A Touch Of Frost (5 page)

He’d remember that night as long as he lived. The day before, he’d had that damn-awful row with his wife, Janet. The rows had been getting nasty, but this one was the worst ever. Janet didn’t know how badly things had been going for him at the station. There had been complaints about his treatment of suspects. All right, perhaps he had been a mite overzealous, but he was getting results. But then there had been those two incidents, one after the other, where one prisoner had a black eye, and the other bruised ribs, and they’d screamed ‘police brutality’. Both had been resisting arrest and were swinging punches, but Detective Chief Inspector Hepton had preferred to believe them rather than one of his own officers. Hepton had threatened to take him off CID work and put him back into uniform.

He hadn’t told any of this to Janet. All she got was his bitterness, his resentment, and his temper. He couldn’t remember how that last row started. It had built up until he swore at her and called her filthy names. Reacting angrily, she had whipped her hand across his face. He deserved it. That’s what made it so hard to take: He bloody deserved it. He should have let it go, apologized, begged her forgiveness. But he had reacted without thought, the back of his hand cracking across her mouth, splitting her lip, making it bleed. She just looked at him with contempt, face white, blood trickling, then she slowly walked out, slamming the door behind her.

Later, the phone call from her mother’s, saying she was leaving him. That’s when he should have swallowed his pride and gone after her. Instead he preferred to wallow in self-pity and drink himself stupid on the contents of the cocktail cabinet.

And when he finally staggered into the station, unshaven, eyes red-rimmed, there was Hepton, Chief Inspector-bloody Hepton, waiting for him, barring his way, that nagging, jarring voice scratching away at his raw nerve ends like a fingernail dragged down a blackboard.

And then things were very blurred. He recalled flinging a punch. An almighty punch which spun Hepton around, knocked him into a filing cabinet, and sent him crashing to the floor. Then the room was full of people, angry, shouting, holding him back. Someone must have taken him home because he next remembered waking in his own bed the following morning, his head split by wedges, hoping against hope that it had all been some ghastly drunken nightmare. But Janet wasn’t in bed with him. The house was empty, her clothes gone, and his fist swollen and hurting like hell.

Suspension, Disciplinary Tribunal, demotion to constable, and transfer to Denton—and to Jack Frost, the cretin of the year.

“Webster. How much longer are you going to be making that bloody tea?” Wells’s voice, calling from the lobby, dragged him back to the present. The room seemed to be in a thick mist, outlines blurred and indistinct as the kettle boiled its head off. A roar of delight from the party upstairs. God, how he could do with a drink. Just one. But they’d warned him. Be drunk on duty just one more time.

He turned off the gas ring and made the tea.

In the lobby, Frost and Wells were huddled together exchanging moans. Young Collier was at the Underwood, splashing correction fluid over a typed report as if he were painting a wall. Frost lowered his eyes guiltily as Webster handed him the mug of tea, knowing that he should have taken the detective constable with him on the Ben Cornish job. Indeed, it would have been better if he had—then Webster would have been the one floundering about in the wet and nasty instead of him. But he was finding the hair shirt of Webster’s permanent scowl a mite too much to take without the odd break. He pulled the mug toward him. “Thanks, son. Looks good.”

Wells accepted his tea without comment, but Collier, looking up from his remedial work, said, “Thanks very much, Inspector . . . sorry, I mean Constable,” which provoked a muffled snort of suppressed laughter from the sergeant.

Webster’s face went tight. Laugh, you bastards. My time will come. He rapped on the panel, pushing the mug through as Ridley slid it open. The controller nodded his thanks, then called across to Wells: “That hit victim, Sergeant—they’ve taken him to Denton General Hospital. He’s not expected to live. Oh, and they’ve found the licence plate from the car that hit him.”

“A licence plate from the car that hit him!” exclaimed Frost in mock excitement. “Now that could be a clue!” He sipped his tea. “It’s never been my luck to have a bloody licence plate left behind. I’m lucky if I find two witnesses who can agree on the colour of the car.” Then he paused, the mug quivering an inch from his lips, and whispered, “Listen!”

They listened—to comparative silence. No music. No stamping.

