Frost at Christmas (24 page)

   Sandy leaned forward. "You reckon she's dead, then Jack?"

   Frost nodded toward the tall window where outside a cutting wind screamed and hurled flurries of snow against the glass. "What do you reckon?" And then he was back again in the distant past. "Remember the chap in charge of the Fawcus case, Sandy? Inspector Bottomley, as fat as a pig with an enormous gut; he had to have his trousers specially built."

   "What happened with Fawcus?" asked Clive.

   It was a simple story. On the twenty-sixth of July, 1951, Fawcus left Denton in the bank's pool car, driven by a junior clerk, Rupert Garwood - their destination, Bennington's Exley branch, some seven miles away - to deliver £20,000, locked in a case chained to Fawcus's wrist. The car never arrived at its destination. It was found later that afternoon in a side road well away from the route it should have taken. The junior clerk, Garwood, was slumped across the wheel, unconscious from a savage head injury which left him with no memory of what had happened. Fawcus and the £20,000 were never seen again.

   "I got my first byline on that case," said Sandy, proudly. "It made the London dailies."

   "Poor old Fawcus," said Frost, "wrongly accused for all those years and all the time he was decently dead and buried. He had a family, didn't he?"

   "A wife," answered the reporter. "Don't know what happened to her, though. Er . . . how was he killed?"

   "Shot," Frost tapped his forehead, "through the brain."

   Sandy's hand streaked to his internal phone and he jabbed the button marked "Printing Room". "Mac - Sandy here. Hold everything. We're going to tear down the front page. The police say Fawcus was shot." He dropped the phone and fidgeted, obviously anxious to usher them out and get cracking.

   "You've given me quite a scoop, Jack."

   "You know me," said Frost modestly, "one cheap curry and you've bought my soul. Come on, son."

   "Hold on, Jack. The money - it was gone, I suppose?"

   Frost smiled sweetly. "Dumb as we are, Sandy boy, if we'd found £20,000 in the case, we might just about have worked out who he was for ourselves." He went to grab the door handle, but the door retreated as a studious young reporter entered.

   "Sorry to butt in, Mr. Lane, but the bank manager refuses to make a statement, and I can't get a reply from Garwood's house."

   Frost braked sharply. "Garwood? You mean Rupert Garwood, the kid who was driving the car?"

   "Yes," replied Sandy. "He's back at Denton again, didn't you know? He's Assistant Manager at Bennington's Bank."

Police Sergeant Tom Henderson put down his pen and yawned. He'd never get used to working nights. No matter how much sleep he had during the day, his body still insisted on feeling tired and ready for bed as midnight approached. He wriggled his shoulders in a shiver. It was so cold in the lobby and every time that rotten door opened . . .

   His phone rang.

   The leather-jacketed youth slumped dejectedly on a wooden bench under the Colorado Beetle poster jerked up a face tight with apprehension.

   Henderson listened, said, "No, not yet," and hung up. He looked across to the leather-jacket and shook his head. The youth slouched back and resumed his mindless study of the opposite blank wall.

   An icy blast roared across the lobby as Inspector Frost and the new chap with the bent nose came in.

   "Hello, Jack."

   "Hello, Tom. Here, you didn't shave today, did you?"

   Henderson grinned and fingered his new beard, the result of many weeks of careful growing and much rude comment.

   Frost caught sight of the youth. "What's up with him?"

   Henderson leaned over, keeping his voice low. "He ran an old lady over. She's having an emergency operation and he's waiting for the result. Touch and go, they reckon."

   "Oh!" Frost let his eyes slide over the kid. Barely eighteen and worried sick. "His fault, was it?"

   The sergeant nodded gravely. "Didn't look where he was going. Staring back at his mates out of the rear window. Never saw her until he hit her, and she was using the crossing."

   "Poor little sod," murmured Frost, a rare look of pity on his face.

   "Poor, sir?" asked Clive, puzzled.

   "Yes, son. I've nearly killed people in my car time and time again . . . it was only luck that saved me. He didn't have the luck."

   "And neither did the old lady."

   Frost sniffed. "You're hard, son, very hard. I'm sorry for her, but I'm sorry for him, too."

   Another roar of cold air and the papers on the desk were sent flying. A big red-faced man in a fur-lined parka thundered in, ready to bellow at the first uniform he saw.

   "You! Where's my son?"

   "Dad!" The youth didn't turn his head. He spoke to space.

