7TH victim. Alongside this story, in bold type, was an editorial which was headed “What is Wrong with the Denton Police?” The theme of the editorial was that, because of incompetence, after seven attacks Denton police were still without a single clue to the identity of the rapist. It suggested that perhaps an experienced officer from another division should be brought in to take over where the Denton force had so clearly failed.
On first reading the editorial, Mullett had marched with it into Frost’s rubbish dump of an office, only to find that the inspector had not yet deigned to report for work. On Frost’s desk, unread, was a report from Forensic on the previous night’s rape, suggesting that a full-scale search of the area would be advantageous. When he checked with Sergeant Johnson, Mullett was appalled to learn that no search of the area had been made, or planned. And, to cap this catalogue of incompetence, Frost, the investigating officer, hadn’t even bothered to interview the rape victim!
He slumped down in Frost’s chair, shaking his head in dismay. And that was when he saw, in the middle of the desk, weighted down with an unwashed tea mug, the crime statistics that Frost had assured him had gone off the previous day.
Back to his office, where he scribbled down notes of all the matters he wished to take up with the inspector. That done, he buzzed Inspector Allen and asked him to come to the office.
Inspector Allen, immaculately dressed and coldly efficient, so different from the wretched Frost, drew up the offered chair and sat down.
“Have you seen this?” asked Mullett, pushing the newspaper across, jabbing the offending editorial with his finger.
Allen smiled thinly, thanking his lucky stars that he had dumped the case on Frost before the newspaper story broke. “Yes, I’ve seen it.”
“I want you back on the rape case as soon as possible.”
Allen reminded the Superintendent that he had to bring the murder inquiry to a satisfactory conclusion first.
“Yes, of course,” sighed Mullett. “That must be our number-one priority. What progress so far?”
Allen brought him up to date on the finding of the Vauxhall.
“Any fingerprints?”
“No, sir. No prints and, so far, no bloodstains.”
Mullett looked up from polishing his glasses. “No bloodstains? But Shelby’s wounds would have been simply pouring with blood.”
The inspector explained his theory about the waterproof sheeting taken from Shelby’s patrol car..
Mullett looked worried. “No blood, no fingerprints. But that makes it impossible to link Shelby’s body with the getaway car.”
Allen smiled. “We tie Shelby to the car by his notebook, sir. We found it on the other side of the hedge where the Vauxhall was abandoned.”
“Were Eustace’s prints on that?”
“No, sir. Like the car, it had been wiped clean. But that doesn’t matter. It’s solid evidence. All we’ve got to do now is catch Eustace, and that shouldn’t take long a day or two at the most. He won’t have much money. All he’s got are the cheap pieces of jewellery he stole from Glickman, and we’ve put tabs on all the local fences.
We’ve also put a twenty-four-hour surveillance on his house, and
I’ve arranged for his phone to be tapped. We’ll get him, sir, and soon, I promise you.”
Mullett leaned back in his chair and relaxed. He almost felt like purring. How marvelous to have some good news for a change. A speedy result on the murder inquiry would take much of the heat off the rape cases. Thank goodness he had one officer he could rely on. He thanked Allen and sent him out to speed up the hunt for Stan Eustace.
As Allen left the office, Mullett jabbed the button on his internal and again asked if Mr. Frost had arrived yet.
The minute hand of the clock in the lobby gave a convulsive twitch and clunked nearer to twelve noon. The tall, thin, angular woman in the green coat, clutching the handbag, shifted her position on the uncomfortable seat and focused hard black eyes on Sergeant Johnny Johnson, who was doing everything possible to avoid her piercing gaze. Come on, Jack Frost, he said to himself. The Super wants you, this old dear wants you, and we all want you, so where the hell are you? He must have murmured this aloud, because the woman was now staring at him suspiciously. He grinned sheepishly. “I don’t think he’ll be too long, madam.”
Her sharp chin thrust forward. “It just isn’t good enough. A woman is brutally assaulted and then completely ignored by the authorities.”
“If you’d like to leave details, I’ll pass them on to Mr. Frost the minute he arrives,” suggested Johnson.
“Leave details?” She pushed herself up from the bench, her voice rising with her. “Am I hearing you correctly, Sergeant? I demand to be allowed to talk to a senior policeman, and I insist that a woman police officer be present.”
Mullett, crossing the lobby on his way back to his office, paused. This sounded like trouble. He walked over to the sergeant.
“Who is this lady?” he asked.
“A Miss Norah Gibson, sir. She claims she has been raped.” Johnson stressed the word ‘claims,” but Mullett failed to take the hint.
“Raped? And you’re making her sit out here and wait?” he gasped incredulously. “Good Lord, Sergeant, where’s your common sense? If the Demon Echo got hold of this…”
“Er, if I could have a quiet word, sir,” said Johnson, lowering his voice so the woman couldn’t hear. But Mullett was already on his way over.
“Good morning, madam. I am Police Superintendent Mullett, the Denton Divisional Commander. Do I understand you’ve been…” He hesitated for a second before bringing himself to say the word ‘raped?”
Her knuckles tightened on the strap of her handbag. “That is correct, but it seems no-one wants to know.”
At that moment, Frost breezed in, saw the Superintendent, saw the woman, and quickly backed out. But not quickly enough… “Inspector Frost!” bellowed Mullett.
“Sir?” said Frost, coming in again as if for the first time. He acted surprised to see the woman. “Hello, Norah. What are you doing here?”
Her eyes iced over. “Miss Gibson to you,” she spat.
“She’s been raped,” said Mullett.
“She should be so lucky!” said Frost.
Mullett’s face went red. He had to compress his fists to control himself. He inched his face very close to Frost’s and said through clenched teeth, biting off and spitting out each word, “Get a woman police officer and also someone capable of taking a statement, and join me immediately in the interview room.”
He turned to the woman. “If you would kindly accompany me, madam?” As he led her to the interview room she turned and beamed Frost a thin, tight smile of smug satisfaction.
Frost looked up at the ceiling for sympathy. “Why does that stupid, horn-rimmed bastard always want to interfere?” He lowered his head as Webster, engrossed in conversation with Detective Constable Susan Harvey, pushed through the swing doors.
“Hold it, you two,” he called. “We’re wanted in the interview room. A lady’s been raped.”
Mullett sat the woman down, phoned for a cup of tea to be brought in for her, stressing that he wanted a cup, not a chipped enamel mug, then looked at his wristwatch to time how long it took Frost to obey a direct order. He didn’t have to wait very long. The tea arrived, followed closely by Frost with that reject from Braybridge and the good-looking Susan Harvey. Frost had a blue folder tucked under his arm.
Susan drew up a chair next to the woman to give her moral support.
Frost leaned against the wall, a cigarette drooping from his mouth. Mullett wished he would smarten himself up a bit. And he wished the man wouldn’t slouch in that slovenly manner. He looked more like a street-corner layabout than a detective inspector.
When Frost was satisfied that Webster was ready with his shorthand notebook he dropped his cigarette end on the floor, then gave Miss Gibson a disarming smile. It failed to disarm her.
“If you’d like to tell us what happened, Miss Gibson?”
She looked down at the floor and blushed. “I was raped last night.”
“What, again?” asked Frost.
Her head snapped up. “Yes, again! Some women are natural targets for filthy men, and, sadly, I seem to be such a woman.” She fumbled in her handbag for a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.
“Tell me,” asked Frost, striking a match on the wall to light up yet another cigarette, chow many times have you been raped over the past three months?”
Her lips compressed. “It’s not the sort of thing one keeps count of, Inspector.”
“But we keep count of them, Miss Gibson. Every time your knickers are forcibly removed, the old computer clocks it up. Now let me see.” He opened the blue folder and flipped through its contents. “Here we are. At the last count it was seventeen times but each time the doctor examined you he found you were still a virgin. So who raped you, the archangel Gabriel?”
It began to dawn on Mullett that things were not as he had been led to understand. Why hadn’t somebody told him? He cleared his throat and studied his watch as if surprised at the time. “Dear me.. . You must excuse me…” And he scuttled out of the room.
“We’ll carry on without you then, sir?” called Frost after him. Mullett affected not to hear.
The woman sat straight-backed in the chair, tightly clutching the handbag resting on her lap. “I might have made mistakes in the past, Inspector, but last night was real.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “You’ve got to believe me.”
Frost sat down. “If you say you were raped, then of course I believe you, Miss Gibson. Tell us what happened.”
She reached out for Susan’s hand and clutched at it. “I was walking through Denton Woods last night, a little after eleven o’clock, when a naked man leaped out on me from the bushes. He knocked me to the ground and savagely raped me.” She stared pleadingly into his face. “That’s the truth, Inspector.”
Frost rubbed his scar. “I’m sure you wouldn’t tell us lies, Miss Gibson.” To Webster’s surprise, the inspector’s voice was strangely gentle. “Can you describe this man?”
She dropped the handkerchief back into her handbag. “No. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t let it worry you,” said Frost, patting her hand. “None of his other victims could describe him either.”
She blinked back her tears and smiled bravely.
“Would you be willing to submit to a medical examination?” Frost asked. “A lady doctor if you prefer.”
Her eyes widened in alarm and she firmly shook her head. “Oh no. It would be too humiliating.”
“I quite understand,” sympathized Frost. “Thank you so much for coming, Miss Gibson. You’ve helped us a lot. I’m sure we’ll catch him now. But in the meantime, stay away from the woods.” He whispered to Susan to drive the woman home, and gave a friendly wave as the door closed behind them.
“The poor cow always asks for me,” said Frost. “I’m the only one who’ll listen to her.”
Webster snapped his notebook shut. “Stupid bitch. What a complete and utter waste of time.”
“Don’t be too hard on her,” said Frost softly. “Imagine how you’d feel if the nearest you ever got to the real thing was making up stories for the police.” He aimed his cigarette end at the waste bin. “Let’s get a cup of tea.”
Sergeant Johnson was waving frantically as they crossed the lobby. “Mr. Mullett wants to see you right away, Jack. Understand he’s worried about your lack of progress with the rape inquiry.”
“Blimey!” exclaimed Frost. “I only took it over yesterday.”
The phone rang. “Denton police,” said Johnson. He listened, then smiled. “Yes, madam, he is.” He held the phone out to Frost. “One of your lady friends, Jack. Won’t give her name.”
