Frost at Christmas

SUNDAY-2

Sunday at Denton Police Station was the same as any other day. People got drunk and smashed pub windows. Husbands and wives fought and broke up the happy home, and neighbors phoned to complain of the noise drowning out their televisions. Foolproof burglar alarms went off by accident and truculent motorists swaggered in flourishing certificates of insurance which they'd been ordered to produce after that little accident last night. Houses were robbed, old ladies mugged… the same as any other day.

Station Sergeant Johnnie Johnson was cold. The gap under the swing doors invited the wind to roar across the lobby and the damn radiator, which wasn't much good at the best of times, had developed an air lock that no amount of kicking could shift. The phone on the inquiry desk rang. It was Superintendent Mullen, the Denton Divisional Commander, flapping as usual.

"Yes, sir," soothed Johnson, "it's all laid on. I'm sending a car to meet him… No, sir, it's very quiet, as it happens. Must be the cold weather."

The cold weather! Say what you like about the cold-he stamped his feet to move the blood around his toes-but it certainly kept the crime figures down. Criminals were no respecters of the Sabbath, but even the most hardened villain preferred the comforts of his own fireside on nights like this.

He decided to let the lobby run itself for a couple of minutes and thudded across to Control.

"We got anyone picking up that new chap? The old man's just phoned."

The controller consulted his duty sheet. "Able Baker four's doing it, Sarge… But how come we're giving the red carpet treatment to a lousy detective-bloody-constable?"

"Because," explained the sergeant, "the new detective-bloody-constable just happens to be the nephew of the Chief-bloody-Constable… and our Divisional Commander knows on which side his bread is buttered."

He lingered. It was warmer in Control than out in that windswept lobby. "Anything happening?"

"No, Sarge… it's quiet… bloody quiet… must be the weather."

The phone in the lobby rang, but there was no need for Johnson to race out to answer it. P.C. Lambert was back from his tea break. The call was from a woman whose daughter hadn't returned home from Sunday school.

The 3:45 down train from London slackened speed as it took the final bend before the run in to Denton Station. The carriage lurched and a crumpled Sunday paper fell from Clive Barnard's lap. He scrubbed at the condensation and tried to peer through the window, but met the murky gaze of his own reflection, a young man of twenty-three, fair-haired, with a nose that looked as if it had been broken and badly set.

A fellow passenger tapped him on the knee. "Just coming in to Denton."

Clive nodded his thanks and dragged his suitcase down from the rack, the case he'd packed at the last minute that very morning in glorious London, over seventy miles away. Wasn't it just his lousy rotten luck to be posted to this fleabag of a town, and so near to Christmas?

He'd seen the place once before, but once was enough. Denton itself was a pleasant little market town with Georgian houses and cobbles, but the iron hand of progress had sorted it out for special treatment. Denton was designated as a proposed "New Town" and was being enlarged, modernized, redeveloped, and ruined. Already acres of its surrounding farm land and woods had been cleared, and half of the new development completed. New, clean and Efficient houses had been built, and hard-faced money-grubbing newlyweds imported to fill them, then factories had been erected to enable the hard-faced newly-weds to slave away at monotonous jobs to pay the rent, the hire purchase on the deep-freeze and color telly, and the cost of running the car to take them to the factory…

So far the improving hand of progress hadn't transformed the old market town, but it was not a reprieve, just a stay of execution. The planners were leaving that tasty titbit on their plates until the last.

Denton Police Station was in the old town and it was to the police station that Detective Constable Clive Barnard, his brand-new warrant card nestling in his wallet, was to report for duty at nine o'clock sharp Monday morning.

No one else got out at Denton Station, and the carriage door had no sooner closed behind him than the train, eager to get away, rumbled off to more exciting venues. Clive watched its lights disappear and felt bitter, deep-seated resentment toward it for abandoning him to this miserable place on a chill and friendless Sunday evening.

