Hard Frost (6 page)

   "Have a good holiday?" he asked.

   "Peed with rain all week," grunted Frost.

   "Good," said Mullett, who wasn't listening.

   "Did you get my comic postcard?" asked Frost.

   Mullett frowned. Yes, he had got the card. And torn it up immediately. "It was extremely rude," he muttered.

   Frost looked puzzled. "Rude? You must have spotted some double meaning I missed."

   Mullett flapped a hand. "Be that as it may. Sorry to drag you in, Frost, but things happened last night. Five of our top men involved in a car accident."

   "So I heard," said Frost. "The car had a fight with a lamppost."

   "Yes - a patch of oil on the road. They skidded." Mullett, not a good liar, didn't sound very convincing.

   "Was Formby breathalysed?" asked Frost. "I understand he'd had a few."

   "Oh - Chief Inspector Formby wasn't driving," said Mullett, carefully avoiding Frost's eye. "His daughter was driving and she hadn't been drinking."

   Frost smiled and gave a conspiratorial wink. "Bloody clever! You're a lot of crafty sods, sir, that's all I can say."

   "What do you mean?"

   "It's obvious. Formby was driving. He didn't dare be breathalysed, so you brought his daughter in from home to pretend she was the driver."

   Mullett tried to sound suitably shocked. "That's a libellous thing to say, Frost. His daughter was driving. We all gave statements to that effect."

   "Then the witness who claims to have seen it all differently is telling lies?" said Frost. He put on his innocent expression. "What did you want to see me about?"

   But Mullett was now in a high state of agitation. "What witness? What does he claim to have seen? You must tell me."

   "If what you say is true, then he couldn't have seen anything, could he, sir?" said Frost blandly. "It would be your word against his anyway, even if he is a vicar."

   Mullett stared hard and jotted a note on his pad. He would have to talk to Frost about this later man to man on a friendly basis. He hadn't wanted to get involved in this wretched deception anyway, but they had pulled rank and twisted his arm. He cleared his throat. "The result of this unfortunate accident is that five senior officers are nursing broken bones in hospital."

   "Then it wasn't all bad," said Frost.

   Mullett ignored this. "Obviously, this has meant some temporary relocation of personnel. In our case it means that Inspector Allen has been seconded to Greenford Division as acting chief inspector until such time as Mr. Formby is fit enough to return."

   "When is he going?" asked Frost.

   "He's already gone. It was arranged last night."

   "Do you mean to tell me," said Frost, 'that Allen knew he wouldn't be here when he conned me into taking over his cases on a temporary basis last night?"

   "I don't know anything about that," said Mullett, again not meeting Frost's eye.

   "The bastard," said Frost, banging his fist on Mullett's desk which jolted the headache into overdrive.

   "Please!" Mullett held his head. "You will take over all his cases."

   "That still leaves us a man short."

   "There will be a temporary replacement for Mr. Allen . . . a detective sergeant as acting inspector. We haven't finalized the details yet."

   "The sooner the better - we're pushed enough as it is."

   Mullett waved a hand of dismissal. "I'll leave you to it then. Sorry to have to cut your holiday short, but it couldn't be avoided."

   "A few less drinks last night and it would have been," said Frost, pushing himself out of the chair.

   As the door closed, Mullett heard a startled cry from his secretary and a raucous laugh from Frost. "Caught you bending there, Ida!"

   The Divisional Commander shook his head sadly. What could you do with a man like that?

Frost took a quick look in Allen's office on his way up to the briefing. He shuddered. The room was so neat and tidy it almost hurt. Desk tops clear, wall charts meticulously entered, and the prissy smell of lavender wax polish. A cold, heartless room, which matched its former occupant, and which made Frost itch to get back to the warm, untidy fug of his own office. He delved into Allen's in-tray, and pulled out a neat stack of forms and returns which had to be completed and sent off to County by the third of the month. Trust the sod to leave them behind. He put them back and went across the corridor to the incident room where Liz Maud, still in her drab grey outfit, was surprised to see him.

   "I thought you were on holiday, inspector?"

   He explained about Allen. Her eyes narrowed. If a detective sergeant was to be made up to acting inspector, then who better than her!

