Free A Touch Of Frost by R. D. Wingfield

breath and was barely whispering into the phone. “I’ve found a body. In Denton Woods. A girl.”
    Wells stiffened. Another body! Just when he was praying for a nice, quiet, peaceful night. With his free hand he knuckled the panel to Control and, when Ridley opened it, signalled for him to listen in on the extension.
    “A girl’s body, you say, sir?” He picked up his pen, ready to write down the details.
    “That’s right. A young girl . . . a kid.”
    A kid! The sergeant’s first thought was of the previous call he had logged. Karen Dawson, fifteen, missing from home since this afternoon.
    “I see, sir. And where exactly is she?”
    “I told you. In Denton Woods. Off the main path, behind some bushes.”
    “Where in the woods, sir? We’ll have to have the exact location.”
    A pause, then a click and the line went dead. The caller had hung up. Wells replaced the receiver and cursed. “Damn!”
    “Sounded a flutter to me,” called Ridley, hanging up the extension.
    Wells nodded. They were always receiving bogus calls from cranks with a grudge against the law, who took delight in wasting police time and money. But you couldn’t take chances. It had to be assumed that all calls were genuine until proved otherwise. “What cars have you got?” he asked the controller.
    Ridley didn’t need to consult his map. With half the strength drinking themselves stupid upstairs, only two cars were available, and one of them, PC Shelby’s patrol car, was failing to respond. This was not untypical of Shelby! “There’s only Charlie Alpha, Sarge, and that’s on the way to a domes tic on the red-brick estate.” A ‘domestic’ meant a family row or disturbance.
    “Forget the domestic,” he was told. “I want Charlie Alpha to divert immediately to Denton Woods.” He vented his annoyance by kicking the leg of his desk. “One bloody area car! How am I supposed to cover a division of this size with one lousy area car?”
    Shutting his ears to the sergeant’s moans, Ridley thumbed the transmit button and called Charlie Alpha. While he waited for the response, he asked, “Exactly where in Denton Woods, Sarge?”
    “How the hell do I know?” snarled Wells. “I’m not a bloody mind reader! You heard what he said—off the main path, behind some bushes.”
    A burst of static from the loudspeaker. “Charlie Alpha to Control. On our way to domestic on the red-brick estate in response to your previous message, over.”
    “Forget the domestic, Charlie Alpha. Proceed immediately to Denton Woods and initiate search. Anonymous report of young girl’s body behind bushes, off main path. Over.” He waited, his thumb hovering over the transmit button, for Charlie Alpha to request the precise location.
    “Would you give us a more precise location, Control? There are main paths running the length and breadth of Denton Woods.”
    “That is all the information we have, Charlie Alpha,” replied Ridley in an aggravatingly reasonable voice. “Over and out.” He heard the door open behind him as Wells came into the room.
    “But there’s four hundred acres of woods, miles of paths, and thousands of bloody bushes . . .” Charlie Alpha pointed out.
    Wells was getting fed up with this. He snatched the hand set from Ridley. “Then you’ll be spoiled for bloody choice, won’t you, Charlie Alpha? Just go and look for her and don’t bloody argue!”
    “Over and out,” said Charlie Alpha hurriedly.
    Ridley stuck the marker for Charlie Alpha in the green-coloured expanse of Denton Woods on his wall map. “They’ll need some help, Sarge. Should we break up the party?”
    Wells pinched his nose and gave it some serious thought. It was tempting, very tempting, and it would serve those noisy sods right to be turfed out into the dark and cold to search the woods. But if the call turned out to be a hoax and he had deployed half the force on a fruitless search, all on overtime, he’d never hear the last of it. Mullett would