Frost cleared his throat. ‘I can see you. I’m a police officer
… Let’s have a bit of light, please.’
The tiled walls flung his words back. All he could hear was the hammering of his heart.
‘Don’t sod me about, Mr Lewis. I know it’s you. Let’s get out into the open and talk about this.’
Nothing… unless… Breathing – he thought he could hear breathing…
He held his breath until his lungs ached and listened, ears straining to detect the slightest sound… Nothing. There was no one there. His bleeding imagination was playing tricks again.
He expelled his breath in a sigh of relief and gulped down a lungful of fetid air. Frost slid his sweaty hand along the tiles, still seeking the elusive door that would let him out of this stinking hell hole and into the fresh air.
Then the blinding beam of a torch hit him in the face.
He couldn’t move. The shock made him freeze. He tried to say something. The words wouldn’t come.
A voice broke the silence. ‘What are you doing here?’
Frost screwed his eyes up against the blinding glare. Through half-closed eyes, with torchlight bouncing off the wall, he could just about make out the figure of Lewis. And his worst fear was realised – the bastard had a knife in his other hand.
‘We had a report someone was trying to break in, Mr Lewis. They sent me to check it out.’ He tried to sound convincing.
The torchbeam shifted from his face over to the heap of carrion in the corner. It lit up the severed hand before flashing back to Frost’s face.
‘She killed my son,’ said Lewis sadly. ‘You’ve seen too much.’
‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ said Frost. ‘I’ve already phoned for back-up. They’re on their way now.’
‘Liar!’ said Lewis. ‘You haven’t used your phone since you’ve been in here.’ Then he choked back a sob. ‘Lies! Everyone lies to me. The hospital told me lies. My little boy never told lies.’ Then he lunged at Frost with the knife. Frost side-stepped to avoid the blow, but felt his feet shoot from under him again and crashed to the floor. The impetus of the missed knife blow made Lewis plunge forward and lose his balance. As he thudded to the slippery tiled floor, his arm jerked up, sending his torch soaring in the air, to comet-tail down before hitting the floor. A tinkle of broken glass and the room was in complete darkness again.
Frost rolled desperately away from Lewis, who was struggling to get back on his feet and making chilling moaning noises.
As Frost rolled, his hand felt a gap… a space. Thank God! He’d found the bloody doorway. But as he staggered unsteadily to his feet, Lewis was at him again. The knife whistled past Frost’s head, just nicking his ear – warm blood trickled down his ice-cold cheek. Scrabbling frantically, Frost located the door handle, but his blood-slippery hand couldn’t get a grip. He snatched at his mac and wrapped that round the handle. It turned, but the door wouldn’t budge. He charged it again and again with his shoulder. The pain was excruciating, but the door stayed firmly shut.
Sounds indicated that Lewis had regained his footing. Although Frost couldn’t see him, he could hear the rasp of his breath. He hurled himself in the general direction, managing to hit Lewis in the chest and sending them both down to the floor again. They rolled, one on top of the other, Frost grunting with pain as their combined weights pressed on his injured wrist. He tried to grab the arm holding the knife, but again couldn’t get a grip and Lewis easily managed to wrench his hand free. Frost was just able to roll to one side as the knife again cut through the darkness, this time slashing his cheek. Blood poured into his mouth. With a heave, he managed to send Lewis crashing back, giving himself time to stagger to his feet. He remembered where the door was, even after all the rolling about, threw himself towards it and again wrestled with the handle. It still wouldn’t budge. He shook his head and tried to think. Of course, you flaming fool! It opens inwards. The bloody door opens inwards. He pulled and sighed with relief. It opened easily.
He charged through the gap as Lewis made one final lunge. Frost slammed the door shut behind him. He heard a sickening scrunching sound, a scream of agony and a clatter as knife dropped to the floor.
‘My hand – you’re crushing my hand!’ shrieked Lewis.
Frost opened the door and dragged Lewis out, kicking the knife well out of his reach. He winced as the pain from his injured wrist intensified.
In the early-morning light he could see that the butcher’s hand was a mangled mess. ‘As if we haven’t got enough bleeding blood,’ he muttered, fishing a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and locking Lewis’s good wrist to his own good wrist. A couple of bleeding walking wounded, he thought. Everything hurt – his head, his back, his wrist – and blood was trickling down his face and neck from his slashed ear and cheek. He was totally exhausted. He didn’t think he could make the journey across to his car without a rest. He slid down to the pavement and leant back against the shop front, sucking in lungfuls of clean air. The butcher was now sobbing softly.
‘Is that how that nurse screamed when you cut her up?’ asked Frost.
Lewis stopped sobbing. ‘She killed my little boy,’ he said, as if that explained everything.
‘Let’s get you to the car,’ said Frost, pushing himself to his feet and bending as he tried to drag Lewis up. Suddenly, catching Frost off balance, Lewis plunged back into the shop, dragging Frost with him, and made a desperate lunge for the knife on the floor, almost toppling Frost as he grabbed it. One hand handcuffed, the other out of action, Frost swung out his foot, catching Lewis on the side of his head. Lewis went limp and the knife clattered to the ground. The butcher was out cold.
Totally drained, Frost slithered down beside the unmoving Lewis and rummaged in his pocket for a cigarette. Then he remembered that his lighter was buried amongst the offal. Sod it. His matches were in the car, so was his radio. He lifted one of Lewis’s eyelids and just saw the whites of his eyes. The man was definitely unconscious. He unlocked the handcuffs, made it to the car and radioed for back-up.
The little Asian pharmacist in the twenty-four-hour chemist’s was anxious to get Frost – and the smell of him – out of his shop as quickly as possible. ‘Your wrist is not broken, only badly sprained,’ he said, strapping it up tightly and selling Frost some extra-strong painkillers. ‘Should be prescription only, but for you, Inspector Frost, I make an exception. Do not take more than six in any twenty-four hours.’
The pharmacist cleaned the cut on Frost’s face with something that stung like mad; then slapped a sticking plaster on it. He held open the shop door and ushered Frost out, before hastily snatching an air-freshener from a shelf and spraying it liberally around.
The tablets, extra flaming strong or not, didn’t seem to be having much effect on the pain, neither did a shower and change of clothes have much effect on the aroma. The smell of death clung tenaciously.
Frost got back in the car and drove to the butcher’s to see how things were going. It was bloody painful driving, but it would be just as painful sitting behind his desk.
He parked behind the generating van that was pumping electricity to light up the inside of the butcher’s so that Harding and his forensic team, plus SOCO, could see what they were doing and what it was they were smelling.
He’d had more than enough of the inside of the place so he stayed in the car and smoked, gritting his teeth against the throbbing agony of his sprained wrist. Bloody hell – it wouldn’t have hurt as much as this if it had been broken.
After the second cigarette, Harding, the head of Forensic, staggered out, tearing the white filter mask from his face before being violently sick in the gutter.