R. Wingfield - A Touch of Frost

Frost’s jaw dropped and he smacked his brow. “Flaming hell, I forgot all about the old git. I was on my way in to him when Sadie Eustace phoned.”

“He knows all about your tryst with her as well, Jack. Mr. Allen has been putting the verbal boot in.”

“He’s a darling man,” said Frost as he zipped through the door on his way to the Divisional Commander’s office.

He was halfway down the passage when Police Constable Kenny, looking pleased with himself, grabbed at his arm. “We’ve got him for you, Mr. Frost. He’s in the interview room.”

Frost’s spirits rose. “Who?” he asked hopefully. “The Denton rapist?”

“No, sir, Tommy Croll, the security guard from The Coconut Grove. You said you wanted him picked up.”

“Oh,” said Frost, trying not to sound disappointed. With so much else on his plate the robbery had completely slipped his mind. “Where did you find him?”

“Sneaking back into his digs to pick up his clothes.”

Frost patted the constable on the back. “Good work, young Kenny. Hold on, would you. Mr. Mullett’s waiting all eager to give me a bollocking, so I’d better get that treat over first. Shouldn’t be more than ten minutes though.” And he plunged on down the corridor for his tryst with the Superintendent.

“Come in,” growled Mullett, his head bowed over his midday post. He heard the door open and close. He looked up and there was Frost, in that shiny suit with the baggy trousers, out of breath and looking worried. Good. He would give him something to look worried about.

“I asked to see you more than an hour ago, Inspector,” he observed icily.

“Sorry about that, Super,” said Frost, searching his pockets for his cigarettes. Damn, he’d left them in the office. He looked hopefully at the silver cigarette box twinkling in the sunlight on Mullett’s desk. Mullett scooped up the box and locked it away in his drawer. Sometimes Frost had the gall to help himself without being asked.

“This is your last warning, Frost. In future, when you receive a summons from me, you will be here, on the double.”

Silence from Frost, who was looking very sorry for himself. He would look even sorrier before Mullett had finished. Mullett produced the copy of the Denton Echo, the editorial ringed in blue felt tip. He pushed it over to Frost. “Have you seen this?”

“Not yet, sir.” Frost gave it the briefest of glances and chucked it back. “Load of balls.”

“On the contrary, Inspector,” snapped Mullett. “What they are saying is painfully correct. A girl was raped last night. Have you interviewed her?”

“Well, no,” said Frost, shifting from one foot to the other, “Detective Constable Harvey took a statement…”

But Mullett wouldn’t allow him to finish. “A rape case. A girl raped and the officer in charge of the investigation doesn’t even bother to interview her personally.”

“We were busy with her boy friend last night,” retorted the inspector.

“She claimed he raped her. We had to clear him first.”

“Clearing the innocent does nothing to reduce our unsolved crime figures. Catching the guilty does,” snapped Mullett. “I further understand you haven’t yet made a search of the rape area.”

“I was on my way to do it when I got your summons, sir,” said Frost, meeting Mullett’s stare of disbelief unwaveringly.

“Make sure you do it, then. And have you interviewed the men on the list of suspects that Mr. Allen has drawn up?”

I’ve not even opened his bloody files yet, thought Frost. “It’s my number-one priority,” he said.

Mullett had plenty more bullets in the chamber. “What progress with that dead tramp?”

“Not much joy up to now, sir,” said Frost.

Mullett stared hard to show his dissatisfaction. Frost shuffled his feet and looked down to the blue Wilton. It sped things up if you looked contrite, and Frost was dying to get back to the office for a cigarette. “If there’s nothing else, Super…” he edged toward the door.

Mullett was opening and shutting drawers. There was quite a lot more, but he had mislaid his notes.

“What about the robbery at The Coconut Grove?” he barked.

“Got a suspect in the interview room right now, Super.”

“Good. Then let me see some action, Frost. Let me see some progress, something that’s been sadly lacking up to now.”

He flipped his hand dismissively, remembering too late about the Sadie Eustace business and the crime statistics.

Frost slouched back to his office, where he gave the waste bin a vicious kick. “Would that that was the reproductive area of our beloved Divisional Commander.”

Then he collapsed in his chair and found the cigarettes he had been seeking. He raised his head to Webster, who was regarding his superior’s show of childishness with superior disdain. “Mullett’s been rambling on about a list of suspects in the rape case, son. Any idea what the old git’s talking about?”

Webster extracted some stapled lists of names and addresses from one of Allen’s files and handed it to the inspector. Frost thumbed through the pages, wincing at the sheer volume of names.

“List of suspects?” he snorted. “It’s more like the Classified Telephone Directory. There must be every sex offender in the county down here.” He stopped at a name he recognized. “Freddy Gleeson! Fred the Flasher? Allen must be off his nut if he thinks Freddy could possibly be the rapist. His dick is for display purposes only, not for use.” He let the list drop to the desk and pushed it away. “Forget it. It’ll take weeks to go through that lot.”

“Couldn’t we at least pull in some of the more likely ones?” Webster asked.

Frost thumbed the pages once more and shuddered. “Waste of bloody time. These are all people with previous form. My gut feeling is that our bloke has never been caught before, so we’re not going to find him in lists of known offenders.” He looked up impatiently as someone knocked at the door. “Yes?”

PC Kenny poked his head in. “Tommy Croll is still in the interview room, sir,” he reminded the inspector.

“I was just on my way in as you knocked,” said Frost.

Tommy Croll was unshaven and unwashed, his clothes even more crumpled than Frost’s. He blinked nervously as the inspector entered with his hairy sidekick.

“Hello, Tommy,” greeted Frost, settling himself down in the familiar hard interview room chair. “Nice of you to come and see us.”

Tommy said nothing. He had long since learned that the best technique to use with the police was to say as little as possible.

Frost folded his arms, smiled at Croll benevolently, then fished out his cigarettes. He lit one very slowly, dribbling the smoke across the table. “You’re the answer to my prayers, Tommy. I’m in serious trouble with my Divisional Commander. To get back in his good books I need a quick confession and no sodding about.”

“I didn’t do it, Mr. Frost,” Croll whined.

“Now that’s a pity,” said Frost, ‘because it means we might have to resort to desperate measures, such as violence.” He jerked his thumb to the door as a signal for the uniformed man to leave.

Croll tried not to show his concern. He was now alone in the interview room with Frost and that thug with the beard, and he’d heard some alarming stories about him. There was even a whisper that he had beaten up Harry Baskin, and you would have to be a real hard case to even contemplate doing anything like that.

“As you probably know,” said the inspector, ‘my hairy colleague was drummed out of Braybridge for smashing up prisoners. I’d never allow him to do anything like that to you, Tommy not in my presence.” He pushed himself up from the chair and stretched. “So I’ll go and take a little stroll around the block.” To Webster he said, “Try not to leave any marks, son.”