Frost At Christmas

by R D Wingfield

  “As robbery could be the motive, shouldn’t we have someone watching the house?” asked George Martin.

  “I daren’t frighten him off in case it’s genuine, George,” Frost said. “Don’t forget he’s threatened to kill the kid if Mrs. Uphill contacts the police.”

  Forensic phoned. Could Frost get over to the lab right away? Something interesting.

  “You’ll remember to switch your radio on, sir, so we can get in touch with you?” asked the detective sergeant.

  “Of course,” said Frost, in feigned surprise, “don’t I always?”

  In the lobby Johnnie Johnson was taking details of a driving license and insurance-certificate from a truculent youth in a brown leather jacket. Frost nipped over and whispered a few words, telling him about the overtime return.

  Johnnie put down his pen and looked at Frost in joyful disbelief. “You jammy old bastard,” he said.

  It was a cold, slithery ten-mile drive to the county forensic laboratory. The weather had worsened and they passed two cars abandoned in drifts.

  The laboratory, a modern, single-storied building, stuck in the middle of nowhere, welcomed them with the warm antiseptic breath of its hot-air system as they trampled slush over the two-tone gray carpet tiles in the reception area and walked past an unmanned mahogany counter draped with potted plants. There were two old friends on the wall, the poster identifying the Colorado Beetle and a Foot and Mouth Disease Movement restriction order which made them feel at home in alien surroundings.

  They followed a dimly lit corridor to swing doors, through which they found the laboratory proper. Frigid bluish-white fluorescent lighting glared down on the pathologist and three white-coated assistants who were crouching busily over a long bench.

  The pathologist beckoned them over and led them to a table draped with thick polythene sheeting on which lay the completed jigsaw puzzle of the skeleton, the gaping eye-sockets staring blindly into the white fluorescent sun.

  “He’s cleaned up nicely, hasn’t he?” said the pathologist proudly, scraping a blob of dirt from the lower jaw. “Have a look at this,” and he picked up the remains of the lower right arm. “This wasn’t broken or chewed off by animals. It was deliberately hacked off—apparently with an ax.”

  “Hacked off?” exclaimed Frost.

  “Precisely. There can be no doubt.”

  “Before or after death?”

  The pathologist stroked the bone with loving care. “We can only guess, but I’d hazard shortly after death, before serious decomposition took place. It’s only a theory, of course, but my guess is that the arm was severed in an attempt to remove the chained case.”

  “But it was still on the arm,” Frost pointed out.

  “Agreed. Whoever chopped it, chopped too high up and wouldn’t have been able to slide the metal wrist band over the severed end. The victim was probably fleshy and a little fat. You try and drag your wristwatch up your arm, you’ll find it gets stuck half-way.”

  “Why cut off the arm to remove a locked and empty case?” asked Frost.

  “You’re the detective, not me,” replied the pathologist, scratching his chin with the severed bone before carefully replacing it in its allotted place. “But you’ve missed the best bit—look,” and he pointed to the skull. It was so obvious that at first Frost missed it, then he and Clive saw it at the same time.

  “Good God!”

  The skull had a third eye smack in the middle of its forehead. The third eye was small, neat, and precision drilled.

  “This is what made the hole,” said the pathologist, and he dropped a small transparent envelope containing a dull mess of flattened metal into Frost’s palm. “It’s a revolver bullet. We found it inside the skull, mixed up with the dirt.”

  Frost held the envelope to the light and examined the discolored metal from all angles. “So this is what killed him, Doc?”

  But the pathologist wasn’t going to be led into saying anything definite. “All I can say after all this time is that if he was alive when this bullet was fired at him, then this is what killed him. I can find no other cause of death. We’re having the soil analyzed, but after all these years . . .” He finished the sentence with a hopeless shrug, then led them to a side bench where a bald man was scraping away at bits of rusty metal.

  “Show the inspector the other things we found, Arnold.”

