Night Frost

Wednesday afternoon shift

Harry Greenway dropped a tea-bag into a mug and drowned it with boiling water from the kettle. He felt uneasy. He didn’t know why. On top of the fridge the portable radio was tuned into the local station where The Beatles were singing ‘Eleanor Rigby’. Greenway pulled a face and switched it off. A miserable, lonely song about death. He wasn’t in the mood for it. He was raising the mug to his mouth when his ears picked up the soft gentle click of a car door being carefully closed. Instantly, his hand shot out to the light switch. From the darkened kitchen he twitched back the curtains.

Two men were walking up the path, one middle-aged and scruff the other in his late twenties with the look of a thug. Greenway cupped his hand to the window pane to see better. The older man, a maroon scarf hanging unevenly round his neck had a scar of some kind on his cheek. He didn’t recognize either of them, but they spelled trouble.

A half-hearted knock at the front door which sounded almost too deliberately reassuring. The dog at his feet, a nine-month-old Dobermann, sprang up and started to growl, then to bark. He grabbed its collar and shut it in the lounge where it barked even louder. Another knock, a little stronger this time. Greenway reached for the heavy walking stick he kept on the hall table as he cautiously opened up. The scruffy man was smiling apologetically.

‘Mr Greenway? Sorry to bother you so late, sir. We called earlier, but you were out.’ He held something up. Greenway’s heart faltered and skipped a beat. It was a police warrant card.

‘Police?’ he stammered. God, how had they found out?

‘Routine enquiry,’ purred the man who he noted from the warrant card was Detective Inspector Frost. ‘All right if we come in?’ And without waiting to be asked, they were in the hall.

Routine enquiry? They don’t send detective inspectors on routine enquiries, not even rag-bags like this one. He felt his hands trembling. He forced a smile of unconcern. ‘I was just going to cook my dinner.’

‘This won’t take long, sir,’ said Frost.

Hearing strange voices, the dog was barking and frantically scratching at the lounge door.

Greenway smiled. ‘I’d better put Spike outside. He can get quite nasty with strangers.’ They stood well back as he opened the lounge door and grabbed the Dobermann’s collar as it leapt out. ‘Find yourselves seats,’ he called, dragging the snarling dog past them and into the kitchen.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Frost, giving the dog a wide berth and following Gilmore into the lounge, a grotty room with a well-worn and sagging three-piece suite and old newspapers heaped on every chair. The settee had been dragged in front of the television set, at the side of which a waste bin over flowed with empty lager cans. Frost strode around, prodding, poking.

‘Look at this!’ Gilmore was holding up a girlie magazine with a picture of a busty blonde dressed in school uniform on the front cover.

But Frost was beginning to feel uneasy. ‘He’s taking a bloody long time putting that dog out… Shit!’ He spat out the expletive at the growl of an engine starting up out side. Twice in the same flaming day ‘The bastard’s done a runner!’

They dashed to the back door where a snarling Dobermann barred their way. Back along the passage and out the front door, just in time to see the rear lights of a delivery van disappearing into the dark.

Back in the car, bumping and jolting in hot pursuit, Frost fumed and castigated himself for letting the sod walk out so easily. Why hadn’t he taken more men and posted someone at the back? If Greenway got away, he’d never hear the last of it from Mullett. ‘Faster, son,’ he urged Gilmore as the red rear-lights ahead shrunk to pinpricks.

‘This car’s not in the best of condition,’ Gilmore retorted as the Cortina shook and shuddered in protest at the unaccustomed increased speed. A warning light on the oil gauge kept flashing and there was a hot metal burning smell. ‘Hadn’t you better radio Control for some back-up?’

Frost hesitated. Of course they needed back-up, but he was hoping they could get by without the station knowing what a twat he had made of himself. A teeth-setting grinding noise from the engine made up his mind. He radioed for help.

‘Do you mean to say,’ howled Mullett, snatching the microphone from Sergeant Wells, ‘that you just let him drive off?’ He had been hovering in Control, awaiting confirmation of a successful arrest.

‘Just get me back-up — over and out,’ muttered Frost, banging down the handset, aware that he had only delayed a Grade A bollocking from his superintendent. ‘Where’s the bugger gone?’ The red lights had vanished. ‘Look out,’ he screamed as a dark shape loomed up in front of the wind screen.

Gilmore jammed on the brakes. The tires screeched and the car slewed to a halt, throwing Frost heavily against Gilmore who almost lost control of the wheel. They had pulled up within inches of Greenway’s delivery van.

‘What’s the silly bugger playing at?’ asked Frost, all fingers and thumbs as he tried to release his seat belt. He was answered by Greenway blurring into vision at the side of the Cortina, swinging what they later realized was a long-handled sledge-hammer. A clanging thud which shook the car and nearly deafened them, then a splintering and shattering as the windscreen crazed into an opaque honeycombed sheet. When Frost finally managed to release the seat belt and leap from the car he was just in time to see the rear lights of the van dwindling into the distance.

