A Killing Frost (43 page)

   They stood in the dark, waiting to be caught red-handed. For a brief moment there was screaming silence. No - not silence!

   Very faintly, powered by the dying breath of a failing battery, the mobile was ringing. He had dialled Debbie’s number and it was ringing. It was Debbie’s phone!

   They had to get out unseen. Once out he would get a search warrant, turn the house over and ‘find’ the phone. If they were caught inside the house, Kelly’s brief could claim the evidence was planted.

Downstairs the front door opened. Footsteps pounded up the stairs. The toilet door opened and closed. The sound of someone being violently sick. One in the toilet, but where was the other one?

   Kelly’s voice called, ‘Are you all right up there?’ He began ascending the stairs.

  
This is it
, thought Frost.
We’ve bloody had it
.

   Then there was a hammering at the front door. ‘Police. Open up.’

   Kelly paused on the stairs. ‘Police?’ he echoed. ‘What the hell do you want?’

   Footsteps retreated down the stairs. The door unlatched and opened.

   PC Simms’s voice announced, ‘Sorry to bother you, sir. Is that your car on the forecourt?’

   ‘What if it bloody is? Is it an offence to park your own bloody car on your own bloody forecourt?’

   ‘We’d like you to check it, sir. We just spotted someone trying to break into the boot.’

   ‘The bastard. Did you get him?’

   ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

   ‘Typical, bloody typical.’

   Footsteps crunched on the gravel outside. Frost could hear muffled voices Kelly was on the forecourt.

  
I owe you one, Simms
, thought Frost.

   He listened to more sounds of retching from the toilet. ‘Come on, Taff. We’re going!’ They tiptoed down the stairs. Halfway across the living room, Frost stopped dead. ‘Shit.’

   He was still holding Debbie’s bleeding mobile!

   Prat, prat, stupid flaming prat! If he couldn’t get the damn thing back before Kelly returned it would be curtains. There would be no way they could use the phone as evidence - assuming he hadn’t been booted out of the force long before then.

   ‘What’s up, Guv? Why have we stopped?’

   ‘Don’t ask flaming questions. Wait for me in the car.’

   ‘But Guv - ’

   ‘For Pete’s sake, Taffy - go! And if I’m not out in a couple of minutes, leave me, get the hell out of here.’

   ‘But Guv - ’

   ‘Don’t argue, Taffy, just bloody do it!’ He shoved Morgan out of the way and spun on his heel to charge back up the stairs. He knew he was making a noise, but hoped vomiting Vera in the karzy would be too preoccupied with throwing up to notice.

   The muffled voices from outside suddenly died. Flaming heck. Was Kelly coming back in? ‘Please, Simms,’ he prayed, ‘keep him out there for another minute - fifty seconds, anything . . .’

   He replaced the mobile in the airing cupboard with fumbling fingers. As he dashed back down the stairs, the voices outside started up again. Reprieved, but for how long?

   Through the living room into the kitchen, out into the garden, running like hell. Halfway up the garden he heard the car starting up.
No Taffy - please, no!

   Slamming the back gate behind him, he saw the rear lights of the car moving off.

   Sod making a noise. ‘Taffy!’ he yelled.

   Thank God! The Welsh git had heard him. The car stopped and backed at speed, then screamed to a stop. Frost hurled himself in and lay speechless, panting at Taffy’s side, sucking in air and rubbing the stitch in his side.

   ‘Drive,’ he gasped.

   As they sped round the corner, they could see the area car with two uniformed men walking round Kelly’s Citroën. The driver’s window had been smashed. ‘Good old Simms,’ said Frost. He leaned over and punched the horn as they passed. Behind Kelly’s back, Simms fluttered a hand of acknowledgement.

   ‘Can we go home now, Guv?’ yawned Morgan. ‘It’s been a long day.’

   ‘No we flaming can’t,’ said Frost. ‘But to compensate, tomorrow’s going to be a short day because I doubt you’ll be in bed much before noon.’

Alison Miller wrapped her sensible brown tweedy dressing gown more tightly round her flannelette nightdress and glared angrily at the two detectives who had banged on her door at this unearthly hour. ‘This had better be extremely important,’ she said. ‘Do you know what time it is?’

   Frost glanced at his watch. ‘It’s three o’clock, mum,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Sorry to disturb your beauty sleep. I know how much you need it.’

   She gave him a hard stare, never knowing whether he was being deliberately rude or not. Frost’s innocent expression made her decide, reluctantly, to give him the benefit of the doubt. She glanced at the warrant, then at him. ‘What are you playing at? This is the same address as before.’