Frost thought for a moment. “It must be Shirley. I think I was supposed to take her out last night.” He sent Webster to collect two teas from the canteen and reached for the phone but, seeing Johnny’s ears flapping, decided to take the call in the privacy of his office.
He sat at his desk trying to think of an excuse for Shirley. He saw the report from Forensic and skipped through it. “If they want to search, let them bloody well do it,” he muttered, pushing it away. He picked up the phone. “Hello, Shirley.”
There was silence from the other end, then a woman’s voice said “Mr.
Frost…?” It wasn’t Shirley.
“Yes, Frost here,” he said. “Who is that?”
“It’s Sadie – Sadie Eustace.”
Frost slid back in his chair. Sadie! The wife of Useless Eustace!
“What do you want, Sadie?”
“Can I talk to you in confidence?”
“Of course you bloody can’t,” said Frost. “Your old man’s wanted for murder.”
“He didn’t do it, Mr. Frost.”
“Of course he didn’t, Sadie. He didn’t do any of the jobs he was sent down for. He’s a model citizen.”
“But he didn’t kill that copper. He swears it. Listen, Mr. Frost, this is for your ears only. Stan’s been in touch with me.”
Frost sat up straight. “No, you listen to me, Sadie. First of all, I’m not on this case, so you’re wasting your time talking to me. Secondly, whatever you tell me goes straight on the record every word. If you don’t want that to happen, hang up and I’ll forget this conversation ever took place.”
“Stan wants to talk to you, Mr. Frost. He says you’re the only one he can trust.”
“Then let him come to the station and give himself up. I’ll talk to him then.”
“No, Jack, please. I don’t want to speak over the phone. Can you come over to the house?”
“Just a minute.” He put down the phone and wandered outside so he could see the lobby. The desk phone was on its rest and Sergeant Johnson was taking details from a woman whose cat had been locked in a neighbour’s shed. Satisfied that the sergeant wasn’t eavesdropping on the conversation, he went back to his desk. “Listen to me, Sadie. I can’t come to your house. It would be more than my job is worth. I shouldn’t even be talking to you now.”
“The cafeteria in Woolworth’s in the High Street.”
“What about it?”
“I’ll be there in five minutes. Corner table. Meet me.”
“No!” said Frost firmly.
“Please,” said Sadie as she hung up.
“No,” said Frost even more firmly to the dial tone. He hung up, then spun around guiltily as Webster pushed in with the teas. “Shut the door, son.”
Webster backed against the door to close it. He put one cup of tea on the inspector’s desk.
“Ta,” said Frost, stirring it with a pencil, still not certain what to do about the phone call. “I’ve just had Stanley Eustace’s wife on the phone. She wants me to meet her in five minutes.”
Webster raised his eyebrows. “Have you told Mr. Allen?”
Frost shook his head. “She doesn’t want me to tell anyone. Says it’s to be off the record. What do you think?”
Webster drained his cup and parked it on the window’s ledge. “I think you’d be mad to go.”
“That’s what I think, too,” said Frost gloomily. “Stark, staring, bleeding mad.” He stood up and shuffled on his mac. “If anyone wants me, you don’t know where I am.”
With the lunch-time rush the cafeteria was a cacophony of crockery, cutlery, and raised voices. Sadie was hunched up in the corner, staring at the brown plastic table top, which was puddled with spilt tea. Frost bought two coffees from the quick-service counter and carried them over.
“Anyone sitting here?” he asked, dropping down on the padded vinyl bench. He slid one of the coffees over. She raised her head, forced a smile, then began to stir her coffee mechanically.
“Thanks for coming, Jack.”
“That’s all right,” replied Frost. “I felt like getting kicked out of the force.” He tore open the little plastic bag of sugar and tipped it into his cup. “So what have I risked it all for?”
She leaned forward. “He didn’t do it, Jack.”
“The jeweller identified him, Sadie.”
She brushed that aside with a flick of her hand. “I know he did the jeweller, but he didn’t shoot that copper.” She covered her face with her hands. “I wish he’d never bought that bloody gun. I told Stan right from the start it would only lead to trouble. He said it would only be a prop, a frightener. He said he would never pull the trigger… but… but I knew different. Stan never meant to hurt the jeweller. He only meant to frighten him.”
“He did that all right,” said Frost. “He frightened the shit out of him.”
“He panicked,” she said.
“Yes, and he panicked when he was stopped by the constable. He panicked so much he blew half his bloody head off.”
She continued to stir her coffee, then pushed the cup away, untasted.
“Stan swears to me that he didn’t do that policeman.”
“If I had killed someone, Sadie, I’d swear I hadn’t done it.”
She looked him directly in the eye. “I believe him, Mr. Frost.”
He smiled ruefully. “My wife used to believe me, love, but most of the time I was bloody lying.” For some reason he was beginning to feel uneasy. As if someone was watching him. He let his eyes wander around the adjacent tables. People were more concerned with their food than with him. Then he realized Sadie had been talking and he hadn’t been listening.
“Stan wants to see you, Mr. Frost. He wants to arrange a meet.”
“He’s been in touch?”
She nodded.
“Listen, Sadie. When he gets in touch again you can tell him that I don’t want to know. I believed him at first, but today we found the dead copper’s notebook smack bang next to Stanley’s getaway car. Unless he can explain that away, he can forget all about meets as far as I’m concerned.” He was all ready to slide off the bench and get the hell out of there when a shadow fell across the table. Someone was standing there, looking down at them. He slumped back and groaned. No need to raise his head. He knew who it was.
Detective Inspector Allen, his lips twisted into a knowing, superior smile, his eyes glinting with the pleasure of having caught Frost out.
“Well, well, well, and what have we here?”
Shit! thought Frost, his eyes scanning the cafeteria. Plainclothes men everywhere. No wonder he had felt uneasy.
“We thought she was meeting her husband,” Allen explained. “We followed her from the house.”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” said Sadie. “I didn’t know the bastards were lurking.”
Frost slouched back on the bench and sought the solace of a cigarette. It gave him something to do while he pulled his thoughts together. “I should have realized,” he said. “I’m bloody stupid.”
“I would say criminally stupid,” said Allen, dumping himself down on the bench. “Just what do you think you are doing here, Frost? A prearranged meeting with the wife of a man who has murdered a young police officer?”
“I asked Mr. Frost to see me for a private talk,” snapped Sadie.
“Private?” asked Allen mockingly. “So, some parts of a murder investigation are suddenly private?” His head snapped around to Frost. “You had no business seeing this woman without my express permission.”
Frost said nothing. The trouble was that Allen was one hundred percent right and bloody knew it, and was going to squeeze every last drop of advantage from it. But what the hell. He leaned across the table and pressed Sadie’s arm. “Try not to worry, love.” He stood up and pushed past Allen.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” shouted Allen. But Frost was weaving his way through the tables.
All right, thought Allen. You can walk away from me, Frost, but just wait until Mullett learns about this little caper of yours.
“What joy?” asked Webster when Frost returned to the office and bundled his mac on the hat stand.
“More misery than joy, son. I was caught red-handed by Old Clever Balls.”
Serves you damn well right, thought Webster. “What did she want?”
“Stanley wants to have a meet. I said no.”
“She must know where he is then.”
“I’m sure she does, son.”
“Did you tell Mr. Allen?”
“No. He’s so bleeding clever, let him find out for himself.” He chucked himself in his chair and shoved all the incoming post, unread, into his out-tray. “Any news from Arthur Hanlon on our dead tramp?”
“He was asking for you,” Webster reported. “He says he’s spoken to all the unwashed and flea-ridden in Denton and can’t come up with anyone who saw Ben Cornish later than four o’clock.”
Frost uttered a little sigh of disappointment. “We’re not getting very far with that case, are we, son? No-one seems to have their heart and soul in it. Hundreds of flatfeet looking for poor old Stan Eustace and all I’ve got is little fat Arthur Hanlon looking for the bastard who stamped Ben to death.”
The door handle rattled and someone kicked one of the panels. Webster opened it to admit Sergeant Ingram, his arms full of files.
“I was asked to bring you these,” he said. “They’re Mr. Allen’s files on the Denton rapist investigation.”
“Put them on Webster’s desk,” said Frost, who certainly didn’t want them on his. He noticed how tired and drawn the sergeant looked. “Mr. Allen working you hard, is he?”
“Hard enough,” said Ingram. “Mr. Allen said will you please keep his files in good nick.”
“I’ll treat them as if they were my own,” said Frost.
Ingram forced a smile. “That’s what he’s afraid of.” The smile immediately snapped off. As he went out, he had to push past an agitated Sergeant Johnny Johnson coming in.
Frost jerked his head at the departing Ingram. “He doesn’t look too happy.”
“Wife trouble,” said Johnny Johnson. “I’ll tell you someone else who doesn’t look too happy, Jack. Mr. Mullett. He’s been sitting in his office waiting for you for more than an hour.”
Frost’s jaw dropped and he smacked his brow. “Flaming hell, I forgot all about the old git. I was on my way in to him when Sadie Eustace phoned.”
“He knows all about your tryst with her as well, Jack. Mr. Allen has been putting the verbal boot in.”
“He’s a darling man,” said Frost as he zipped through the door on his way to the Divisional Commander’s office.
He was halfway down the passage when Police Constable Kenny, looking pleased with himself, grabbed at his arm. “We’ve got him for you, Mr. Frost. He’s in the interview room.”
Frost’s spirits rose. “Who?” he asked hopefully. “The Denton rapist?”
“No, sir, Tommy Croll, the security guard from The Coconut Grove. You said you wanted him picked up.”
“Oh,” said Frost, trying not to sound disappointed. With so much else on his plate the robbery had completely slipped his mind. “Where did you find him?”
“Sneaking back into his digs to pick up his clothes.”
Frost patted the constable on the back. “Good work, young Kenny. Hold on, would you. Mr. Mullett’s waiting all eager to give me a bollocking, so I’d better get that treat over first. Shouldn’t be more than ten minutes though.” And he plunged on down the corridor for his tryst with the Superintendent.
“Come in,” growled Mullett, his head bowed over his midday post. He heard the door open and close. He looked up and there was Frost, in that shiny suit with the baggy trousers, out of breath and looking worried. Good. He would give him something to look worried about.
“I asked to see you more than an hour ago, Inspector,” he observed icily.
