Frost at Christmas

MONDAY-3

Superintendent Mullett was taking sadistic pleasure in making Frost wait. The man had eventually slouched into his office in his usual insolent manner wearing that disgrace of a mac with the frayed sleeves and that ridiculous scarf.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" No apology, nothing.

Without raising his eyes from his correspondence, Mullett flicked a curt wrist toward a chair and deliberately took his time signing his letters, reading them through with studied slowness, and blotting them carefully afterward.

He heard Frost fidget in his chair. Good. The display of his superior's displeasure and the humiliation of being ignored were having the desired effect. His pen crawled at a snail's pace to intensify the torture.

More fidgeting sounds from Frost.

Mullett's pen crawled on.

The sound of a match being struck.

A match? Mullett's nose twitched. A smoke-ring gently nudged his pen and drifted across his desk. He followed it with incredulous eyes.

This was intolerable. Frost was smoking. Without even asking permission-which would have been icily refused- he was smoking, leaning at ease in the chair, swinging an unpolished shoe from side to side. He gave Mullett a reassuring smile.

"When you're ready, Super…"

Mullett winced. He hated being addressed as "Super". Everyone knew it but Frost.

"Put out that cigarette," he snapped with such ferocity that the cigarette immediately dropped from Frost's startled lips and landed on the carpet. There was a smell of burning wool from the blue Wilton. Frost ground at the pile with his dirty shoes and managed to distribute a mess of broken cigarette and charred wool over a wide area. He moved his chair to cover up the burn and smiled inquiringly at Mullett.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

As soon as Frost had gone, Mullett would go down on his hands and knees and inspect the damage. In the meantime he contented himself with a long hard stare.

"I wanted to see you more than half an hour ago. You've kept me waiting, Inspector."

"I had to have a look at Bennington's Bank. Someone jemmied their door."

"I would have thought your Divisional Commander's summons took priority. And you weren't at the briefing meeting!"

A theatrical smiting of palm to freckled forehead. "The meeting? Clean forgot all about it, sir."

Mullen took the envelope from his drawer. "I've had a complaint about you, Inspector." He unfolded the memo. "From Superintendent Gibbons of the Police Training Center-"

Frost's blank expression masked his relief. This was a comparatively trivial matter. He'd been asked over to the training center to speak, as an experienced officer, to new recruits and to give them practical hints that would assist them in their chosen career.

"So, you told them how to fiddle their car expenses," accused Mullett.

"1 only mentioned it in passing, sir."

"In passing, or not, that was what you were talking to them about when Superintendent Gibbons entered the lecture room. 1 was ashamed to get his memo. Fortunately he wrote to me confidentially, as a friend, and didn't copy it to H.Q. I'm most concerned about you, Frost. I had occasion to look in your office today. Frankly, I was appalled. The mess, the untidiness… and I found that statistical return that County has been screaming for still uncompleted."

"Ah, yes. I must get around to that. Anything else, sir?"

Yes, there was. Mullett gathered himself for his main at tack.

"Were those the clothes you wore at the training center?"

Frost looked down at his apparel with surprise. "Why. yes."

The superintendent smoothed his mustache carefully as if it was insecurely fixed with spirit gum. "Superintendent Gibbons thought you had turned up in your gardening clothes-"

Frost shot up. "Of all the bloody cheek!"

"It's not a bloody cheek, Inspector! I've been meaning to talk to you about your dress for some time. That mac's a disgrace. And those trousers-when were they last pressed? And as for your shoes…"

Frost tucked his shoes under the chair to hide them from view. "With respect, sir, I'm supposed to be solving bloody crimes, not tarting myself up like a tailor's dummy."

Mullett sighed and slumped back in his chair. How could you get through to people like this? Very carefully, and explaining all the ramifications and dangers, he told Frost about the Chief Constable's nephew.

Sergeant Wells flung open the door to Inspector Frost's office. "You'll be working in here, Barnard."

It was a mess. A tiny dingy office; two desks, buried in paper, a filing cabinet that wouldn't close properly, and a hatrack. The room was overheated by an enormous cast iron radiator running beneath a window that overlooked the car park. The wall calendar still showed the previous month and untidy heaps of paper and opened files carpeted the brown linoed floor.