  Arnold was only too happy to oblige. “Nothing spectacular, I’m afraid, Mr. Frost. Everything rottable had rotted, so all we’re left with are metal objects. For example, these metal trouser buttons. No zips, of course—men didn’t trust zips back in the 1950s.”

  “I don’t trust them now,” said Frost. “I had an unfortunate experience. That’s when you reckon he died, then—the 1950s?”

  Arnold nodded. “We’re doing more tests, but everything points that way.” He raked among the rest of the deceased’s effects and found a flat, round pitted object. “This is what’s left of his wristwatch. A cheap pallet movement, probably pre-war. Over there is the money, which you know about, and there’s these . . .” He rattled a crusted keyring containing two small desk keys, a larger key, and a flat Yale key, all in surprisingly good condition. And that was all the skeleton had to show for itself.

  “No car keys,” Clive pointed out.

  “Not an awful lot of private cars about in the fifties,” said Arnold. “Petrol rationing was still on, I think.”

  Frost spotted a tiny heap of rusty crumbs. “What are they?”

  “Remains of cobblers’ tacks from his shoes. They used to nail the soles on in those days.”

  Frost dug his hands in his pockets and stared for a moment at the pathetic piles of scrap, then turned and regarded the bones stretched out on the polythene sheeting. “So what do we know about him? He was shot, he had a few bob in his pocket, he buttoned up his fly, and he died more than thirty years ago. Not much to go on. Any special features, Doc, that would help us identify him, like a ten-foot dick or eight fingers on each hand?”

  The pathologist gritted his teeth. “I can’t give you much, Inspector. He was between thirty-five and forty, he’d had extensive dental work carried out on his teeth . . .”

  “That’s the best place to have it carried out,” observed Frost, ignoring the withering glance.

  “If I may continue . . . He broke his left arm about five years before he died. If you look carefully you can see the line of the fracture. That’s all I’ve got at the moment.”

  “The case,” prompted Arnold.

  “Ah yes . . . I was forgetting. We’ve paid a lot of attention to the case chained to his wrist. It was very strong and obviously specially made for the job—the sort of thing cashiers use for carting large sums of money about. We managed to read the maker’s name on the lock—Smith-Curtis—they used to specialize in safes and strongboxes and things.”

  “Used to?” asked the inspector, warily.

  “They went out of business in 1955, so no help there, I’m afraid. By the way, how is Inspector Allen? I was very sorry to learn of his illness.”

  “Not half so bloody sorry as I am now,” replied Frost.

  TUESDAY (5)

  It was as if he had the power to provoke reaction. The minute Frost walked in to Search Control, the previously dumb loudspeaker monitoring Mrs. Uphill’s phone gave a little click and the spool of the tape recorder began to revolve. Someone was dialing her number.

  Brr . . . brr . . . Brr—She answered it on the third ring.

  “Remember me?”

  Everyone in the room stiffened and held his breath. It was the kidnapper. Frost hissed for Barnard to ring Control on the internal and ask if Charlie Alpha two could see anyone.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Uphill, “I remember you. How is Tracey?”

  “Her cold’s a little worse, I’m afraid. There’s no heat where she is, you see, but if you get her home tonight, I think she should live.”

  Charlie Alpha two had the phone box in clear view. It was empty.

&
nbsp; “Damn,” snapped Frost, “he’s found another one. Let’s hope the G.P.O. can trace it in time.”

  “Please,” said the loudspeaker, “I want her back. I’ll do anything.”

  “You only have to do what you’re told . . . but do it to the letter. I’m saying it once and once only. Put the money in a carrier bag, then go for a walk down the Bath Road toward Exham.”

  “I’ve got a car. I’ll go by car.”

  “You will walk . . . do you understand? Walk on the left-hand side. Just past the antique shop there’s a public call box. Wait there for my call. I’ll give you further instructions.”

  A click and the death rattle of the dial tone.

  The office phone rang. It was the telephone engineers. Very sorry, but they hadn’t been able to trace the call. They were told to monitor the call box outside the antique shop. Frost yelled across for George Martin to get Mrs. Uphill on her phone before she left, then he spun round and ordered Clive to ask Control to send Charlie Alpha two tearing round to the other phone box to wait for Mrs. Uphill. Immediately she received the kidnapper’s fresh instructions they were to radio them back to Control.

