R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘He’ll turn up,’ said Frost. But even as he said it the doubts began piling up and up…

Quarter past eleven. The Incident Room was warm and no one was looking forward to huddling in shop doorways on the off chance that the blackmailer might do Frost a favour and get himself arrested in the act of taking some more money from the building-society account. But the overtime money would come in handy and had to be grabbed while it was going. The red-hot rumour was that Skinner was going to cut overtime to the bone.

Frost gloomily sipped his mug of tea as he surveyed his team. His feeling that tonight would be the night they caught the blackmailer had long since evaporated and he suspected this was going to be another expensive waste of time. Too late to call it off now, though. But they were spread too thinly. Bill Wells had only managed to rake up Simms, Jordan and Collier. Everyone else was involved in the search for the missing teenagers and there was no way they could be expected to stay alert all night, then start the search again at seven the next morning.

Also there, of course, was Taffy Morgan, with WPC Kate Holby, who looked stunning and vulnerable, wearing a fleece jacket over a tight-fitting grey turtleneck sweater and slacks. She doesn’t look more than sixteen, thought Frost. Just a kid – who we’ll soon be sending out on her own into pubs to break up fights between knife-wielding drunken skinheads, or to scrape road-accident victims’ bodies off the road. Just a bleeding kid!

He glanced quickly at the clock. Twenty past eleven. ‘Right. You know where you’ll be stationed. Go and take up your positions, but do it in dribs and drabs. I don’t want a coach-load of the Old Bill all turning up at the same time. And remember, we’re only there for the stake-out. We turn a blind eye to muggings, rapes, peeing in shop doorways and flashers. We leave them to on-duty uniforms to handle. We don’t touch them – understood?’

A murmur of assent.

‘Right. If you want to do a wee, do it now, and off you go. If we catch him tonight, I’ll buy us all an Indian…’

Frost retreated further into the shop doorway as a squall of wind blew splashes of rain in his face. It had been threatening to rain all day, but there had only been the odd drizzle so far. He shivered. It was flaming cold. He looked quickly round Market Square to make sure Taffy Morgan was well concealed. He had given the DC the cashpoint the blackmailer had used before on the principle that lightning wouldn’t strike in the same place twice and Morgan was the one most likely to sod things up.

He checked his watch. Six minutes to one. The bastard wasn’t coming. He knew it. If he was going to come he’d have been here just after midnight. He’d give it another hour, then call it off. He tried to concentrate on watching the cashpoint, but his mind was whirling with thoughts of the missing teenagers. Three missing and no flaming idea where they were. Were the disappearances associated or was it just a coincidence?

His mobile bleeped. He fished it out of his mac pocket. It was Taffy Morgan.

‘No sign of anyone, Guv,’ moaned Morgan.

‘Then I don’t bloody well want to know,’ snapped Frost.

‘It’s freezing cold,’ added Morgan.

‘We’re having a heatwave over here,’ said Frost, ending the call and dropping the phone back in his pocket.

He heard footsteps approaching and peeked out. A man with his head down against the driving wind was approaching. Frost stiffened, his hand on his mobile ready to summon aid. The man put his hand in his pocket, took out a handkerchief, blew his nose, then went on his way. Shit! thought Frost, dropping the mobile back in his mac. He looked again at his watch: Two minutes to one. Come on, you bastard, he urged. Don’t you know we’re all cold and flaming fed up waiting for you?

Running footsteps and a squeal of female laughter. Two men and two women, all giggling, passed by. One of the women spotted Frost in his doorway and made some comment which was greeted by howls of laughter.

Flaming hell, thought Frost. When did I last have a woman? This flaming job is like a chastity belt – makes you want it, but won’t let you have it. He badly wanted a smoke, but feared that the glow of a burning cigarette would draw attention to the fact that he was skulking in a shop doorway.

Somewhere in the distance a church clock chimed a solitary one. Frost was cold, stiff and fed up. He didn’t care a sod if the blackmailer turned up or not. He could have Beazley’s sodding money. He just wanted to get back to the station and thaw out. The thought of a hot sausage sandwich was much more alluring than the prospect of capturing a flaming blackmailer. Sod it! If the blackmailer intended to come, he’d have been here by now.

Frost phoned Taffy; who took ages to answer.

‘Wake up, you Welsh git. I’m calling it a night. Jordan’s going to pick you up – stay awake until then.’ Then he called Jordan and Collier and told them to pick everyone up and take them back to the station. ‘There’s a bottle of Johnnie Walker in my desk drawer,’ he said. ‘We can kill it while we watch Mullett’s overtime bill mount up.’ Bloody hell. The thought gave him a clout. The soaring overtime bill and nothing to show for it. He shrugged. He’d face that when it came. Tomorrow, as Scarlett O’Hara said after Clark Gable legged it, was another bleeding day.

The Rest Room was warm and cosy, a welcome contrast to shivering in shop doorways. They sat sprawled out sipping mugs of whisky, half an eye on the television screen with the sound turned off. Kate Holby had taken a sip, screwed up her nose and decided she didn’t like it.

‘We’ll have some coffee soon,’ Frost told her. ‘I hope you enjoyed your stake-out. They’re not all as exciting as this. Sometimes you just stand in doorways for hours and get bleeding cold and sod all happens…’

The microwave pinged. Collier took out the first two curries and carried one over to Frost, then slapped a couple more in.

‘Well,’ grunted Frost, peeling the film top from the plastic container. ‘A bollocking from Mullett and Fatso tomorrow, a hefty bleeding overtime bill and sod all to show for it, but at least I’ll have about three hours’ sleep before that happens.’ He dug out a spoonful of curry.

The phone rang.

He paused, the spoonful of hot curry quivering near his lips. He raised an eyebrow to the wall clock. Three twenty-five. Who the hell would be phoning at this godforsaken time? He tried to ignore it but it kept on ringing.

‘Would someone who doesn’t sound half-pissed answer that bloody thing?’ he said. ‘It might be Mullett enquiring about our welfare, or Tom Champagne telling me I’ve won the Reader’s Digest prize draw.’

‘I’d better do it,’ smiled Kate. She picked up the phone. ‘It’s Fortress Building Society computer control,’ she told Frost.

He pushed himself out of his chair. ‘Don’t tell me the bastard waited until we had all left.’ He took the phone. ‘Frost.’

‘Sorry we’ve been so long getting through to you, Inspector,’ said the voice at the other end of the line. ‘But it’s been panic stations here. All our computers went down. We’ve only just got them back up again. Did you get him?’

Frost’s heart nosedived to the pit of his stomach. ‘Get who?’ But he knew bloody well who. Sod and double sod.

‘Your blackmailer. He withdrew another five hundred pounds.’

Frost’s drink-befuddled brain switched falteringly in and out of focus. ‘Which cashpoint?’

‘The one in Market Square. The same one as before.’

‘What time?’

‘Four minutes past one. You did catch him, didn’t you?’

‘I’ll get back to you,’ said Frost, slamming the phone down. ‘If we’d caught him, I’d have bleeding said so, wouldn’t I, you stupid prat,’ he yelled at the handset.