Frost 4 - Hard Frost

by R D Wingfield

  "Send it to Mr. Allen," said Frost. "Not me - it's not my case, thank God!" Then he remembered what he meant to ask. "Chloroform. Do they still use it in hospitals?"

  Drysdale shook his head. "Not for many years. It's been superseded."

  "So where would you get it a chemist?"

  Another shake of the head. "Only if they've got some very old stock they haven't got around to throwing away yet. Years ago it was used in certain prescribed medicines, but not any more. Anything else?"

  Frost scratched his head. "That's all I can think of, doc."

  "I'll bid you good night then." He jerked his head to his secretary, who followed him out.

  Evans began to bag up the materials removed from the body . . . the masking tape, the cotton wool and sticking plaster . . . The mortuary attendant came out to take the body back to the storage area, but Frost held up a hand to delay him. "Take a couple of Polaroid shots of the face," he instructed Evans. "I want them faxed out to all forces in the hope someone can identify the poor little git." He moved out of the way as the flash gun fired. One last look at the body. He lifted the hand with the severed finger. "Why the hell would anyone want to do this?"

  "Liz Maud has got a weirdo breaking into houses and stabbing kids," said Burton. "Could be him."

  "Could be," said Frost, not sounding very convinced. "I'll have a word with her."

  On the way out they passed Drysdale and his secretary in the midst of an angry exchange with the mortuary attendant who was hotly denying helping himself to coffee from their thermos flask.

  In the car Frost settled back into the passenger seat and offered his cigarettes to Burton. "I want you to check up on that little Chinese nurse. Find out where she was from four o'clock onwards, today."

  Burton frowned. "You surely don't suspect her?"

  "Sticking plaster, cotton wool, chloroform, things you'd find in a hospital. And she'd certainly know how to lop off a finger."

  "But what on earth would her motive be?"

  "I don't know, son." The cigarette waggled in his mouth as he spoke and sent a shower of ash down the front of his mac. "Perhaps she was jealous of Kirby's son - perhaps he was spoiling their relationship."

  "But this is a different boy."

  "They all look the same to us - maybe our kids all look the same to them. Perhaps she got the wrong kid." Even as he said it, it sounded weak. "Just check her out, son. It'll give us something to do. We've got no other leads at the moment."

  A disgruntled Bill Wells grabbed Frost as soon as he entered the station. "If you want me to do anything for you, Jack, like organize a search party, do me the courtesy of talking to me direct. I'm not having that stuck-up tart telling me what to do."

  "Sorry," said Frost, knowing how prickly Wells could be. "Have one of Mullett's fags and we'll say no more about it." Wells took one and let the inspector light it for him. He was still not mollified.

  "And where is the good lady in question?" asked Frost.

  "Lording it up in the murder incident room."

  Frost nodded and breezed off down the corridor. "I'll give her your love," he called.

  He sailed into the incident room. Liz had done a good job getting it organized, and under way. The fax machine in the corner was chirping away, spewing out yards of messages; two uniformed men were taking calls and another phone was ringing on an unoccupied desk. As Burton followed Frost in, she yelled, "Answer that phone."

  Sullenly, Burton snatched it up. Like Wells, he wasn't happy taking orders from a woman.

  "Be with you in a minute," she called to Frost, putting down her phone and galloping over to the fax machine. She skimmed through the messages, shook her head in disappointment and dumped them in an already full wire basket. She was annoyed. "We fax all forces asking if they've had a boy answering our description reported missing and they send us details of every missing boy they've got on their books whether he fits our description or not. Some have even sent details of missing girls!"

  "Anything remotely like our boy?"

  She pulled a fax from the pile. "Just this seven-year-old, Duncan Ford, reported missing this afternoon from Scotland."

  Frost took the fax. "Last seen in Montrose just after four thirty," he read. "Well, unless Concorde has changed its route, we can rule him out." He gave her the Polaroid shots taken at the mortuary. "Fax these around." Then he remembered the photograph of Bobby the mother had given him. "You'd better send this out as well."

  As she busied herself at the fax machine, he riffled through the heap of faxes received, then pushed the tray away. His gut feeling told him that the murdered child came from Denton and they were wasting their time enquiring elsewhere. When Liz came back he asked her about her child stabber.

