DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

43. Frost gave the appropriate button a jab. Nothing happened. He tried again, then stepped back to stare up at the rows of windows. No lights were showing.
    “Everyone’s asleep,” muttered Webster.
    “Not everyone, son,” said Frost, “When you’ve knocked down and killed some poor old sod, you don’t go to sleep. You stay awake and plan the lies you’re going to tell the fuzz when they call.” He wedged his thumb in the bell push and leaned his weight on it for a good minute. “That should wake the bugger up.”
    It didn’t wake the bugger up. No response. “He’s either not in or he’s determined not to answer,” said Frost.
    “Well, if he won’t answer the door, there’s not much more we can do,” said Webster.
    Frost withdrew his thumb and looked at all the bell pushes. At the bottom was a button marked Caretaker. He thought for a moment, then smiled. “You come with your Uncle Jack and I’ll show you a way of getting inside someone’s place that they never taught you at police college.”
    Wondering what the old fool was up to now, Webster followed him back across the road to the phone box. Frost draped his handkerchief over the receiver and dialled the number of Denton Police Station.
    “Denton Police,” answered a tired-sounding Sergeant Wells.
    “I’m phoning from outside those new flats at Halley House,” said Frost in a low voice. “There’s a man on the balcony of the fourth floor trying to break into one of the apartments.”
    “Can I have your name please, sir?” asked Wells as Frost whipped away the handkerchief and hung up.
    “Back to the car, son, quick.”
    In the car, Frost’s hand hovered expectantly over the handset, snatching it up as Control called through.
    “Control to Mr. Frost, come in, please.”
    “Frost.”
    “Ridley here, sir. We’ve had a report of someone trying to break into the flats at Halley House. You’re near there, aren’t you?”
    “Right outside,” answered Frost. “We’ll attend to it right away.”

    The caretaker, an obsequious Uriah Heep in a thick grey dressing gown, kept yawning and jingling his bunch of keys like the jailer at the Bastille. “This is most disturbing,” he said. “The tenants won’t like it one bit. But how could anyone climb up to the balconies from the outside?”
    “These cat burglars can get up anywhere,” said Frost, wishing the man would just give him the keys and go. “It was the third balcony along the fourth floor.”
    “I’ll come up with you,” said the caretaker. “I don’t want any of my tenants to be disturbed. It’ll give the place a bad name.”
    But Frost was quick to decline his kind offer. “He could be armed. We don’t want to expose you to any danger.” The keys were zipped into his hand. “Thank you, sir. If you hear any gunfire, dial 999.”
    The lift purred up to the fourth floor and deposited them on to a red-and-black-patterned carpet which deadened their footsteps as they walked to a mat black door bearing the number 43. Frost pressed the bell push with one hand and hammered at the door with the other. He waited, then hammered again.
    “Listen!” he exclaimed, like a bad actor. “Is that a cry for help?” Before Webster could reply that he couldn’t hear a damn thing, Frost unlocked the door with the pass key and stepped inside.
    “Mr. Miller?” Silence. Frost slid his hand down the door frame to locate the switch, and clicked on the light.The flat looked and felt empty. They were in a large lounge, its walls decorated with coloured prints of vintage racing cars; the centrepiece was a framed original poster advertising the 1936 Grand Prix at the old Brooklands racing circuit.
    On the doormat were a couple of letters. Frost bent and picked them up. One was a circular, the other a letter from Bennington’s Bank, Denton. “Either he doesn’t bother to pick up his post, or he hasn’t been in tonight,” he said, dropping them back where he found them.
    “Anyway, he’s not here,” said Webster. “Let’s go.”
    “Patience, son, patience,” said Frost and padded across to a half-open door which led to the bedroom. The bed was made up and didn’t appear to have been slept in. Above the bed was a brushed-aluminium framed print of two naked lovers, facing each other, kneeling, mouths open, kissing, their bodies just achingly touching. Frost gave it his full attention, then starting poking into drawers, riffling through their contents.
    Webster was getting