Wells stepped on to an oasis of virgin lino. "You'll have to get the place tidied up a bit, Barnard. Paperwork was never the inspector's strongest suit."

Clive was speechless. This wouldn't have been tolerated for a single day in London.

The door crashed against the wall and Frost entered, eyes blazing. He kicked a heap of papers and hurled himself into a chair.

"That bloody four-eyed bastard!"

The station sergeant smiled knowingly and gave Clive a broad wink. "Just come from the Divisional Commander, Jack?"

"I'd like to pull his bleeding mustache out, hair by hair." He spotted a fresh memo on his desk, gave it a brief glance, snorted, and screwed it up. It missed the waste-paper basket by a good six inches and joined the other debris on the floor. "Do you know the latest? I've got to wet-nurse the snotty-nosed illegitimate son of our Chief-bloody-Constable.''

Wells grinned and jerked a thumb toward Clive. "Not his son, Jack-his snotty-nosed nephew. And this is him."

Frost overflowed with apologies, handshakes, and offers of cigarettes. "Don't take any notice of me, son. I'm not usually like this-only when I've been rubbed up the wrong way by some horn-rimmed, hairy-lipped, stuck-up cow's son of a Divisional Commander who shall be nameless."

The station sergeant coughed pointedly. There was a newcomer in their midst.

Frost took the hint. "Yes, you're right, Bill, I'm supposed to imbue our young hopefuls with respect for rank even though I haven't any myself. Flaming arseholes-!

He had just noticed Clive's suit.

"One hundred and seven quid," announced Sergeant Wells gravely.

Frost's eyebrows shot up. He tested the material between nicotine-stained fingers and shook his head. "For that money you could have got a proper one, son. And for work the criterion is never wear a suit you wouldn't be happy letting a drunk be sick all over."

Behind an impassive face, Clive's resentment flared. Have your fun, you bucolic sods, he thought. We'll see who has the last laugh.

Frost, who had a cornucopia of tasteless anecdotes to suit every occasion, was telling a story about his early days in C.I.D.

"I'd bought myself this suit from the Fifty Shilling Tailors and the very first day I wore it this little fat drunk lurches up and deposits his lunch all over me. Naturally, I admonished him with a sharp knee to the groin, but that suit never looked the same again."

"It doesn't, Jack," agreed Wells, straight-faced, "and it's about time you had it cleaned."

Frost grinned. "Funny you should mention my clothes, Bill. Our beloved Divisional Commander has just informed me I'm doing the ragman out of a living. I suppose my mac compares unfavorably with that PS107 creation."

"He didn't care for this either," admitted Clive.

"If he said that, son, then I'm going to have to force myself to like it." As he spoke, he worried something on his right cheek with his fingertips.

Clive eyed Frost more closely. The right cheek! He hadn't noticed before. It was scarred. A knot of white puckered scar tissue under the right eye. He found himself staring and pulled his eyes away.

Frost's internal phone buzzed. It was buried beneath the papers on his desk, but he dragged the receiver out by its flex. A terse message from Inspector Allen-would Frost report to his office right away. Click. No "please", just the bare message. Frost reburied the phone. "Another bastard I hate. You might as well come with me, son. Give you a chance to see what a real detective looks like."

A real detective looked thin, wiry, and sour, but on top of the job, his chilly office reeking of floor polish and uncluttered efficiency, with the desk clinically clear, the "In" tray empty, the "Out" brimful of memos and instructions in Allen's neat hand.

Allen frowned when he saw Frost had brought someone in with him, but forced out a wintry smile when he realized it was the Chief Constable's nephew. As soon as he'd restored Tracey Uphill to her mother he'd take the new D.C. under his wing. Another career man, Allen knew his promotion to chief inspector would be announced shortly and he was aiming to be detective superintendent within a year. He'd overtake Mullen yet. The commandership of the new, enlarged division wasn't the one-horse race his superintendent blithely imagined.

Shaking hands briskly with Clive he nodded his visitors to chairs.

"You weren't at the meeting this morning, Frost?" It was barked out as a question.

"No, Allen," beamed Frost, lighting a cigarette and dropping the match on the polished lino, "I forgot."

Allen rose from his chair, picked up the discarded match, and deposited it carefully into his empty waste-paper basket.

"Thanks," said Frost cheerfully.

Allen took a couple of deep breaths and returned to his seat.

