A Touch Of Frost (31 page)

Frost stuck out a leg, barring her way. “We haven’t got time to sod about, miss,” he snapped. “You were seen by your next-door neighbour, Paula Grey. She yelled out, hoping for a lift. But you couldn’t have heard, because you roared straight off. I’m not bluffing. She’s given us a signed statement.” To prove it, he waved a piece of paper at her. It was only a typed request from County for the crime statistics, but it looked important.

Slowly, she sank back in her chair. Her mind seemed to be racing. “That’s right,” she said at last, “I remember now. I went out for some cigarettes. I bought some and came straight back.”

Frost was doing a trick with his chair, rocking it and making it balance on its two back legs. He beamed her a paternal smile of complete understanding. “I knew there would be a perfectly logical explanation. Where did you go for the cigarettes?”

She hesitated. “A pub. The Black Swan.”

“A twenty-minute round trip,” said Frost. “Ten minutes there, ten minutes back . . . plus the time it took for you to get served.”

“So?” she said warily.

“I’d have thought it was bloody obvious,” said Frost. During those twenty minutes, the hit-and-run took place. It was you who knocked Hickman down. It was you who killed him.”

She shivered and rubbed her arms, then pulled the fur coat over her shoulders. “It’s cold in here.”

“It’s colder in the morgue,” said Frost. He dribbled smoke through his nose. “Why prolong the agony, love? There’s no way you can wriggle out of this. Get it off your lovely chest. Tell us the truth.”

He settled back in his chair while Webster took it all down in his notebook.

“I had never driven a Jag before. I asked Roger if I could take it for a thrash down the Bath Road. He said yes and gave me the keys. At about ten minutes to eleven I left. Roger stayed behind in the flat.

“I might have been going a bit fast round the old people’s flats, but I’m sure I was within the speed limit. It was dark, and as I turned a corner I felt a bump. I never saw anything and didn’t know I had hit anyone.”

“When I got back to the flat Roger started moaning because the headlamp was broken. Then we saw the blood on the wing. I got frightened. Roger said he would report the car as stolen, so we hid it down a side street and then went back to the flat, where Roger phoned the police. I never knew at the time I had hit anyone, otherwise I would have stopped. And I hadn’t been drinking. I didn’t have a drink all night.”

When she had finished, she looked to Frost for his reaction. He showed none.

“Is that it?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Right, we’ll get it typed, then you can sign it. In the meantime, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait in the cells.” Seeing her dismay, he added, “Not for long, only until we fix bail.”

After the girl was taken out, he yawned and stretched. “Right, son. Let’s go and pick up Master Roger and see if he confirms her story.”

At first Roger Miller blustered, demanded to be released, and threatened all kinds of lawsuits that would leave Frost and Webster jobless, penniless and prospect-less. But when they told him that Julie King had made a statement admitting she alone was driving the Jaguar, he calmed down and without further prompting gave them a statement that confirmed the girl’s story in every detail.

Webster borrowed the station Underwood from Collier, dumped it on his desk on top of the crime statistics, and started pecking out the statements. Frost, who had found some salted peanuts left over from the previous night, was slouched in his chair, his crossed feet up on his desk, hurling peanuts in the air and trying to catch them in his mouth.

Mullett swept in without knocking. Frost flung his feet off the desk, managing to knock a file on the floor, splashing papers everywhere. But there were no frowns from the Divisional Commander, who was in a most affable mood. “Well done, Frost. I’ve just put the phone down after speaking to Sir Charles. He is absolutely delighted to learn that you have been able to clear his son. In fact, he’s coming over to see me right away. Are the statements ready yet?”

“On the last one now,” said Webster, rubbing out a mistake and blowing away the rubber dust.

“Excellent,” said Mullett, smiling, “I’ll take them with me.”

The warning light at the back of Frost’s brain blinked on and off. What was the sly old sod up to now? “Take them with you, Super?”

Mullett’s insincere smile blinked on and off. “I’d like to show them to Sir Charles. He’s bringing his solicitor with him.”

He hovered over Webster, completely putting him off, causing him to hit the wrong keys repeatedly. But at last the final page was typed. Mullett snatched it from the machine and bore the statements away.

