DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

looked out on to the garden below. A tiny garden, a wooden fence on each side, a brick wall at the rear. Beyond the brick wall were the back gardens of the houses in the street running parallel to Beech Crescent. Mrs. Shadbolt’s lawn was infested with green and red plaster gnomes, some peeking through bushes, some sitting cross-legged on plaster toadstools, others fishing down a plastic magic wishing well.
    “Very tasteful,” murmured Frost, thinking he had never seen anything so ghastly in his life.
    “I looked out,” continued the woman, ‘and there he was climbing over the fence into my garden, right down at the end, near the gnome on the toadstool. I just screamed and screamed and he immediately leapt over the fence.”
    “What, back the way he was coming?” asked Frost, pulling his head back in.
    “Oh no,” Mrs. Shadbolt told him. “He carried on across my garden and over the fence into next door.” She indicated the wooden fence to the right.
    Frost spun around, frowning. “Are you sure?”
    “Of course I am. It was dark, but I could still see him. And the fence shook as he clambered over it.”
    Frost looked out of the window again. “Where’s the house of the bloke whose back door was forced?”
    “To the right. The way the intruder was going. Next door but one, number 36.”
    Frost sat down on the bed and wriggled because he was sitting on something uncomfortable. He pulled Diddums out from under him and dropped it on the floor. “This isn’t making sense.”
    “It’s making sense to me,” said Webster, who couldn’t understand why the inspector was wasting time on this piddling little abortive break-in. “The man climbs over the fence into Mrs. Shadbolt’s garden. She screams, so he climbs over the next fence. Where’s the problem?”
    “Probably nothing,” said Frost, seeming to lose interest. “What are the people like at number 36, Mrs. Shadbolt?”
    “I can’t really say, Inspector. They only moved in recently but they seem a nice couple.”
    “Right,” said Frost, standing up. “We’ll have a chat with them. Thank you so much for your help.”
    Out in the street, as they turned toward number 36, Frost said, “Do you ever get the feeling that things are suddenly going to start going right, son?”
    “I often get the feeling,” said Webster, ‘but never the follow-up.”
    “Me too,” muttered Frost, ‘but I’m hoping today might prove the exception. Now, what’s this geezer’s name?”
    “Price,” said Webster, “Charles Price.”
    Charles Price was a shy-looking man in his late thirties with dark hair and an apologetic smile. He was painting the front door of his house and was so engrossed in his work, he didn’t hear the two policemen walking up his front path.
    “Mr. Price?” asked Frost. “We’re police officers.”
    He spun around, startled, the paintbrush shaking in his hand. “You did give me a turn,” he said. “I never heard you. Is it about last night?”
    Frost nodded. “Just a few questions.”
    “Nothing was stolen,” said Price. “He must have been scared off. Your police constable was on the scene in minutes.”
    “All part of the service,” said Frost with a smile. “Do you think we might come in?”
    Methodically, Price replaced the lid on his tin of yellow paint, wiped the brush with a rag, and immersed it in a jam jar half filled with white spirit. “Trying to get it all finished before the wife comes back,” he explained, wiping his hands on another piece of rag. “We only moved in three weeks ago and there’s so much to do to get the place shipshape.”
    Warning them to be careful of the wet paint, he guided them through the passage and into a small lounge, which was spotlessly clean and had double sheets of newspaper laid over the floor to protect the carpet. “If I spill so much as a single drop of paint, my wife will never let me hear the end of it.” Noticing the inspector’s dirty mac, he spread another sheet of newspaper across the settee before inviting them to sit down. “She’s very fussy about the furniture.” He brought a kitchen chair over and perched himself on the edge.
    “Just a couple of questions, then we’ll let you get back to your decorating,” said Frost, the newspaper crackling beneath him as he tried to get comfortable. “You’ve been here only three weeks, you say?”
    “That’s right. We used to live in Appian Way, over by Meads Park, but we had to move. My wife couldn’t get on