A Killing Frost Part 26

The man didn't look anything like a typical butcher should. Far from being a fat, jolly, rosy cheeked man in a striped ap.r.o.n and straw hat, he was thin and pale and in his late forties. Sitting hunched up at the table, he leapt to his feet when Frost and Wells came in.

Frost waved him down. 'Please sit down, Mr . . .?' He glanced at the report sheet Wells had filled in, which told him the man was Albert Lewis of 23 Victoria Street, Denton. 'Sit down, Mr Lewis.' Frost stared at the man, who looked vaguely familiar. He riffled through the disorganised filing cabinet of his memory, but details eluded him. 'Have we met before, Mr Lewis?'

Lewis shook his head. 'I don't think so.'

You're lying, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, thought Frost. He excused himself and went out to the main desk where PC Collier was standing in for Wells. 'Check the computer, son. See if you can get anything on a Mr Albert Lewis, 23 Victoria Street, Denton. I'm in Interview Room Number One.'

Back with Lewis, he shook a cigarette from the packet and stuck it in his mouth.

'Please don't smoke,' said Lewis. 'It's a filthy habit. It spreads germs. Germs kill.'

Frost groaned inwardly. This was going to be a bundle of laughs. You'd better have murdered your wife, mate You'd better have murdered your wife, mate, he said to himself. I hope I'm not sitting here f.a.gless for one of those nutters who like to confess to all manner of crimes to get a bit of attention. I hope I'm not sitting here f.a.gless for one of those nutters who like to confess to all manner of crimes to get a bit of attention. Lewis looked as if he lacked attention. Lewis looked as if he lacked attention.

He stuck the cigarette back in its packet. 'I understand you're a butcher, Mr Lewis?'

'I was. Not now.'

'Oh?'

'For over twenty years I had a small shop in Ruckley Street. Quality meat. Good prices. People came from miles around. Then theb.l.o.o.d.y supermarkets started undercutting. I lost all my customers. I could barely sc.r.a.pe a living . . . couldn't pay the rent. I was evicted.'

'Sorry to hear that,' sympathised Frost. 'When was this?'

'Six - nine months ago. I didn't come here to talk about my shop.'

'Of course not. My sergeant tells me you've murdered your wife?'

'Yes,' said Lewis flatly, as if it was of minor interest.

Frost waited for details, but none came. 'And cut her up in little pieces?'

'Yes.'

'And when did this happen?'

Lewis wiped a hand over his face. 'I don't know - a week ago? I can't remember.'

'Not the sort of everyday incident that usually slips the mind,' suggested Frost, casting a despairing glance at Wells.

'We quarrelled. I lost my temper. I killed her.'

'What was the quarrel about?'

'I can't remember.'

There was a tap at the door and PC Collier came in with a computer printout. Frost skimmed through it and nodded his thanks. He turned back to Lewis. 'A quarrel so serious you killed her, but you don't remember it?'

Lewis stared blankly at the inspector. 'That's right.'

Frost yawned. This was all a bleeding waste of time; he was dying for a cigarette and the chance to get his head down. 'But you definitely remember killing her? Can you give me the odd detail?'

Lewis stared into s.p.a.ce for a while before replying. 'Something snapped. We were in the kitchen. There was a rolling pin. I must have hit her and hit her. I don't remember doing it. There was screaming and suddenly there was silence and she was on the floor and there was blood all over her and blood on the rolling pin and blood on me. I couldn't believe I'd killed her.'

'You were sure she was dead?'

Lewis nodded slowly. 'Oh yes. Her skull was smashed. There was blood and brains . . .'

'Then what?'

'I dragged her body to the bathroom and managed to get her into the bath.'

'Why did you do that?'

Lewis screwed up his face as if in pain and shook his head to ease the memory. 'I had to dispose of the body. I had to cut her up.'

'You cut her up?' echoed Frost.