A yawning ticket collector held out a hand for Clive's ticket, not bothering to lift his eyes from the pages of the Sunday Mirror. Clive humped his case to the booking hall, dimly lit and empty. They'd promised someone would meet him, but what could you expect in a dump like this? Then, with a screech of brakes, Able Baker four pulled into the curb, its flashing blue light reproaching him for his unworthy doubts. The driver, P.C. Jordan, a tall, thin twenty-six year old with a black mustache, opened the rear door and with a jerk of the thumb motioned Clive to get in. He briefly introduced himself and his observer, P.C. Simms, the moonfaced man at his side. That ceremony over, the car jerked away, heading for the lodgings assigned to Clive. An icy reception, he thought to himself. He hoped his new digs wouldn't be equally cold.

"What's up with your nose?" asked Simms after a couple of minutes of silence.

It had been broken on dive's first day out on foot patrol. He'd tried to act the peacemaker between two brawling drunks and had been set upon by both of them for his trouble.

Simms grunted at the explanation. "I always let them fight it out to the bitter end, then I arrest the winner. It means hiding round the corner until they've finished, but at least it keeps your nose in one piece." A few more moments of prickly silence, then Simms slipped in his leading question. "How's your uncle?"

Clive sighed. So it was out in the open, the cause of the hostility. He might have known he'd have trouble with the rustics. In London it had been treated as a big joke. The odd bit of leg-pulling, but they'd known he'd worked his way up to the dizzy heights of detective constable from scratch, expecting and getting no favors. But out here in turnip country he was the brash, spoiled kid from the big city, the one with the influential relative.

"Are you referring to the Chief Constable?" he asked innocently.

Simms feigned surprise. "Oh, is he your uncle? That would account for the similarity of the names, of course…"

"And for the fact that we're acting as your bloody chauffeur," added Jordan, sounding his horn at a dog that was taking its time crossing the road. "We couldn't expect the Chief Constable's nephew to take the common bus, of course…"

"Let's get this straight," snapped Clive hotly. "I never asked to be met, and if you think he gives me any favors, then I can assure you I'd have asked to be posted to anywhere but this one-eyed stinking dump."

A pause, during which tension crackled. The two uniformed men exchanged glances. "One-eyed stinking dump?" said Simms. "You must have been here before." He offered around his cigarettes and the atmosphere thawed slightly. "You're quite right, Clive," he continued, and Clive noted with pleasure the use of his first name, "this place is a dump… in fact it's a dump and a half. It was a little dump before they started to develop it, now it's a big dump."

"It's not so bad," said Jordan, as they waited for the traffic lights to change, although there was no other vehicle in sight. The road was deserted. It was not only criminals who preferred to stay indoors in this weather.

"I understand I'll be working under Detective Inspector Allen," remarked Clive, trying to balance some ash on the overflowing ashtray. "What's he like?"

"In a word, he's a sod," muttered Simms.

Jordan was more generous. "He's not so bad-a stickler for the book, but do it his way and you won't go far wrong. Mind you, he's got a bit of a sharp tongue, which he has been known to use on the lazy and slovenly, as my friend and colleague here has discovered to his cost."

"What about Mr. Mullett, the Divisional Commander?"

"Superintendent Mullett is a stuck-up, pompous know-nothing sod," answered Simms.

Again Jordan differed. "He's got his faults, but he's fair. How long were you in uniform?"

"Twenty-four months."

Jordan grinned. No one could be considered for C.I.D. until they had spent a minimum of two years in uniform. Clive had spent the bare minimum. "Couldn't you wait to get out of it?"

"I joined the Force with one idea and one idea only-to go into C.I.D. No disrespect, but to my mind C.I.D. is what police work is all about."

A left turn at a roundabout. "You'll never get me to change," said Jordan. "For my money you can't beat the uniformed branch. Mind you, it was different years ago. Then they reckoned the chap on the beat was thick, clumsy, and slow-like my mate here-employed by the C.I.D. elite to stand outside the door and bar unauthorized entry during their investigations. He might be allowed to fetch the tea and bring back the right change and work all the hours that God sent without complaining, but that was all…"

"It's exactly the same now," muttered Simms, "except we do complain."

Jordan snorted. "You know it isn't. We're a self-motivated team in this car, expected to work on our own initiative. I bet we do more basic detection work in a day than your average C.I.D. man does in a month. And unlike the C.I.D. we work regular hours."

