Free Fatal Frost by Henry James Page A

you that.’ He suddenly looked tired, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand and sighing. ‘I don’t know. She’s out of sorts.’
    ‘Out of sorts? C’mon Jack, don’t be obtuse. Had enough of you, more like.’
    He wiped his mouth with a napkin. ‘I don’t know, Sue,’ he said firmly, meeting her stare. ‘Really. And now is not the time.’
    ‘It’s never the time.’ She sat down wearily opposite Frost.
    ‘Aye aye, what’s this, lovers’ tiff?’ said Derek Simms, grinning down at them inanely. ‘Mind if we join you?’
    ‘Actually, yes, piss off,’ Clarke snapped. After last night she’d briefly felt favourably disposed towards Derek Simms, but as usual he revealed himself to be a total arse in front of his mates at the station.
    ‘Touchy,’ Simms said. ‘And after I looked in on you last night, too.’
    Clarke glanced at Frost: no reaction.
    Waters loomed up behind Simms, holding a tray. ‘Hey, how’s that leg?’
    ‘Sore.’
    ‘I’ll bet.’
    Waters’ appearance seemed to jolt Simms into suddenly adopting a more professional air. Clarke felt he wore it like an ill-fitting suit – awkwardly and without grace. ‘John, you’ve met Detective Constable Sue Clarke. And this is Detective Sergeant Frost.’
    Frost raised a hand in a nonchalant wave. ‘Welcome to Denton, son. It’s a hoot.’
    Clarke moved over to allow the big man room next to her.
    ‘Heard a lot about you, Sergeant Frost,’ Waters said.
    ‘All lies, and please, call me Jack.’ Frost glanced cursorily at the new member of CID. ‘I could say the same about you. I’ve been meaning to catch up with you since you arrived, but there’s been rather a lot on. So, what do you make of it so far?’
    Clarke switched off. No doubt it would all be blokish banter from here on, which left her cold at the best of times. She pushed away her untouched breakfast. ‘Sorry to run, but I’ve got to go out with Myles.’
    ‘You girls off to do a bit of shopping?’ Frost quipped, and the others laughed. God, she loathed him at times. Wincing as her stitches tugged, she gloomily left the table.
    Frost observed Clarke’s painful exit. Cracking curves, that girl. Wounded leg or no, he still fancied the pants off her. And she had certainly been a pleasant contrast to these two ugly Herberts. He lit a cigarette and took a final swig of tea before switching his attention to the large policeman opposite him.
    Frost felt genuinely sorry for the burly black detective sergeant, who might as well have been wearing a sandwich board saying, ‘Look at me, I’m different!’ so out of place did he seem in this parochial police canteen. It didn’t help that there’d been riots in Brixton only last year, causing racial tension everywhere, even in places like Denton where minorities were as rare as hen’s teeth. The police seemed to think it gave them licence to be rude to absolutely anyone not obviously Caucasian, from a Pakistani shopkeeper to the staff in Denton’s Chinese takeaway. Frost, however, would have none of it and had made it clear how dire the consequences would be for anyone he caught behaving inappropriately.
    ‘You must have upset someone mightily to get assigned here, pal.’
    Waters was about to respond, but Simms cut in. ‘Did the super give you the school photo?’
    ‘Been missing two days. We visited her old dear last night, up on Bath Hill,’ Waters added.
    The vision of the pretty blonde flashed in front of him once again, a far cry from the pasty corpse he’d seen in Drysdale’s morgue last night.
    ‘It’s her,’ he replied flatly.
    ‘The mother confirmed she’d not been seen since Saturday. She was meant to stop in to feed her aunt’s cat, but she clearly never turned up or she would’ve got a nasty surprise. By all accounts a nice girl; seems odd she’d leave on the spur of the moment, without so much as a toothbrush,’ Simms continued.
    ‘Why did nobody report it earlier?’ Frost asked; he hadn’t felt