“Sorry about that, Super,” said Frost, searching his pockets for his cigarettes. Damn, he’d left them in the office. He looked hopefully at the silver cigarette box twinkling in the sunlight on Mullett’s desk. Mullett scooped up the box and locked it away in his drawer. Sometimes Frost had the gall to help himself without being asked.
“This is your last warning, Frost. In future, when you receive a summons from me, you will be here, on the double.”
Silence from Frost, who was looking very sorry for himself. He would look even sorrier before Mullett had finished. Mullett produced the copy of the Denton Echo, the editorial ringed in blue felt tip. He pushed it over to Frost. “Have you seen this?”
“Not yet, sir.” Frost gave it the briefest of glances and chucked it back. “Load of balls.”
“On the contrary, Inspector,” snapped Mullett. “What they are saying is painfully correct. A girl was raped last night. Have you interviewed her?”
“Well, no,” said Frost, shifting from one foot to the other, “Detective Constable Harvey took a statement…”
But Mullett wouldn’t allow him to finish. “A rape case. A girl raped and the officer in charge of the investigation doesn’t even bother to interview her personally.”
“We were busy with her boy friend last night,” retorted the inspector.
“She claimed he raped her. We had to clear him first.”
“Clearing the innocent does nothing to reduce our unsolved crime figures. Catching the guilty does,” snapped Mullett. “I further understand you haven’t yet made a search of the rape area.”
“I was on my way to do it when I got your summons, sir,” said Frost, meeting Mullett’s stare of disbelief unwaveringly.
“Make sure you do it, then. And have you interviewed the men on the list of suspects that Mr. Allen has drawn up?”
I’ve not even opened his bloody files yet, thought Frost. “It’s my number-one priority,” he said.
Mullett had plenty more bullets in the chamber. “What progress with that dead tramp?”
“Not much joy up to now, sir,” said Frost.
Mullett stared hard to show his dissatisfaction. Frost shuffled his feet and looked down to the blue Wilton. It sped things up if you looked contrite, and Frost was dying to get back to the office for a cigarette. “If there’s nothing else, Super…” he edged toward the door.
Mullett was opening and shutting drawers. There was quite a lot more, but he had mislaid his notes.
“What about the robbery at The Coconut Grove?” he barked.
“Got a suspect in the interview room right now, Super.”
“Good. Then let me see some action, Frost. Let me see some progress, something that’s been sadly lacking up to now.”
He flipped his hand dismissively, remembering too late about the Sadie Eustace business and the crime statistics.
Frost slouched back to his office, where he gave the waste bin a vicious kick. “Would that that was the reproductive area of our beloved Divisional Commander.”
Then he collapsed in his chair and found the cigarettes he had been seeking. He raised his head to Webster, who was regarding his superior’s show of childishness with superior disdain. “Mullett’s been rambling on about a list of suspects in the rape case, son. Any idea what the old git’s talking about?”
Webster extracted some stapled lists of names and addresses from one of Allen’s files and handed it to the inspector. Frost thumbed through the pages, wincing at the sheer volume of names.
“List of suspects?” he snorted. “It’s more like the Classified Telephone Directory. There must be every sex offender in the county down here.” He stopped at a name he recognized. “Freddy Gleeson! Fred the Flasher? Allen must be off his nut if he thinks Freddy could possibly be the rapist. His dick is for display purposes only, not for use.” He let the list drop to the desk and pushed it away. “Forget it. It’ll take weeks to go through that lot.”
“Couldn’t we at least pull in some of the more likely ones?” Webster asked.
Frost thumbed the pages once more and shuddered. “Waste of bloody time. These are all people with previous form. My gut feeling is that our bloke has never been caught before, so we’re not going to find him in lists of known offenders.” He looked up impatiently as someone knocked at the door. “Yes?”
PC Kenny poked his head in. “Tommy Croll is still in the interview room, sir,” he reminded the inspector.
“I was just on my way in as you knocked,” said Frost.
Tommy Croll was unshaven and unwashed, his clothes even more crumpled than Frost’s. He blinked nervously as the inspector entered with his hairy sidekick.
“Hello, Tommy,” greeted Frost, settling himself down in the familiar hard interview room chair. “Nice of you to come and see us.”
Tommy said nothing. He had long since learned that the best technique to use with the police was to say as little as possible.
Frost folded his arms, smiled at Croll benevolently, then fished out his cigarettes. He lit one very slowly, dribbling the smoke across the table. “You’re the answer to my prayers, Tommy. I’m in serious trouble with my Divisional Commander. To get back in his good books I need a quick confession and no sodding about.”
“I didn’t do it, Mr. Frost,” Croll whined.
“Now that’s a pity,” said Frost, ‘because it means we might have to resort to desperate measures, such as violence.” He jerked his thumb to the door as a signal for the uniformed man to leave.
Croll tried not to show his concern. He was now alone in the interview room with Frost and that thug with the beard, and he’d heard some alarming stories about him. There was even a whisper that he had beaten up Harry Baskin, and you would have to be a real hard case to even contemplate doing anything like that.
“As you probably know,” said the inspector, ‘my hairy colleague was drummed out of Braybridge for smashing up prisoners. I’d never allow him to do anything like that to you, Tommy not in my presence.” He pushed himself up from the chair and stretched. “So I’ll go and take a little stroll around the block.” To Webster he said, “Try not to leave any marks, son.”
Tommy tried to smile to show he knew it was all a bluff, but the smile wouldn’t come. “You’ve got to believe me, Mr. Frost. I didn’t do it.”
“I don’t care if you did it or not,” Frost said. “All I want is a bloody confession.” Then he seemed to have second thoughts and settled down again in the chair. “I’ll listen to one fairy story and one only, Tommy, and then your teeth get knocked out.”
Croll opened his arms in appeal. “It happened just like I told you, Inspector… I heard the right signal. I opened the door and wham, I’m coshed – I’m out cold.”
“Balls!” snapped Frost. “That little tap you got wouldn’t have knocked out a four-year-old.”
Croll chewed his lower lip and his eyes sized up the hairy thug. “All right, Mr. Frost. I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Good,” beamed Frost, motioning for Webster to change roles from heavy to shorthand writer.
“It was like I told you before, Mr. Frost, right up to the time where I got the signal to open the door. I opens it and there’s this geyser wearing a Stan Laurel face mask and holding a cosh of some sort. He clouts me round the nut, but I reckon he hadn’t done it before, because he didn’t hit me very hard. Anyway, I figured that if I didn’t drop down unconscious, he’d welt me a damn sight harder the second time, so I fakes it and down I go. I lies there, dead still, until he’s grabbed the money and gone.”
“So when he’d gone, why didn’t you start banging and yelling?” asked Frost.
“I was going to, honest. Then I suddenly thought what Mr. Baskin might do to me if he found out I’d been faking and hadn’t put up a fight. So I thought I’d better carry on faking. I didn’t even yell when Mr. Baskin booted me in the ribs.”
Frost puffed out the tiniest stream of smoke through compressed lips.
“So tell me about Stan Laurel. Describe him.”
Croll gave a noncommittal shrug. “Medium height, medium build. I hardly saw him.” His nostrils twitched as the smoke from the inspector’s cigarette wafted over. “I couldn’t half do with a fag, Mr. Frost.”
“You’ll have a lighted fag stuck right up your arse if you can’t come up with a better description than that, Tommy boy,” said Frost.
Blinking hard, Croll gulped as he tried to think of something that would satisfy the inspector. “Well, he stunk of scent… after-shave, I suppose… and he had these poncey shoes on.”
Frost caught his breath. “What sort of shoes?”
“Expensive shoes. You could see the quality they must have cost a packet. As I lay on the floor he stood near me, his shoes inches away from my face. I know them off by heart. Sort of brown and cream with a woven pattern.”
The inspector stretched his arms out above his head, then massaged the back of his neck. “You might have helped us there, Tommy.” He heaved himself up from the chair. “You might have helped us a lot. Now, we can either lock you up or set you free and let Mr. Baskin know where you are. What do you prefer?”
“Locked up, Mr. Frost.”
“Well,” smiled Frost as if bestowing a great kindness, ‘as a favour to you.” He shook some cigarettes from his packet and pushed them over, then he called in the uniformed man and asked him to lock up the prisoner. That done, he flopped back into the chair, clasped the back of his neck with his interlocked fingers, and purred contentedly at tjbte ceiling.
“Have I missed something?” asked Webster.
A beam from Frost. “I’ve got a feeling in my water, son. One of my hunches.”
“Amaze me with it,” Webster said without enthusiasm.
“Fancy shoes, son. Brown-and-cream fancy shoes. Roger Miller has got a wardrobe full of them; we saw them when we had that little nose around his flat.”
“Thousands of people have got brown-and-cream shoes,” said Webster as he sneaked a look at his watch. He wanted to be in the canteen for lunch at the same time as Susan Harvey and was hoping that this bumbling half-wit of an inspector wouldn’t detain him much longer.
But Frost had no intention of being hurried. “Try this out for a scenario, son. Roger is in Baskin’s ribs for a lot of money. He knows Baskin will get very nasty if he isn’t paid.”
“We’ve been through all this,” sighed Webster.
“That was when I thought Baskin had nicked Roger’s motor. Just hear me out,” insisted Frost. “Roger hasn’t got the money to settle his gambling debt, so he gets the bright idea of stealing it from Harry Baskin. He gets his girl friend with the mole on her bum to help she’s got all the inside gen and she’s the one who phones pretending to be the nurse, while Roger, in his Stan Laurel mask, does the dirty deed.”
“It’s a possible theory,” sniffed Webster, patently unimpressed and more concerned with getting this stupid conversation over and done with.
“I haven’t finished, son.” Frost stood up and began to pace about the room. “I’ve always worried about the way that licence plate came off the Jag. But what if it was meant to come off?”
“I don’t follow you.”
“They knew what Baskin would do to them if he ever suspected, so they badly wanted an alibi. An alibi that would put Roger miles away. Everyone knows his flash motor. So the girl friend puts on one of Roger’s caps, drives the Jag round and round the old people’s flats, bashing into dustbins, trumpeting away at the horn, making sure no-one could avoid seeing the car. And just in case no-one got the registration number, she chucks the licence plate out of the window for the cops to find. When the police followed it up, Roger would say, “Yes, officer, it was I who caused the public nuisance,” pay his fine and for fifty quid he’s bought himself a cast-iron alibi for the time of the robbery. What went wrong, of course, was the girl knocking down that old man. That sodded everything up. There was no way Roger was going to say he was driving after that.” He sneaked a glance across to Webster to see how this was being received.
