Fatal Frost by Henry James Page B

sweat. Christ, it was only May, what would he be like in July? Frost offered Simms a Rothmans, which he declined. ‘Yes, my hunch is it’s very unlikely these two knew our poor Samantha Ellis, a mere Denton Comp girl.’
    ‘Shall I go back?’ Simms said. ‘To Two Bridges, I mean.’
    Frost took a seat in Bert Williams’s old, moth-eaten chair. ‘If you think you have the correct addresses, give St Mary’s a call. That will soon answer that.’
    ‘Right you are.’
    ‘I know the headmistress,’ Frost mused, a twinkle in his eye. ‘She’s got a soft spot for me. If it turns out our girls do go there, I’ll follow it up later.’
    Smug bastard, Simms thought. The woman must be blind, and not the only one, either. What on earth did they see in him?
    ‘DS Waters is in with Hornrim Harry, being given an induction. Let me know when he’s finished his talking-to. Decent bloke, that Waters.’
    ‘Yeah, he’s all right for a …’ Simms checked himself, not knowing where Frost stood with the coloureds.
    ‘For a
what
?’ Frost said. ‘A black bloke? All the same to me, whatever the colour.’
    The subject prompted Simms to remember something that he’d previously given little thought to. ‘My kid brother, David, is at Hendon. He says there’s a couple black fellers in training there. Apparently they get a hell of a time. They tied this one chap up and gave him a right pasting.’
    ‘Well, if anything like that goes on here, I want to know about it, you hear?’
    Simms nodded.
    ‘Oh, I nearly forgot – any joy from British Rail on the lost-property front?’
    ‘Yes, they found a girl’s sequinned bag at the depot,’ Simms said hastily, pulling out his note pad. ‘Smoking carriage at the front.’
    ‘Anything in it?’
    ‘A paperback book, ten Silk Cut, a pair of sunglasses, a sunhat and a Sony Walkman.’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘A portable cassette player – you know, with headphones.’ From Frost’s expression it was obvious that he didn’t. ‘Like those Dictaphones they dished out last month, but for listening to music.’
    Frost rubbed his damp brow and lit another cigarette. This time Simms took one.
    ‘So, let’s assume the bag’s hers. Fingerprints on the Walkman and so on will confirm that. Was all the stuff – the book and cassette recorder – inside the bag when it was found by the cleaner?’
    Simms nodded; he hadn’t heard any different.
    ‘You’re sure?’
    ‘Yeah, why?’
    ‘If you’re travelling alone, you’d be reading maybe, or your Walkman would be out. So, if those items had been found outside the bag, we could deduce she’d been taken by surprise. But they weren’t.’
    ‘In that case,’ said Simms, ‘it seems more likely she jumped.’
    ‘Unless, of course, someone put them back in the bag to give that impression—’
    ‘Not disturbing anything, am I?’ DS Waters appeared in the doorway.
    ‘Come in, John,’ Frost said amiably. Simms moved his seat across to allow the man into the cramped office.
    ‘Jack, Superintendent Mullett would like a word.’
    ‘If only it was simply one word it wouldn’t be so bad, but it never is.’ Just then the phone rang. ‘Saved by the bell.’ Frost rooted around his untidy desk, finally pulling at the cord to coax out the beige handset. ‘Yeah, all right.’ He covered the mouthpiece, mouthing the name ‘Baskin’. ‘All right. No, I won’t. All right. Course. Ta.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘It seems Mark Fong failed to turn up for his shift at the Pink Toothbrush.’
    Frost was addressing Waters; Simms was out of the loop.
    ‘Who?’ Simms asked.
    ‘Chinese kid. We think he was on Samantha Ellis’s train on Saturday night. He’s living at the Jade Rabbit but he works on the side for Baskin, doing odds and sods at his new place.’
    ‘What, the one Mullett was banging on about, the massage parlour? Where Sue got jabbed?’ Simms asked.
    ‘That’s the one. DS Waters and I bumped into Mark Fong outside his