Allen could see Sadie, ears straining, listening to every word. He lowered his voice. “We’re playing it cool for a while. But be prepared.”
Sadie moved off into the darkness.
Frost had been talking to the drug pushers. A right pair of sullen charmers who were determined to say as little as possible. They wouldn’t enlarge about the sovereigns. They stole them and that’s all there was to it. They were vague about the details, both apparently unable to remember where in the house they had found the coins. And as far as the quantity was concerned, if the old girl said there was more, then the cow was lying.
Webster had been dispatched to check with Lil Carey. She had no doubts at all about the number of sovereigns. Why, thought Webster, was Frost making such a meal of it? They’d caught the thieves and they’d got a confession. There was no reason for the men to lie about how much they had stolen; the sentence for the theft would be trivial compared with their sentence for pushing drugs, and it would run concurrently anyway.
But Frost kept niggling away at it, chewing it over and over. It was a welcome diversion when Wells stuck his head around the door.
“Lady to see you, Mr. Frost,” said the sergeant in his official voice.
“I’m not undressed yet,” said Frost. “Who is it?”
It was Sadie Eustace. She looked a mess. She’d been crying and her hair was in disarray. She declined the offer of tea but accepted one of Frost’s cigarettes. “They’ve got Stan holed up in a house in Farley Street.”
“So I hear, Sadie. Nothing I can do about it, I’m afraid.”
“The bastards are out to kill him, Jack. They’ve no intention of letting him come out alive. You’ve got to help.”
Frost folded his arms and leaned forward on his desk. “It’s not my case, Sadie. It’s Mr. Allen’s. He may be a bastard, but he’s straight. He won’t let anything happen to Stan.”
“Look at me, Jack. I’m bloody desperate.” She held up her face, which was drawn and tear-stained. “Get him out of there, please!”
Frost opened his door and yelled to Sergeant Wells. “What’s the latest on the siege?”
“Stanley’s now threatening to kill the hostages one by one if his demands aren’t met by midnight.”
“He doesn’t mean it, Jack - it’s just a bluff,” Sadie blurted. Frost waved her to silence.
“And what are his demands?” he asked Wells.
“A fast car, fully tanked up, no pursuit, and one of the hostages to go with him. There’s no way we’re giving him that.”
Frost closed the door. It was half past eleven. He retrieved an opened packet of salted peanuts from his in-tray and shook a few into his hand. There was nothing he could do for Stan, nothing at all. But he wished Sadie wouldn’t look at him like that. He sighed and shot the salted peanuts into his mouth.
“All right, Sadie, what exactly do you want me to do?”
“Get Stan out of there alive, Jack, and name your price.”
“My price is 20 for a short time, 50 for all night, but I’m willing to do it for free if you treat me gently.” He stood up.
“You’ll do it?” gasped Sadie.
“If I can, love, but a lot depends on Stan. If he blasts my brains out as I come up the stairs, then I might have to let you down.”
“No chance of that, Jack. He trusts you.”
“Then he’s a bigger fool than I take him for.”
He unhooked his mac from the coat peg, then slowly wound the scarf around his neck, hoping that Wells would come crashing in at the last minute, like the United States Cavalry, to announce that Eustace had given himself up.
“I’m going to get myself into trouble, son,” he told Webster as he fastened the final button. “If you want a laugh, come with me. If you want to keep your nose clean . . . stay here with Sadie.”
“I’m not bloody staying here,” said Sadie defiantly. “I’m going with you.”
“What’s your plan?” asked Webster.
“Plan?” said Frost. “Since when did I ever make plans? I shall just barge in and hope for the best.”
Webster reached for his coat. “I’ll come with you.”
“You’re a bloody fool, too!” said Frost.
The situation at Farley Street had suddenly worsened. Eustace was showing signs of cracking up. Allen’s last attempt to talk to him had ended with the gunman screaming abuse, waving the gun wildly, and showing all the signs of losing control. There was now serious concern for the safety of the hostages. Indeed, Eustace had reiterated his threat to kill them one by one if the car wasn’t ready and waiting at the stroke of midnight.
