R.D. Wingfield - Frost at Christmas

Stringer was now sitting up straight. He seemed to have pulled himself together. "What happens now, sir?"

Frost twitched his shoulders. "That's entirely up to you, son. I've got enough on my plate with missing kids, ransom demands, and talking spirits. I'll just say this. You've been a bloody fool and you've been found out by a dim old fool like me, so you haven't been very clever, have you? If you want to keep out of trouble never put yourself in a position where crooks like Sammy Jacobs can blackmail you. Do you want to stay in the Force?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then buzz off and behave yourself from now on. And from time to time you might repay the odd copper you've pinched from me. My top drawer's always available-all contributions gratefully received.''

The phone gave an urgent ring. It was the station sergeant.

"Frost. Oh-thanks. I'm coming now. What? Oh, just a private matter, nothing that concerns anyone but him and me. I'll tell him."

He dropped the phone back and looked at the young man.

"Better get back, son. The station sergeant's got a job for you."

"Right sir… and thanks-"

But Frost had gone, his footsteps clattering up the corridor. Stringer picked up the cups with a shaking hand. He felt like bursting into tears. The open desk drawer gaped accusingly at him as he passed.

The van bumped in and out of snow-covered potholes and the two policemen in the back, with the shovels and the tarpaulins, cursed as they slithered and cannoned into each other. Frost, wedged tightly between the driver and a dark mustached young constable, was able to do little more than grunt with each jolt.

"Park by those trees," he said. "We walk from here." The mustached copper was looking queasy. "What's up, son-car sickness?"

A brisk shake of the head. "No, sir-it's just that I don't like the idea of digging up a body."

Frost snorted derisively. "It's the winter, son, not the summer. Cor, I remember my first body. All decomposing and rotten… half the face eaten away by rats and the weather hot and sticky. I'd have given anything for a nice fresh corpse in the winter. You don't know how lucky you are."

They waded through thigh-deep drifts at Dead Man's Hollow and Frost cursed himself for not having the foresight to grab a pair of Wellingtons like the rest of his digging party who, properly dressed for the occasion, plodded stoically behind him.

"Right. The first thing to do is to clear the snow away."

The snow was light and fluffy, all bulk and no substance, like candy-floss, and it was tiring, unsatisfying work, but at last an area was cleared behind piled, shoveled snow.

"What now, sir?" asked the driver, breathing heavily and resting on his shovel.

"Don't look all knowing at me, son," snapped Frost. "I reckon it's a bloody waste of time as well but I wasn't going to call the Divisional Commander a twit to his face and risk not getting a Christmas card. What's the ground like?"

In reply the driver struck the earth with his shovel. It rang, frozen solid. Digging would be an illegitimate cow's son.

Frost wound his scarf to just below his eyes. "Prod around lads. If anyone's been digging recently there should be traces." He poked a cigarette through a gap in the scarf and watched them work. His feet were so cold they hurt.

An excited voice." Inspector!''

The torch beam picked out broken ground… raw earth mixed with decayed leaves where the top surface had been turned over. A patch about eighteen inches square. The others clustered around to study the discovery.

"Well," snapped Frost, his hands deep in his pockets for warmth, "it won't get any bloody bigger by looking at it. Get digging!"

"Hardly big enough for a grave," ventured the mustached constable.

"It may be small," said Frost, "but it's all we've got."

The man who found it carefully shoveled out loose earth, the torch, like a stage spotlight, following his every movement.

Frost lost interest. "Just our luck it's some camper's rubbish. If so, you can have my share." The cold had found its way under the folds of the scarf and was chewing and worrying at his scar. The wind started to keen softly at the back of its throat and branches rustled.

"I've hit something!" called the digger. Then. "Sir!"

Frost spun round. The cigarette fell from his mouth.

The beam of the torch held it fast-yellow, dirt-encrusted, but unmistakable. Poking obscenely through the earth was the skeleton of a human hand.

Frost broke the shocked silence and swore softly. "Just what we bloody-well need!"

The driver dropped to his knees and examined it closely.

"It's human, sir."

"Of course it's bloody human. Anyone else would have been lucky enough to get a dead horse or a cow, but I have to get bloody human remains."

The earth was too hard for shovels so one of the constables was sent back to the van for some pickaxes, and also to radio Search Control to tell them that the spirits had given a false lead so far as Tracey Uphill was concerned.

In the distance the sound of a car pulling up, then approaching voices, one of them a woman's-Clive Barnard and W.P.C. Hazel Page.

"Hello, sir-found something?" asked Clive.

"A hand, " said Frost. "Why-have you lost one?"

The men moved out of the way so the newcomers could view the discovery.

"Well, if you've finished admiring it," said Frost, "what did auntie have to say?"

Clive paused for a moment to heighten the dramatic effect of his bombshell. "Farnham hasn't been to his aunt's for at least three weeks and he wasn't there Sunday."

Frost lit another cigarette. "I knew he was a liar the minute I saw him. You never can trust randy sods-present company excepted, of course."

"Shall I bring him in, sir?"

Frost considered, then shook his head. "Let him sweat until tomorrow. I'm more interested in old Mother Wendle. How did she know something was buried here?"

"She's a clairvoyant, sir."

"If the lady wasn't here, I'd say 'shit'," snapped Frost. "I don't believe in ghosts and I don't believe in Father Christmas. She knew it was here and I want to know how she knew."

A crashing and a cursing as the policeman bringing the picks slipped and fell. He limped toward them and shared out the tools, then told the inspector that Control was sending a doctor and an ambulance.

"A doctor?" said Frost, nearly losing another cigarette. "Oh, yes, we're not supposed to presume death are we? We're so bloody thick we don't know a dead body when we see one. All right lads, get his chest uncovered… the doctor might want to use his stethoscope."

It was hard going, even with the pickaxes, as they had to chip away carefully to avoid disturbing the position of the bones.

"Who do you think it was, sir?" asked Hazel.

"Probably some old tramp who crawled here to die years ago. No relatives, no one's missed him, but we're going to have all the bother of trying to find out who he was."

Hazel tucked her head deeper into her greatcoat collar. "It'll be difficult to discover the cause of death now, sir."

Frost nodded. "You're right, love. The police surgeon likes a lot more meat on a corpse than we've got here. Which reminds me, did I ever tell you about the time we had to get the body of this fat woman out of the house? She'd died in her bath-stark naked she was and-"

Clive cut in quickly before another doubtful story was launched. The inspector was forgetting a lady was present.

"If death was natural causes, sir, who buried him?"

Something soft fluttered down and wetly kissed the inspector's cheek. It was snowing again. He asked Hazel to return to the van and radio Control to send the marquee used that morning for the dragging party. Then he remembered he hadn't answered Clive's question.

"Who buried him? No one, I'd say, son-leaves and mould naturally built up over him. No one comes near this part of the woods. It's got an unsavory reputation, like the toilets in the High Street."