DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

recovered coins. Thirty-three of them.
    Tipping them on to his desk, Frost counted them. He only made it thirty-two. Webster counted them for him and made it thirty-three, which, added to the five already sold to Glickman, made a grand total of thirty-eight. Mrs. Carey had reported seventy-nine stolen, so where were the other forty-one? “Turn out your pockets, Arthur,” he said.
    Hanlon grinned. “The drug squad tore their place apart, Jack. There were no more sovereigns. Both the brothers say that’s all there was. Mrs. Carey must have been mistaken.”
    The inspector shook his head. “She never makes mistakes about money.” He scooped up the coins and returned them to the bag. “Still, I’ve got more important things to worry about. Now take all this junk off my desk, Arthur, and get the paperwork tied up. This is your case now.”
    “You’re letting him have it?” asked Webster when Hanlon had left. “He only came in on it at the death.”
    “I’ve got more than I can cope with, son,” said Frost. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Something was worrying him. “Those two blokes were only in Denton a couple of weeks. Ma Carey lives in a shitty little house down a back street. How come they picked on that house to rob? How, did they find out she had all that money?”
    “They could have overheard someone talking about her,” suggested Webster.
    “I suppose so,” said Frost, but he still looked doubtful.
    “You’re not suggesting they’ve confessed to a crime they haven’t committed, are you?” asked Webster.
    “Of course not, son.”
    Webster fed a sheet of paper into the typewriter. “Do you want me to do the report on the rape arrest?” He knew that if he didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done.
    “Yes please.” He gathered up the subscription list for Mrs. Shelby and took it out to Johnny Johnson in the lobby, where he received the sergeant’s congratulations on nabbing the “Hooded Terror’.
    “You’ll be in all the papers tomorrow, Jack.”
    “Unless something bigger breaks,” said Frost, "like Allen finding Shelby’s murderer.”
    “Shouldn’t be long now,” said Johnson. “Stan Eustace can’t hide much longer.” The phone rang. He answered it. “And who is it speaking, please?” He offered the phone to Frost. “Lady for you, Jack. Won’t give her name.”
    Even before he took the phone he knew it was Sadie Eustace, but he hoped against hope he was wrong.
    “Jack?” she whispered.
    He picked up the complete phone and moved as far away from Johnson as the cord would allow. “I can’t talk to you, Sadie,” he hissed into the mouthpiece. “I got in too much trouble last time.”
    “You’ve got to help, Jack. Stan’s been in touch . . .”
    He cut her short before she gave anything away. “Sadie, whatever you tell me, I am going to report it.”
    “He’s frightened, Jack. The police have framed him for this killing and he’s terrified at what they might do when they catch him. He’ll give himself up to you if you meet him just you, no-one else.”
    “Where is he?”
    “He’s . . .” She broke off as a series of soft clicks cut into the conversation. “What was that?”
    “No idea,” lied Frost, realizing that Allen had her line tapped.
    But she knew what it was. “The bastards! They’ve bugged the phone!” The line went dead.
    He replaced the receiver and returned the phone to its original position. “Sadie Eustace,” he told Johnson. No point in keeping it a secret now. He thought for a second, then made his way to the murder incident room.
    The room was empty except for Detective Sergeant Ingram crouched over a large Revox reel-to-reel tape recorder, looking tired and drawn as he listened through earphones to the replay of the conversation between Sadie and Jack Frost. Seeing Frost, he pulled the earphones off and rubbed his ears. Quickly, he scribbled a note on a pad and dropped it into an in-tray marked “Mr. Allen - Immediate". “Pity she twigged,” he said. “She was going to tell us where Eustace was hiding.”
    “A great pity,” agreed Frost, looking around the room. Empty desks, silent phones, and the wall map marked with red pins indicating the numerous Stan Eustace sightings. “Where is everybody?”
    “Tea break. They should be back in a minute.” He shook his head at Frost’s offer of a cigarette. “We could do with a lead,” he went on, knuckling tired eyes. “He seems to have gone to ground.”
    “Mr. Allen’s