Allen was now pinning his hopes on a plan to get some men inside the house by hacking a way through to the roof space from the premises next door. This was proceeding very slowly, as the task needed to be performed silently, and the midnight deadline was fast approaching.
And as if there wasn’t enough to worry about, he now had that half-wit Frost to contend with. The man had barged in with some harebrained scheme involving his getting inside and talking Eustace out.
“No way, Frost. I don’t want any bloody heroes, thank you. The man’s trigger-happy and cracking up. He’s itching for an excuse to kill someone.”
He moved away and radioed the men working on the roof space for a situation report. “We’re getting there slowly,” he was told, ‘but we keep hitting snags. There’s pipes and steel joists all over the place.” When he turned around again, Frost had gone.
“Where’s Mr. Frost?” he demanded of the constable guarding the entrance to the back of the garden.
The constable pointed. “In the garden, sir. Trying to get to the house.”
“Why the hell didn’t you stop him?”
“Stop him, sir? He said you had given permission.”
“Mr. Allen!” Ingram was calling over the radio. “I can see someone in the garden, sir.”
“I know. It’s that bloody fool Frost!”
Frost was flat on his face, inching toward the back door. Stan wasn’t a killer. He knew he wouldn’t fire, just as he had known that doped-up kid at the bank wouldn’t fire, the one who had put the bullet hole through his cheek.
He was crawling through wet grass and wished he had never started this. Something tugged at his neck. He froze, then, very slowly, looked around. A rose bush had snagged his scarf. He unwound it from his neck and left it behind.
Inspector Allen was aware of someone hovering at his side, trying to attract his attention. “I’m busy,” he snapped. Then he saw the gleaming silver. “Sorry, Superintendent . . . didn’t know it was you.”
“What’s the position? . . . Is that Frost? You surely haven’t allowed Frost . . . ?”
Allen cut him off. “I told him not to, sir . . . specifically told him not to. He disobeyed my order and now I’m wasting my time trying to prevent him, and the hostages, being killed through his own stupidity.”
Mullett’s jaw set. This was intolerable. This was the last straw. He could feel the nerve in his forehead starting to pulsate. “Get him out of there,” he snapped.
“We can’t, sir,” replied Allen. “He hasn’t got a radio. If we yelled out to him, it would attract Eustace’s attention.”
“I don’t give a damn about that,” said Mullett. “If he wants to risk his stupid neck, that’s his lookout, but I’m not having him risk the lives of the hostages. Call him back.”
Allen sighed but reached for the loud hailer and raised it to his lips. A car door slammed in the background. His radio paged him. He clicked it on and listened, then turned to the Superintendent. “The Chief Constable is here, sir . . . on his way over to us.”
Mullett pushed down the hand holding the loud hailer. “Hold it, Inspector. I don’t want the Chief to know we have dissension in the ranks.”
Allen put the loud hailer on the ground. Mullett began flicking invisible specks from his uniform and smoothing down his moustache. Allen ruffled his hair and loosened his tie. He thought the Ch
ief Constable would be more impressed with a police officer who looked as if he had been working than with an immaculate tailor’s dummy.
The Chief Constable marched briskly over, slapping his gloves against his leg. “A quick update please, Mr. Mullett.” Mullett had just started to explain when the Chief caught sight of Frost. “Good Lord! Is that Inspector Frost?”
Frost, his body wet with sweat and all his limbs aching, had reached the back door. He stretched up until his hand touched the door handle. Tentatively he turned it. The handle turned, but the door was double-bolted from the inside. Stan wasn’t stupid! He wished he’d worked out the problem of how to get inside before he took this mad plunge. A fine bloody fool he’d look if, without even getting over the first hurdle, he now had to worm his way back and face Allen’s wrath.
The next thing to try was the kitchen window. Pressing tight against the wall, he eased himself up and edged toward it. It was an old-fashioned sash type, and by pressing his face against the pane he could see the catch was fastened inside. To unfasten it he would have to break the glass, but could he break it without attracting the attention of Stan and his shotgun? He looked around him for something to use. In the flower bed at his feet was half a brick. He pulled it out and slipped off his mac, which he wrapped around it.
