DI Jack Frost 01 - Frost At Christmas

Everyone knew it but Frost.
    "Put out that cigarette," he snapped with such ferocity that the cigarette immediately dropped from Frost's startled lips and landed on the carpet. There was a smell of burning wool from the blue Wilton. Frost ground at the pile with his dirty shoes and managed to distribute a mess of broken cigarette and charred wool over a wide area. He moved his chair to cover up the burn and smiled inquiringly at Mullett.
    "You wanted to see me, sir?"
    As soon as Frost had gone, Mullett would go down on his hands and knees and inspect the damage. In the meantime he contented himself with a long hard stare.
    "I wanted to see you more than half an hour ago. You've kept me waiting, Inspector."
    "I had to have a look at Bennington's Bank. Someone jemmied their door."
    "I would have thought your Divisional Commander's summons took priority. And you weren't at the briefing meeting!"
    A theatrical smiting of palm to freckled forehead. "The meeting? Clean forgot all about it, sir."
    Mullett took the envelope from his drawer. "I've had a complaint about you, Inspector." He unfolded the memo. "From Superintendent Gibbons of the Police Training Center - "
    Frost's blank expression masked his relief. This was a comparatively trivial matter. He'd been asked over to the training center to speak, as an experienced officer, to new recruits and to give them practical hints that would assist them in their chosen career.
    "So, you told them how to fiddle their car expenses," accused Mullett.
    "I only mentioned it in passing, sir."
    "In passing, or not, that was what you were talking to them about when Superintendent Gibbons entered the lecture room. I was ashamed to get his memo. Fortunately he wrote to me confidentially, as a friend, and didn't copy it to H.Q. I'm most concerned about you, Frost. I had occasion to look in your office today. Frankly, I was appalled. The mess, the untidiness . . . and I found that statistical return that County has been screaming for still uncompleted."
    "Ah, yes. I must get around to that. Anything else, sir?"
    Yes, there was. Mullett gathered himself for his main at tack.
    "Were those the clothes you wore at the training center?"
    Frost looked down at his apparel with surprise. "Why . yes."
    The superintendent smoothed his mustache carefully as if it was insecurely fixed with spirit gum. "Superintendent Gibbons thought you had turned up in your gardening clothes - "
    Frost shot up. "Of all the bloody cheek!"
    "It's not a bloody cheek, Inspector! I've been meaning to talk to you about your dress for some time. That mac's a disgrace. And those trousers - when were they last pressed? And as for your shoes . . ."
    Frost tucked his shoes under the chair to hide them from view. "With respect, sir, I'm supposed to be solving bloody crimes, not tarting myself up like a tailor's dummy."
    Mullett sighed and slumped back in his chair. How could you get through to people like this? Very carefully, and explaining all the ramifications and dangers, he told Frost about the Chief Constable's nephew.

    Sergeant Wells flung open the door to Inspector Frost's office. "You'll be working in here, Barnard."
    It was a mess. A tiny dingy office; two desks, buried in paper, a filing cabinet that wouldn't close properly, and a hatrack. The room was overheated by an enormous cast iron radiator running beneath a window that overlooked the car park. The wall calendar still showed the previous month and untidy heaps of paper and opened files carpeted the brown linoed floor.
    Wells stepped on to an oasis of virgin lino. "You'll have to get the place tidied up a bit, Barnard. Paperwork was never the inspector's strongest suit."
    Clive was speechless. This wouldn't have been tolerated for a single day in London.
    The door crashed against the wall and Frost entered, eyes blazing. He kicked a heap of papers and hurled himself into a chair.
    "That bloody four-eyed bastard!"
    The station sergeant smiled knowingly and gave Clive a broad wink. "Just come from the Divisional Commander, Jack?"
    "I'd like to pull his bleeding mustache out, hair by hair." He spotted a fresh memo on his desk, gave it a brief glance, snorted, and screwed it up. It missed the waste-paper basket by a good six inches and joined the other debris on the floor. "Do you know the latest? I've got to wet-nurse the snotty-nosed illegitimate son of our Chief-bloody-Constable.''
    Wells grinned and jerked a thumb toward Clive. "Not his son, Jack - his