Frost at Christmas

MONDAY-6

The Old Wood, about two miles north of Vicarage Terrace, straggled over some four hundred acres. Clive and the inspector crashed and floundered in the dark between rows of wind-lashed, creaking skeleton trees as they tried to locate the two police constables who had found the scarf, and it was only by chance that Clive spotted the gleam of torches.

"Over there, sir."

The torches homed them in. "We said by the oak, sir," said one of the policemen reproachfully.

"I only know two sorts of trees," replied Frost, "big ones and little ones. Show us what you've found."

A flashlight was directed toward a bush where a flapping scarf, impaled on some thorns, resisted the efforts of the wind to pluck it off.

"How was this missed when the woods were covered before?" asked Frost, fingering the wool.

"It would take days to search this place thoroughly, sir, and they were looking for the girl, or her body. You tend to look on the ground."

"So, if she was up a tree, no one would spot her," remarked Frost. "Still, I'm glad it was missed. I was begin ning to think people who worked under Inspector Allen were infallible."

Clive was interested in the way the scarf was caught in the thorns. If he pulled it toward him, it would come off easily; tug it the other way and the thorns bit deeper.

"Assuming she was wearing the scarf when it was caught on the bush, sir, then she was moving in that direction." He demonstrated his theory to Frost who was most impressed.

"We'd already worked that out," muttered the younger of the police constables, jealous of this broken-nosed know-all.

"Then you shall have a sweet as well," said Frost, as he carefully unhooked the scarf and rammed it in his pocket. "Where does this lead?" He slithered down the path in the direction indicated by dive's theory.

"Careful, sir!" warned the young constable.

Frost stopped abruptly. The path suddenly veered to the left, and if he'd carried straight on he'd have plunged into the murky depths of Willow Lake.

The edge of the lake was not clearly definable, with overgrown vegetation from the path sprawling into the water. They carefully traversed the circumference, looking for tell-tale broken undergrowth. But if the child had crashed through to the water she'd left no trace.

Clive let the beam of his torch crawl across the black, sullen surface of the lake. The light picked out the glistening ripple of thin ice. In a couple of days it would be frozen solid.

"We'll have it dragged tomorrow, first thing," muttered Frost, rubbing at his scar which the cold had frozen into a knot of dead, hard flesh. "We knew the girl was in the woods, so it's no triumph finding her scarf… if it is her scarf. We'll call in on old Mother Uphill on the way back, son, and see if she can identify it."

The uniformed men were stamping their feet and flapping their arms. "We'll carry on looking then, Inspector?"

Frost nodded. "Yes. I'll try and get Control to send some more men to help you. I know it's bloody near impossible finding anything in this place in the dark, but another night in the open could kill her." He looked at the lake and shivered. "If she's not already dead…"

An expensive-looking car stood outside No. 29 Vicarage Terrace, and Clive had to park the Morris farther down the street. In the house opposite, Christmas-tree lights flashed on and off. Mrs. Uphill's door opened and a well-dressed man came out. He waved to the slim figure at the front door, entered the expensive car, and slid away into the dark.

Frost called out so she wouldn't close the door. She waited as they walked briskly up the path.

"A client?" Frost jerked his head to the departing visitor.

She gave a little shrug. "I've got to live."

She showed them into the lounge, which smelt richly of cigar smoke, and lit a cigarette from the box on the mantelpiece. She daren't ask them why they had come in case the answer was what she dreaded to hear.

Frost produced the scarf from his pocket and handed it to her without a word.

The color drained from her face and she sat down heavily. "It's Tracey's." Her finger found a hole in the wool. "I was going to mend it, but there was never time." Then she buried her face in her hands and her body shook. "I wish I could cry," she said, "I wish I could cry."

"We haven't found her yet," explained Frost. He told her about Tracey following Audrey Harding and her boyfriend into the wood. "We've got men searching there tonight and we'll be mounting a full-scale search at first light tomorrow."

Her face was expressionless. She knew the wood, she knew the lake, she knew what the weather was like. Her finger wouldn't stop worrying the hole in the scarf. The two men didn't know what to say and words of assurance would have sounded hollow anyway, so it was almost a relief when the shrill trill of the telephone shattered the brittle silence.

