DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

to wait in the cells.” Seeing her dismay, he added, “Not for long, only until we fix bail.”
    After the girl was taken out, he yawned and stretched. “Right, son. Let’s go and pick up Master Roger and see if he confirms her story.”
    At first Roger Miller blustered, demanded to be released, and threatened all kinds of lawsuits that would leave Frost and Webster jobless, penniless and prospect-less. But when they told him that Julie King had made a statement admitting she alone was driving the Jaguar, he calmed down and without further prompting gave them a statement that confirmed the girl’s story in every detail.
    Webster borrowed the station Underwood from Collier, dumped it on his desk on top of the crime statistics, and started pecking out the statements. Frost, who had found some salted peanuts left over from the previous night, was slouched in his chair, his crossed feet up on his desk, hurling peanuts in the air and trying to catch them in his mouth.
    Mullett swept in without knocking. Frost flung his feet off the desk, managing to knock a file on the floor, splashing papers everywhere. But there were no frowns from the Divisional Commander, who was in a most affable mood. “Well done, Frost. I’ve’just put the phone down after speaking to Sir Charles. He is absolutely delighted to learn that you have been able to clear his son. In fact, he’s coming over to see me right away. Are the statements ready yet?”
    “On the last one now,” said Webster, rubbing out a mistake and blowing away the rubber dust.
    “Excellent,” said Mullett, smiling, “I’ll take them with me.”
    The warning light at the back of Frost’s brain blinked on and off. What was the sly old sod up to now? “Take them with you, Super?”
    Mullett’s insincere smile blinked on and off. “I’d like to show them to Sir Charles. He’s bringing his solicitor with him.”
    He hovered over Webster, completely putting him off, causing him to hit the wrong keys repeatedly. But at last the final page was typed. Mullett snatched it from the machine and bore the statements away.
    It was an hour later that Frost was summonsed into Mullett’s office, an hour spent grappling with the crime statistics that had supposedly already gone off. Webster, frowning and scowling more than ever as he tried to make some sort of sense out of the inspector’s hopeless jumble of figures, decided he had had more than enough. As soon as the door closed behind Frost, he hurled down his pen and stuffed the papers back into their folder.
    He was dead tired, it was past one o’clock in the morning, and there were limits to the number of hours he could work without sleep. If it were something important, he’d have stuck it out, but not for the lousy crime statistics. It was Frost’s incompetence that had caused the trouble, and if he wanted them done tonight, he could damn well do them himself.
    Webster grabbed his overcoat from the hat stand and put it on. Through the grime of the windows the night looked cold, windy, and unfriendly. He turned up the collar of his coat and awaited the inspector’s return. It was time to assert himself.

    Frost tapped at the door of Mullett’s office and went in. As soon as he was inside he started coughing and his eyes stung. The room, blue-fogged with smoke, stank of cigars and an overpowering after-shave, a legacy of the now-departed Sir Charles Miller.
    “Come in,” boomed Mullett, valiantly drawing on a Churchillian cigar. Frost shuffled over to the desk and lit up a cigarene, his nose twitching as he sampled the air. “Smells like a lime house knocking shop in here, Super.”
    “It’s very expensive after-shave,” rebuked Mullett, pushing out the tiniest of smoke rings and coughing until his eyes watered.
    “You’d be surprised what gets shaved these days,” began Frost, but Mullett didn’t let him expand.
    “Thought I’d put you in the picture, Frost. First of all, allow me to pass on Sir Charles’s congratulations. He’s absolutely delighted that we have been able to completely clear his son.”
    “Not completely,” corrected the inspector. “We’ve still got him on conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, making false statements, falsely reporting his car was stolen . . . and that’s just for starters.”
    Mullett took off his glasses and began to polish them, slowly and deliberately, so he wouldn’t have to look at Frost. “I was wondering whether it was absolutely necessary to