   "Come on - you're going home." An angry face thrust at Sergeant Henderson. "I'm taking him. You've no right to keep him here."

   "We're not keeping him here, sir," explained the sergeant patiently. "He's free to go. He's given us a statement and we've got all his details."

   "Statement?" He turned angrily to the lad. "You bloody fool - a statement? Tell them nothing!" Back to the sergeant. "His statement is invalid. It was made without a solicitor being present. We repudiate it."

   The youth tilted his head up to his father and spoke as if explaining to an uncomprehending idiot. "I'm eighteen, Dad. I made the statement of my own free will. I wasn't looking . . . I hit her." His face showed pain at the recollection.

   The man's hand slapping his son's face was the crack of a whip.

   "Keep your mouth shut, do you hear? I'll tell you what to say."

   The phone on the desk rang. The youth, ready with an angry retort, froze. Henderson raised the receiver and listened.

   "Henderson. Oh, I see. Yes, thanks for telling me." He replaced the phone with care, then spoke quietly.

   "You might as well go home, son. She died five minutes ago."

   The boy stared at the sergeant. At first it seemed that the news hadn't sunk in. There was a puzzled frown on his face, a face drained of color except for the angry mark of the blow on the left cheek. The lip quivered, and then his face crumpled. He cried with body-wricking sobs. His father, now a different man, placed an arm around his shoulder.

   "All right, son, all right. We're going home." He led the sobbing youth through the doors and out into the cold white night. The door swung shut behind them.

   "As I always say," said Frost, dragging off his scarf, "there's no bloody justice. If he'd kept his mouth shut or lied and said she stepped in front of him without warning, we couldn't have touched him. He's the only witness. But he's been honest. He really cares that he's killed someone. And we'll probably throw the book at him."

   Then, trailing his scarf along the ground, he was off along the corridor to his office. With a despairing look at the wall clock whose hands stood vertical at half-past midnight, Clive dashed off after him.

"They knew how to tie knots in 1951," muttered Frost, tearing his nails on the fossilized string tied round the Bennington Bank Robbery - July 1951 file that had been disinterred from the upstairs storeroom. The string broke unexpectedly and yellow-edged papers were disgorged on top of the litter already on the desk. He scooped the papers up, and in doing so uncovered an internal memo from Mullett reminding all staff of the last day for the submission of expense claims, stressing that any received late would be held over until the following month.

   Frost passed the file over to Clive and began to scout through his drawers for an expense-claim form.

   "Find a description of Fawcus, son, see if it matches in with the skeleton. If he only had one leg, we've got a mystery on our hands."

   It was a fat file, the pages smelling stale and musty from their long entombment in the unheated storeroom. Near the front was a photograph of a young man in army uniform, the forage cap perched on top of lots of wavy hair, glistening with brilliantine. Handwritten on the back were the words "To my darling Rose with all my love - Tim", followed by a string of kisses. A typed police label read "Timothy Fawcus - early picture - much balder now". Clive turned the photograph over and looked at the smiling, unworried face. Was this the dirt-encrusted skull prised from the frozen grip of Dead Man's Hollow?

   He showed it to Frost.

   "I used to have hair like that, son - it drove the girls mad." He read the inscription on the back. "Balder now - me and him both. Who's Rose - his wife?"

   "I haven't come to that yet, sir." Digging deeper, Clive unearthed another photograph, the original of the one they had seen earlier on the front page of the Denton
Echo.
A full description was on the back. "Timothy Fawcus, aged 38, height 5' 11", weight 12 stone 4 lbs., sallow complexion, receding hairline, dark hair, thin features. Appendix scar. Tattoo on right wrist, 'Rose' in a red heart."

   Frost pursed his lips. "The ubiquitous Rose. I hope she doesn't turn out to be a bloody sledge, or something, like in that Orson Welles film."

   "Citizen Kane,
sir - the sledge was called Rosebud."

   The inspector chucked his expense claim over for Clive to check the totals. "That description might have been all right at the time, but when your suspect has been rotting in the ground for more than thirty years it doesn't do much for your tattoos and receding hairline. Still, we'll get it over to Forensic, and they can see if it fits."

   "What about checking on the broken arm, sir? And there's the dental chart, of course. If we had that we could compare it with the skull's teeth."

   "You're blinding me with science, son. But that'll be your job for tomorrow. Try and trace Fawcus's doctor and dentist. Now what have you found?"

