DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

ditch. The water was as cold as death as it lapped around their bare legs, and their feet sunk into squelchy black mud. With Frost taking the shoulders and Webster the legs, they heaved. Shelby was heavy and stubborn. He clung to the bottom. They gritted their teeth and pulled. Suddenly, the body tore free from the grip of the thick mud and emerged through the slime, the head with its hanging flaps of flesh flopping down, streaming dirty stinking water. The proceedings were punctuated by blinding blue flashes ripping into the darkness as the scene-of-crime officer took photograph after photograph.
    They laid Dave Shelby on the grass verge, well away from the flattened grass that Forensic would want to crawl over and examine. The scene-of-crime officer brought a plastic sheet from the boot of his car and they draped it over the body.
    From the dark distance they heard the plaint of an ambulance siren, then saw its flashing blue light bobbing over the top of the hedges as it picked its way through the winding lane. But before it reached them, other car headlights flared. The Rover and the Ford. Mullett, Allen, and Ingram approached, their faces set.
    Frost stepped back from the covered body. Mullett bent over and lifted a corner of the plastic sheet, then, his face screwed up as if in pain, turned his head. “Such a waste. A fine young officer. Such a wicked waste.”
    He moved away, his place taken by Allen, who knelt by the body, a torch in hand, peering at the horror of the shattered face as if examining a suspect piece of steak from the butchers. At last he replaced the sheet and straightened up.
    Mullett was finding it difficult to control his emotions. “Whoever did this,” he said, “I want him. I don’t care how many men it takes, I want him.” To Frost he said, “I’m putting Mr. Allen in charge. You will take over his cases.”
    “Right,” acknowledged Frost, who hadn’t really expected Mullett to allow him to handle an investigation of this importance.
    Mullett cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. He spoke to Frost but didn’t look at him. “Someone’s got to tell Shelby’s wife,” he said.
    His wife! Young Mrs. Shelby, not much more than a teenager, with two kiddies, one three, the other eighteen months, and a third on the way.
    “I thought you’d be doing that, sir,” said Frost.
    Mullett stared straight ahead and slapped his palm with his leather driving glove. “I want the news broken gently,” he said. “If she sees the Divisional Commander turning up on her doorstep . . . I understand she’s pregnant . . . the shock . . . It might be better if you . . .” He let the rest of the sentence hang.
    “You’re ordering me to do it, then?” asked Frost, determined not to volunteer.
    “Er, yes,” muttered Mullett, wishing the inspector wouldn’t drive him into a corner like this. “It would be best.”
    For you, you bastard, but not for me, thought Frost bitterly. “All right, Super. If you say so.”
    Mullett, relieved to have wriggled out of the unpleasantness, put on his sincere expression. “And tell Mrs. Shelby that if there is anything at all I can do to help in her moment of sorrow, she has only to ask. Her husband was one of my finest officers.” As Frost moved off, he called after him, “And tell her we’re going to get the swine who did it.”
    “Yes, that should cheer her up no end,” muttered Frost as he called Webster over and opened the door of the Cortina.
    Lying back wearily in the passenger seat, he shook the last cigarette from the packet. “This is one bloody job I hate, son. I’ve done it enough times, so I ought to know.” A stream of smoke hit the wind-screen and spread out. “Back to the station, first. There’s something I’ve got to do.” He had remembered the candid photographs in Shelby’s locker. He didn’t want some well-meaning person parcelling them with the dead constable’s effects and sending them to his widow.

    The mood at the station was one of cold shock and white-hot anger. “He was a bloody good bloke, Jack,” said Bill Wells. “One of the best.” Frost said nothing. Shelby’s death had upset him as much as it had anyone, but Shelby wasn’t a bloody good bloke. He was shifty, lazy, a lecher, and a liar.
    He made his way to the locker room. It was empty. He found the key that worked before and opened up Shelby’s locker. The camera was there but the photographs were not. He swore softly and locked up, then went to