Read Online The Price of Love and Other Stories by Peter Robinson - Free Book Online

Gratly cottage. After the fire had destroyed most of the place a couple of years ago, he had had the interior reconstructed, an extension added down one side, and a conservatory built on at the back. He had turned the extension into an entertainment room, with a large plasma TV, comfortable cinema-style armchairs, surround sound, and a drinks cabinet. Mostly he sat and watched DVDs or listened to CDs there by himself, but sometimes Annie dropped by, or one of his children, and it was good to have company.
    Tonight he was alone, and that didn’t make him much different from Colin Whitman, he realized. He was eating yesterday’s warmed-up chicken vindaloo and drinking Tetley’s bitter from a can, cruising the TV channels with the remote – aptly named, because he was finding nothing of the remotest interest.
    Then Banks remembered that he had set his DVD recorder for
A Touch of Frost
last night. He always enjoyed spotting the mistakes, but perhaps even more he enjoyed David Jason’s performance. Realistic or not, there was no denying the entertainment value to be got from Frost’s relationship with Mullet and with his various hapless sidekicks.
    He put the vindaloo containers in the rubbish bin and settled down for
Frost
. But it was not to be. What played instead was an old episode of
Inspector Morse
he had seen before, with Patricia Hodge guest-starring as a very upper-class Oxford wife.
    At first, Banks wondered if he had set up the recorder wrongly. It wouldn’t have surprised him if he had; technology had never been his strong point. But his son Brian had given him a lesson, and he had been pleased that he had been able to use it a few times without messing up. He didn’t have to worry about setting times or anything, just keyed in a number.
    He played around with the remote, checked the recording date and time, and made sure that this was indeed the program he had set for last night. There was no mistake. Not that he had anything against
Morse
, but he had been expecting
Frost
. He couldn’t be bothered getting up to search for something else, so he decided he might as well watch it anyway. When he started to play the DVD again, he found that it began with the end of an explanation and much apology from the TV station.
    From what Banks could make out,
A Touch of Frost
had been postponed and replaced by an episode of
Inspector Morse
because of its controversial subject matter: a kidnapped and murdered police officer. Over the past couple of days, the news had been full of stories of a police officer who had been abducted while trying to prevent a robbery. Only yesterday, his body had been found, dumped in a bin bag near Southwark. He had been shot. The TV executives clearly thought the
Frost
story mirrored the real one so much as to be disturbing to people, so at the last minute they had pulled it.
    Colin Whitman had sworn blind that he had watched
A Touch of Frost
, but it hadn’t been on. Banks phoned the station and asked the duty officer to see that Whitman was brought up from Harewood to Eastvale, then he rang Annie, turned off the DVD and TV and headed for the door.
    “Look, it’s late,” said Whitman. “You drag me from my home and make me sit in this disgusting room for ages. What on earth’s going on? What do you think you’re doing? This isn’t a police state yet, you know.”
    “Sorry about the melodrama,” said Banks. “I can see why you might be a bit upset. I suppose we could have waited till morning. I don’t imagine you were going to make a run for it or anything, were you? Why should you? You probably thought you’d got us all fooled.”
    Whitman frowned. “I’m sorry? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Suspicion of murder, Mr. Whitman,” said Banks, then gave him the caution and advised him of his rights. The tape recorders made a faint whirring sound in the background, but other than that, it was quiet in interview room three of Western Area Headquarters. Banks and