Detective Inspector Jack Frost walked into his office to find DS Arthur Hanlon on a chair doing something to the overhead light.
‘Don’t jump, Arthur – think of your wife and kids. Why make them happy?’
Hanlon clambered down to put a blown light bulb on the desk. ‘I’ve changed the bulb. You couldn’t do it with your poor hand.’
Frost grunted his thanks. ‘If anyone says you’re not a little sweetie, Arthur, send them to me. Now piss off. I’ve got to get my head down for a couple of hours, otherwise I’ll be even more bleeding useless than usual.’ He riffled through his in-tray: all the usual junk from Mullett – memos marked ‘Urgent’ with lots of under linings in red ink. They could wait.
Hanlon grinned. ‘Manchester CID have been on the blower, Jack. They want to know what progress we’ve made with the murdered girl.’
‘Flaming heck,’ snorted Frost. ‘We’ve got enough on our plate with our own unsolved murders without trying to solve theirs.’ He plonked down in his chair, dragged the Emily Roberts file from his in-tray and flipped through it. ‘It suits them to work on the theory that the girl was picked up in Manchester and brought down here to be killed. Skinner wants her to have been killed in Manchester and the body dumped down here, so it’s Manchester’s pigeon. Between you and me, I’m inclined to go along with Manchester CID’s version. If she was killed there, why dump her here?’
‘They say you asked if she had done any modelling, or wanted to be a model. They can’t turn anything up that would support this.’
‘I was trying to tie her killing in with Debbie Clark. Both bodies on an embankment, both naked. And they both went to the same school in Denton, did you know that?’
Hanlon shook his head. ‘So what am I going to tell them, Jack?’
Frost worried away at his scar, deep in thought. ‘We’ve got sod all to go on, Arthur. A dumped body, that’s all.’ He rested his chin on his palm and chewed his little finger. ‘If the killer came from Denton, why would he go to Manchester to pick up a girl? There’s plenty of girls in Denton.’
Hanlon shrugged.
Frost held up a finger as a thought struck him. ‘Try this out for size, Arthur, as the bishop said to the actress – the killer was going to Manchester anyway. When he was there, he saw his chance and took it.’ He leant back in his chair. ‘And I’ll tell you something else, Arthur. If you were driving from Denton to Manchester you wouldn’t want to go there and back in the same day. You’d stay overnight in a hotel or a B amp;B, and when you stay somewhere you’ve got to register – give your name and address. Hotels are required by law to keep the records for six months or so – I can’t remember exactly how long. Get Manchester CID to check it out, see if anyone from Denton stayed in the area overnight the day the girl went missing. If we can find the name of anyone who worked for that modelling agency or worked in the office block, then bingo, two dicky birds with one stone.’
‘There’s a hell of a lot of hotels and B amp;Bs in Manchester, Jack. They won’t be too pleased.’
‘We’re not in the business of pleasing them. They know the area where she went missing. They can start from there. If they have more luck than I usually do, it could be the first one they try.’
‘Supposing he registered under a false name and address?’
‘Many of these places ask for car registration numbers – we could trace him through that. And the odds are he paid by credit card, so he’d have to give his proper name. Do what I say, Arthur, there’s a good boy. Get on to Manchester. It’ll keep them off our backs for a while.’
As Hanlon left, Frost’s phone rang. It was Marcus from the Crown Prosecution Service. ‘We’re taking Graham Fielding to court on Wednesday, Inspector. We understand his solicitor is going to ask for bail.’
‘Bail? On a murder charge? He won’t stand a chance.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure. The courts sometimes use their discretion. The crime happened a long time ago.’
‘That doesn’t make the poor cow he killed any less dead, does it?’
‘I suppose not,’ said Marcus grudgingly. ‘Do we oppose bail?’
‘Of course we bleeding well oppose it,’ said Frost. ‘Who’s our lawyer?’
‘Mr Jefferson.’
‘That useless prat! Well let’s hope he doesn’t sod this one up like he did the last one.’ He slammed the phone down and was reaching for his mac when Bill Wells came in.
