DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

him, he’d say, ‘But I was the one who phoned you. Would I have done that if I’d killed her?’ Yes, that would be clever. That would be smart. His hand dug deep into his pocket to caress the lacy softness of the black bra.

    Police Sergeant Wells nudged Collier and nodded toward the lobby doors, which were opening very slowly. Jack Frost tiptoed in, obviously hoping to sneak upstairs to the party with out being noticed. Unaware he had an audience, he furtively crossed the lobby and pushed open the door leading to the canteen, letting a warm burst of happy sound roll down the stairs on an air current of alcohol.
    With perfect timing, Wells lobbed his grenade. ‘You can forget the party, Mr Frost. Mullett’s up there.’
    ‘Eh?’ Frost paused in midstride and nearly stumbled before spinning around, looking as guilty as a choirboy caught with Penthouse inside his hymnbook. ‘You frightened the bloody life out of me, Bill,’ he began, then the import of the sergeant’s words hit him with a clout. Mullett had made it clear to everyone that the party was for off-duty personnel only. ‘Mullett? Upstairs?’ He studied the sergeant’s face in the hope that his leg was being pulled.
    ‘I’m afraid so, Jack. He’s up there boozing and licking the Chief Constable’s boots while you and I have got to stay down here and work.’
    ‘Flaming ear holes,’ muttered Frost bitterly.
    PC Ridley slid back the panel and called out from the control room, ‘Mr Frost. Dave Shelby has radioed through. Your body’s been taken to the mortuary. The post-mortem will be at ten o’clock sharp.’
    ‘Great,’ replied Frost. ‘There’s nothing like a bowlful of stomach contents to give you an appetite for dinner.’ He then gave his attention to young PC Collier, who was waving two burglary report forms at him.
    ‘Two more break-ins, Inspector.’
    ‘Shove them on my desk, son. I’ll stick them in the Unsolved Robberies file if I can find room, and in the wastepaper basket if I can’t.’ Denton was being plagued with an epidemic of minor break-ins and burglaries. They all seemed to be quick in-and-out, spur-of-the-moment jobs - no clues, no prints, no-one seeing anything. Only money was taken, small amounts usually, so, short of catching the villains in the act, there was little the police could do. With more than eighty reported incidents, and probably many more unreported, Mullett had decided there was little point in wasting time sending experienced police officers to the scene of the crime. There would be nothing to see but an irate householder and an empty drawer, vase, purse or tea caddy where the money had been. Instead, a form was provided so the householder’ could fill in details of the break-in. The forms were then cursorily examined, filed, and usually forgotten. Jack Frost was nominally in charge of the break-in investigations, and his file of burglary report forms was growing thicker each day. The accumulated figures made the division’s unsolved crimes return look incurably sick.
    Another roar of laughter from upstairs. The Chief Constable must have told his unfunny joke and Mullett’s pants’ would be wet from uncontrolled giggling. Frost stared at the ceiling sadly, then brightened up. Surely Mullett and the Chief Constable wouldn’t stick it out right to the bitter end. As soon as they’d left, he’d be up there, and would he make up for lost time! He ambled over to the desk and offered Wells a cigarette.
    ‘Ta, Jack.’ Wells flinched back as the flame from Frost’s gas lighter seared his nose. ‘You’ll never guess what Mullett’s latest is: He reckons the lobby wants brightening up. He only wants vases of bleeding flowers all over the place.’
    Frost was only half listening. For some reason the face of Ben Cornish swam up in his mind, the dead eyes reproaching him for something he had overlooked. Then he realized he hadn’t told Wells who the body in the toilet was.
    ‘Ben Cornish? Oh no!’ Wells slumped down in his chair. Cornish was one of his regulars, nothing too serious public nuisance, drunk and disorderly . . . but lately he had been on drugs. Hard drugs. ‘He was only in here a couple of days ago, stinking of meths and as thin as a bloody rake. I gave him a quid to get something to eat.’
    ‘I doubt if he bought food with it, Bill. I don’t think he’s eaten properly for weeks. When I saw him tonight he looked like a Belsen camp victim on hunger strike. I reckon the