WEDNESDAY-1
Wednesday morning at 8:05, Station Sergeant Bill Wells leaned across the inquiry desk and studied the morning paper, a look of intense pity on his face.
'What's up?' asked Frost, pausing on the way to his office with Clive.
Sadly shaking his head, Wells jabbed a thumb at the front page. 'I've seen some terrible things in my time, Jack, but this is awful. The poor devil-you'd think they could do something with plastic surgery.'
Frost snatched the paper and looked at a photograph of himself taken at the time he'd received his medal at the palace.
'God, what a handsome brute,' he exclaimed. 'Who is it-Errol Flynn?'
The banner headline bellowed
SKELETON OF SHOT BANK ROBBER FOUND IN 32-YEAR-OLD GRAVE. Tucked away at the bottom was a tiny, blurred photo of Tracey, captioned 'Hopes fading for missing girl'. Frost shuddered. The snow had stopped and the search parties would be out in force and he wondered if it would be today that he'd have the rotten job of taking the mother to the mortuary.
'Hear about the arrests Arthur Hanlon made last night?' asked Wells.
'Yes,' snapped Frost, already on his way to the office, 'he's a good chap. He doesn't waste his time reading bloody papers.'
They made an early start and were well stuck into the Bennington's Bank robbery file when Frost let out a sharp groan and reminded Clive they should have been at the briefing meeting ten minutes ago. Mullett stared pointedly as they clattered their shamefaced way to their seats, mumbling apologies.
'I suppose I'll have to start again for the benefit of the latecomers. I was suggesting we should extend the area of the search.'
'It's no use extending it until we get some more men,' said Frost. 'We haven't even got enough to cover the more likely places as thoroughly as we should.'
'Agreed,' purred Mullett, 'but if you had been here when the meeting started, Inspector, you would have known that I intend to ask the Chief Constable for more help.'
Game, set, and match to Hornrim Harry, thought Frost, and didn't say another word until the divisional commander left when he blew a soft raspberry at the closed door. That courtesy out of the way, he heaved himself to his feet and sidled over to Detective Sergeant Martin. 'You don't need me, do you, George? I'll be over at the bank solving the case of the three-eyed skull. If anything exciting happens, give us a buzz on the radio.' He stopped at the door. 'Oh-one other thing. Mrs. Uphill will be waking up in a strange bed without the mirror in the ceiling this morning. Better get one of the policewomen to take her home. What's the name of that one with the mole on her stomach?'
'Hazel!' said George Martin and Clive in unison.
Hudson, the manager of Bennington's Bank, was plump, dark-haired, and blue-chinned. He shook hands with a warm pudgy palm, ushered them to moquette-covered chairs, and announced his secretary would rustle up some coffee.
'It's about the skeleton, isn't it? I read about it in the papers this morning.'
'Yes, sir. Looks as if it might be a long-lost cashier of yours. Reckon you can let us have details of everyone who worked here in 1951?'
Hudson scotched a note on his memo pad with a chunky, gold-banded pen. 'Our staff department at head office holds all personal files. I'll have to get the details from there.' He smiled and offered a suggestion. 'This was before my time, of course, but why don't you have a word with our assistant manager, Rupert Garwood? He was here then-in fact he drove the car and got coshed for his troubles, I understand.'
'Good idea, sir,' said Frost. 'May we see him?'
A light gray phone was lifted with a flourish. 'Brenda? Mr. Hudson here. Ask Mr. Garwood to come to my office, please. What?' His eyes traveled up to the wall clock. 'Unusual for him, isn't it? And he hasn't phoned? Oh dear, I hope he's not sick. Ask Mr. Fox to take over his post.' The brow was deeply furrowed as he replaced the phone and turned apologetically to Frost.
'Bit of a snag, I'm afraid. Mr. Garwood doesn't seem to be in today. Brenda's phoned his home, but there's no reply. Most odd-and so unlike him.' He made another note on his pad.
The two detectives exchanged glances. 'Let us have his address,' said Frost, 'and we'll call at his house on our way back. If we miss him, and he turns up here, you might ask him to give me a ring at the station. I've got a card somewhere.'
Eventually a grubby dog-eared card was located from the depths of a crumb-lined pocket and passed across. Hudson took it doubtfully and was about to tuck it in the corner of his clean blotter when he decided it would look less offensive under his paperclip tray, in which, he noticed with annoyance, the inspector had stubbed out his cigarette.
No. 38 Priestly Court, where Garwood lived, was a pebble-dashed residence of 1938 vintage. They followed the milkman's footprints up the snow-covered path to the porch where the morning's pint of milk shivered on the step. All the curtains were drawn. Frost pressed the bell. They could hear it ringing inside. The ringing died. Silence. Frost rang again, then rattled the letter box causing the morning paper to drop down on the doormat.
'Sounds ominously empty, son,' said Frost. 'The woman next door's peeking at us through her curtains. She looks a right nosey cow. Let's see if she can tell us anything.'
She was a homely body in curlers and a quilted mauve dressing gown, and she talked non-stop. If they wanted Mr. Garwood, he'd be at the bank. No, he wasn't married-lived on his own with Roy… Of course not! He wasn't that sort of a man. Roy was his golden retriever. I'm surprised you didn't hear it barking its head off when you rang the bell. It usually does.
Nodding his thanks, Frost backed away, leaving her still talking, then he sped back to the car with Clive. 'I don't like it son. Radio through to Control and get them to contact the bank. If Garwood still hasn't arrived, they'd better do a quick audit. He might have run off with the tea money.' He watched Clive fumble among the litter on the ledge under the dashboard. 'What's up, son?'
'I can't find your personal radio,' Clive explained.
Christ! thought Frost. He remembered where he'd left it. On Shirley's studio couch the previous night.
'On second thoughts, son, scrub it. Let's go round to the back of the house. There might be a door open.'
On the way they took a look at Garwood's garage. The doors were padlocked, but they forced them open enough to poke a torch inside and it lit up the radiator of a gray Hillman Avenger. Wherever Garwood had gone, he hadn't taken his car.
But the back door was securely locked and bolted and the closed Venetian blinds stopped them from seeing into the kitchen. A small patio extended from the rear of the house for about ten feet or so before the lawn took over. Thick, crusty snow made it one unbroken blanketed expanse, except for an oddly shaped little mound, longish, slightly curved. Frost prodded it tentatively with his toe. A crackling sound of thin ice breaking. Curiosity aroused, he bent and scraped away the snow with a gloved hand, calling for Clive to help. A little way down the snow was tinted pink, and then there was thick, bright, ruby red ice, and something stiff, golden and spikey. Frozen animal fur. They'd found Roy, Garwood's golden retriever, the head darkened with dried blood running into frozen rivulets, soft brown eyes staring dully and reproachfully at the inspector's unpolished shoes.
Frost turned his head away. Tracey's body would be like that, stiff, cold, and reproachful.
They were crouched at the back door, Frost trying one of his skeleton keys, when the two men jumped on them. Frost's arm was seized and jerked brutally upward in an agonizing hammerlock, while Clive's head was slammed into the woodwork of the door. Frost kicked back, savagely, and there was a scream of pain. Then he turned his head and saw the police uniforms.
'You silly sods!' The policeman holding him, gritting his teeth against the pain of the kick, abruptly froze, then slowly released his grip.
'Inspector Frost!'
'Who was you hoping for, you great tart-Jack-the-bloody-Ripper?' The constable rubbed his leg and Frost worked the shoulder muscles of his right arm to ease the pain. Clive was soaking up blood from his nose with a handkerchief. 'Are you all right, son?' Clive nodded and dyed the handkerchief red.