It wasn’t being received too well. Webster immediately saw the flaw in the reasoning. “Very ingenious… except for the fact that Miller didn’t owe Baskin any money. He’d settled his debts two days before the robbery.”
Frost stopped dead in his tracks. “Damn and bloody blast!” he shouted. “I’d forgotten all about that.”
The door opened and the sergeant from the motor pool walked in. “Been looking for you everywhere, Mr. Frost,” he said. “You borrowed a car from the pool this morning.”
“Did I?” said Frost, a nasty feeling of more trouble starting to creep up his back.
“Yes, sir. When that stolen Vauxhall was found you wanted to get over there in a hurry. You told us your assistant was using your own car so you took one from the pool and promised you’d bring it straight back.”
“We came back in your Cortina,” said Webster.
Damn! thought Frost. I must have left the flaming pool car down that lane. He patted his pockets for the keys. He didn’t have them. “I must have left them in the ignition,” he admitted sheepishly. “Still, no problem. I’ll nip over and bring it back. I know where it is.”
“You don’t know where it is, Mr. Frost,” the sergeant told him grimly. “At this moment it’s being hauled up from the bottom of a canal in Lexington. Lexington police have arrested two joyriders.”
“Bum holes!” said Frost, now feeling very depressed. “I don’t think it’s going to be my day.”
Thursday day shift night shift
It wasn’t going to be Webster’s day either. Before he had the chance to explain about his lunch date with Susan, he was dragged by the inspector out through the back way to the car park. Frost was anxious to make himself scarce before Mullett learned about the pool car fiasco.
First they went to Denton Hospital to interview the seventeen-year-old rape victim, but she could add nothing to the statement she had already given to Susan Harvey. Indeed, she remained convinced it was her boy friend who had assaulted her, despite the medical evidence to the contrary.
That chore out of the way, Frost directed Webster to some appalling little back-seat transport cafe where they dined on burnt sausages, greasy chips, and tinned peas. To add insult to injury, Webster had to pay the bill for both of them when Frost realized he hadn’t drawn any cash from the bank. The deepening scowl on Webster’s face was threatening to become a permanent feature.
Sulkily slinging himself back in the car, the acidic stewed tea and the stale chip fat fermenting in his stomach, Webster asked the inspector where he wanted to go. He just didn’t care anymore. life was one long round of chauffeuring Frost, teetering from one crisis to the next while having to endure his unfunny jokes about beards and whiskers.
“Demon Woods,” said Frost. “Mr. Mullett is very cross with us because we didn’t search the area for clues last night.”
“It’ll take more than two of us,” grunted Webster, slamming the car door too hard and wincing as acid indigestion made its first tentative stab.
“Only if we do it properly,” said Frost cheerfully, leaning back and puffing contentedly at a cigarette. “Not a bad meal, was it?”
The thin, yellow afternoon sun did little to warm up the woods, and they hunched up inside their coats as they trudged along the path. “You know, son,” said Frost when they squeezed through the bushes and found themselves in the clearing with its wet, flattened grass, “I’ve got a hunch. I reckon he’s going to try it on again tonight.”
“Oh yes?” grunted Webster. He just couldn’t care less. He had had his fill of Frost and was counting the hours until he would be off duty and round to Susan Harvey’s little flat with the door bolted and the phone off the hook.
“The weather’s getting colder,” Frost went on. “He’s going to have to grab his opportunities. If he does his stripping-off act much longer he’ll end up with a frostbitten dick.” He scuffed the grass with his foot, already anxious to be away, but Webster suddenly bent down and tugged at something, a scrap of cloth caught on the lower branch of a bush. He held it out to Frost, who backed away. “It’s not a clue, is it, son? I’m not in the mood for clues.”
By the look of it, the scrap of cloth had been hanging around the woods for years, but Webster slipped it into a small plastic envelope. “I’d like to send this to Forensic… unless you’ve any objection?” His tone dared Frost to demur.
“If it makes you happy, son. Now let’s get the hell out of here before you pick up any more rubbish.” He squeezed back through the gap to the path, while Webster protested that they hadn’t even begun to search the area. “We haven’t got time,” said Frost, hurrying back to the car. “We’re never going to nab this sod by sniffing around for clues. The only way we’ll do it is by catching him in the act in flagrante dick-o, as the lawyers say.”
“And how are we going to do that?” asked Webster.
“I’ve got a plan,” said Frost, grateful to be back in the car after the cold dankness of the forest. “I’ll tell you when we get back to the office. Next port of call, the bank. I’ve got to get some money.”
Webster was turning the key in the ignition when another car roared up and skidded across to block their path. A plump little man in a blue mac and a porkpie hat jumped out and hurried over to them.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Inspector,” puffed Detective Sergeant Arthur Hanlon, out of breath. “Mr. Mullett’s screaming blue murder something about a wrecked car and Johnny Johnson says they can’t get in touch with you by radio.”
“It’s on the blink,” said Frost.
“It’s been turned off,” accused Hanlon, clicking the switch.
“I don’t understand these technical terms,” said Frost, firmly switching it off again. “Now speak your piece, Arthur. I’ve got to go to the bank.”
“I’ve found someone who was with Ben Cornish on Tuesday evening,” reported Hanlon. “They call him Dustbin Joe, so you can imagine what he smells like. He was just about coherent, and his breath stank of me ths but if we can believe him, he reckons he saw Ben about eight o’clock Tuesday evening and Ben told him he was on his way round to his mother’s to try and tap her for some money.”
“Now that’s very interesting,” said Frost, scratching his chin thoughtfully, ‘because his family said they hadn’t seen him for weeks.”
“The statement’s on your desk,” said Hanlon. “Just sniff, you’ll find it.”
“You’re a little gem, Arthur,” beamed Frost. “Now, if anyone asks, you haven’t seen me. I’m the man who never was.” He closed the car door. “Change of plan, son. Let’s go straight to Mrs. Cornish.”
Mrs. Cornish, who had affected indifference to her son’s death, was wearing the black woollen dress she had worn at her husband’s funeral. Frost didn’t comment on this fact. He sat with Webster in the tiny kitchen which reeked of fried onions, a smell that threatened to rouse Webster’s stomach to further rebellion. The yapping, snarling mongrel in the yard kept leaping up and banging its nose on the window in its frenzied efforts to rip them to pieces.
She folded her arms belligerently. “Like I told you, we hadn’t seen him for God knows how long. Hadn’t seen him and never wanted to see him.”
“Ben met someone Tuesday evening, just after eight, and said he was on his way round here,” said Frost.
“Well, he didn’t come,” said the woman flatly, ‘and I would have slammed the door in his face if he did.”
A banging as the front door closed, then footsteps along the passage. Danny pushed into the kitchen, stopping dead when he saw the two detectives. “What the hell?” he exclaimed. For a moment he looked as if he was going to turn tail and run.
“They’re asking about Ben,” said his mother quickly. “They seem to think he was here on Tuesday. I’ve told them we hadn’t seen him for months.”
“Quite right,” said Danny, still hovering by the open door.
“And that’s all we’ve got to tell you,” said Mrs. Cornish to Frost. “I want you to leave now.” To hurry them on their way, she asked her son to let the dog in.
Webster reversed out of the back street and pointed the car toward the town. “So what did that achieve?”
Frost, plunged in deep thought, surfaced with difficulty. “I reckon they’re lying, son. I’ll lay odds that Ben did go home on Tuesday.” His watch told him it was a quarter past three. “Foot down, son. I must get to the bank before they close.”
The nameplate above the cashier’s window in Benning-ton’s Bank said the young teller’s name was Gerald Kershaw. He took Frost’s cheque and clouted it with a rubber stamp. He didn’t look very happy.
“Fives, please,” said Frost, watching carefully as the youth counted out the crisp, brand-new notes.
“I’ve got to call in at the police station tonight, Mr. Frost,” said the youth gloomily.
“Been fiddling the books?” asked Frost, taking the money and rechecking it. “I’d flee the country if I were you.”
The cashier grinned. “No, not quite as bad as that. I’ve got to produce my driving licence and insurance details. A traffic cop caught me driving through a “buses only” lane.”
Frost tut-tutted and shook his head at the gravity of the offence. “That’s a thirty pound fine at least, plus fifteen quid costs. It’s cheaper to rob a bank you’d only get probation for that.”
The youth leaned forward confidentially, keeping his voice low. “I suppose there’s no way the charge could be dropped, Mr. Frost. I know the police have discretion, and it was a first offence.”
Frost gasped at the enormity of the suggestion. “No chance,” he said. He was stuffing the notes in his wallet and about to turn for the door when the idea struck him. He beckoned the youth closer. “Tell you what, Gerald. I might be able to fix it for you in return for a very small favour.”
“A small favour?” repeated the teller doubtfully.
“It’s all right; it’s official police business,” said Frost, ‘but it’s very confidential. I want to know a few minor details about someone’s account.”
The cashier, looked furtively about him. No-one was watching. “What’s the name of the account?” he asked, moving to the monitor screen and typing in the password for current accounts information.
Outside in the car, which was tucked, well hidden, down a side street in case a cruising police car spotted it, Webster waited impatiently. He felt like the driver of a getaway car in a bank raid. Ten minutes had passed since Frost, coat collar turned up, had sidled into the bank. How long did it take the idiot to cash a simple cheque?
Another minute ticked by and there he was, bounding along, his mac flapping, a broad grin threatening to split his face. He slid in beside Webster and flung out his arms with joy.
“I have a theory, son, that for every bit of bad luck you get compensated by a bit of good. So I deserve a bloody big chunk and I’ve just had it. Guess what?”
Webster didn’t answer. He was in no mood for stupid guessing games.
“When Roger Miller gave Harry Baskin his cheque for
4,865 to pay his gambling debts, he didn’t have a penny in his bank account; in fact, he was overdrawn by 32. But the morning after the robbery he paid in a cash deposit of 5,130, just in time for his cheque to be honoured.”
Webster turned slowly in his seat. “The morning after the robbery?”
Frost hugged himself with delight. “Yes, my son. Let’s go and bring the bastard in.”
