DI Jack Frost 01 - Frost At Christmas

sent flying. A big red-faced man in a fur-lined parka thundered in, ready to bellow at the first uniform he saw.
    "You! Where's my son?"
    "Dad!" The youth didn't turn his head. He spoke to space.
    "Come on - you're going home." An angry face thrust at Sergeant Henderson. "I'm taking him. You've no right to keep him here."
    "We're not keeping him here, sir," explained the sergeant patiently. "He's free to go. He's given us a statement and we've got all his details."
    "Statement?" He turned angrily to the lad. "You bloody fool - a statement? Tell them nothing!" Back to the sergeant. "His statement is invalid. It was made without a solicitor being present. We repudiate it."
    The youth tilted his head up to his father and spoke as if explaining to an uncomprehending idiot. "I'm eighteen, Dad. I made the statement of my own free will. I wasn't looking . . . I hit her." His face showed pain at the recollection.
    The man's hand slapping his son's face was the crack of a whip.
    "Keep your mouth shut, do you hear? I'll tell you what to say."
    The phone on the desk rang. The youth, ready with an angry retort, froze. Henderson raised the receiver and listened.
    "Henderson. Oh, I see. Yes, thanks for telling me." He replaced the phone with care, then spoke quietly.
    "You might as well go home, son. She died five minutes ago."
    The boy stared at the sergeant. At first it seemed that the news hadn't sunk in. There was a puzzled frown on his face, a face drained of color except for the angry mark of the blow on the left cheek. The lip quivered, and then his face crumpled. He cried with body-wricking sobs. His father, now a different man, placed an arm around his shoulder.
    "All right, son, all right. We're going home." He led the sobbing youth through the doors and out into the cold white night. The door swung shut behind them.
    "As I always say," said Frost, dragging off his scarf, "there's no bloody justice. If he'd kept his mouth shut or lied and said she stepped in front of him without warning, we couldn't have touched him. He's the only witness. But he's been honest. He really cares that he's killed someone. And we'll probably throw the book at him."
    Then, trailing his scarf along the ground, he was off along the corridor to his office. With a despairing look at the wall clock whose hands stood vertical at half-past midnight, Clive dashed off after him.

    "They knew how to tie knots in 1951," muttered Frost, tearing his nails on the fossilized string tied round the Bennington Bank Robbery - July 1951 file that had been disinterred from the upstairs storeroom. The string broke unexpectedly and yellow-edged papers were disgorged on top of the litter already on the desk. He scooped the papers up, and in doing so uncovered an internal memo from Mullett reminding all staff of the last day for the submission of expense claims, stressing that any received late would be held over until the following month.
    Frost passed the file over to Clive and began to scout through his drawers for an expense-claim form.
    "Find a description of Fawcus, son, see if it matches in with the skeleton. If he only had one leg, we've got a mystery on our hands."
    It was a fat file, the pages smelling stale and musty from their long entombment in the unheated storeroom. Near the front was a photograph of a young man in army uniform, the forage cap perched on top of lots of wavy hair, glistening with brilliantine. Handwritten on the back were the words "To my darling Rose with all my love - Tim", followed by a string of kisses. A typed police label read "Timothy Fawcus - early picture - much balder now". Clive turned the photograph over and looked at the smiling, unworried face. Was this the dirt-encrusted skull prised from the frozen grip of Dead Man's Hollow?
    He showed it to Frost.
    "I used to have hair like that, son - it drove the girls mad." He read the inscription on the back. "Balder now - me and him both. Who's Rose - his wife?"
    "I haven't come to that yet, sir." Digging deeper, Clive unearthed another photograph, the original of the one they had seen earlier on the front page of the Denton Echo. A full description was on the back. "Timothy Fawcus, aged 38, height 5' 11", weight 12 stone 4 lbs., sallow complexion, receding hairline, dark hair, thin features. Appendix scar. Tattoo on right wrist, 'Rose' in a red heart."
    Frost pursed his lips. "The ubiquitous Rose. I hope she doesn't turn out to be a bloody sledge, or something, like in that Orson