   "There's a few returns and things in his office," said Frost vaguely. "Perhaps you could see if you could handle them."

   "No problem," she said. "I'll move in there."

   "I take it we didn't find Bobby Kirby?"

   "No. The briefing for the search party is in five minutes."

   "Right - I suppose I'd better do it."

   She concealed her disappointment. In the absence of Allen, she was hoping she could take this over.

   "Have we identified the dead kid?"

   "No."

   "Damn." He lit up a cigarette and stared out of the window on to the car-park. "A young kid, eight years old at the most and dead for nearly fifteen hours. Why haven't his parents reported him missing?" He sucked hard at the cigarette as he had a thought. "It could be because it's his parents who killed him." He spun round to Liz. "As soon as the schools open, get on the phone to the head teachers. I want to know if there's any seven - or eight-year-old boys who haven't turned up for school today."

   "Right."

   "But don't tell them he's dead - not until we've traced and informed the parents."

   "Of course not." Give her credit for some common sense.

   "Any joy with the rubbish sacks?"

   "Plenty of prints, but we're checking with the shop people today to eliminate them. And no sign of the clothing."

   "Has everyone in the briefing got copies of both photographs - the dead kid and Bobby?"

   "Yes."

   "And the guy? People might not have noticed the kid, but they could remember the guy."

   "Yes. And I've sent copies of the photograph of Bobby to the press and TV and we're having a pile of "Have you seen this boy" posters run off. Also some extra large ones to stick on a loudspeaker van to tour the neighbourhood."

   "Good," nodded Frost. He had forgotten about that. "Right, let's get the search party briefed."

   The canteen was packed. He snatched himself a mug of tea and a bacon sandwich and elbowed his way through to the front. "Your attention, please!"

   There were murmurs of surprise. Everyone had been expecting Inspector Allen.

   "First the good news - and I must ask you to promise not to laugh. Chief Inspector Formby was injured in a car crash last night and is in hospital with two broken arms and a broken leg." He paused as delighted laughter roared out. "And this will really make you laugh - he's in quite a bit of pain."

   There were one or two cheers at this. Formby with his sneering manner and sarcastic tongue was not a popular officer.

   "The bad news is that Inspector Allen has been seconded to Greenford as acting chief inspector and I'm in charge of this missing boy enquiry. You are looking for Bobby Kirby, aged seven. You all have a photograph and a description. His parents have split up and he lives with his mother and her boyfriend. Last night the mother and the boyfriend nipped out to the pub for a quick one, leaving the kid alone in the house. When they returned just after ten, the kid wasn't there. Apparently he sneaked out with his guy to collect money. About eleven o'clock last night we found the guy behind a pile or rubbish bags stacked in a shop doorway in Patriot Street. Next to the guy was a boy's body in a rubbish sack. The boy, aged around seven or eight, had been chloroformed and gagged with plastic masking tape and had choked on his own vomit. He was naked, but there was no sign of sexual assault. The boy was not Bobby Kirby and up to now he has not been reported as missing so we don't know who he is. We'll be checking with schools as soon as they open. So our task is twofold. To find Bobby and to find out all we can about the dead boy."

   He deliberately didn't say anything about the severed finger. There'd be floods of hoax calls and fake confessions and he wanted there to be something that only the real murderer would know.

   "About half an hour before he died, the boy ate a hamburger. It's going to be a bloody waste of time, but we've got to check all the fast food joints in Denton and ask if they remember serving something as unusual as a hamburger to the boy in the photograph around, say, four to five o'clock. I'm sure this will give us about three hundred useless leads, but it's got to be done. Any questions?"

   A duffle-coated PC from Lexton Division put up his hand. "You think there's a connection between the dead boy and Bobby?"

   "The dead kid was found next to Bobby's guy. That's the only connection we've got at the moment. It could be a coincidence, but it's good enough for me. I say there's a connection." He looked around. No-one else had any questions. "Right. You've been allocated your search areas, so the very best of luck."

   He watched them file out clutching the copies of the photographs. He was hoping for the best, but he had a nasty feeling at the pit of his stomach that they were not going to find anything.