‘Whatever it is, Bill, it will have to wait. I’m off home for a couple of hours.’
‘Just received this package,’ said Wells, dumping it on the desk. It measured about nine inches by five inches and was wrapped in brown paper and neatly sellotaped.
Frost picked it up and examined it. The typed label was addressed to: THE OFFICER IN CHARGE, DENTON POLICE STATION, DENTON
He looked up at Wells. ‘So? Why haven’t you opened it?’
‘I don’t like the look of it. It could be a bomb.’ Frost stared at him. ‘Why should it be a bleeding bomb?’
‘It’s the same size as that package Flintwell division had the other week. That was a bomb.’
‘It wasn’t a flaming bomb,’ said Frost. ‘It was a hoax… it was full of talcum powder.’
‘This may not be a hoax.’
‘Then call the flaming bomb squad, or give it to Mullett. Let him lay his life down for his men.’
Wells hesitated, still trying to get Frost to take the package.
‘Oh, give it here.’ Frost snatched it from the sergeant, grabbed a paper knife and slit the sealed ends. ‘Stand by for the explosion.’
Wells stepped back warily.
Frost held it down with his elbow and tore off the wrapping with his good hand. ‘Bloody hell!’ he cried. There was a shattering bang and bits of broken glass everywhere. Wells flung himself down on the ground.
‘Sorry,’ said Frost. ‘I must have accidentally knocked that dud light bulb on the floor.’
A glowering Wells stood up, brushing pieces of broken light bulb from his uniform. ‘You bastard, Jack. You did that on purpose.’
‘That’s either slander or libel,’ said Frost. ‘If I knew which it was I’d sue you.’ He stripped the brown paper away. Inside was a video cassette. There was no covering note. He slid the package over to Wells. ‘Get someone to play it. If there’s anything I should see, let me know when I get back. If it blows up and kills someone, tell them I’m sorry.’
‘Very funny,’ sniffed Wells.
There was no way he was going to get the sleep he so desperately craved. As he turned the key in the lock, he could already hear his phone ringing. It was Bill Wells.
‘What the hell is it now?’ snarled Frost.
‘You switched your mobile off.’
‘I know. Stupid bastards keep trying to phone me. So what is it?’
‘That video, Jack. You’ve got to see it.’
‘What’s on it?’
‘I think you’d better see it for yourself, Jack.’
‘All right, I’ll see it when I get back. Now let me get some sleep.’
‘Now, Jack. You’ve got to see it now.’
Frost frowned. ‘I’m dead on my flaming feet, Bill. This isn’t a leg-pull, is it? Are you paying me back for the light bulb?’
‘It’s not a leg-pull, Jack; I wish it was. I’m deadly serious.’ He sounded it.
‘All right,’ sighed Frost. ‘I’m on my way.’
Mullett waylaid him as he hurried down the corridor. He’d checked Frost’s in-tray and found all his memos untouched.
‘My office, now, Frost.’
‘Right away, Super,’ said Frost on autopilot. He didn’t follow Mullett. He branched off into the Incident Room, where DS Hanlon, Wells and PC Collier were waiting for him. They all looked shaken and grim-faced.
Frost stuck a cigarette in his mouth and sat himself down in the chair facing the monitor.
‘The tape’s loaded, Inspector,’ Collier told him. ‘Just press Play.’
Frost pressed Play.
Black-and-white flashes zipped across the screen, then a juddering picture of two people appeared, too fuzzy to make out, then the picture steadied. Something black moved from side to side – a black cloth covering something.
Frost fiddled with the volume control. ‘What’s happened to the sound?’
‘There’s no sound, Jack,’ said Wells. ‘Just watch.’
The video camera zoomed back. The black cloth was a hood, completely covering someone’s head. It was shaking violently from side to side.
A hand snatched at the hood and pulled it off. A close-up of a pair of tear-stained eyes blinking at the light. The head twisted away from the camera. A blur as a hand passed in front of the face and jerked it back to face the camera, holding it firmly so it couldn’t move. The camera zoomed back further. A young girl, terrified and crying.
