R. Wingfield - A Touch of Frost

Webster’s foot was nudging something. A large cardboard box tucked out of sight under the table. He bent and lifted it up. An unpacked VHS video recorder. He looked at the man. “I suppose you’ve got a receipt for this.”

Frost winced. “For Christ’s sake, son, there’s a time and a place …”

But he was too late to stop Danny from snatching an old Oxo tin from the dresser and emptying the contents out on the table in front of the detective constable. “Yes, I have got a receipt.” He scrabbled amongst odd pieces of paper, then, in triumph, stuck a printed form under webster’s nose. “Here it is. You’d better check it in case it’s a forgery.”

Webster took the receipt, read it briefly, then handed it back. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry you haven’t caught us out, you mean?” The receipt was stuffed back in the Oxo tin. “Now say what you’ve got to say and get the hell out of here.”

Stone-faced, Webster stared out through the uncurtained kitchen window into the back yard, which was strewn with parts of a dismantled motorbike. The dog had given up trying to break down the door and was nosing a

It had been days since he’d had any proper sleep.

“The lavatories where Ben was killed,” answered Frost. “We should have gone there first people have been peeing all over the evidence since eight o’clock this morning.”

Webster reminded him that the Divisional Commander was expecting him at the station to see the MP and his son.

Frost gave his forehead a wallop with his palm. “Flaming rectums. Mullett will never forgive me for keeping dear old Sir Charlie-boy waiting. Right, son, this is what we’ll do. I’ll drop you off at the toilets. Turf everyone out whether they’re finished or not, and seal the place off. Then search it from top to bottom for any sign of Ben’s carrier bag, or blood or anything I should have spotted last night. And radio the station for a scene-of-crime officer to help. He can take photographs of the graffiti and dust the toilet seats for fingerprints. I’ll drive on to the station for the hit-and-run interview. Remind me when we meet up that we’ve got that other security guard to interview about the robbery the one Harry Baskin duffed up. Oh, and remind me about seeing Karen Dawson’s mother.”

Webster nodded wearily. He would never get used to Frost’s method of working. Webster liked order and forward planning. Frost seemed to thrive on chaos, lurching from one crisis to the next. He considered reminding the inspector that they still hadn’t started on the overtime returns, let alone finished the crime statistics, but what was the point?

Frost shouldered through the swing doors of the lobby carrying, in a large polythene bag, the filthy, vomit-sodden clothes removed from Ben Cornish.

“Bought yourself a new suit, Jack?” called Johnny

Johnson. “I must say it’s an improvement on the one you’re wearing.”

“It’s cleaner, anyway,” said Frost, holding the bag under Johnny’s nose and watching him recoil. “I might do a swap.” As he swung off to his office to make out the forensic examination request, the sergeant, reaching for the phone, called him back.

“Mr. Mullett’s been screaming for you for the past half-hour. He wanted to know the minute you arrived.”

“I can’t think what’s keeping the inspector, Sir Charles,” said Mullett for the sixth time, his lips aching from the effort of maintaining the false smile. His phone rang. He snatched it up. “What? No, don’t send him in. I’ll be right out.” He expanded the smile. “Mr. Frost has just arrived, Sir Charles. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll pop out and brief him.”

As he passed through his outer office he instructed Miss Smith to make some more coffee. Strong this time. He felt he would need it.

Even before he reached the lobby he could hear Frost’s raucous laughter bellowing down the corridor. And there he was, slouched over the counter, exchanging coarse comments with the station sergeant, completely indifferent to keeping his Divisional Commander, and an important V.I. P, waiting.

“Your office, please, Inspector,” ordered Mullett brusquely, marching down the passage. When he reached Frost’s office he was extremely annoyed to find that he was alone and that he had to stand there, fuming, until Frost had finished relating some anecdote to the sergeant.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Inspector. For over half an hour. Sir Charles Miller, his son, and his solicitor.

I specifically told you they were coming. I specifically asked you to be present…”

Frost wriggled uncomfortably in his chair. He hated Mullett’s bawlings out. He always had such difficulty keeping a straight face. As Mullett bur bled on, Frost spotted a pencilled note on his desk telling him that Mrs. Clare Dawson wanted to speak to him about her missing daughter. His hand was reaching out for the phone when he realized that Mullett was still in full flow, so he adjusted his face to a contrite expression and tried to form a mental picture of the luscious Clare Dawson, all warm, creamy, and bouncy in a topless bikini, her sensuous lips parted, her tongue flicking over them… A strange silence. He switched his ears back on. Mullett had stopped speaking and was leaning back, ready to receive Frost’s grovelling apologies.

“Sorry, Super, but something more important turned up.”

Mullett’s mouth opened, poised to demand what could possibly be more important than a summons from one’s Divisional Commander, when Frost continued.

“That stiff I found last night

“The tramp?” asked Mullett. “In the public convenience?” He wrinkled his nose in disgust, his expression indicating that he held Frost personally responsible for the fact that the body had been found in such unsavoury surroundings.

Frost nodded. “It now looks as if he was murdered. The autopsy shows he was beaten up and his stomach jumped on while he was on the floor. You should have seen his internal organs. The doc reckons his liver had exploded.”

The mental picture of an exploded liver made Mullett shudder. This case was getting more and more unsavoury by the minute. He gritted his teeth and listened as Frost filled him in on the details, including a graphic, stomach-churning description of the human offal floating in the specimen jars. When, thankfully, Frost had finished, he was forced to admit that, under police rules, a murder inquiry took priority over everything else.

Frost offered a little prayer of thanks to Ben Cornish for getting himself murdered and saving him from a grade A bollocking. But Mullett wasn’t going down without a fight.

“What I don’t understand, Inspector, is why none of these facts emerged last night. It’s now more than twelve hours since the body was found, and we have no photographs of the body, no forensic examination of the surroundings, and only now is a search being made for the missing carrier bag. The question I have to ask myself is whether you are competent to be trusted with a murder inquiry, even one as hopeless as this.”

“The body was blocking the urinal drain,” Frost explained patiently, “The place was flooded. When you’re up to your armpits in cold wee you’re inclined not to be as thorough as you might be. To add to the fun, he’d spewed up all over himself.” As proof, he heaved the polythene bag of clothes under Mullett’s nose.

“All right, all right,” pleaded Mullett, queasily waving the white flag. “We’ll talk about it later.”

The internal phone rang. Frost answered it, then handed it to the Commander. “Your secretary.”

Miss Smith reminding him that Sir Charles was getting restless.

“Make some more coffee,” said Mullett. “We’re on our way.” Then he saw Frost’s shoes. Scuffed, unpolished, and water-stained from the previous night’s adventures. If there had been time he would have insisted that Frost repolish them and give his suit a thorough brushing. But there wasn’t time. Sir Charles would have to take him, crumpled suit, unpolished shoes, warts, and all. But he made Frost put the polythene bag down.