Frost at Christmas (21 page)

   He found Frost on the phone outside the canteen and waited until he had finished. Frost grunted, scribbled some hieroglyphics on the back of the telephone directory, then hung up.

   "That was Forensic, son. They've sifted through the crates of earth and found some coins from our skeleton's pockets. The latest coins were dated 1951, so we can forget about his being killed in the war. They've also cut open the steel case chained to his wrist and it contained absolutely sod all. So what was he doing with an empty steel case double-locked to his wrist?"

   "Perhaps whatever was in the case had been delivered," suggested Clive.

   "Possible, son, but then you'd have thought they would have unlocked the case from his wrist." He rasped his chin thoughtfully, "1951! Festival of Britain year. We really went to town here, then - the toilets stayed open an extra half-hour and the Town Hall flagpole was illuminated weekends." His mind clicked back to the present.

   "When's this bloody kidnapper going to phone again? I hope he realizes he's sodding us all up." He clattered off down the stairs back to his office and Clive had to hurry to keep up.

   Frost chucked himself in his chair and riffled the papers on his desk. A couple more Christmas cards had arrived and there was the electronics theft folder with a note from Mullett attached: "Please treat this as urgent." He dug deeper and found the overtime return which he quickly checked and initialed, but what was the point? It was too late. The computers at County H.Q. were kept going on a twenty-four-hour-a-day basis doing work mainly for the county council, but a few hours each month the police were allowed to squeeze their business in, and the allotted time for wages was this morning. He slipped the return in an envelope and stuck it in this jacket pocket. He'd bung it in the postbox. Too late for this month, but at least it would be out of the office. He dreaded facing Mullett again in the morning, "Everything I touch goes wrong," he announced to Clive, who was surprised at the self-pity from a man who gave the impression that nothing on earth could get him down. Clive accepted a cigarette and they lit up.

   "I'll tell you something," continued Frost, confidentially, "something I've told no one. This tin medal of mine - " he opened his drawer and took the medal out " - do you know why I tackled that gunman? I wanted to get myself killed, that's why. I didn't want to live. It's not a joke son, I'm being serious for a change. They'd just told me, that day, that my wife had cancer . . . that she'd only last a few months and was going to have a bloody rotten death. That nut-case with the gun was the answer to my prayers. I thought, 'Sod it, I don't care if I live or die, so let's die a bloody hero.' So he fired, and he missed--he was as useless as I am - and I couldn't even get myself killed properly." Then suddenly, in a puff of expelled smoke, the black mood was gone. "I'm a morbid bugger, aren't I? Come on, son, let's go to Search Control and find out the latest on the kid."

   Turning the corner at the top of the corridor they bumped into a police dispatch rider, crash-helmeted and water-proofed, his goggles rimmed with unmelted snow.

   "Divisional Commander's Office?" he asked. "I've an urgent package to pick up for Statistical Department."

   Frost directed him, then, as an afterthought asked, "Are you going back to County Headquarters tonight?"

   "Yes, sir."

   "Do us a turn, would you?" he fumbled in his pocket for the overtime return envelope. "Drop this in Accounts. It's the overtime return . . . should have been in this morning."

   The dispatch rider slid the envelope into a leather pouch. "You'll be all right, Inspector. They're all behind in Accounts - half of them down with flu. They won't be doing the police wages until tomorrow night."

   Frost almost sweated as warm relief flooded his body. "I may sod up a lot of things," he told dive, "but I have much more luck than anyone's entitled to expect."

In Search Control, the feeling of standing down. Time to file stuff away and tidy up desks. A photograph of Tracey had been shown on the television news and people had been phoning in all day to report seeing her in London, Cornwall, Dover, on a lorry heading up the Ml motorway, in a cafe in Leeds with a Pakistani, outside a cinema in Bromley . . . everywhere but in Denton. All well-meaning but probably useless leads, each of which had to be followed up, fortunately mainly by other police divisions who had been sent details by teleprinter.

   A phone rang. An agitated Mrs. Uphill, concerned that the alleged kidnapper hadn't been back to her. Frost calmed her down and told her it was important she keep off the phone so the man could make contact. She hung up immediately. Then it occurred to Frost that she had £2000 lying around loose and if the man didn't have Tracey, his intention might be to break into the house and steal the money. He phoned back to tell her to bolt all doors and windows and not to let anyone in.

   "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 alloted 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 regard ed 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.

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.

   "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.