The cigarette dropped from Frost’s mouth. He stared in horrified disbelief. ‘Good God…’
It was the tortured, pleading, crying face of Debbie Clark.
The picture blacked out. White snow shivered across the black screen.
Frost was still staring, frozen to his chair, open-mouthed. He went to switch off and rewind the tape. A restraining hand stopped him.
‘There’s more to come, Jack,’ said Wells gently.
The snow juddered, then cleared to reveal a quivering picture of Debbie Clark’s face.
Whoever was holding the camera was shaking violently. The picture steadied. The girl’s head and bare shoulders filled the screen; Frost could just make out the dark shape of someone standing behind her. Debbie moved her head to one side. Hands grabbed her hair and roughly jerked her back.
The girl’s lips were moving. She was saying something… pleading with whoever was operating the video camera.
Two hands moved up slowly from behind her and encircled her throat. She vainly shook her head from side to side, trying to shake them off, still screaming and pleading.
The hands tightened their grip on her throat.
Her face crumpled in agony.
Her eyes bulged. Blood trickled from her mouth.
The hands squeezed tighter, tighter, then released their grip.
The girl slid lifelessly to the floor, the camera following her down.
Keeping well out of the camera view, her killer dragged her up by her hair. Her head hung limply, tongue lolling.
She was dead.
The hands let go and she slumped back to the floor.
The picture ended abruptly and noisy, raw tape took over.
‘Switch the bleeding thing off,’ said Frost. He couldn’t take his eyes off the monitor.
Collier leant across him and clicked off the video player.
Frost felt cold, he felt sick, he felt angry, he felt pity, and he felt bloody helpless.
He shook a cigarette from the packet and, with unsteady hands, poked it in his mouth.
‘Bloody hell,’ he croaked. ‘They filmed the poor kid being strangled. The perverted bastards!’
The others said nothing. They were as affected as he was.
‘I want everyone involved in this investigation to see that tape,’ said Frost. ‘We drop everything else and we concentrate on this one. We’ve got to get these bastards. I want copies of that tape made. I want the original to go over to Forensic with the wrapping paper and I want them to drop everything too. This is top priority.’ He scrubbed his face with his hands. He had never felt so upset and shaken in all his life.
‘Why film it? Why send us a copy?’ asked Hanlon.
Frost shook his head. He didn’t have any answers. He shunted his cigarettes around.
The Incident Room door opened and closed. No one looked round to see who it was.
‘What is going on, Frost?’ hissed Mullett. ‘I specifically told you to come to my office. Instead I find you lolling and smoking in here.’
Frost didn’t look up. He took a long drag at his cigarette and expelled a lungful of smoke. ‘Something more important than a bollocking in your office came up,’ he snapped.
Mullett’s face went beetroot. ‘And what could be more important than a summons from your divisional commander?’ he snapped back.
‘This!’ said Frost, jerking a finger at the monitor and vacating the chair. He nodded to Collier. ‘Play the tape for Superintendent Mullett, son.’
Mullett glanced at the screen impatiently. Then he froze. His face whitened and he dropped down into the chair, staring, as if hypnotised, at the images on the monitor. As it ended, he turned his head away and took off his glasses to pinch his nose and dab his eyes. ‘My God!’ he said.
‘Came by post an hour ago,’ Frost told him. ‘London postmark.’
Mullett covered his face with his hands and shook his head. ‘My God!’ he said again. He blew his nose loudly, then stood up. ‘Take all the men you want, Frost – from other divisions if necessary, but get these animals.’
Frost nodded his thanks. ‘I want to keep this bottled up for the moment, Super. No one outside need know we’ve had this tape – especially the parents. Now is not the time.’
‘Anything you say, Frost,’ said Mullett, who then hurried back to his office.
‘See,’ said Frost. ‘The bastard has a heart after all. Show him a video of a girl being strangled and he’s putty in your hands.’ He screwed up his eyes and shook his head in an attempt to erase the images he had just witnessed. ‘Hanlon, get the video copied and send the original straight over to Forensic. And let’s go back to my office. I’ve got some whisky.’
