R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

Jordan drained his coffee and stood up. ‘I’ll do it, Inspector.’

Frost grunted his thanks. ‘I’ll hang on here until you get back.’ He turned back to the rest of the team. ‘First thing tomorrow, I want CCTV tapes covering all roads in and out of Denton. There won’t be much traffic about at that time of night, so I want every vehicle checked out. We’re looking for vehicles coming into and leaving Denton at the right times.’ He took another sip of his coffee and scratched his head with the pencil. ‘Can’t think of anything else you should do, but if you think of it, do it! Go and get some kip. We’ll start bright and early tomorrow.’

Jordan shook him awake at half past four. No cab firm had any customers during the specified time span apart from a couple of prostitutes and their clients. Frost blinked gritty eyes as he took this in, then decided he was far too drowsy to attempt the drive home. He would sleep in his office and be ready for the CCTV tapes in the morning.

‘Get someone to wake me at eight,’ he yawned.

Frost woke up suddenly and reached out for an alarm clock that wasn’t there, his hand flapping in empty space. Where the hell was he? His paper-strewn office desk juddered into blurry focus and he remembered the abortive stake-out of the night before. Gawd. He’d have to face Mullett and Godzilla Skinner about that – and flaming Beazley, of course. He’d forgotten that Beazley would be spitting blood at the news that another five hundred pounds of his money had found its way into the blackmailer’s pocket in spite of a police stake-out which was intended to prevent any possibility of such a thing happening.

He shuddered at the thought, then winced as his splitting headache went into overdrive. He had a stiff neck and it hurt him to move his head. The perfect start to the day.

From the corridor outside came the persistent sound of clanging buckets as the cleaners sloshed their mops down the corridor, making the station reek of bleach and pine disinfectant, punctuated by the yells of the drunks in the cells demanding to be let out on bail, and Bill Wells yelling for them to shut up.

‘The Denton-nick flaming dawn chorus,’ he muttered to himself as he stood up and stretched to relieve the aches and pains in his back. Then he staggered out to the washroom, where he splashed cold water over his face and gave his chin a quick buzz with the electric razor. He studied the dishevelled, crumpled face that peered back at him from the steamed-up mirror and rubbed an easily satisfied hand over his chin. ‘Close enough for jazz,’ he muttered.

Passing the door of the Incident Room, he could hear the buzz of many voices inside. He opened it a crack and peeked in. Skinner was addressing the assembled search party. He closed it quickly before he was spotted and hurried to the lobby, where Bill Wells, bringing his logbook up to date, looked up and nodded a greeting. ‘How did it go last night?’

‘A bleeding disaster,’ said Frost. ‘Taffy Morgan got clonked and taken to hospital, but that was the only laugh we had.’

‘Skinner’s been screaming blue murder, Jack. He wants to see you about unauthorised over time and taking the new girl away from the job he gave her.’

Frost sniffed. The siren aroma of sizzling sausages and bacon was fighting its way through pine disinfectant and bleach, trying to lure him up to the canteen for breakfast, but he thought he’d better make a move and get away before

Skinner’s briefing ended. He was a bit too fragile to face Skinner at this unearthly hour of the morning.

‘I’m off out,’ he told Wells, speeding back to his office.

He was winding his maroon scarf round his neck when he heard the clatter of many foot steps down the corridor. The morning briefing was over. The search party was making its way to the car park to resume the hunt for the two missing girls and the boy. He was glad it wasn’t his case any more. He doubted Debbie, for one, would still be alive. If she had run off with her boyfriend, she would have let her mother know by now, just to reassure her. He was glad Skinner would be the one to have to break the news to the parents when the bodies were found. The parents. This reminded him that Debbie’s father and the other paedophiles were waiting to be questioned, Again, thank God it was Skinner’s case. And then there was Graham Fielding, the Christmas killer. But they were all Skinner’s concerns, not his. Fatso had some uses, after all.

He opened his office door and his heart sank as he came face to face with Godzilla.

‘My office,’ snapped Skinner, turning on his heel, not even checking if Frost was following or not.

Skinner’s office was sparsely furnished; most of the furniture had been removed, ready for the decorators. Frost sat down opposite a simmering detective chief inspector.

‘What the bloody hell do you think you were up to, Frost? You don’t bloody authorise over time – I do. And what do we get for our overtime money? We get a bloody fiasco of a stake-out and chummy gets the five hundred quid anyway. You let that Welsh twit watch the most likely cashpoint and he gets himself knocked unconscious, but not unconscious enough for us to be spared his bleeding useless company for long…’

Frost did his usual trick in such circumstances. He switched off his ears and let his eyes wander over the contents of Skinner’s in-tray. He was extremely interested in the ‘Request for Transfer’ form which lay on the top of the heap of papers. It was the second such form he had seen in so many days. Who the hell was requesting a transfer? Was it the new girl? Had Skinner succeeded in driving the poor cow out of Denton? He shifted his position so he was nearer the in-tray and able to read the details, but Skinner forestalled him by pulling the form from the tray and sliding it into his desk drawer, which he locked. What’s so bloody secret about a ‘Request for Transfer’ form? thought Frost.

‘You are listening to me, I hope?’ barked Skinner.

‘Every word,’ said Frost, ‘and I agree with you all the way.’

He hoped this was the right response.

Skinner stared hard at him. ‘And you don’t take that girl away from doing my work, do you hear?’

‘Loud and clear,’ nodded Frost. His policy was to agree with everything, then go his own way.

He slid his chair back and stood up. ‘If that’s all…’

‘That’s not bloody all,’ snarled Skinner, his hand waving Frost back to his seat. But he’d run out of steam. His mouth opened and closed as he tried to think of something else, but he had covered everything in the tirade Frost had closed his ears to. ‘Just make sure you obey my orders to the letter in future. Comprende?'

‘Absolument pas,’ said Frost.

He stuck his head round the door of the Incident Room to find Collier seated in front of a monitor, watching CCTV footage of late-night traffic the previous night. Collier pressed the Stop button when Frost came in.

‘More traffic about last night than we thought, Inspector,’ he reported, showing Frost the list of registration numbers he had noted down.

‘What do “L” and “V” mean?’ asked Frost.

‘That means it’s a lorry or a van, Inspector. All the rest are private cars.’

‘He won’t have come in a lorry or a van,’ said Frost. ‘Concentrate on the cars. We got the tape from the building society yet?’

‘There isn’t a tape, Inspector.’

Frost gaped. ‘Why not?’

‘We took the CCTV tape out yesterday for examination. They didn’t replace it.’

‘You are bloody joking?’ croaked Frost.

Collier shook his head. ‘I’m not joking. They didn’t replace the tape.’

Frost stared at him incredulously. ‘The stupid bleeding sods.’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing we can do about it except swear, I suppose, and that’s not my style. Carry on, son.’