'I managed to undress her, then I got some sharp knives and a bone-saw. I used to be a butcher. I still had my tools. I sawed off her arms, then her legs . . . then her head.' Again he shuddered and winced at the memory. 'I can still hear the sound of the saw going through her bones.'

Frost winced too. It dragged back the memory of the post-mortem on the two kids. 'Right. So you cut her up into bite-sized chunks. Then what?'

'I turned on the bath taps to flush away theblood. I put her remains in two plastic dustbin sacks and I disposed of them.'

'Where?'

Lewis dropped his head. 'I don't remember.'

Frost yawned again. 'I wonder how I guessed you were going to say that.'

'I said it because I don't remember,' retorted Lewis.

'You don't remember, Mr Lewis, because it never b.l.o.o.d.y well happened, did it? You're making all this up, aren't you?'

Lewis blinked rapidly in astonishment. 'What are you talking about? I'm telling you, I killed my wife.'

'The only crime you've committed is wasting police time,' Frost told him. He waved the computer printout. 'I thought I remembered you. Last year you came in here and said you'd murdered your wife. You said you'd strangled her with the flex from the electric iron.'

'And you didn't believe me.'

'I believed you - right until we went round to your house and your wife opened the door to us. Even someone as thick as me could work out that she wasn't dead then.'

'I was on medication then. I had depression after losing my business. I didn't know what I was doing. It's all different now. I really I killed her. I'll show you.' He plunged his hands under the table and brought up a plastic shopping bag. s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t, thought Frost, recoiling. I hope the sod hasn't brought her bleeding head to show us I hope the sod hasn't brought her bleeding head to show us.

Lewis upturned the bag and shook it. A large meat cleaver thudded on to the table. 'That's what I used.'

Frost picked it up and ran his thumb along the cutting edge. It was razor sharp - definitely sharp enough to sever a head from a body. He moved it well away from Lewis. 'I can't see any blood on it.'

'I washed everything in the dishwasher, even the bone-saw'

'Tell you what,' smiled Frost. 'Why don't we all go back to your house and take a look around. If your wife is there she can make us all a nice cup of tea.'

Lewis's house was a one-bedroomed bungalow down a quiet side street. Morgan parked the car outside and they pushed open the iron gate and scrunched up the gravel path to the front door. Lewis fumbled in his pocket and brought out a bunch of keys. He opened the front door, then stepped back.

'I don't want to go in,' he said.

'Sorry,' said Frost, gripping him by the arm and pus.h.i.+ng him inside. 'I'm afraid I must insist.'

They stepped into a small hallway with a phone on a side table against the wall. Frost s.h.i.+vered. There was a distinctly, hostile, unwelcoming atmosphere to the place. Everything was clean and cold to the point of sterility and reeked of furniture polish and pine disinfectant 'Mrs Lewis,' he called. 'Are you there?'

No answer. The house screamed emptiness.

'She can't answer you,' said Lewis. 'She's dead.'

A door to the right took them into the lounge, a prim and proper room with an uncomfortable-looking brown three-piece suite, and a long-unused coal fireplace with a gleaming bra.s.s fender and a beige, marble-tiled surround. At the side of the fireplace stood an old sixteen-inch television set. Frost imagined Lewis and his wife sitting stiffly side by side, frowning disapprovingly at the images on the tiny TV.

There was a photograph on the mantelpiece: A small boy sat grinning in a toy pedal car. Standing beside the boy, looking down proudly, was a younger version of Lewis, every inch the happy father, Frost picked up the photograph to examine it more closely. 'Your son, Mr Lewis?'

Lewis s.n.a.t.c.hed it from Frost and clutched it tightly to his chest. 'Matthew,' he whispered. 'Little Matthew. He died . . . five years old . . . meningitis.'

'I'm sorry,' mumbled Frost, completely wrong-footed.

'Are you?' asked Lewis tonelessly, taking a long look at the photo before wiping Frost's fingerprints from the gla.s.s with a spotlessly clean handkerchief and carefully replacing it in the exact spot from where Frost had removed it. 'Please don't touch any photographs. Especially those of my son.'

