DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

front of the student nurse’s uniform was one dark, spreading stain of blood. The other nurse was rigging up apparatus for a blood transfusion. She signalled to Frost that she wanted him to leave.
    “We’ll chat again tomorrow, Tommy,” said the inspector, moving away from the bed.
    Croll pushed himself up. “Mr. Frost, I didn’t do it. I swear . . .”
    “I believe you,” beamed Frost. “Just tell me where you’ve hidden the money and I’ll believe you even more.”
    When they reached the main corridor they had to press back against the wall so that an orderly, pushing a patient in a stretcher, could pass by. The patient, head swollen by a turban of bandages which were almost as white as his bloodless face, looked a hundred years old.
    It was the hit-and-run victim.

    At four forty-five in the morning Denton Police Station was a dreary mausoleum, and the flowers Mullett suggested would have made it look more funereal than ever. It echoed with cold emptiness. Only two men were on duty, Police Sergeant Wells and Police Constable Ridley, the controller. Wells, slumped at the front desk, stared at the ticking time bomb the computer had presented him with. The licence plate found at the scene of the hit-and-run had been trotted through the massive memory banks of the master computer system at Swansea. The print-out read:

    Registration Mark: ULU 63A
    Taxation Class: Private/ Light Goods
    Make/ Model: Jaguar 3.4
    Colour: Blue
    Registered Keeper: Roger Charles Miller
    Address: 43 Halley House, Denton.

    What the computer didn’t say was that Roger Miller was trouble. Big trouble. He was the son of Sir Charles Miller, member of Parliament for the Denton constituency. And Sir Charles was even bigger trouble. He had money and he had influence, owning businesses as diverse as security organisations, newspapers, and commercial radio stations. He constantly criticised the police in his newspapers, and he was a permanent thorn in the side of the Chief Constable. And it was his son, Roger, a twenty-year old spoiled brat, who had brought seventy-eight-year-old Albert Hickman to the brink of death.
    Wells twisted his neck to see what luck Ridley was having in contacting Detective Inspector Frost. “Control to Mr. Frost, come in please.” Over and over, Ridley repeated the message, flicking the receive switch and getting only a mush of static in response. “Still no answer, Sarge.”
    “Damn!” said Wells, reaching for the phone. He dialled the first two digits of Mullett’s home number, then changed his mind and banged the receiver down. “Do you think I should phone Mullett?”
    “That’s for you to decide, Sarge,” was Ridley’s unhelpful reply. “You’re in charge.”
    “I’m not bloody in charge. Frost is in charge . . . or he should be. He’s the senior officer.” Again his hand reached out for the phone. Again he hesitated. Thanks to Frost, Wells was back in his familiar no-win situation. If he phoned Mullett he’d be castigated for disturbing him and for not using his initiative. And if he didn’t phone, Mullett would say, “Where’s your common sense, Sergeant? If someone as important as Sir Charles Miller is involved surely it doesn’t need a modicum of common sense to realize that I would want to know about it.” In either event, it would give the Superintendent a tailor-made excuse for turning down the sergeant’s latest promotion application.
    Wells felt like breaking down and weeping at the injustice of it all when suddenly he was dragged away from his self-pity by a most unpleasant smell, which elbowed its way across the lobby. The sergeant’s head swivelled slowly until he located the source.
    “Clear off,” he said, happy to have someone to snarl at. “Get out of here before I turn the hose pipe on you.”
    A brown over coated figure clutching a carrier bag tottered toward him. “I’ve come to be arrested,” said Wally Peters. “Mr. Frost sent me.”
    As Wells searched for a suitable expletive, Ridley called out excitedly from Control. “There’s Mr. Frost, Sarge.” Wells spun around in time to see Frost and Webster pushing through the main doors.
    “I’m here, Mr. Frost,” the tramp announced proudly.
    “Yes,” agreed Frost, ‘we smelled you from the top of Bath Hill. But I must dash,” and he went charging through the other door and up the corridor.
    “Hold it a minute, Inspector,” yelled Wells, chasing after him.
    The light was on in Frost’s office.