The superintendent smoothed his mustache carefully as if it was insecurely fixed with spirit gum. 'Superintendent Gibbons thought you had turned up in your gardening clothes-'
Frost shot up. 'Of all the bloody cheek!'
'It's not a bloody cheek, Inspector! I've been meaning to talk to you about your dress for some time. That mac's a disgrace. And those trousers-when were they last pressed? And as for your shoes…'
Frost tucked his shoes under the chair to hide them from view. 'With respect, sir, I'm supposed to be solving bloody crimes, not tarting myself up like a tailor's dummy.'
Mullett sighed and slumped back in his chair. How could you get through to people like this? Very carefully, and explaining all the ramifications and dangers, he told Frost about the Chief Constable's nephew.
Sergeant Wells flung open the door to Inspector Frost's office. 'You'll be working in here, Barnard.'
It was a mess. A tiny dingy office; two desks, buried in paper, a filing cabinet that wouldn't close properly, and a hatrack. The room was overheated by an enormous cast iron radiator running beneath a window that overlooked the car park. The wall calendar still showed the previous month and untidy heaps of paper and opened files carpeted the brown linoed floor.
Wells stepped on to an oasis of virgin lino. 'You'll have to get the place tidied up a bit, Barnard. Paperwork was never the inspector's strongest suit.'
Clive was speechless. This wouldn't have been tolerated for a single day in London.
The door crashed against the wall and Frost entered, eyes blazing. He kicked a heap of papers and hurled himself into a chair.
'That bloody four-eyed bastard!'
The station sergeant smiled knowingly and gave Clive a broad wink. 'Just come from the Divisional Commander, Jack?'
'I'd like to pull his bleeding mustache out, hair by hair.' He spotted a fresh memo on his desk, gave it a brief glance, snorted, and screwed it up. It missed the waste-paper basket by a good six inches and joined the other debris on the floor. 'Do you know the latest? I've got to wet-nurse the snotty-nosed illegitimate son of our Chief- bloody-Constable.''
Wells grinned and jerked a thumb toward Clive. 'Not his son, Jack-his snotty-nosed nephew. And this is him.'
Frost overflowed with apologies, handshakes, and offers of cigarettes. 'Don't take any notice of me, son. I'm not usually like this-only when I've been rubbed up the wrong way by some horn-rimmed, hairy-lipped, stuck-up cow's son of a Divisional Commander who shall be nameless.'
The station sergeant coughed pointedly. There was a newcomer in their midst.
Frost took the hint. 'Yes, you're right, Bill, I'm supposed to imbue our young hopefuls with respect for rank even though I haven't any myself. Flaming arseholes-!
He had just noticed Clive's suit.
'One hundred and seven quid,' announced Sergeant Wells gravely.
Frost's eyebrows shot up. He tested the material between nicotine-stained fingers and shook his head. 'For that money you could have got a proper one, son. And for work the criterion is never wear a suit you wouldn't be happy letting a drunk be sick all over.'
Behind an impassive face, Clive's resentment flared. Have your fun, you bucolic sods, he thought. We'll see who has the last laugh.
Frost, who had a cornucopia of tasteless anecdotes to suit every occasion, was telling a story about his early days in C.I.D.
'I'd bought myself this suit from the Fifty Shilling Tailors and the very first day I wore it this little fat drunk lurches up and deposits his lunch all over me. Naturally, I admonished him with a sharp knee to the groin, but that suit never looked the same again.'
'It doesn't, Jack,' agreed Wells, straight-faced, 'and it's about time you had it cleaned.'
Frost grinned. 'Funny you should mention my clothes, Bill. Our beloved Divisional Commander has just informed me I'm doing the ragman out of a living. I suppose my mac compares unfavorably with that PS107 creation.'
'He didn't care for this either,' admitted Clive.
'If he said that, son, then I'm going to have to force myself to like it.' As he spoke, he worried something on his right cheek with his fingertips.
Clive eyed Frost more closely. The right cheek! He hadn't noticed before. It was scarred. A knot of white puckered scar tissue under the right eye. He found himself staring and pulled his eyes away.
Frost's internal phone buzzed. It was buried beneath the papers on his desk, but he dragged the receiver out by its flex. A terse message from Inspector Allen-would Frost report to his office right away. Click. No 'please', just the bare message. Frost reburied the phone. 'Another bastard I hate. You might as well come with me, son. Give you a chance to see what a real detective looks like.'
A real detective looked thin, wiry, and sour, but on top of the job, his chilly office reeking of floor polish and uncluttered efficiency, with the desk clinically clear, the 'In' tray empty, the 'Out' brimful of memos and instructions in Allen's neat hand.
Allen frowned when he saw Frost had brought someone in with him, but forced out a wintry smile when he realized it was the Chief Constable's nephew. As soon as he'd restored Tracey Uphill to her mother he'd take the new D.C. under his wing. Another career man, Allen knew his promotion to chief inspector would be announced shortly and he was aiming to be detective superintendent within a year. He'd overtake Mullen yet. The commandership of the new, enlarged division wasn't the one-horse race his superintendent blithely imagined.
Shaking hands briskly with Clive he nodded his visitors to chairs.
'You weren't at the meeting this morning, Frost?' It was barked out as a question.
'No, Allen,' beamed Frost, lighting a cigarette and dropping the match on the polished lino, 'I forgot.'
Allen rose from his chair, picked up the discarded match, and deposited it carefully into his empty waste- paper basket.
'Thanks,' said Frost cheerfully.
Allen took a couple of deep breaths and returned to his seat.
'The missing girl. I want you to question the mother. Something's wrong. If this was a straightforward missing-from-home we should have found the kid by now.'
'There's always the possibility she's done the kid in,' suggested Frost.
Clive smiled tolerantly at this outrageous suggestion. You'd only got to look at the woman… But Inspector Allen seemed to agree with Frost.
'Precisely. That's what I want you to check. Have a nose around. It wasn't searched properly last night.'
'Right,' said Frost, stretching out his legs and drawing on the cigarette.
Allen's eyes narrowed. 'I mean now!' he barked.
That's the way to treat lazy buggers like Frost, thought Clive as the inspector shot to his feet.
'Congratulations,' said Frost.
'On what?' asked Allen in surprise.
'On your promotion to chief inspector coming through.'
'But it hasn't,' said Allen.
'Oh,' said Frost, 'I thought it had,' and he sat down again and finished his cigarette.
Frost took Clive with him to the control room to pick up a personal radio, but the constable in charge was loath to part with any more.
'You've already got two and you haven't returned them, sir,' he said, pointing to the signed receipts in his issues book.
'Important job for Inspector Allen,' said Frost, breezily signing for a third. 'You'll have them all back this afternoon, without fail.' He snatched a radio from the shelf and hustled Clive out before the constable could protest further.
His car, a gray, mud-splattered Morris 1100, was hidden in a side street. It was a cold day and as soon as Frost had cleared the passenger seat of a pair of dirt-caked gumboots and some yellowing Daily Mirrors, he slid in and rammed the heater switched to 'High'. Then he chucked the keys across to Clive and allowed himself to be chauffeured.
