matches, we’ve got the bastard.’ He rubbed his hands with delight and passed his cigarettes round.
Johnson was getting fidgety. ‘Mr Mullett wants to see you, Jack.’
‘I’m not ready for him yet.’ He peeled off some blank petrol receipts. ‘Fill these in for me, Johnny. Disguise your writing. Six gallons, eight gallons and four gallons.’
The sergeant’s pen flew over the receipts. ‘What crime am I committing?’
‘Forgery,’ said Frost, giving three blanks to Burton. ‘Disguise your handwriting, son. Two lots of eight gallons and one of six.’ He pushed two more blanks across to Arthur Hanlon. ‘Five gallons and seven gallons, Arthur – and blow your nose, it’s starting to drip.’
‘Just tell me what I’ve done,’ said Johnson, handing the completed receipts back.
Frost collected the balance from Gilmore and Burton and riffled through them. ‘I lost all my receipts last month so I had to forge my car expenses. Some silly sod in County with nothing better to do spotted it. Mullett said I could get off the hook if I came up with the genuine ones.’ He waved the receipts. ‘These are them.’
‘But they’re still fakes,’ insisted Johnson.
‘But better fakes than the first lot. Besides, I didn’t have time to go round all the flaming petrol stations asking for copies.’ He turned to Hanlon. ‘What’s the latest on the house-to-house, Arthur?’
Hanlon handed over his two receipts. ‘We’ve almost finished. The first of the results are going through the computer now.’
‘Anything significant?’ asked Gilmore.
Hanlon shrugged. ‘One person thought they saw a blue van cruising down Roman Road late on the night of the murder, another saw a strange red car. I’ll check them out.’
After Hanlon squeezed out of the office, Frost remembered that Burton was still patiently waiting. ‘Sorry, son, I forgot about you. What was it?’
‘I’ve been checking all the florists about that wreath, sir. I traced the shop and found out who ordered it.’
Frost had to readjust his thoughts back to the Compton business. ‘Who?’ But before Burton could answer, Gilmore had leapt from his chair and was glowering angrily at the detective constable.
‘This is my case, Burton,’ he hissed. ‘You report to me, not to the inspector.’ He was in a lousy mood. Liz had been insufferably rude to the Divisional Commander when he’d phoned last night. Mullett was furious and it was pretty clear that his promotional chances were fast gurgling down the drain. How the hell could he report Frost’s misdemeanours when the inspector involved him in them all . . . eating in Mullett’s office, forging petrol vouchers. And now this cretin of a detective constable was going over his head.
Burton, taken aback by Gilmore’s outburst, looked from the sergeant to the inspector.
‘My fault,’ said Frost. ‘The sergeant is quite right. It is his case.’
‘So who ordered the damn thing?’ asked Gilmore, returning to his chair.
Burton flipped open his notebook. ‘Mr Wilfred Blagden, 116 Merchants Barton, Denton.’
Gilmore smiled sarcastically. ‘I suppose if I wait long enough you’ll tell me who he is?’
The constable hesitated before deciding that the pleasure of smashing Gilmore’s face in was marginally outweighed by the need to retain his job.
‘He’s an old man, eighty-one years old. His wife, Audrey, died last week.’
Gilmore still appeared mystified, but the penny dropped for Frost. ‘The wreath was stolen from her grave?’
‘Yes, Inspector. The old boy’s very upset – wants to know what the police are doing about it.’
The police are sitting on their arses cracking dirty jokes, thought Gilmore. He waved Burton away with an irritated flap of the hand then skimmed through a report from Forensic reporting that the death threats to the Comptons had been cut from copies of Reader’s Digest.
The office door crashed open and a flustered-looking Johnny Johnson burst in. ‘Mr Mullett is screaming for you, Jack.’
Frost quickly checked through the newly forged car expenses, then stood up, moving the knot of his tie to somewhere near the centre of his collar. ‘I’m ready for him now. Do I look innocent and contrite?’
‘You never look innocent and contrite,’ Johnson replied.
As he breezed through the lobby on his way to the old log cabin, he passed an old man sitting hunched on the hard wooden bench by the front desk. The man looked familiar, but Frost couldn’t place him. He sidled over to Collier who was standing in for Johnny Johnson and jerked a thumb in query.
Collier leant forward, ‘His name’s Maskell.’
Frost clicked his fingers. ‘Jubilee Terrace – Tutankhamun’s tomb – mummified body?’
Collier nodded. ‘He refuses to accept that his wife is