DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

French for “go away”,” explained Frost. “Boot it in again, son.”
    The door crashed back from the onslaught. Karen, her eyes blazing, fingernails clawed, was crouching, ready to meet them, like a karate fighter. She was still stark naked and was not going to let them take her without a fight.
    Sue moved into the room; the girl lunged forward to meet her. At the last moment, the woman officer sidestepped and stabbed out her foot to catch the girl on the ankle, sending her sprawling to the floor. Then Sue was down on her, her knee in the girl’s back, her hand forcing the girl’s arm high above her shoulder blades. All Karen could do was scream obscenities and pound the floor impotently with her free hand.
    “You can either get dressed,” said the woman detective pleasantly, ‘or I can handcuff you and take you out to the car as you are. Which is it to be?”
    To Frost’s disappointment, Karen agreed to get dressed.

    A quick phone call to Clare Dawson before the runaway was returned. Frost was hoping she could get her husband out of the house so mother and daughter could get their stories sorted out. When they arrived Max Dawson was out, cruising the streets, looking for his daughter, and wouldn’t be back for half an hour. Apparently his wife hadn’t yet passed on the good news, wanting to surprise him on his return.
    With sulky defiance, Karen shrugged off her mother’s attempts to make a fuss of her and just stood staring, with a sly, superior, knowing smile on her face, the smile of one who has power over another. Just wait until my daddy comes home, the smile said. Just wait until I tell him why I ran away.
    But Clare, from long practice, knew just how to handle her daughter. “Do you still want to go to ballet school, darling?”
    Instantly, Karen changed back to the fifteen-year-old, the dance-mad schoolgirl, her eyes bright with excitement. “It’s what I want more than anything, Mummy.”
    “I think it can be arranged,” said Clare confidently.
    “But Daddy has always said no.”
    “You leave your father to me,” replied her mother. “But first we’d better have a little chat so we can explain to him what’s been going on.”
    Clare showed them to the front door. “Thank you so much,” she gushed. Frost grunted his acknowledgement and walked with Susan to the car. As Webster followed, Clare took his hand and gave it a gentle, conspiratorial squeeze, her finger caressing his palm. “I’m alone here most afternoons,” she whispered. “Always glad of a bit of company.”
    As he joined the others in the car, Webster didn’t know whether to feel annoyed or flattered. But he did know it was the best offer he’d had since he arrived in Denton.
    “You look happy, son,” commented Frost as Webster slid in behind the steering wheel. “Your beard’s gone all stiff.”

Wednesday day shift (6)

    The time had wormed its way around to three o’clock. None of them had eaten, so they took a meal break at a little back-street cafe. The food wasn’t up to much, but it was a happy time for Webster, who found he was hitting it off with Susan Harvey.
    It was ten past four as they climbed back into the car. Webster, hoping the woman detective would sit next to him, was disappointed when she and Frost settled themselves down in the back seat. “The cop shop please, driver,” said Frost grandly, ‘and go the pretty way round via the gasworks.” Webster acknowledged the order with a petulant grunt. Frost’s pathetic attempts at humour had long worn paper-thin as far as he was concerned.
    “Control to all units in the Denton area.”
    Webster turned up the volume.
    “Armed robbery at Glickman’s pawnbrokers, 23 North Street. Owner reported shot. Charlie Alpha in attendance but assistance urgently required.”
    Frost leaned over to snatch up the handset. “Hello, Control. Frost here. We’re within two minutes of North Street. On our way. Over.”
    Webster slammed the car around corners and in and out of back streets as he tried to meet the inspector’s rash and impossible estimate of two minutes. Frost and the girl were sent sliding from one side of the car to the other, their movements echoed by Frost’s spare pair of Wellington boots on the back ledge. Reaching the High Street, they slowed down to let Susan off, then roared away to North Street, a side-turning off Bath Road.
    “Left here,” barked Frost. The Cortina nosed into North Street and pulled up abruptly behind area car