A Killing Frost (22 page)

   ‘What’s it about?’ Frost asked.

   Skinner’s eyes glinted and he flashed a malevolent smile. ‘That’s what you’re going to find out,’ he replied as he marched back to his office.

   ‘Why do I get the feeling it’s not going to be something good?’ said Frost.

   ‘The bastard’s up to something,’ said Wells. ‘He’s been in and out of Mullett’s office all morning. When I took some papers in to him he was on the phone. He cut the conversation stone dead when I came in and didn’t start it again until I left.’

   Frost remembered the transfer request he had seen in Skinner’s in-tray.

   ‘He’s leaving. That’s what it’s about,’ enthused Frost. ‘The bastard is leaving Denton.’

Police Superintendent Mullett, Denton Divisional Commander, nervously drummed his fingers on the polished surface of his mahogany desk. This was the moment he had been looking forward to for so long, but there was no way he was going to face Frost on his own. Where was DCI Skinner? He had said he would be here.

   A half-hearted tap at the door made Mullett’s heart skip a beat. This had to be Frost, annoyingly prompt for once. The door was flung open before he could say ‘Enter’ and Frost shambled in, a cigarette drooping from his mouth, ash snowflaking down the front of his jacket and on to the newly vacuumed blue Wilton carpet.

   ‘You wanted to see me, Super?’ asked Frost, the waggling cigarette shedding more ash. What the hell was this all about? he wondered. Mullett looked even more shifty and devious than ever.

   ‘Er - yes,’ said Mullett, checking his watch.

   Where the devil was Skinner? ‘Take a seat.’ He indicated a hard-seated chair he had placed some way from his desk.

   ‘Thanks,’ grunted Frost, ignoring the offered chair and dragging a more comfortable visitor’s chair from the wall over to Mullett’s desk, positioning it next to the in-tray. Mullett hastily took a heavy glass ashtray from his drawer and slid it across, just too late to stop another shower of ash descending on his gleaming desktop.

   ‘Sorry, Super,’ grunted Frost, blowing the offending ash all over the place. He leant back in his chair. ‘What did you want to see me about? Only I’m a bit pushed for time.’

   Mullett fiddled with his fountain pen and patted some papers into shape to gain time. He wasn’t ready to answer that question yet. It really was too bad of Skinner. Where on earth was he . . .?

   A polite tap at the door made him sigh with relief. ‘Enter,’ he called and Detective Chief Inspector Skinner strode purposefully into the room, giving a smile to Mullett and a curt nod to Frost.

   Mullett waved apologetically at the hard chair he had intended for Frost. Skinner dragged it behind Mullett’s desk so he could sit next to the Superintendent, edging Mullett from the centre position.

   ‘If you could kindly spare us a few moments of your valuable time, Inspector,’ said Mullett sarcastically as Frost nudged the in-tray round, trying to read the name on the ‘Request for Transfer’ form. A bit of gossip to share with Bill Wells.

   ‘Sure,’ said Frost graciously, tearing his eyes away. ‘But if you could be quick - some of us have got work to do.’ He stared pointedly at his watch, then beamed up at Mullett’s bleak, worried smile and Skinner’s grim frown. Then it was Frost’s turn to frown. With a jolt he recognised the wad of papers Skinner was holding. Flaming heck! They were his monthly car expenses, which he assumed had already been passed and sent to County for payment. Today was the deadline. His mind raced. What the hell was Skinner doing with them?

   ‘Are they my car expenses?’ he asked. ‘They’ve got to be at County today, otherwise I don’t get paid until next month.’

   Mullett shuffled some papers again and studied the top of his desk. He looked hopefully at Skinner, but Skinner was waiting for Mullett to reply. ‘They’re not going off to County, I’m afraid,’ Mullett said eventually, carefully avoiding Frost’s eyes.

   ‘Oh? And why not?’ demanded Frost.

   This time Skinner answered. ‘Because most of these receipts appear to have been falsified.’ He spread them out on the desk in front of Frost.

   ‘Falsified?’ shrilled Frost in as indignant a tone as he could muster, while his brain raced through the data bank of his memory, wondering where the hell he had gone wrong. ‘Don’t tell me those lousy garages have been fiddling the amounts and I’ve missed it?’

