The Brothers Frost

By G.J Saunders

James Ashby had faced the unimaginable in his army career but until that autumn day he had never been pushed so hard. Jodi had grounded him, taught him the meaning of love. Now she was dead, murdered by the most evil man in London. James had to call on all his lethal skills to bring her justice. A compelling mystery; a love story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G.J. Saunders
• Release date: Apr 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393693338

Book preview

The Brothers Frost

Chapter 1

We never know what is in store for us when we share a morning kiss with our lover and set out to face our day.

Some days are a joy.

Some days attack us with the savagery of a pack of starving wolves leaving us mauled and shredded to the core.

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~o~

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I dropped Jodi and her sister Anne off on my way to pick up Tom Grayling. Tom needed to be chauffeured to a civic event at which he, by virtue of his corporate success, had been invited to speak. He needed a chauffeur to support his public image with a dignified arrival. That chauffeur was me.

Jodi was trying to disappear unrecognised into the throng of Oxford Street for a shopping expedition. She was using Anne, a person nobody would recognize, as a form of camouflage and clung to her arm.

Don't worry about the phone call. I said. Just enjoy yourself, nobody is out to kill you, trust me.

Jodi gave a nervous smile and then nodded; she did trust me, without question.

OK James, I'm sure you're right... You'll pick us up at 2:30?

Yes I will. If there's a problem I'll call you.

They slipped out of the Mercedes limousine into the dusty London streets and lazy heat of a late summer morning. Jodi turned and blew me a kiss before disappearing behind the flash of her dark sunglasses and shadowing baseball cap. Anne clung to her, willing but ill prepared, to ward off any unwanted paparazzi attention.

I waved, and watched as they were absorbed into the pedestrian traffic, and then they were gone.

Tom Grayling was one of my first clients. After an ignominious exit from the army, I had struggled to find work and finally in desperation I had spent what little money I had on buying the limousine business. It was Tom who had introduced me to Jodi as a prospective client so I guess I owed him a lot.

She had entered my life as just another person to ferry round the city when she had need of me. For some arcane reason that I still can't fathom, she had rather fallen in love with me. I found that reciprocating her feelings came very easily. It wasn't just her beauty, but her lovely nature that captured my poor heart. Jodi was a supermodel who's image graced the pages of fashion magazines and billboards across the world and this woman, who could have had anyone, had chosen me. We did not quite live together yet but Jodi had recently given me a set of keys to her Park Lane home; it was a statement of intent she had said with an enigmatic smile.

So I collected Tom Grayling from his office and then delivered him to the Wilding Building and watched as he joined the other dignitaries in the foyer. I pulled the car into the shadows of the underground parking area with time to kill. I'd bought sandwiches and a flask of coffee; it saved the hassle of trying to buy food in the lunchtime rush. The summer should really have been drawing to a close by now but the days were still warm, even in the shade of the car park. As I got out of the car to stretch my legs I felt a crackle of electricity in the quiet air that somehow felt ominous and unsettling. I bit into my cheese and onion sandwich; a speciality of mine... just thick chunks of cheddar and thinly sliced red onion in heavily buttered crusty bread and lashed with black pepper. For some reason Jodi was determined to rid me of this minor vice. Onion kisses I think may have been her reasoning.

The three teenagers who huddled by the far wall noticed me with an expression of arrogant disinterest as I leaned against the Mercedes examining my lunch. Their attention was really focussed on the elegantly dressed woman who was struggling back to her BMW with bags of expensive looking shopping. I guess it was when one of the kids pulled a knife that my adrenaline started pumping. That and the woman's screams as the slender strap of her bag was sliced from her shoulder while the other two grabbed at her shopping. One of the trio, the one with the knife, was covered in self inflicted tattoos and seemed to be the sort of kid who's angry with the world for no real reason. He punched the woman in the stomach and then slammed her unnecessarily hard against the wall; she fell to her knees. The kid looked over in my direction.

What the fuck are you looking at? He snarled with the arrogance of youth that left him thinking that he was invulnerable. He didn't know me, didn't know that I was ex SAS.

For the trained soldier, even a dishonourably discharged one, there is nothing surprising about the call to duty. I dropped my sandwich and ran straight at the group of trainee gangsters. They seemed to take this as a good point to make their exit. I stopped briefly, crouching down, to make sure the woman was not seriously hurt.