"Sounds a good job," smiled Simms, "I think I'll join." He turned to Clive. "I don't know what you've been used to in town, but I'm afraid your digs are a bit tatty. They're hard to come by these days-and us uniformed lads get the cream, as you would expect."

Clive was about to answer when Simms stiffened, flicked his hand for silence, and touched the knob of the radio to bring up the volume.

Denton Control was calling Able Baker four.

Simms answered and reported their location. They were requested to go immediately to No. 29-repeat 29- Vicarage Terrace and interview a Mrs. Joan Uphill who had reported that her eight-year-old daughter, Tracey Uphill, had not returned home from Sunday school since 4:30.

Even before Simms had acknowledged, Jordan had spun the car around and was heading back in the direction of Vicarage Terrace.

She'd tried all the likely places-phoned them, visited them. Then she'd tramped the streets, calling Tracey's name, hair streaming, her unbuttoned fur coat flapping in the wind. She hadn't meant to go far but in the distance, very faint, barely audible, came the shrill burble of children's voices, leading her on like a will-o'-the-wisp. Just one more corner, and the next. But when tiredness forced her to stop, and the clatter of her footsteps died in the empty street, no matter how hard she listened, the children's voices transmuted themselves into the vague murmurings of the wind.

She was too far from the house. What if Tracey went back and she wasn't there? Fear made her hurry. Her legs ached from calf to thigh, but she forced them to go faster. Outside the house, no sign of Tracey. She called and only the wind answered. She let herself in and, without taking off her coat, slumped by the phone and dialed Tracey's friends again. The other mothers, their own children safe, tried to reassure her. "I wouldn't worry, Mrs. Uphill, she'll turn up, you'll see. Now if you'll excuse me… the tea…" The last call made and nothing more to do. The house, emptier than ever, seemed different somehow, as if adjusting itself to the fact that the child would never come back. She felt drained, lost, helpless. There was no one she could turn to: no friends, no relatives, no one. She leaned forward and cooled her forehead on the telephone. In the center of the dial it said "Police-ring 999."

She dialed. The operator put her through to Denton Police Station. It was 7:06.

"Denton Police. Can we help you?"

Her call was answered by P.C. Ronald Lambert, twenty-three years old, bearded and unmarried. It was the thirty-eighth call he'd taken since coming on duty at two o'clock that afternoon. He hated front office work. It was freezing in the lobby after the steamy warmth of the canteen. Waiting for the caller to answer, he logged the time of the call. 1906 hours. The caller was a distraught woman. At first he couldn't make out what she was saying. Something about a girl and a Sunday school. With the patience born of practice, he asked her to repeat it, slowly.

"My little girl hasn't come home… looked everywhere… everywhere…"

He calmed her down and methodically extracted the vital details. "Since 4:30 you say? You should have phoned us earlier, mother. But hold on…"

Behind him a sliding wall panel connected the lobby to the control room. He slid it back. P.C. Philip Ridley, who was talking to the station sergeant, looked up expectantly.

"I've got a Mrs. Uphill on the phone. No. 29 Vicarage Terrace. Her daughter, Tracey Uphill, eight years old, left St. Basil's Sunday School at 4:30 and hasn't returned home. The mother's very worried."

Vicarage Terrace. Ridley didn't need to refer to the wall map to know it was in C Beat, one of two beats covered by police car Tango Charlie one. But Tango Charlie one was already out on a call, a husband and wife punch-up, known as "a domestic". So what else had we? Ah-the area car, Able Baker four. It wasn't doing anything vital, only taking the Chief Constable's precious nephew to his digs. Well, he could wait. It wouldn't do the pampered swine any harm to see a spot of real police work for a change.

He flicked the switch on his transmitter and called Able Baker four. The monitor speaker crackled and Simms's voice answered.

"Hello Control… Vicarage Terrace? We can be there in four minutes."

On the other side of the panel, P.C. Lambert uncupped his hand from the mouthpiece. "Mrs. Uphill? Sorry for the delay. Stay put, Mrs. Uphill, a car's on its way round to you now. Don't worry, we'll sort it out."

He dropped the receiver back on its rest and shut the sliding panel, then he and the controller, each in his separate room, logged the incident and settled down to wait for the next call. A pretty boring Sunday up to now. The station sergeant thought he'd take advantage of the lull and have his tea break.

