R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘Oh? And why not?’ demanded Frost.

This time Skinner answered. ‘Because most of these receipts appear to have been falsified.’ He spread them out on the desk in front of Frost.

‘Falsified?’ shrilled Frost in as indignant a tone as he could muster, while his brain raced through the data bank of his memory, wondering where the hell he had gone wrong. ‘Don’t tell me those lousy garages have been fiddling the amounts and I’ve missed it?’

‘I very much doubt that it is the garages that have been doing the falsifying,’ said Skinner, while Mullett, a smug smile on his face, nodded his agreement.

‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’ said Frost.

Skinner smashed a fist down on Mullett’s desk and the glass ashtray leapt into the air, crashing down in another ash storm. ‘Don’t come the bloody innocent with me, Frost. You know damn well what I mean. The majority of these receipts have been altered in your favour. And I’m saying that you altered them.’

‘If you think that, then flaming well prove it,’ snapped Frost, hoping and praying that the fat sod couldn’t.

Skinner leant back in his chair and smiled the smile of a fat sod who had four aces in his hand and a couple of kings to back them up. He took a receipt from the pile and waved it at Frost. ‘I asked Forensic to examine this one. “20 litres” has been crudely altered to read “26 litres”.’

Frost exhaled a sigh of relief. By sheer, undeserved good luck, Skinner had picked the one receipt that was genuine. It had already been altered, so he had been unable to alter it again. ‘If you check with the garage, you will find that the cashier misread the pump reading and had to alter it afterwards.’ He grabbed Mullett’s phone and thrust it at the Chief Inspector. ‘Go on. Phone them and ask.’ He stood up. ‘And when they confirm it, you can come to my office and apologise.’ Attack, he knew, was the best form of defence.

He had hardly reached the door when Skinner roared, ‘Sit down! I haven’t finished with you yet. Then how do you explain this?’

Frost slumped back in his chair and looked at the petrol receipt pinned to the desktop by Skinner’s finger. His heart sank. ‘What about it?’ he asked, knowing damn well that if the bastard had checked he would know too bloody well what it was about.

The bastard had checked. ‘A bit off the beaten track, like most of the garages you choose to use, but I took a ride down there. The site was deserted. Elm Tree Garage has been closed for over two years.’

Frost’s brain raced, churning this over. Sod it! He’d been getting too flaming careless. Mullett was so easy to fool, especially when he was caught on the hop and made to sign expense claims he didn’t have time to check first. Sod, sod and double sod. He’d meant to throw those old blank receipt forms away ages ago. Stupid, stupid fool! ‘I don’t know how that happened,’ he muttered. ‘I must have tucked the receipt in my wallet ages ago and got it mixed up with the current ones.’ He peered at Skinner to see how this was going down. It wasn’t going anywhere!

Skinner was shaking his head. ‘With a current date?’

‘I probably noticed the date was wrong, so I put a new one in,’ offered Frost, trying to suggest it was the most natural thing to do with an old receipt.

Smirking superciliously, and staring at Frost as he did so, Skinner began to line up a series of petrol receipts on the desktop as if he was displaying a Royal Flush ‘And you did the same for these other five Elm Tree Garage receipts. How do you account for that?’

Frost wriggled uncomfortably in his chair. ‘All right. So I lost some receipts and altered some others so I wouldn’t lose out. Big deal!’

Skinner scooped up the receipts and put them back on the pile. ‘If it had only happened once – or perhaps twice, or even in single figures – I might be disposed to believe you, Inspector Frost, but I’ve gone back six months and could go back even further. A sizeable number have been altered. By my calculations you’ve been making almost forty pounds a month from falsified car-expense claims.’

‘And tax-free,’ chimed in Mullett, who felt he was being left out of things.

‘Yes,’ agreed Skinner grimly. He turned to Mullett and nodded for him to take over.

Mullett had the grace not to look Frost in the eye. ‘I won’t tolerate dishonesty in my division.’

‘Dishonesty?’ exclaimed Frost incredulously. ‘What bloody dishonesty? Half the overtime I can’t be bothered to claim would wipe this out in a flash.’

Mullett turned in appeal to Skinner. He hadn’t considered this aspect. Don’t say Frost was going to wriggle out of it, as he always seemed able to do.

Skinner took over. ‘You can’t write off fiddling like that. Forgery is forgery. If you’re too lazy to claim overtime, that’s your look-out. You can’t make up for it by fiddling.’

All right, thought Frost. When you’ve lost, stop fighting. ‘So I might have made the odd mistake. Big deal. If it makes you happy, I’ll pay it back.’

Skinner shook his head firmly and again turned to Mullett to take over. Mullett tried to look the other way. He wanted Skinner to continue with the unpleasant side of the business.

Skinner wasn’t having any. ‘Superintendent Mullett has something to say to you.’

‘Oh yes,’ mumbled Mullett. ‘The, er, point is, Frost, I can’t have people on my team who cheat. Paying back isn’t good enough.’

‘Then what the bleeding hell is good enough?’ Frost demanded. ‘Do you want me to disembowel my bleeding self?’

Mullett look pleadingly at Skinner, who stone-walled with a shake of the head. This is up to you, he signalled.

‘This should be reported to County, Frost,’ said Mullett at last. ‘Much as I am always ready to lay my head on the block for my team, I have no option. It’s my duty to report it and I imagine County will suspend you while they go through all your expense vouchers for the past five years or so to find out if there are other discrepancies.’

‘They could do you for fraud,’ added Skinner. ‘Although they’d probably give you the opportunity of resigning instead. They don’t like their dirty washing to be aired in public.’

Frost went cold. He could see the bastard was serious.

Mullett seemed to be finding something of interest out of the window, so Skinner picked up the reins again. ‘However, you can count your self bloody lucky that you’ve got such a kind and sympathetic Superintendent.’ Mullett hung his head and brushed aside the compliment.

Frost stayed silent, waiting to see what the two scheming bastards had dreamed up for him.

‘I would be extremely reluctant to terminate the career of one of my officers,’ said Mullett, ‘even though it would be fully justified. But by shutting my eyes to the offence I could get into serious trouble if the truth came out. However, if you are agreeable, there is a satisfactory way out.’

‘Oh?’ said Frost warily.

Again Mullett looked pleadingly at Skinner, who, fed up with the man’s shilly-shallying, took over yet again.

‘As it happens, Frost, there is an officer in my old division who would very much like to work in Denton. But that, of course, would require a vacancy here.’

‘You want Superintendent Mullett to resign?’ asked Frost innocently.

‘You know bloody well I don’t mean that,’ snapped Skinner. ‘I am suggesting that you are transferred to my old division, while the officer in question transfers to Denton.’

You lousy, stinking, conniving bastards, thought Frost. He took another drag at his cigarette and flicked the ash in the general direction of the heavy glass ashtray. He kept his face impassive. Don’t let the sods have the pleasure of seeing how much this is affecting me. He pinched out the half-smoked cigarette and poked it in his pocket.