R. Wingfield - A Touch of Frost

They had to pass the old lady on their way out to the car. She reached up and clutched at Frost’s arm. “My husband she said they’re operating on him. He is going to be all right, isn’t he?”

“Of course he is,” beamed Frost. “He’s going to be fine.” He gave her a reassuring pat.

They walked on.

“Why raise her hopes?” asked Webster. “He’s going to die.”

“Then you bloody tell her,” said Frost.

“I can’t give you any sort of description,” said the man. “I never saw him.”

“You must have seen something,” said Wells. “How are we supposed to arrest him if we don’t know what he looks like?”

The phone rang.

“Answer that, would you Ridley,” yelled Sergeant Wells. “I’m attending to someone.”

The man he was attending to had been robbed at knife-point while drawing cash from the automatic cash dispenser at Bennington’s Bank. “He stuck a knife in my back,” said the complainant, ‘then he grabbed the money and ran. By the time I’d plucked up courage to look around, he’d gone.”

“Was he short, tall, fat, thin, white, yellow, or what?” asked Wells.

“All I can tell you is he was a bloody fast runner,” said the man. “He went off with my money like a dose of salts.”

The phone kept ringing.

“Excuse me a moment, sir,” said Wells. He pushed open the door to the corridor and shouted, “Ridley!”

The toilet gurgled and roared, then Ridley appeared, doing up his belt.

“The bloody phone’s ringing,” snapped Wells. “You know I’m here on my own.”

“I’m entitled to go to the toilet, aren’t I?” argued the constable.

“Not when we’re short-staffed, you’re not.” He turned back to the man.

“And how much did you say was taken, Mr. Skinner?”

“Forty-five pounds. Nine five-pound notes.”

“Any idea where Mr. Frost is?” called Ridley, holding the mouthpiece against his chest.

“You’re on Control,” snapped Wells. “You’re supposed to know where everyone is.” It was really getting far too much. Every available man had been commandeered by Mr. Allen after the rape attempt in Denton Woods. Even young Collier had been roped in, leaving only Wells and the controller, PC Ridley, to run the entire station. He wasn’t good enough to go to their lousy party, but he was good enough to run a division almost single-handed.

“There’s been a robbery and a coshing over at The Coconut Grove. They got away with more than five thousand quid.”

“Hard bloody luck,” said Wells. “This gentleman’s lost forty-five pounds, and he was here first.”

The lobby doors crashed back on their hinges, and in bounded Frost in his party suit with the sodden trouser legs and his everyday mac and scarf. With him was the new bloke, the bearded ex-inspector Webster.

Ridley waved the phone. “Mr. Frost!”

While Webster went on to the office to make a start on the crime statistics, Frost ambled over to Ridley. “Yes, Constable?”

“Robbery at The Coconut Grove, Mr. Frost.”

“Sorry, I’m only doing bodies down public lavatories tonight,” replied the inspector. At Ridley’s look of reproach, he sighed and said, “All right. Take the details.” He crossed to the corridor and yelled, “Webster! We’re going out again.” Then he caught sight of Wells struggling to get a report form into the typewriter. “Everything all right, Sergeant?”

“No, it bloody well isn’t,” snarled Wells, ‘and I’m too busy for small talk.”

“I’ve seen a lady with rouged nipples,” said Frost.

“Are you going to take my details?” demanded the man who had been robbed.

“Just a moment, sir,” said Wells, waving him off as if he were intruding on a private conversation. “You saw what Jack…?”

Before it had time to blink at being brought out into the light, the crime statistics return was stuffed back into the filing cabinet and Webster was once again behind the wheel of the Ford Cortina, driving off into the night. As the car skirted the woods, they could see the firefly dots of torches dancing among the trees, where Allen’s team continued its painstaking search.

The Coconut Grove was part of a large leisure complex development on the outskirts of Denton, just north of the woods. It consisted of clubs, bars, restaurants, bingo halls, a theatre, a sports pavillion, and myriad other amenities. The police suspected that it catered for the odd spot of prostitution on the side, but they hadn’t been able to prove anything. It was run by a dubious character called Harry Baskin whose other enterprises included a chain of betting shops.

Baskin had bought the land cheap. No-one thought he’d get planning permission for his leisure complex because, under the new town development plan, the area was designated for agricultural purposes only. But, to everyone’s astonishment, planning permission was granted. A couple of months later, the chairman of the planning committee resigned and retired to the

Bahamas. Some cynics unkindly suggested that these two events were connected, but no-one said so to Baskin. People who got on the wrong side of Harry Baskin suddenly found they had become extremely accident-prone.

Harry Baskin! Webster wondered where he had heard that name before?

“He runs some betting shops, doesn’t he?”

Frost nodded.” He has thirty-seven all over the country. He also has subtle ways of making reluctant losers pay up. The punter wakes up one morning to find his dog’s had its throat cut, or that his car has mysteriously self-combusted… little nudges like that. No-one owes Harry money for long.”

Leaving the main road, they followed large illuminated signs which beckoned this way to den ton fabulous leisure complex. A sharp turn, and there it was, a cluster of buildings in gleaming black-and-white mock marble, spangled with tasteful neon signs… Bingo… Fish and Chips… Striptease. Most of the satellite buildings were in darkness, but Frost steered Webster across a car park to the rear section, which a discreet blue neon sign proclaimed to be the coconut grove.

They went through revolving doors into a dimly lit foyer where their way was barred by a wall of flesh, the bouncer, a hefty, ex-wrestler in evening dress. He had been watching the approach of the mud-splattered Ford and had seen the two men get out. His orders from Mr. Baskin were to exclude potential troublemakers, and these two were trouble if ever he’d seen it, especially the load of rough in the crumpled mac.

“Sorry, gentlemen. Members only…” he began, moving forward to urge them back through the exit doors.

“American Express,” said Frost, waving his warrant card under the man’s nose. “Tell Harry Baskin the filth are here.”

The bouncer muttered a few words into the house phone, then led them through a passage to a door marked Private… No Admittance. Above the door an illuminated sign in red announced Engaged… Do Not Enter. The bouncer rapped with his knuckles. The sign turned green and said Please Enter.

Baskin, dark and swarthy, in his late thirties, swivelled morosely from side to side behind a huge desk which contained nothing but the remains of a smoked-salmon sandwich. He wore a midnight-blue evening suit, the sleeves of the coat pulled back slightly to ensure an unrestricted view of oversized solid gold cuff links, which clanked on his wrists like shackles. Everyone’s in evening dress tonight but me, thought Frost, his trousers still damp about his ankles, his shoes squelching slightly as he walked.

On the walnut-veneered wall behind Baskin were framed and signed photographs of the various celebrities who had visited the leisure complex boxers, film stars, pop stars their arms around, shaking hands with, or handing charity cheques to a smiling Harry Baskin. But he wasn’t smiling now. His face was black with anger and furrowed in a frown that could give one of Webster’s a hundred-yard start and still romp home. He didn’t seem very pleased to see Frost.