   ‘You’ve got a marvellous memory, mum,’ said Frost. She winced each time the wretched man called her ‘mum’.

   ‘Ma’am,’ she snapped icily.

   ‘Sorry, mum,’ said Frost. ‘Yes, the same address, but this time I’ve cast-iron information from a very reliable source that items belonging to the dead girl, Debbie Clark, are in the house.’

   ‘And might I know the name of this reliable source?’

   ‘I had to give him an assurance that his name wouldn’t be revealed and I know you wouldn’t want me to break my word. As soon as you sign this warrant, we’re going straight to the house and I am 200 percent certain that, thanks to your cooperation, we will find the evidence we are looking for to convict the poor girl’s killer.’

   She looked at the warrant again and shook her head. ‘I don’t like this, Inspector, I don’t like it one little bit.’

   ‘It does you credit, mum,’ said Frost, ‘that even though you don’t like it, you realise that catching the murderers of two schoolkids overrides any doubts you may have.’

   She pursed her lips, still reluctant to do anything to help someone who dragged her out of bed at three in the morning. But it was cold standing at the front door in her dressing gown and her warm bed was beckoning and she was too tired to argue. She took Frost’s offered Bic and scrawled her signature.

   She blinked and realised she was standing alone, empty-handed, without a word of thanks, hearing the sound of a car roaring off at speed. ‘Not even a thank-you,’ she sniffed as she made her way upstairs to bed.

The lights were still on in Kelly’s house. Frost sent Jordan and Simms round the back to block that escape route, then nodded for Morgan to hammer at the knocker and jam his finger on the doorbell. ‘Open up. Police,’ he bawled.

   Footsteps rang down the hall, a chain slipped on and the door opened a fraction. ‘What the hell is it this time?’

   Frost waved the warrant at the partially open door. ‘Open up, Kelly. I’ve got a warrant to search these premises.’

   ‘A warrant?’ The warrant was snatched through. ‘Wait a minute . . .’ The footsteps retreated up the hall.

   ‘He’s going to flush his drugs down the karzy,’ said Frost. ‘Smash the door in.’ He stepped back as Lambert swung the ram at the door. At the second blow the door crashed open and they charged in. Kelly was at the top of the stairs with an armful of polythene packets, hammering frantically at the bathroom door. ‘Open up, you silly cow. The cops are here!’ 

   From inside came the sound of retching.

   Frost strode up the stairs, his hand out stretched.

   ‘Are those packets for me, Patsy?’ he smirked, then nodded at the bathroom door as the sound of vomiting continued. ‘Morning sickness? Congratulations. Call him Jack after your favourite cop.’

   ‘You think you’re so bloody funny,’ snarled Kelly, peering down the stairs as the sound of crashing and banging came from below. ‘What are they looking for?’

   ‘Other illicit substances you might have overlooked, Patsy.’ Frost ripped open one of the packets. ‘And what have we here?’ He dabbed a finger into the powder and licked it. ‘I don’t think it’s sherbet. I do believe it’s coke.’ He turned to PC Lambert. ‘That’s against the law, isn’t it, Constable, or am I thinking of parking on a yellow line?’

   ‘I’ve never seen these packets before in my life,’ said Kelly, moving slightly to one side to block the airing-cupboard door.

   ‘I spy with my little eye an airing cupboard,’ said Frost, pushing him out of the way. ‘What have you got in there that you don’t want me to see?’ He shoved Kelly to one side and flung open the door. Then he did a double take and his heart sank. The box containing the phone - it wasn’t there! He knew where he had left it and it wasn’t there. There were two other boxes that hadn’t been there before. He pulled them out and lifted the lids. More packets of coke - Kelly’s visits to the Blue Parrot were clearly made to collect fresh supplies. Sod the drugs - what had Kelly done with the bloody phone? Had the bastard forestalled him? Had he moved it?

   A stack of folded tea towels had toppled over. Had it fallen on the box containing the phone when he hurriedly rammed it back earlier? It had to be that. It just had to be.

   Holding his breath, he lifted up the tea towels. He breathed again. The box was there! He pulled it out. ‘What’s in here then, Patsy?’

   Kelly gave it half a glance and shrugged. ‘No idea. Something you’ve planted, I expect.’ Frost shook his head in mock sadness. ‘Come now, Patsy. We only do things like that as a last resort.’ He riffled through the contents, leaving the phone until last. ‘Watches, credit cards, debit cards . . . all sorts of flaming cards, but none in your name. I wonder why that is? Flaming credit-card companies - they never seem to get your name right.’ He held one aloft. ‘This one’s made out to Susan Carter.

   ‘I’ve never seen them before in my life,’ repeated Kelly.

