Frost at Christmas (12 page)

   "His first bullet went in my stomach and properly ruined my theory. I was too stupid to stop and just went on. The next shot tore through my cheek and the one after grazed my scalp, under my hair. By the time it dawned on me I was being fired at, I'd grabbed him, and my mates pounced and reasoned with him with their truncheons. I was lucky. The shot to my stomach hit my belt buckle so all I got was a bloody great bruise. The one in my cheek just went in and out. He got eleven years and I got a medal." He took it from Clive and dropped it back into the drawer. "There's definitely 45p missing from here."

   His phone rang.

   "Frost. What? The stupid sod! - and he's only just told us? You've got the address? Right, I'm on my way with Flash Harry." He slammed the telephone back. "Come on, son. The headmaster of Tracey's school has just phoned Search Control about a girl called Audrey Harding. She's twelve, older than Tracey, but a great friend. And Audrey didn't turn up for school today."

As a schoolgirl was involved, they took a woman police constable with them and she sat huddled up on the back seat, not saying a word throughout the journey. Clive sneaked a look at her through the driving mirror, but with her peaked cap pulled down and her collar turned up against the cold, there wasn't much on show to set the pulses racing.

   "We're here," announced Frost, and the car pulled into the curb, outside a group of Victorian terraced houses.

   The girl who answered the door was a blood-racing blockbuster in brushed-denim jeans and a tight cotton teeshirt that adhered like cling film to the most gorgeous breasts Clive had seen for many a long day. They held his gaze like the hypnotic grip of a snake's eyes.

   "Cor!" breathed Frost, adding quickly, "Sorry to trouble you, Miss. We're police officers."

   "Who is it?" A raucous female voice from the depths.

   "The police," called the girl.

   A door along the passage opened and a woman with a shop-soiled baby-doll face waddled out, wearing a dress twenty years too young for her.

   "Mrs. Harding?" enquired Frost. "It's about your little girl, Audrey."

   "What - her?" asked the woman, jerking her thumb to the girl.

   Her? This was Audrey, a twelve-year-old schoolgirl? She looked eighteen or nineteen - a well-developed eighteen or nineteen. Clive and the inspector exchanged open-mouthed glances.

   "We'll all get our deaths of cold standing here," said Mrs. Harding. "Come on in." She waddled off, leading them to a small sitting room, baking hot from the coal fire roaring up the chimney. In the center of the room an ironing board had been set up. Frost unbuttoned his mac, unwound a few yards of scarf, and signaled for Clive to start the questioning.

   Mrs. Harding said, "All right if I carry on with the ironing?"

   Clive nodded. "You weren't at school today, Audrey?"

   "So what?"

   "She had a bad chest," offered her mother from the ironing board. Audrey coughed obligingly to corroborate the story.

   "Try camphorated oil for it," suggested Frost, adding '
sotto voice,
"About half a gallon . . ."

   The woman police constable suppressed a giggle. Clive frowned. This was a serious inquiry. Couldn't the old fool keep his cheap jokes to himself, just for once?

   "They haven't sent three cops down just because I didn't go to school, surely?" asked the girl, rubbing her hands over her chest in a way that made Clive envious and Frost uncomfortable.

   "No. It's about Tracey Uphill. I believe you know her?"

   "I know her," said the girl. "Her mother's a tart."

   Mrs. Harding banged her iron down angrily. "Maybe she is, my girl, but you shouldn't say so. There's some things you don't talk about." In a confidential aside to Frost she added, "My uncle was an undertaker, but we never mentioned it to anyone. Some things are best left unsaid."

   "Quite," said Frost, motioning for Clive to continue. 

   "You don't go to Sunday school, do you Audrey?"

   "Only to ballet classes and tap-dancing," chimed in the mother. "We believe in religion and that sort of thing, but we don't want it rammed down our throats, especially on a Sunday."

   "Tracey's been missing from home since 4:30 yesterday afternoon, Mrs. Harding."

   Her eyes saucered. "I know! Her poor mother. I mean . . . they must have feelings the same as anyone else."

   "She was a friend of yours, Audrey?"

   "I knew her a bit," said the girl in an off-hand voice, "but I haven't seen her outside school for a couple of weeks, now."