"The missing girl. I want you to question the mother. Something's wrong. If this was a straightforward missing-from-home we should have found the kid by now."

"There's always the possibility she's done the kid in," suggested Frost.

Clive smiled tolerantly at this outrageous suggestion. You'd only got to look at the woman… But Inspector Allen seemed to agree with Frost.

"Precisely. That's what I want you to check. Have a nose around. It wasn't searched properly last night."

"Right," said Frost, stretching out his legs and drawing on the cigarette.

Allen's eyes narrowed. "I mean now!" he barked.

That's the way to treat lazy buggers like Frost, thought Clive as the inspector shot to his feet.

"Congratulations," said Frost.

"On what?" asked Allen in surprise.

"On your promotion to chief inspector coming through."

"But it hasn't," said Allen.

"Oh," said Frost, "I thought it had," and he sat down again and finished his cigarette.

Frost took Clive with him to the control room to pick up a personal radio, but the constable in charge was loath to part with any more.

"You've already got two and you haven't returned them, sir," he said, pointing to the signed receipts in his issues book.

"Important job for Inspector Allen," said Frost, breezily signing for a third. "You'll have them all back this afternoon, without fail." He snatched a radio from the shelf and hustled Clive out before the constable could protest further.

His car, a gray, mud-splattered Morris 1100, was hidden in a side street. It was a cold day and as soon as Frost had cleared the passenger seat of a pair of dirt-caked gumboots and some yellowing Daily Mirrors, he slid in and rammed the heater switched to "High". Then he chucked the keys across to Clive and allowed himself to be chauffeured.

Inspector Frost was the sort of navigator who screamed "Turn right!" just as the car was. passing the appropriate turning. He didn't bother with advance warnings; Clive was forever slamming on the brakes and executing tight U-turns and the gumboots on the back seat kept falling to the floor.

They had left the town and were winding their way eastward down a rutted road running alongside forlorn miserable fields, unfarmed and overgrown, sites compulsorily purchased for the future expansion of Denton New Town.

To the right was one of the search parties, a thin straggle, moving slowly and methodically, poking the undergrowth with sticks, a cumulus cloud of smoky breath hovering over their heads in the cold air. Frost leaned over and honked the horn. One of the searchers turned and waved, then resumed the slow, patient prodding. Even at that distance the mud-splattered Morris was plainly identifiable.

Frost settled back in his seat, then drew dive's attention to a large clearing where a smoke-belching bulldozer was rooting up the stumps of trees.

"Used to be woods there when I was young, son. Thick woods-with birds, squirrels, the lot. Many's the time in the hot fiery days of my youth when I've taken the shy trembling lady of my choice for an advanced anatomy lesson under the green bough." He sighed deeply. "That was weeks ago, of course. Oh, we should have turned left back there, son. All right, back a bit. More… more… you've bags of room."

She was waiting for them on the doorstep, skin scrubbed clean of makeup, ash-blonde hair pulled off her face and tied with a black boot-lace ribbon. She could have been a child, until you got close and saw the lines of worry, the eyes puffy from crying and lack of sleep. When she heard the car pull up outside she was sure they were bringing Tracey back, but when she opened the door she could see there was only two men. Please, please, she thought, don't let it be bad news.

The untidy man with the scarf gave her a reassuring smile. "No news, I'm afraid, Mrs. Uphill. Couple of questions you might help us on though."

She led them through to the lounge, buttocks wriggling in tight slacks, even in grief arousing strong sexual responses from the two men.

Frost settled down in an armchair and worried away at his scar for a minute before starting his questions. He was going to have to upset her and he hated upsetting anyone. The question he should ask was, "Have you killed your daughter, Mrs. Uphill, and hidden her body somewhere?

If so, you might tell us so we can call in those poor sods searching in the cold." Instead he said, "Any further thoughts as to where Tracey might have gone, Mrs. Uphill? We've covered all the obvious places."

She brushed back a straying wisp of hair. "If I had I'd have phoned the police."

"You had no quarrel with the child? Any reason why she might have left home?"

"No. We went through all this last night!"

Frost pushed himself up from the chair. "We'd like to search the house, if you don't mind."

She looked startled. "It was searched last night."

"Children can be devils, Mrs. Uphill. She could have sneaked back in and hidden somewhere."