‘Shit!’ yelled Frost yet again, after they had knocked out enough of the shivered windscreen to see where they were going. They limped off after Greenway, eyes streaming, faces stinging from the ice-hard punch of cold gritty air. Control had advised them that area car Hotel Tango was on its way to afford them assistance.

But they had lost too much time. The road was dead straight ahead and the van was nowhere to be seen. Turning his head to one side for protection against the slip-stream, Frost groped for the handset. ‘We’ve lost him, I think. Last seen heading towards the motorway.’

‘Hotel Tango receiving,’ replied Simms. ‘We are in position by motorway exit. Will block.’

‘Bully for you, Hotel Tango,’ said Frost, turning up his coat collar and sinking low in his seat to try and escape the worst of the slip-stream. He attempted to light a cigarette but the match died in its battle against the wind.

A gargle of squelch from the radio, then Hotel Tango, very excited. ‘He’s spotted us. He’s skidded round. He’s heading back in your direction. Am in pursuit.’

‘There he is!’ yelled Gilmore. Fast-approaching headlights flared and blinded and a horn screamed for them to get out of the way.

‘Block him,’ shouted Frost.

Not too happy about this, Gilmore spun the wheel, turning the car side on to the oncoming vehicle.

The headlights got nearer and nearer, the van’s horn screaming and pleading. From behind came more headlights and the piercing wail of Hotel Tango’s siren in pursuit.

‘He’s not going to stop!’ screamed Gilmore, blinded by the dazzle of the headlights as he hit his seat belt release.

‘Jump,’ yelled Frost, thankful he hadn’t refastened his seat belt after the last incident. He pushed open the door and dived out on to the road, rolling over and just regaining his feet as the van impacted, smashing into the car and sending it spinning. Tires squealed and smoked. The van’s engine raced impotently, then it started to back away. But the approaching police car was too close and Hotel Tango skidded to a halt, siren still blaring, blocking the road right behind the van.

Car doors opened and slammed. Two uniformed men emerged from the area car and approached cautiously from the rear. Gilmore, rubbing grazed elbows, advanced from the front. The cab door jerked open and Greenway leapt out, tightly gripping the sledgehammer which he brandished threateningly.

Crouching slightly, ready to leap, Gilmore edged nearer. Greenway spun round, whirling the sledge-hammer above his head, his eyes wild and threatening.

‘Drop that, you silly sod!’ roared Frost. Momentarily distracted, Greenway jerked his head towards the inspector giving the two uniformed men the opportunity to risk a dash forward, but they were not quick enough. Greenway twisted round, swinging the hammer in a two-handed grip. As they backed away, Gilmore made his move, leaping on Greenway from behind, locking his arm tightly round the man’s neck in a strangulating grip making him drop the hammer as he tried to prise Gilmore’s arm away. A back elbow jab from Greenway almost paralysed Gilmore who cried in pain and slackened his hold which was enough for Greenway to dive to regain the hammer. He almost had it when he shrieked in agony as the heel of Frost’s shoe stamped down on his hand with the inspector’s full weight bearing down. ‘You bastard!!’

‘Naughty, naughty!’ admonished Frost, only easing off his foot so Gilmore could pull Greenway’s wrists behind him and snap on the handcuffs.

Gilmore stood up and brushed dirt from his grey suit then yanked his prisoner to his feet. ‘You’ve broken my bloody hand,’ whimpered Greenway. ‘I want a doctor.’

‘You’ll want an undertaker if you don’t shut up,’ said Frost. ‘It’s police brutality week Now get in that bloody car.’ They all squeezed into the area car and drove back to the station. It was a silent drive. Greenway said nothing, just stared straight ahead. He didn’t even ask what the charge was.

‘Number 2 Interview Room,’ called Wells as they marched their prisoner through the lobby.

‘I want a doctor. The bastards have broken my hand,’ called Greenway, giving a good impersonation of a man in agony.

‘Get him a doctor,’ ordered Mullett, who was hovering excitedly in the background, grinning like a man with two dicks. ‘We’re going to play this one by the book.’ He called the inspector over. ‘The Chief Constable’s thrilled to bits about this, Frost.’

‘Then let’s hope we don’t disappoint the old git,’ replied Frost. ‘Our suspect’s playing the injured innocent at the moment.’

‘I’ve got a full Forensic team going over Greenway’s cottage, inch by inch,’ said Mullett. ‘As soon as they come up with something, I’ll let you know.’ He squeezed Frost’s shoulder. ‘I have every confidence in you, Inspector.’

Then you must be bloody mad, muttered Frost under his breath as Mullett returned to the old log cabin. Whenever people expressed confidence, the doubts welled up.

‘Shall I get a doctor?’ asked Wells.

‘Later,’ said Frost. ‘When I’ve finished with him. The odd jolt of pain might improve his concentration.’