Frost sat in his office with Hanlon and Wells, all moodily drinking Sandy Lane’s Scotch out of mugs. They were still shaken. Frost spat out a tea leaf. ‘Right. Why did they send us the tape?’
Blank faces.
‘You’re a lot of bleeding help.’
‘We know there’s at least two of them,’ said Hanlon. ‘One to take the film, the other to kill the girl.’
‘The camera could have been on a tripod,’ suggested Wells.
Frost shook his head. ‘No. It was jerking about too much – in any case, the girl was talking to whoever held the camera, pleading for her bleeding life.’
A tap on the door and Jordan, Simms and Kate Holby came in, all looking shattered. ‘We’ve just seen the copy of the tape,’ said Jordan.
‘Then you’ll need some of this,’ said Frost, finding some battered polystyrene cups and slurping whisky in them. Even Kate didn’t refuse, coughing as she sipped it. It was a tight squeeze in his tiny office; some were sitting on chairs, others on the corners of the desks. ‘We keep this to ourselves,’ said Frost for the benefit of the newcomers. ‘No one outside the station must know about the tape. If the parents find out they’ll want to see it and I’m not going through that. Anyone got any brilliant ideas to add to my own sod all?’
‘It was definitely taken in that office block,’ said Simms. ‘The same walls.’
‘Yes, I noticed that,’ said Frost. He snapped his fingers as a thought struck him. ‘She was sitting in a chair. They wouldn’t have brought one with them, so they must have taken one from the lobby.’ He jabbed a finger at Jordan and Simms. ‘As soon as you’ve finished your booze, get over there. I want all the chairs collected and taken to Forensic. If our luck’s in for a change, there might be prints.’
‘The hands strangling her,’ offered Hanlon, ‘definitely a man – bare hairy arms.’
‘The sod was probably naked and hairy all over,’ said Frost. ‘The poor cow had already been beaten and raped.’ He drained his cup and decided against a refill. The room was hot, he was overtired and the drink was going to his head. It was important to keep a clear mind.
‘Did you notice how he was keeping well to one side so as not to obstruct the view of the camera?’ asked Kate.
‘He wanted to make certain he couldn’t be identified,’ said Hanlon.
‘How could we identify him? We only saw his hands. No, it was more than that,’ said the WPC. ‘He was making certain the camera got a clear view of the girl.’
Frost spun round in his chair. ‘You’re right, girl, you are bloody right. Let’s take another look.’ They drained their mugs and followed him into the Incident Room.
They crowded round the monitor. There was silence as the tortured face of the girl appeared. Silence until the tape ended.
Frost turned to Kate. ‘You’re dead right, love. Everything is arranged so we get a clear view of the girl. Nothing else matters. There’s a bit there where it judders and jerks. I reckon they stopped the camera because she moved her head, pulled it round to the camera again and restarted filming. I think we now know what’s behind that.’
‘Perhaps I’m a bit thick…’ began Hanlon.
‘Don’t be so bleeding modest, Arthur,’ said Frost. ‘You’re more than a bit thick, you’re bleeding thick. I reckon those bastards were making a snuff movie.’
‘What?’ asked Wells.
‘There are perverts, Bill, who get their kicks out of seeing people die – preferably painfully killed. They’d pay a bomb for a video if they were sure it was genuine. I reckon the whole point of the killing was to make a snuff movie, either for kicks, for money or for both.’
‘Bloody hell,’ hissed Wells.
‘My sentiments exactly,’ said Frost, picking up the phone on its first ring. It was Harding from Forensic.
Frost cradled the phone on his shoulder, wedging it with his chin as he lit up another cigarette. ‘What have you got?’ He listened, grunting from time to time. ‘Yes… we blood’s well knew that… Fingerprints?’ His expression changed. He grabbed the phone and pressed it tighter to his ear. ‘Are you sure? If anyone says you’re flaming useless, tell them it’s only most of the time.’ He slammed the phone down and turned to the others, who were looking at him expectantly.