"She's not in the house." The woman hugged herself as though for warmth. The room was hot, but the cold was inside her. Her teeshirt had ridden up showing naked cream beneath. She looked like a frightened, lonely child and Clive wanted to put his arms around her-and not just because he wanted to reassure her.

"We haven't got all sodding day, son," snapped Frost. "We'll start at the top and work our way down."

The upper floor contained two bedrooms and a bathroom. They looked in the main bedroom first. Thick drawn curtains shut out the daylight. Clive found the switch and a tinted bulb slashed the bed with rose-colored light. The large double bed was unmade, a crumpled, flimsy lemon nightdress lying on a pillow. A pyramid of half-smoked cigarettes in the ashtray testified to a sleepless night.

They searched the room thoroughly, moving the bed and the large dressing table. Then Clive slid open the door of the built-in wardrobe and his startled gasp of horror sent Frost running over. But it was a doll; an expensive, life-sized, blonde-haired doll, the hidden-away Christmas present Tracey had asked Father Christmas for. Clive braced himself for some biting comment, but Frost mildly remarked, "Blimey, son, it looks bloody real, doesn't it?"

It was a large wardrobe, but apart from the doll, it held only clothes swaying on hangers; lots and lots of expensive clothes.

Frost pulled back the curtains and looked out on Vicarage Terrace. You could just see the vicarage and the Sunday school at the end of the street. What had happened to the child after she left that Sunday school? He shifted his gaze back to the room and the ceiling…

"Blimey!"

Clive followed his gaze. A mirror was fixed to the ceiling, positioned to reflect the occupants of the bed. The detective constable's mouth went dry as he pictured a naked, writhing Joan Uphill, her body splashed with red light, her hair spread over the pillow…

"Must be a sod to clean that," said the down-to-earth Jack Frost, adding, as an afterthought, "Perhaps the man has a feather duster stuck up his arse."

The other bedroom was the child's, the walls papered in a Tom and Jerry pattern, with nursery characters decorating the lampshade and the door of the white-painted cupboard. A row of dolls sat solemnly on a windowseat staring at the small bed which was neatly made. A small radiator heated the room, but it seemed cold… and empty.

Frost casually opened the cupboard door and an avalanche of toys cascaded to the floor at his feet. He found a Yo-Yo and demonstrated some tricky variations to his detective constable who tried not to show his contempt for Frost's childish behavior.

Frost unhooked the string from his finger and dropped the Yo-Yo back on the heap. "Tell you what, son, you do one of your thorough London searches in the bathroom while I poke this lot back in the cupboard."

The large bathroom, with its paneled tangerine bath, toilet, and washbasin, didn't take much searching, but Clive wasn't going to let the inspector show him what he'd missed. It was really too small, but he checked the bathroom cabinet. Just the usual toiletries, body cologne, talcum powder, bath foam, and an electric razor. He unscrewed the cap of the talc and sniffed the loin-stirring Joan Uphill perfume. He put the talc back and closed the cabinet. The only real possibility was the airing cupboard. He opened it up and looked inside. Most of its space was taken up by the hot-water tank and the wooden racks each side holding ironed linen. But they'd taught him to be thorough in London. Sliding out a couple of the wooden racks, he slid his hand around the back of the tank until it was wedged between hot, bare metal and the rough surface of the wall. Nothing hidden there. He could guarantee that. The space above the cylinder? More racks and more clothes. Brushing his new suit free of brickdust and cobwebs, he called across to the inspector that he'd finished.

Frost sauntered over, his mac unbuttoned and flapping. He surveyed the bathroom. "No bidet? She must chuck her fag-ends down the loo." He dropped his own cigarette end to a sizzling death, lowered the toilet seat, plonked himself down on it, and lit up a fresh one, his eyes flitting about the room.

"That was quick, son. Congratulations."

There was something in the way he said it that put Clive on his guard. Had he missed anything? Of course he hadn't, how could he? But he still felt uneasy.

Frost pumped out a mouthful of smoke.

"Did you have much trouble getting the bath panel off?"

Clive groaned inwardly. He could have kicked himself. The bath was boxed-in with plastic panels screwed to internal battens. A screamingly obvious hiding place, so obvious he'd missed it. But the scruffy old fool had spotted it.

