Frost at Christmas (23 page)

   Frost shut the door carefully behind him, then swore loudly, long, and ineffectively into the empty passage.

As he pushed through the hospital entrance doors, it all came back to him. The smells - over-cooked food and disinfectant. The sounds - moans, muffled sobs, hushed worried voices. He'd had them, twice a day, for six months when his wife was slowly dying. The end bed with the screens, and "You can stay as long as you like, Mr. Frost."

   Clive Barnard, slumped moodily on a hard wooden bench, rose at the inspector's approach and led him into a side ward where a white-faced Mrs. Uphill, head bandaged, lay propped up on plumped-up pillows. Frost dropped his eyes to the chart clipped at the foot of the bed. Temperature a trifle high, pulse slightly fast. She wasn't too badly damaged.

   He gave her an encouraging smile. "They're letting you to home tomorrow, Mrs. Uphill."

   Her head sank into the starched depths of the pillow. "I want to go home now. I've got to be there when he phones again."

   Frost dragged a small wooden bench from under her bed and sat down. "What makes you think he's going to phone again?"

   "He's got the money, now he must tell me where Tracey is. That was the bargain." She struggled up, eyes burning. "She might even be back at the house now, waiting . . ."

   "Easy, love, easy . . ." He pushed her down gently, then drew Clive to one side and whispered some instructions. Mrs. Uphill had pointed out something Frost had overlooked. The possibility - the extremely remote possibility - that the alleged kidnapper really did have Tracey and would now return her. Barnard was to contact the station and get them to insure that Mrs. Uphill's phone was still continually monitored and to arrange that the house was kept under permanent surveillance.

   Frost returned to the woman, "We'll be watching your house, monitoring your phone, and taking your calls, so don't worry."

   "If the police answer, you'll frighten him off."

   "No. One of our women P.C.s will take the call. He'll think it's you. Now, tell us what happened."

   Her hand plucked at the sheets. "He phoned me. He said - "

   Frost cut her short. "We know about the phone call. Go on from there."

   "I put the money in a bag, as he said."

   "What sort of bag?"

   "One of those blue and white plastic carriers from the supermarket. I walked down Vicarage Terrace, then cut through to the Bath Road."

   "Were you aware of anyone following or watching you?"

   She thought, then shook her head. "No. I don't think so. I just wanted to get to the phone box as quickly as I could. I was afraid he'd ring before I reached it. Half-way down Bath Road I heard a sort of rustling noise behind me, then something hit me." Her hand touched the bandage. "The next thing my head was hurting and I was in here. I don't remember the ambulance or anything."

   Frost smiled sympathetically. "Did you have your change purse with you?"

   "Yes. It's in my handbag."

   "Not any more. He must have helped himself to that as well. What was in it?"

   "About twenty pounds in cash, my house keys, and the keys for the car."

   The night nurse entered with a sleeping tablet and a glass of water. She glared at Frost, who decided it was time to leave.

   Barnard was waiting outside after making his phone call. As they walked down the long corridor to the main entrance, Frost brought him up to date on the interview. "Even nicked twenty quid from her purse. We're not dealing with a kidnapper, son. This is a small-time crook out for anything he can get."

   A grim-faced nurse carrying a hypodermic syringe in a kidney bowl brushed past them and pushed through swing-doors into a darkened ward where someone was moaning.

   Frost averted his eyes and walked much faster. "My wife was in that ward, son. After I'd visited her, I always felt I could do with a drink. There's a little pub round the corner . . ."

It was a cheerful little pub with a crackling log fire and glittering Christmas decorations. There was only one other customer, a small man in a heavy overcoat, drinking at a corner table. Frost warmed himself at the fire, letting the friendly atmosphere unwind him as it had always done after those ghastly visits to the hospital when they kindly told him he could stay as long as he liked. That meant he had no excuse for cutting the visit short. He just had to sit there, with a false smile, nothing to say, sharing her pain, watching her die.

   Clive returned with the drinks and Frost's change. "Not a bad little pub this, sir," he remarked. But Frost wasn't listening. He was staring at the corner table. The little man had gone, leaving behind an almost full spirit glass. Frost walked over to the table.

   "Did you see him go?"

   "Who?" asked Clive.