‘Right. The videotape was brand new – never been used before. The bit we saw had been copied from the video-camera tape. It was copied with the audio lead out, either by accident or design. Harding agrees it had been stopped and started a couple of times, probably to re-arrange Debbie’s face so the camera could get a clear look at what the poor cow was going through. He confirms the background is the wall of the office block on Denton Road, which we flaming well knew. He’ll check it out, but is almost certain it’s the floor the boy fell from. I don’t think there’s much flaming doubt about that either. Right, now we come to the fingerprints. There were two clear dabs on the cassette – Sergeant Wells and Collier, so I’m arresting them both on suspicion. Clearly whoever sent it wiped it clean before wrapping it up. After they wrapped it and sealed it down, they wiped it again. It’s now smothered in dirty finger marks, but the odds are they came from the postal staff, plus Bill Wells who brought it to me, and me, who opened it. So far, so bleeding bad. But it looks as if they wiped off the prints after they stuck it down, so they couldn’t get to the prints on the taped folds and couldn’t wipe them off. Forensic have found two lovely clear dabs.’
‘Too much to hope they are on record?’ asked Hanlon.
‘Yes, Arthur,’ nodded Frost. ‘Too much to hope. But thanks to Forensic it narrows the field down. Before this, we didn’t have the faintest idea who did it, but now we can eliminate every one who has got a criminal record!’ He sighed, took a last drag at his cigarette and ground it underfoot. ‘We’re still no further forward. Why did they send us the tape? To brag about what they had done, or to torment us for being a load of twats? – as if we didn’t know that already.’ He sighed. ‘Come on, let’s kill that bottle of whisky.’
As Frost pushed himself up out of his chair, the door burst open and Sandy Lane came in. ‘No one at the desk, so I let myself in,’ he beamed. He pointed to the monitor. ‘You been watching the videotape of the girl?’
Frost’s jaw sagged. He stared at Lane, then dropped back into the chair. ‘What videotape?’ he asked. How the hell had Lane got wind of this? Had some bastard been blabbing to the press? He shot a suspicious look at Morgan.
‘The tape of the dead girl – Debbie Clark,’ replied Lane, as if it was obvious what tape he was talking about.
‘I know nothing about any bleeding tape,’ lied Frost. Who had told the sod?
Lane dragged up a spare chair and sat next to the inspector. ‘Come off it, Jack. We’ve just had an anonymous phone call. A woman. She said, “If you want a scoop, ask the filth about the video we sent them. Ask them if they’d like a video of the other girl.” As soon as she said filth, I thought of you.’
Frost leant back in his chair and stared at the reporter, his mind racing. ‘What other girl?’
Lane shrugged. ‘That’s all she said before she hung up. I presume she meant that girl you found on the railway embankment.’
‘Or she might have meant that other missing teenager, Jan O’Brien,’ said Frost anxiously. ‘You record all incoming calls, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ nodded Lane. He dug in his pocket and pulled out an audio cassette and held it aloft. ‘But as you haven’t received the video, there’s no point in my giving you this.’ He snatched his hand back as Frost tried to grab it. ‘Come on, Jack. Give me a flaming break. A story like this – I could get it in all the London dailies with an exclusive byline.’
‘Sod your bylines,’ snarled Frost. ‘My only concern is to nail these bastards. That other poor cow might still be alive. I want to find her before they do to her what they did to Debbie. I want that tape, Sandy!’
‘No way,’ said the reporter firmly.
Frost beckoned to Kate Holby. ‘Run the video for him.’
As she fed the tape into the machine, he grabbed the reporter’s sleeve. ‘This is off the record, Sandy, strictly off the bleeding record. If you breathe a bloody word of it outside…’ He let the threat hang.
But Lane was unaware of Frost. He was transfixed, staring at the screen. Towards the end he turned his head away. ‘Christ!’ he muttered as the tape flickered to a close. ‘I’ve seen some shitty things in my time, Jack, but this…’
‘We don’t yet know why it was sent to us,’ Frost told him. ‘But until we do, we’re keeping shtum. They want us to acknowledge it, that’s why they got on to you, but we’re not going to. Nothing appears in the press, Sandy, and I want that audio cassette now.’
