Frost 2 - A Touch Of Frost

by R D Wingfield

  “She looks the sort who would say anything, or do anything, for a couple of quid,” said Frost, failing to locate his ashtray and shaking ash over Mullett’s shoes.

  Mullett stared down at his shoes and flicked them distastefully. “If, as he claims, the car was stolen from outside the girl’s flat, have you made house-to-house inquiries in the area in case anyone saw something?”

  Flaming hell! thought Frost, I never gave it a thought, “The very next item on our agenda, Super,” he lied. “Just as soon as we’ve finished with this gentleman here. He’s the victim of the armed robbery.”

  “The bullet missed me by inches,” said Glickman, putting in his two-penny-worth.

  “And we’ve got a lead on those sovereigns,” added Frost, determined to throw in all the pluses.

  Mullett drew in his breath. “All I am interested in, Frost, is the hit-and-run. I must have something positive to tell Sir Charles Miller. Put the house-to-house inquiry in hand right away.”

  “Right away, sir,” Frost assured him, putting his thumb to his nose and waggling his fingers as soon as the door closed behind his Divisional Commander. Then he stood up and declaimed dramatically: “She was only a stripper’s daughter, so very good and kind - No stain upon her character, but a mole on her behind.”

  Webster’s scowl deepened. How childish could you get? He squinted at his wristwatch. Nearly five past seven. He smothered a yawn and felt tiredness creeping over him. Hardly any sleep last night, already on duty for ten hours solid and they still had the house-to-house inquiries about the stolen Jaguar to make. He wouldn’t see the inside of his rented room much before midnight. Later he would realize what an optimistic estimate that was.

  The phone rang. Frost listened and frowned. “Thanks,” he grunted, “I expected as much.” He hung up. “The red Vauxhall Cavalier,” he told Webster. “It was reported stolen at three o’clock this afternoon.” He stretched out his arms and yawned openly. “As soon as Sammy has identified the man with the golden gun, we’ll go home. I could do with an early night.” Webster reminded him of the house-to-house, but Frost wasn’t interested. “That can wait. We’ve got more important things to do than waste time trying to clear that little snot. No, we’ll have an early night.” He stared pointedly at Webster’s beard, then began to sing “Does Santa Claus sleep with his whiskers over or under the sheets . . . ?”

  Glickman’s shoulders quivered with suppressed laughter. He thought the inspector was a real card. The bearded one had no sense of humour and was so easily riled. Glickman’s eyes travelled over a page filled with sneering punks and scowling skin-heads. He licked his finger and turned the page.

  He stared. He blinked. Then stared again.

  “It’s him!”

  Frost and Webster leaned over his shoulder. “This one!” insisted Glickman, jabbing a pudgy finger on the glossy black-and-white.

  “Are you sure?” Frost asked doubtfully.

  “I’m one hundred fifty percent sure,” claimed the pawnbroker. “You can’t get any surer than that.”

  The photograph was of a rather hopeless-looking individual with tight curly hair and a mournful expression. Webster read out his details. “Stanley Eustace, aged forty-seven . . .”

  “I know who it is,” cut in Frost, who had found his matches but seemed to have lost his cigarettes. “Useless Eustace. He’s a petty crook, shoplifting, breaking and entering, nicking cars, stripping lead from church roofs. He usually gets caught because he’s so bloody stupid. But he’s never used a shooter in his life.”

  “Well, he used one this afternoon,” Glickman said positively. “Can I go home now?”

  No spare cars were available, so Glickman, bitterly complaining, was left to find his own way home. Frost then asked Webster to bring the Cortina around to the front. They were off to pick up Stan Eustace.

  Webster hesitated. “He’s armed and dangerous. Hadn’t we better take some reinforcements with us ... and a couple of police marksmen?”

  But Frost scorned this suggestion. “I know him, son. I’ve nicked him enough times. He’s harmless. The gun was only for show.”

  “For show!” exclaimed Webster. “He nearly blasted that showcase from the wall.”

  “Probably got his finger caught in the trigger,” said Frost airily. “You can stay in the car if you like. I’ll go in the house and drag him out.”