   ‘I must be a mind-reader,’ beamed Frost. ‘I knew you were going to say that.’

   He continued his rummage. ‘More watches . . . keys . . . and, hello - what’s this?’ He carefully lifted out the mobile phone.

   ‘It’s a mobile phone,’ said Kelly. ‘I don’t nick mobile phones.’

   ‘Someone else got the franchise?’ asked Frost. He held the phone aloft. ‘Now I wonder whose phone this is?’ He turned to Jordan, who had by now come in through the back door to join him. ‘Isn’t there some way a phone will tell you its own number so we can check the owner’s name with the phone company, because Mr Kelly says it isn’t his?’

   ‘Yes,’ nodded Jordan. ‘I’ve got one exactly like that.’ He carefully took the phone from Frost and turned it on. He frowned, switched it off and on again, then shook his head. ‘Battery’s dead.’

   ‘Where’s the charger?’ Frost asked Kelly.

   ‘You should have brought the flaming charger along when you planted the phone,’ he answered.

   ‘I always forget little things like that,’ grinned Frost. ‘There’s one back at the nick. We’ll finishing searching your gaff, then we’ll nip down to the station.’

   The toilet flushed, the bathroom door opened and a sweaty, green-faced Bridget Malone staggered out. She was dark-haired and plump, in her mid-forties. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘I knew that lobster was off,’ she snarled at Kelly. She focused blurry eyes on Frost and his team. ‘What are the flaming police doing here?’

   Frost held up the mobile phone. ‘Ever seen this before, Bridget?’ She stared, then shook her head, not looking at him. ‘No.’

  
Guilty as arseholes
, thought Frost. ‘We’re going to continue this little tête-a-tête down the station. Get your coats.’

   ‘I’ll go in a separate car to her,’ said Kelly. ‘She spews up every five minutes. My car’s swimming in it.’

   ‘Good point,’ nodded Frost. ‘Taffy - take her in your car.’

Frost stirred his mug of tea with his Bic pen, sucked the sugar from the cap and sighed. ‘All this sodding hanging about.’

   ‘Kelly won’t talk to you until his brief arrives, Jack, you know that,’ said Sergeant Wells.

   ‘Give me back the good old days,’ said Frost. ‘If your suspect wouldn’t talk you kneed him in the groin, wrote his statement yourself and forged his signature.’ He sighed deeply. ‘The golden days.’ He looked up at the clock. Four thirty ‘How’s Jordan getting on with that flaming phone?’

   ‘Still looking for a battery-charger, Jack. Our one is the wrong sort.’ He drained his mug and lowered his voice. ‘Are you sure it’s the girl’s phone?’

   ‘Of course I’m bleeding sure,’ answered Frost. ‘I checked it before I got the flaming warrant.’

   Wells looked alarmed and moved hurriedly to close the open door. ‘For Pete’s sake, Jack, I don’t want to know.’

   Frost sank into a chair. ‘I wish he’d hurry up with that charger. Even when Kelly’s brief Slippery Sam arrives, without confirmation that it’s Debbie’s phone I can only question him on the drugs and the piddling jewellery and credit cards, nothing else - and that other kid, Jan O’Brien, might still be alive.’

   He shook a cigarette from the packet and offered one to Wells, who shook his head. Frost lit up and moved over to the window, staring down to see if the solicitor’s car had arrived. ‘Bloody nine-to-five solicitors,’ he muttered.

   There was a tap at the door and Jordan looked in. ‘I found a charger, Inspector, and it is Debbie Clark’s phone.’

   ‘I’d be flaming surprised if it wasn’t,’ said Frost, ‘but well done, son.’

   ‘And even better news, Inspector. The last call she received was from Kelly’s phone!’

   Frost punched the air with delight ‘Then we’ve got the sod!’ He peered out into the car park again. ‘Where’s that flaming brief?’ He turned to Jordan. ‘And how’s Molly Malone?’

   ‘Still throwing up,’ said Jordan. ‘I don’t know where it’s all coming from. She wanted us to send for a Harley Street specialist, but she’s got the duty quack.’

   ‘We’ve got to talk to her,’ said Frost. ‘She’ll be the one who made the phone call to Sandy Lane about the video tape.’

   Car doors slammed in the car park. Frost turned back to the window. ‘Slippery Sam’s here. Look at the bleeding posh car he’s got.’ He swilled down the dregs of his tea and cuffed his mouth dry. ‘Right, let’s get cracking . . .’ He stopped dead and smacked a palm on his forehead. ‘Shit! That last call on the flaming phone - that was me checking if it was Debbie’s mobile!’ He spun round to Jordan. ‘Is there any way we can erase it?’