  Frost leaned back in his chair, happy. This is what he could understand, this is what he could do. Action. But something was wrong. George Martin, the phone pressed to his ear, was drumming impatient fingers on his desk.

  “Mrs. Uphill isn’t answering, Jack.”

  “You sure you got the right number?”

  In reply the detective sergeant leaned over and turned up the volume of the monitor speaker. The ringing tone of his call roared out. He hung up and the ringing tone was replaced by the dial tone.

  “All right, turn it down. You’ve made your point. Couldn’t the stupid cow have waited for a minute?”

  Barnard, his shoulder hunched to hold the internal phone to his ear, called across. “Message from Charlie Alpha two, sir. They’re at the new phone box and are waiting for Mrs. Uphill to arrive.”

  Frost acknowledged with a nod.

  George Martin thumbed some tobacco in his pipe. “We should have someone following her, sir.”

  “She’s on foot,” retorted Frost, “and she’s going up Bath Road which is as straight as a bloody die. Anyone following would be spotted a mile off. If this bloke’s keeping tabs on her, we’d frighten him away. Apart from that, I didn’t bloody-well think of it.” He yawned and offered round his cigarettes. Everyone who smoked took one to relieve the tension and the room was soon blue-hazed. No one spoke. The clock ticked. All eyes were on Barnard who was waiting for Control to pass the message from Charlie Alpha that Mrs. Uphill had reached them.

  Frost found his chair suddenly hard. He stood and stretched wearily, then looked out of the window. It was snowing again. He flicked ash into the wastepaper basket.

  “What was that? Control?”

  All eyes swiveled to Clive. They saw him nod, then ease the phone from his ear. “Charlie Alpha, sir—nothing to report.”

  “Then tell them not to be so bloody efficient. I’m not interested in nothing!”

  The minute hand on the hall clock clunked round to the next division.

  The warning buzzer sounded in the inspector’s brain.

  “Something’s gone wrong. She should have reached there by now.”

  Martin tried to reassure him. “You can’t walk very quickly in this snow, Jack—especially in high heels.”

  “She won’t give a sod about high heels,” snapped Frost. “She’d run to get her kid back . . . she’d run.” He paced up and down, kicking at imaginary balls. The minute hand on the wall clock clunked relentlessly on.

  “She’s had time to walk all the way to bloody Bath and back by now. Are you sure those two bright herberts are waiting at the right phone box?”

  Barnard relayed the query to Control and then reported the reply back to Frost. Charlie Alpha two was waiting in a side road near the phone box by the antique shop. They could see some way down the Bath Road. There was no sign of Mrs. Uphill.

  Frost phoned her house again. It was just possible she had returned for something. Brr . . . brr . . . The speaker relayed the sad, lonely sound a phone makes when it isn’t going to be answered. He thumped the receiver down. “I remember phoning a girl once . . .”

  But the anecdote was left untold. The hairy face of the station sergeant poked round the door.

  “Excuse me butting in, Inspector, but you’ve got Charlie Alpha two standing by on the Bath Road, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, Johnnie—why?”

  “We’ve just had a motorist phone in. He’s found a woman unconscious at the side of the road. We’ve sent for an ambulance, but Charlie Alpha could be there in a couple of seconds and I’d like them to get some details.”

  The silence was electric. Everyone in the room was thinking . . . fearing . . . the same thing.

  “Yes—tell Control it’s all right, and say that Charlie Alpha has got to wait for me. Come on, son!” He flew out of the room with Barnard hard on his heels. Clive prided himself on his fitness but had a job keeping up with the older man charging across the car park in the snow. By the time Clive had reached the car, Frost had already started up the engine, but he moved to let his detective constable take the wheel.

  “Which way, sir?”

  “Just follow that ambulance.”

