DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

kept dropping unsubtle little hints about Frost’s own retirement. Well, he’d be dropping even bigger ones when he learned about tonight’s monumental foul-up.
    He tore the metal cap from the vodka bottle and took a swig. The spirit tiptoed over his tongue with the velvet delicacy of a cat’s paw, but as it reached his stomach the scratching claws came out. He shuddered. Neat vodka wasn’t his favourite drink. He found a miniature whisky. With his head thrown right back, he poured it down to flush away the vodka taste. A little furnace roared in his stomach. He felt good. The next bottle made him feel better. In fact he felt like taking a drive round to Mullett’s house, heaving a brick through his window, and yelling, “Come on, you bastard, sack me!” The more he thought about this, the more the idea appealed to him.
    “Control to Mr. Frost. Come in please.”
    What the hell was that? His eyes focused on the radio. He decided to answer the call first, then drive round to Mullett’s house. He fumbled for the handset and pressed the transmit button. “Frost here. Over.”
    Bill Wells sounded excited. “Jack, can you get over to the station right away? Burton and Collier are bringing in the rapist.”
    Frost’s heart skipped a beat. He was now stone-cold sober. “Are you sure it’s the right man? I’ve already had one disappointment.”
    “Positive, Jack. They nabbed him in the woods about ten minutes ago. He was carrying a black plastic mac. It was stained with blood.”

    Burton was waiting for him in the lobby, grinning all over his face. Over his arm was a cheap black plastic mac.
    The desk phone rang. Wells answered it, his face changing as he listened. “It’s for you, Jack,” he called, holding the receiver at arm’s length as if it might explode. “Mr. Mullett.”
    Mullett had heard about the decoy fiasco. His message was icily terse. “My office, nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” A click and then the dial tone. Pretending the Commander was still on the line, Frost said loudly into the phone, “Why don’t you get stuffed, you miserable old bastard?” He hung up. “That’s put the po-faced bleeder in his place,” he told the others, who were looking horrified. He beckoned to Burton. “Let’s go and see what Superdick looks like.”
    The man in the interview room was hunched at the table, his back to the door, watched over by PC Collier. As Frost and Burton entered, the man turned around. Frost’s euphoria burst and his heart took a sickening nose-dive down to his bowels. The alleged rapist, spluttering with indignation, was Desmond Thorley from the converted railway carriage. “I demand an explanation, Mr. Frost. This is an outrage.”
    “I’m as outraged as you are, Desmond,” said Frost, sinking wearily into a chair. “We’ve both been dragged here on false pretences.” He searched his pockets for a cigarette, then remembered he was out. Behind him, Burton and Collier were exchanging puzzled glances, wondering where they had gone wrong. “You pillocks,” he told them, feeling dead tired. “The Denton rapist rapes women. Desmond wouldn’t know what to do with a bloody woman if she came into his bedroom stark naked.”
    Desmond shuddered. “What a repulsive thought.”
    “But he was carrying the mac,” insisted Burton. “There’s blood on it.” He opened it out to display the stains.
    Jack Frost took the garment and examined it.” It’s blood all right,” he agreed. He folded it carefuly and placed it on the table. “So what’s the answer, Desmond? Are you our rapist? Are you AC/DC? Does your plug fit all sockets?”
    Thorley’s faced flushed at the insult. “The very idea!”
    Again Frost searched his pockets for a cigarette. Infuriatingly Desmond had none and neither Burton nor Collier smoked. A mental picture of the silver box in Mullett’s office swam before him like the mirage of an oasis to a thirst-crazed man in the desert. He excused himself, sneaked into the Commander’s office, found a key on his bunch that would unlock the desk drawer, and liberally helped himself from the Divisional Commander’s special stock.
    He returned to the interview room, puffing happily. “Right,” he said, diffusing expensive Three Castles smoke, ‘let’s get down to business.” He pointed to the mac. “Where did you get this, Desmond?”
    “The man dropped it. If that thug of a policeman had asked, I’d have told him. But no, he hurls himself at me,