R. Wingfield - Hard Frost

Constable has decreed that you will work with Mr. Frost and that he will be the senior officer."

"I am not happy with this, sir."

"I take note of your unhappiness," said Mullett, 'but would advise you to take full advantage of this opportunity." He gave his crocodile smile. "Any successes that you achieve will be duly noted and, should the time come for Inspector Frost to be replaced…" He spread his palms significantly and let the option hang. "However, if you decide you cannot work with him, I am sure County can find some other sergeant who would be only too pleased to improve his promotional chances by acting as inspector."

Cassidy grunted. "I'll work with him."

"Good man," beamed Mullett. "Well, I expect you will want to get started. You'll be in Mr. Allen's office. You know where it is." He stood up to indicate the interview was over. "I'm glad we've had this little chat."

A stab of pain caught Cassidy by surprise as he pushed himself up. He winced and gritted his teeth.

"You all right?" Mullett asked.

"Leg a bit stiff after the journey," explained Cassidy, forcing himself not to limp as he crossed to the door.

"Oh one other thing," said Mullett, making his carefully rehearsed speech sound like an afterthought. "That business with your daughter …"

Cassidy turned slowly to face the Divisional Commander. "Yes?"

"Over and done with all in the past." Mullett gave Cassidy's arm a 'man to man' squeeze.

"Yes," said Cassidy, tersely. "AH in the past." There was no one in the passage outside so he was able to allow himself the luxury of a limp back to Allen's office.

Thomas Arnold, assistant branch manager at Benning-ton's Bank, blinked nervously at Frost through thick-lensed glasses. By his side stood the cashier who had attended to Stanfield when he withdrew the 25,000 that morning. He waited for his secretary to give Frost and Liz a cup of lukewarm instant coffee, then nodded for the cashier to proceed.

"Mr. Stanfield was waiting outside the bank when we opened at nine-thirty," the cashier told them. "He handed me his withdrawal request. I raised my eyebrows and said, "Rather a large sum!" And he said, "Just get it!" I obviously didn't have that amount of money in my till and it was more than I like to count out over the counter, so I took him round to Mr. Arnold's office to wait while we fetched the money from the vault."

"That's correct," said Arnold. "I offered him coffee, but he refused."

Frost pushed his half-empty cup away from him. "I'm not surprised."

"How did he seem?" asked Liz.

"In what way?"

"She means," said Frost, 'did he look as if his daughter was going to be raped if he didn't cough up the cash, or did he behave normally?"

"He seemed very impatient but then he usually is," replied the assistant manager. "It only took eight minutes to provide the cash."

"I brought it in, but before I could hand it over he snatched it from me," said the cashier. "He didn't bother to count it, just stuffed it in his suitcase and left."

"You didn't think it strange he should withdraw such a large sum in cash?"

"To be quite honest," said Arnold, "I thought he was going to do a runner… leave the country. I believe Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue are breathing very hard down his neck… but that is strictly off the record, of course."

They nodded their thanks and left.

"Well," smirked Liz when they got back in the car. "He was agitated, and impatient it's starting to sound genuine."

"Of course he looked agitated. You'd hardly expect him to be whistling "Happy Days are Here Again". He knew we'd check."

"Then what about my witness who saw the van?"

"I don't care if he saw a hundred bloody vans. I still reckon this is a tax and insurance fiddle."

"We'll see," she smiled, determined to prove him wrong.

He dropped her off at her digs. "Get a few hours' kip. I'll see you back at the station later."

He drove to his house for a quick cup of tea and flopped wearily in an armchair to drink it. He was dead tired. He leant his head back on the cushion and closed his eyes for a second. He woke with a start. His untouched tea was stone cold. Outside it was already dark. The phone was ringing.

"Frost," he said, shaking the sleep from his eyes.

It was Johnnie Johnson, who had taken over from Bill Wells as Station Sergeant. "You'd better get over here, Jack. Another child's gone missing."

"On my way," said Frost.

He slouched into the incident room rubbing sleep from his eyes. "What's all this about another missing kid?" he yawned.

"Judy Gleeson, fourteen years old," said Burton.

Frost collapsed into a chair, relieved that it wasn't another eight-year-old boy. "Tell me about it."

"Mother goes to work. She came home at five. No sign of her daughter and no table laid, which the daughter usually did. She assumed the kid was with her mate. Half-past six, still no Judy, so the mother gets worried, phones around and learns that Judy hadn't been at school all day."

Frost chewed this over. "I can't see it tying in with our missing boy. Sounds like your average girl doing a runner to me."

"Probably, but we can't take chances. Detective Sergeant Maud has gone round to the house to get details. Should be back soon."

"Right," said Frost. "And how are things going with the search for Bobby Kirby?"

Burton told him the position. The search parties had plodded on until it was too dark to see properly. All the more likely areas had been covered and they were now moving on to the less likely ones.

"I've laid on the frogmen team for tomorrow morning."

Frost nodded his approval. "What about our appeals to the Great British Public?"

Lambert came forward. "Thirty-five more positive sightings. Eight of them were kids with men."

"Probably fathers taking their sons home. What about the dead kid? Did anyone see him?"

"There's a snag," Burton told him. "Both kids left home wearing similar clothes. People are reporting seeing kids in zip-up jackets and it could be either of them."

"Or neither," said Frost. "The cinema?"

"Three kids playing truant from school are pretty certain they saw Dean in the Curzon yesterday afternoon. He was sitting on his own. They didn't pay much attention to him and didn't see him leave."

Liz stuck her head round the door. "That missing girl. I've circulated details, but it looks as if she's just run away from home. I spoke to one of her friends who reckoned there had been some friction between Judy and her parents, but the mother denies it."

Frost waved a hand in acknowledgement. Kids running away from home were all too common these days.

Liz went back to Allen's office to check the in-tray and was irritated to find someone had been in and removed all her stuff from Allen's desk and dumped it back on the small desk in the corner. Probably whingeing Bill Wells up to his bloody tricks again. Seething with annoyance she moved it all back and was just reaching for the phone to ask Wells what the hell he was playing at when the door crashed open and a thickset sandy-haired man in his early forties barged in.

"Do you mind knocking before coming into my office," snapped Liz.

The man glowered at her. "And do you mind getting out of my bloody desk," he roared.

Cassidy had dumped his suitcase at his digs and had then taken a drive round Denton to see how much the place had changed since he was here last. He drove past his old house, the house he had had to make over to his wife as part of the divorce settlement. The downstairs blazed with light and the front lawn looked immaculate. Very different from when he lived there and there was never any time for gardening. He stopped the car and stared up at the small bedroom window, his daughter's room. Today would have been Becky's eighteenth birthday, not that anyone else would have remembered.