  He was slipping on his mac when an agitated Johnny Johnson poked his head in. “Sorry to interrupt you, Inspector, but you haven’t seen Dave Shelby on your travels, have you?”

  “No,” replied Frost, ‘not since he delivered sexy Sue to us at The Coconut Grove round about two o’clock. Why?”

  The station sergeant rubbed a hand wearily over his face. “I’m dead worried, Jack. Since he left you he hasn’t made any routine calls, hasn’t contacted us or answered his radio. He was supposed to report to me, here, at seven - he’s only doing a part-shift - but he didn’t show up.”

  Frost didn’t think there was any cause for concern. “He’s probably in bed with some woman somewhere and forgotten the time.”

  “I’m really worried, Jack,” insisted Johnson, and he looked it. “For all Shelby’s faults he’s never once failed to report in.” He waved away Frost’s offer of a cigarette.

  “Have you had a word with Mr. Allen, Sergeant?” inquired Webster. “Shelby said he was going to see him about the anonymous phone call.”

  “There’s your answer,” said Frost, tucking his scarf inside his mac. He sent Webster out to ask Allen. Within a couple of minutes Allen, accompanied by Sergeant Ingram, marched in.

  “What’s this about Shelby?” snapped Allen. “I haven’t seen him all day.”

  “I saw him this morning,” said Ingram, ‘but I’ve been off duty all afternoon.”

  “He’s gone missing,” said Frost, giving brief details. “Johnny’s worried about him.”

  “He hasn’t reported in for nearly five hours,” added the station sergeant.

  “Five hours!” exclaimed Allen in disbelief. “Why have you waited five hours before telling anyone?”

  The station sergeant looked embarrassed. “He was doing a job for Mr. Frost taking a WPC over to The Coconut Grove. I thought Mr. Frost might have commandeered his services and told him not to answer his radio.” It was Frost’s turn to look embarrassed. It wouldn’t have been the first time he had cut corners by doing that.

  “For heaven’s sake,” said Allen, ‘he’s in a patrol car. You can’t lose a police officer and a patrol car.”

  “I’ve asked all patrols to look out for him,” said Johnson. “No sightings yet.”

  “Have you tried the hospitals?” asked Frost. The sergeant nodded. “Then what about his home? He might have gone straight there.”

  “He would have signed off first,” said Johnson.

  “Try his home anyway,” ordered Allen, ‘but be tactful. We don’t want to get his wife worried.”

  Anxiously watched by all the others, Johnson dialled Shelby’s house.

  “No, he’s not back yet,” replied Mrs. Shelby. “I’m expecting him soon. Any message?”

  “Not really,” said Johnson, trying to sound unconcerned. He’s probably on a job for Mr. Frost, but I wanted to grab him before he left. Ask him to ring me when he gets in, would you?” He replaced the receiver slowly, his head bowed. “I’m worried,” he said. “Bloody worried.”

  Ingram walked across to the wall map behind Frost’s desk. “I’ve had a nasty thought,” he said, and he pointed to the wall map. “North Street is here. The armed man in the getaway car was heading off in this direction . . . which would take him smack bang into Shelby’s patrol area.”

  Allen squeezed past Webster to study the wall map himself. “You’re suggesting that Shelby could have spotted the getaway car and tried to intercept it?”

  “It’s possible, sir,” answered Ingram, “The gunman’s armed. Shelby could have got himself into trouble.”

  Allen tugged at his li
p, then turned to Frost. “What do you think?”

  Frost stuck his hands in his mac pocket and drew hard on his cigarette. “If Shelby spotted the car, he wouldn’t have gone after it off his own bat. He’d have radioed in.” Johnny Johnson nodded his agreement.

  “But his radio might be on the blink,” said Allen, ‘which is why we didn’t get any calls earlier. He could have tried to stop the getaway car and the gunman could have turned nasty . . . wounded him, or taken him hostage.”

  “The gunman,” interjected Frost, ‘is Useless Eustace - Stan Eustace. Glickman identified him. Stan would never hold a gun to a copper in his life.”

