Frost at Christmas djf-1

by R D Wingfield

  "Sergeant Hanlon back?" he snapped in his best official manner, stuffing the radio back in his pocket.

  "In his office, Inspector," and the station sergeant just managed to hide the broad grin under his mustache.

  I wonder what that's all about? thought Clive.

  They found Hanlon in his office worrying the life out of a glass of Alka Seltzer with a spoon. He swallowed the bubbling liquid in one long gulp and let it do battle with his digestive system.

  "That's no cure for the pox, you know, Arthur," said Frost with concern.

  Fat eyes regarded him indignantly. "You sent me to a fine place, Inspector Frost. The meat was off. How can meat be off in this weather?" He suppressed a belch.

  "Did you find sexy Cynthia?"

  "I found her. She confirms Farnham's story. He was with her until six o'clock."

  "Thank you, Arthur. Now go and wash your hands in carbolic and get on with your work."

  Back in the torrid seclusion of his own office, the inspector tugged at the string tying the bundle of Bennington's Bank staff files. Clive watched moodily. He was beginning to feel useless, just trotting along behind Frost like a tame dog. He wanted to get out on his own.

  "Hadn't I better do my round of doctors and dentists, sir?"

  "That can wait, son. I'm content we've found Fawcus's skeleton-I don't want any more proof. When we've worked out who killed him and Garwood-and let's not forget the dog-then we can waste our time sodding about with luxuries like dental charts. Help me look through this pile of old rubbish." He spread the files out on his desk. There were ten of them, ten people who were working diligently in Bennington's Denton branch way back in July 1951, at least two of whom were now dead with bullets in their skulls.

  "We'll work from the top down," announced Frost, "the manager first."

  In 1951 the manager was a John Aubrey Powell, then aged 45. He had retired in 1971 on his sixty-fifth birthday. An exemplary bank employee it would seem, judging from the annual assessments contained in the file. The 1952 assessment lightly referred to the unfortunate business of the missing cashier and the lost PS20,000 but absolved Powell from all blame. The last item in the file was a copy of a memo from the staff pension fund administrators to the effect that, at Mr. Powell's request, part of his pension entitlement was to be paid as a lump sum, his monthly pension to be reduced accordingly.

  "I wonder why he took a lump sum," said Frost, and dialed Hudson to ask him.

  Apparently it wasn't unusual. Many people opted for a lump sum. They might want to start up a little business, or buy a better house-you wouldn't stand much chance of obtaining a fresh mortgage at the age of sixty-five-or…

  Frost pulled the phone away and let the manager babble on. "I'm sorry I asked," he told Clive, "I'm getting a bloody lecture." Then the phone was jammed in his ear and he jolted to attention. "What did you say, Mr. Hudson?"

  "I said I don't know the exact reason why Mr. Powell took a lump sum, but you could always ask him."

  "Ask him? You mean he's still in Denton?"

  "His address is in the file," said Hudson edgily. His head was aching, the inspector was shouting, arid he wanted to go home.

  Frost scrabbled through the pages. "I can't see it."

  Clive leaned over his shoulder and tapped a finger on a section headed Present Address.

  "Oh," said Frost, "it's all right, Mr. Hudson, I've found it. It was filed in the wrong place." He hung up.

  Clive jotted down Powell's address and they plunged into the murk of the next file, that of the then assistant manager, now running a branch in Glasgow. Glasgow police were teleprinted to have a word with him.

  And on to the next. Timothy Fawcus. A good and industrious worker, recommended for early promotion. His medical report for the pension fund made no mention of a broken arm. The file closed with the cryptic comment "Left service of bank June 1951-see separate file."

  They pulled out Rupert Garwood's file. A fairly recent photograph pinned to the inner cover showed both of his eyes. At the time of the robbery in 1951 he was earning three pounds two shillings per week, five and a half days including Saturday mornings. Following the fracturing of his skull he was off work for three months, but in return for a doctor's certificate of incapacitation a money order for the full three pounds two shillings was sent to his home every Friday. A confidential memo from Head of Staff Administration asked Manager Powell if it were possible that the lad was in any way implicated in the disappearance of Fawcus and the money, but Powell disabused head office of this unthinkable possibility. Later that year Gar-wood was regraded and his salary increased to three pounds, fifteen shillings a week, payable monthly.

