DI Jack Frost 01 - Frost At Christmas

lap. "They might as well have their fish." A newspaper parcel of fish heads was tipped into a saucepan and the ritual of boiling began.
    "Children come here and torment me. They throw stones . . . break windows . . . call me a witch." She screwed up the fishy sheet of newspaper and dropped it into a battered enamel bucket. "Last Sunday that child came - Tracey Uphill. She kept banging on my door. When I opened it, she would run off, calling me filthy names. Where do children learn such language?" The water boiled over and she lowered the gas. "I find it best to ignore them so they get fed up and go away, but this one kept on and on. Then she started throwing stones. My kitten was outside. My lovely white kitten."
    "The one we dug up in the garden?" asked Frost.
    Martha nodded. "She hit it with a stone. Broke it's back. It screamed with pain. I had to put it out of its agony. The child turned to run, but fell. I was so angry, I grabbed her throat. I shook her." She clenched the fingers of her strong hands, then thrust them out of sight under her apron. "I shook her and shook her . . . And then she was dead."
    The fish heads rattled in the saucepan. Clive's pen raced across his notebook.
    "When I realized what I had done, I was horrified . . . and frightened. I had to hide the body. At first I was going to bury her with the kitten, but it seemed so obvious. Then I thought of Dead Man's Hollow. No one ever goes there. I took my spade and dug in the dark. It was like some macabre joke. The very spot I had chosen . . . something was already there. Human remains!" She paused and shuddered.
    "You'd uncovered the arm of the skeleton?" asked Frost.
    "Yes. I think I screamed. Then I pulled myself together, covered it up again, and returned to my cottage."
    "So that's how 'the spirits' knew what was buried there?"
    "Yes. When you first called, the child's body was still in the cottage. I had to put you off the scent."
    "You didn't put me off the scent, Miss Wendle, you confused me - which isn't very difficult, I'm afraid. But Tracey wasn't here when we searched your cottage this afternoon."
    "You were too late. I'd already hidden her in the vicarage. I'd just driven back from there."
    "Too late! The story of my life," said Frost. "Why did you choose the vicarage?"
    "I'd been there many times before with my spiritualist meetings. I knew there were lots of old rooms no one ever went into. I'd booked the hall for another meeting and had to go there today to make final arrangements. I took the child's body in my car. No one saw me. I carried her up the stairs into a darkened room. There was an old trunk covered with a sheet. It seemed ideal. There was a padlock, but it just fell off. I opened it. Inside were a lot of old books. I took them out and put the child inside. I didn't think anyone would find her."
    She turned the gas off under the saucepan and emptied the contents onto several plates. The floor was alive with cats, purring in anticipation . . . the cats whose fur had betrayed her.

    Frost emerged from Mullett's office smoking an enormous red and gold banded cigar which a delighted Divisional Commander had pressed on him from his special V.I.P. box. It forced Frost's lips apart and weighted his head down. Bloody Mullett had been bubbling over with joy as if they had found the girl alive and well . . . but his elation was really due to the fact that the girl had been proved to be dead before the police were called in and no possible blame could be attached to Denton Division for its handling of the search. He was overjoyed that Frost had obtained a signed statement from the Wendle woman, tidying up all loose ends, but even this might have kept his cigars firmly in their box were it not for the telephoned message of praise received from the Chief Constable.
    And so, with the token of his commander's esteem reeking in his mouth, Frost tramped the stone corridor back to his office. He felt deflated and tired, what with Mullett babbling away like a bloody girl and the kid cold and dead in the trunk. He'd carried the news himself to the mother, who didn't break down. She'd shed all the tears she could cry. Thanking him in a flat, lifeless voice, she had poured herself a large drink and shrunk down very small into a chair. Frost sat with her for ten minutes, but she acted as if he wasn't there, so he took his leave. And Mullett had given him a cigar.
    The door of search control was ajar. He peeked in at a room empty and silent