  The flashing blue light led them through the darkness like a frantic Pied Piper, hurling round corners, ignoring traffic signals. And then, ahead, another flashing blue light. Charlie Alpha. They skidded to a snow-spraying halt, just avoiding running into the back of the ambulance whose brakes were better than Frost’s. A police constable, bending over a shape on the ground covered by a police greatcoat, straightened up as the ambulance men ran over with their stretcher and thick red blanket. They moved so quickly, they were sliding the laden stretcher into the back of the ambulance before Frost and Barnard could reach them. The Inspector yelled for them to stop and pulled the blanket from the face. It was Mrs. Uphill. Eyes closed, face chalk white, looking about fifteen years old.

  “How is she?”

  “She’s had a nasty wallop on the head. Don’t think the skull’s fractured, though. Lucky that chap found her, otherwise she could have frozen to death.”

  The man, wearing a sheepskin motoring coat, was leaning against a yellow Escort and was being questioned by a policeman.

  The rear doors of the ambulance clunked shut and its flashing blue light dwindled to a pinprick along the straight-as-a-die Bath Road.

  Clive bent and picked something from the ground. It was Mrs. Uphill’s handbag. Frost opened it and flashed his torch inside. The usual female brickabrack, but the change purse that should have been there was missing. Clive was detailed to search the vicinity for the £2000 in the carrier bag, not that Frost had any hopes it would be found.

  The man in the sheepskin coat had just finished giving details to the police constable as Frost sauntered over and introduced himself.

  “You didn’t see anything then, sir?” Frost asked the man when the constable had filled him in.

  “No. I just saw her lying there—my headlights picked her out. I thought she’d been knocked down by a hit-and-run. I phoned and waited for your chaps, but I didn’t really expect I’d have to stand here and answer all these questions. I’ve got an urgent appointment and I’m late now.”

  Frost sympathized with him. “It’s usually the way when you try and help, isn’t it, sir? Makes us all the more grateful when, in spite of it all, the public still bothers to assist us. You’ve got the gentleman’s particulars, Constable?”

  The police driver handed him the man’s driving license. Frost flipped through it; it was all in order. Barnard returned from his search and gave the thumbs-down sign.

  “You didn’t spot a carrier bag, I suppose, sir?” asked Frost on the off-chance.

  The man shook his head emphatically. “I’m afraid I can’t help you any more.” His hand moved to the door handle.

  “
Just before you go, sir, do you think we could take a look in the boot of the car?”

  “The boot? Look—I just stopped to report an accident.”

  “Won’t take a minute, sir. There’s some money missing and my superior would take it amiss if I deviated from my usual high standards and let a car go off unsearched. If I could have the keys, sir . . .” He held out a demanding hand. The key-ring was thrown into it.

  Frost opened the boot and switched on his torch. “Be over in a flash, sir, I—” And then Frost paused, at a loss for words. The boot was full of small, expensive electronic calculating machines of the type reported stolen from Buskin’s Electronics on the Factory Estate. The case inherited from Inspector Allen. The case that Mullett had ordered him to treat as urgent. A quick radio call to Control confirmed that the serial numbers tallied.

  The inspector sighed at the thought of all the paperwork this would involve. “On any other day I’d have been overjoyed to have copped you, sir. Why did it have to be tonight?”

  “What rotten stinking luck,” snarled the man bitterly. “I could have driven straight past . . . left her there to die and got away with it.”

  “You couldn’t, sir,” said Frost, softly, “you’re not that sort of person. You’re very much like me. We do the right thing and get ourselves into trouble. You wouldn’t have a cigarette on you by any chance, would you?”

  Frost pressed down his stapler and impaled details of the evening’s arrest in a prominent position on the front of the Electronics Theft file which he proudly dumped, with a two-fingered salute, on the Divisional Commander’s barren desk. That would wipe the smile off Mullett’s face I when he came in the next morning.

  What to do now? Barnard was still at the hospital waiting for Mrs. Uphill to regain consciousness, and no one had time for a chat as they were all busy clearing their desks ready for the next shift to take over at 10:00 p.m.