R. Wingfield - A Touch of Frost

Frost flopped down on the bench, which was still warm from Mrs. Dawson, and fumbled for his cigarettes. Opposite, on the wall, a large red-and-white sign frowned its disapproval: No Smoking… Please! His hand returned from his pocket, empty. “As you’ve said please,” he said aloud.

He heard someone clearing his throat. He looked up and there was Webster. “Did you hear all that, son?”

Webster nodded.

“A stupid, incompetent fool!” Frost repeated. “And he’s right.. that’s just what I am.”

From his inside pocket he again took out the photograph and studied it. He would have to start thinking of Karen as a schoolgirl again, far too young for boys, too young to keep contraceptives in her handbag. So who was the anonymous victim, and why the fancy dress?

He pushed himself up from the bench. “Come on, son, let’s nip up to ward C3 and see what we can find out.”

“It isn’t our case,” protested Webster.

“I know, son. My trouble is I’m such a nosey bastard.”

Sue Harvey was waiting for them by the door of C3, a small side ward with only four beds. “The doctors are with her now,” she whispered, pointing to the end bed, which was screened off by curtains.

After a few minutes the curtains jerked open and a small Asian doctor in a white coat emerged, followed by the night nurse. Behind them, on the bed, a white huddle, absolutely motionless. The night sister whispered something to the doctor and pointed to the two detectives. He examined them with tired eyes, then walked over.

“How is she, Doc?” asked Frost.

“Still unconscious. She has been punched, kicked, and badly beaten. There are two fractured ribs, a broken nose, fracture of the jaw, and hairline skull damage. In addition, she has severe bruisings, and contusions all over her body. There are external marks on the throat, which is badly swollen, indicative of manual strangulation; also, of course, internal bruising. I imagine she was rendered unconscious, then repeatedly kicked and punched while she was lying on the ground.”

“Would the beating have been before or after she was sexually assaulted?”

The doctor frowned and looked puzzled. “Sexually assaulted? Who said she was sexually assaulted?” He turned to the night sister and spread his hands in appeal. “Did I say she was sexually assaulted?”

It was Frost’s turn to frown and look puzzled. “Are you saying she wasn’t raped?”

“Raped? If my patient had been raped, do you think I am such a damn fool I would not have mentioned it?”

Frost shook his head, then wiped his face with his hands. He just couldn’t believe this! “You’re quite sure, Doc? You wouldn’t like to nip over and take another look?”

Indignantly, the little man pulled himself up to his full height. “Are you questioning my competence, Inspector? I have examined her. There are definitely no signs of recent sexual congress, nor of any attempt of forced sexual congress. You obviously cannot take in what I am saying, so you will please excuse me. I have other patients to attend to.” He pushed past them, bustling out of the ward, his white coat flapping behind him.

Frost scratched his head and tried to make sense of this unexpected development. “Not raped? He stripped her off but didn’t rape her. It’s like unwrapping your Mars bar then not eating it.”

“Perhaps he was disturbed before he could actually do it,” suggested Webster.

“Disturbed?”

“The bloke who made the anonymous phone call — perhaps he barged in on them at the crucial moment?”

Frost rubbed his chin. “I can’t buy that, son. I had a quick look at her clothes. There was no blood on them, which means he kicked and punched her after he’d stripped her. If he had time to kick her, he had bags of time for the old sexual congress.” He shrugged. “Still, it’s not our case anymore. Let Inspector Allen solve it.”

The ward door was barged open by a wheeled stretcher manoeuvred by a theatre orderly who had come to collect the patient for surgery. Through the open door Frost suddenly spotted Detective Inspector Allen, with Sergeant Ingram at his side, purposefully advancing toward the ward. He had no wish to be around when Allen learned of his foul-up with the victim’s age, so he quickly looked for a way of escape. With a quick wave to Sue, he hustled Webster through a rear door, down some dimly lit stone stairs, then along another empty, winding corridor.

“You seem to know your way about,” commented Webster.

“My wife was in here,” explained Frost. “I used to come every day.”

The detective constable remembered being told that Frost’s wife had died recently and thought it best not to ask further questions. They turned right into the main causeway, which had wards leading off from either side.

Frost stopped and pointed. “Look! The place is crawling with filth tonight.”

Webster saw a young police constable, dark curly hair, small moustache, leaning against the wall, engaged in animated conversation with a ridiculously young night nurse who had a wisp of stray hair escaping from her cap. Webster scratched his memory for the man’s name; he had been introduced to so many people. Then he remembered. Dave Shelby, married with two young children but with the reputation of being woman-mad, or ‘crumpet-happy,” as Frost had crudely termed it.

Catching sight of the inspector bearing down on him, Shelby quickly whispered something to the girl, making her blush, then in a loud voice, said, “Thank you very much, Nurse.” She hurried off, giving an apologetic smile to Frost as she passed.

“Stay away from him, love,” Frost called after her. “He meets men in toilets after dark.” To Shelby, he said, “You want to try and stay off it for five minutes, son it can make you go blind.”

Shelby grinned nervously. “Just passing the time, sir. I’m a respectable married man.”

“So was Dr. Crippen,” sniffed Frost. “Anyway, what are you doing here?”

Shelby jerked his thumb at the glass-ported swing doors behind him.

“I’m with the hit-and-run victim. They’re operating on him now.”

Frost squinted through one of the portholes. Not much to see. A huddle of green-robed figures, working silently. One of the robes was smeared with blood.

“Rather him than me. It looks like an abattoir in there.”

He looked over Shelby’s shoulder. Farther down the corridor all alone, an old lady was sitting. She looked bewildered and frightened.

“That’s the victim’s wife,” whispered Shelby. “She slept through it all. Didn’t even know her husband had got out of bed until a neighbour knocked to tell her he’d been run over.”

‘ Poor old cow,” muttered Frost. “What are his chances?”

Shelby gave a hopeless shrug. “His skull is smashed, he’s hemorrhaging internally, and he’s seventy-eight years old.”

“The car that hit him was supposed to have shed its licence plate,” said Frost. “Have we traced the driver yet?”

“I don’t know, sir. I’m not really on this one. Mr. Allen pulled the area car off to help with the search for the rapist.”

“That reminds me said Frost, staring closely at him have you been up to your larks tonight?”

Shelby started visibly. “What do you mean, sir?”

“The woman who was attacked. You haven’t been in Denton Woods tonight with your little truncheon at the ready?”

A wave of relief seemed to wash over the constable. “No, sir,” he said, forcing a smile. “It wasn’t me.”

But you have been up to something, my lad, thought Frost, and for a minute you thought I was on to it. Well, I’m not on to it. I’m not that clever… I can’t even tell the difference between a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl and a thirty-year-old woman.