  “And he would never have committed an armed robbery in his life,” retorted Allen with a sarcastic smile, ‘but he did this afternoon.” He looked once more at the wall map. “It’s pointless wasting time speculating. A police officer has gone missing, so we take no chances.” He moved his head to the station sergeant. “All leave is stopped, Johnny. You’d better start calling the off-duty men in. We’ll have to get a full-scale search organized.”

  “While you’re getting it organized,” said Frost, edging toward the door, "me and Fungus Face will pay a visit to Stan Eustace’s house. If he doesn’t know he’s been identified, we might be able to pick him up with only minimum loss of life.” He beckoned for Webster to follow him and was away.

  “Get the search organized,” Allen instructed Ingram. “I’ll go and break the news to Mr. Mullett.”

  Wednesday day shift (7)

  The tiny garden in front of Stanley Eustace’s semidetached house in Merchants Lane was overgrown with weeds, and the lawn had as fine a crop of thistles as Frost had ever seen. Lights were on downstairs and a radio was playing. There was no escape route from the back of the premises, so there was no need for the two detectives to split up.

  Frost pushed the door bell. It wasn’t working, so he had to bang on the door with his hand. He tapped gently, hoping it might sound like an insurance salesman and not a visit from the fuzz.

  Webster made a point of hanging back, expecting any minute to see the barrel of a shotgun break through a window. Frost could prattle on about Eustace being harmless until he was blue in the face. Webster remembered the story Johnny Johnson had told him only that morning of how Frost thought the Bennington’s Bank gunman was harmless and got himself a bullet in the face to prove him wrong.

  No-one seemed to want to open the door, so Frost banged again, a little harder this time. He lifted the flap of the letterbox and peeked through. He was rewarded by a Cinemascope view of a white-slacked crotch approaching. He straightened up smartly as the door opened and Sadie Eustace, Stanley’s well-padded, tough little brunette wife, in white slacks, black jumper, and enormous blue doughnuts of dangling earrings, put her hands on her hips and demanded to know what they wanted.

  “Stan in, Sadie?” asked Frost, pushing past her and jerking his head to the stairs for Webster to search the upper rooms.

  “Where’s your warrant?” screamed Sadie, following behind the inspector as he opened and shut doors, looking for her husband.

  “Warrant?” said Frost, going through the elaborate pantomime of patting his pockets as if trying to locate it. “I’ve got it here somewhere.” By the time he had patted the last pocket he had looked in every downstairs room.

  There was a crashing of doors from above. “What’s that hairy bastard doing up there?” cried Sadie, frowning up the stairs where Webster, fearing a stomachful of lead shot, was flinging open doors, then pressing himself flat against the wall a la Starsky and Hutch. The last door he crashed open was the bathroom, where the shock waves sent a mirror tumbling down from a shelf to shatter on the floor. That was when Webster actually did fling himself flat on his face, hugging the carpet and inhaling dust.

  “You all right, son?” called Frost up the stairs.

  “Yes,” said Webster curtly, standing up and brushing dust from his clothes. “I slipped.” He thudded downstairs to the kitchen where Sadie, her arms folded, her earrings quivering angrily, was glaring at the inspector.

  “You come bursting into my house without a warrant. - "

  “I thought I had it on me, Sadie,” said Frost, not in the least shame-faced. “My mistake. So where is Stan - out selling the loot?”

  “Whatever you want him for, he didn’t do it. He hasn’t been out of the house all day. What’s it about?”

  “Armed robbery,” Webster told her. Behind her he could see a stripped pine-wood paper-towel dispenser that Stan had fixed to the wall. It was hanging lopsidedly from one corner.

  “Armed robbery? My Stan?” She laughed derisively. “Do me a favour! You’re out of your tiny minds.”

  “No doubt about it, Sadie, I’m afraid,” said Frost, trying to fix the paper-towel dispenser in place, then giving it up as a bad job. “It’s got your Stanley’s fingerprints all over it - it was a balls-up from start to finish.”

  The phone in the hall rang. Sadie stiffened. “Excuse me,” she said, trying to sound casual, but Frost barred her way. “Answer it, son,” he told Webster.

  The phone was on a telephone table under the stairs. Webster picked it up and listened. The sound of pay-phone pips, which stopped when the money was inserted. “Hello ... is that you, Sadie?” asked a man’s voice. In the background, Webster could hear traffic rumbling past the kiosk. “Sadie, it’s me, Stan. I’m in a spot of bother. I need your help.”