It was an hour later that Frost was summonsed into Mullett’s office, an hour spent grappling with the crime statistics that had supposedly already gone off. Webster, frowning and scowling more than ever as he tried to make some sort of sense out of the inspector’s hopeless jumble of figures, decided he had had more than enough. As soon as the door closed behind Frost, he hurled down his pen and stuffed the papers back into their folder.

He was dead tired, it was past one o’clock in the morning, and there were limits to the number of hours he could work without sleep. If it were something important, he’d have stuck it out, but not for the lousy crime statistics. It was Frost’s incompetence that had caused the trouble, and if he wanted them done tonight, he could damn well do them himself.

Webster grabbed his overcoat from the hat stand and put it on. Through the grime of the windows the night looked cold, windy, and unfriendly. He turned up the collar of his coat and awaited the inspector’s return. It was time to assert himself.

Frost tapped at the door of Mullett’s office and went in. As soon as he was inside he started coughing and his eyes stung. The room, blue-fogged with smoke, stank of cigars and an overpowering after-shave, a legacy of the now-departed Sir Charles Miller.

“Come in,” boomed Mullett, valiantly drawing on a Churchillian cigar. Frost shuffled over to the desk and lit up a cigarette, his nose twitching as he sampled the air. “Smells like a lime house knocking shop in here, Super.”

“It’s very expensive after-shave,” rebuked Mullett, pushing out the tiniest of smoke rings and coughing until his eyes watered.

“You’d be surprised what gets shaved these days,” began Frost, but Mullett didn’t let him expand.

“Thought I’d put you in the picture, Frost. First of all, allow me to pass on Sir Charles’s congratulations. He’s absolutely delighted that we have been able to completely clear his son.”

“Not completely,” corrected the inspector. “We’ve still got him on conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, making false statements, falsely reporting his car was stolen . . . and that’s just for starters.”

Mullett took off his glasses and began to polish them, slowly and deliberately, so he wouldn’t have to look at Frost. “I was wondering whether it was absolutely necessary to involve the son? It’s entirely up to you, of course.”

“I don’t see what you mean,” said Frost, adding his cigarette ash to the corpses of two fat cigars in Mullett’s large ashtray.

“The girl’s admitted everything. Roger was only trying to help her. Should he be punished for that?”

“Yes,” said Frost.

Mullett sighed a mouthful of cigar smoke. The inspector wasn’t being at all understanding. He readjusted his smile and pressed on. “I wouldn’t dream of interfering, of course, but I can’t help feeling that everyone’s interests would be better served if we didn’t make it known that Roger Miller falsely claimed his car was stolen. It can only complicate things.”

“Oh?” grunted Frost.

“Yes,” said Mullett, bravely plunging on to deeper and more dangerous waters. “If we remove that element we remove Roger from any official involvement in the hit-and-run. We could say the girl drove the car, had the accident, but didn’t tell Roger what had happened as she didn’t want to get him involved. That would completely eliminate him from any charges.” He clapped his hands together and smiled at Frost, certain he would see the sense of all this.

Frost laid his cigarette to rest alongside the two cigar corpses. “It’s a nice fairy tale, Super, but it’s not the truth and it’s not what they say in their statements.”

Mullett cleared his throat. “Not in their old statements, no.”

There was an almost audible click as Frost’s head jerked up. “What do you mean, old statements?”

“I have had fresh statements taken.”

At first Frost couldn’t believe what he had heard. He stared at Mullett, who suddenly found a paper knife on his desk that required fiddling with. Frost felt like snatching it from his hand and burying it to the hilt in the desk. He could hardly keep his anger in check.

“Am I hearing you correctly?” he shouted. “Are you trying to tell me that you have gone behind my back and taken fresh statements—different statements?”

Mullett shrunk back from his onslaught. “It’s not quite like that, Inspector. Sir Charles’s solicitor had a word with them both, as a result of which they each decided to change their stories slightly.”

Frost was now furious. “You conniving sod! What bloody business have you got, going behind my back, conspiring with your rich mates to get witnesses to change their statements?”

Mullett’s fist pounded down on his desk, making the ash tray jump. “You will kindly remember whom you are talking to, Inspector.” The look of contempt on Frost’s face was unsettling. Surely the man could see this was all for the best. He would try to reason with him.