"Sorry about this," shouted Jordan, swinging the area car through mazes of side streets choked with parked vehicles. "It could take some time. Would you like us to drop you off somewhere?"

Clive shook his head. He was in no hurry to get to his digs. He'd be spending the rest of the dreary evening there anyway, and it was barely past seven now. If they didn't mind he'd like to follow the call through with them.

"You can point out where we go wrong," said Simms, scribbling the details on his log-sheet.

The car. curb-crawled Vicarage Terrace looking for number 29 among the darkened porches. This probably wouldn't take more than a few minutes. Usually the lost kid and the police turned up at the same time, the kid to be walloped and hugged, the police to be apologized to:

"Now say you're sorry to the policeman." To which the police usually replied, "That's what we're here for, madam. Glad it's turned out this way."

Usually… not always.

"That should be it," cried Simms, pointing, and in confirmation a street door opened and a teenaged girl waved frantically.

The two uniformed men got out, putting on their peaked caps, which were not worn in the car. Simms took a clipboard and a pen from the glove compartment and made sure he had his personal radio. Clive followed at a respectful distance. He couldn't take his eyes from the girl in the doorway with her ash-blonde hair and the simple lavender-blue woolen dress hugging the soft curves of her young virginal body. The missing girl's sister, he reasoned, but she was simply fantastic-the flawless naive innocent of his dream-world erotic fantasies.

But Jordan addressed her as Mrs. Uphill! How could this child have a daughter of eight? But she wasn't a child. She was a woman. Twenty-four years old and worried to desperation.

"Yes, I'm Mrs. Uphill. Have you found her?" The voice was on the verge of hysterical.

Jordan smiled sympathetically and shook his head.

"Not yet, Mrs. Uphill. Give us a chance, we've only just received your message. Do you think we could come in?"

She led them through to the lounge, an expensively furnished room with rosewood paneling, an off-white deep-pile wall-to-wall carpet screaming money, an enormous projection color TV, and a corner bar with a genuine reproduction pub counter and beer engine.

They settled down in cream-colored armchairs smelling richly of leather, Simms, with his clipboard poised on his knee, asking most of the questions.

"The boring bit first, Mrs. Uphill. The details. When did you last see her? Outside the Sunday school? I see. You took her there yourself? Good. And what time would that be?"

As Simms extracted the necessary information, Clive let his eyes wander around the room. There was money in the house, even a newly appointed detective constable could see that. It shouted its opulence. But where was the husband? There had been no mention of him. Perhaps she was a widow, or divorced. Whatever it was, Mr. Uphill had left her well provided for. Those shelves behind the bar were crammed with any drink you cared to name; the cigarette boxes were brim-filled-name your brand-filter-tipped or plain, we have it; and there was a drum of large red-and-gold-banded cigars on the bar counter. Plenty of provisions for a man, but no mention of him. His eyes moved to the girl's face. She was listening intently to Simms, her moist lips parted, her skin flawless without makeup. He felt sexual stirrings within himself and immediately suppressed them, chiding himself for being a dirty-minded slob. At a time like this… that poor helpless creature. If only he could offer her some comfort, some protection.

Jordan and Simms continued methodically with their questions. At this stage there was no real need for panic. Three hours wasn't all that long for a kid to be astray; she'd probably wandered a bit farther afield than she had intended and couldn't find her way back. Put all patrols on the alert and they should have her back within the hour. And then his eye was drawn by the window, where the curtains had been pulled back. Outside, a tree by the lamppost twitched and shuddered in a wind of growing strength. What if they didn't find her quickly? The real danger was the weather. At night the temperature plummeted to below zero. If she was out in the open and wasn't properly dressed…

He cut across the uniformed men's questions.

"How was Tracey dressed when she went out, Mrs. Uphill?"

Hostile glares from the other two as she jerked her head toward him, brushing a wisp of ash-blonde hair from her eyes.

"A thick blue coat and a scarf…"

"If I could butt in," snapped Jordan icily. He glowered at Clive. "We've already got that information. We haven't the time to hear it twice.''

Clang, thought Clive, that's me in my place. But he was I relieved the kid was well wrapped up. It could make the difference between life and death.

