DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

just chucking it over the nearest hedge.”
    “What did you expect him to do with it?” snapped Allen in exasperation. “Eat it? Stick it up his arse? He daren’t keep it on him, it linked him with the killing. What else could he do but chuck it?”
    A uniformed man approached and gave Allen a smart salute. “Lady in the cottage down the lane, sir. Says she saw a black Morris Minor parked down here for most of yesterday afternoon.”
    Allen’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Good work. I’ll be with you in a couple of seconds to talk to her.” He took the polythene bag from Frost and handed it back to Ingram. “I want the notebook checked for fingerprints. Odds are it’s been wiped clean, but you never know your luck.” He noticed Frost still hovering. “I’m sure you’re very busy, Inspector. Don’t let me hold you up.”
    “Actually, I want to take a look in the notebook. Dave Shelby was supposed to have interviewed our anonymous phone caller. I’m hoping he kept his mind on the job long enough to write down the name and address.”
    Ingram held open the bag so Frost could carefully extract the notebook, holding it by its corners with his handkerchief. An elastic band looped around the unused pages allowed Frost to go directly to the entry, the very last entry Shelby had made before he died. It read Desmond Thorley, Dove Cottage. Interviewed re rape case phone call.
    “Bingo!” cried Frost, snapping the notebook shut and dropping it into the polythene bag. He trotted across to the Cortina. Neither Webster nor Sue seemed willing to yield their front seats, so he climbed into the back.
    “It’s all happening, son. I’ve got the name and address of the bloke who made the anonymous phone call. Drop Sue off, then we’ll go and pay him a nice early visit.”
    Webster’s spirits plummet ted to a new low. “It’s barely four o’clock in the morning,” he complained. “He’ll be fast asleep in bed . . .” He yawned conspicuously and added pointedly, “The lucky bastard!”
    “He won’t still be in bed after I’ve kicked his door down,” replied Frost cheerfully. “Come on, son, hurry up. There’s lots to do.”

    Even to Webster, punch-drunk through lack of sleep, Dove Cottage looked nothing like a cottage. The shape was all wrong. In the dark of early morning it looked just like a railway carriage, and as they neared it he could see that that was exactly what it was. A dilapidated Great Western Railway carriage of pre-war vintage, dumped on a piece of waste ground situated north of the woods. It stood on brick piers, allowing it to rise proud above islands of stinging nettles in a sea of coarse, waist-high grass. Tastefully dotted around to break the monotony of the landscape were mounds of crumbling oil drums, the rotting hulk of a Baby Austin car body, and odd rust-crusted relics of long-obsolete farm machinery.
    Like explorers hacking their way through virgin jungle, they pushed through the wet grass, eventually arriving at the foot of a set of rickety wooden steps that led up to the carriage door with its brass turnkey handle.
    “I think this is our train,” murmured Frost, risking the climb up the steps. He tried the handle, but the door seemed to be bolted on the inside, so he pounded at it with his open hand. The noise echoed like a drum, but there was no movement from within. He hammered again, much harder this time, making the whole structure shake on its brick foundations.
    Inside a bottle toppled over and rolled. A crash of someone bumping into something, the shout of someone swearing, then a bleary voice demanded, “Who’s there?”
    “Two lovely policemen,” called Frost. “Open up, Desmond.”
    The door opened outward, almost sending Frost flying. Desmond Thorley, in his late fifties, very bald and softly plump, un gummed his eyes and squinted at his visitors. He wore a filthy dressing gown the front and sleeves stiff with dirt. Under the dressing gown, were a pair of grimy, food-stained pyjamas, the trousers held up by a rusty safety pin. He looked dirty. He smelled even dirtier.
    “Meet Dirty Desmond,” said Frost to Webster.
    Thorley clutched together his gaping dressing gown to cover his pyjamas. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Frost. I suppose you want to come in.”
    “I don’t want to,” replied Frost, ‘but it’s one of the hazards of the job.”
    They stepped into thick, greasy darkness that smelled of stale sweat, unwashed socks, and bad food. A match