frost. 'Not worth wasting our time on.'

Mullett's lips tightened. 'You're so damned negative. No wonder you're making no headway. We've found a skeleton, her son is missing and she has no satisfactory explanation. On top of which, she has acquired, apparently out of nowhere, money to buy a smallholding. Bear down on her. She's your best bet for an early clear-up, and goodness knows, you need one.'

'All right,' sighed Frost. 'I'll see her first thing in the morning.'

'You've wasted enough time,' snapped Mullett. 'Do it today. If she doesn't come up with a satisfactory explanation, bring her in.' He picked up his pen and began signing his correspondence to signal that the interview was over.

Frost slouched out, passing through the outer office where Ida Smith, Mullett's faithful secretary, who had overheard everything, was smiling smugly to herself at the way her superior had put that awful man in his place. Frost gave her a nod as he passed. 'I quite agree with you, Ida — he's a real right bastard.'

'I don't think this is a very good idea, guv,' moaned Morgan as his foot squelched in a rain-filled pot-hole.

'It's a bleeding lousy idea,' agreed Frost, 'but we're flaming well stuck with it.' They were slithering and sliding in the pitch dark up the muddied lane leading to the smallholding. 'Not far now — I can smell the privy.'

They stumbled on and soon could see a feeble orange glow from a flickering oil lamp fighting its way through a dirt-caked window. Frost hammered at the door. 'Open up, Mrs Aldridge. It's the police.' They waited. He tried the door handle, but the bolts and chains inside held firm. 'Let's try our luck round the back.'

They picked their way round to the rear of the house. No lights showed and the door was again firmly locked.