A Touch Of Frost Read Online Free Page B

did the other phone. Damn and blast! He’d planned a quick exchange of dialogue with the Chief Constable in which the Chief would look around the empty lobby and say, “All on your own, Sergeant?” and he would reply smartly, with much diffidence, “Yes, sir, but I can cope. I can run this place single-handed if need be . . .” And the Chief Constable would smile approvingly and make a mental note that there was some very promising promotion material here. Instead, the Chief Constable, in immaculate evening suit, breezed through, nodded curtly at Wells and said, “Those phones need answering, Sergeant.”
    The first phone call was from a man living in the senior citizens’ flats off Arberry Road. Some idiot in a sports car was roaring round and round the block, cutting across the lawns and waking the oldies up. Wells scribbled details and promised action. No sooner had he replaced the phone than it rang again. He picked up the second phone. Another senior citizen complaining about the same thing. “Yes, we’ve got it in hand,” he promised, reaching for the first phone—yet another old fool wanting the police to do something about this hooligan in the racing car.
    As he was taking details, Wells was annoyed to see the Chief Constable pause to have a few morale-boosting words with young Collier, who ought to be answering bloody phones instead of fawning on the top brass. Behind Collier, the Divisional Commander, all atwitter, greeted the honoured guest and escorted him upstairs where the raucous noise had mysteriously abated.
    And all the time this damn old man was droning away in his ear about the sports car and the inefficiency of the police who were never around when they were wanted. “I don’t suppose you managed to get its registration number, Mr Hickman?” he asked when the caller ran out of breath.
    “No,” replied the old man, “but you’ll be able to trace him. His licence plate fell off when he hit the dustbins.”
    “Right, Mr Hickman, thank you very much,” said Wells, scribbling out the details. “We’ll send a car over there right away.” He jotted down the time of the call . . . 10.53, and slid the note through to Control.
    Ridley, the controller, checked his wall map. Arberry Road. Charlie Alpha would be the quickest. He depressed the microphone button. “Control to Charlie Alpha. Come in please.”
     
    The old man in the call box replaced the phone and dug his fingers hopefully into the coin-return receptacle in case there was any money there. There wasn’t. He shivered as a gust of wind found the broken pane in the kiosk door. He was still in his pyjamas, with his overcoat as a dressing gown and his sockless feet uncomfortably cold in his hastily laced shoes.
    That hooligan in the sports car. It was the second night running the residents had had to put up with it. Screaming tires, the horn blasting away, speeding round and round the flats as if it were on the Silverstone racing track. Tonight was even worse. The car had left the road and had ripped up lawns and flower beds as it took a shortcut. Then there was that almighty crash as it hit the dustbins and sent them flying and clanging. But that was the driver’s downfall. The impact had knocked off the licence plate. The police would get him now. Hickman hoped they’d take away his licence for life and fine him hundreds of pounds. Or, better still, send him to prison. What they ought to do is bring back the birch. That would make these lunatics think twice before they disturbed the sleep of innocent people.
    He didn’t hear the car coming back. He was halfway across the road when the blinding glare of its headlamps transfixed him. The horn shrieked at him to get out of the way. But the old man was going too slowly and the car far too fast.
    As if in slow motion, he saw the car leap at him, saw every detail of the radiator as it grew larger, then a terrible, smashing blow as the headlamp shattered his face. The pain was