   ‘I very much doubt that it is the garages that have been doing the falsifying,’ said Skinner, while Mullett, a smug smile on his face, nodded his agreement.

   ‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’ said Frost.

   Skinner smashed a fist down on Mullett’s desk and the glass ashtray leapt into the air, crashing down in another ash storm. ‘Don’t come the bloody innocent with me, Frost. You know damn well what I mean. The majority of these receipts have been altered in your favour. And I’m saying that you altered them.’

   ‘If you think that, then flaming well prove it,’ snapped Frost, hoping and praying that the fat sod couldn’t.

   Skinner leant back in his chair and smiled the smile of a fat sod who had four aces in his hand and a couple of kings to back them up. He took a receipt from the pile and waved it at Frost. ‘I asked Forensic to examine this one. “20 litres” has been crudely altered to read “26 litres”.’

   Frost exhaled a sigh of relief. By sheer, undeserved good luck, Skinner had picked the one receipt that was genuine. It had already been altered, so he had been unable to alter it again. ‘If you check with the garage, you will find that the cashier misread the pump reading and had to alter it afterwards.’ He grabbed Mullett’s phone and thrust it at the Chief Inspector. ‘Go on. Phone them and ask.’ He stood up. ‘And when they confirm it, you can come to my office and apologise.’ Attack, he knew, was the best form of defence.

   He had hardly reached the door when Skinner roared, ‘Sit down! I haven’t finished with you yet. Then how do you explain this?’

   Frost slumped back in his chair and looked at the petrol receipt pinned to the desktop by Skinner’s finger. His heart sank. ‘What about it?’ he asked, knowing damn well that if the bastard had checked he would know too bloody well what it was about.

   The bastard had checked. ‘A bit off the beaten track, like most of the garages you choose to use, but I took a ride down there. The site was deserted. Elm Tree Garage has been closed for over two years.’

   Frost’s brain raced, churning this over. Sod it! He’d been getting too flaming careless. Mullett was so easy to fool, especially when he was caught on the hop and made to sign expense claims he didn’t have time to check first. Sod, sod and double sod. He’d meant to throw those old blank receipt forms away ages ago. Stupid, stupid fool! ‘I don’t know how that happened,’ he muttered. ‘I must have tucked the receipt in my wallet ages ago and got it mixed up with the current ones.’ He peered at Skinner to see how this was going down. It wasn’t going anywhere!

   Skinner was shaking his head. ‘With a current date?’

   ‘I probably noticed the date was wrong, so I put a new one in,’ offered Frost, trying to suggest it was the most natural thing to do with an old receipt.

   Smirking superciliously, and staring at Frost as he did so, Skinner began to line up a series of petrol receipts on the desktop as if he was displaying a Royal Flush ‘And you did the same for these other five Elm Tree Garage receipts. How do you account for that?’

   Frost wriggled uncomfortably in his chair. ‘All right. So I lost some receipts and altered some others so I wouldn’t lose out. Big deal!’

   Skinner scooped up the receipts and put them back on the pile. ‘If it had only happened once - or perhaps twice, or even in single figures - I might be disposed to believe you, Inspector Frost, but I’ve gone back six months and could go back even further. A sizeable number have been altered. By my calculations you’ve been making almost forty pounds a month from falsified car-expense claims.’

   ‘And tax-free,’ chimed in Mullett, who felt he was being left out of things.

   ‘Yes,’ agreed Skinner grimly. He turned to Mullett and nodded for him to take over.

   Mullett had the grace not to look Frost in the eye. ‘I won’t tolerate dishonesty in my division.’

   ‘Dishonesty?’ exclaimed Frost incredulously. ‘What bloody dishonesty? Half the overtime I can’t be bothered to claim would wipe this out in a flash.’

   Mullett turned in appeal to Skinner. He hadn’t considered this aspect. Don’t say Frost was going to wriggle out of it, as he always seemed able to do.

   Skinner took over. ‘You can’t write off fiddling like that. Forgery is forgery. If you’re too lazy to claim overtime, that’s your look-out. You can’t make up for it by fiddling.’

  
All right
, thought Frost.
When you’ve lost, stop fighting.
‘So I might have made the odd mistake. Big deal. If it makes you happy, I’ll pay it back.’

   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.’