   It was a photograph of a young, wide-eyed girl with a Judy Garland hairstyle - Rose Fawcus, the missing man's wife. Her address was shown as No. 172 Longley Road, Denton.

   "She won't be there any more," said Frost. "It's being pulled down for the new public library."

   The next photograph was of a bright-eyed lad in his teens. The label on the back said "Rupert Garwood. Junior Clerk, Bennington's Bank". The hospital doctor's report was attached. The skull had been fractured but would mend. Garwood was now back as Assistant Manager, Frost remembered. They'd see him first thing in the morning.

   And then he realized they were messing about with this ancient, long-forgotten case which had nothing to do with Tracey Uphill, missing since Sunday. He looked through the window. Outside a muffled figure was walking across the car park, treading gingerly and leaving no footprints. The snow was polished glass, frozen solid. Frost shivered. Continue the search the next morning and if they didn't find the stiff, frozen body then, perhaps they'd find it the following day.

   He'd had enough. On with the scarf and overcoat. "Pack it in, son - we're going home."

   Clive needed no second bidding. He slammed the file shut and rammed it in a drawer, then cannoned into Frost who had stopped dead.

   "Good Lord, son. I've just realized. No wonder we've been so lucky. Do you know what today is? It's my birthday."

   And it was . . . at least up to midnight it was. And no one to remember, no one to send him a card.

   "Many happy returns," said Clive, hoping this didn't mean they couldn't go home.

   But Frost was already off on his record-breaking trot along the echoing corridor, pausing to poke his head round the door of Control. "If Detective Sergeant Hanlon radios in for me, bung out a call on my personal radio. I'm off home."

   In the lobby, Henderson was taking details from a man whose car had been stolen. He gave them a cheerful wave.

   Outside the night was bitter with air so cold it scoured the lungs. Frost took the driving seat, spun the car into a U-turn, and crawled over gleaming ice to the main road.

   "Just a short detour, then I'll drop you off, son."

   Clive's heart missed a couple of beats. He knew the inspector's short detours. But they didn't go far. Down some sideroads leading out of the High Street into a darkened turning without street lights, where Frost halted in front of a black row of blind-windowed terraced houses.

   "Longley Road," he announced.

   This was where Fawcus had lived back in 1951. Clive looked hard at the houses and realized they were derelict, windows covered with sheets of corrugated iron, heavy planks nailed over doors bearing cryptic messages - Gas Off, Water Off, Electricity Off.

   Frost walked up the crumbling steps of No. 172 and peeped through the letterbox into pitch blackness smelling of damp plaster and sodden mattresses.

   "No one at home, son. Still, we've got a key." And he produced from his pocket the keyring found in the earth beneath the skeleton. He poked a key in the lock. A click and the lock mechanism turned, but the door, gripped by six-inch nails, held firm. Frost put the key back in the pocket.

   "So it fits, sir," said Clive, trying to sound impressed.

   The inspector grinned. He was pleased with himself. "Looks like it, doesn't it, son? So this is where our skeleton lived back in 1951." He looked into the barrenness of the street. "And now he's dead, and the whole bloody street's dead and whoever shot his brains out and chopped off his arm is probably dead." He shrugged and descended the steps. "There used to be a little newspaper shop on that corner where I bought my comics when I was a kid. Now I'm a bloody comic myself."

   He dropped Barnard at his digs a little after 2:15 p.m. "You can have a lie-in tomorrow, son. I won't be round for you until eight o'clock."

   Clive staggered to the door, his sleep-weary brain calculating he would be getting less than five and a half hours sleep, if he was lucky. Actually he was going to be very lucky and would get far less sleep than basic mathematics suggested. Frost noticed the bedroom curtains twitch as the car door slammed and caught a brief glimpse of auburn hair and naked flesh.

   He sighed. There'd be no one waiting for him when he got back. His house would be as cold and dead as Longley Road. Gas Off, Electricity Off, Naked Women Off. He remembered he was expecting to hear from Detective Sergeant Hanlon about the bank decoy job, and radioed Control who hadn't any news. The lights went on in Barnard's window. Feeling like a Peeping Tom, Frost saw two shadows merge, then the light went out. That decided him. It is my birthday, he told himself, slamming the car into gear and roaring eastward toward Bath Road, which the Council had newly garnished with salt. He pressed his foot down and the car leaped forward and telegraph poles swished past, his speedometer needle flickering near its limit. That's right, kill yourself on your bloody birthday!