"Do you have a photograph of Tracey?" asked Simms. "We want to make certain we bring the right one back."

She forced a smile at the joke and rummaged in a drawer, haste making her clumsy. Inwardly she was ready to scream. Why all these questions? Why didn't they just go out and look? And why three of them? Why couldn't two go out and search while the other one asked the questions? She found the snapshot. Clive peered at it over Simms's shoulder. A full-face color photograph of a lovely wide-eyed child, beautiful like her mother, the same ash-blonde hair, brushed and gleaming.

Simms wrote something on the back of the photograph, replaced the cap on his pen, and looked significantly at Jordan, who nodded and stood. "Just one last thing, Mrs. Uphill. We'd like to search the house."

They searched the house, starting at the top and working down. They found nothing, but it had to be done. The number of times the missing kid had been found hiding in a cupboard or a shed while armies of policemen scoured the streets… All a big joke to the kid, of course, but there was that terrible lesson of a few years back when, weeks after an intensive search involving hundreds of men, rivers dragged, frogmen in the reservoir, a police officer returned to the child's home and noticed a small box that could have contained books or toys. Far too small, but he looked anyway… and there was the body. The boy had squeezed himself in, pulled down the lid, the catch had caught and trapped him and there was hardly any air. Weeks of searching and he had been in the house all the time. But Tracey wasn't in the house.

Back to the lounge where the woman sat huddled in a chair, systematically shredding a Kleenex tissue. She didn't look up as Jordan spoke.

"Nothing there, Mrs. Uphill, but stay by your phone. As soon as we have any news…"

She nodded.

"And, of course, if she should come back here, you'll let us know at once, won't you?"

Again a nod.

Jordan shrugged, then signaled for the others to follow him out. At the door Clive turned. She looked so pathetic, so defenselessly alone. "Isn't there anyone who could stay with you, Mrs. Uphill-a relative, a woman friend?"

Beautiful but vacant eyes fastened on his. "I have no woman friends-or any relations…"A bitter smile. "But thank you."

Jordan tapped Clive on the shoulder and jerked his thumb to the front door. Mrs. Uphill pulled another Kleenex from the box.

Back in the car Simms radioed the details to Denton Control for circulation to all patrols. Control instructed them to drop Clive off at his digs and then return to the station with the photograph.

The car retraced its way through the side streets and was soon back on the main road.

"Let's have the benefit of your vast London experience. What do you reckon?" asked Simms.

Clive shrugged. "It's too early. The kid could turn up at any time." Then he remembered the question he'd been burning to ask. "Where's the kid's father-the husband?"

He caught Jordan's smile in the rearview mirror. "She's not married, Clive. The 'Mrs.' is just a courtesy title."

Clive frowned. "Then where does her money come from? The chair I was sitting on must have set her back four hundred quid at least."

Simms turned in his seat. "I'll give you a clue. She's self-employed and fee-earning. The money in her lounge was earned in her bedroom." He saw Clive was still uncomprehending. "How thick can you get? She's a tart, a whore, a harlot, a pro. She's on the bash."

Clive's jaw thudded. Not her! Not that virginal child. How simple did they think he was?

"I hope I haven't shocked you," said Simms. "I don't suppose you have such wicked women in London. It's a bit naughty, I know, but then, this is a decadent town. It'll be different when the bingo halls are built." He looked to Jordan for a smile of appreciation, but the driver was lost in his thoughts.

"Sorry," said Jordan, "I've just remembered something-the Sunday school."

"St. Basil's?"

"Yes. You remember the trouble we had there this summer."

"Blimey," said Simms. "The man trying to lure kids into his care with sweets? We never caught him, did we?"

"No," said Jordan, "we never caught him." He spun the wheel and the car deserted the main road for a narrow street of terraced houses. "Here we are."

This was Sun Street. Clive's digs were at No. 26, a house that looked no different from any of the others. As he took his suitcases from the car and said his goodbyes, the downstairs curtain behind him twitched and a shaft of light wriggled across the pavement. He watched the area car continue on its way until the darkness swallowed up its rear lights. Then he felt friendless and alone, the way that woman must be feeling now. He turned and, putting his suitcases down on the pavement, knocked at the door.