DI Jack Frost 01 - Frost At Christmas

flooded out to produce a long, four-page statement. He had read about the classic Lindbergh kidnapping where a man had obtained ransom money by pretending he had the Lindbergh baby.
    "So I thought I'd try the same. After all, she's only an old bag. What's two grand to her? She can earn that on her back without even getting out of bed. What's up with the bloke with the wonky nose?"
    Frost glared at Clive, who should have known better than to react when a suspect was making a statement.
    "The kid?" continued Dapper. "Of course I haven't got the kid. Kidnapping's not my style, is it? Search my house if you like. If you find any kids, my old woman's been having it off with the milkman."
    They didn't expect to find Tracey at Dapper's house, but an area car investigated, just in case. She wasn't there. She had never been there.
    Dapper signed his statement, thanked Frost for the cigarette, and was locked up in the cell next to the man in the sheepskin coat.
    "We won't have enough cells if you go on like this," commented the station sergeant.
    To Frost's regret, Mullett had left for home and wasn't there to witness his moment of triumph. "If it was one of my usual balls-ups, he'd be there sneering from ear to bloody ear," he reflected ruefully. He went back to his office to shuffle some papers about and found Clive waiting hopefully for permission to go home. Hazel would be at his bedsitter, her uniform folded neatly over a chair, her face scrubbed of makeup . . .
    "It's 11:15, sir," he announced loudly, looking hard at his watch and yawning.
    "What's this?" asked Frost, picking up a scribbled note from his desk. "Sandy Lane, Denton Echo, phoned. Wants you to phone him, urgent." Then underneath, in the same hand, "Phoned again, 10:30 - extremely urgent - please call."
    "11:15 did you say, son? We'll ring him now," and he dialed the newspaper office. A few words with Sandy, then be banged down the phone and sprang from his chair.
    "Chuck us my scarf, son. It's definitely my lucky day. Sandy reckons he knows the identity of our skeleton, so come on, you can drive me to his office."
    Clive trailed after the inspector to the car park, scuffling the snow peevishly. It was a cold, miserable, and never-ending night and he thought of his warm, cozy flat, the gas-fire popping, Hazel peeling off microscopic knickers, rubbing her hands sensuously down her thighs. The mental picture forced a groan of frustration as he turned the ignition key.
    "What's up?" asked Frost. "Not sickening for anything, are you?"

    Sandy Lane squeezed his visitors into his tiny office, a partitioned corner of an open-plan stockade of tightly packed desks, phones, and typewriters.
    Frost had to raise his voice over the hammering of typewriters. "So, who's our skeleton, Sandy?"
    "You'll read all about it in tomorrow's Echo, Jack," said the reporter, dumping a badly smudged proof copy of the following day's paper in front of the two detectives. The black banner headline screamed out at them:
    MISSING BANK CLERK FOUND AFTER 32 YEARS.
    A sub-heading read: "Echo of £20,000 Bank Robbery", followed by another, "Spirit Medium Leads Police To Mysterious Woodland Grave". Then there was a photograph of Frost, cupid-lipped with a bit more hair than now, captioned, "Detective Inspector Frost, G.C., who is in charge of the case."
    "That picture looks as if I've been dug up after thirty-two years," said Frost.
    The rest of the front page was filled with a greatly enlarged full-face photograph of a sad-looking man with receding hair, aged about thirty-five. The caption said, simply, "Timothy Fawcus."
    Frost frowned. "Fawcus?" he asked. The name nagged a memory.
    "It's his skeleton," explained Sandy.
    "Then tell him to come and claim it, we don't want it." He opened the page for more clues, but the inside was blank and unprinted. Then something clicked. Timothy Fawcus! Of course. He spun round to Clive and explained. "This was 1951, son - before you were born. I'd just joined the Force. Eighteen, I was, sturdy of back and randy as hell - and you had to fight for it in those days, it didn't come crawling round to your flat waiting for you." The blood rushed to Clive's face. How the hell did Frost know?
    "Fawcus was a cashier at Bennington's Bank and the case chained to his wrist held £20,000. When he went missing, all leave was stopped for the search. We looked everywhere . . . and he was buried in Dead Man's Hollow all the time." He tapped his scar. "I wonder if they'll dig