Putting his mug down, Frost hurried over to the door that led to the canteen and pushed it open. Various voices called “Goodbye, sir . . . Thanks for coming, sir . . .” The Chief Constable and Mullett were leaving. Frost smiled to himself. The minute they left, he’d be up those stairs like a sailor with a complimentary ticket to a brothel.

Picking its moment, the phone rang. “Answer that, Collier,” Wells ordered. He wasn’t going to miss his chance with the Chief Constable again. But Collier was doing his doorman act, standing to attention, holding the main door open for the VIPs to pass through. Crawling little sod, thought Wells disgustedly.

Webster had skulked off to the office and Jack Frost had ducked out of sight as he always did when Mullett loomed into view. That left only Wells to answer the phone.

Mullett and the Chief Constable shimmered into the lobby in a haze of whisky fumes and expensive cigar smoke. The Chief was talking, Mullett was listening, nodding vigorously and murmuring, “Couldn’t agree with you more, sir,” whether he heard what the Chief was saying or not. At the door the Chief Constable paused, smiled approvingly at Collier, and said to Mullett, “You’ve got a smart man there, Superintendent.”

“Couldn’t agree with you more,” said Mullett, wondering why Sergeant Wells was looking daggers in his direction.

Wells shifted the phone to his other hand and took down the details. “I see, sir. Well, try not to worry. I’ll have a detective inspector over to you right away.”

He hung up.

Upstairs, whoops of delight. The record player started up again. Jack Frost scuttled out of his hiding place in Control and hurried across to the door. The sound billowed and beckoned as he opened it.

He never made it.

“You can forget the party, Jack,” said Wells. “I’ve got a missing teenage girl for you.”

Out to the car park and the Cortina, Frost scuffling along behind Webster, the bright lights from the canteen windows looking down on them. Absent-mindedly, Webster slid into the passenger seat and stretched out as he used to in the days when a detective constable drove him around. Frost opened the passenger door and peered in. “I think you might be sitting in my seat, son.” With a grunt of irritation, Webster shifted over to his rightful, lowly place behind the wheel, listening sullenly to the muddled directions Frost gave him as they drove off.

It was Frost who broke the uneasy silence.

“This might come as a surprise to you, son, but you’re not exactly the flavour of the month around here.”

Webster, in no mood to accept any form of criticism, especially from a twit like Frost, stiffened. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, son, that you’ve been behaving like a spoiled brat ever since you arrived. I know we’re not God’s gift to the demoted, but why don’t you try and meet us halfway? The odd little smile twinkling through your face fungus wouldn’t come amiss.”

“I treat people the way they treat me,” snapped Webster, slowing down to wait for the lights to change. “I’m sick of having to put up with all this ‘Thank you, Inspector’ . . . sorry, I mean
‘Constable’
crap.”

“Young Collier’s harmless,” said Frost.

“It’s not only Collier,” said Webster, accelerating as the lights changed, “it’s everyone, especially Sergeant Wells. He delights in making me look small.”

“There’s a reason,” Frost said. “Bill Wells wants to be an inspector so badly it hurts. He’s passed all the exams but the Promotion Board keeps turning him down. So when he comes across someone who was an inspector, something he’s never going to be, and who chucked it all away, well, he’s bound to feel resentful.”

“And there’s Inspector Allen,” began Webster.

“Inspector Allen is a bastard,” Frost cut in. “Lots of inspectors are bastards. I bet you were one yourself.” He peered through the dirty windscreen. “Turn right here.”

Webster spun the wheel, braking suddenly as the car head lights picked out a brick wall charging towards them. They had driven down a cul-de-sac.

“Sorry,” said Frost. “I meant left.”

Stupid bastard, thought Webster, backing out with great difficulty. “And another thing. Why was I deliberately excluded from that dead junkie investigation tonight?”

“Because I’m a stupid old sod who never does the right thing,” replied Frost disarmingly. “I’m sorry about that, son, honest I am.”

The reminder about Ben Cornish made him feel guilty. He knew he hadn’t been very thorough. All he had wanted to do was get out of that stinking hole and off to the party. And there was no mystery about it. Accidental death, like the doctor said. But something nagged, itched away at the back of his mind. He shut his eyes, trying to picture the scene . . . the filth, the body . . . the sodden clothes. Wait a minute, the clothes! He had the feeling that the pocket linings of the overcoat were pulled out slightly as if someone had gone through the pockets. Yet Shelby had said he hadn’t searched the body. It wouldn’t be the first time a copper had been through a dead man’s pockets and kept what he found. Immediately he discounted this possibility. Shelby might be a lousy copper in many ways, but he wasn’t a thief. Besides, what would Ben have had that was worth plunging your hands in vomit-sodden pockets to find?