  "We've had four cases over the past week," she told him. "He breaks into the house, usually through a window, and stabs the kids while they sleep . . . just cuts their flesh. I think he gets a sexual kick out of seeing blood."

  "Do you think he'd get a bigger sexual kick cutting off a finger?" She shuddered as he told her about the dead boy and of Drysdale's findings. "Let Mr. Allen know tomorrow - and tell him his company is requested at the post-mortem,10 a.m." top hat, white tie and tails." He yawned. It was nearly three o'clock in the morning. "I'm off home." A wave to everyone. "See you next week."

  As he left, she was yelling for one of the PCs to start checking through the rubbish bags stacked in the car park to see if the dead boy's clothes had been dumped inside.

  "Bossy little cow, isn't she?" whispered Frost to Burton.

  "Too bleeding bossy," muttered the DC.

  "Still," added Frost, "I wouldn't kick her out of bed on a frosty night."

  Burton sniffed derisively. "I wouldn't have her in my bed in the first place."

  It wasn't until he got home and the front door slammed behind him that he suddenly remembered Shirley. Shirley, who had been on holiday with him and who was going away again with him in the morning. He had left her in the house while he went off to the station to nick some fags from Mullett's goody box. Bloody hell! He had told her he would only be a couple of minutes and that was nearly five hours ago.

  She wasn't in the living-room. He looked hopefully in the bedroom. The unmade bed was empty. Sod it! He snatched up the phone and dialled her number. The engaged tone. She had left the phone off the hook. Sod, sod and double sod. He considered driving round to her place, but was too damn tired. What a bloody fine holiday this was turning out to be. Piddling with rain all the time he was away, a murder case, a post-mortem and a solitary bed. He undressed, letting his clothes fall on the floor by the bed, then flopped down on the mattress.

  He slept soundly until seven thirty when the insistent ringing of the phone brought him reluctantly to the surface. It could only be Shirley. But at this time? He lifted the phone.

  "Frost," he mumbled, sounding very contrite.

  It wasn't Shirley. It was the station. Mullett wanted him to report there right away.

  "Tell the silly sod I'm on holiday," said Frost.

  "The silly sod knows that," answered Bill Wells. "But he still wants to see you and he's in a real right mood."

  Frost's heart nose-dived. "He's not been counting his bloody fags, has he?"

  It was ten past eight and still dark as he turned the Ford into the car-park at the rear of the station. Usually half empty at this time of the morning, it was now jam-packed with alien vehicles of all kinds. Bobby Kirby was obviously still missing and the search party was assembling. Every available officer had been called in to help, including off-duty personnel and officers who could be spared from neighbouring divisions. All very efficiently organized. Frost was glad it wasn't his case. Organization and efficiency weren't his strong point. He'd have made a complete sod-up of it all.

  As he bumped along, looking for somewhere to leave the Ford, a stray dog in the kennels started to bark and was answered by suppressed whining from the dog-handler's van over in the far corner. Space was at a premium, but
he managed a clumsy double-park which effectively boxed in Mullett's blue Jaguar.

  In the lobby, a weary-looking Sergeant Bill Wells - who should have gone off duty at six - was directing a group of constables from Thorrington Division up to the canteen where the main briefing was to take place. "Follow the smell of stewed tea and burnt bacon - you can't miss it," called Frost.

  Wells beckoned Frost over, his eyes glinting as they always did when he had an item of tasty gossip to impart. "Did you hear what happened last night?"

  "You got your leg over with Liz Maud?" suggested Frost.

  "She should be so lucky!" snorted Wells. He leant across the desk. "That booze-up that Mullett and Allen attended. It was some sort of senior police do - top brass from all divisions were there."

  "My invite must have been lost in the post," said Frost.

  "Anyway," continued Wells, 'meting to the meaty bit, 'my information is, they sunk a lot more booze than was good for them and they were all well over the limit. Chief Inspector Formby from Greenford Division was giving four of them a lift back. He was in no fit state to drive, but that didn't stop him. Just outside the hotel car-park there's a lamp post. Formby wraps the car round it and turns it over."

  Frost beamed. "I like happy endings."

  "It's even happier," continued Wells. "They're all in Felstead Hospital with broken arms and ribs - Formby's leg is broken as well."