Frost gave an understanding smile and handed Clive a screwdriver produced from the depths of the mac pocket.

After a token display of reluctance, the screws turned easily and he dropped them, one by one, into Frost's palm for safe-keeping, then off came the panel to be rested up against the other wall. The space revealed was large enough for two or three bodies but contained only dust, a heap of wood shavings, and a wet patch where the waste-pipe had been leaking.

"Nothing, sir."

Frost beamed. "I found the loot from six break-ins once, hidden behind bath panels. We knew it was in the bathroom. One brave lad even stuck his hand down the S-bend of the lav. I won't tell you what he found, but it wasn't the loot. Then I had one of my rare bright thoughts. We took out the bath panels and there it was, PS12,000 worth. A good hiding place. I wish a few more crooks were clever enough to use it. It's the first place I look now and I haven't found a bloody thing since."

A light tread on the stair and a rattle of cups.

"In here, Mrs. Uphill," called Clive.

She stopped dead when she saw the removed panel and Clive on his knees by the bath.

She knew.

She knew they weren't looking for a live child. They were looking for a body.

Her hands shook. The cups rattled.

Frost gently took the tray from her and passed it to Clive.

"You think she's dead?" she whispered. Frost didn't answer. "And am I supposed to have killed her-my own daughter?"

Frost leveled up the ends of his scarf. His voice was soft. "We see lots of rotten things in the Force, Mrs. Uphill. You'd be surprised what people do. They kill their kids. Nice people. Loving parents with beautiful children, and they kill them. We had a mother, saw her husband off to work, kissed him goodbye, then drowned her three kids in the bath. Mentally ill, of course. Afterwards she went out shopping and bought them all sweets. Couldn't understand where they were when she got back. I doubt if that's what's happened in your case, but we have to check, even at the risk of hurting your feelings."

There was silence. Even Clive was moved. Then she turned and clattered downstairs. She was sobbing.

"I wonder if she's hidden the body in the airing cupboard," said Frost.

You callous bastard, thought Clive. Aloud he said, "I've looked, sir."

' Frost accepted this and sipped his tea reflectively. "Hmm. Not bad. If she makes you a cup of tea like this afterward it's well worth the thirty quid she charges for her services. Grab a chair and come with me, son. I've found something else you must be dying to investigate."

Something else Clive had missed. A trapdoor in the ceiling just outside the bathroom. It led to the loft. Clive's torch beam crawled over the rafters. A suitcase. Big enough, but too light. He dragged it down. Inside were some infant clothes and a ball of white angora baby wool. They had been there a long time. Nearly nine years.

"We always wanted kids," said Frost, "the wife and me. She couldn't have them." He held the chair steady as Clive clambered down then diffidently dragged something from his inside pocket and offered it to the detective constable.

"I found this tucked inside Tracey's Beano Annual." Clive looked at it in wide-eyed disbelief. Frost's words didn't seem to make sense. "In her Beano Annual, sir?"

Frost nodded gravely.

It was an unretouched black and white photograph of a nude girl sitting on a draped box, leaning back, supporting herself on her hands. The model could not be identified since the top of the photograph had been torn off, although traces of dark hair could be seen resting on the shoulders. Somehow the effect seemed vaguely distasteful, not erotic, but pornographic, although there was nothing pornographic about the pose apart from the model's nudity.

Frost took the photograph back and raised it to his nose. "Smell that, son-acid fixer. Amateurs never wash their prints as thoroughly as professionals. You can always smell traces of hypo." He studied it again. "That mark on the top of her left arm, son. What do you make of it?"

Clive moved to the open door of the bathroom for more light. "It's not too clear, sir. Could be a birthmark."

"Yes, that's what I reckon." He pulled the cigarette from this mouth, flipped it into the toilet basin, and flushed it down. "I wonder who she is… and how Tracey got hold of it."

"It wouldn't be…?" Clive didn't like to say it. He pointed downstairs.

"Good Lord, no", son!" The photograph went back into his inside pocket. "I'll show it to her anyway. She's in the trade, she might recognize the model from the salient features. But first we'd better see how many bodies she's got buried in her back garden. I don't suppose you looked last night."

Clive assured him that they had.

Frost snorted. "A quick flash round with your torch in the dark-and you were looking for a living child above the surface, not for signs of recent digging."