He shook his head and erased the picture from his mind. Then he realized he still hadn’t broken the news to Ben’s mother. He sighed. There were so many things he had left undone. Which reminded him—“Did you manage to finish the crime statistics?” he asked hopefully.

“No,” said Webster, “your figures didn’t make any sense.”

Frost nodded gloomily. They didn’t make any sense to him either, which was why he had passed them on to the detective constable. The returns were a monthly headache. This month Mullett had received a rocket from County Headquarters because, yet again, in spite of firm assurances, the Denton figures hadn’t been received on time. Fuming at his division’s failure, Mullet, in turn, had castigated Frost, and County had reluctantly agreed to extend the deadline by thirty-six hours. This deadline expired tomorrow.

“First thing tomorrow, son . . . as soon as we get back from the postmortem . . . we’ll make a determined effort.”

Webster said nothing. Frost’s intentions were always of the best, but when the morning came, and the question of doing the returns was raised, Frost would suddenly remember some pressing reason why he and Webster had to go out. Webster badly needed to make good, but his chances of clawing his way back to his old rank of inspector were being sabotaged by his involvement with this hopeless, incompetent idiot.

“Left here,” directed Frost. Webster spun the wheel and the Wellington boots on the back seat crashed to the floor.

Frost leaned back and picked them up. “Must get the car cleaned up soon. We’ll do it as soon as we finish the crime statistics.”

High up, ahead of them, a large house, its grounds floodlit. “That’s the Dawson place, son. Dead ahead.”

Max Dawson was waiting for them at the open front door. He barely glanced at the warrant cards they waved at him, almost pushing them into the house and through the double doors which led to the lounge.

The split-level lounge, which ran almost the full length of the ground floor, was roomy enough to hangar a Zeppelin. It smelled strongly of expensive leather, rich cigar smoke, and money . . . lots of money. A welcome contrast to the gents’ urinal back of the High Street, which smelled of none of these things, thought Frost.

The lower level, panelled in rich oak, gleamingly polished, boasted a bar as big as a pub counter but much better stocked, and an enormous natural-stone fireplace with an unnatural but realistic log fire roaring gas-powered flames up a wide-throated brick chimney. The room’s trappings included a giant-screen projection TV posing as a Chippendale secrétaire, a concealed screen that emerged from the wall at the touch of a button, and at least five thousand pounds’ worth of custom-built hi-fl equipment in flawlessly hand crafted reproduction Regency cabinets. The carpeting was milk-chocolate Wilton over thick rubber underlay. It set off the deep-buttoned, soft-leather couches in cream and natural brown.

The second level, up a slight step, housed a full-sized snooker table with overhead lights, cue racks, and scoreboard. One wall was lined with what appeared to be banks of gilt-edged, leather-bound books that probably concealed a wall safe, the other with open-fronted cabinets displaying sporting guns, revolvers, and rifles.

Dawson came straight to the point. “My daughter’s been kidnapped,” he said, flicking his hand for them to sit. “I’ll cooperate with the police, but if there’s a ransom demand, I intend to pay it. My only concern is my daughter’s safety,” Then, as an afterthought, he indicated the woman seated by the fire, cradling a glass, “My wife.”

Dawson, in evening clothes, the two ends of his bow tie hanging loose, was a short stocky man of about fifty with thinning hair, hard eyes, and tight, ruthless lips. Clare, his wife, was much younger and quite a looker, with dark hair, rich, creamy flesh, and the most sensuous mouth Frost had ever seen.

“Right,” said Frost, unbuttoning his mac. “We’d better have the details.”

The door bell chimed. Dawson jerked his head to his wife. “That’ll be the Taylors. Let them in.” Obediently, she tottered out of the room. “I want you to hear what this girl has to say,” he told the two policemen.

While they waited, Webster rose from his chair and wandered over to the second level, where he took a closer look at the guns. He removed a Lee Enfield Mark III from a rack and squinted down its sights. “Are these genuine, sir?” he asked.