Through the dull throb of his headache, Police Superintendent Mullett bravely smiled his thanks as his secretary, Miss Smith, brought him a cup of hot, sweet tea and a large bottle of aspirins. His headache was getting worse. He took off his glasses and pinched his nose to ease the strain, then gave his full attention to the station sergeant.
“We’ve been radioing Mr. Frost constantly since one o’clock, sir. He hasn’t responded, I’m afraid.”
Grunting his disapproval, Mullett popped two aspirins in his mouth and swallowed them down with a gulp of tea.
“His radio could be out of order,” suggested the sergeant.
“Yes,” snapped Mullett, replacing his cup on the saucer, ‘we all know how often, and how conveniently Mr. Frost’s radio breaks down. He’s to report to me the second he comes in, Sergeant.”
When the sergeant left, Mullett relaxed enough to take from his drawer the envelope with the House of Commons crest. He drew out the gold-engraved invitation and the short note in Sir Charles Miller’s own hand thanking him for his assistance in the hit-and-run case and inviting Mullett and his good lady to a small social gathering at the MP’s house the following night at which the Chief Constable would also be present.
Mullett’s pleasure at receiving this had almost outweighed his annoyance about the wretched business of the stolen police car. He had already had the press on the phone for his comments and he dreaded seeing the morning’s Demon Echo, which really seemed to have its knife out for the police these days.
He ran his finger along the gilt edge of the invitation, and the contact made him feel better. Sir Charles Miller’s private telephone number was on the letter requesting that the Superintendent phone him personally to confirm his acceptance. He had dialled the number and was holding on while the butler went off to find his master when there was a knock at his door.
“Wait!” ordered Mullett imperiously, but his command was ignored. The door opened and Frost ambled in, grinning from ear to ear.
“I asked you to wait,” barked Mullett. Typical of the man. Never here when you wanted him, but ask him to wait and he comes bursting in regardless.
“Hello, Mullett,” boomed Sir Charles at the other end of the phone.
“I’ve just arrested Roger Miller,” Frost announced.
Mullett’s mouth opened and closed. He looked at Frost, then looked at the phone in his right hand. “You’ve what?” he croaked.
“Hello, Mullett, are you there?” asked a puzzled Sir Charles.
“It was Miller who nicked that five thousand quid from The Coconut Grove the other night,” continued Frost proudly. “His girl friend was his accomplice; she’s given us a full confession.”
Mullett forced a barely sustainable smile of commendation and then became painfully aware of the irritated voice barking out of the phone. He took a deep breath.
“Hello, Sir Charles,” he said at last. “I’m afraid I might have a bit of bad news for you.” With his free hand he dropped the invitation into the waste bin. Its thud as it hit the bottom sounded the death knell of his current social climbing aspirations.
“Well done, Jack,” called Johnny Johnson as the inspector trotted back to his own office. “How did Mr. Mullett take it?”
“Well, he didn’t exactly kiss my feet,” replied Frost, ‘but at least it distracted his attention from the car I lost.”
Frost had played his usual game of bluff and double bluff, aided by gambler’s luck, which was paying him one of its brief visits. First he and Webster had picked up the girl, Julie King, telling her that Roger Miller had been positively identified and had made a full confession implicating the girl as his accomplice. “The lousy bastard!” she said. “He promised to keep me out of it.” She then made a statement giving them everything they wanted. Armed with this, they arrested Roger, and, once he was in custody, Frost was able to issue instructions for his flat to be searched. To Frost’s Academy Award-winning act of stunned surprise, the exclusive handmade brown-and-cream shoes were found. These were later identified by Croll as those worn by his attacker. And tucked away, right at the back of a built-in cupboard, they found a Stan Laurel mask.
Then the uninteresting bit. The paperwork and the tying up of the various loose ends. This was interrupted at one stage by a phone call from Harry Baskin, who had obviously been contacted by Sir Charles Miller. He said he didn’t want to prefer charges.
“This isn’t a civil case, Harry,” Frost had told him. “It’s a criminal charge, so you’ve got no say in the matter.” It was another two hours of comings and goings with Miller’s solicitor and the director of the Public Prosecutions Office before Frost was able to turn his mind to more important matters.
“The rape case, son,” he informed Webster, “I want to make a move on it tonight.”
“Tonight?” repeated Webster, hoping he wasn’t hearing correctly. He had intended spending the night in the narrow El Dorado of Susan Harvey’s single bed.
“Yes. My every instinct tells me that King Dick is still in the area and he’s going to have another bash tonight. So let’s give him someone to have a bash at.”
“A decoy?”
“Exactly. Someone young and tasty with enormous knockers.” He opened the door and yelled in the general direction of the duty room, “Sue… got a minute?”
Oh no! thought the dismayed Webster. Please, not Sue!
Frost pushed a chair toward her so she could sit down, then asked, “You doing anything tonight, Sue?”
She hesitated, shooting a little sideways glance at Webster, who could only shake his head helplessly.
“If not, how would you like to be raped?” continued the inspector.
R. D. Wingfield
A Touch of Frost
This was one of the inspector’s little jokes, of course. She giggled as she waited for the punchline. Then she saw he was deadly serious.
“I need you as a decoy, Sue. For this bloody rapist. I want to nail the bastard tonight.”
For just a second she hesitated, then she said, “What’s the plan?”
“It’s Mr. Allen’s plan, actually. I found it in the file. We fit you up with a two-way radio and we stake out the area. You prowl around, oozing sexual attraction, then, when he rises to the bait, we pounce, and then we all go home and have a cup of tea. How does it sound?”
She smiled. “I’ll do it. After seeing what he did to that kid last night, I’ll do anything to get the swine.”
Frost patted her hand. “Good girl. Now, we know he likes them young, dewy-eyed, and innocent, so no make-up, no bra, sensible knickers, and simple clothes and take the. Karma Sutra out of your pocket.” He consulted his watch. “It’s coming up to half past seven. Get off home. Try and grab some kip because, if we’re lucky, it’s going to be a busy night. I’ll send Webster round at ten to pick you up and bring you back here for a final briefing.”
Webster yawned pointedly. If he could get off now he would be able to drive Sue back to her flat, and to her bed, and they could relax and make up for the disappointment of the night before. “Perhaps we’d all better snatch a few hours’ sleep,” he suggested.
“Sure,” said Frost vaguely. “But there’s a couple of quick jobs we must do first.”
They’d better be quick, thought Webster, whispering to Susan that he’d be round at nine, earlier if he could, which would give them at least an hour before she had to get dressed in her decoy outfit.
“So what are these jobs?” urged Webster when Susan had left.
“Aim?” said Frost, not listening. He had taken out the packet of action photographs from Dave Shelby’s collection and was finding one of consuming interest. It showed Shelby and a woman, both naked. Shelby was lying on the bed, grinning. The woman, her back to the camera, showing off gorgeous buttocks, was astride him. The punchline to his old joke came into Frost’s head. “I knew it was the foreman,” he muttered to himself,
‘because I had to do all the bloody work.” He caught Webster’s eye. “Something nagging me, son. Why do I feel I should know where this was taken, and why do I feel it’s important?”
Can’t the old fool keep his mind on one case at a time, thought Webster as he bent to take a look. Wow! Lucky Shelby! The unknown woman looked a right little raver, and the action shot made him even more anxious to get the hell out of the office and into Sue’s bed posthaste so he could grin up at Sue as Shelby was grinning up at the woman.
“I’m not sure who the woman is,” said Frost. “I think it’s Mullett’s secretary. But I’m sure I know that bedroom. We’ve been there and recently.”
Webster tore his eyes away from the woman’s bottom and studied the rest of the photograph. Behind the lovers was an out-of-focus yellow background. To one side, also out of focus, a brown fuzzy blur that might possibly be a bedside cabinet and which was topped by something that seemed to glow red. He shook his head. It meant nothing to him.
Then Frost let out a yelp of triumph. “Got it!” He jabbed a finger.
“That is Mrs. Dawson’s bedroom.”
Webster picked up the photograph and looked again, trying to compare what he saw with what he remembered. Of course. The out-of-focus yellowish background, the colour distorted by the flash, would be the cream leather headboard. Once that was established the other blurred objects clicked into sharp focus, down to the LED digital clock with its oversized red numerals. There was no doubt about it, Dave Shelby had been having it off with Mrs. Dawson of the buttocks beautiful.
“What if her old man had found out?” said Frost quietly.
Webster whistled softly. Then there would have been hell to pay. Max Dawson had a violent temper, and an armoury of firearms. Then it hit him what Frost was implying. “Surely you’re not suggesting… ?”
“Why not?” asked Frost. “It’s much more likely Dawson would kill Shelby than Useless Eustace, and it’s always bugged me that there was no blood in the getaway car.”
“But we found Shelby’s notebook.”
Frost clicked his Biro on and off. “There must be some other answer as to how it got there.” He pushed the pen back into his top pocket.
“You’ll have to tell Mr. Allen.”
Frost tightened his lips stubbornly. “He wouldn’t listen, son. He’s already made up his mind that Stan is his murderer. Besides, I don’t want anyone to see these photos until I’m sure. We’ll have to interview Max Dawson ourselves.”
“But it isn’t our case,” insisted Webster.
Frost stuffed the photograph back with the rest and put them in his pocket. “I promised Stan’s wife I’d help if I could.”
“You don’t owe her a bloody thing. We’ve got enough on our plates with this rape case. Besides, Mullett will crucify you if he finds out you’ve been meddling again.”
But it was hopeless. When Frost was in his stubborn mood, neither logic, common sense, nor appeals to reason would shake him. “It won’t take us long, son,” he said.
Clare, wearing a see-through blouse and white slacks, opened the door to them, but the smile died on her face and she looked startled, as if she was expecting someone else. “Max is out,” she said. “He’s gone to London for a meeting. He won’t be back until the morning.”
“Then perhaps you can help,” said Frost, smiling. It suited him to be able to question the woman first.
They followed the famous photogenic wiggling bottom into the oak-panelled lounge with its walls covered in weapons, one of which could have been used to kill Dave Shelby. She waited nervously, rubbing the back of one hand, watching Frost as he slowly and deliberately unwound his scarf. It was stifling in the lounge with the pseudo log fire eating up the therms.
“What is it about?” she asked anxiously.
