Read First Frost for Free Online Page B

law.’
    ‘Forget it. He probably didn’t realize he’d hit us,’ said Frost. ‘These things happen. Mary’s always scraping our car.’
    ‘And you’re not?’ said Hanlon, opening his door.
    For someone so fat Arthur Hanlon could, on occasion, take Frost by surprise and move very quickly. The detective constable was out of the car and steaming up the overgrown garden path before Frost had got to his feet. ‘Hang on,’ Frost shouted after him, slamming the car door.
    ‘Nobody in,’ Hanlon wheezed as Frost caught up by the front door. Hanlon pressed the bell again and began rattling the door handle. ‘Locked, too, not surprisingly.’
    ‘Patience, Arthur. Give her a chance.’
    Hanlon stepped back from the door and craned to his left and right, clearly working out the best way round the back.
    More breaking and entering, thought Frost, just as he detected movement inside. ‘Hold on, Arthur.’ Frost could see that a large woman was slowly approaching the front door. ‘Take your time, love,’ he muttered.
    ‘At last,’ she said, opening up. ‘You took your bloody time. Get better service in Sainsbury’s.’ She was youngish but very dishevelled, wearing baggy clothes in drab colours and no make-up. Strands of lank hair were stuck to her round, sweaty face. She had wire-framed glasses, the lenses badly smudged.
    ‘Why didn’t you trouble them, then?’ said Frost, thinking if she lost some weight and tarted herself up a bit she could almost have been attractive. Perhaps she once was. ‘Could have stocked up on Frosties at the same time.’ Frost exhaled. The hallway, or perhaps it was the woman, smelt of stale sweat and urine. ‘And toiletries.’
    Hanlon gave Frost a hard look. ‘I’m Detective Constable Arthur Hanlon, and this is Detective Sergeant Jack Frost, of Denton CID,’ he said, pushing forwards. ‘Mrs Fraser?’
    ‘ Miss Fraser. Liz Fraser.’
    ‘Sorry,’ said Hanlon. ‘Liz Fraser. We understand your child’s been’ – he coughed – ‘attacked.’
    ‘By a hairy beast,’ Frost added under his breath, wondering whether he should just alert Social Services and save himself wasting the next twenty minutes.
    ‘You better come in,’ Liz Fraser said. ‘Becky’s calmed down a lot. But she has some nasty scratches.’
    ‘Scratches? No bite marks? No severed limbs?’ Frost quipped before he and Hanlon were led through to the back of the house. There was a bright sitting room with large French doors, closed, leading on to a patio. Outside Frost could see a sand pit full of children’s toys, and a revolving washing line. The yard was contained by a five-foot-high wooden fence. Beyond were the tall, dark trees of Denton Woods.
    The sitting room appeared to have been hastily tidied, but it was dirty. Toys, clothes and piles of paper were in heaps in the corners, while the laminate floor was coated in grime. Sitting in the middle, chewing on a dummy, was a little fair-haired girl, two or so years old, in a dirty pink top, and red trousers. She looked happy enough, though there was an ugly bruise on her left cheek, and a bandage on her right wrist. She appeared also to have a faint bruise on her forehead. But there was no sign of anything that looked like a bite or a scratch.
    ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ Frost said, bending towards her. The toddler look startled and began to whimper. Frost pulled back. ‘Nasty bruise, all right,’ he said, addressing the mother. ‘Shouldn’t you have taken her to the doctor?’
    ‘Try finding one on a Sunday.’
    ‘The hospital? Could have got an ambulance out.’
    ‘It wasn’t that serious; I used to be a nurse,’ Liz Fraser said. ‘And I have a first-aid kit on the premises. For my job … I’m a childminder.’
    Frost studied the place with renewed interest, taking in the quantity of kiddies’ playthings, inside and out. It made sense.
    ‘Why the great emergency?’ said Hanlon. ‘Why haul us all the way out here?’
    ‘My little girl was