DI Jack Frost 01 - Frost At Christmas

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