A Touch Of Frost (47 page)

“It might be better,” Mullett told the reporter, “if you put that down as if I had said it. It’s my directive, and Mr. Allen is acting in accordance with it.” Allen fumed inwardly.

“He’s still not answering the phone, Inspector,” said Collier, whose ear was starting to ache.

“Quiet everyone,” called Allen. “I’m going to try and make contact.” He thumbed the switch and raised the loud hailer to his mouth. His amplified, metallic voice reverberated over the back gardens. “Eustace. This is Detective Inspector Allen. I’d like to talk to you.”

From his vantage point in the opposite house, Ingram, squinting through the telescopic sight, saw movement inside the room. He clicked on his radio and reported to Allen. “He’s coming to the window, sir.”

A terrified woman was pushed to the window. She turned her head away from the blinding glare of the lights. Eustace was well behind her, his arm crooking her neck, the shotgun in his free hand. Ingram shifted the sight slightly to the left and the crosspiece was dead centre of Eustace’s forehead. “There’s enough showing, sir. I think I can get him.”

“No, Sergeant,” snapped Allen. “There will be no shooting. Confirm.”

“Confirmed, sir. No shooting.” Ingram sounded disappointed.

“Listen to me,” shouted Eustace in the darkness, his voice shaking. “I’m only going to say this once. You’ve got thirty minutes. I want a car with a full tank, I want it left outside, then you all piss off.”

“Release the woman and the kids, Stan, then we can talk about it.”

“No. They come with me. You’ve got thirty minutes.”

Allen took a chance. He raised the loud hailer to his mouth and, as he talked, started to walk toward the house. He wanted to be able to talk without shouting. The loud hailer was forming a barrier between them. “Do you want any food, Stan? We can have it sent in. In fact . . .” A shot blasted out and pellets splattered high on the far wall. The woman screamed. The children inside the room started crying.

“No farther, Mr. Allen. I’m cornered and I’m desperate and I’ve got nothing to lose. Just get me the car and stop ringing that bloody phone.”

Allen retreated back to his old position. “Cut the phone,” he ordered.

The woman was dragged away from the window.

“What do you think?” Mullett asked.

Allen scratched his head. “I don’t know, sir. My every instinct tells me to rush him. I’m sure he won’t harm the woman or the kids.”

“He’d use the gun,” said Mullett. “If not on the hostages, then on our men, and I’m not having anyone hurt. We’ll sweat it out. Time is on our side. Hello, who is this?”

A patrol car skidded up. PC Kenny and a woman got out.

“It’s Sadie Eustace, Stan’s wife. I’m hoping she can talk some sense into her old man.”

Sadie, an old coat flung hastily over a blue dress, almost ran over to Allen, her eyes crackling with anger at the sight of the armed men and the press and the spotlights. “What are you bastards doing to him?”

“Now take it easy, Sadie,” soothed Allen. “He’s got a gun and he’s taken hostages.”

Sadie turned her back on Allen and appealed directly to Mullett. “I’ll get him out. Let me go in there and talk to him.”

Mullett looked over her shoulder to Allen, who firmly shook his head. “I’m sorry,” said Mullett. “I can’t let you go in there.”

“Why not? He won’t harm me. I’m his wife.”

“The point is, Sadie,” said Allen, “you might try to help him.”

She spun around to face him. “For Pete’s-bloody-sake! I want to help him. That’s the whole point of the exercise.”

Allen smiled his thin smile. “You might try and help him get away, Sadie. If you were with him, he’d have an extra hostage, extra bargaining . . . and you’d be a hostage we could never be sure was on our side.”

“You’ve got to trust someone, Inspector.”

“Forgive me, Sadie, if I can’t trust you. You can talk to him on the phone if you like. We’ve got a direct line through. Try and persuade him to release the hostages and then come out with his hands up.”

She nodded her agreement. Allen clicked on the loud hailer. “Stan. Go down to the phone. Sadie’s here. She wants to talk to you.” Stan’s voice shouted out into the darkness. “Are you really there, Sadie?”

“Yes, Stan,” she shouted back. “I want to talk.”

She took the phone and waited for her husband to go down the stairs with the hostages. Allen stepped back, and when he was well out of earshot he raised the radio to his mouth and very quietly called Special Units 3 and 4. Once Eustace was distracted by the phone call, he wanted to try and sneak some men inside the house. When he had issued his instructions he moved back. Sadie was speaking to Stan.