Without a word, Lane handed it over. Frost gave it to Kate, who loaded the cassette recorder.
A beeping sound, then a woman’s voice:
‘I want to speak to the crime bloke.’
‘Speaking. Who is this, please?’
‘I ain’t telling you who I am. You know that kid who was murdered – the school kid?
‘What about her?’
‘Debbie. If you want a scoop, ask the filth about the video.’
‘What video?’
‘And ask them if they want a video of the other girl.’
‘But – ’
A click, the dialling tone, then silence.
Frost worried away at his scar. ‘Sounds like a real bit of low life.’ He turned to Morgan. ‘Not one of your girlfriends is she, Taff?’
Morgan grinned and shook his head.
‘She called the girl “Debbie”,’ said Frost, half to himself. ‘Almost as if she knew the kid personally.’ He leant back in his chair and fired a salvo of smoke rings up to the ceiling, watching them slowly disperse. ‘She wants publicity. She wants it in the press. Why?’
No one could come up with a reason.
‘A snuff movie?’ suggested Lane.
‘We’ve already thought of that. If it’s a snuff movie and they’re hoping to sell it, it’s only worth anything if it’s genuine.’
‘There’s no doubt it’s genuine,’ said Hanlon. ‘That was Debbie Clark all right.’
Frost sat up as a thought struck him. ‘Wait a minute… wait a flaming minute…’ He turned to Sandy. ‘The only photograph published in the press was that old school photo taken when she was about nine. Her father wouldn’t let her have her photo taken after that. It wasn’t a very good photo and it was nothing like the way she looked now.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Of course! The sods want to be able to provide proof it is Debbie and not some tart acting and pretending to be Debbie. Well, they’re not bloody well going to get proof from us.’ He spun round to the reporter. ‘She’s bound to phone you again, Sandy. When she does, tell her you’ve been to the police and they deny ever receiving a video. She’ll then have to send you – or us – another one, which might give us a bit more gen.’ He stopped suddenly as another thought hit him. ‘If I was them, I’d then send a copy of the video to the mother. There’s no way that poor cow would keep quiet about it.’ He jabbed a finger at Bill Wells. ‘Get on to the post office. I want them to hold all her mail until we’ve examined it. And let’s have someone on duty outside the house 24/7 in case they decide to deliver it personally. Mullett’s okayed limitless overtime. It’d be rude not to take full advantage of it.’
Wells nodded. ‘I’ll put it in hand right now, Jack.’ He scuttled out of the room.
‘Well,’ said Frost, ‘we’ve got her fingerprints and her voice. If only we had her telephone number and knicker size.’
‘I’ve got the phone number,’ said Lane smugly. ‘We’ve got caller ID. We hold the last ninety-nine calls dialled in to us.’ He pulled a sheet of notepaper from his pocket and handed it to Frost. ‘It’s a Denton number. I dialled, but got no answer. I imagine it’s a public call box. People are getting too smart these days. They know calls can be traced.’
Frost glanced briefly at the number, then handed the paper to Hanlon. ‘Get on to BT, Arthur. I want to know whose number that is and I want to know now, so no sodding about.’ He drummed his fingers impatiently as Hanlon made the call.
‘Thank you,’ said Hanlon, hanging up. ‘Sandy is right, Jack. It’s the public call box on the corner of Middleton Street.’
Frost spun round to Jordan. ‘Pick up SOCO and nip down there. There could be prints on the phone.’ But as Jordan reached the door, he called him back. ‘Hold it. She might be a creature of habit and use the same phone box to call Sandy again. I want it under constant surveillance.’ Back to Lane. ‘I’ll lend you one of our police radios, Sandy. If she sees there’s nothing in the papers she might phone you again from the same phone box. If she does, radio through right away.’
‘What if she doesn’t use the same phone box?’ asked Morgan.
