R. Wingfield - Hard Frost

"What are we looking for?" asked Burton.

"I haven't the faintest bloody idea," admitted Frost.

Ten more minutes of watching people come and go and Frost's attention was starting to wander. He began to read a confidential letter on the manager's desk. "There he is!" said Burton. He was all attention again.

Stanfield moved back into the picture. The briefcase bulged and seemed heavier. He snarled at someone who dared to get in his path as he barged his way through the crowded customer area. The doors closed behind him and he was gone.

Frost let the tape run for a couple of minutes, then fished out his cigarette packet. "There's something there, son, something screaming at me… but I don't know what it is." He wound the tape back to the start and played it through again, only half watching as he dribbled smoke from his nose. Suddenly, he stiffened. "Yes I do!" His finger jabbed the freeze frame button making the picture quiver and stop. "In the corner, there at the automatic cash machine." The frozen picture was quite blurred and Burton couldn't make out who Frost meant. Then he saw a figure right in the corner of the screen drawing money from the service till. The person's back was to the camera. They could just make out light-coloured trousers and a dark duffel coat with the hood up.

"So?" asked Burton.

Frost pressed the play button again. The figure, not much more than an out-of-focus blur, seemed to be getting money from the machine, then a swirl of customers hid him from view. Frost forwarded the tape. The superimposed clock had moved on another six or seven minutes. The crowd suddenly thinned. "Look!" said Frost. "The bastard is still there… What's he doing now?"

The figure had now moved away from the service till and was by the automatic deposit machine where he seemed to be finding difficulty in filling in one of the bank's forms, screwing up the current effort and starting on a new one. He was still there as Stanfield emerged from the assistant manager's office carrying the briefcase. Stanfield left. The man screwed his form up, tossed it in a bin and sauntered out of the bank.

"He followed Stanfield in," said Frost. "He was here all the time Stanfield was in the bank. When Stanfield left, so did he." He zipped back the tape, replaying some of it, freeze-framing from time to time.

"Assuming he was involved," said Burton, 'the picture's nowhere near good enough to identify him."

"There's more than one way of skinning a banana," said Frost. He called the manager back into the office and pointed at the shape on the screen. "I want to know who he is."

The manager gave a shrug. "I've no idea."

"Yes you have," said Frost. "Look he's using his cash card to draw money from your cash machine. You can see the clock that gives the exact time he took out the money. You've got to have a timed record of all money withdrawn from that machine."

The manager went to a computer terminal on a small table by his desk and rattled away at the keyboard. "Yes. 9.34. 5 withdrawn." He peered at the screen. "That's strange. At 9.39 it was paid back in again."

"He was stalling for time," said Frost. "I want his name, address and inside leg size."

The manager twitched an apologetic smile. "I can't give you information about our customers. You will have to go through the proper channels."

"Tell me that next time you come whining to me because you've got a parking ticket," said Frost.

The manager clicked away at a few more keys and the screen display changed. He stood up. "I have to go out for a few minutes. Please do not look at this screen. It contains classified customer information."

Frost beamed his thanks and was at the computer even as the door was closing behind the manager. His eyebrows rose in surprise. The customer was a girl. Tracey Neal, 6 Dean Court, Denton. She had a balance of 25 in her account. Her date of birth was shown. She was fifteen, the same age as Carol Stanfield. Burton scribbled down the details.

"Mullett banks here," said Frost, sitting down in the chair by the computer. "I wonder how much he's got in his account. What's the betting he's in the red? Let's see if he's made any cheques out to ladies of ill repute." He pulled the keyboard towards him.

Burton looked nervously towards the door, expecting the manager to return any minute. "Do you really think you should…?"

Frost ignored Burton's concern. "Do you reckon we just type in his name?" He pressed a key and the words account name? appeared on the screen. Frost started to peck out M… UU… L… when the computer let out a high-pitched buzz, the screen display kept flashing on and off, and a Dalek-like, electronic voice bawled: "Unauthorized input.. unauthorized input…"

"Flaming hell!" Frost leapt from the keyboard to the vacant visitors' chair on the far side of the room. As the manager came running in, looking angry, Frost gave a puzzled frown towards the computer. "What the hell is up with that?" he asked with all the innocence he could muster.

Liz was sitting at the spare desk when he got back. She looked shaken, but was busying herself with heaps of papers. She accepted the cigarette Frost tossed over to her.

"How did it go?"

Her hand was unsteady as she put the cigarette in her mouth, but she tried to sound calm. It had been a harrowing experience. Drysdale was always thorough, even when the cause of death was obvious, and to watch him being thorough three times, and on the bodies of tiny children, was almost too much. Even Cassidy had been affected and had mumbled some excuse about a phone call, leaving her to see it through, and she had managed a smug smile as she watched him leave, but now she felt shattered. "Asphyxiated with a pillow, probably while they were sleeping. They wouldn't have cried out and they wouldn't have known anything about it."

"Poor little sods." He saw she was having trouble in striking a match, so leant across with his lighter. "What about the stab marks on the boy's arm?"

"Not very serious and made after death. That's all he could say."

"Time of death?"

"Between 11 p.m. and midnight, Drysdale will be able to pin it down closer when he knows the time they had their last meal. I'm seeing the father later on, he should be able to tell us when she usually fed them." Liz shuddered as she thought of the mother preparing their food, cooking it ever so carefully, the last meal they would ever have… "They all died within minutes of each other."

"And still no sign of the mother?"

"No."

"Let's hope she's killed herself. It'll save everyone a lot of sodding about."

Liz winced at Frost's apparent callousness, but she knew what he meant.

"What about that row people heard? Has anyone owned up to it?"

She shook her head. "I questioned our witnesses again and they still say they thought it was the wife and husband quarrelling, but as we know, the husband wasn't there."

Frost scratched his chin. "The man who never was. Ah well… one of life's little mysteries." He switched to the Stanfield case. "I've got a job for you." He told her about the girl hovering about in the bank when Stanfield drew out the money. "Check her out."

Glad of anything that would take her mind off the memory of those three small bodies on Drysdale's autopsy table, she inserted her papers in a folder and grabbed her handbag. She had to squeeze past Burton who was coming in and who hadn't left her enough room to get through easily.

"You enjoyed that, didn't you, son?" grunted Frost.

"Never thought I'd fancy a sergeant," replied Burton, pulling Liz's chair up to Frost's desk and sitting down.

"Is it still warm from her lovely bottom?"

"Red hot!" grinned Burton. "Right. The phone booths at the supermarket. I've had them all bugged, as you asked, ready for when the kidnapper makes contact. Every phone call in and out is now being recorded."