R. Wingfield - Hard Frost

"Where's the boy?" demanded Frost.

"What boy?"

Frost radioed Burton who scrambled over the rear fence. "Bring him into the house."

The blonde was at the back door, trying to get past Collier. "Keep that bastard out of my house," she yelled. "I'm having nothing to do with him."

"Isn't this your husband?" asked Frost.

"Until I divorce the sod, yes. Until then, he cooks his own meals and has them in the shed and he sleeps in the shed. I am not having him in the house."

"Why?" Frost added.

"The bugger's only been having it away with a tart in the back of his ambulance."

"Once it happened once," moaned the man.

"You were only found out bloody once," she snapped back. She turned to Frost. "Do me a favour. Arrest him. Lock him up. Throw away the flaming key."

"On what charge?"

"You've seen that stuff in the shed. All the gear he's nicked from the hospital. It's no bloody use to anyone, but he nicks it."

Frost's shoulders slumped. Another false lead. "You can have this one," he told Liz. "I'm sure the hospital will want to press charges."

Liz radioed for a van to collect the loot, then marched Younger out to the car. "I suppose it was those two nosy bastards next door who shopped me?" he said, glaring up at their bedroom window where the curtains suddenly twitched and sunlight flashed on the lenses of two pairs of field glasses. "I'll get you, you sods," he yelled. "I'll bloody get you."

"Another false lead, Frost?" said Mullett, striding into Frost's office and pulling a face to show his disapproval of its untidiness. He had the local paper in his hand.

"Yes, another false lead," agreed Frost, swinging his legs off the desk. Why did the bloody man always have to state the obvious?

"You probably haven't heard," continued Mullett with a sadistic smirk, 'but Cassidy has obtained a confession from the husband in the child-killing case."

"Yes, I had heard," muttered Frost.

"The wife killed the children and the husband murdered the wife."

"Something like that."

He's jealous, thought Mullett, jealous of Cassidy's success in the face of his own failures. Well, let's twist the knife a little more. "And this clears Snell the man you refused to arrest?"

Frost nodded and started patting the layer of papers on his desk to locate his cigarette packet.

"Cassidy got you off the hook with this one, Frost. You should be eternally grateful."

"I am," said Frost, lighting up. "Anything else?"

Mullett frowned. He produced the local paper and dropped it on Frost's desk. He tapped the front page item "Police Dragging Heels In Search For Little Bobby'. "Have you seen this?"

Frost picked up the paper. '"Flasher At Pensioners' Tea Party"," he read. He frowned in pretended puzzlement. "Is he a friend of yours, sir?"

Mullett banged his finger on the correct news item. He knew Frost was just trying to be aggravating. "That is what I mean, Frost. Police dragging their heels. Not the sort of thing I want to read about my division. So what is the position on the kidnapping?"

Frost rubbed his face wearily. "After Cordwell's magnanimous offer, we're being flooded out with more sightings and leads from the public who hadn't said a word before the reward was offered. We're following them all through, but I don't expect they will lead anywhere."

"We can't waste time or money or manpower on false leads," said Mullett, 'but if it transpires we ignored one that would have led us to the boy…" A typical Mullett instruction making sure he was covered whatever happened.

"And I'm going to have Finch followed," said Frost.

"Finch? You've gone over every inch of his house, his caravan, his car… you've found nothing."

"He's our man." Even as he said it, he had his doubts. Earlier today he was damn sure Younger was the kidnapper. He took a drag at the cigarette. "He'd better be our man… he's all we've bloody got."

"And what do you hope to achieve by following him?"

"I'm hoping he'll lead us to the kid."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then we're in trouble."

"You will be in trouble," said Mullett grimly. "Make no mistake about it, inspector. You will be in serious trouble." He made no attempt to suppress his smile of satisfaction as he turned and marched out of the office.

"When am I never in trouble?" sighed Frost, swinging his feet up on the desk again.

Liz Maud led Harold Younger out of the charge room and walked him to the main entrance. He had been charged and released on police bail and was free to return to his shed at the bottom of the garden. He had been warned that if he tried to make trouble with his neighbours his bail would be revoked.

Harold Younger was a toe-rag. He thought he was God's gift to women. He kept calling her sweetheart and in the car on the way to the station had slyly rested his hand on her knee. She had given him a sweet, encouraging smile, then stubbed her cigarette out on the back of his hand. He had sucked the burn and sworn at her, but didn't try anything else.

She ushered him out of the door, then returned to the incident room. Liz was not very happy. Cassidy, the same rank as her in spite of his temporary promotion, was tidying up on a murder investigation, while she was stuck with the petty theft of items from the hospital storeroom.

She found Frost in the incident room, seated at a desk, holding the phone away from his ear while a stream of angry abuse buzzed and crackled into empty air. When the noise stopped, he put the phone back to his ear. "I appreciate your concern, Mr. Stanfield. The enquiries into the abduction of your daughter are proceeding. I have every hope we will be able to make an early arrest." More angry buzzing, so he put the phone down on the desk and n't up a cigarette, then when it went quiet, picked the phone up again. "Got to go now, sir… urgent call." He hung up and swung round to Liz. "That was Mr. Stanfield. He read in the paper how we're dragging our heels over the kidnapping and intends telling the paper how we're dragging our heels over his daughter's abduction." He stood up and stretched. "So I suppose we had better do something about it. Let's find out how…" He clicked his fingers. "What was his name the one with the pigtail?"

"Ian Grafton?" suggested Liz.

"Yes… how an out-of-work layabout can afford an expensive hi-fi."

"We were going to call on those two women at Primrose Cottage," Liz reminded him.

"Primrose Cottage?" frowned Frost, trying to recall what it was about.

"Lemmy Hoxton. They lived in the area where he was found."

"Oh, flip, yes." He had completely forgotten about that case. Too much happening at once. He couldn't keep up with it.

Jordan came in with PC Collier trailing behind. "You wanted to see us, inspector?"

"Did I?" asked Frost. "What the hell for?" Then he remembered. "Finch… I've promoted him to my number one suspect in the kidnapping case again." Noting their surprise, he added, "All right so he's my only bleeding suspect. I want him tailed. I'm hoping he'll lead us to where the kid is, but for Pete's sake don't let him know you're following him. If he suspects anything he'll probably sit tight, stay indoors and let the kid die of starvation. You can call on other cars to help if necessary."

He sat down again at the desk, then realized Liz was still standing there. "Primose Cottage?" she said.

"No." He shook his head. "Lemmy's been dead for months, another couple of hours won't make any difference. We'll go and see Ian Grafton."

He was feeling too fragile to let Liz drive, so he took the wheel himself. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. The poor old sod looked dead tired and much older than when she had first seen him when he turned up out of the blue at Patriot Street. "Do you mind if I ask you a question?" she said.