“Stan, it’s me, Sadie. You’ve got to give yourself up.”

“And spend the rest of my life in the nick for something I didn’t do?”

“But Stan . . .” A movement caught her eye. Allen appeared to be signalling to someone in the back garden. She turned her head. Three men, one with a revolver, were inching forward toward the back door.

“There’s one thing I should mention, Stan,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “There’s a cop with a shooter creeping up to the back door.”

Allen spun around, furious, his eyes blazing. He made a chopping motion for Emms to cut the connection. At that instant there was a splintering of glass as a gun barrel smashed through the downstairs window. The blast of the shotgun split the darkness, and a small shrub to the right of the approaching armed policeman disintegrated.

“Get back!” bellowed Stanley. “The next shot goes into the hostages.”

The three policemen scuttled back.

Allen, white with anger, turned to Sadie, “You stupid cow.”

“You stinking bastard,” returned Sadie, equally furious. “You used me, you bugger.”

Mullett charged over. “What happened?”

“He fired at one of our men.” The walkie-talkie buzzed. Allen raised it to his ear. “But he’s OK, sir, not a scratch.”

“Right,” said Mullett. “We sit tight. We play it cool. We make no more moves.”

Ingram called Allen over the radio. “Eustace is back in the top room with the hostages. The kids are crying, the woman looks as if she’s passed out.”

“And what is Eustace doing?” asked Allen.

“Keeping well back, sir, pacing up and down. I think I could get a shot at him, sir. He’s away from the others.”

Allen could see Sadie, ears straining, listening to every word. He lowered his voice. “We’re playing it cool for a while. But be prepared.”

Sadie moved off into the darkness.

Frost had been talking to the drug pushers. A right pair of sullen charmers who were determined to say as little as possible. They wouldn’t enlarge about the sovereigns. They stole them and that’s all there was to it. They were vague about the details, both apparently unable to remember where in the house they had found the coins. And as far as the quantity was concerned, if the old girl said there was more, then the cow was lying.

Webster had been dispatched to check with Lil Carey. She had no doubts at all about the number of sovereigns. Why, thought Webster, was Frost making such a meal of it? They’d caught the thieves and they’d got a confession. There was no reason for the men to lie about how much they had stolen; the sentence for the theft would be trivial compared with their sentence for pushing drugs, and it would run concurrently anyway.

But Frost kept niggling away at it, chewing it over and over. It was a welcome diversion when Wells stuck his head around the door.

“Lady to see you, Mr. Frost,” said the sergeant in his official voice.

“I’m not undressed yet,” said Frost. “Who is it?”

It was Sadie Eustace. She looked a mess. She’d been crying and her hair was in disarray. She declined the offer of tea but accepted one of Frost’s cigarettes. “They’ve got Stan holed up in a house in Farley Street.”

“So I hear, Sadie. Nothing I can do about it, I’m afraid.”

“The bastards are out to kill him, Jack. They’ve no intention of letting him come out alive. You’ve got to help.”

Frost folded his arms and leaned forward on his desk. “It’s not my case, Sadie. It’s Mr. Allen’s. He may be a bastard, but he’s straight. He won’t let anything happen to Stan.”

“Look at me, Jack. I’m bloody desperate.” She held up her face, which was drawn and tear-stained. “Get him out of there, please!”

Frost opened his door and yelled to Sergeant Wells. “What’s the latest on the siege?”

“Stanley’s now threatening to kill the hostages one by one if his demands aren’t met by midnight.”

“He doesn’t mean it, Jack—it’s just a bluff,” Sadie blurted. Frost waved her to silence.

“And what are his demands?” he asked Wells.

“A fast car, fully tanked up, no pursuit, and one of the hostages to go with him. There’s no way we’re giving him that.”

Frost closed the door. It was half past eleven. He retrieved an opened packet of salted peanuts from his in-tray and shook a few into his hand. There was nothing he could do for Stan, nothing at all. But he wished Sadie wouldn’t look at him like that. He sighed and shot the salted peanuts into his mouth.

“All right, Sadie, what exactly do you want me to do?”

“Get Stan out of there alive, Jack, and name your price.”

“My price is 20 for a short time, 50 for all night, but I’m willing to do it for free if you treat me gently.” He stood up.

“You’ll do it?” gasped Sadie.