  "Serves the bastard right," said Frost. "If he had an inch of common decency he'd have given Allen and Mullett a lift as well and broken both their bloody legs."

  Two more uniformed men swept in. Wells steered them up the stairs to the canteen, then leant over to Frost, lowering his voice. "Here's the best bit, Jack. The ambulance was called and the Traffic boys turn up anxious to breathalyse the driver - the car just stunk of malt whisky."

  "Bloody hell," said Frost. "I'd give up my pension for the chance to breathalyse a sod like Formby."

  "He wasn't breathalysed, Jack. Someone pulled rank."

  "There's no justice," said Frost.

  "Anyway, five senior officers in hospital is going to make them a bit thin on the ground for a few weeks." The internal phone rang. Mullett. "He wants you," said Wells.

  "He can't have everything he wants," said Frost.

  Mullett dropped the Alka Seltzers in the glass of water and winced at the head splitting fizzing noise. He shouldn't have drunk so much last night, but the other officers were so insistent and he didn't want to appear the odd man out. A perfunctory tap at the door and before he could say "Enter' Frost had shuffled in. Mullett groaned. Was that the only suit the man had? He squeezed out a thin smile and waved Frost to a chair, then swilled down the Alka Seltzer.

  "Have a good holiday?" he asked.

  "Peed with rain all week," grunted Frost.

  "Good," said Mullett, who wasn't listening.

  "Did you get my comic postcard?" asked Frost.

  Mullett frowned. Yes, he had got the card. And torn it up immediately. "It was extremely rude," he muttered.

  Frost looked puzzled. "Rude? You must have spotted some double meaning I missed."

  Mullett flapped a hand. "Be that as it may. Sorry to drag you in, Frost, but things happened last night. Five of our top men involved in a car accident."

  "So I heard," said Frost. "The car had a fight with a lamppost."

  "Yes - a patch of oil on the road. They skidded." Mullett, not a good liar, didn't sound very convincing.

  "Was Formby breathalysed?" asked Frost. "I understand he'd had a few."

  "Oh - Chief Inspector Formby wasn't driving," said Mullett, carefully avoiding Frost's eye. "His daughter was driving and she hadn't been drinking."

  Frost smiled and gave a conspiratorial wink. "Bloody clever! You're a lot of crafty sods, sir, that's all I can say."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It's obvious. Formby was driving. He didn't dare be breathalysed, so you brought his daughter in from home to pretend she was the driver."

  Mullett tried to sound suitably shocked. "That's a libellous thing to say, Frost. His daughter was driving. We all gave statements to that effect."

  "Then the witness who claims to have seen it all differently is telling lies?" said Frost. He put on his innocent expression. "What did you want to see me about?"

  But Mullett was now in a high state of agitation. "What witness? What does he claim to have seen? You must tell me."

  "If what you say is true, then he couldn't have seen anything, could he, sir?" said Frost blandly. "It would be your word against his anyway, even if he is a vicar."

  Mullett stared hard and jotted a note on his pad. He would have to talk to Frost about this later man to man on a friendly basis. He hadn't wanted to get involved in this wretched deception anyway, but they had pulled rank and twisted his arm. He cleared his throat. "The result of this unfortunate accident is that five senior officers are nursing broken bones in hospital."

  "Then it wasn't all bad," said Frost.

  Mullett ignored this. "Obviously, this has meant some temporary relocation of personnel. In our case it means that Inspector Allen has been seconded to Greenford Division as acting chief inspector until such time as Mr. Formby is fit enough to return."

  "When is he going?" asked Frost.

  "He's already gone. It was arranged last night."

  "Do you mean to tell me," said Frost, 'that Allen knew he wouldn't be here when he conned me into taking over his cases on a temporary basis last night?"

  "I don't know anything about that," said Mullett, again not meeting Frost's eye.

  "The bastard," said Frost, banging his fist on Mullett's desk which jolted the headache into overdrive.

  "Please!" Mullett held his head. "You will take over all his cases."

  "That still leaves us a man short."

  "There will be a temporary replacement for Mr. Allen . . . a detective sergeant as acting inspector. We haven't finalized the details yet."

  "The sooner the better - we're pushed enough as it is."

