Skinner shook his head firmly and again turned to Mullett to take over. Mullett tried to look the other way. He wanted Skinner to continue with the unpleasant side of the business.
Skinner wasn’t having any. ‘Superintendent Mullett has something to say to you.’
‘Oh yes,’ mumbled Mullett. ‘The, er, point is, Frost, I can’t have people on my team who cheat. Paying back isn’t good enough.’
‘Then what the bleeding hell is good enough?’ Frost demanded. ‘Do you want me to disembowel my bleeding self?’
Mullett look pleadingly at Skinner, who stone-walled with a shake of the head. This is up to you, he signalled.
‘This should be reported to County, Frost,’ said Mullett at last. ‘Much as I am always ready to lay my head on the block for my team, I have no option. It’s my duty to report it and I imagine County will suspend you while they go through all your expense vouchers for the past five years or so to find out if there are other discrepancies.’
‘They could do you for fraud,’ added Skinner. ‘Although they’d probably give you the opportunity of resigning instead. They don’t like their dirty washing to be aired in public.’
Frost went cold. He could see the bastard was serious.
Mullett seemed to be finding something of interest out of the window, so Skinner picked up the reins again. ‘However, you can count your self bloody lucky that you’ve got such a kind and sympathetic Superintendent.’ Mullett hung his head and brushed aside the compliment.
Frost stayed silent, waiting to see what the two scheming bastards had dreamed up for him.
‘I would be extremely reluctant to terminate the career of one of my officers,’ said Mullett, ‘even though it would be fully justified. But by shutting my eyes to the offence I could get into serious trouble if the truth came out. However, if you are agreeable, there is a satisfactory way out.’
‘Oh?’ said Frost warily.
Again Mullett looked pleadingly at Skinner, who, fed up with the man’s shilly-shallying, took over yet again.
‘As it happens, Frost, there is an officer in my old division who would very much like to work in Denton. But that, of course, would require a vacancy here.’
‘You want Superintendent Mullett to resign?’ asked Frost innocently.
‘You know bloody well I don’t mean that,’ snapped Skinner. ‘I am suggesting that you are transferred to my old division, while the officer in question transfers to Denton.’
You lousy, stinking, conniving bastards, thought Frost. He took another drag at his cigarette and flicked the ash in the general direction of the heavy glass ashtray. He kept his face impassive. Don’t let the sods have the pleasure of seeing how much this is affecting me. He pinched out the half-smoked cigarette and poked it in his pocket.
There was a pregnant pause.
‘So what do you think?’ asked Mullett at last.
I think you are a pair of shits, thought Frost. Aloud he said, ‘I’ll let you know tomorrow.’
‘By tomorrow morning, first thing,’ said Skinner. ‘Otherwise Mullett will have no alternative but to report this matter to County and to the Inland Revenue.’
Mullett nodded his agreement, happy that he hadn’t had to make the threat. ‘That’s all, Frost,’ he said – but to an empty chair. The office door slammed and the glass ashtray did another dance on the desk as Frost took his departure.
‘Well,’ said Mullett. ‘We handled that quite well, I thought.’
Skinner scooped up the petrol receipts.
‘Bloody well,’ he said. ‘The sod didn’t know what hit him.’
‘Skinner’s old division? Lexton?’ said Wells, shaking his head sadly. ‘It’s a tip, and the Superintendent is a real right bastard.’
‘Then I’ll feel at home, won’t I?’ grunted Frost. ‘But don’t worry I’m not going to let the sods get away with it.’
Wells looked at Frost anxiously. ‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, I hope?’
Frost affected surprise. ‘When do I ever do anything stupid?’
‘Every bleeding day,’ said Wells.
‘Yes… well, I meant apart from that. I’ve had a word with Joe Henderson up at County. He says all the old car-expense vouchers are filed away in the basement storeroom. He reckons it shouldn’t be too difficult for someone to sneak down there and bung them in the incinerator.’
Wells’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not going to burn them?’ he croaked. ‘Supposing you get caught?’
‘I won’t get caught,’ said Frost stubbornly. ‘An old storeroom full of ancient expense claims. It isn’t even locked.’
‘But when they realise it’s your file that’s missing, they’ll know damn well who took it.’
‘Knowing and proving are two different things. Besides, I’ll burn a couple of others as well.’
‘But what about the vouchers Skinner showed you this afternoon?’
‘They’ll be locked in Mullett’s filing cabinet. Once he’s gone home for the night it won’t take me five minutes to nick them.’
‘But jack – ’ spluttered Wells. The phone rang. He answered it and handed it to Frost. ‘Your mate Henderson from County.’
Frost took the phone and listened. His face fell. ‘The bastard. Thanks for telling me.’ He banged the phone down. ‘Skinner has requisitioned my old expenses file. It’s being sent direct to him at the hotel he’s staying at.’
Wells looked relieved. ‘Well, at least it’s stopped you from doing something stupid.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Frost sadly, ramming a cigarette in his mouth. He puffed smoke. ‘Tell you what though. I could get myself a can of petrol and burn his hotel down.’
‘At last you’re being sensible,’ said Wells.
Frost sat slumped in his office chair, making paper darts from the contents of his in-tray and hurling them in the general direction of the waste-paper bin. His aim was poor and the floor was littered with crashed aircraft. Someone tapped at the door.
‘Come in.’
Harding from Forensic entered, carrying a polythene evidence bag which he dumped on Frost’s desk. It contained the various pieces of severed foot and leg so far recovered.
'I’ve had my lunch, thanks,’ said Frost, giving it hardly a glance. Body parts were the least of his troubles.
There was a token smile from Harding, who was not a fan of Frost’s tired humour. ‘I thought you would be interested in our findings.’
‘If it’s from a medical student’s dissecting room, I’m interested. Anything else, I’m bored stiff.’
Harding shook his head. ‘If it had been smuggled out of a medical school we’d have expected evidence of preservatives. We found none.’
‘Shit,’ said Frost. ‘Are you saying we’re talking murder?’
‘Not necessarily. It could have come from an amputation and a student took it away for a joke.’
‘Terrific joke,’ moaned Frost. ‘I’m pissing myself. We don’t know for sure, so we’ve got to assume it’s murder and start looking for the rest of the bits.’
‘I can tell you this,’ Harding said. ‘It’s from a female, aged around thirty-five to forty perhaps a bit older, and whoever sawed it off had some degree of medical knowledge. The way it’s gone through the metatarsal suggests a proper bone-saw was probably used.’
‘And how long would the owner have been dead,’ asked Frost, ‘assuming she isn’t still walking around with half her foot missing, but hasn’t bothered to report it because she knows the police are bleeding useless?’
‘You’d better get the pathologist to answer that. At least a couple of weeks – possibly much more.’
Frost scratched his cheek. ‘Give it to Skinner. I’m off all murder cases from now on.’
When Harding had left, Frost resumed his half hearted paper-dart-throwing. He was dispirited and miserable – he could see no way of wriggling out of this. Lexton! A shit hole! He’d spent all his working life in Denton; he knew it like the back of his hand. He knew the people – the scumbags, the villains, everyone. He didn’t want to start from scratch in a new division and, worst of all, he hated the thought that Skinner and Mullett had put one over on him. Why had he got so smug and bloody careless with the petrol claims? He hurled a paper dart savagely at the door, narrowly missing Taffy Morgan, who had burst in waving a sheet of A4.