  Another four files, all flat, stale, and unprofitable. Frost was getting bored.

  "My head's aching looking at all this rubbish, son," he complained, staring out at the white bleakness of the car park. "It's getting dark already. They'll be calling off the searches soon. Hello-this file's a different color."

  The color was different because in the rigid social struc ture of the bank in the early fifties, the files of caretakers and manual workers had to be clearly distinguished from those of the elite salaried staff and this was the dossier of Albert Barrow, fifty-three, Caretaker, who had left the bank's service at the end of 1951. His going was abrupt and without notice. He just walked out one night and never returned. The bank eventually sent him his cards and tax forms, and the envelope was returned marked" Gone away-present address unknown.

  Frost stifled a yawn and fluffed his hair in exasperation. "This is getting too bloody complicated, son. What would help us no end is for someone to walk in and confess."

  There was one file left and it looked as dull and potentially unfruitful as the others. He decided to shove it to one side while they nipped up to the canteen for a cup of hot stewed tea and was actually pushing himself up from the chair when intuition whispered in his ear. The shout of tea was louder than the whisper of intuition, but he turned the cover of the file and gave a brief, reluctant glance inside, then-

  "Christ!"

  He made Clive jump. "What is it, sir?"

  "I knew that old cow was involved, son. You can't beat the old Frost intuition."

  Clive spun the file around. The photograph on the inner cover looked vaguely familiar. An ugly girl with tight thin lips, a hooked nose. He couldn't believe it, but the name underneath was conclusive. Working for the bank in 1951 was the wild witch of the woods, Martha Wendle, the clairvoyant, the skeleton locater, the cat woman. From May to July 1951 she had operated the bank's switchboard, but on the 10th of July she was dismissed, the reasons for her dismissal stated as "Listening in to private phone calls, rudeness to bank customers, unexplained absence from switchboard, insubordination, lack of co-operation, etc., etc."

  "She got them going during the three months she was with them," said Frost with grudging admiration. He wound the old maroon scarf over the tightly knotted tie. "Come on, son, get the motor out. We've got some cats to visit."

  The Morris 1100 purred along a road between rolling, snow-mantled fields. Frost suddenly grabbed at Clive's arm.

  "Hold it, son!"

  Clive stopped the car and followed the inspector's gaze to a distant clump of slow-moving figures flashing torches.

  "Our chaps, I think," said Frost, raising binoculars to his eyes and fiddling with the focus. Blurs sharpened into men with uniforms, moving forward quickly, pointing and mouthing noiselessly. There was no way to join them except by wading through the snow-blanketed fields. Frost radioed Control who sounded quite excited.

  "A lead sir. The helicopter spotted something moving in the snow and we sent a team out to investigate."

  Frost's heart beat faster. If it was Tracey, and she was moving

  … And he'd written her off as dead! The binoculars again. The men had stopped and were gathered around something; they were bending, lifting…

  "I think they've found her, son." Somehow he managed to keep his voice steady. He
handed the binoculars to Clive and radioed back to Control for a further report. Control were slow in answering. Static crackled and his hand trembled with excitement.

  Clive was giving a low-voiced running commentary. "Yes, sir, there is something. They're picking her up. I can't quite see…"

  A clattering over the radio as someone in Control picked up a microphone. "Control here. Sorry, Inspector, a false lead. It's a sheep."

  "It's a sheep," reported Clive. "Must have got trapped in a snowdrift."

  Disappointment crushed Frost back into his seat and he signaled wearily for Clive to drive on. "Why do I get so excited?" he said moodily. "The kid's dead and I know it.

  There's some things you feel. You know, like when the hospital phoned to say my wife had died. I didn't have to pick up the phone. At the very first ring, I knew."

  Clive eased the car into the now-familiar parking spot at the edge of the woods and they pushed out for the long slithering slog to the cottage.

  "You on duty Christmas?" bellowed Frost.

  "I haven't checked the roster yet, sir."

