Free Frost at Christmas by R. D. Wingfield

Clive clambered down then diffidently dragged something from his inside pocket and offered it to the detective constable.
       "I found this tucked inside Tracey's Beano Annual."  
       Clive looked at it in wide-eyed disbelief. Frost's words didn't seem to make sense. "In her Beano Annual, sir?"
       Frost nodded gravely.
       It was an unretouched black and white photograph of a nude girl sitting on a draped box, leaning back, supporting herself on her hands. The model could not be identified since the top of the photograph had been torn off, although traces of dark hair could be seen resting on the shoulders. Somehow the effect seemed vaguely distasteful, not erotic, but pornographic, although there was nothing pornographic about the pose apart from the model's nudity.
       Frost took the photograph back and raised it to his nose. "Smell that, son - acid fixer. Amateurs never wash their prints as thoroughly as professionals. You can always smell traces of hypo." He studied it again. "That mark on the top of her left arm, son. What do you make of it?"
       Clive moved to the open door of the bathroom for more light. "It's not too clear, sir. Could be a birthmark."
       "Yes, that's what I reckon." He pulled the cigarette from this mouth, flipped it into the toilet basin, and flushed it down. "I wonder who she is . . . and how Tracey got hold of it."
       "It wouldn't be . . . ?" Clive didn't like to say it. He pointed downstairs.
       "Good Lord, no", son!" The photograph went back into his inside pocket. "I'll show it to her anyway. She's in the trade, she might recognize the model from the salient features. But first we'd better see how many bodies she's got buried in her back garden. I don't suppose you looked last night."
       Clive assured him that they had.
       Frost snorted. "A quick flash round with your torch in the dark - and you were looking for a living child above the surface, not for signs of recent digging."
       The garden was mainly concrete patio and lawn. There were a couple of rose-beds, but the soil was rockhard and had not been disturbed. Frost probed the lawn to see if it was composed of turfs which could be reassembled to conceal a grave, but it had been sown from seed. The patio was unblemished. It contained a dustbin which they checked. Running along the side of the house there was a concrete path leading to the front. In it a black metal inspection cover to the sewage system was set. A heavy cover. It took the two of them to lift it. But desperate people with a body to hide can find hidden strength.
       Frost rubbed his chin. "You'll hate me for this, son, but you're going to have to give your new suit the shock of its young life. Have a poke around down there, would you?"
       My day will come, you bastard, thought Clive behind a set grin, determined not to give Frost the satisfaction of seeing his annoyance. He crouched over the hole and let his torch beam cut through to the gurgling horrors below.
       Apart from the obvious, nothing. He ignored Frost's heavy-humored request to see if his cigarette end had emerged yet.
       They manhandled the cover back then poked about in the garage and Mrs. Uphill's red Mini. Frost seemed to be losing interest in the proceedings, hustling Clive on before he had finished. They gave the ground floor of the house a very perfunctory going-over. The inspector wouldn't let Clive clear out the meter cupboard under the stairs.
       "She's not here, son," he snapped impatiently. "Leave it."
       You're the boss, thought Clive, and followed the inspector into the lounge where the young mother sat, staring blankly into the plastic logs of the electric fire.
       "She's not here, Mrs. Uphill," said Frost. "Do you think her father might have taken her?"
       She didn't raise her head. "I'm not married."
       "I know, Mrs. Uphill, but the child has a father."
       A bitter grin made her face look ugly. "Yes, she has a father. I haven't seen him