A flicker of apprehension as she forced herself to walk across the room to answer it. She listened without expression then carefully replaced the receiver.

"Obscene call?" asked Frost.

"The sixth today."

"There's a lot of rotten bastards about. Would you like us to have your calls intercepted?"

She shook her head. "I can put up with them. I've heard a lot worse that that."

"If it gets too bad," said Clive, gently prising the scarf from her reluctant fingers, "let us know."

The scarf was gone but her fingers were still working as if finding that hole. Frost and Barnard let themselves out, and left her huddled in the armchair, looking small, helpless, and so alone.

Clive turned on the ignition. "She shouldn't be on her own, sir. Someone should stay the night with her."

"Are you volunteering?" asked Frost. "I'll sub you the thirty quid if you are short."

The detective constable savagely slammed the car around the corner and said nothing for the rest of the journey.

"She identified the scarf, Sarge," yelled Frost as they bustled through the lobby.

Another shift had taken over and it was a bearded station sergeant Clive had not yet met who waved a hand in acknowledgment. Clive was relieved that Frost did not pause for introductions. He had met so many people that day his head was spinning with a blur of half-remembered faces and names. Tomorrow, Bill Wells and the original shift would take over again. It was like seeing a very long film around to the point where you came in, a long time ago…

When they reached the door of the station control room, Frost suddenly stopped dead and, finger to lips, signaled Clive to silence. Cautiously, he eased open the door. The controller, P.C. Philip Ridley, was bent over a microphone, relaying a message to a police car. Frost tiptoed in and crossed stealthily to the corner where returned personal radios were being recharged from the mains. A quick look to make certain he was undetected and he pulled down the issues book from a shelf. He found the entry for the personal radio issued to him a few days earlier and with consummate skill forged a signature acknowledging its return. Replacing the book he tiptoed out. The controller, still at the microphone, was completely unaware that he had had a visitor.

"Fine bloody copper he is," murmured Frost, grabbing dive's arm and hustling him down the corridor. "A spot of forgery, son," he explained. "I had a set pinched from my car and I daren't let anyone know so I've just put the records straight."

Their next port of call was Search Control where a tired Detective Sergeant Martin had just finished working out schedules and instructions, to be presented to the various search parties at the next morning's briefing meeting. He showed them to the inspector who pretended to understand them and handed them back with vigorous noises of approval.

"What about the dragging party, George, for Willow Lake?"

Martin confirmed it was laid on for eight o'clock in the morning, adding, "We could only scrape up another three men to help search the wood. Most of our chaps have worked double shifts as it is."

"Fair enough," said Frost, tagging Tracey's scarf and locking it in a cupboard. "I'll look in on them later to see how they're getting on."

Martin paused in the act of buttoning his thick overcoat. "By the way, Jack, Mr. Mullett was in earlier screaming blue murder because someone had smashed the back of his brand-new Jaguar."

Frost's face expressed over-exaggerated concern. "Tut tut-I hope they catch the bastard who did it."

"He left a note on your desk," Martin added.

"Christ!" said Frost, and this time the concern was real.

The note, written in the Divisional Commander's firm hand, read:

County H.Q. advise me they have not received your crime statistics. I have promised them they will get them tomorrow morning, without fail. M.

Frost flopped into his chair. "Interfering sod. If he's promised them, he should do them. Did you get those figures out, son?"

Clive reminded the inspector that he was told to leave them.

Frost sniffed. "You may find this hard to believe, son, but there are some rotten sods who don't do their statistical returns the proper, honest way. They cheat by doing this," and he picked up the phone and dialed his opposite number in a neighboring division.

"Hello, Charlie-Jack. Of course my watch hasn't stopped. I'm still working and bloody hard, too. You done your crime statistics? Good, what was the trend, up or down? Seven per cent up? Disgraceful, you should be ashamed of yourself. Ours? About the same. Here, did I tell you the joke about the bloke who drunk the spittoon for a bet? Oh

… Well, cheers. If I don't speak to you before, have a nice Christmas."

He replaced the receiver with a triumphant flourish.

