Winter Frost

The two men, PCs Baker and Howe, looked at each other in puzzlement. 'We told the station,' said Howe. 'Sergeant Wells said he would let you know.'

Wells! Bloody Wells, up to his tricks again. Her radio buzzed. This would be him, belatedly passing on the message, hoping that by now she was floundering in the woods. 'Yes?' she snapped.

'Acting Inspector Maud-' began Wells.

She cut him short. 'Sorry to disappoint you, Sergeant, but it didn't work.' She clicked off, still seething. 'They'll be in Casualty,' Howe told her, leading the way down the long echoing corridor.

'Fill me in,' she said.

'Mr and Mrs Redwood — both in their seventies. They were driving back from a friend's house and as they went through Forest Lane they saw a man lying at the side of the road, another man bending over him waving to flag them down. They stopped, thinking the man was injured. Redwood switched off the engine and got out. The next thing he knew there's a shotgun stuck up his nose and they were demanding his car keys. Like a silly sod, Redwood makes a run for it, so this bloke calmly shoots him in the legs, grabs the keys, turfs out the old dear and they both drive off leaving the old boy bleeding and the old girl screaming.'

'Was this before or after the armed robbery?' asked Liz.

'Before. They nicked the car to do the job.'

Liz frowned. 'Why nick it? What happened to their own car?'

Howe shrugged. 'No idea. Perhaps it broke down.' 'Then it's got to be in the woods, somewhere near where they ambushed the couple… Did you look?'

'No — our main concern was getting the old boy to the hospital.'

'Well, he's here now… Get back there and look. I'll take over here.'

They turned back to the main entrance as she followed the signs to 'Accident and Emergency' where, even at that late hour, there were several people, some the obvious victims of pub fights, waiting for attention. She drought she recognized a couple of them from the coachload of drunken football supporters at the station earlier.

"They've taken Mr Redwood straight up to the theatre,' the staff nurse told her. 'That's his wife over there.' She nodded towards an elderly woman in a thick grey woollen coat who was strangling a handkerchief to death with gloved hands. The old lady looked up anxiously as Liz went over, thinking it might be the nurse with news of her husband, Liz sat on the bench beside her.

'Can you tell me what happened?' The story came out a few disjointed words at a time. She had little to add to what she had already told the two policemen. 'They shot him — in cold blood — they shot him…'

Liz nodded in sympathy. 'Can you describe them?'

'It all happened so quickly… They were medium height… in their mid-twenties, I think… dark clothes… zip-up jackets. The one with the gun had this black ski mask thing hiding his face and the other one wore a blue baseball cap, the peak pulled down. He had a wispy beard, and he wore an ear-ring, a silver stud thing in his right car. When the other one shot my husband, he laughed, he thought it was a great joke.'

'When they spoke, what did they sound like?'

'Just ordinary. I think they were local… they didn't say much, just "Give us the keys." '

Liz persisted with her questioning, but got little more from the woman except that she doubted if she would recognize cither of them again. A tired-looking doctor, making a great effort to stifle his yawns, approached them. 'We've sent your husband up to Nightingale Ward for the night, Mrs Redwood. His injuries are minor, but he's in a state of shock. Hopefully he can go home tomorrow.'

'His leg?'

'We've got all the pellets out and cleaned him up. No permanent damage.' He pointed to the staff nurse. 'The nurse will take you to the ward.'

'Is he in a fit state to answer questions?' asked Liz.

The doctor shook his head. 'He's still groggy from the anaesthetic… Best wait until the morning.'

She smiled her thanks. This suited her. She wanted to get back to the more important murder inquiry. Frost could take over the questioning of Redwood in the morning. She radioed the description of the two men to Control, then made her way back to her car. She was almost at the exit doors when a red-faced and panting young nurse caught up with her. 'Inspector. The old gentleman who was shot in the petrol station. He wants to speak to you. Says it's important.'

Damn and double damn. Liz hesitated, trying to think of a reason to get out of seeing him. The longer she delayed getting back to the murder investigation, the more Frost would be getting his heels dug in too far to give it up. This was her case. A successful murder inquiry would give her chance of promotion the boost it needed.

'Inspector…?' said the nurse, waiting for her reply.

Liz sighed and forced a smile. 'Would you take me to him, please.'

With the body and Liz Maud out of the way they were able to move furniture about and give the room a thorough search. This produced two major finds. A bloodstained flick-knife was found under the divan bed, probably kicked there during the struggle. 'Get it checked for prints,' said Frost, who then remembered the green business card in his pocket. He passed it over to Detective Sergeant Hanlon. 'If we haven't found out who the poor cow is by the morning, Arthur, show this to the local print shops. They might come up with a name.'

Hanlon wasn't too sure. 'You can run these off on a home computer now, Jack. She probably printed it herself.'

'Try anyway,' said Frost.

And then Simms, who was dragging the wardrobe away from the wall, yelled with excitement. 'Something here, Inspector.' Wedged between the wardrobe and the wall was a wallet. Frost took it carefully by the edges and picked through the contents. Banknotes to the value of some Ј400, credit cards and credit card receipts and a diary full of telephone numbers. Frost beamed. 'Our drunken friend's missing wallet,' he announced. 'And he told us a porky about his name… it's Gladstone… Robert Gladstone and he lives in Denton.' He radioed for Morgan to go and pick him up.

One of the search parties radioed in to report they had had no luck in finding the missing knife. 'Ah!' said Frost. 'Might be a good idea to let them know we've already found it.' There was little more he could do on the spot, so he left them to get on with it and drove back to the station.

Gladstone, now sobered up, looked uneasily at Frost. He was wearing a white, one-piece overall provided for him while his own clothes were away for forensic examination. 'Look… I don't want to get involved in this. You've got no right-'

'Shut up!' said Frost cheerfully, dropping into the chair opposite and sticking a cigarette into his mouth. 'Do you want to confess now, or shall we waste time beating you up and claiming you fell down the stairs while drunk?'

Gladstone stared warily at Frost, not certain whether to take this seriously or not. 'I don't have to put up with this. I'm the victim here.'

Frost dragged the cigarette from his mouth, eyes opened wide in mock amazement. 'You're the victim? I thought the poor cow on the bed was the victim!' He nodded for Morgan to start up the tape machine to record the interview.

'I came to you to report a crime.'

'You reported the wrong one, though, didn't you? I suppose it slipped your mind to tell us you'd killed her.'

'Killed her! That's bloody stupid. If I killed her, why did I take that dozy Welsh cop back to her place?'

'You killed her, then you panicked and drove off, then you realized she'd nicked your wallet… You didn't have the guts to go back in case you were spotted, or in case some other punter had already found the body and called the police.'

'That's bloody ridiculous!'

'If we found a body and your wallet, we wouldn't have wasted time looking for anyone else to pin it on, would we? You know how we like to jump to conclusions.'