DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

rejoin Webster in the car.
    They sped through the main roads, all traffic lights with them just when Frost wanted delay, wanted to put off as long as possible the moment when Shelby’s wife opened that door.
    Shelby’s two-storey semi was on a corner - its downstairs lights behind bright-red curtains glowed welcomingly. Webster slid the car into an empty parking space on the other side of the road and switched off the engine. Frost made no attempt to move. He found a fresh packet of cigarettes and slowly stripped off the cellophane. He took his time lighting a cigarette to his satisfaction, then crushed it out in the car’s overfilled ashtray. “Damn and sodding blast!” he cried. “This is what Mullett’s paid his inflated bloody salary for, to do lousy jobs like this.” He scrubbed at his face with his hands and seemed to cheer up now he had got that off his chest. “Come on, let’s get it over and done with. You go and find a woman neighbour who can stay with her, and I’ll break the news.”
    Through a red-painted gate and up a small path to the front door, where he thumbed the buzzer. Excited voices from inside. Quick, light footsteps, then the door opened slowly. A child, a three-year-old boy in light-blue pyjamas and smelling of Johnson’s bath soap, regarded him with a puzzled frown. “I thought you were my daddy,” he said.
    “Is your mummy there?” Frost asked, again mentally cursing Mullett for being a cowardly bastard. This was going to be harder than he thought.
    A young woman opened a door at the end of the hall. When she saw Detective Inspector Frost standing there, and not her husband, the colour seeped from her face and she briefly held the doorframe very tightly to steady herself. “Go in the other room and play for a bit, Tommy,” she told the child, doing her best to keep her voice sounding normal. As the boy pushed past her, she walked slowly to the front door.
    “Hello, love,” said Frost, realizing he had forgotten to check at the station to find out what her first name was. “Do you think I could come in? I’ve got something to tell you.”
    She took him to the kitchen, looking in at the lounge on the way through to make sure the children were all right. A small, warm, friendly kitchen. Frost could smell something cooking the appetising aroma of a casserole, a meal that could be kept in the oven on a low heat for ages without spoiling. Ideal if your husband was inclined to come home late. On the small kitchen table, which was laid with a white tablecloth, were two place settings. She invited Frost to sit, then went over to the hob to stir something in a saucepan, her back to him. He remained standing.
    Very busily engaged in stirring what didn’t need stirring, she asked, “Is he hurt?”
    “He’s dead, love,” said Frost bluntly. Her back stiffened. She carried on stirring, the spoon clack, clack, clacking against the side of the saucepan.
    “I knew something was wrong when I phoned the station. They kept saying he was working late, but I knew.”
    “I wish you’d cry,” said Frost. “I wish you’d bloody cry.”
    And then her face crumpled and her body was racked with sobbing.
    Frost held out his arms and gripped her tightly. “That’s right, love, just cry.” He could feel her scalding tears running down his face, trickling on to his neck. He held her, saying nothing, sharing her grief. Then she was still. “How did it happen?” she whispered.
    “He was shot, love. He was trying to stop a cowboy with a gun.”
    She moved away from him and rubbed her face dry with her apron, then she turned off the oven and the hob and slumped down heavily in one of the chairs at the table. Frost pulled out the other chair and sat next to her, his face wet and stinging from her tears.
    “Are you all right?” she asked him.
    “Me?” said Frost in surprise. “I’m fine, love.” But his hands were shaking.
    “He was a marvelous husband,” she said, "really marvelous. He idolized me and the kids. We were all he lived for. He would never look at another woman, although they kept looking at him. They all fancied him, he was so good-looking, you see; but he was mine. We loved each other.”
    “I know,” said Frost. The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” he said.
    The voice at the other end said “Denton Echo, here. Could I speak to Mrs. Shelby, please?”
    “Piss off,” said Frost, hanging up. It rang again. He disconnected it from the wall. She was bound to be