“How’s Karen?” said Frost, balling the scarf and ramming it into his mac pocket. He sat down on the settee and unbuttoned his coat.
“She’s fine,” Clare told them. “My husband has agreed she can go to ballet school at the end of this term.”
Frost smiled at her. “So all secrets are safe?”
“Yes.” She waited for him to come to the point.
Frost opened his wallet and took out the press release black-and-white photograph of Dave Shelby, smiling and alive. He held it up to her. “Recognize him?”
She gave it barely a glance before shaking her head.
Still holding it up to her, Frost said, “I think you do, Mrs. Dawson. His name is David Shelby, he’s a policeman, married with two young kids. He was shot dead yesterday.”
“Oh!” She took the glossy, then pretended to recognize it for the first time. “Of course. Yes, I read about it in the paper.” She offered Frost the photograph back, but he didn’t take it.
“Then you know why we are here, Mrs. Dawson?”
Her hands fluttered vaguely. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” Webster wandered over to the rack of guns with their polished stocks and mat black barrels. If weapons of death could look beautiful, then these looked beautiful. From a casual glance there was no way of telling if any of the shotguns had been fired recently, and, in any case, none of these guns would be returned to the rack without being thoroughly cleaned.
Frost took the black-and-white photograph from the woman’s hand and replaced it with the Polaroid. The colour drained from her face. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because we are investigating a murder, Mrs. Dawson. Debbie saw the man drawing the bedroom curtains, but it wasn’t Karen’s bedroom it was the room next door… your bedroom. You were in bed with Dave Shelby when Karen came home unexpectedly, weren’t you? She burst in on you, saw you together. That’s why she ran out of the house?”
She gave the photograph back to the inspector, then slowly walked over to the bar and poured herself a stiff vodka. She offered the bottle to Frost, who refused. With one elbow on the bar counter she emptied half the glass, then set it down. “All right. So I was in bed with your policeman. But I didn’t know he was married, and I didn’t know he had children.”
“Would it have made any difference if you had known?” Webster asked her.
She frowned, considering this, then shook her head almost imperceptibly. “No. I don’t think it would. I can’t help it: I need men. I met Dave in a pub -I forget which one. I was feeling lonely.” She looked up, her head slowly travelling around the barn of a lounge. “This house is so big, so empty. Neither Karen nor Max needs me anymore. Dave used to come in the afternoon when he was on the middle shift. He was good-looking and a lot of fun. Kinky though. He liked taking these photographs. He promised to burn them. I wouldn’t have let him take them if he hadn’t promised that.”
“When did he take this photograph?” Frost asked.
“That afternoon. Just before Karen came bursting in on us. We had the shock of our lives when that happened.” She shuddered at the recollection. “Dave said he wouldn’t be coming again after that, but I would have talked him round. And when I read in the paper that he had been killed…” She finished her drink and poured another.
“When did your husband find out?” asked Frost casually.
She stared at him, eyes wide open in horror, shaking her head from side to side. “My husband? God, surely he doesn’t know. He’d kill me, Inspector. You can’t imagine how violent he is.”
“I think we can,” said Frost. “We think he is so violent that when Karen told him what she saw, he took one of his expensive shotguns, went out to find Shelby, and blasted his face off. Would you like me to show you a photograph of how your lover looked after that, Mrs. Dawson?”
The glass rattled on the bar top as she set it down. She backed away from him. “Max doesn’t know about me and Dave. If he did he would have killed me first and Dave second.”
Frost pulled the scarf from his pocket and buttoned up his mac. “Well, let’s hope he’s got an alibi for yesterday.”
She clutched his sleeve. “You’re not going to tell him? For God’s sake, you’re not going to tell him about me and Dave?” She paused. “Wait a minute. What time yesterday?”
“From five o’clock onward.”
She thought, then she smiled. “That’s easy. He was shooting for his club The Denton Small Arms Shooting Association. There was some challenge match with another club. Max was there until long gone nine.”
“What guns did he take with him?” asked Webster.
“An automatic pistol and a shotgun.”
“We’ll check with his club,” Frost told her. “If his alibi holds, we won’t bother you or him further. We’ll see ourselves out.”
As they opened the front door a young, very good-looking man was standing on the step. He carried what appeared to be an overnight case in his hand.
“Oh, I do beg your pardon,” he said. “I appear to have come to the wrong house.”
“I don’t think so,” replied Frost. “She’s waiting for you inside. Have you brought your camera?”
For reasons he didn’t explain, Frost wanted to check the alibi on his own, leaving Webster to wait impatiently outside the exclusive Demon Small Arms Club. After fifteen minutes, the inspector emerged, shoulders slumped as he slouched down the stone steps to the car.
“Well?” asked Webster, when Frost had slid into the passenger seat.
“Dawson arrived there before five and didn’t leave until well after ten,” said Frost gloomily, ‘so there’s no way he could have done it… more’s the bloody pity.”
Webster raised his eyebrows. “Why do you say that?”
“Because if it’s not him, then it’s got to be someone else, hasn’t it?” muttered Frost, slouching lower into his seat.
They drove in silence until they reached the station, where Frost was dropped off. He had suddenly realized that he hadn’t obtained the Divisional Commander’s authority for the night’s decoy operation.
He trotted into Mullett’s secretary’s office to find the grey-haired Miss Smith crouched over her electronic daisy-wheel typewriter, bashing out a report at high speed.
“Yes, Inspector?” she asked, her eyes not moving from her notebook.
“I’d like to see Hornrim Harry.”
“If you mean the Divisional Commander,” she sniffed, ‘he’s had to go over to County Headquarters. Perhaps I can do something for you?”
“That’s damn generous of you, Ida,” grinned Frost. “Your place or mine?” Still guffawing at his cheap wit, he wandered away, leaving Miss Smith hot-cheeked and fuming.
He ambled over to Sergeant Johnny Johnson at the front desk. “How many men can you spare me for tonight, Johnny?” he asked.
“None,” replied the sergeant, ruling a line to finish an entry. “What did you want them for?”
“Operation Mousetrap. A decoy operation to nab our rapist.”
Johnson nodded. Vaguely he recalled the details, but as far as he knew it hadn’t been officially approved. “Have you spoken to Mr. Mullett about it?”
Frost offered his cigarettes. “I’ve just come from his office,” he said truthfully.
Johnson accepted a light, then consulted the shift rota. “How long would you want them for?”
“As long as it takes, Johnny. Two or three hours, perhaps. If he hasn’t taken the bait by one o’clock, say, I’ll call it off for the night.”
“Tell you what,” said Johnson. “Providing I can call them back if there’s an emergency, I can let you have four men and a patrol car.”
Frost grimaced. This was totally inadequate. Allen’s plan called for a minimum of fifteen men. “Bloody hell, Johnny. It’s Denton Woods I’m trying to cover, not a flaming window box.”
The station sergeant shrugged and returned to the Incident Book. “You can’t have what I haven’t got. Take it or leave it.”
There could be no question about Frost’s answer. No way could the plan possibly succeed with such a pathetically inadequate force. It would be disastrous.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
Webster had just sat himself down in the armchair in his room and closed his eyes for a couple of minutes before shooting off in the Cortina to Sue’s place to spend almost an hour with her before they would have to leave for Operation Mousetrap. But he must have drifted into a deep sleep.
He and Susan, together with Dave Shelby and Mrs. Dawson, were all enjoying a naked, sweaty, lusty foursome in that bed with the padded leather headboard when the door burst open. In the doorway, twitching with fury, was Max Dawson with the shotgun. As Dawson pulled the trigger, Webster suddenly jerked awake and the blast changed into the jangle of the phone.
It was Sue. Angry. Demanding to know where the hell he was. He looked at his watch. Damn and bloody blast! Ten minutes to ten and the briefing meeting at 10.15 sharp.
He splashed cold water over his face and leaped down the stairs to the car. By anticipating a couple of traffic light changes he was outside her flat, honking the horn, at three minutes to ten. She scurried across to the car, not looking at him. She looked marvelous. She had scrubbed her face clean of make-up and her skin glowed. Her hair was pulled back in a simple style, and she wore faded jeans and a white nylon zip-up windbreaker over a red-and-white-striped T-shirt. Look virginal and innocent, Frost had told her. She looked so virginal and innocent, Webster was all ready to drag her straight back to the flat, into the bed, and to hell with Denton, Frost and Operation-bloody-Mousetrap.
She sat tight-lipped beside him in the car, her face set, her eyes smouldering.
“Sorry, Sue,” he said meekly. “I fell asleep in the chair. I was so damn tired.” He clouted the horn with the palm of his hand as some idiot on a pedal bike swerved directly into their path.
Sue fidgeted with the shoulder strap of her handbag. “It doesn’t matter,” she said sniffily, staring straight ahead.
“Look, I said I’m bloody sorry…”
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated.
He spun the wheel, turning the car into a dimly lit side road, and jammed on the brakes. He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her, forcing her mouth open, finding her tongue. When they parted, they were both gasping for air like stranded fish. He offered her the radio handset. “Call Frost and tell him you’re not coming. You’ve changed your mind. If he’s running the show the whole thing’s going to be a bloody farce anyway.”
She pushed the handset away. “I always keep my promises.”
He started up the car, then rejoined the traffic flow in the main road. “When Operation Mousetrap finishes, can I spend the rest of the night at your place?”
Her lips curved into a well-scrubbed, virginal, simple, roaringly erotic smile. “That’s a promise,” she said.
Webster put his full weight on the accelerator and left the rest of the traffic standing. He wouldn’t be sleeping alone tonight.
Unless, of course, there was another of Frost’s monumental sod-ups.
They were only five minutes late reaching the briefing room. A burst of raucous laughter billowed out as they opened the door. Frost, sitting on the table up on the dais, had just reached the punchline of some crude joke and was chortling away louder than any of his audience. It was a very small audience. Five men, four of them in casual clothes. At first Webster had difficulty recognizing them, they looked so different out of uniform. The one with the drooping moustache and that moon-faced one, both wearing polar neck sweaters, weren’t they Jordan and Simms, the crew of Charlie Alpha? The young kid in the zip-up leather jacket was, of course, Collier, happy to be away from Police Sergeant Bill Wells for a night. Next to Collier, also in a leather jacket was PC Burton, twenty-five, a tough-looking thug with closely cropped hair, and a very good man to have on your side in a fight. The fifth man, PC Kenny, was the only member of the team wearing uniform.
