Allen was as tired and drained as the searchers. Something was wrong. They should have found her today. Tomorrow he'd have to draw in more men and extend the area of the search, which meant more organizing, more painstakingly detailed work before he could call it a day. He'd been on the go since seven that morning and would be lucky to see his bed before midnight. And he felt ill. He hadn't eaten all day and the thought of food sickened him. The canteen was overbearingly hot. Where the devil was that incompetent fool, Frost. Nothing from him since he was detailed to interview the mother before lunch. And the man an inspector, the same rank as Allen, who was bearing all the worry and responsibility of the search and who would have to accept all the blame if it went sour.
A burst of raucous laughter from the queue by the counter, and there was Frost in his dirty mac, sharing some coarse joke with the woman at the tea urn. No worries, no thought of reporting back to Allen, just straight into the queue for tea.
It was too much. Allen stormed over and jerked his head to the door, waiting in the corridor outside for Frost to follow. Out he came, his scarf bulging out of his pocket, the new chap, Barnard, behind him.
"Bit of luck spotting you," beamed Frost, completely unabashed. "I'll give you a verbal report-save all the bother of sticking it on paper."
Allen exploded. Was he expected to receive important reports casually in the corridor?
"You'll write the bloody thing out properly and bring it to my office. And where the hell have you been?"
"Sorry," said Frost, surprised at the outburst and wondering why the man was so touchy-although he didn't look well. "She gave us a lead and we followed it through."
Allen's eyes blazed. "You weren't told to follow it through. You were told to report back, you bloody fool. Why don't you do what you're told!"
"Why don't you get stuffed," asked Frost, turning to go. "You'll get the report when I've had some tea."
Something snapped. Allen reached out, grabbed Frost's shoulder, and spun him round. Frost's eyes flashed and knuckles whitened over clenched fists.
God, thought Clive, there's going to be a fight. He prayed that a senior officer would come on the scene before it got out of hand. What was the etiquette for such things? Should he try to break it up or look the other way and pretend it just wasn't happening?
But it didn't happen. Allen gasped and doubled up, his face sickly white and contorted with the pain that tore his stomach.
Frost was immediately full of concern. "Are you all right?"
Allen straightened up, his brow clammy with sweat. "Something I've eaten. It'll pass." He was unsteady on his feet and clutched the wall for support.
"I'll give you a hand to your office."
"No-I can manage." He composed himself. Then: "What happened with Mrs. Uphill?" He listened intently as Frost told him. He didn't think the nude photograph was relevant but was very interested in the bearded man.
"I want to know immediately there's any news from Lefington. And I want a typed report on my desk tonight." He trotted briskly down the stairs. Whatever had been wrong with him seemed to have passed.
"I won't half pay for that when his promotion comes through," Frost told Clive blandly, pushing the swing doors to re-enter the canteen, but no sooner had they joined the end of the queue when the P.A. system gave a metallic cough.
"Telephone call for Inspector Frost."
There was a phone in the corridor. The call was from Lefington sub-division. Good news. The railway booking clerk not only recognized the description, but was able to turn up an application the bearded man had made for a season ticket. It contained his full name and address. He was Stanley Farnham, a schoolmaster, who traveled daily by train to Cranford where he taught English at the comprehensive school.
Frost scribbled the address down on the back of a cigarette packet and was profuse with thanks, praise, and offers of reciprocation. The face he turned to Clive beamed with delicious anticipation, like a cat's on finding the door to the canary's cage open.
"No time for tea, son. We've got a beard to interview."
He tugged the scarf from his mac pocket and reeled it round his neck.
"You'll be letting Inspector Allen know, sir?" asked Clive anxiously.
"But of course. He gets touchy if he thinks I'm ignoring him. I don't know why he should feel jealous-after all, we're both the same rank." He dialed Allen's office on the internal phone, but it was Detective Sergeant George Martin, Allen's assistant, who answered.
"Oh, hello, George," chirped Frost. "Is your esteemed chief there by some unfortunate chance? Gone home for a bath? Well, about time. I'm not a fussy man, but… Look, when he gets back, you might tell him we've traced Mrs. Uphill's weekly customer and we're on our way to interview him. No, I don't think I should ask him first. He likes people to act on their own initiative. Have I done what? The crime statistics? God, is it time for them already? Due in last week? Clang! Well, thanks for the whisper. I'll do them when we get back."
He hung up and swore softly at the wall. Damn those bloody statistics. Mullett was such a stickler for them going out to H.Q. on time and they were a time-wasting nuisance. There was no problem if your office was organized like Inspector Allen's; you just went to a file and extracted the figures. But if your papers were unfiled and your office was a rubbish tip…
"As soon as we get back, son, we'll do the crime statistics. Be good training for you."
When they reached the car the inspector realized he'd left his other packet of cigarettes in the office and Clive, spilling over with resentment at being used as a messenger boy, was sent back for them.
The muddle and disorder of Frost's office made him shudder. Since they were last in, fresh deliveries of paperwork had arrived and had been stacked on top of earlier layers on the inspector's desk, held down under the weight of his glass ashtray. The top item under the ashtray looked interesting. A sheet of thick, deckle-edged notepaper scrawled with spidery writing in pale green ink. Clive sat at ' the desk to read it when young P.C. Keith Stringer breezed in with roneoed copies of the new duty roster for January.
"In the boss's chair already?" he grinned, adding a roneoed sheet to the rising paper mountain.
Clive decided not to admit to being engaged in the menial task of fetching cigarettes and countered with a question of his own. "I thought your shift finished at two?"
"Overtime. We're men short on the search and I need the money."
"Tell me something," said Clive. "What time do you reckon he'll be letting me go?" — "How do you mean?"
Clive checked his watch. "I've been on now for nearly eight hours. We've got to interview a man-say another couple of hours-then he's talking about coming back for a jolly session with the crime statistics. To hear him talk you'd think the day had just started."
Keith's grin widened. "Haven't you been told about Mr. Frost? He's a smashing bloke and we all like him, but he never wants to call it a day. Since his wife died there's nothing for him to go home for, I suppose, but he doesn't think anyone else has a home either. If you're home before midnight, you'll be lucky. First in and last out, that's him, so say goodbye to your sex life." He dropped a duty roster on Frost's desk and sailed out of the office.
Clive seethed. Midnight! Well, he wasn't going to put up with that; he'd see Mullett first thing tomorrow morning. Then his heart sank. He couldn't, of course. He was the Chief Constable's nephew. They'd say he was after special treatment.