DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

second he took command.
    Car doors slammed, then Simms pushed his way through the bushes to report that the ambulance men were hot on his tail. ‘Do you want me and Jordan to start looking around, sir . . . to see what we can find?’
    He shook his head. ‘We’ve been ordered not to touch anything. Mr Allen is on his way, so we can expect an arrest in seconds.’
    Out of sight behind him, Webster grinned. It was common knowledge that Frost and Allen didn’t get on, but then, coldly efficient Allen was a real detective, unlike the clown in the mac. Webster had successfully led many rape cases back in his old division. Tomorrow he would request a transfer to Allen’s team.
    ‘Where the hell are you?’ came a cry for help from the ambulance men, floundering about in the dark. Simms waggled his torch like a cinema usherette and yelled, ‘This way!’ then, lowering his voice, said to the inspector, ‘Something a bit odd about the girl, sir. Did you notice?’
    ‘Painted nipples, you mean?’
    ‘No, sir. Something else . . . lower down.’
    ‘If it was something else, then I have missed it.’ Frost pulled back the greatcoat again and Simms directed his torch. ‘I keep feeling like a dirty old man every time I do this, Simms. What am I supposed to be looking for?’ The torch beam moved down and pointed. ‘Oh!’ exclaimed Frost, very surprised.
    He replaced the greatcoat and straightened up. ‘You’re probably too young to be told this, Simms, but that feature is known to us men of the world as “the sleek bikini line.” You can buy special shavers for it. Webster’s wife has one. That’s why he grew a beard - he didn’t want to share the same razor.’ He called Webster over and showed him.
    ‘It’s got to be her,’ said Webster. ‘It’s got to be Karen.’
    Frost still couldn’t convince himself. ‘This is hardly bikini weather, son. Still, we’d better get her father to meet us at the hospital, just in case.’
    The ambulance men forced their way through and lifted the girl onto a stretcher, covering her with thick red blankets. ‘Anyone travelling with her?’ one asked.
    ‘No,’ Frost told him, ‘but we’ll be sending a woman police officer to the hospital as soon as we can.’
    As the ambulance pulled away, a convoy of cars containing Detective Inspector Allen and his team roared up. There was a barrage of overexcited shouting and door-slamming as everyone piled out, immediately silenced when Allen bawled that they were all to get back inside their cars and wait. ‘No-one to move until I give the say-so.’ He didn’t want people trampling all over the evidence before he had a chance to see it, especially as some of them were clearly the worse for drink.
    Detective Inspector Allen, a wiry man with a thin sour face and a permanent sneer, looked sharp, alert and efficient despite being dragged away from the drinking party well after midnight. His assistant, Detective Sergeant Vic Ingram, slightly unsteady on his feet, his breath redolent of whisky fumes, was a thickset, charmless man of twenty-nine, cursed with a foul temper and a vindictive streak. He hated the newcomer, Webster, and delighted in giving him menial tasks to perform. If Webster hesitated to comply, he invariably taunted him with his stock response: ‘Too lowly for a detective inspector, is it? Well, you’re a detective constable now, Sunshine, and a bloody rotten one at that.’ It was rumoured that Ingram was currently having domestic trouble, which everyone thought served him damn well right. He certainly had a cracker of a wife, much lusted after by all the red-blooded station personnel and, by general consensus, far too good for him.
    ‘You’ve let the damn ambulance men take her away,’ complained Allen. ‘I wanted to see her.’
    ‘Then you should have got here quicker,’ said Frost.
    ‘Fill me in,’ said Allen curtly.
    Don’t tempt me, thought Frost. He told Allen how they had found her and the extent of her injuries.
    Allen listened intently, his eyes flicking from side to side, missing nothing. When he saw that Webster, contrary to his instructions, was holding the girl’s school hat in his hand, he raised an eyebrow to Ingram and jerked his head toward the detective constable. Used to his master’s sign language, Ingram swaggered over to Webster and snatched the hat away.
    ‘You bloody wally, don’t you understand English? You were told not to touch anything.’
    Webster snatched his hands