Free Morning Frost by Henry James Page B

more intense at his temples, like a tiny blade stabbing behind his eyes …
    ‘William?’ Mary’s voice called up softly from the darkness beneath him. ‘William, I need you. Help me …’ Slowly her pale features came into view, her lips no longer the crimson shade she always used to wear but a green-grey hue. He felt perspiration creep down his neck.
    ‘Come on, Frost, do something right for once in your life!’ shouted Mullett from the other side of the grave. The superintendent, whose complexion was even more of an angry puce than usual, was flanked by Frost’s old boss, DI Williams, now deceased, and DC Simms. Both stood expressionless, their faces ashen white.
    ‘William?’ Mary called gently, a touch of seduction in her voice. ‘Come here, you know you want to …’
    Frost frantically trod backwards, but the soles of his shoes could find no purchase on the wet, slippery turf. Before his eyes, Mary was ascending weightlessly from the grave, calling softly, like a siren from mythology. She reached the point where she was close enough to touch; he stretched out his hand, and as he did so her features abruptly changed; the gentle, pleading countenance gave way to a malevolent smile revealing blackened teeth. Panic swept through him, he could feel himself crying, No! No!
    ‘Flamin’ heck!’
    Frost cursed as he propped himself up on the cold, concrete patio, a metal swing-seat bashing him on the shoulder. It took a moment to register where he was, as it was pitch black, but it suddenly dawned on him that he was in his in-laws’ gazebo. He pulled himself back up on to the rocking garden seat and used the Ronson to illuminate his watch: 3.45 a.m. ‘Cheese and Scotch. Fatal mix,’ he muttered, shaking his head. He was shivering, although fortunately heavy cloud cover had smothered the worst of the chill. He pulled the hip flask from inside his overcoat and took a deep pull.
    ‘Ah, that’s better,’ he said to himself and patted his pockets for cigarettes, but couldn’t find any. He rose unsteadily from the swing chair, a crick in his neck making him wince, and made his way slowly to the ghost-white oblong he knew to be the Simpsons’ back door. To his surprise, it was unlocked. He tutted but at the same time couldn’t believe his luck, thinking how nice it would be to get a couple of hours’ kip on the settee before attempting to drive home.
    Simms glared at the obstinate PC, who folded his notebook nonchalantly and tucked it inside his uniform. Two ambulance-men stretchered the dead boy to the rear of their vehicle and disappeared into it, leaving his bicycle lying innocently at the roadside. Twenty yards away, the motorist who had discovered the lad hovered uncertainly beside his turquoise Marina, while the uniform’s partner manned one end of the roadblock. It was close to 8 a.m. Simms had been awake for barely half an hour; he had not been happy to be roused at seven thirty by Control.
    Maltby got up from the pavement, brushing his hands on his cords with an air of finality. He made his way across to Simms and the PC.
    ‘It’s difficult to say,’ was his disappointing response to their questioning looks. He pulled out a handkerchief the size of a tea towel.
    Simms sighed loudly. ‘Really?’ he huffed. ‘Because I could’ve sworn it looked just like a road accident.’
    ‘I’m playing it by the book,’ the PC countered, ‘and the book now says, “sudden deaths” require a CID officer present.’
    ‘Balls, not when it’s this bleedin’ obvious,’ Simms snapped.
    ‘But you can’t assume the obvious,’ rejoined the constable. ‘As a detective you must keep an open mind.’ Was the cheeky bastard smirking?
    The recent decree from on high was vague, but following the case in Essex where a raft of murders had been discovered to have been wrongly pronounced suicides by uniformed officers on arrival at the scene, the rules of attendance had changed. As usual, they’d changed in a way