DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

is armed and dangerous.”
    “What shall we do?” asked Simms, warily eyeing the grey car, which appeared to be abandoned.
    “We don’t just sit here like bloody Charlies,” snapped Jordan, reversing back to the other car. They got out and cautiously approached. There was a rustling in the grass to one side of them, and before they could turn, a shotgun barrel was rammed into Jordan’s face.
    “Don’t force me to do anything stupid,” said Stan Eustace, the gun shaking in his hand, his trigger finger twitching. He looked tired, frightened, and desperately dangerous. “Facedown on the grass.”
    They flung themselves, facedown, on to the wet grass.
    “Move and I’ll blast your heads off,” croaked Eustace.
    They stared at wet grass. A rustling sound. Simms jerked up his head. A shot blasted out. He banged his face down, hugging the ground as tightly as he could.
    The slam of a car door. A car driving off at speed. Silence. Simms carefully lifted his head to see Charlie Alpha disappearing into the distance. They leaped up and raced to the Honda, then stopped dead. The front tire was flat and peppered with shotgun pellets.
    “Shit!” said Jordan.
    Faintly at first, from a long way off, came the sirens of approaching police cars. Jordan moved out to the centre of the road to flag them down.

    Jack Frost ambled into the station about eight o’clock, hoping he might catch Mullett. The news of the arrest of the Denton rapist should have put the Divisional Commander in a sufficiently good mood to allow the inspector more men to help with the Ben Cornish investigation. No-one seemed able to whip up much enthusiasm over the death of a junkie dropout who was living on borrowed time anyway.
    “He’s been in and gone out again,” Johnny Johnson told him. “He’s with Mr. Allen at the house.”
    “What house?” asked Frost. “The house at Pooh Corner? The house that Jack built? The house of ill repute?”
    “I thought you knew,” said the sergeant, delighted he had someone to break the news to. “It’s Stanley Eustace. They’ve got him cornered in a house on Farley Street. Allen’s in his element police marksmen, the press, television cameras. Stanley’s broken into this house and is holding a family at gunpoint. It’s a hostage situation.”

    Detective Inspector Allen was leaving nothing to chance. He opened up a detailed street map of the area and went over the various points one more time with Detective Sergeant Ingram. “Are all the adjoining houses empty? Has everyone been evacuated?”
    “Most of them,” said Ingram.
    “Most of them? I told you to shift all of them, Sergeant.”
    “The family in number 25 refuse to leave, sir.”
    Allen’s voice rose.” Refuse? Who said they had a choice? Get them out. I don’t care how, but get them out.”
    Ingram delegated this task to a uniformed constable, then looked up as a police car, flanked by two police motorbikes, screeched up with the rifles and handguns from County HQ armoury.
    “Right, Sergeant. Issue the guns,” ordered Allen. “And make sure our marksmen are positioned exactly where I indicated. And emphasize that they are not, repeat not, to fire a single round unless they have my explicit authorisation. Is that clear?”
    “Yes, Inspector,” said Ingram. He handed out the Smith and Wesson specials to the five police marksmen, keeping a Ruger .222 rifle for himself. Ammunition was carefully counted out, allocated, and signed for. He made sure they all knew their locations, repeated Allen’s instructions, then sent them out to take up position.
    Ingram’s own position was in the top room of a house across the street. From this vantage point his telescopic sight could shrink the distance across the road and the garden and let him look directly into the top back room of number 57, where Eustace was holding his hostages.
    Allen had arranged for the street lamps to be turned off and for batteries of spot lamps to be directed to the back of the hostage house. If Eustace looked out he would only be able to see the blinding glare and the darkness beyond. He checked with his radio that the marksmen were all in position and again reminded them they were only to fire on his express command.
    He turned his head impatiently as a black van edged its way along the cleared side street. The uniformed man whose job it was to turn back traffic had waved the van on. Didn’t the fool have the sense to check with him first? The van pulled in to