They've got my cards and car keys in my bag... Oh god my flat keys... My husband will kill me. She said.

Are you hurt?

Just winded... Her voice cracking and fragile.

OK, just rest there, get your breath back, I'll see what I can do.

I started sprinting after the trio. They split up when they heard my footsteps bearing down on them. I think one of them might have been a girl, but I chose to follow the foul mouthed knife wielding youth that I assumed to be the ring leader; he was still clutching the woman's shoulder bag. I followed at speed as he ran and jumped down some concrete steps, sliding on his arse down the stair rail as if this was just a game. I closed on him as we descended into what appeared to be a poorly lit service area. He seemed to know his way around down here but I was faster and cornered him by a collection of recycling bins; no where left to go.

I ain't scared of you fuckwit. He panted which meant of course that he was shitting himself. He pointed his knife at me as if it was something I might be concerned about. I had faced fundamentalist Taliban armed with Kalashnikovs but he didn't know that. He looked fifteen maybe sixteen and as if a decent meal wouldn't do him any harm. His knife was one of those fold open weapons, probably stolen. The blade was long enough to do serious damage and as he raised it, I saw the sharpness of the edge flash in a shaft of daylight that drifted from a high narrow window.

Stuck in a corner he had no escape... except through me. I watched his eyes darting, hopeful of the return of his companions but they were long gone. There was a sheen of sweat on his face and the colour had drained from his cheeks, the sure sign of panic.

Just give me the knife and the bag and you can go. I said. This didn't seem to fit in with his plans and he pushed away from the wall towards me his blade slashing at my eyes. I backed away to give myself space. He mistakenly took this as some sort of retreat and advanced with growing but unfounded confidence.

You want some of this? He said as he slashed with the knife just inches from my face. I had been trained by the best, a certain Scots sergeant by the name of McBride. On the next lunge I took his wrist and pulled him using his own momentum into a circle that left him tumbling against the bins. Putting a painful wrist-lock on the kid I forced him to drop the knife then punched, just two fingers into his solar plexus. It was a punch designed to deliver maximum, disabling, pain and minimum damage.

He dropped to his knees winded. His eyes looked up at me, for the first time I saw real fear and vulnerability, there were tears welling in his eyes betraying his tender years.

No no don't hurt me... He said as he cowered in the corner. I picked up the knife, closed it and slipped it into my pocket.

I'll take the bag. I said and he passed it to me. I checked that the woman's keys were there. OK get out of here before I change my mind. I said.

He didn't need telling twice and took to his heels disappearing into the shadows. As I heard his footsteps fade, I wondered about his parents but my thoughts of deficient child rearing were distracted when my phone rang. I slipped it out of my pocket and saw that the call was from Jodi.

Hi what's... My words were cut short by Anne's voice. It seemed balanced just beyond the edge of hysteria.

Oh god its Jodi... She's been shot, please come I need you.

The incident with the bag snatcher was suddenly turned into an irrelevance.

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~o~

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I remembered letting myself into Jodi's Mayfair home just two days before the shooting. I'd walked across Hyde Park to Hertford Street where her apartment sat as part of a 5-star Park Lane hotel. It managed to combine all the creature comforts of a luxury home with the benefits of the hotel, including the use of gym, spa and even room-service if she needed it. I can't imagine what the place must have cost but I seriously felt like a fish out of water as I used the keys that Jodi had given me. The keys were a symbol that I was free to come and go at my own discretion, that she had no one else lurking in the background, nothing to hide from me. It told me than she loved me in a way more powerfully than any words ever could. So I opened the door and found her on the phone. She was dressed down, in mufti. Bare feet and a dusky-pink jogging suit. Her hair was tied back into a bouncing pony tail. She smiled a welcome, her eyes lighting up with gentle delight in a way that always turned my insides to jelly. Her hand cupped over the mouthpiece and she whispered to me in her meltingly sexy voice:

It's the agent provocateur, he seems to have really lost the plot today. She had lived in Paris for two years from when she was eighteen and her French pronunciation of provocateur, to my uneducated ear, sounder perfect, beyond sexy. I pinched my nose as if the mention of her agent had conjured an unpleasant smell and as I made my way along the hall to find the loo, I could hear her chuckling.

No no Benjamin, of course I'm taking this seriously, it's just the hired help making a fool of himself.

I was washing my hands when she found me. Jodi stood quietly behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. She rested her head against my back and I could sense that something was wrong.