   "Are you sure?" Clive persisted.

   "My girl's not a liar," stated Mrs. Harding firmly, watching a ball of spit fry on the sole-plate of her iron.

   "Can you think of anywhere she might have gone?"

   Audrey shook her head and scratched her stomach. She yawned to make it clear she was getting bored.

   "She was seen with a woman in a white fur coat. Any idea who that woman might be?"

   "No idea." She studied her vivid orange fingernails.

   Then Frost chipped in. "Do you play Bingo, Mrs. Harding?"

   Flaming hell, thought Clive. What's Bingo got to do with it?

   Mrs. Harding's iron delved the depths of a voluminous bra. "Yes, I do, twice a week regular down the old Grand Cinema. It's my only bit of pleasure. But how did you know?"

   Frost beamed at her. "We had reports about a beautiful woman playing there. And I happened to see the Bingo cards on your mantelpiece."

   Mrs. Harding simpered. "Aren't you observant? Eyes everywhere." She added the ironed bra to the finished pile.

   "Been lucky?"

   "I've had a couple of good wins."

   "I had a feeling you had. And I've got a feeling you can make a smashing cup of tea."

   "Would you like one?" she said, switching off the iron. "It won't take a minute."

   When she was gone Frost leaned across to the girl. "Oi, Fanny - does your mother know you borrow her fur coat?"

   The girl went white. "Shut up!" she hissed.

   To the woman police constable Frost said, "Keep the mother occupied in the kitchen and shut the door."

   "All right, Audrey," he continued as the door closed, "let's have it. You borrow her fur coat, don't you, without her knowing?"

   "She'll murder me," whimpered the girl. "She'd belt me rotten if she knew. She bought it with her Bingo money, neary three hundred quid, and no one must touch the bloody thing. You won't tell her, will you?"

   "You wore it yesterday, didn't you, when you met Tracey from the Sunday school?"

   "I just wanted to show off the coat. I didn't want her to come with me."

   "You didn't want her to - but she did?"

   "That was her look out. I said she'd have to go when he turned up."

   "When who turned up?"

   "My boyfriend . . . my fellow."

   "What's his name?" She told them. Clive wrote it down.

   "Where did you meet him?"

   "Those fields along Meadow Road."

   "And then Tracey went home?"

   "No. The little bitch pretended to go, but she followed us. I suppose she wanted to have an eyeful. We ended up in the Old Wood."

   "The Old Wood? Why did you go there?"

   "To try to shake her off, but she kept following, so we ran and hid behind that big tree - the one near the lake. She went racing past, and we backtracked and belted off home."

   "What time was this?"

   "About 5:30."

   Frost frowned. "You left a kid of eight to find her own way home in the pitch dark?"

   The girl shrugged. "That was her look out. Besides, she knew her way back. And she wasn't going home, she was going to play in the vicarage grounds."

   The vicarage grounds! Clive made a note in his book.

   "Where did you go after that?" continued Frost.

   "To me boy's house. His parents were out."

   "And what did you do there?"

   "What do you think?" The blue eyelid closed in an obscene wink.

   The kitchen door opened and the tea emerged.

   "You won't tell me mum?" Audrey whispered anxiously, the twelve-year-old again.

   "Not unless I have to," murmured Frost. "Ah . . . tea."

   So they sipped their tea and chatted and suddenly it was like a family party with everyone talking and Frost gently flirting with the girl's mother who he'd got to parade for them in the white fur coat, Clive's eyes were on the woman police constable who had slipped off the greatcoat and peaked cap and was laughing at the inspector's antics. The cap had hidden thick auburn hair which tumbled to her shoulders. She was lovely.

   A sharp pain in the ribs from Frost's elbow. The inspector swiveled his eyes toward Audrey. The girl was examining the perfection of her right shoulder. To do this she had pulled back the short sleeve of her teeshirt leaving the arm bare. And there it was, on the top of her right arm, a brown birthmark - the birthmark last seen in black and white on the headless nude photograph found in Tracey's bedroom.

   As soon as her mother took the empty cups into the kitchen, Frost grabbed the girl.

   "Ever had your photograph taken in the nude, Audrey?"