As Susan entered in her rapist-bait outfit, there were yells of delight and a salvo of wolf whistles. Webster glowered his disapproval. This was a serious business, not a pub outing. He snatched a glance at his watch. Twenty-one minutes past ten. So where were all the others? He was expecting between fifteen and twenty at least.
“This is all there is,” Frost told him.
All? Four hundred acres of woods, miles of paths and a total of seven men. It was ludicrous, farcical, irresponsible, dangerous. “Sue’s not going ahead with it,” he told Frost.
Frost’s face fell. “Aren’t you, Sue?”
She slashed a look at Webster. “Of course I am, sir.”
“That’s all right then,” said Frost, looking relieved. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and ripped out an ear-piercing whistle as an appeal for silence. “Round the map,” he called. They crowded around the wall map.
“This mass of green,” began Frost, ‘is Denton Woods. There’s no way we can cover it properly, so we concentrate on the area where he made his two previous assaults and we bank on Sue’s sex appeal being strong enough to make him come to us, hot and panting, with more than just his tongue hanging out. Now, we know he’s a cautious bastard. He sniffs out the area in advance. If he sees cops, he stays away, which is probably why Mr. Allen’s previous decoy operations failed. So we are going to try a double decoy. We’ve got PC Kenny here in uniform. Kenny will be driving his patrol car with his blue light flashing, doing the rounds of the woods, covering the entire outer perimeter. I’m hoping that our rapist will be deceived into thinking that what he sees is all there is and that as long as he keeps out of Kenny’s way, he’s going to be safe. In the meantime, long before Sue begins her little nocturnal walk, the rest of us will insinuate ourselves into our positions in this tight little area here.” He tapped the map. “All right up to now?”
Webster’s hand shot up. “Supposing he follows Sue but decides to, attack her long before she leads him anywhere near to where we are?”
“Good question, son, but as long as Sue sticks to the main paths she’ll be all right. He never attacks anyone on the main path.”
Webster snorted in derision. “What do you mean “never”? Just because the two previous assaults were off the main track, that in no way establishes a pattern.”
“You don’t rape women on the main path,” insisted Frost. “It’s too public. Besides, his usual ploy is to wait in the bushes and grab at his victims as they walk past. The main paths are too wide. If Sue sticks to the middle, I reckon she’ll be safe.”
“You reckon?” sneered Webster. “And supposing your reckoning is wrong? It’s not you who’d get raped… it’s Sue.”
Frost shook the ash from his cigarette. “I know that, son,” he said mildly. “But there’s a risk to everything. All we can do is minimize that risk. But if Sue wants to back out?” He raised an eyebrow at the woman detective, who shook her head. “In any case, Sue will be in radio contact with us all the time. If she’s attacked on any of the main paths, we will still be able to get to her, although it will take that little bit longer.”
But Webster would not back down. “The extra distance could make all the difference. She could be unconscious and raped by the time we finally get to her.”
“Sue isn’t helpless,” replied Frost. “She’s been trained in unarmed combat and karate. She could have broken his John Thomas in six places by the time we got there. Everyone happy up to now?”
All heads turned to Webster, daring him to complain further. He folded his arms and stared straight ahead, his face a solid scowl of displeasure.
“Passed nem-con. One last point. I’ve got a theory that our rapist will be in the disguise of a jogger, so look out for men in track suits or running shorts.” He indicated a pile of walkie-talkie sets on the side table. “Now everyone grab a radio, and make sure it works.”
While the team surged around the table, sorting out the communications equipment, Frost drew Susan to one side. “I know it’s a ramshackle operation, love, but I think it might work. The important thing is you must take no chances. Anything the slightest bit suspicious, let us know even if it means warning our rapist off. I’d rather abort the whole operation than have anything happen to you.”
She smiled. “I think I can trust you, sir.”
“You’re mad if you do,” said Frost. “I wouldn’t trust me a bloody inch. Let’s fit you up with your radio.”
Susan’s transmitter-receiver was concealed in her shoulder bag, the aerial wire running under the strap. A small hearing-aid-type earpiece enabled her to receive messages, and a tiny microphone disguised as a CND badge and pinned to her wind-breaker would transmit information.
She was sent outside into the corridor to test the equipment, the men all holding their receivers close to their ears with the volume turned down low. They didn’t want the sound of police messages to scare their man off. A long pause with nothing coming through. They all checked their receivers and adjusted the fine tuning. Still nothing. Frost opened the door and yelled to ask if Susan had started transmitting yet.
“Can’t you hear me?” she called from the far end of the corridor. She fiddled with the CND badge, and suddenly there was a loud click and a rustling sound from all the receivers as Susan’s voice rang out loud and clear, “Testing, testing, testing…”
Frost radioed back and she confirmed that the receiver was working.
“Hadn’t we better change her radio?” asked Webster, worried that the initial failure might be repeated at a less convenient moment.
“That’s the only one I could find,” said Frost. He sent Sue out again for another test, and this time it worked perfectly. Webster still wasn’t happy. This entire operation was a botch-up, cobbled together at the last moment. It was too risky. Too much depended on luck, which usually stayed away when it was wanted most.
Frost looked up at the wall clock. Eighteen minutes to eleven. “Time to tea ve he called.
Collier and Burton travelled in the Cortina, Webster driving and boiling over because he always ended up the chauffeur. Why couldn’t one of the others drive for a change?
Kenny went on ahead in the patrol car, its lights flashing, the siren warbling. Sue would be travelling with Jordan and Simms in the station’s unmarked van, which would follow on later to give Frost’s team a chance to get established in their concealed positions. Everyone felt excited, laughing and cracking jokes. No-one, apart from Webster, seemed to be taking it seriously.
As the Cortina pulled out of the car park, Burton turned his head and looked out of the rear window at Susan in her tight jeans and T-shirt, waiting by the van. He gave her a wave, then nudged Collier and leered. “Cor, if the rapist doesn’t oblige, I think I’ll have a go raping her myself. Rumour has it she’s very tasty.”
Webster’s face turned crimson. He slammed on the brakes, jerked his head around, and yelled, “Why don’t you shut your face, you coarse bastard!”
Burton rose from his seat, fists clenched, his lip curling back like a snarling mongrel. “Why don’t you try and make me, you hairy sod.”
Frost stuck his arm between the two men and pushed them apart. “Pack it in, you two. You’re like a pair of bloody kids.”
They drove on in uneasy silence. From time to time Burton would whisper something to Collier and the two of them would snigger;
Webster’s knuckles, as he gripped the steering wheel, would get whiter and whiter.
Frost smoked, ignoring it all. His mind was going over his plan again and again, searching for weaknesses and finding plenty. The car slowed down. He looked through the window to see the orange sodium lights of the ring road. He nodded for Webster to stop and let off Burton and Collier, who would approach the stakeout area from this direction, while he and Webster would drive on and approach it by another route. They didn’t want the rapist to see a gang of men all walking up the same side path.
‘ Control your bloody temper, son,” said Frost when they were alone in the car. “You’ll end up hitting someone.”
Yes, you for a start, thought Webster, coasting the Cortina into a lay-by and tucking it tight against a hedge. He made one last appeal to the inspector. “Call this damn thing off before it’s too late. It’s never going to work.”
“I think it will, son,” said Frost, un clicking his safety belt.
“Then you’re a bigger bloody fool than I took you for,” said Webster, throwing caution to the winds. “You haven’t got the start of a decent plan, and you haven’t got anything like enough men, and there’s no backup in case things go wrong. Susan could be beaten up, attacked, raped, and we wouldn’t be anywhere near her. It’s the height of criminal stupidity.”
It was Frost’s turn to lose his cool. He thrust his face very close to Webster’s. “Listen to me, you mouthy sod. Susan Harvey isn’t just your bit of crumpet on the side. She also happens to be a bloody good police officer. She knows the score. We all do. And of course there are risks. The public expects us to take risks that’s why they chuck petrol bombs at us and kick us in the face at football matches. If by taking risks Susan can help us catch the bastard who’s been raping seventeen-year-old kids, then I reckon it’s all worthwhile, even if it puts in jeopardy your chances of knocking her off in bed tonight. So shut your bleeding mouth, son, because your constant whining is getting on my bloody nerves.”
Frost flung open the car door and stamped out, leaving the constable fuming. Webster fought to regain control, then locked the passenger door and climbed out after the inspector. Perhaps Frost was right. Perhaps he was being overly protective about Susan. But that didn’t make this threadbare decoy operation any the safer.
A gentle wind was ruffling the tops of the trees, which seemed to twitch and shrug off its advances. But it was a cold wind. Frost looked up at the sky. Black, the moon obscured by clouds. And the woods were dark and heavy with menace.
Frost shivered, but not from the cold. He suddenly had a feeling that things were going to go wrong. Webster was right. He hadn’t enough men, the planning was half-baked, and it was dangerous. If Webster hadn’t been so smart-arsed about it, Frost might have listened to him, but that scowling, sneering face and waggling beard just increased his stubbornness.
It was darker than Frost had expected. Not too bad when they stuck to the main path, where some of the glow from the sodium lamps filtered through, but as soon as they branched off and plunged deeper into the woods, where trees and shrubs pressed in on each side of them, they had to slow down and almost feel their way through. They needed a torch but daren’t risk drawing attention to themselves at this stage.
A torch! Frost clicked his radio on. “Frost to van. Is sexy Sue there?”
“Sexy Sue here,” came the reply, her voice sounding childlike and breathless through the loudspeaker, almost like the young Marilyn Monroe’s.
“Take a torch with you, Sue. You’ll be able to find your way about better, and if our chum is lurking it will help draw him to you.”
Pleased with himself for having thought of this, he now felt better disposed toward Webster, who was sulkily stamping alongside him. “We’re going to get him tonight, son. I know it.”
“I hope so,” grunted Webster without conviction. He didn’t share Frost’s enthusiasm for the torch ploy. With Susan flashing the torch, the rapist could keep his distance. He would be able to see her without being seen by her.