   "Little bloke, sitting here. Couldn't get out fast enough when we came in. Even left his drink." Frost picked Up the glass, sniffed the contents, then drunk it down in one gulp. "Scotch. And bloody good stuff. See if you can see where he went."

   Clive got outside just in time to see the rear lights of a departing car. He returned and told Frost.

   Frost shrugged. "Never mind, probably not important. I've got a job for you, son."

   "Oh, yes?" said Clive, warily.

   "Nip out to our car and radio the station. I want all surveillance removed from the Uphill house."

   Clive was incredulous. "Removed? But you've only just asked to have it put on."

   "I know," said Frost. "I'm afraid I'm having one of my fickle moods at the moment. So hurry up and do it, then wait for me in the car."

   Control was equally incredulous. "Are you sure you've got the message right?"

   "Of course I'm sure," snapped Clive. "He wants all surveillance removed."

   "No disrespect," said Control, "but I think I'd like to hear it from the inspector."

   The car door opened. Frost took the handset. "Frost here. I want all surveillance away from the Uphill house, pronto. Up and under, over and out." He returned the handset to Clive and slammed the car door. "Finger out and foot down, son. We're going to Mrs. Uphill's house of pleasure."

   As they neared Vicarage Terrace, Frost directed Clive down some back streets and they eventually emerged at a side turning from which they could see No. 29 without being too obvious. The car lights were extinguished. They waited.

   "What exactly are we doing here?" asked Clive after five minutes of watching an empty house in an empty street.

   "Thought you'd never ask," replied Frost. "While you were radioing through to Control, I got on the blower to the hospital. I wanted to know if anyone had phoned, or called, asking about your lady friend, Mrs. Uphill. And someone had. Guess who?"

   "I give up," said Clive, wishing Frost would get to the point.

   "A shifty little bloke in a heavy overcoat. He'd called at the Porter's Lodge not fifteen minutes before, asking how poor Mrs. Uphill was and when she'd be coming out."

   Clive was unimpressed. "So? It could have been a neighbor."

   "And it could have been a client wondering how long he'd have to have the cold showers. But it wasn't. Apart from the police, son, who the hell knew she was in hospital? No, it was our little bloke from the pub. The one who left his whiskey. The porter told him she'd be kept in over night, so off he went."

   "I still don't see - " began Clive.

   "Her attacker is a cheap crook, son. He's got her change purse and her house keys. He knows the house will be empty all night, so he can just walk in and help himself."

   "Then why did you send away the surveillance car?"

   "Because I want to catch the little sod, not frighten him off. Duck down, quick. I think this is him."

   A light-colored car cruised to the end of Vicarage Terrace, reversed, and slowly made its way back again. A couple of minutes later the car returned, drove past Mrs. Uphill's, stopping three houses away on the opposite side of the road. For a while nothing happened, then a small man got out carrying a large suitcase. He looked up and down the street, then walked briskly across to No. 29. The sound of a key in a lock, a door opening and quietly closing. He was inside.

   Clive's hand reached for the door handle. "Shall we go in and get him?"

   But Frost settled back in his seat. "No. He's got to come back to his car, so let's wait for him."

   They waited. Frost was on his fourth cigarette. "I spy with my little eye, son," he said. The little man was leaving the house. The suitcase seemed almost too heavy for him as he staggered across the road.

   They jumped him as he was bending to unlock his car door. His yell of surprise roused the sleeping street. Dogs started barking, nervous householders dialed 999. The area car sent to investigate was ordered away by Frost. "Go and find your own crooks."

   Their prisoner offered no resistance, but complained bitterly once he had caught his breath. "Frightened the flaming life out of me, Mr. Frost. What a silly thing to do. I've got a weak heart, you know."

   "As long as you haven't got a weak bladder," replied Frost. He peered at the man, who apparently knew him. "So that's who you are. Meet Dapper Dawson, son - housebreaker, petty crook, and con man. What have you got in the suitcase, Dapper?"

   "Encyclopedias, Mr. Frost. I'm working my way through college."

   The suitcase was packed tight with furs, jewelry, and small valuables from the Uphill house. On the back seat of Dapper's car was a blue and white carrier bag. It was full of used five-pound notes.

