DI Jack Frost 01 - Frost At Christmas

layers on the inspector's desk, held down under the weight of his glass ashtray. The top item under the ashtray looked interesting. A sheet of thick, deckle-edged notepaper scrawled with spidery writing in pale green ink. Clive sat at ' the desk to read it when young P.C. Keith Stringer breezed in with roneoed copies of the new duty roster for January.
    "In the boss's chair already?" he grinned, adding a roneoed sheet to the rising paper mountain.
    Clive decided not to admit to being engaged in the menial task of fetching cigarettes and countered with a question of his own. "I thought your shift finished at two?"
    "Overtime. We're men short on the search and I need the money."
    "Tell me something," said Clive. "What time do you reckon he'll be letting me go?"
    "How do you mean?"
    Clive checked his watch. "I've been on now for nearly eight hours. We've got to interview a man - say another couple of hours - then he's talking about coming back for a jolly session with the crime statistics. To hear him talk you'd think the day had just started."
    Keith's grin widened. "Haven't you been told about Mr. Frost? He's a smashing bloke and we all like him, but he never wants to call it a day. Since his wife died there's nothing for him to go home for, I suppose, but he doesn't think anyone else has a home either. If you're home before midnight, you'll be lucky. First in and last out, that's him, so say goodbye to your sex life." He dropped a duty roster on Frost's desk and sailed out of the office.
    Clive seethed. Midnight! Well, he wasn't going to put up with that; he'd see Mullett first thing tomorrow morning. Then his heart sank. He couldn't, of course. He was the Chief Constable's nephew. They'd say he was after special treatment.
    So where were those bloody cigarettes? He worked his rage off on the desk drawer by jerking it out and was taken by surprise when it shot out easily, spilling its contents all over the floor.
    Down on the knees of his flash trousers to pick them up. "Damn and sod the man," he cursed, chucking the useless junk back in the drawer. Bad enough to spend all day with the uncouth idiot without spending half the night as well.
    One of the things that had fallen to the brown lino was curious. A blue box about the size of a packet of twenty cigarettes, with a crest embossed in gold on the front. It rattled when he shook it, so he peeped inside. A medal of some kind, in the shape of a cross and attached to a dark blue ribbon, nestled on a velvet bed. A long-service award perhaps. It was engraved "To Jack Edward Frost."
    Clive tossed it in the drawer, found the cigarettes, and raced back to the car.

    Stanley Farnham dumped the exercise books for marking on the hall table and picked up the letters from the mat. Two of them, one his monthly statement from Barclay-card, and the other . . . His pulse quickened. Hanging his overcoat in the hall closet he looked again at the envelope. It bulged. It must be the catalog he'd sent off for last week. Still in the hall, he ripped it open and pulled out the contents. Yes, a large catalog entitled Sex Aids and Sex Toys. He thumbed quickly through it. He would savor it at his leisure later, but just had to see . . . What's this? A price list for contraceptives, all makes, all colors, all nationalities. He pushed it aside impatiently; he couldn't work up much excitement for latex rubber-wear. A leaflet advertising books-- Sexual Positions. This was more promising . . .
    A warning bell inside him rang a fraction of a second before the doorbell screamed.
    He wheeled round, nearly dropping the envelope. Two shadows through the frosted glass of the front door.
    His heart banged and raced. The envelope! He stuffed it and the catalog into the shallow drawer of the hall table.
    The bell shrilled again. A loud bang at the door.
    "Who is it?"
    "Police."
    The police! Oh God . . . surely they weren't checking his mail? When the postman had handed him that packet last week, he had been sure there had been a knowing smirk on the man's face.
    He fastened the chain on the door and opened it cautiously. He wasn't taking any chances. Sometimes men, pretending to be police officers . . .
    "Mr. Stanley Farnham? Sorry to trouble you, sir. We're from Denton C.I.D. May we come in . . . ?"
    This was the elder of two men, a shabby-looking character with a scarred face. The other, much younger, wore a shortie overcoat over a flashy suit and seemed to have a broken nose. A right pair of thugs! He