DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

like an overgrown, sniggering schoolboy.
    Realizing the constable still hadn’t twigged, Frost took the coloured photograph of Karen Dawson from his pocket and passed it to Webster. “Forget the blonde hair, son, it’s been bleached. Look at the face. Look carefully at the face.”
    Webster stared at the photograph. He still didn’t know what Frost was getting at. Then it hit him. He took the photograph and stared again. The blonde stripper they had been watching on the stage was fifteen-year-old Karen Dawson. The girl that Harry Baskin had mauled with his greasy hands, kissed with his fleshy lips, boasted of taking to his bed, was a kid, an underaged schoolgirl. The swine. The dirty, stinking pig. He was running back to the hall, Frost at his heels, trying to keep up with him.
    Baskin was at the door of the hall, lecherousness all over his filthy face. Webster’s feet hammered the ground as he thundered toward him, his hands already balled into fists. Too late Frost realized what was going to happen. “Hold it, Webster!” he yelled, but nothing could hold him now. He seized Baskin by the lapels and slammed him hard against the wall.
    “You bastard! You dirty, lecherous bastard!” Before Frost could pull-him off, his fist had smashed into Baskin’s face and there was blood everywhere.
    “You stupid sod!” cried Frost, pushing between the two men and shoving Webster away. Baskin’s face was dead white in contrast to the vivid red of the blood pouring from his nose, splashing down his suit and on the ground. One of Baskin’s heavies came thudding around the corner. Frost held out his warrant card and yelled, “Police. Piss off!” The heavy faltered, then turned back.
    Webster was still shaking with rage, his shoulders heaving up and down as he fought to gain control of himself. A trembling Baskin stared incredulously at the blood that still cascaded down. He fumbled in his top pocket for a handkerchief and tried to stem the flow. “My God!” he croaked, as the handkerchief rapidly changed colour, “I’m bleeding to death.”
    “Hold your head back,” ordered Frost, then, taking him by the arm, steered him toward his office. Webster moved as if to join them. “You stay here,” hissed Frost. “And don’t move an inch - not one bloody inch.”
    Inside the office he sat Baskin in a chair, his head well back, the now sodden handkerchief held to his nose. Frost’s fingers gently explored the swollen area. “Nothing broken, Harry.”
    “No bleeding thanks to that pig out there,” snarled Baskin. “Get me a drink.” Feeling he deserved one himself, Frost poured two drinks.
    Baskin was now pulling himself together. He gulped down the whisky, hurled the sodden handkerchief into the wastepaper basket, and found himself a clean one in his desk drawer. “You bastards will pay for this. I’m suing you, I’m suing that sod outside, and I’m suing the whole bloody police force from the Home Secretary downward.” He picked up his phone and began dialling the number of his solicitor. Frost reached out and pressed down on the cradle, cutting him off.
    “Forget it, Harry.”
    “Forget it?” shrieked Baskin. “No bloody way!” He dragged a mirror from his desk drawer and examined the damage to his face. “Look what that bastard has done to me.”
    “No worse than what you did to your security guard last night,” murmured Frost. “So let’s say this evens the score.”
    Baskin shook his head so firmly it started his nose bleeding again. “No way, Inspector. That gorilla of yours has gone too far this time.” He moved the phone from Frost’s reach. “I am now going to phone my solicitor and instruct him to institute proceedings.”
    Now it was the inspector’s turn to shake his head. “No you won’t, Harry. If you attempt to sue my detective constable for assault, I shall be reluctantly forced to lie my head off. I’ll swear on oath that you attacked him first and that he was compelled to act in self-defence. It’ll be my word against yours - the word of a heroic police officer with the George Cross against the word of a strip-club owner who deflowers fifteen-year-old schoolgirls.”
    Baskin stared at Frost as if the man had gone mad. “Fifteen-year-old schoolgirls? What the hell are you going on about?”
    In answer, Frost produced the coloured school photograph, pushed it, facedown, across the desk, then flipped it over as if it were the final ace to complete his running flush.