  Mullett waved a hand of dismissal. "I'll leave you to it then. Sorry to have to cut your holiday short, but it couldn't be avoided."

  "A few less drinks last night and it would have been," said Frost, pushing himself out of the chair.

  As the door closed, Mullett heard a startled cry from his secretary and a raucous laugh from Frost. "Caught you bending there, Ida!"

  The Divisional Commander shook his head sadly. What could you do with a man like that?

  Frost took a quick look in Allen's office on his way up to the briefing. He shuddered. The room was so neat and tidy it almost hurt. Desk tops clear, wall charts meticulously entered, and the prissy smell of lavender wax polish. A cold, heartless room, which matched its former occupant, and which made Frost itch to get back to the warm, untidy fug of his own office. He delved into Allen's in-tray, and pulled out a neat stack of forms and returns which had to be completed and sent off to County by the third of the month. Trust the sod to leave them behind. He put them back and went across the corridor to the incident room where Liz Maud, still in her drab grey outfit, was surprised to see him.

  "I thought you were on holiday, inspector?"

  He explained about Allen. Her eyes narrowed. If a detective sergeant was to be made up to acting inspector, then who better than her!

  "There's a few returns and things in his office," said Frost vaguely. "Perhaps you could see if you could handle them."

  "No problem," she said. "I'll move in there."

  "I take it we didn't find Bobby Kirby?"

  "No. The briefing for the search party is in five minutes."

  "Right - I suppose I'd better do it."

  She concealed her disappointment. In the absence of Allen, she was hoping she could take this over.

  "Have we identified the dead kid?"

  "No."

  "Damn." He lit up a cigarette and stared out of the window on to the car-park. "A young kid, eight years old at the most and dead for nearly fif
teen hours. Why haven't his parents reported him missing?" He sucked hard at the cigarette as he had a thought. "It could be because it's his parents who killed him." He spun round to Liz. "As soon as the schools open, get on the phone to the head teachers. I want to know if there's any seven - or eight-year-old boys who haven't turned up for school today."

  "Right."

  "But don't tell them he's dead - not until we've traced and informed the parents."

  "Of course not." Give her credit for some common sense.

  "Any joy with the rubbish sacks?"

  "Plenty of prints, but we're checking with the shop people today to eliminate them. And no sign of the clothing."

  "Has everyone in the briefing got copies of both photographs - the dead kid and Bobby?"

  "Yes."

  "And the guy? People might not have noticed the kid, but they could remember the guy."

  "Yes. And I've sent copies of the photograph of Bobby to the press and TV and we're having a pile of "Have you seen this boy" posters run off. Also some extra large ones to stick on a loudspeaker van to tour the neighbourhood."

  "Good," nodded Frost. He had forgotten about that. "Right, let's get the search party briefed."

  The canteen was packed. He snatched himself a mug of tea and a bacon sandwich and elbowed his way through to the front. "Your attention, please!"

  There were murmurs of surprise. Everyone had been expecting Inspector Allen.

  "First the good news - and I must ask you to promise not to laugh. Chief Inspector Formby was injured in a car crash last night and is in hospital with two broken arms and a broken leg." He paused as delighted laughter roared out. "And this will really make you laugh - he's in quite a bit of pain."

  There were one or two cheers at this. Formby with his sneering manner and sarcastic tongue was not a popular officer.

  "The bad news is that Inspector Allen has been seconded to Greenford as acting chief inspector and I'm in charge of this missing boy enquiry. You are looking for Bobby Kirby, aged seven. You all have a photograph and a description. His parents have split up and he lives with his mother and her boyfriend. Last night the mother and the boyfriend nipped out to the pub for a quick one, leaving the kid alone in the house. When they returned just after ten, the kid wasn't there. Apparently he sneaked out with his guy to collect money. About eleven o'clock last night we found the guy behind a pile or rubbish bags stacked in a shop doorway in Patriot Street. Next to the guy was a boy's body in a rubbish sack. The boy, aged around seven or eight, had been chloroformed and gagged with plastic masking tape and had choked on his own vomit. He was naked, but there was no sign of sexual assault. The boy was not Bobby Kirby and up to now he has not been reported as missing so we don't know who he is. We'll be checking with schools as soon as they open. So our task is twofold. To find Bobby and to find out all we can about the dead boy."