R. Wingfield - Frost at Christmas

No one laughed, no one said anything, but the silence was crushing and oppressive. Frost wished the ground would open up and swallow him as well as the kitten. He straightened up slowly and rubbed his palms down his coat. "You can go home if you like, lads. I've made what you might term a bit of a balls-up."

They trudged off without a word leaving Frost and Clive to shovel the earth back and stamp it down hard. It was a big grave for such a tiny creature so the mistake was reasonable, and Clive was wishing he could think of something to say when, cutting gratingly over the wind, a woman screamed and screamed and screamed.

It came from the cottage. Martha Wendle was screaming at them. They hadn't heard her return, but she had seen men lurking in her garden so she shrieked in terror and slammed all the bolts on the doors.

They pleaded with her through the letterbox and pushed their warrant cards under the door as proof of their honest intentions before she finally let them in, still trembling. Even her cats were cowering fearfully in dark places.

"I'm sorry, Inspector," she said when she had calmed down, "but I had no idea it was you invading the privacy of my garden."

"I'd have knocked first," said Frost, his nose twitching against the unforgettable smells, "but I thought the spirits would be keeping you in the picture."

"It's easy to scoff," she snapped, brushing past him to fetch a large brown saucepan from the kitchen. She removed the lid and dumped a mess of strong-smelling fish heads on to a plate on the floor which was immediately awash with cats spitting, biting, tearing, and scrunching. Clive slipped into the room at that point. He caught Frost's eyes and shook his head: he had found nothing. Frost had asked him to search the cottage. The size of the kitten's grave worried him.

Frost pulled his scarf up so it covered his nose and hoped it would filter off some of the aromas. "That skeleton you kindly put us on to, Miss Wendle. You were working at Bennington's when he was killed, weren't you?"

She suddenly stared at him intently. "You miss your wife a lot, don't you, Inspector?"

Clive had never seen Frost so angry before. The inspector was trembling with rage. "Keep that bloody claptrap to yourself, you wicked cow." Then he swallowed hard and regained control. "Sorry-it's a painful subject. July 1951. Tell me about the robbery."

She wiped her hands on a grimy tea-towel. "I was accused of not passing on a vital message. The message was never given to me."

"What vital message?" asked Frost.

"It's in your file," she said.

That means I'll have to read the bloody thing, thought Frost, and Clive, feeling he had been silent long enough, asked "Is that why they sacked you, Miss Wendle- because you didn't pass this message on?"

"That was the excuse they used," she said bitterly, fastening her eyes on the younger man, "but the truth was, I knew too much about the manager and his business."

"His business?" prompted Clive.

"Yes. You can't help overhearing the odd snippet when you work on a switchboard. That son of his was always phoning the manager up."

"What about?"

"Money. He was always whining for money. I can still hear that wheedling voice." She gave a grotesque imitation. " 'You've got to help me, Dad, I must have the money tonight.' The manager falsely accused me of listening in to his calls." A self-satisfied smile crawled across her face. "But he was punished for his wickedness."

One of the more unpleasant-looking cats had discovered Frost's leg and was rubbing up against it.

"How was he punished?" asked Clive.

Her eyes went blank as she savored the recollection. "His son committed suicide, didn't you know?" She chose that moment to look down as Frost's foot was swinging and her expression changed abruptly to acid hate. "You dare touch that animal!" She scooped the cat up and hugged it protectively to her chest. "I'm glad your wife died," she spat. " Now get out!"

Frost gave her a look of contempt. "You nasty bitch!"

"Go!" she said, and squeezed the cat until it squealed in protest.

The long plod back to the car in the wind blew away the smell of fish and cats and hatred.

"How did she know about your wife, sir?" asked Clive.

"Not from the bloody spirits, son, that's for sure. It was in all the local papers at the time-'Police Hero's Wife Dies-Funeral Pictures Page 8'. It was probably wrapped round her fish heads." He said nothing for a while, then, "My wife was beautiful when I first met her, you know. I wasn't such a bad catch myself-not the ugly sod I am now," and his hand went to his cheek.

Throughout the drive back he was deep in thought and kept touching his scarred face; then, as they rumbled down the hill to the Market Square, "Tell me something honestly son. This scar, it doesn't make me look too bad, does it?"

"You can hardly notice it, sir," said Clive, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

Frost looked unconvinced. His fingers felt, pushed and poked. "I can't leave the damn thing alone. The doc says I could have plastic surgery, but between you and me, I'm a bloody coward. I'm terrified of hospitals. I keep having this nightmare-I'm being wheeled into the operating theater where the surgeon's waiting with blood on his gown and I try to move, but I'm strapped down, and I can see all the knives and hooks and things in a kidney bowl, and I try and yell, and then I wake up in a cold sweat."

Control came through on the radio. "Would Inspector Frost report to the Divisional Commander at once, please?"

Frost sighed. "No wonder I get bloody nightmares. What have I done wrong now?"

Superintendent Mullett's knuckles drummed his desk top in a gesture of impatient irritation. How much longer was he expected to wait? Other officers treated a summons from their Divisional Commander as tantamount to an Imperial Decree, dropping everything in their eagerness to obey it, but Frost…

A rap at the door. At last! Even the knock was slovenly.

A pause as the blotter was moved fractionally to dead center and the silver-buttoned tunic pulled down to pristine smoothness.

"Come in."

And in he slouched, trailing that matted woolen scarf, disintegrating at one end. His shoes made damp marks on the carpet.

Mullen flicked a disdainful hand to a chair. Frost sat on the edge, apprehensively.

"I've just spoken to the head of Forensic," snapped Mullett.

"Oh?" asked Frost innocently, yet knowing what was coming. That slimey sod in Forensic, trust him to waste no time in whining direct to Mullett.

"Do you know how much it costs to send out a full, experienced team like that?"

If I don't, I'm sure you're going to tell me, thought Frost, adopting an attitude of interested concern while slipping his hand into his trouser pocket to play the game of counting his small change by touch alone. It gave him something to occupy his mind while waiting for the superintendent to finish his moan.

"… You panicked and you blundered. Even the newest member of the force would have checked first before calling out a complete forensic team to look at a dead cat."

Fifty-three pence, thought Frost. Now let's see if I can stack them with heads on one side and tails on the other.

"It wouldn't be so bad if we could keep the shame of your incompetence within the division, but now the press have got hold of the story. I've already had a reporter from the Echo asking for details. We'll be a complete laughing stock. It'll be all over County tomorrow, and if the Chief Constable reads it…"

… bang goes your promotion, thought Frost, but aloud he said, "Sandy Lane's a pal of mine, Super. If it worries you so much I might be able to get him to drop the story."

Mullett was so delighted he forgot to wince at the "Super." "Excellent. And I can handle the head of Forensic-we belong to the same Lodge." He beamed and stood to indicate that the interview was over. "We all make mistakes, but the secret is the ability to put them right, eh?"