What is it?

James, its Benjamin... Do you know? I think he's just threatened to kill me.

What? Are you serious? I said with complete disbelief. I could feel her body move against me as she nodded to my question.

I had only met Benjamin Mason once; a nod of recognition and a clasp of hands before Jodi steered me away to a quiet corner to have me all to herself. I formed the, probably mistaken, first impression that he was a rather slimy sort of a character, a parasite living on the talents of others. Rich beyond my imaginings, he had built up a wide client base of models over the years and had managed to extract an impressive personal fortune from them. Not that his clients were dissatisfied, he did his job well and kept them in work; a win-win situation. So I grudgingly admired him but not to the point of actual liking. On the other hand I could not see him threatening anyone, he could achieve his ends more readily with the play of his silver tongue. However I could not deny that Jodi was genuinely upset by the call.

I turned and could see a tear in the corner of her eye. She blinked it away. Jodi was one of those women who normally rose above displays of emotion. Being a super model carries with it a level of personal discipline. Hidden behind the glamour, those young women need a toughness of character to deal with the demands placed on them. Few can imagine the hard work and stress involved in being a 'Face'.

Come on let's talk about this, I can see you're upset. What's the bastard actually said to you?

I poured her a generous splash of brandy and as she took it I could see her fingers trembling.

You know how he jabbers on, she said half the time I hardly take any notice of what he's saying. I was answering with the occasional evasive 'yes' and 'really?'; you know, without taking much notice. To be honest I was actually thinking about you James, how nice it felt for you to let yourself in like you really do belong here. Then the tone of Benjamin's voice suddenly changed, became quiet, almost menacing...

Go on. I prompted.

Well he said... It's hard to remember the exact words... Something like: 'Remember the warning, I'm serious, I would hate it if you ended up dead.'  Then he just hung up before I could ask for any sort of clarification.

Call him back.

I'd feel stupid.

Shall I do it for you?

No I'd still feel stupid if you called... more so.

Jodi, what you've told me doesn't exactly sound like a threat to kill you. Why would he want to anyway? You're his golden goose, his MOST golden goose. Maybe you've misunderstood. I said trying to sound like the confident grown-up person I pretended to be. She looked into my eyes and I could see that she had taken Mason's words rather seriously.

James... You didn't hear the tone of his voice, I've never heard him speak like that before.

At the time I laughed it off, Jodi admitted that she had only been half listening and the words hardly constituted an explicit threat. By the time I'd got a second brandy inside her she was half convinced that I was right.

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So after I had relieved the kid of his knife and left him with nothing worse than a sprained wrist, I took hold of the woman's bag and ran. I dropped the knife into a rubbish bin among the cans and crisp packets and returned the bag to its rightful owner.

I can't stop. I said. Your shopping's lost I'm afraid.

She called her thanks after me but I was already sprinting away. By the time I was back at the Mercedes I could hear sirens wailing. The traffic appeared to have turned to jam so I left the car and ran. I knew where they were, less than a mile away. I could do a mile in four and a half minutes with the wind behind me, so I ran, dug in hard, heedless of the pedestrians that I left scattered in my wake. The scene was crawling with police; there was already police tape forbidding anyone to cross. I hurdled the tape in a single stride and saw Anne. She looked at me for an instant and then held out a trembling hand as she recognised who I was. Jodi, the woman I loved seemed, to be an insignificant part of the obscenity. I imagined this other body crawling across the hot pavement until her life-force had evaporated leaving her head on her outstretched arm her blouse no longer the delicate colour it had met the day with. This couldn't be Jodi. I thought as I fell to the ground bathed in her blood.

A police officer grabbed my arm; he must have said something to me but my senses were disconnected by the horror that I saw at Anne's feet. I pulled free and found myself looking into the gathered crowd for the monster who could have done this. Of course, I already knew his name.

I told the police who had done it but I was arrested anyway; taken to a cell and left to stew for an hour before I was questioned. It's always the husband or the boyfriend; there must be a guiding principal in the pages of the Metropolitan Police Handbook that says so.

Do you own a gun? Do you have access to soft nosed bullets? They naively asked.

I didn't. There was of course no evidence against me so I was not charged and they eventually let me go with advice not to leave town. No evidence but I was still their prime suspect. By now my feelings of loss were turning towards anger. The focus of my anger was Benjamin Mason; apparently the police checked and he had his own alibi but I was too blinded by rage and self pity to allow facts to cloud my thinking.