"The figures are up 7 per cent son, so we find last month's return, we up the answers by 7 per cent, and we're home and dry. This is the wrong way to do them, of course, and must never in any circumstances be used unless you are sure you can get away with it."

It took them an hour. The job could have been done quicker, but Frost, working out 7 per cents on the backs of old envelopes, kept getting a different answer from Clive and had to do his calculations again before he could agree. "I'm better at sums once I know the answer I'm aiming for," he explained, licking the gummed label that addressed the return to County Headquarters. "How's the time, son?"

Clive screwed the sleep from his eyes and looked at his watch. "Nearly midnight, sir." He'd been on duty for fifteen hours.

"Good," said Frost, "Just a couple more jobs to do, then we can go home."

He stuck his head round the door of Search Control where a uniformed man on night shift was keeping an eye on things.

"Just going to the woods with the new chap," he announced.

Clive winced. The new chap! He felt as if he had been trotting along behind Frost for at least twenty years.

The wind was waiting for them at the woods. It tore and bit and hammered as they wandered in the dark trying to locate the search party. Eventually the search party found them. A torch shone in their faces. The constable holding it was shivering with cold.

"Call it a night," said Frost. "We don't want you all going down with pneumonia. I can't stand funerals at Christmas. Anyway, if she's spent a day and a night in the open, she's dead, so we might as well find the body tomorrow as tonight. Let the mother hope for a while longer. Come on, son."

Back to the car. "Where to, sir?"

"The town, son."

Thank goodness, thought his detective constable, home and bed at last.

As they sped toward the town a church clock chimed… one o'clock on a cold and frosty morning. The streets they passed were empty, the lights out in the houses, and it seemed as though they were the only two people in the world who heard that single chime rolling across the sleeping countryside.

The Market Square at last, with its lighted shop windows and the tall Christmas tree outside the public lavatories. But what the hell was the silly old fool up to, now? The inspector motioned for Clive to turn the car down one of the dark side streets leading off the square. A couple of sharp right turns and, "Pull up here, son… quietly."

The car coasted the last few yards and came to a halt in the dark shadow of the side entrance to Woolworth's. Across the road, brightly illuminated by a tall streetlamp, the solid shape of Bennington's Bank. Frost switched off the radio and wound down the side window. The car sucked in cold air and Clive shivered and silently cursed all detective inspectors.

"Little spot of observation," croaked Frost. "Shouldn't take long."

It took an hour, a long, cold hour, marked off by two more clanking chimes from the church clock. The inspector was slumped in his seat, his scarf round his ears, breathing heavily, his face child-like in repose.

Typical, seethed Clive. The stupid git has gone to sleep and hasn't even told me what we're supposed to be watching for.

But the eyelids were not tightly closed; they fluttered and a hand gently squeezed Clive's arm.

In the doorway of the bank someone moved. A duffle-coated figure, the face hidden in the depths of the hood. The head moved from side to side, checking, then a long metallic object was produced from inside the coat. A scraping of metal. The shattering pistol crack of splintering wood.

Clive grabbed the door handle, ready for the plunge across the cobbled road, but was pushed back. "Just watch son… that's all… watch."

Someone else had heard the noise. The running feet of the foot-patrol police constable clip-clopped down Bath Hill. A loud clang as the duffle-coat dropped the jemmy and ran into the blackness of a side-turning, vanishing long before the beat man was anywhere near. Accepting defeat, the constable gave up the chase and returned to examine the marks on the bank door. He picked up the jemmy, then began to speak rapidly into his personal radio.

Frost had seen all he wanted to see. He asked Clive to reverse quietly and at 2:15 they were straining up Bath Hill to Clive's digs.

"Do me a favor son, keep quiet about this for the mo ment. Ah-this is you, isn't it?"

Clive stepped out of the car and Frost slid into the driver's seat muttering something about an early start tomorrow.

The lights were out at No. 26. As he bent to locate the keyhole something cold and wet kissed the back of Clive's neck. He raised his head. It was snowing, idly at first, and then in clusters of thick swirling flakes. He wondered if tracker dogs were any good in snow. He couldn't remember, he was so tired…