Allen, squinting through night-glasses, couldn’t make out what Frost was up to. It was Ingram, radioing through, who gave him the answer. “He’s going to break the window, sir.”
The bloody idiot! As soon as Eustace heard the glass break, he could take it out on the hostages. He might even lean from the window and shoot Frost . . . The temptation to let this happen was quickly dismissed, and Allen felt ashamed for even considering it. They would have to provide a distraction - and quickly. He radioed through to all surrounding units. When he gave the signal they were to sound their horns and their sirens and keep them going until ordered to stop. This, he hoped, would drown the sound of breaking glass, or at least divert Eustace long enough for Frost to get inside.
The field glasses to his eyes, Allen watched. Frost had the wrapped brick balanced in his hand. “Allen to all units . . . Stand by.”
Frost shut his eyes, turned his head, and swung back the brick . . .
“Now!” screamed Allen. The cacophony shredded the night air into a thousand pieces.
“Stop that bloody noise!” screamed Eustace, dragging the woman again to the window.
“Off,” said Allen. Abruptly the noise stopped.
The contrasting silence was so tangible it could almost be touched. Gritting his teeth, Frost slipped his hand through the broken windowpane and reached for the catch. A needle of broken glass slashed his wrist. Damn. He felt warm blood trickling down. He flicked the catch back, then scrabbled for the bottom of the window, which creaked peevishly as he raised it. Up with his knee to the sill, the jab of more broken glass, then he was over and inside the dark kitchen.
“He’s inside,” cried Allen. They now had no contact with him. All they could do was wait and see.
“Well done, Mr. Allen,” said the Chief Constable.
“Yes . . . well done,” added Mullett hastily.
From his vantage point across the road, Ingram again called Allen on the radio. “Sir. I have a clear, uninterrupted view of Eustace by the window. Permission to fire?”
“No, damn you,” snapped Allen. “Only at my specific command.” He turned to the Chief Constable. “I’m trying to bring this to a successful conclusion without a single shot being fired - by the police, sir.”
“I quite agree,” said the Chief Constable, nodding.
“All the way,” echoed Mullett, feeling rather left out of things.
Frost crouched in the darkened room and wished the gash on his wrist would stop its sticky trickle. It felt as if gallons of blood were pumping out and it reminded him of the way ancient Romans committed suicide. His knee felt wet, sticky, and gritty from embedded chunks of glass. All in all he had made rather a mess of his spectacular entrance.
A door faced him. He limped over to it and cautiously pushed it open. He could make out carpeted stairs leading to the upper rooms. Good. The carpet should deaden the sound of his approach. His impromptu plan was to creep into the room, get behind Stan, and throw him to the ground so he couldn’t use the shotgun. He fought several different versions of this encounter in his mind, but somehow they all seemed to end up with Stan on top of him and the shotgun barrel rammed halfway up his nose. But this was no time for pessimism.
He padded to the foot of the stairs and listened. All seemed quiet above. He tried the first stair, carefully placing his foot well to one side to avoid any creaking. Then the other foot. A splash of blood plopped to the stair carpet, marking his progress. He paused and listened. Nothing!
The next stair, then the next. His approach was absolutely soundless. The SAS couldn’t have done it any better.
He raised his head for the final stair and his heart suddenly stopped. The terrified face of a woman was staring at him. An arm encircled her neck. Jammed under her chin, the barrel of a shotgun. Behind her, a twitching Stanley Eustace, his finger quivering on the trigger.
“Shit!” said Frost. “I didn’t think you could hear me.”
“One move out of turn, Mr. Frost,” said Stan, ‘and I’m pulling this trigger.” And he pushed the barrel even more tightly under the woman’s chin. “Now, come up!” Frost had never seen the man as uptight as this before. He was a hairbreadth from breaking point.
“All right, I’m coming,” said Frost. “Don’t do anything daft.”
