Hard Frost Read Online Free PDF Page B

pair of jeans and a grey sweater. "What's this about Bobby?"
       "Is he here, Mr. Kirby?" said Burton.
       "Here? Why should he be here?" He glared at Frost. "What's happened?"
       "He's gone missing, Mr. Kirby," said Frost.
       Kirby listened, mouth agape with incredulity, anger reddening his face as Frost told him what had happened.
       "That cow left my seven-year-old son alone in the house while she and that dickhead went to the pub?" He looked down at the nurse. "Shoes!" he commanded. 
       Her eyes widened in alarm. "Where you go?" 
       "Round to see that cow and her ponce of a boyfriend and smash their faces in." 
       She thrust out her chin. "No - you stay here." 
       "He's not your son - he's mine. Get those shoes!" 
       "Hold it," said Frost wearily, his head aching from all the squabbling. "No-one's going anywhere. We're going to search the house."
       Kirby stared open-mouthed at Frost. "You think he's here? You think I'm hiding my own son in my girlfriend's house? Where is he - behind the attic wall like Anne flaming Frank?"
       "He's missing," explained Frost patiently. "We don't know where he is. He might have sneaked in without you knowing. So, for everyone's peace of mind, we're going to do a search." The father went to follow them, but Frost jabbed a finger directing him back to the kitchen. "Stay here, please."
       Burton checked the ground floor while Frost went up the stairs. First he checked the bathroom. Nowhere a child could hide, or be hidden. Just a wash-basin and a shower. A tin of Johnson's baby powder stood on the window ledge and the nurse's tiny damp footprints showed on the carpet tiles. Next to it was the spare bedroom, not much more than a box room with a single bed and a small, white-painted chest of drawers. Opposite this was the nurse's bedroom, clean, neat and small like the nurse herself. It was just big enough to hold a double bed, jammed tight against the wall to save space, and a dressing-table. In the corner a built-in cupboard. Frost pulled the door open. Men's and women's clothes swinging hangers, a stack of ironing on the shelf and two empty suitcases. He knelt and looked under the bed. Something yellow and wispy was on the floor. A very short, skimpy nightdress with a heady perfume that was not Johnson's baby powder. The thought of slipping into that double bed with the soft, compliant little nurse made Frost almost forget what he was there for and he jerked round guiltily as Burton came into the room.
       "Nothing downstairs," reported Burton.
       "Nor up here," said Frost, 'apart from this!" He held up the nightdress. "The naughty nurse's nightie . . . Cor, I bet her little bottom pokes out from under that like a couple of honeydew melons."
       Burton grinned. The joy of working with Frost was that he never let the circumstances of the case he was working on get him down.
       Downstairs in the kitchen, Kirby was pulling on a thick duffle coat, anxiously watched by the nurse.
       "I come with you," she announced. She had a slight lisp which Frost was finding disconcertingly stimulating.
       "No," snapped Kirby. "You get on to the hospital. You could well have two more patients in Emergency, by the time I've finished with them."
       "Go to bed and save your bloody energy," said Frost. "If we don't find Bobby tonight, we'll be organizing a search party first thing in the morning and we're going to need all the help we can get, which means you and d ickhead."
       As they stepped out into the street they could hear the car radio pleading for them to answer. "Can you get over to the mortuary, inspector. The pathologist wants to see you urgently."
     
    The mortuary, a sombre-looking Victorian single-storey building, was situated in the grounds of Denton Hospital. Burton parked alongside the Rolls-Royce, which gleamed and sneered at Frost's mud-stained Ford. "Looks like a bloody hearse," sniffed Frost. There were other cars, a dark blue Audi