   "Of course not." But her eyes were frightened and her hand tugged down the sleeve.

   "God can hear you telling these lies," purred Frost, his face moving close to hers.

   "Piss off, you old bugger," she snapped.

   "Arseholes," murmured Frost, adding sweetly as Mrs. Harding returned, "I was just asking your little girl what Father Christmas was going to bring her this year."

Back in the car, Frost radioed through to Search Control. George Martin told him the Old Wood had had a perfunctory search but was scheduled for detailed coverage the next morning. The vicarage grounds had been covered thoroughly.

   "Hmm," said Frost, scratching his face thoughtfully. "Better rake up as many men as you can for an immediate search of the woods tonight. It'll be tricky in the dark, but if the kid's there, speed's vital." Outside, the wind was shrilling to gale force.

   Give didn't need further directions once he was piloted back to the main road, so the inspector was able to relax in his seat.

   "Well," he said, "I don't know what was sticking out the most - your eyes or that kid's chest. Oh, sorry - forgot we had a lady on board." He beamed at the woman P.C. in the back seat.

   She smiled back. "Don't mind me."

   "I'll tell you a little story," said Frost, and Clive's heart sank. Not another of his dubious reminiscences! He gritted his teeth and concentrated on his driving.

   "I was sixteen," continued Frost, "and I'd been knocking about with this girl - Ivy Standish her name was - and blimey, was she hot stuff! She'd let you do anything with her - anything except swear. She couldn't stand swearing, so if your trembling hand fumbled on the last button of her cami-knicks and you inadvertently said 'Sod it', that was your lot; you were sent packing, no matter how high your state of expectation. Anyway, to cut a long and boring story short, her birthday came along and her mum invited me to the party. It was going to be a surprise, but it turned out to be a bloody shock. You know how many candles she had on her cake? Eleven! I could have got fourteen years for that, so I had my slice of cake and left, hurriedly."

   Wishful thinking, thought Clive, not believing a word.

   When the car reached the Market Square the woman P.C. asked to be dropped off.

   "Are you on stand-by duty then, Hazel?" asked Frost. "Tell you what, I'll get off here and walk. Young Clive will drive you home.''

   They watched Frost, his shoulders hunched, his chin dug deeply into his scarf as he braved the wind to reach Eagle Lane. The girl gave Clive directions.

   "Why, you don't live far from me," he said. "Tell you what, why don't we drop off at my place and have a cup of coffee?"

   To his astonishment she agreed. He wondered if Frost was expecting him back right away. But damn it all, he'd been on duty nearly thirteen hours now and surely was entitled to half an hour's break.

   It seemed colder in his room than outside. He rammed coins down the meter's hungry throat and turned the gas fire on full. She sat on the unmade bed, hands thrust deep in her pockets, and watched him.

   "Soon be warm," he said, and dashed into the kitchen to make the coffee, filling the percolator with hot water for quickness and dumping it on the gas-ring.

   He returned to his visitor. "Won't be long." She nodded. The gas-fire began to raise the temperature. "Warming up, isn't it?" Another nod. Not a great talker, he thought and suggested she might like to take off her greatcoat. Off it came, then her uniform jacket. Her gray and white shirt swelled out temptingly.

   He kissed her. It was a long, lingering, tongue-meeting kiss, the most promising start he'd made for a long time. They parted for air. "Some music," he suggested, and leaned across her to switch on his radio. In doing so, his hand brushed her chest. She quivered. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him, his mouth covered hers, his hand, with the delicate skill of a surgeon performing a tricky brain operation, gently undid the tiny buttons on her shirt. Another break for air.

   A group throbbed away on the radio.

   "That's number one in the top ten, isn't it?" she asked, leaning forward so he could undo the fiddling little hooks on her bra. He began to caress the soft skin of her back. His heart started to pound in tune to the pulse of the percolator. His hand dropped to her leg and began to crawl upward . . .

   The door burst open and Frost entered.

   Damn, damn, and sodding damn!

   Frantic covering up, the girl turning aside and rebuttoning.

   "Bit of luck I saw your light," said Frost, grabbing him by the arm. "They've found a scarf in the woods. It sounds like it's Tracey's. You weren't doing anything important, were you?"

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.