  “Stan, it’s the bloody police,” Sadie screamed from the kitchen. Immediately there was a click, then a splutter of the dial tone. Webster hung up and returned to the kitchen.

  “Stanley?” asked Frost. Webster nodded. “Well, he knows we’re on to him now, son.” He turned to Sadie. Her bosom was heaving and her eyes were ablaze with defiance. “Nice one, Sadie, but what’s the point? He can’t keep running all his life.” She said nothing. Her lethal expression said it all.

  They let themselves out. As they closed the door behind them they could hear her crying.

  Back in the car Frost was wondering whether to tuck it around a side-turning and wait a while in case Stanley returned, but he decided against it. Even Useless Eustace wasn’t that stupid.

  Then the radio called him. Johnny Johnson, sounding grim.

  “Yes, Johnny?”

  “We’ve just had a phone call, Jack. A Mr. Charles Fryatt. He reports seeing an apparently abandoned police car.”

  Frost stiffened. “Where?”

  “In Green Lane, the cut-through to the main road.”

  Frost felt his heartbeats quicken. “And Shelby?”

  “Mr. Fryatt says he saw no sign of a driver, not that he looked very far. He thought he’d better get straight to a phone and tell us. Can you get over there?”

  “On our way,” said Frost. “Over and out.”

  Green Lane was little more than a bumpy dirt track turning out of Bath Road and almost petering out before it reached Denton Road. The Cortina jolted and shuddered as it picked its way over the potholes and followed the twisting lane down into a depression completely hidden from both main roads.

  “Look out!” called Frost and Webster braked abruptly as the headlights swooped down on the bulk of something directly in their path. It was Shelby’s patrol car, the Ford Escort, looking lost and miserable in the darkness.

  Cautiously, they approached. The driver’s door gaped open; a stream of police-channel chatter flowed from the radio. Frost’s torch beam pried inside. The keys swung from the ignition, a clipboard with the day’s standing instructions lay on the passenger seat. He picked up the handset and radioed through to Control to report they had arrived at the scene.

  “Any sign of Shelby?” Johnson asked anxiously.

  “Not yet,” replied the inspector.

  “Don’t move!” called Webster urgently. “Just look down, by your feet.”

  About an inch or so from where Frost was standing the beam of Webster’s torch glinted on something. The ground was wet. Stained with red. Frost dropped t
o his knees to examine it closer. He dabbed it with his finger. It was blood. A lot of blood.

  “And look there!” called Webster, swinging his torch up to the rear-door window of the patrol car.

  The window was a crazy paving of shattered glass, milkily opaque. Embedded in the glass, also held in the paint work of the door, were tiny flattened pieces of metal. Lead pellets, identical to the pellets found in the wall at the pawnbroker’s. Ingram’s theory wasn’t looking so farfetched now.

  “Shit!” said Frost. He returned to the handset. “Johnny. It doesn’t look too happy, I’m afraid. There’s blood and shotgun pellets all over the place. You’d better send a full team down here right away.”

  Within twenty minutes the area was cordoned off and was droning with mobile generators that fed the many floodlights illuminating the scene. Men from Forensic were crawling, inch by inch, over the car. Scene-of-crime officers were taking photographs with blinding blue flashes, dusting for prints and circling blood splashes and lead pellet pockmarks with white chalk. A group of off-duty men who had spent most of the previous night and this morning combing Denton Woods on their hands and knees now scoured the scrubland on their hands and knees.

  Frost, leaning against his Cortina, watched gloomily, the smoke from his cigarette spiralling upward. This was the time for experts and specialists and for attention to detail, so he kept well out of the way. Webster, who had been talking to a couple of the Forensic men, came over to join him.

  “Forensic says the ground’s too hard to leave any proper impression, but there are traces of a second car. The other vehicle was ahead of Shelby’s patrol car, probably blocking the road. It looks as if Shelby stopped, got out, and was fired on as he walked toward the other car.”

  “Then where is he?” asked Frost.

  “Probably been taken away in the other car. There are marks where something was dragged.”