Chapter 3

Phones in the incident room were ringing non-stop. The TV appeal for Bobby's return made by his distraught parents, the tear-stained mother with her husband's arm firmly around her, Terry Green and the Chinese nurse tactfully absent, had provoked a terrific response from people convinced they had seen Bobby. None of the leads seemed very hopeful, but all would have to be followed up.

   In the same TV bulletin, a photograph of the dead boy was shown with a statement that the police were anxious to identify him. No mention was made of the fact that he was dead, nor that there might be a connection with Bobby.

   DC Burton, his ear sore from being constantly pressed against the phone, scribbled some details and thanked the caller. He tossed the form into the main collection basket.

   "Any news from Forensic?" asked Frost, dropping in the chair next to him.

   "Nothing worth having. The masking tape on the boy's face is run of the mill stuff and there were no prints on it. The cotton wool is a standard type. The plastic bag round his hand came from Bi-Wize supermarket and there were no prints on the rubbish sack the body was in."

   "If we didn't have a Forensic Department," said Frost, 'how would we know we had sod all to go on? What about the prints on the other rubbish sacks?"

   "The only prints found so far came from the shop staff."

   "This bloke is too bloody clever to leave prints," said Frost gloomily. He glanced up at the clock. Nine twenty-five. The kid had been dead for some sixteen hours and no-one had yet reported him missing. "Who's in charge of checking the schools?"

   "Wonder Woman. She's in Mr. Allen's office."

   "Right, son." Frost pushed himself up from the chair. "Let's go and see what she's got - if you'll pardon the expression,."

Bill Wells was distributing the internal mail. From force of habit he knocked on the door of Inspector Allen's office and a red light signalling "Wait' flashed. Dutifully, he waited. Then a green light bade him "Enter'. He went in and stared goggle-eyed. Sitting at Inspector Allen's desk as if she owned the bloody place was Liz bloody Maud. The cow! Flicking the switch to make him wait. Who the hell did she think she was?

   She didn't look up, just waggled her finger at the in-tray. "In there, please." Fuming, Wells flung the mail in. As he reached the door, she called him. "Sergeant!"

   He turned. She was holding up a red folder and beckoning for him to come over. "Do you mind taking this to Mr. Mullett?"

   "Yes, I bloody well do mind," he snapped, and his slamming of the door echoed around the building.

   Liz shrugged. She knew Wells resented her. Well, he would just have to learn to start taking orders from a woman, because her immediate aim was to be made up to acting detective inspector during Allen's absence. She had seen Superintendent Mullett and explained why she was the most suitable person for the temporary promotion. He had nodded vigorously and agreed wholeheartedly with everything she had said. "The decision is not up to me," he had told her, 'but it will receive my strongest personal recommendation." As she didn't yet know Mullett very well, she believed him.

   Spluttering with indignation, Wells buttonholed Frost as he came out of the murder incident room and poured out his moans about Liz Maud. "In Allen's office and with the red light on."

   "Perhaps she's turning it into a knocking shop," suggested Frost.

   But Wells was too angry for jokes. "Who the hell does she think she is? She's only a flaming sergeant and she's acting like a . . ." He stopped open-mouthed as the almost unthinkable thought struck him. "Flaming hell, Jack. You don't think she's going to be made up to acting DI, do you?"

   "Could be," said Frost. "I saw her coming out of Mullett's office with her knickers in her hand."

   "I wonder she wears any," snarled Wells, stamping off. "I bet that's how she was made up to sergeant."

   Frost went into Allen's office without knocking although the red light was on. "What news from the schools?" he asked.

   "Five boys in the right age group didn't attend for lessons today," she told him. "Three they know about -one to the dentist, one in hospital and one the mother phoned through this morning to say he had a cold . . ."

   "Check that one," said Frost. "The mother could be lying. What about the other two?"

   "I've sent Collier round to the houses. I'll let you know as soon as he reports in."

Ten o'clock. A lull in the incident room. The phones had stopped ringing and Frost was sitting on the corner of a desk, watching Liz who was stretching across to stick coloured pins into the wall maps, to mark the progress of the various search parties, and was showing lots of leg into the bargain. "I wouldn't mind sticking something in her," he murmured to Burton.