Trying to be that grown-up person that I tried to show to the world, I put what I intended to do to Mason on hold, I knew well enough that my anger would be there waiting for me when I was ready to confront it. For now my priority was with Jodi's family. Her father and her sister were both vulnerable and I wanted to offer whatever comfort I could to them. Jodi's mother was also very fragile and I would have done anything for her but I knew she would not accept help from me. For her I was definitely persona non grata, unworthy of Jodi's love. My dishonourable discharge from the army was all the evidence she needed. That and the fact that I had risen no higher in rank than lieutenant and was now reduced to earning my living as little more than a taxi driver. From Mary's perspective I have to admit that I did not look promising as a prospective son-in-law. But there were mitigating circumstances that even Jodi's persuasive talents failed to convince her mother of. The best I could expect was a truce which was pretty much where we had been before Jodi's death. Now that the unthinkable had happened I allowed myself to hope that our shared grief might bring us closer... I was to be proved seriously mistaken in that hope.

The papers were full of the shooting, lurid descriptions, gratuitous blood splattered images. Jodi was famous and was allowed no privacy, even in death... especially in death.

Jodi's father Henry, was fighting his own battle with mortality at the time of his much loved daughter's murder. The enemy in his case was bowel cancer. A cancer that had been studiously and artfully ignored until it was too late to mount a serious defence against its rampaging army of misdirected cells. Mary, already stressed to the edge of sanity by her husband's illness had been finally tipped beyond what she could reasonably be expected to bear by the shooting. That was the excuse I allowed her for the way she treated me as I plunged into my own nightmare.

They needed a formal identification of the body and such a thing was beyond Mary's capacity. Apart from poor shy Anne who could never have done it, I was the only other person anywhere near to being family and Mary had volunteered my name on the spur of the moment as someone who might wish to undertake the horror of formally identifying Jodi's body. The responsibility both appalled and at the same time strangely comforted me. I could imagine Mary's distaste at having to suggest me; she saw me as someone from the wrong side of the tracks, unsuitable and unworthy of her beautiful successful daughter.

Anne her 'unsuccessful' daughter was more like her father in temperament. She was painfully shy and hid her share of the sibling beauty under layers of unflattering clothing and lowered eyes. She was a woman who lived life entirely in the background. I liked her. We were allies and when she dare speak up against her mother it was often to spring to my defence. In some ways it really should have been Anne who was asked to identify Jodi, but that was never going to happen. Anne adored her sister and the thought of her having to go through such an ordeal was unthinkable for her and all those who cared about her which definitely included me.

So whatever my personal feelings, I was left with no real choice in the matter. I did my duty. I had seen the dead before: my own father when I was still a teenager, fallen comrades and enemies from my active service days. I was out of that world now; the horror of those days gone along with the comradeship. I pushed the dark memories down deep, out of sight... the army way.

By comparison, identifying a body would be easy. Just steal yourself; hold back the emotion like a good soldier is taught to do. Hold it back until it bubbles up later in disguised form and turns you into a monster. That's the way to deal with that sort of thing. So I did, at least I tried. The problem was this was no ordinary person this was the one who had saved me, the one I expected to grow old with. Christ it was Jodi and I still loved her with a passion that threatened to tear me apart.

The identification was just a formality; everyone knew Jodi Richardson. Her face was still plastered on billboards and shop windows staring at you with a seductive pose every time you lifted your eyes from the grey wet pavement. These days I found venturing among the bustle of Oxford street a torment as her face haunted me from too many window displays. Her face would soon be gone from there as Jodi drifted from reality to dusty memory... I would never forget.

They took me into a room. Bright lights, stark and vivid, everything lit to the edge of physical pain. I gasped at the acrid smell of antiseptic that hung in the chilled air and felt the early signs of a vicious migraine announcing its unwelcome arrival behind my eyes. There was an incessant hum from some distant machinery or it may have just been my ears buzzing with nausea. The door closed behind me with an unexpected slam that made me jump nervously. No one seemed to notice that I might be balanced on the edge of my own emotional precipice. That's OK I'm tough; ex SAS tough.

It's not a pretty sight I'm afraid. the official said, hands in the pockets of his white coat. He shifted his wire framed glasses up on his nose and sniffed. Despite the chill, a trickle of sweat ran down his forehead.