“Listen to me, Inspector. First, Sir Charles is paying the full costs of the girl’s defence.”

“That was her bribe,” hurled Frost. “What was yours?”

The Superintendent’s mouth opened and closed. Rage made him speechless. His entire body quivered. “How dare you,” he managed at last. “You’ve shot your bolt now, Frost. You’ve gone too far this time!”

But Frost was still on the attack. “So what do you intend to do?” he snarled back, “report me to the Chief Constable?” He snatched the phone up and offered it to Mullett. “Here you are—take it. Report me! Shall I dial the number for you?”

With a half-hearted flutter of his hand, the Divisional Commander waved the phone away. “Please listen. Not only is Sir Charles paying for the girl’s defence, he is also ensuring that sufficient funds will be made available to compensate the unfortunate victim’s widow.” He paused, then added significantly, “But, what I am sure will be of great interest to you is that he has also generously agreed to make a donation of five thousand pounds to start a fund for the widow and children of PC Shelby.” He leaned back, confident that his ace would not be trumped.

“It’s not only his bloody after-shave that stinks,” said Frost.

Ignoring this remark, Mullett continued in a voice ringing with belief in the justice of his argument. “As I said, this is your case. The decision is yours and yours alone. It’s only a slight bending of the rules. I’m sure Mrs Shelby and her young family would be very grateful for the money, but if you feel we should deprive them of it, well, as I said, the decision is yours.”

You shit, thought Frost, you utter shit! But he knew he was beaten. Wearily, he stood up. “All right, sir. Whatever fiddles you’ve arranged with your mate Sir Charles, you go right ahead. I just don’t want to know about it.” The slam of the door as he left rattled everything moveable in the office.

With only a brief frown at the manner of the inspector’s exit, Mullett sighed, relieved that the unpleasantness was over. He picked up the phone and dialled the ex-directory number Sir Charles had given him.

“Hello, Sir Charles. Mullett here. That little matter we discussed. I’ve put it in hand, sir . . . Not at all, Sir Charles . . . my pleasure.” He hung up and tapped the receiver lightly with his fingertips. Most satisfactory. Sir Charles wasn’t the sort of man who would forget a favour.

Fuming and desperate for something to kick, Frost stamped back to his office. The wastepaper bin provoked him by standing in his path, so he booted it across the office floor. It bounced off the desk leg and voided its contents all over the feet of the scowling, I’m-going-home-and-just-you-try-to-stop-me Webster.

“Sorry, son,” muttered Frost, crashing down in his chair, “but there are some rotten shits in this station, and they’re all called Mullett. You’ll never believe what’s happened. Shut the door.”

He told the detective constable of the scene in the Divisional Commander’s office. Forgetting for the moment about going home, Webster sank into his own chair and listened with growing incredulity.

“You mean he destroyed the statements we took?”

“Yes, son. I think it’s called perverting the course of justice, but if you’re an MP with five thousand quid to spare, then it’s called a slight bending of the rules for a good cause. Sod the crime statistics, sod the overtime returns, and sod our beloved Divisional Commander. I’m going home.”

That was when the internal phone rang.

Control reporting another rape in Denton Woods.

A seventeen-year-old girl.

Bodies aching, feeling tired, dirty and gritty, Frost and Webster headed back to the car, which seemed to have been their home for most of the long, long day. As usual, Webster was driving too fast, but the dark streets were deserted and they passed no other traffic.

They reached the woods to find the ambulance had beaten them to it, its flashing beacon homing them into a lay-by alongside Charlie Alpha. The rear doors of the ambulance were open, and already the victim was being loaded into the back.

The wind whined and shook the trees, sending a confetti shower of dead leaves on Frost and Webster as they hurried across to the victim. The girl’s eyes were closed and one side of her face was swollen and bruise-blackened where she had been hit. All the time she shivered and moaned. Very carefully, Frost tugged down the blanket to expose her neck. And there they were, the familiar deep, biting indentations of the rapist’s fingers.

“Isn’t it about time you had a go at catching the bastard?” asked one of the ambulance men, who had a young daughter.