The garden was mainly concrete patio and lawn. There were a couple of rose-beds, but the soil was rockhard and had not been disturbed. Frost probed the lawn to see if it was composed of turfs which could be reassembled to conceal a grave, but it had been sown from seed. The patio was unblemished. It contained a dustbin which they checked. Running along the side of the house there was a concrete path leading to the front. In it a black metal inspection cover to the sewage system was set. A heavy cover. It took the two of them to lift it. But desperate people with a body to hide can find hidden strength.

Frost rubbed his chin. "You'll hate me for this, son, but you're going to have to give your new suit the shock of its young life. Have a poke around down there, would you?"

My day will come, you bastard, thought Clive behind a set grin, determined not to give Frost the satisfaction of seeing his annoyance. He crouched over the hole and let his torch beam cut through to the gurgling horrors below.

Apart from the obvious, nothing. He ignored Frost's heavy-humored request to see if his cigarette end had emerged yet.

They manhandled the cover back then poked about in the garage and Mrs. Uphill's red Mini. Frost seemed to be losing interest in the proceedings, hustling Clive on before he had finished. They gave the ground floor of the house a very perfunctory going-over. The inspector wouldn't let Clive clear out the meter cupboard under the stairs.

"She's not here, son," he snapped impatiently. "Leave it."

You're the boss, thought Clive, and followed the inspector into the lounge where the young mother sat, staring blankly into the plastic logs of the electric fire.

"She's not here, Mrs. Uphill," said Frost. "Do you think her father might have taken her?"

She didn't raise her head. "I'm not married."

"I know, Mrs. Uphill, but the child has a father."

A bitter grin made her face look ugly. "Yes, she has a father. I haven't seen him since before Tracey was born-since the day I broke the news to him that I was pregnant. That's when he decided he didn't want to see me any more. Coincidence, wasn't it?"

"Does he support his child?" asked Clive.

She stood and took a cigarette from a box on the mantelpiece. "1 was paid off in a lump sum by his parents. They were willing to pay anything reasonable I might ask to make sure their poor misguided son wasn't lumbered with a promiscuous bitch like me and her bastard. And he was the first you know, there was no one else."

A silence broken by the rasping of Frost's finger against his troublesome right cheek. "And he's never been in touch with you?"

She shook her head. "If he thinks of me at all, he probably hopes I'm dead. He never even bothered to find out if he had a son or a daughter-or if I died in childbirth."

Clive felt he would like to strangle the man with his bare hands. Eight years ago. She couldn't have been more than a schoolgirl, fifteen or sixteen at the most, and a virgin. His hatred mingled with jealousy and envy.

Frost wanted the man's name and address. She found the address in an old diary. Clive made an entry in his notebook. The man's name was Ronald Conley with an address in Bristol. He'd given her the diary as a present eight years before. The flyleaf bore the neatly written inscription "To my darling Joan from Ron" followed by a string of kisses. The two-faced seducing bastard, thought Clive.

"I'm puzzled, Mrs. Uphill," said Frost.

She looked at him.

"Why didn't you meet her from Sunday school?"

She busied herself lighting a cigarette. It seemed to require her full attention.

"It's a simple question, Mrs. Uphill. One of our chaps has had a word with the Sunday school superintendent. He says you always met her, winter or summer, rain or sunshine. Yesterday was the only day you missed. Why?"

She pulled the cigarette from her mouth and spat out the answer. "Don't you think I've reproached myself? I thought she'd be all right. Just this once, I didn't meet her…" And then her anger crumbled and her body shook with dry spasms of tearless grief. Clive raised himself from his chair, ready to bound across and comfort her, but a warning glance from Frost pushed him back.

Frost's hand shot out and grabbed the woman's shoulder. "Listen. There was a man lurking outside that Sunday school last summer trying to molest the kids. You knew about him. Ever since then you've met her. When the sun was streaming down you met her. But yesterday, when it was pitch dark, you thought she'd be all right. Why?"

She shook off his grip and screamed at him, "Leave me alone, you bastard!" And then she sobbed into her hands, tears squeezing between her fingers. Frost brutally pulled the hands away and shoved his face close to hers. "I don't care a sod about your feelings, Mrs. Uphill. AH I care about is getting your daughter back and I expect you to help, not go into bloody hysterics. Why didn't you meet her?"