We've tried to make her presentable. I'll leave you alone with her for a few moments. Just take your time.

I'd already seen her just minutes after the shooting so I thought I would be immune to any further shock. He pulled back the white sheet and folded it with deliberate care across the rise of her chest as if she were a child being tucked in after her bed-time story.

Her face was white, waxy. It shone with an unreal clarity under the vivid illumination. Her eyes were closed... Just sleeping; I could swear she was just sleeping. Jodi was still the most beautiful woman in the world, even with only half a face. I thought of a line of Shakespeare when Romeo discovered Juliet's body... Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

I could feel my lower lip trembling and my throat tighten.

Come on, I told myself. Just push it down... You can do this.

I took a deep breath of the offensive, sterile air and gently stroked my hand down her cold cheek and spoke to her; words from a fractured heart.

They tell me that you might be dead darling... Is that so? I can't really believe it. Come on get up and let's get out of this place. My words were spoken as a provocation to lift her from the sleep. Of course there was no comeback, no response. I brought my lips down to hers, still perfect in their sweet plumpness, still holding the promise of a smile. I almost felt as if I were violating her but anyway I kissed her, kissed her for the last time.

But there was no warm response, no return kiss just the intolerable acrid tang of formaldehyde.

Just push it down... Push it down. But it was too much, the tears came pricking against my lids.

I wouldn't allow myself to cry and sniffed back the emotion. I felt the panic taking hold of me; not of fear, but of perpetual and comfortless loss. I remembered learning to have courage back in the day as the bullets whistled; seemed a better survival strategy than the alternative. Where had that courage gone now?

Turning away from Jodi I caught the attendant's eyes as he stood in the corner. White coat and practised indifference, he looked not callous but too familiar and at ease with what, for most people, was nothing less than torture.

Yeah, that's her, she's Jodi Richardson. I said as I dragged the sleeve of my jacket across my eyes.

Then, like a coward I left her alone. Alone in that sterile place, the sort of place that she would have hated. Jodi loved life. She loved music and flowers, quiet intelligent conversation while sipping at a glass of wine. She loved walking on the beach with the roar of the ocean in her ears. She loved fighting with satin cushions while bubbling over with laughter. She loved the power she wielded on the catwalk... And she loved me. My god how she had loved me.

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On the day of the funeral I made myself as useful as possible. Naturally I volunteered the Mercedes to ferry the family to the church, an offer that Mary accepted from the fog of her despair without comment. I made the usual offer to her of Anything I can do, just ask. I had meant the words with sincerity, but as I said them, they sounded to me like a pointless platitude. Mary's reply was another slap in my face.

What on earth do you think you could possibly do? She said. Unkind but true of course. Grief, as I knew only too well, was something you have to deal with yourself.

Henry, despite his protestations, was simply too unwell to attend the funeral and most of the mourners that filled Saint Jude's ancient stone walls were people from Jodi's professional life; faces that I hardly knew well enough to put names to. There was genuine grief but somehow it had been turned into a media affair, a place for the 'glitterati' to be seen. I caught a glimpse of Benjamin Mason, huddled in a coterie of his teary eyed models. His girlfriend, I later discovered that she was called Suzie Falkner, sat next to him. Her arm was possessively locked tight into his. The whole thing was depressing. If it hadn't been for Anne's occasional shy smiles, furtively floating across the aisle to me, I would have felt completely alone, an unwelcome intruder at Jodi's funeral.

I slipped away, as soon as I was reasonably able to. I touched Anne's arm on the way out and she nodded to me, knowing without words being exchanged, that I needed to go in search of some solitude. I needed to start my own grieving, find a place where I could harvest my memory of the good times with Jodi until the pain softened. I eventually found myself at Victoria Tower Gardens a little wedge of green, under the shadow of the southern end of the Houses of Parliament. Jodi and I would sometimes go there to sit in the dappled green light under the trees. We might lean over the railing and watch the river roll along, dark and mysterious, as it had done since long before recorded time.

The river had its own special smell that changed with the seasons and I filled my lungs with the memories that hung on it's scent. This was a place we used to go when we needed some quiet time and I could almost feel her beside me as I turned away from the river and watched the sun sink behind the Palace of Westminster. She was gone now, our time together had been far too brief. I felt her loss like a physical pain but I would not trade away all the pain for even a second less of the time we had shared.

Chapter 2

I felt the need to talk with Henry and chose a time when