His mobile bleeped. He fished it out of his mac pocket. It was Taffy Morgan.
‘No sign of anyone, Guv,’ moaned Morgan.
‘Then I don’t bloody well want to know,’ snapped Frost.
‘It’s freezing cold,’ added Morgan.
‘We’re having a heatwave over here,’ said Frost, ending the call and dropping the phone back in his pocket.
He heard footsteps approaching and peeked out. A man with his head down against the driving wind was approaching. Frost stiffened, his hand on his mobile ready to summon aid. The man put his hand in his pocket, took out a handkerchief, blew his nose, then went on his way. Shit! thought Frost, dropping the mobile back in his mac. He looked again at his watch: Two minutes to one. Come on, you bastard, he urged. Don’t you know we’re all cold and flaming fed up waiting for you?
Running footsteps and a squeal of female laughter. Two men and two women, all giggling, passed by. One of the women spotted Frost in his doorway and made some comment which was greeted by howls of laughter.
Flaming hell, thought Frost. When did I last have a woman? This flaming job is like a chastity belt – makes you want it, but won’t let you have it. He badly wanted a smoke, but feared that the glow of a burning cigarette would draw attention to the fact that he was skulking in a shop doorway.
Somewhere in the distance a church clock chimed a solitary one. Frost was cold, stiff and fed up. He didn’t care a sod if the blackmailer turned up or not. He could have Beazley’s sodding money. He just wanted to get back to the station and thaw out. The thought of a hot sausage sandwich was much more alluring than the prospect of capturing a flaming blackmailer. Sod it! If the blackmailer intended to come, he’d have been here by now.
Frost phoned Taffy; who took ages to answer.
‘Wake up, you Welsh git. I’m calling it a night. Jordan’s going to pick you up – stay awake until then.’ Then he called Jordan and Collier and told them to pick everyone up and take them back to the station. ‘There’s a bottle of Johnnie Walker in my desk drawer,’ he said. ‘We can kill it while we watch Mullett’s overtime bill mount up.’ Bloody hell. The thought gave him a clout. The soaring overtime bill and nothing to show for it. He shrugged. He’d face that when it came. Tomorrow, as Scarlett O’Hara said after Clark Gable legged it, was another bleeding day.
The Rest Room was warm and cosy, a welcome contrast to shivering in shop doorways. They sat sprawled out sipping mugs of whisky, half an eye on the television screen with the sound turned off. Kate Holby had taken a sip, screwed up her nose and decided she didn’t like it.
‘We’ll have some coffee soon,’ Frost told her. ‘I hope you enjoyed your stake-out. They’re not all as exciting as this. Sometimes you just stand in doorways for hours and get bleeding cold and sod all happens…’
The microwave pinged. Collier took out the first two curries and carried one over to Frost, then slapped a couple more in.
‘Well,’ grunted Frost, peeling the film top from the plastic container. ‘A bollocking from Mullett and Fatso tomorrow, a hefty bleeding overtime bill and sod all to show for it, but at least I’ll have about three hours’ sleep before that happens.’ He dug out a spoonful of curry.
The phone rang.
He paused, the spoonful of hot curry quivering near his lips. He raised an eyebrow to the wall clock. Three twenty-five. Who the hell would be phoning at this godforsaken time? He tried to ignore it but it kept on ringing.
‘Would someone who doesn’t sound half-pissed answer that bloody thing?’ he said. ‘It might be Mullett enquiring about our welfare, or Tom Champagne telling me I’ve won the Reader’s Digest prize draw.’
‘I’d better do it,’ smiled Kate. She picked up the phone. ‘It’s Fortress Building Society computer control,’ she told Frost.
He pushed himself out of his chair. ‘Don’t tell me the bastard waited until we had all left.’ He took the phone. ‘Frost.’
‘Sorry we’ve been so long getting through to you, Inspector,’ said the voice at the other end of the line. ‘But it’s been panic stations here. All our computers went down. We’ve only just got them back up again. Did you get him?’
Frost’s heart nosedived to the pit of his stomach. ‘Get who?’ But he knew bloody well who. Sod and double sod.
‘Your blackmailer. He withdrew another five hundred pounds.’
Frost’s drink-befuddled brain switched falteringly in and out of focus. ‘Which cashpoint?’
‘The one in Market Square. The same one as before.’
‘What time?’
‘Four minutes past one. You did catch him, didn’t you?’
‘I’ll get back to you,’ said Frost, slamming the phone down. ‘If we’d caught him, I’d have bleeding said so, wouldn’t I, you stupid prat,’ he yelled at the handset.
The team had gone silent, all eyes on Frost, realising something had gone badly wrong. Frost spun round in his chair. ‘He took another five hundred quid from the till in Market Square about a minute after we pulled out. The bastard must have known we were there. Where’s Taffy Morgan? He was supposed to be watching that cashpoint.’
They looked blankly at each other.
‘He never came back with us,’ said Collier after a pause.
Frost turned to Jordan. ‘I thought you were picking him up?’
‘He wasn’t there. I assumed he’d gone with Collier.’
Collier shook his head. ‘He didn’t come with me, Inspector.’
Frost fished out his mobile and keyed in Morgan’s number. ‘I bet the bastard’s fallen asleep and is snoring his head off in the shop doorway.’ The whisky was making him sweat. He wanted to go into the washroom and stick his head under the tap. Morgan’s mobile was ringing. ‘Come on, come on, you Welsh git,’ urged Frost. But it just went on ringing. He clicked off and beckoned Jordan over. ‘You sober enough to drive?’
Jordan nodded. ‘Just about.’
‘Go and look for him. Wake him up gently. A knee in the goolies should do.’
‘Shall I check his digs?’ asked Simms.
He looked flushed, but in slightly better shape than Jordan.
Before Frost could answer, the phone rang. ‘This will be him,’ he said, picking up the hand set ready to give the DC an earful.
‘Inspector Frost? PC Wilson here from Traffic. I’m calling from Denton General Hospital. We’ve followed up an ambulance 999 call. Bloke found unconscious in the gutter. No identification. We thought it was a hit and run.’
‘There’s a point to this, I hope,’ said Frost, wedging the phone between his head and shoulder as he poked a cigarette in his mouth and reached for his lighter.
‘Yes, there is a point, Inspector. When we got to the hospital we recognised the victim. It’s DC Morgan.’
‘Morgan?’ echoed Frost.
‘Yes. He was unconscious when they brought him in. The doctor reckons he’s been clouted on the head with something heavy.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘Nothing broken, according to the X-rays, but they want to keep an eye on him overnight in case of complications.’
‘And you said there was no ID on him?’
‘That’s right. Whoever whammed him must have taken his wallet.’
‘Thanks,’ said Frost. ‘You can get back to booking motorists. I’ll be right over.’
He replaced the phone and raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘The end of a perfect bleeding night. Unauthorised overtime, the money taken any way, Morgan knocked unconscious and robbed and I’ve got a splitting bleeding headache.’ He looked across at Kate Holby. ‘You’re the only sober one here, love. You’d better drive me to the hospital.’
He followed the young nurse through a darkened ward to a curtained bed at the far end. Somewhere in the background a feeble voice kept calling, ‘Nurse… nurse,’ but she took no notice.
‘Shouldn’t someone see to him?’ asked Frost. She shook her head. ‘He only wants to know the time, then when you tell him, five minutes later he wants to know again.’ She opened the curtains so Frost could enter.