R. Wingfield - Hard Frost

The road ran alongside the river for about a quarter of a mile and it was in this section that Frost intended to concentrate his search. He stood, watching the boiling river, drenched to the skin, while Burton and Liz, heads down, almost blinded by the torrential rain, looked for places where a tiny body might be concealed. He shouted Bobby's name in the forlorn hope the boy might be able to answer him, but all he could hear was the machine gun bullets of rain making snapping noises, almost like the crackling twig sound of a forest fire, as they pock-marked the river.

Headlights reflected off the water and he turned to see cars approaching. The search parties from the woods. From the first car, Arthur Hanlon, his hair plastered and dripping, squelched over to Frost. He eyed the current tearing past carrying broken branches and floating debris. "Don't like the look of that, Jack,"

Frost nodded gloomily. "All it needs is bleeding Lilian Gish on an ice floe."

"You reckon Bobby's somewhere near here?" Hanlon had to shout over the noise of rushing water.

"Yet another one of my inspired guesses," said Frost. "If he's dead," he hurled a stone into the water, 'he'll be on the bottom, sharing a sack with some bricks."

He went over with Hanlon to the members of the search party, most of them still sitting inside their cars, not wanting to get any wetter or colder until they had to. All of them looked tired and dispirited, but they climbed out of the cars to huddle round him. "Isn't this better than being stuck inside a stuffy office?" he asked, which produced a few laughs. "All right. I've sodded you about up to now, but this has got to be our best lead yet. I know you're tired and fed up and hate my guts, but the poor little sod we're looking for is seven years old, shit-scared and could die if we don't find him quickly. Search everywhere, even the most unlikely places. If you're not sure, search again. So good luck."

Hanlon split them into groups and directed them to various search areas while Frost made his way back to the bank. More voices and car door slammings. The mobile lighting unit and the frogmen. Hanlon sent a couple of men over to help them unload their gear and get the lights set up.

Frost walked up and down the bank, the rain beating down heavily on his bare head and soaking through his shower proof water-blackened mac. The lights had been rigged and shone down on the river making it look like black velvet and bounced off the oilskins most of the men were wearing. False alarms as debris floating past looked just like a tiny body, but when it hit the lighted area turned out to be clumps of vegetation and earth from where the bank had collapsed into the river.

Jordan, in the small rowing boat with Collier at the oars, was prodding the muddy bottom with a pole. The monotonous, grating creak of the row locks as Collier fought to keep the boat steady against the drag of the current was setting Frost's teeth on edge.

"Something here, inspector!" Jordan calling from the boat, leaning over the side, dragging something from the water.

Frost's heart stumbled and skipped a couple of beats as an ominous-looking black plastic dustbin sack was hauled up and brought over to him. Don't let it be the boy, he pleaded silently. Please, don't let it be the boy. His knife slashed it open and it spewed stinking river water all over his feet. A long, low sigh of relief. Rotting household rubbish, dumped a long time ago.

Frost wiped the rain from his face and eyes and tried to concentrate to see if he got any feeling that the boy was somewhere near… that he was alive.

"Any luck?" called a familiar voice.

Bleeding Cassidy. He hoped he wasn't going to go on again about his daughter. "We haven't found a dead body yet… that's about as lucky as we've got."

"I had another word with Finch," said Cassidy.

Did you? thought Frost. He's supposed to be my bloody prisoner, but be my guest…

"Mr. Mullett thought I might be more successful than you."

"Mr. Mullett isn't questioning my infallibility, I hope?" muttered Frost.

"Finch is keeping shtum. I told him you were searching the river. He didn't seem at all worried."

"He's hardly going to say "Oh my God, not the river!" is he? If he looks blank and acts dumb, we can't pin anything on him."

"But if we find the boy '

"There'll still be no proof Finch put him here. The fact he filled up at a garage in the vicinity is hardly bloody conclusive." He pulled off his scarf, which was soaking wet and making him uncomfortable. "I'll be happy if we find the kid alive, even if it means letting Finch go."

The area was adazzle with all of the floodlights working and the generator throbbed away out of sight somewhere. Oars creaked, rain drummed and one of the floodlights sizzled and flashed intermittently as rain found a faulty connection. Searchers on the bank, in oilskins, bent low as they prodded the long wet grass.

"Put some bloody beef into it," roared Cassidy, walking over to one of the groups who had been out in the rain and cold all night. Backs stiffened, but no-one said anything. They were too tired.

"Looking for the boy, Jack?"

Frost groaned. Sandy Lane from the Denton Echo with one of his photographers ready for one of his "Police Fail Again' stories.

"Hello, Sandy," he grunted. "Been listening in to the police wave bands

The reporter grinned. "No, Jack. We just happened to be driving past and we spotted all the lights."

"Oh," sniffed Frost. "I thought there was an innocent explanation. Yes, we're looking for the boy."

"Any reason why you chose this particular spot?"

"No. We just happened to see the lights and we thought we'd have a look. Now leave me alone, Sandy, there's a good boy. We're busy."

The photographer took a couple of pictures of the searchers, then retired to the car with Sandy to wait for the body to be fished up, or the boy to be found alive. The reporter began working out alternative headlines to cover either eventuality.

The search had moved further down, leaving in its wake a trail of flattened grass and odd heaps of rubbish dredged from the river. Frost threw away the sodden cigarette that dangled from his mouth and tried to light up a fresh one from the damp pack in his pocket. He managed a couple of drags of bitter-tasting smoke before it sizzled and died. The feeling that the kid was here, almost within reach, was strong, but only as strong as the feeling they probably wouldn't find him. He felt like hurling himself in the car, tearing back to the station and doing a deal with Finch. Tell us where he is and we will drop all charges, give you a pension for life and all the Cup Final tickets you want.

He pulled back a sodden cuff to consult his watch. One o'clock in the morning. He could hear Cassidy shouting, redirecting one of the teams back to an area they had already searched. He thought of Finch in his nice, dry cell, snug and warm, and probably working out how much he could sue the police for harassment and wrongful arrest.

"Frost!"

A shudder quivered through him. Just what he wanted to make his misery complete. Mullett, immaculately turned out in his tailored raincoat which, in some mysterious way, seemed to repel the rain. He forced a smile. "Hello, super."

Mullett gaped at the floodlights, the frogmen, the teams of off-duty men, and tried to work out the cost. He transferred his glare to the drenched, drowned rat figure of Frost. "Who authorized this?"

"I tried to get you," said Frost, "I rang your house no-one answered."

"I haven't been more than six feet away from the phone all night," snapped Mullett.

"I must have got a wrong number, then," said Frost. "It rang and rang… and I knew you would have authorized it."

"So Finch told you where the boy was?"

"Not exactly, sir." He told Mullett about the petrol receipt.