Pulling the woman back, Stanley led Frost into the bedroom. On chairs against the wall were two terrified young boys.
Eustace took the gun from the woman’s throat and pushed her away from him. “Go and sit down with your kids - and not a move, do you hear? Not a move and not a word.” He swung the gun around to cover Frost.
“Sadie sent me,” said Frost. “She said you’d be pleased to see me. I wouldn’t have come had I known it would be like this.”
“I want a car,” said Eustace. “A getaway car. And they’ve got to promise not to come after me.”
“Sadie said if I came up here, you’d let the hostages go,” said Frost.
“No. I need them!” His finger kept touching the trigger then moving off.
“You don’t need them, Stanley. If you want a hostage, you’ve got me. Besides, you haven’t the slightest intention of harming them, and those kids ought to be in bed.”
Allen put down the phone. “Eustace says he’s letting the woman and the kids go, but Frost remains.”
“That’s excellent news,” said Mullett.
“Is it?” muttered Allen. “All we’ve done is swap one set of hostages for another. We’re back to where we started.”
“Jack Frost will get Stanley to come out, don’t you worry,” chimed Sadie. “He won’t let you bastards kill him.”
PC Collier, watching the garden, called out excitedly to Allen. “The hostages are coming out now, sir.”
Frost was reaching for his cigarettes. “Stan, if I take out a fag, will you promise not to blow my head off.”
The gun moved with Frost’s hand as it dived into his pocket. The gunman shook his head when the packet was offered to him. “Given it up.”
Frost clicked his lighter. “Wish I could, Stanley.” He sucked on the cigarette and let the smoke fill his lungs, then slowly exhaled. “You’ve got to give yourself up some time, Stan. Why not now?”
“I want a car, petrol . . .”
Frost waved his hand impatiently. “You know bloody well they’re not going to give it to you. They’ve got the press and the TV cameras out there, all waiting for the happy ending - with the crook losing and the police coming out on top. Mr. Mullett’s hoping for a different happy ending - you blowing my brains out. But there’s no way they’re going to let you get into a motor and drive away.”
The man’s entire body started to shake. “If the bastards want
a fight, I’ll give them one. They framed me. I never touched that copper.”
The waiting and the hanging about was making Mullett impatient. “What’s going on, Allen?”
Allen wished Mullett would get back to the office and stop being a pain. All this standing behind him and fidgeting and expecting things to happen just because the great Chief Constable was there was getting on his nerves. He radioed Ingram. “What’s happening, Sergeant?”
“Mr. Frost is by the window, sir, Eustace well back, the gun trained on the inspector. No chance of a shot at the moment, sir, I might hit Mr. Frost. Hold on, sir - something’s happening . . .”
“As God is my witness,” said Eustace, the finger on the trigger shaking dangerously, “I never touched that copper. I never even saw him that day. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Stanley,” said Frost uneasily, ‘with a gun rammed in my gut I’m prepared to believe anything.”
Stanley laughed. An overwrought laugh. “It’s not even bloody loaded, Mr. Frost.”
“What?”
“I fired my last cartridge half an hour ago. It’s empty - look.” His finger tightened on the trigger to demonstrate.
Frost’s arm swung out to knock the gun away, just in case Stan was mistaken, but even as he moved the explosive blast hammered at his ears. Stanley stared, open-mouthed, in horror, pointed an accusing finger at Frost and pitched forward, vomiting blood, the red stain on his chest spreading, spreading . . .
“Get an ambulance!” shouted Frost as armed police charged into the room. He cradled Stanley’s head in his arms. Outside a woman was screaming uncontrollably - Sadie Eustace.
“You silly sods!” yelled Frost. “The gun wasn’t loaded. You silly sods . . .”
Ingram had fired the shot.
They carried Stanley’s body out on a stretcher, the red blanket pulled up to cover his face. As Frost emerged Sadie lunged at him. “You bastard - you let them kill him.” Webster and a woman police officer held her back. Frost walked on. There was nothing he could say to her.
Frost 2 - A Touch Of Frost Page 38