She recoiled as if he'd slapped her face. "I… I had a man here."

Frost beamed and settled down in a chair, his tone friendly and cheerful. "A regular?"

She nodded.

"Was he late?"

She dabbed her eyes with one of the few Kleenex tissues remaining in the box and compressed it in her hand.

"Yes. Usually he was away by 3:30. That gave me plenty ' of time to meet Tracey. But yesterday he said his train was late, or canceled, or something. It was nearly 3:30 when he arrived."

"What time did he usually come?" Frost, who had a memory like a sieve when it came to detail, glanced across the room to make sure Barnard was jotting down the times in his notebook.

"2:30."

"You'd better let us have his name and address."

She shook her head.

Frost insisted. "I'm afraid you must, Mrs. Uphill. I know you ladies have this Hippocratic oath to protect your clients' identities.…"

"It's not that," she cut in. "I don't know his address, or his name. He said it was Bob, but they don't usually tell you their right names."

"What time did he leave you yesterday?"

"About 4:25. But what has this got to do with Tracey?"

"Probably nothing, but he left as she was coming out of Sunday school. He could have seen her. Describe him."

"Well, he had a beard-"

Frost's mind raced. A beard! The man trying to entice the kids into his car… He had a beard.

The description, she gave was detailed-very detailed- right down to the appendix scar. Age thirty-four or thirty-five, light-brown hair and beard, brown eyes. From some of the other things she'd observed, Frost decided she must have seen him from some pretty unusual angles.

While Clive's pen was racing to get it all down, Frost produced the photograph. "Anyone you know, Mrs. Uphill?"

She stared at it. "No!"

"We found it in Tracey's room, hidden in a book."

Her face froze in disbelief. "Tracey's room…? You couldn't have…"

"Would it be one of yours, perhaps? I understand you ladies keep a supply of stimulating snapshots to help some of your clients get ready to perform."

"I haven't found that necessary!" she snapped.

"Perhaps she found it somewhere," said Frost, blandly, pushing it back in his pocket. "It means nothing to kids. Well, thanks for all your help. As soon as there's any news…"

She saw them out and watched them walk to the car. Curtains twitched at windows on each side of the street.

"Bloody nosey neighbors," snorted Clive, "and none of them bothered to go in and comfort her. In London you wouldn't have been able to move for women making pots of tea."

But Frost was looking through the car window at the figure in the doorway. "If I had thirty quid to spare, son, I'd ask you to keep the engine running for five minutes." He shivered. "Hurry up, it's cold. Bung on the heater."

Clive started the engine. "Back to the station, sir?"

No reply. Frost was deep in thought. Suddenly he snapped out of his trance. "Tell me, son, why the hell should anyone want to jemmy the front doors of a bank at three o'clock in the morning?"

"Eh?" said Clive, wondering what the hell this had to do with Tracey Uphill.

"Someone tried to jemmy the front door of Bennington's Bank in the Market Square in the wee small hours of this morning. I'm wondering why."

"To force an entry, sir?" suggested Clive, in the tones of one explaining the obvious to an idiot.

Frost snorted. "Through the front door of a bank? The big main doors?"

Clive tried again. "Perhaps someone just wanted to damage the door, someone with a grudge against the bank."

The inspector wasn't having this either. "You could do more damage peeing through the letterbox. Ah well, life has its little mysteries. Well, come on, son, what are we waiting for? Reverse and back out the way we came."

Barnard reversed. "Where are we going, sir?"

"To find this lucky sod with the beard, the appendix scar, and the weekly season ticket."

"And how are we going to do that?" persisted Clive.

1 Frost smiled and rearranged his scarf. "If he came by train, we start with the railway station. I'll tell you the way."

They passed a dark, gloomy building. Frost jerked a thumb. "That's the vicarage and Sunday school. The church is farther back."

"Looks a bit of a dump, sir."

"Yes. My wife's buried in the churchyard."

An uneasy silence as the journey proceeded, then: "Doing anything for Christmas, son?"

"I don't know yet, sir."

"I'm on duty Christmas Day. You can come on with me if you like."

Christ, thought Barnard, I'd rather have all my teeth out. Aloud he said, "I might have to go to my uncle's."

"Well, don't say I didn't offer," replied Frost. "Oh, we should have turned right at that crossing."