“They’re always at it, morning, noon, and night,” said the woman. “Here.;. where do you think you’re going…?”
Frost pressed the phone tighter to his ear. “No, we haven’t got your sovereigns back yet, Lil. I know we’re a load of lazy good-for-nothing bastards. Have I ever denied it? When I have some news, I’ll tell you… and the same to you, Lil.”
He hung up, looked at his desk and shuddered. It was awash with papers. Where did they all come from? He scooped up an armful and transferred it to Webster’s desk so he could have a frown at it when he came in. He poked a cigarette in his mouth and pressed the top of the gas lighter he had found in the kitchen drawer. A six-inch column of flame seared past his nose and reminded him why he had stopped using it.
The door crashed open. A panting Sergeant Johnson. “For Pete’s sake, Jack!”
“Oh blimey,” said Frost. “Hornrim Harry!” He sprang to his feet for the sprint to the Commander’s office and then saw the other shape behind Johnson. Mullett, his face tight with rage.
“My office, Frost… now!” He spun on his heel and stamped out. The ambient temperature seemed to have fallen by thirty degrees.
“I tried to warn you, Jack,” hissed Johnny Johnson. “I’ll start a collection for you.”
“You worry too much,” said Frost, marching to the Star Chamber with his chin held high.
Miss Smith, Mullett’s mirror, was at her typewriter, her face simmering with displeasure. His anger was her anger. With a passable impression of the Commander’s glare, she stared icily at Frost as he passed her.
“The Commander said you were to go straight in,” she snapped.
Frost had been caught out like that before. He knocked.
A snarl from the inner sanctum. “Come in!”
Mullett sat stiff and straight behind the satin mahogany desk, Frost’s personal file open in front of him. It was his intention to bring up again all of the inspector’s past misdeeds and to suggest without equivocation that Frost should look elsewhere for employment as he clearly lacked the attitude and discipline necessary to be a police officer. He kept his eyes down, ignoring Frost’s ambling entrance. But before he could pull the pin out of his first grenade, Frost got in first.
“Sorry about this morning, Super, only I suddenly remembered it was my wife’s birthday. I thought I should put some flowers on her grave.”
A brilliant pre-emptive strike which put Mullett completely off his stroke. “My dear chap,” he said, ‘do sit down.” He made a mental note to ask Miss Smith to check the files to ensure the date was correct, then he paused and bowed his head for a few seconds to show respect for the dead. That down, he steeled himself for the unpleasant task in hand.
“Operation Mousetrap, that un authorised fiasco of last night. You knew my permission was essential and would only be given if I was assured the plan was viable. Why didn’t you ask me?”
“Sorry about that, Super,” said Frost, his legs crossed, his unpolished shoe waggling. “I tried to see you, but you’d sneaked off somewhere.”
Mullett’s lips tightened. “I was at County HQ. You only had to pick up the phone, but instead you flagrantly disobeyed standing instructions and went ahead regardless, and if that wasn’t bad enough, you gave Sergeant Johnson the impression that I had agreed to it.”
“He must have misunderstood me,” said Frost brazenly. “Still, no harm done.”
Mullett leaned back in chair, wide-eyed with incredulity. “No harm done? A police woman was injured.”
Frost shrugged. “A few bruises and a black eye. I’ve seen brides come back from their honeymoons with worse than that.”
“She could have been killed, Inspector.”
“She could have won fifty thousand pounds on the pools, sir, but she didn’t.”
Burying his face in his hands, Mullett felt like crying. How could you reason with a man like this? He picked up a newly sharpened pencil from his pen tray and twiddled it between his fingers. “I’m taking you off the case, Inspector.”
Frost’s jaw dropped. He looked disbelievingly at Mullett as if the man had taken leave of his senses. “You’re bloody what?”
The pencil snapped in two between Mullett’s fingers as he stiffened with fury. “Don’t you ever speak to me like that again, Frost,” he croaked, anger making his voice barely audible.
“Sorry, Super,” said Frost in the tone of a man pulled up on some minor and obscure breach of etiquette, ‘but I want to stay with this one. I think I’m close to cracking it’
“Yes… the plastic mac and the door key,” said Mullett, referring to his notes. “Pass them all over to Mr. Allen. It’s his case from now on. By the way, how are you getting on with your murder inquiry that drug addict?”
“Not too well,” said Frost, mentally adding ‘as well you know, you four-eyed git.”
“Then you’ll have more time to concentrate on it now you’re off the rape case, won’t you?” smiled Mullett, showing the interview was at an end by pulling his in-tray toward him and taking out the letters for signature. “One last thing. The Chief Constable is very concerned at our mounting number of housebreakings Let that be your number-one priority. That will be all, Frost.” He unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen and began signing his letters only to see his pen jump and splutter ink all over Miss Smith’s pristine typing as Frost left, slamming the door behind him with unnecessary force.
He put the letter to one side for retyping, then buzzed Miss Smith for some aspirins. There had to be some way he could get rid of the man.
The door slamming was repeated as Frost fumed back into his own pigsty of an office, where he further vented his rage by giving his in-tray a right-hander, sending the contents flying all over the floor. He spun around on Webster, who was regarding his tantrum with amused tolerance. “Don’t just sit there plaiting your beard, Constable. Help me pick this lot up.”
Without a word, Webster began gathering up the papers, smirking with inward satisfaction at Frost’s rage. Obviously he had been given a roasting by the Divisional Commander for last night’s debacle. And it served the stupid fool right.
Frost was down on his knees after a couple of burglary reports that had found their way under his desk just out of reach. He poked at them with a ruler and managed to fish one out. “By the way, son. As of today I’m off the rape case.”
Webster grunted noncommittally.
“How’s your girl friend this morning?” said Frost, reading through the form.
“She’s come to work,” the constable told him, ‘wearing dark glasses to hide the black eye, but otherwise OK.” And no thanks to you, he added under his breath.
Frost flung himself into his chair and read the burglary report again. “Do you know anything about this attempted break-in at Beech Crescent?”
“Just the bare details,” said Webster. “PC Kenny was called to it last night as he was dropping Sue and me off at her flat.”
According to the report, a Mrs. Shadbolt at number 32 saw a man climbing over the fence into her back garden, so she dialled 999. Kenny did a search of the area and found that the back door of a house a couple of gardens away had been forced open. Kenny woke up the householder and they went over the premises from top to bottom, but nothing had been taken.
“Hmm,” muttered Frost, scratching his chin thoughtfully. He swivelled around to the wall map to locate Beech Crescent. Most of the streets adjoining the woods were named after trees, and he found Beech Crescent not too far from the spot where Sue was attacked. He had a feeling that this might be worth following up. “Get the car, son. We’re going out.”
They had just started out when Control radioed. Sammy Glickman, the pawnbroker, had phoned. The man with the sovereigns for sale was back in his shop with another batch.
“We can be there in five minutes,” said Webster, looking out for a turnoff.
“No,” said Frost firmly. “We’re following up the burglary.” He told Control to send an area car to the pawnbroker’s immediately to pick the man up. He would interview him on their return. Webster couldn’t see why this attempted break-in was so important all of a sudden, but Frost was the boss.