‘Then we won’t bleeding catch her, will we?’ snapped Frost. ‘Mullett’s given us carte blanche so we’ll have twenty-four-hour surveillance on every flaming call box in the area. But I still want dabs off that phone before someone else uses it. I want someone to get them who looks too much of a prat to be a policeman.’
All eyes swivelled to Morgan.
‘OK, Guv,’ said Morgan sheepishly. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘No,’ said Frost. ‘Not only do you look too much of a prat, you are too much of a prat. I want someone with sense.’ He turned to Kate Holby. ‘Change into civvies, love, then get a fingerprint kit from SOCO and make sure no one sees you taking the prints.’
He rubbed his hands together. This was what he thrived on. Action. Getting things moving. Not sitting in a chair, twiddling his flaming thumbs. If their luck was in they’d get this cow. He stood up. ‘Let’s finish off that cat’s pee Sandy calls whisky. It would be a pity to let it go bad in the bottle.’
It was a cold night with rain slashing against the window, but with everyone packed into Frost’s tiny office, which was thick with cigarette smoke, and with a warm inner glow provided by the second bottle of Sandy Lane’s whisky, Frost was sweating. He had called off the stake-out of the building-society cashpoints. Beazley could scream and shout as much as he liked, but the killing of the two teenagers was taking priority. All public phone boxes in the town were under observation, but there was no message yet from Sandy Lane. Kate Holby had checked the phone the woman had used, but it had been wiped clean of prints.
A sudden mental image of Debbie Clark’s tortured face sent a shudder through Frost’s body. The silent scream. He banged his mug down and stood up. There had to be something on the tape that he had missed. He didn’t want to go through the harrowing ordeal of watching it again, but he had to.
He stomped back to the Incident Room where Taffy Morgan, detailed to check through the list of cars captured on CCTV around the times of the blackmailer’s withdrawals, quickly slid a newspaper under the computer printout.
‘You’re not fooling me one bit, you lazy Welsh git,’ snapped Frost. ‘Run that video again.’
He waited impatiently as Taffy opened shut drawers before locating the cassette.
Frost steeled himself, but found himself wincing, shuddering, sharing the kid’s pain and terror. ‘Hold it, Taff. Go back to the bit just before she screams.’ He moved closer to the monitor. She’s saying something.’
‘But we can’t hear her,’ said Taffy.
‘You have a gift for stating the bloody obvious.’ snarled Frost. ‘Maybe we can’t make out what she’s saying, but I bet a flaming lip-reader could.’ Frost buzzed Johnny Johnson, the night-duty station sergeant. ‘Johnny, this is urgent. I want a lip-reader here, now.’
‘Now?’ echoed Johnson. ‘You won’t get any one until the morning.’
‘Morning? What flaming office hours do they work?’
‘Jack,’ said Johnson patiently. ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning.’
Frost focused bleary eyes on his wristwatch to check. ‘Bloody hell. Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself?’
His mobile rang. Sandy Lane.
‘Yes, Sandy?’ asked Frost excitedly.
‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Jack. She hasn’t phoned. It’s late. I’m going home.’
‘All right,’ sighed Frost. ‘I can’t see her phoning now.’
Back in his office, he killed the last drop of whisky, shrugged on his mac and walked unsteadily out to his car.
A traffic car stopped him on his way home.
‘Your car’s been lurching all over the road. I’ve reason to believe you’ve been drinking, sir.’
Frost smiled sweetly at him and slurred, ‘Not only have I been drinking, officer, I have a funny feeling I’m pissed.’
The PC shone his torch. ‘Oh, it’s you, Inspector Frost.’ He yelled back to his partner in the traffic car, ‘Follow us, Charlie. I’m driving the Inspector home. Move over, sir.’
After three attempts to get the key in the lock, Frost eventually managed to open the front door. There were two messages on his mat from estate agents wanting to make appointments to view the house. He kicked at them but missed, then stumbled upstairs and flung himself, fully dressed, on the bed. He fell instantly asleep.
He dreamt he was watching the video again, but this time there was sound, ghastly sound. The girl’s screams echoed and echoed round and round in his brain before turning into the shrill ringing of the alarm clock.