They took him back to the station and sat him in the interview room with a cup of tea and one of Frost's cigarettes. He needed no prompting. All they had to do was listen as Dapper's story flooded out to produce a long, four-page statement. He had read about the classic Lindbergh kidnapping where a man had obtained ransom money by pretending he had the Lindbergh baby.

   "So I thought I'd try the same. After all, she's only an old bag. What's two grand to her? She can earn that on her back without even getting out of bed. What's up with the bloke with the wonky nose?"

   Frost glared at Clive, who should have known better than to react when a suspect was making a statement.

   "The kid?" continued Dapper. "Of course I haven't got the kid. Kidnapping's not my style, is it? Search my house if you like. If you find any kids, my old woman's been having it off with the milkman."

   They didn't expect to find Tracey at Dapper's house, but an area car investigated, just in case. She wasn't there. She had never been there.

   Dapper signed his statement, thanked Frost for the cigarette, and was locked up in the cell next to the man in the sheepskin coat.

   "We won't have enough cells if you go on like this," commented the station sergeant.

   To Frost's regret, Mullett had left for home and wasn't there to witness his moment of triumph. "If it was one of my usual balls-ups, he'd be there sneering from ear to bloody ear," he reflected ruefully. He went back to his office to shuffle some papers about and found Clive waiting hopefully for permission to go home. Hazel would be at his bedsitter, her uniform folded neatly over a chair, her face scrubbed of makeup . . .

   "It's 11:15, sir," he announced loudly, looking hard at his watch and yawning.

   "What's this?" asked Frost, picking up a scribbled note from his desk. "Sandy Lane, Denton
Echo,
phoned. Wants you to phone him, urgent." Then underneath, in the same hand, "Phoned again, 10:30 - extremely urgent - please call."

   "11:15 did you say, son? We'll ring him now," and he dialed the newspaper office. A few words with Sandy, then be banged down the phone and sprang from his chair.

   "Chuck us my scarf, son. It's definitely my lucky day. Sandy reckons he knows the identity of our skeleton, so come on, you can drive me to his office."

   Clive trailed after the inspector to the car park, scuffling the snow peevishly. It was a cold, miserable, and never-ending night and he thought of his warm, cozy flat, the gas-fire popping, Hazel peeling off microscopic knickers, rubbing her hands sensuously down her thighs. The mental picture forced a groan of frustration as he turned the ignition key.

   "What's up?" asked Frost. "Not sickening for anything, are you?"

Sandy Lane squeezed his visitors into his tiny office, a partitioned corner of an open-plan stockade of tightly packed desks, phones, and typewriters.

   Frost had to raise his voice over the hammering of typewriters. "So, who's our skeleton, Sandy?"

   "You'll read all about it in tomorrow's
Echo,
Jack," said the reporter, dumping a badly smudged proof copy of the following day's paper in front of the two detectives. The black banner headline screamed out at them:

   MISSING BANK CLERK FOUND AFTER 32 YEARS.

   A sub-heading read: "Echo of £20,000 Bank Robbery", followed by another, "Spirit Medium Leads Police To Mysterious Woodland Grave". Then there was a photograph of Frost, cupid-lipped with a bit more hair than now, captioned, "Detective Inspector Frost, G.C., who is in charge of the case."

   "That picture looks as if
I've
been dug up after thirty-two years," said Frost.

   The rest of the front page was filled with a greatly enlarged full-face photograph of a sad-looking man with receding hair, aged about thirty-five. The caption said, simply, "Timothy Fawcus."

   Frost frowned. "Fawcus?" he asked. The name nagged a memory.

   "It's his skeleton," explained Sandy.

   "Then tell him to come and claim it, we don't want it." He opened the page for more clues, but the inside was blank and unprinted. Then something clicked. Timothy Fawcus! Of course. He spun round to Clive and explained. "This was 1951, son - before you were born. I'd just joined the Force. Eighteen, I was, sturdy of back and randy as hell - and you had to fight for it in those days, it didn't come crawling round to your flat waiting for you." The blood rushed to Clive's face. How the hell did Frost know?

   "Fawcus was a cashier at Bennington's Bank and the case chained to his wrist held £20,000. When he went missing, all leave was stopped for the search. We looked everywhere . . . and he was buried in Dead Man's Hollow all the time." He tapped his scar. "I wonder if they'll dig up Tracey's skeleton in thirty-odd years' time."