“If I can, love, but a lot depends on Stan. If he blasts my brains out as I come up the stairs, then I might have to let you down.”

“No chance of that, Jack. He trusts you.”

“Then he’s a bigger fool than I take him for.”

He unhooked his mac from the coat peg, then slowly wound the scarf around his neck, hoping that Wells would come crashing in at the last minute, like the United States Cavalry, to announce that Eustace had given himself up.

“I’m going to get myself into trouble, son,” he told Webster as he fastened the final button. “If you want a laugh, come with me. If you want to keep your nose clean . . . stay here with Sadie.”

“I’m not bloody staying here,” said Sadie defiantly. “I’m going with you.”

“What’s your plan?” asked Webster.

“Plan?” said Frost. “Since when did I ever make plans? I shall just barge in and hope for the best.”

Webster reached for his coat. “I’ll come with you.”

“You’re a bloody fool, too!” said Frost.

The situation at Farley Street had suddenly worsened. Eustace was showing signs of cracking up. Allen’s last attempt to talk to him had ended with the gunman screaming abuse, waving the gun wildly, and showing all the signs of losing control. There was now serious concern for the safety of the hostages. Indeed, Eustace had reiterated his threat to kill them one by one if the car wasn’t ready and waiting at the stroke of midnight.

Allen was now pinning his hopes on a plan to get some men inside the house by hacking a way through to the roof space from the premises next door. This was proceeding very slowly, as the task needed to be performed silently, and the midnight deadline was fast approaching.

And as if there wasn’t enough to worry about, he now had that half-wit Frost to contend with. The man had barged in with some harebrained scheme involving his getting inside and talking Eustace out.

“No way, Frost. I don’t want any bloody heroes, thank you. The man’s trigger-happy and cracking up. He’s itching for an excuse to kill someone.”

He moved away and radioed the men working on the roof space for a situation report. “We’re getting there slowly,” he was told, “but we keep hitting snags. There’s pipes and steel joists all over the place.” When he turned around again, Frost had gone.

“Where’s Mr. Frost?” he demanded of the constable guarding the entrance to the back of the garden.

The constable pointed. “In the garden, sir. Trying to get to the house.”

“Why the hell didn’t you stop him?”

“Stop him, sir? He said you had given permission.”

“Mr. Allen!” Ingram was calling over the radio. “I can see someone in the garden, sir.”

“I know. It’s that bloody fool Frost!”

Frost was flat on his face, inching toward the back door. Stan wasn’t a killer. He knew he wouldn’t fire, just as he had known that doped-up kid at the bank wouldn’t fire, the one who had put the bullet hole through his cheek.

He was crawling through wet grass and wished he had never started this. Something tugged at his neck. He froze, then, very slowly, looked around. A rose bush had snagged his scarf. He unwound it from his neck and left it behind.

Inspector Allen was aware of someone hovering at his side, trying to attract his attention. “I’m busy,” he snapped. Then he saw the gleaming silver. “Sorry, Superintendent . . . didn’t know it was you.”

“What’s the position? . . . Is that Frost? You surely haven’t allowed Frost . . . ?”

Allen cut him off. “I told him not to, sir . . . specifically told him not to. He disobeyed my order and now I’m wasting my time trying to prevent him, and the hostages, being killed through his own stupidity.”

Mullett’s jaw set. This was intolerable. This was the last straw. He could feel the nerve in his forehead starting to pulsate. “Get him out of there,” he snapped.

“We can’t, sir,” replied Allen. “He hasn’t got a radio. If we yelled out to him, it would attract Eustace’s attention.”

“I don’t give a damn about that,” said Mullett. “If he wants to risk his stupid neck, that’s his lookout, but I’m not having him risk the lives of the hostages. Call him back.”

Allen sighed but reached for the loud hailer and raised it to his lips. A car door slammed in the background. His radio paged him. He clicked it on and listened, then turned to the Superintendent. “The Chief Constable is here, sir . . . on his way over to us.”

Mullett pushed down the hand holding the loud hailer. “Hold it, Inspector. I don’t want the Chief to know we have dissension in the ranks.”

Allen put the loud hailer on the ground. Mullett began flicking invisible specks from his uniform and smoothing down his moustache. Allen ruffled his hair and loosened his tie. He thought the Chief Constable would be more impressed with a police officer who looked as if he had been working than with an immaculate tailor’s dummy.