R. Wingfield - Hard Frost

"Sounds his bleeding mark, but I don't know what it was. Anyway, he never came back end of story."

"So you started forging his cheques?"

"After a week. I had to live, didn't I?"

"Didn't it occur to you that Lemmy might be dead?"

"Occur to me? I was bloody banking on it."

"So why didn't you tell the police? If you and young Rent-a-dick didn't kill him, you had nothing to lose."

"If I told the police and they found his body, Lemmy's flaming wife would have copped the house and all his money."

Frost gaped. "His wife? I thought you were his wife?"

She shook her head. "He walked out on his real wife over ten years ago. The greedy grasping cow she'd have had me out of the house and on the street before the ropes came off the coffin handles."

"So he went out, never came back and you did sod all about it?"

She glared at him defiantly. "I don't think there's any law against that."

"There's a law against forging cheques," said Frost.

"I was his common-law wife. I had no money. I don't think any jury's going to convict me on that, do you?"

Frost tapped his empty cigarette packet on the table. "You might be telling the truth, Mag. Trouble is, you still fit nicely into our frame. We reckon Lemmy came home unexpectedly, found you and little Wayne having it away. There was a fight, you killed him and disposed of the body. You then proceed to lead a life of unlimited dick and luxury."

She snapped her fingers at PC Collier. "Give me my handbag." She opened it and took out a window envelope which she gave to Frost. "Have a look at that!"

He unfolded the printed sheet inside. It was a Visa credit card statement made out to Lemmy Hoxton. The amount outstanding was 699.99 covering a purchase from Supertek Discount Warehouses, Denton. He looked at it, then back at her. "So?"

"Lemmy never let his credit card out of his sight. It was in his wallet which he always kept on him. If he was dead in August, how come he spent "nearly seven hundred quid in October?"

Frost looked again at the statement. The date against the purchase was 12th October. "Are you saying you didn't buy this?"

"I didn't have his bloody credit card, so how could I? I reckon whoever killed him took his wallet. Check with the store they ought to remember who they sold seven hundred quid's worth of stuff to."

Frost refolded the statement and popped it back into the envelope. "OK, Maggie. I'll check it out."

He ambled back to the incident room where Arthur Hanlon was putting the finishing touches to a sheaf of schedules which he waved at Frost.

"Do you want to OK the arrangements for dragging the lakes and canals tomorrow, Jack?"

Frost shook his head. "No thanks, Arthur. If you did it, I'm sure it's impeccable." He yawned. "I'm going to get my head down for a couple of hours. If any more bodies turn up with limbs or dicks cut off, let Mr. Cassidy handle them."

He drifted into his office on his way out. Liz Maud's things, following her expulsion from Allen's office, were neatly stacked on the spare desk. He took a cursory glance through his in-tray. More piddling little memos from Mullett and a wad of returns demanding to be filled in. In the middle of his desk Liz had left a list of the jewellery and furs allegedly stolen from Stanfield's house, together with a copy of their claim to the insurance company which suggested they had been robbed of the Crown Jewels. He skimmed through it and put it back on her desk. There were more important things to think about than that at the moment.

He almost made it to his car. As he was unlocking it Wells charged out, yelling his name and waving a message sheet. "Another kiddy stabbed in his cot, Jack."

"Give it to Liz Maud," said Frost. "It's her case."

"She's off duty. Mr. Mullett wants you to deal with it."

"Me? Why?"

"You're an inspector. The kid's father is a friend of his."

"Any friend of Mullett's is an enemy of mine. Tell him you just missed me." But as he spoke he could see the Divisional Commander watching them both from his office window. He heaved a sigh of resignation, took the message sheet from Wells and climbed into his car.

The address was an expensive-looking bungalow with a large garden whose rear boundary backed on to Denton Golf Course. A police car was outside. As he slid in behind it another car skidded to a stop behind him and Liz Maud got out, her hair all over the place. She had heard the call over the radio and driven straight over.

PC Jordan let them in. They could hear angry voices. "That's the father," explained Jordan. "He's throwing his weight about… a real right bastard."

"Of course he is," agreed Frost. "He's a friend of Mr. Mullett's." Not feeling an immediate desire to go inside to be shouted at, he asked Jordan to tell him what had happened.

Jordan flipped open his notebook. "Family name is Wilkes. Him and his wife were down the golf club — the annual dinner and dance or something leaving the nanny to put their four-year-old daughter to bed. Around half-past eleven the nanny hears the kiddy screaming. She tried to get into the nursery, but the door was jammed. Anyway, she managed to give it a kick and burst in. The nursery window was wide open, the kiddy screaming with blood all over her pyjamas. Nanny looked out of the window and saw someone scrambling over the garden fence on to the golf course."

"How's the little girl?" asked Liz.

"No real damage, thank God. She's gone back to sleep now, I think." He frowned his disapproval at the angry shouting still coming from the other room. "Assuming she can sleep through that damn row."

"Show me where he got in," said Frost. Jordan led them round the back of the bungalow, past the patio windows of the lounge where they could see the father striding up and down and yelling at PC Simms. He glared at them as they quickly scuttled past.

The end casement window was wide open and outside it the SOCman was closing up his case of equipment. He shook his head to Frost. "No prints other than the mother's and the nanny's."

"You're bloody useless," said Frost, looking through to the nursery which was decorated in pink and white. A pink and white wooden chair lay on its side in front of the open door. The matching pink and white bed by the wall was empty. "Where's the kiddy now?"

"In the nanny's room."

Frost turned to look across the garden to the golf course. "She saw him clambering over that rear fence?" It wasn't a very high fence.

He swung his leg over the sill and dropped into the nursery. Liz and Jordan followed. "He wouldn't have to be much of an athlete to get in here, would he?" muttered

Frost as he padded over to the bed. He looked at the circus motif counterpane. One of the grinning, white faces of a clown was freckled with tiny drops of blood. Frost peered at it closely, then nodded. He had seen enough. "I can't put it off any longer let's go and talk to Mr. Mullett's mate."

The mother, an ash blonde in her mid-thirties, wearing a low-cut emerald green evening dress, was sitting hunched by the electric wall fire. Her husband, dark-haired, with a trim black moustache, wore a white dinner jacket and a black bow tie. His face was flushed and he spun round angrily as they entered. "It's too damn late now. He's miles away. If you'd have got here sooner instead of sitting on your fat arses doing nothing, you might have stood a chance of catching him."

Frost dropped uninvited into a vacant chair and beamed up at him. "I would hardly describe my lady colleague as having a fat arse, sir it's smaller than yours."

The man's face darkened. "Don't come that tone with me, inspector. Some perverted maniac has broken into my house and stabbed my four-year-old daughter. Instead of sending twenty men to surround and search the place, we get two men in a car. It's pathetic… bloody pathetic'