“Have you had a word with Mr. Allen, Sergeant?” inquired Webster.
“Shelby said he was going to see him about the anonymous phone call.”
“There’s your answer,” said Frost, tucking his scarf inside his mac. He sent Webster out to ask Allen. Within a couple of minutes Allen, accompanied by Sergeant Ingram, marched in.
“What’s this about Shelby?” snapped Allen. “I haven’t seen him all day.”
“I saw him this morning,” said Ingram, ‘but I’ve been off duty all afternoon.”
“He’s gone missing,” said Frost, giving brief details. “Johnny’s worried about him.”
“He hasn’t reported in for nearly five hours,” added the station sergeant.
“Five hours!” exclaimed Allen in disbelief. “Why have you waited five hours before telling anyone?”
The station sergeant looked embarrassed. “He was doing a job for Mr.
Frost taking a WPC over to The Coconut Grove. I thought Mr. Frost might have commandeered his services and told him not to answer his radio.” It was
Frost’s turn to look embarrassed. It wouldn’t have been the first time he had cut corners by doing that.
“For heaven’s sake,” said Allen, ‘he’s in a patrol car. You can’t lose a police officer and a patrol car.”
“I’ve asked all patrols to look out for him,” said Johnson. “No sightings yet.”
“Have you tried the hospitals?” asked Frost. The sergeant nodded.
“Then what about his home? He might have gone straight there.”
“He would have signed off first,” said Johnson.
“Try his home anyway,” ordered Allen, ‘but be tactful. We don’t want to get his wife worried.”
Anxiously watched by all the others, Johnson dialled Shelby’s house.
“No, he’s not back yet,” replied Mrs. Shelby. “I’m expecting him soon. Any message?”
“Not really,” said Johnson, trying to sound unconcerned. He’s probably on a job for Mr. Frost, but I wanted to grab him before he left. Ask him to ring me when he gets in, would you?” He replaced the receiver slowly, his head bowed. “I’m worried,” he said. “Bloody worried.”
Ingram walked across to the wall map behind Frost’s desk. “I’ve had a nasty thought,” he said, and he pointed to the wall map. “North Street is here. The armed man in the getaway car was heading off in this direction.. which would take him smack bang into Shelby’s patrol area.”
Allen squeezed past Webster to study the wall map himself. “You’re suggesting that Shelby could have spotted the getaway car and tried to intercept it?”
“It’s possible, sir,” answered Ingram, “The gunman’s armed. Shelby could have got himself into trouble.”
Allen tugged at his lip, then turned to Frost. “What do you think?”
Frost stuck his hands in his mac pocket and drew hard on his cigarette. “If Shelby spotted the car, he wouldn’t have gone after it off his own bat. He’d have radioed in.” Johnny Johnson nodded his agreement.
“But his radio might be on the blink,” said Allen, ‘which is why we didn’t get any calls earlier. He could have tried to stop the getaway car and the gunman could have turned nasty… wounded him, or taken him hostage.”
“The gunman,” interjected Frost, ‘is Useless Eustace — Stan Eustace. Glickman identified him. Stan would never hold a gun to a copper in his life.”
“And he would never have committed an armed robbery in his life,” retorted Allen with a sarcastic smile, ‘but he did this afternoon.” He looked once more at the wall map. “It’s pointless wasting time speculating. A police officer has gone missing, so we take no chances.” He moved his head to the station sergeant. “All leave is stopped, Johnny. You’d better start calling the off-duty men in. We’ll have to get a full-scale search organized.”
“While you’re getting it organized,” said Frost, edging toward the door, ‘me and Fungus Face will pay a visit to Stan Eustace’s house. If he doesn’t know he’s been identified, we might be able to pick him up with only minimum loss of life.” He beckoned for Webster to follow him and was away.
“Get the search organized,” Allen instructed Ingram. “I’ll go and break the news to Mr. Mullett.”
Wednesday day shift (7)
The tiny garden in front of Stanley Eustace’s semidetached house in Merchants Lane was overgrown with weeds, and the lawn had as fine a crop of thistles as Frost had ever seen. Lights were on downstairs and a radio was playing. There was no escape route from the back of the premises, so there was no need for the two detectives to split up.
Frost pushed the door bell. It wasn’t working, so he had to bang on the door with his hand. He tapped gently, hoping it might sound like an insurance salesman and not a visit from the fuzz.
Webster made a point of hanging back, expecting any minute to see the barrel of a shotgun break through a window. Frost could prattle on about Eustace being harmless until he was blue in the face. Webster remembered the story Johnny Johnson had told him only that morning of how Frost thought the Bennington’s Bank gunman was harmless and got himself a bullet in the face to prove him wrong.
No-one seemed to want to open the door, so Frost banged again, a little harder this time. He lifted the flap of the letterbox and peeked through- He was rewarded by a Cinemascope view of a white-slacked crotch approaching. He straightened up smartly as the door opened and Sadie Eustace, Stanley’s well-padded, tough little brunette wife, in white slacks, black jumper, and enormous blue doughnuts of dangling earrings, put her hands on her hips and demanded to know what they wanted.
“Stan in, Sadie?” asked Frost, pushing past her and jerking his head to the stairs for Webster to search the upper rooms.
“Where’s your warrant?” screamed Sadie, following behind the inspector as he opened and shut doors, looking for her husband.
“Warrant?” said Frost, going through the elaborate pantomime of patting his pockets as if trying to locate it. “I’ve got it here somewhere.” By the time he had patted the last pocket he had looked in every downstairs room.
There was a crashing of doors from above. “What’s that hairy bastard doing up there?” cried Sadie, frowning up the stairs where Webster, fearing a stomachful of lead shot, was flinging open doors, then pressing himself flat against the wall a la Starsky and Hutch. The last door he crashed open was the bathroom, where the shock waves sent a mirror tumbling down from a shelf to shatter on the floor. That was when Webster actually did fling himself flat on his face, hugging the carpet and inhaling dust.
“You all right, son?” called Frost up the stairs.
“Yes,” said Webster curtly, standing up and brushing dust from his clothes. “I slipped.” He thudded downstairs to the kitchen where Sadie, her arms folded, her earrings quivering angrily, was glaring at the inspector.
“You come bursting into my house without a warrant ‘
“I thought I had it on me, Sadie,” said Frost, not in the least shame-faced. “My mistake. So where is Stan out selling the loot?”
“Whatever you want him for, he didn’t do it. He hasn’t been out of the house all day. What’s it about?”
“Armed robbery,” Webster told her. Behind her he could see a stripped pine-wood paper-towel dispenser that Stan had fixed to the wall. It was hanging lopsidedly from one corner.
“Armed robbery? My Stan?” She laughed derisively. “Do me a favour!
You’re out of your tiny minds.”
“No doubt about it, Sadie, I’m afraid,” said Frost, trying to fix the paper-towel dispenser in place, then giving it up as a bad job. “It’s got your Stanley’s fingerprints all over it it was a balls-up from start to finish.”
The phone in the hall rang. Sadie stiffened. “Excuse me,” she said, trying to sound casual, but Frost barred her way. “Answer it, son,” he told Webster.
The phone was on a telephone table under the stairs. Webster picked it up and listened. The sound of pay- phone pips, which stopped when the money was inserted. “Hello… is that you, Sadie?” asked a man’s voice. In the background, Webster could hear traffic rumbling past the kiosk. “Sadie, it’s me, Stan. I’m in a spot of bother. I need your help.”
“Stan, it’s the bloody police,” Sadie screamed from the kitchen.