'Where's the kitchen?' asked Frost.

Without a word, Lewis steered them through another door, which led to the dining room with its dark oak table, two chairs and sideboard. A door from this room took them into a small kitchen with an imitation-pine laminated floor, gleaming grey plastic worktops and a strong smell of bleach. Frost thought of Sadie's kitchen with its sinkful of dirty dishes and soiled was.h.i.+ng everywhere - but even hers was more welcoming than this sterile cubicle.

'So this is where it all happened?' asked Frost.

'Yes,' said Lewis, wiping an offending speck of dirt off the worktop with his handkerchief. 'Germs get everywhere,' he muttered. 'They breed.'

'Dirty little sods,' said Frost. 'But back to your wife . . .'

'She was standing here when I hit her. She fell to the floor there.' He pointed.

'I see,' said Frost, who was dying for a cigarette, but knew there was no chance of having one in this operating theatre of a kitchen. 'So where is the bathroom?'

Lewis opened a door to the pa.s.sage. A door to the left opened on to a small bathroom, tiled from floor to ceiling with blue and white tiles, reminding Frost appropriately, of a butcher's shop. The white bath glimmered, the plughole gleamed, as did the taps.

'What did you do with her clothes?'

'I burnt them.'

'You must have got blood all over yourself and your own clothes?'

'Yes. I had to burn my clothes as well, then I bathed and bathed and scrubbed and bathed.'

Frost scratched his chin. 'Right. Now we come to the crunch. What did you do with all the bits?'

'I took them to the car. It was night. No one could see me. I drove around and threw them away.'

'Where?'

Lewis shook his head 'I don't remember. I keep trying to remember. That night was just like a bad dream.'

'Where's your bedroom?' Frost asked. 'If your wife is fast asleep in there your bad dream could have a happy ending.'

Lewis pointed. 'First door on the left.' He leant over and turned on the cold tap, watching the water splash and gurgle down the plughole. Frost pulled his hand away and turned the tap off. 'Just in case you're telling us the truth, Mr Lewis, don't touch anything!'

There were two single beds in the bedroom, their sheets crisp and blindingly white like those in a hospital ward. Folded candy-striped pyjamas lay on the pillow of one, nothing on the other. Frost opened the wardrobe door: men's clothes on one side, women's on the other, all strictly segregated. Frost closed the door. What was he expecting to find - the wife's body swinging from a coat-hanger?

'What do you reckon, Guv?' asked Morgan.

'I don't know,' said Frost. 'This whole place is so bleeding clean it gives me the creeps. You feel you want to break wind just to give the place a homely atmosphere.'

They returned to the bathroom, where Lewis had just finished blotting offending drops of cold water from the bath. 'I've just remembered something, Inspector. I think I buried the head in Denton Woods. I might be able to recognise the spot if you drove me there.'

'It's far too late for those larks, and it's peeing with rain,' Frost told him. 'We'll have a look tomorrow when we're all a bit more alert.'

'What's going to happen to me?' asked Lewis plaintively. 'I'm not staying here.'

'We'll find you a nice warm cell for tonight,' said Frost, 'then give your place a thorough going-over in the morning.'

'Find the gentleman a cell,' called Frost to Wells. 'Suspicion of murder.'

'I've only got one vacancy,' said Wells, leading them to the cells. 'Bookings have been heavy tonight.' He opened the door to a small cell with a bunk bed.

'Here you are, Mr Lewis,' said Frost. 'No single supplement. If you want anything, just yell and my sergeant here will tell you to shut up.'

Lewis looked around him with distaste. 'Could I have a mop, a bucket of hot water and some disinfectant, please? This place is full of germs.'

'Our germs won't hurt you,' said Wells.

Lewis looked pityingly at the sergeant, who obviously didn't understand. 'Germs kill. They killed my son . . . my five-year-old son.'

'Give them to him,' said Frost.