R Wingfield - A Killing Frost

‘That could take flaming ages,’ said Frost. ‘“If you have lost your credit card, press 8; if you want to trace a customer with contaminated baby milk, press 9.” Get on to it right away.’

‘We’re checking late-night-Sunday till receipts now,’ the assistant manager told him. ‘If our luck’s in we’ll get to the customer before the tin is opened.’

‘And if your luck’s out, they could have paid with cash. Make it quick. If you haven’t turned anything up in a quarter of an hour, I’m going to local radio and the rest of the media.’ His stomach rumbled again. ‘Do you do breakfasts at the restaurant here?’ he asked the manager again.

‘We do an excellent full English – it’s on special this week.’

‘How do I pay for it?’ asked Frost.

‘Oh – we take credit cards.’

Shit, thought Frost, who was hoping the stingy sod would let him have it on the house. ‘Right, I’ll nip over and get something to eat. Tell your assistant where I am.’

As he crossed the shop floor he could see the staff were doing a thorough job with the search. Everything was being taken off the shelves, examined and put back again.

In the restaurant, he was just dipping his fried bread in his egg when Taffy Morgan burst in and came running towards him.

‘Ah – there you are, Guv.’

‘Yes,’ said Frost. ‘I know where I am.’ He took a swig of tea.

‘I tried to get you on your mobile, Guv.’

‘I keep it switched off,’ said Frost, ‘in case some Welsh git tries, to ring me. Sit down and watch me eat.’ He forked a piece of bacon and surveyed it gloomily. ‘This pig was solid fat.’ Morgan dragged out a chair and sat opposite him. ‘That rape case, Guv, I’ve run through the CCTV tapes from the multi-storey car park. Got a shot of a car roaring off at about the time the girl said. A Ford Focus. It’s got to be our rapist.’

Frost pushed his unfinished breakfast away and lit up a cigarette. ‘Well done, Taff. About time our flaming luck changed. You got the registration and checked it out?’

Morgan nodded. ‘Graham Fielding, 29 Castle Road, Denton.’

‘Any previous? Has his dick got him into trouble before?’

‘No, Guv. Shall I pick him up?’

Frost dribbled smoke from his nose as he chewed this over, then shook his head. ‘No. Don’t let’s jump the gun. We’ve got nothing on him other than the fact that his car was in the vicinity at the time of the rape. Call on him, Taff, use your Welsh charm, and if that doesn’t put him off, ask if he will give us a DNA sample – Forensic will tell you what to get. Take a paper bag in case they want poo. If it matches, we’ve got the bastard; if not, we can forget him.’

‘Supposing he won’t give a DNA sample, Guv?’

‘Then reason with him – punch him in the stomach. If that doesn’t work, bring him in. If he’s innocent there’s no reason why he should refuse.’

As Morgan left, Frost noticed Henry Martin hovering. He didn’t look at all happy. ‘What’s up?’ asked Frost. ‘Have you eaten one of these breakfasts?’

The manager forced a smile and slid into the chair vacated by Morgan. ‘Mr Beazley doesn’t like people smoking in here.’

‘It does less harm than eating the food,’ said Frost, making no attempt to put the cigarette out. ‘So what’s the news?’

‘We’ve been over the shelves thoroughly three times. No sign of the missing jar. We’ve been through the till receipts – it hasn’t been checked out. I don’t know what we can do. We can’t open the store until we find it. I dread to think what Mr Beazley will say.’

‘If no one’s bought it and it’s not still in the store, then it’s gone out without being paid for. So either a member of your staff has helped him self or…’ His eyes widened and the hand holding his cigarette paused in mid air. A light dawned and he grinned. ‘… or it could have been nicked by a shoplifter.’

‘Speculation,’ moaned Martin. ‘We could never prove it.’

‘This might be your lucky day said Frost. He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and dialled a number. ‘Jordan? Inspector Frost here. That milk powder you picked up from Sadie’s house – did it have a blue cross on the bottom?

Well check it out now.’ He drummed his fingers on the table as he waited. ‘Yes… What? Brilliant. No, don’t send it to Forensic yet. Hang on to it until I get there.’ He dropped the phone back in his pocket. ‘We’ve traced it,’ he told Martin. ‘You can open up again. But let me know the minute you get another letter demanding money – and make certain as few people as possible smear their fingerprints on it.’

‘I can go, can I?’ shrilled Sadie. ‘Oh, bleeding nice! Locked up, falsely imprisoned, insulted and then kicked out. What about compensation?’

‘Your compensation is that we’re not nicking you for shoplifting,’ said Frost. ‘Now push off before I change my mind.’

‘What about my kiddy?’

‘Sort that out with Social Services, Sadie, and next time you nick something, make sure it isn’t contaminated.’

‘You wouldn’t treat me like this if I was an asylum-seeker.’

‘Then go and seek bleeding asylum and come back and see, but for now, push off.’ He held the door wide open for her to leave. ‘Another dissatisfied customer,’ he told Bill Wells and mooched back to his office.

Frost looked up from the crime-statistics report where a column of figures was dancing before his eyes. A tap at the office door heralded the arrival of Simms and Jordan.

‘Whatever it is, the answer’s no,’ he told them. ‘I’ve got my sums to do.’

Jordan grinned. ‘We’ve just been out on a call, Inspector. Teenage girl missing from home.’

‘She’s not here,’ said Frost, ‘and I wouldn’t tell you if she was.’ He put his pen down and sighed. ‘All right. Tell me about it.’

‘She’s Debbie Clark. Told her parents she was going -to a sleepover with her schoolfriend Audrey Glisson – she’s done this many times before. Went off on her bike about half seven yesterday evening. When she didn’t come home this morning, the parents phoned Audrey’s house. Debbie hadn’t been there and hadn’t arranged to go there.’

‘So she’s been missing overnight? Probably having a sleepover under her boyfriend. I bet she’s now at his place having a fag,’ said Frost dismissively, picking up his pen again. ‘Fill in a missing-persons report.’

‘The parents claim she isn’t that sort of a girl,’ said Jordan.

Frost snorted. ‘As I’ve told you a million times, lads, every time a teenage girl goes missing from home, the parents swear blind she’s a pure, sweet, home-loving girl training to be a nun, and nine times out of ten they turn out to be little scrubbers, on the game, pumping them selves full of coke, who’ve run away for the umpteenth time.’

‘She’s only just thirteen, Inspector. Today is her birthday.. . they were throwing her a party tonight.’

‘If I had the choice between jelly and ice cream or a bit of the other, jelly wouldn’t stand a chance,’ said Frost.

‘We’ve a feeling about this one, Inspector,’ said Simms. ‘I really think you should see the parents.’

Frost dribbled smoke through his nose. He, too, often had feelings that weren’t borne out by the evidence, feelings that sometimes proved correct. ‘All right, lads. Book her in as a missing person and when I get the chance I’ll see them, but I’m tied up right now.’ He reached out for his internal phone as it rang.

‘Frost!’ It was Bill Wells. ‘Superintendent Mullett says he wants the crime-statistics report right now, Jack.’

Frost looked down at the untidy mess of scribbled figures and crossings-out in front of him. He got up and snatched his scarf from the hook on the wall. ‘Tell him I’m out interviewing the parents of a missing thirteen-year-old girl.’