DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

fidgety and anxious. They had no right to be there, let alone search through private belongings. If Miller came back and caught them, reported them to Mullett . . . “We ought to leave,” he said edgily. “We shouldn’t be here.”
    "We shouldn’t, son,” agreed the inspector, "but Master Roger should. According to his car-theft report, he was just off to bed when he remembered he’d left his briefcase in his motor. He went out to fetch it, and presto, the Jag had vanished. So why isn’t he in bed, crying his eyes out?”
    “I’ve no idea,” said Webster, inching toward the door. “Let’s talk about it back at the station Now what are you doing?”
    “Just being nosey, son.” He had opened the sliding doors of a huge built-in wardrobe to expose row upon row of expensive suits packed tight on the rails next to hangers sporting tailored silk shirts, all monogrammed RM. “Don’t you hate the bastard for having all these clothes?” he said. On the wardrobe floor, side by side in serried ranks of shoetrees, were dozens of pairs of hand-sewn leather shoes, intricately patterned in brown and cream. Frost measured one against his own foot. “Do you reckon he’d miss a pair, son?”
    Webster folded his arms and waited for the inspector to stop playing his silly games, his eyes constantly moving to the door, waiting for Roger Miller to burst in and demand to know what they were up to.
    “All right,” said Frost at last, “I’ve seen all I want to.” He looked at his watch. “Sod the returns, son. Let’s go home.”
    I should bloody-well think so, thought Webster.
    They gave the worried caretaker his keys back. He had been sitting by his phone, his ears straining for the fusillade of gunshots which, together with the two dead policeman, would give the flats some bad publicity. “Seems clear up there,” announced Frost. He then asked where the tenants kept their cars.
    “In our basement car park,” replied the caretaker. “Why?”
    “We’d better give it the once-over,” said Frost. “He might be after nicking an expensive motor.”
    The caretaker took them down to the basement in the service lift. Some forty cars were parked in areas marked off with the tenants’ flat numbers.
    “What do you expect to find?” Webster muttered sarcastically. “The Jag dripping with blood? You don’t think he’d be stupid enough to leave it here?”
    “You never know your luck,” said Frost, turning to call to the caretaker. “Where is Mr. Miller’s parking space?”
    “Over there in the corner that’s his car.”
    Frost looked at Webster in triumph. They squeezed through gaps between cars to reach the section marked Flat 43. But the car parked there wasn’t blue and it wasn’t a Jaguar. It was a black Porsche.
    “Of course that’s Mr. Miller’s car,” insisted the caretaker. “He goes to his office every day in that.”
    “What about his Jag?” queried Frost.
    “There’s only room for one car per tenant. He parks his Jaguar round the corner, down a side-turning.”
    Webster didn’t bother to hide his smirk at Frost’s deflation. That was exactly where Miller said the Jag was stolen from. It looked as if his story about the theft might prove to be correct.
    With slumped shoulders Frost shuffled back to the lift that would take them up to ground level. Then he remembered one last important question. “Did Mr. Miller drive the Porsche to the office today?”
    “Yes,” replied the caretaker, “I saw him.”
    Webster couldn’t understand why that answer made Frost look a lot more cheerful.
    Back across the road to the Cortina. The car radio was buzzing away.
    “Control to Mr. Frost. Come in, please,” pleaded Bill Wells for the twentieth time.
    “Frost!”
    “Thank God I’ve caught you, Jack. I’ve just spoken to Mr. Mullett about this hit-and-run business. He’s going spare. He says on no account repeat no account are you to attempt to contact Roger Miller. He wants this handled with kid gloves and everything done strictly according to the book. So please, Jack, stay away.”
    “But of course,” said Frost, sounding hurt. “I wouldn’t dream of seeing Miller without Mr. Mullett’s express permission.”
    He passed the handset back to Webster.
    “I’ve had enough, son. Let’s go home.”

Wednesday day shift (1)

    The briefing room at Denton Police Station was looking very much less than its best. Like most of the assembled police officers, it was suffering from the