  "They could be leaning over backward to show no favoritism to the Chief Constable's nephew, so if you are on, let me know, I might be able to wangle something."

  No more talk until the misshapen bulk of the cottage loomed up. No lights were showing and their knocks went unanswered. Clive squinted through the letterbox. Green emeralds sparkled in blackness. He shouted. They blurred and vanished.

  The lean-to that should have housed Martha Wendle's old car was empty, and tire tracks led toward the private road.

  "The old cow's done a bunk!" moaned Frost. "Why didn't I run her in when we found that lousy skeleton?" Clive didn't answer him. He was looking over the inspector's shoulder into the back garden where something poked crookedly out of the snow. It was a cross fashioned from two pieces of wood nailed together. In front of the cross stood a vase containing a bunch of expensive hothouse chrysanthemums.

  Frost galloped over and scraped snow away with his shoe. It was deep snow, but the ground beneath showed signs of recent disturbance, and the shape was unmistakable. Frost's voice was quiet. "It's a bloody grave, son. I think we've found Tracey."

  He sent Clive racing back to the parked car to radio for Forensic, for some diggers and for Martha Wendle to be picked up. Frost stayed behind, keeping vigil, chainsmoking and stamping to bring sluggish circulation back to his feet. A lurking wind suddenly spotted him and pounced, tearing and biting through his clothes, clawing at his scar. He was reluctant to leave the grave, but at last sought shelter in a small garden shed. It contained a shovel and a fork. He decided he couldn't wait for the digging party and braved the wind. It wasn't a job that could be rushed and his fork probed delicately for fear of plunging into the child's body. He was still scratching the surface when bobbing lights through the trees heralded the approach of the forensic team. He felt a twinge of doubt. If it was a grave, it seemed empty. He dropped to his knees and scraped away with gloved hands and the men from Forensic gathered around, spotlighting the site with their torches. And then he found the body… small, stiff and white. But it wasn't Tracey. It was a white kitten, its head flattened in grotesque distortion by the weight of the covering earth. And that was all the grave contained.

  No one laughed, no one said anything, but the silence was crushing and oppressive. Frost wished the ground would open up and swallow him as well as the kitten. He straightened up slowly and rubbed his palms down his coat. "You can go home if you like, lads. I've made what you might term a bit of a balls-up."

  They trudged off without a word leaving Frost and Clive to shovel the earth back and stamp it down hard. It was a big grave for such a tiny creature so the mistake was reasonable, and Clive was wishing he could think of something to say when, cutting gratingly over the wind, a woman screamed and screamed and screamed.

  It came from the cottage. Martha Wendle was screaming at them. They hadn't heard her return, but she had seen men lurking in her garden so she shrieked in terror and slammed all the bolts on the doors.

  They pleaded with her through the letterbox and pushed their warrant cards under the door as proof of their honest intentions before she finally let them in, still trembling. Even her cats were cowering fearfully in dark places.

  "I'm sorry, Inspector," she said when she had calmed down, "but I had no idea it was you invading the privacy of my garden."

  "I'd have knocked first," said Frost, his nose twitching against the unforgettable smells, "but I thought the spirits would be keeping you in the picture."

  "It's easy to scoff," she snapped, brushing past him to fetch a large brown saucepan from the kitchen. She removed the lid and dumped a mess of strong-smelling fish heads on to a plate on the floor which was immediately awash with cats spitting, biting, tearing, and scrunching. Clive slipped into the room at that point. He caught Frost's eyes and shook his head: he had found nothing. Frost had asked him to search the cottage. The size of the kitten's grave worried him.

  Frost pulled his scarf up so it covered his nose and hoped it would filter off some of the aromas. "That skeleton you kindly put us on to, Miss Wendle. You were working at Bennington's when he was killed, weren't you?"

  She suddenly stared at him intently. "You miss your wife a lot, don't you, Inspector?"

  Clive had never seen Frost so angry before. The inspector was trembling with rage. "Keep that bloody claptrap to yourself, you wicked cow." Then he swallowed hard and regained control. "Sorry-it's a painful subject. July 1951. Tell me about the robbery."

  She wiped her hands on a grimy tea-towel. "I was accused of not passing on a vital message. The message was never given to me."

  "What vital message?" asked Frost.

  "It's in your file," she said.

  That means I'll have to read the bloody thing, thought Frost, and Clive, feeling he had been silent long enough, asked "Is that why they sacked you, Miss Wendle- because you didn't pass this message on?"

  "That was the excuse they used," she said bitterly, fastening her eyes on the younger man, "but the truth was, I knew too much about the manager and his business."

  "His business?" prompted Clive.

  "Yes. You can't help overhearing the odd snippet when you work on a switchboard. That son of his was always phoning the manager up."

  "What about?"

  "Money. He was always whining for money. I can still hear that wheedling voice." She gave a grotesque imitation. " 'You've got to help me, Dad, I must have the money tonight.' The manager falsely accused me of listening in to his calls." A self-satisfied smile crawled across her face. "But he was punished for his wickedness."

  One of the more unpleasant-looking cats had discovered Frost's leg and was rubbing up against it.

  "How was he punished?" asked Clive.

  Her eyes went blank as she savored the recollection. "His son committed suicide, didn't you know?" She chose that moment to look down as Frost's foot was swinging and her expression changed abruptly to acid hate. "You dare touch that animal!" She scooped the cat up and hugged it protectively to her chest. "I'm glad your wife died," she spat. " Now get out!"

  Frost gave her a look of contempt. "You nasty bitch!"

  "Go!" she said, and squeezed the cat until it squealed in protest.

  The long plod back to the car in the wind blew away the smell of fish and cats and hatred.

  "How did she know about your wife, sir?" asked Clive.

  "Not from the bloody spirits, son, that's for sure. It was in all the local papers at the time-'Police Hero's Wife Dies-Funeral Pictures Page 8'. It was probably wrapped round her fish heads." He said nothing for a while, then, "My wife was beautiful when I first met her, you know. I wasn't such a bad catch myself-not the ugly sod I am now," and his hand went to his cheek.

  Throughout the drive back he was deep in thought and kept touching his scarred face; then, as they rumbled down the hill to the Market Square, "Tell me something honestly son. This scar, it doesn't make m
e look too bad, does it?"

  "You can hardly notice it, sir," said Clive, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  Frost looked unconvinced. His fingers felt, pushed and poked. "I can't leave the damn thing alone. The doc says I could have plastic surgery, but between you and me, I'm a bloody coward. I'm terrified of hospitals. I keep having this nightmare-I'm being wheeled into the operating theater where the surgeon's waiting with blood on his gown and I try to move, but I'm strapped down, and I can see all the knives and hooks and things in a kidney bowl, and I try and yell, and then I wake up in a cold sweat."

  Control came through on the radio. "Would Inspector Frost report to the Divisional Commander at once, please?"

  Frost sighed. "No wonder I get bloody nightmares. What have I done wrong now?"

  WEDNESDAY-4

  Superintendent Mullett's knuckles drummed his desk top in a gesture of impatient irritation. How much longer was he expected to wait? Other officers treated a summons from their Divisional Commander as tantamount to an Imperial Decree, dropping everything in their eagerness to obey it, but Frost…

  A rap at the door. At last! Even the knock was slovenly.

  A pause as the blotter was moved fractionally to dead center and the silver-buttoned tunic pulled down to pristine smoothness.

  "Come in."

  And in he slouched, trailing that matted woolen scarf, disintegrating at one end. His shoes made damp marks on the carpet.

  Mullen flicked a disdainful hand to a chair. Frost sat on the edge, apprehensively.

  "I've just spoken to the head of Forensic," snapped Mullett.

  "Oh?" asked Frost innocently, yet knowing what was coming. That slimey sod in Forensic, trust him to waste no time in whining direct to Mullett.

  "Do you know how much it costs to send out a full, experienced team like that?"

  If I don't, I'm sure you're going to tell me, thought Frost, adopting an attitude of interested concern while slipping his hand into his trouser pocket to play the game of counting his small change by touch alone. It gave him something to occupy his mind while waiting for the superintendent to finish his moan.