“I think this is where we turn off,” whispered Frost, his eyes screwed up as he tried to penetrate the darkness. “This is where the seventeen-year-old was attacked last night.” Frost, then Webster, squeezed through the gap in the bushes to reach their pre-selected stakeout stations between two subsidiary paths. First Frost settled down in his position, leaning up against the rough bark of some sort of tree, leaving Webster to flounder on to his own allotted station. He was crashing through the undergrowth like a wounded rhino, and Frost gritted his teeth until the sounds finally stopped as Webster found his position and settled down. “Let’s hope the bastard’s deaf,” Frost muttered to himself. He then checked that everyone was in his assigned position.
“Collier to Base. In position. Over.”
“Burton to Base. In position. Over.”
“Webster. In position. Over.”
Then, suddenly. “Burton to base. Someone’s coming along the path. Too dark to see yet.”
A pause. Burton’s breathing over the speaker. Then, “I can see him. A man middle-aged, receding hair. He’s got a dog with him.”
Jordan’s voice. “There was a bloke with a dog lurking about last night.”
Frost couldn’t imagine a rapist bringing a dog along with him but wasn’t going to take chances. “Which direction is he heading?”
“He’s gone on to the north path,” reported Burton. “I think he’s heading for the main road.”
“Let’s give him a chance to go, then,” said Frost. He struck a match against the bark of the tree and cupped the flare with his hands as he lit up and settled himself down to wait.
The smell of cigarette smoke wafted across to Webster, who was crouching in wet grass, peering through bramble bushes to the narrow, overgrown path. “I don’t think it’s safe to smoke,” he whispered into his radio.
“You’re a bastard, Webster, but you’re absolutely right,” replied Frost, pinching out the Rothman’s King Size and returning it to the packet. He changed position from one foot to the other. It was boring and tiring just standing still in the dark, keeping dead quiet and waiting. The forest creaked, groaned, and murmured. The wind scuffled leaves, making them sound like stealthy, shuffling footsteps. Twigs snapped for no reason.
Frost found he was lusting for a cigarette. He would have sold his soul for just one puff. He took the packet from his pocket and sniffed the heady tobacco smell, which only made his longing worse. Waiting was hell. He looked at his watch. 11.12. The hands didn’t seem to be moving. Then Jordan called from the van, “Van to Base.”
“Frost. Over.”
“Bait ready to enter woods. Over.”
“Has the bloke with the dog emerged yet?”
“Two minutes ago, sir.”
“Then bloody tell me,” snapped Frost. “I’m not a mind reader. Give us a sound check, Sue.”
“Mary had a little lamb,” whispered Susan into her lapel badge.
“Loud and clear,” confirmed Frost. He did a final check on all the radios, then gave the signal for the girl.
Time: 11.15; very dark, the moon hidden by clouds. Ideal conditions for a rape.
From the van, Simms was able to watch Susan through night glasses right to the point where the main, path veered around to the right. Then she was completely out of sight to the two men in the van.
She walked slowly, trying to appear unconcerned. From time to time she flashed the torch on the path as Frost had suggested. Once she was positive there was someone right behind her, almost touching her. She could hear his footsteps, feel his breath ruffling the hair on the back of her neck. She swung around. The path was empty.
The earpiece emitted occasional bursts of static. “Walking down the main north-south path,” she said very quietly into her lapel badge. “So far, so good.”
“Say again?” queried the earpiece. “We lost you then.”
“So far, so good,” she repeated.
“Roger,” acknowledged the earpiece.
It should have been reassuring to hear a friendly voice, but she was beginning to realize how astronauts must feel, thousands of miles up in space. They could talk to Houston. Houston could talk to them. But if anything went wrong, no matter how many voices were in contact, you were up there on your own. And she felt very much on her own. There was no-one else on the main path. Her feet scuffed through fallen leaves as she walked. At least the crackle of dry leaves should give her warning if anyone tried to sneak up behind her. She flashed her torch down on the path as she walked, beginning to feel more confident. But this was the easy bit. The rapist wouldn’t make his move until she left me comparative security of this main pathway. And she would have to leave it very soon.
“Frost to bait. All OK?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“We keep losing you. To stop us peeing ourselves with worry, Sue, report in a position check every five minutes unless you’re raped beforehand, of course.”
“Acknowledged.” She clicked off the transmit switch. She was now at the safest point of her route, the section where the path hugged the ring road and was warmly splashed with yellow from the sodium lamps. Then the path veered toward the centre of the woods, where the black mass of trees and bushes squeezed out the light and muffled the reassuring sounds of traffic and people.
She was now off the main path, following a smaller side route. Bushes on each side clutched and pulled. Halfway down, she stopped. This wasn’t the route Frost had mapped out for her. She had turned off too soon. She was walking away from the stakeout, not toward it.
She turned. And there was a man, crouching.
She backed away, one hand on the transmit button, the other bringing up the torch. Under the beam of the torch the crouching man changed into a small straggling bush. She started to breathe again and slowly made her way to the main path.
From a long way off, a diesel train bleated as it dragged itself away from Denton Station, a lonely, mournful sound that made her feel more isolated than ever. She quickened her pace. Then stopped.
Footsteps. Slow. Shuffling.
Someone was coming up the path toward her!
Her thumb hit the transmit button. “Bait to Base. I can hear someone.”
Frost’s voice, urgent, worried. “Where are you?”
She didn’t know where she was. That damn wrong turning. Frantically she looked all around, trying to locate some landmark that would pinpoint her position. “Not sure,” she whispered. “About a mile away from you one of the turnings off the main path. I’m not sure which.”
The footsteps, slower now, came closer.
Webster’s voice cut across the transmission. “Let me go and find her.”
“You stay bloody put,” snapped Frost, ‘and keep off the air.” His mind raced. It would be quicker if Jordan and Simms in the van sped round by road to her approximate position and got to her that way. The others could follow. He barked out orders to that effect.
Sue gripped the torch for use as a weapon and waited. It would be a couple of minutes at least before Simms and Jordan could get anywhere near. The bushes ahead shook and rustled, and the shuffling, slow and deliberate now, because he knew he had her, was coming closer
… closer…
An old man, small and frail, pushing a pedal bike, gave her a nod as he squeezed past and continued on his way.
She spoke into the mike, hoping they wouldn’t notice how much her voice was shaking. “False alarm. An old man with a bike. Panic over.”
Sighs of relief all round. The van was instructed to return to its previous position
She felt ashamed of herself for panicking. What she had to do now was return to where she had turned off and find the correct path, the one that Frost had marked out for her on the map, report her position, and continue from there.
A small, fairly well-defined, side path veered off to her left. She wondered whether to take it. It should bring her back to the correct route. She moved toward it, then hesitated. Frost had stressed that she must keep to the allotted route or they might not be able to find her.
It was while she was hesitating that the man struck.
A noise. From far off. Webster’s head jerked up. Was it a scream? He radioed to Frost.
“Did anyone else hear it?” the inspector asked. All replies were negative. “You’re out-voted, son,” said Frost, wishing he had never included Webster in the operation. The man was too involved with the decoy. He shifted his position from foot to foot and stretched. Every limb was aching from standing still. He was almost ready to defy Webster and have a surreptitious smoke when the radio clicked, and there was the bearded wonder bleating again.
“Shouldn’t Sue have radioed in by now?”
Frost brought his wrist up to his eyes and squinted at his watch. “How long since she last called in?”
“Five minutes,” replied Webster. “Shall I give her a call to see if she’s all right?”
“Give her another half minute. She’s not staring at her digital, counting the seconds.”
“She knows she’s supposed to call in every five minutes,” hissed Webster. “What’s the point of having check calls if we ignore it when they’re not made.”
Frost snorted with exasperation. Webster was really getting on his nerves. He flicked the transmit switch. “Base to Bait, come in please.” He released the transmit, returning the set to receive. A rush of empty static. “Hello, Sue. Frost here. Come in please.” He violently thumbed the switch over to receive as if the set could be bullied into answering. No answer. Back to transmit. “Frost to all units. She should be near the main path, somewhere. Let’s go and find her.”
Webster charged ahead, not caring how much noise he made. Frost, hard on his heels, getting the backlash of branches forced aside by Webster.
On each side of them,
Burton and Collier smashed their way through the undergrowth. A stitch in Frost’s side almost made him cry out, but he gritted his teeth and forced his legs to keep going.
They reached the main path. Webster looked to right and left. “Which way?”
“Right!” panted Frost.
They hammered along, sobbing for air. The first turnoff. Burton was sent to investigate. On to the second. Webster’s torch slashed the dark. On the pathway, a CND badge. “Here!” he screamed.
Ahead something white. Then a crashing as someone broke from cover. A man. Zigzagging. A naked man. And there was Sue, on the ground, her clothing torn, her face bleeding.
In the dark distance bushes shook, marking the path of someone running.
“After him, son. I’ll see to Sue.”
Webster charged on. Frost radioed for the van to try and head the man off, then homed in Burton and Collier to join the pursuit. That done, he knelt beside the girl. “Sue?”
She eased herself up into a sitting position, wincing as she did so.
“I’m all right, sir.” She gingerly touched her face.
“You’re not all right. It looks as if he gave your face a real right bashing. Take it easy, I’m going to send for an ambulance.” He raised the radio to his mouth, but she tugged his arm down.
“I don’t want an ambulance, sir, honest. I’m fine. I just want to get home.”
“We’ll take you to Casualty. If they say you can go home…”
“No… please. I’m all right.” There was blood on her face from a split lip. She found a tissue in her bag and cleaned it up.
Frost was relieved but couldn’t help feeling that her wish not to go to hospital was for his benefit. An injured officer needing hospital treatment meant a special inquiry to ascertain blame. And how Mullett would love that, especially as this failed, botched-up operation was put into effect without his authority.
She made an attempt to get up, but he restrained her. “I can stand,” she insisted.
“So can I,” said Frost, flopping down on the path beside her, ‘but I’m so bloody nackered I’m going to have a rest. So what happened?”
“I wasn’t expecting him. Suddenly there was something black over my face. It felt like plastic’ She paused. “It had buttons I felt buttons.”
“You mean, like a plastic mac?” asked Frost.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s what it was. A plastic mac. He threw it over my head, then started hitting me, punching my face. His hands moved down to my neck and he started to squeeze.” She touched her neck and flinched. “I managed to pull his hands off, but he started punching again. I couldn’t see. I’m sorry.”
Frost poked a cigarette between her bruised lips, stuck one in his own mouth, then lit them both. “No, love, I’m the one who should be saying sorry. I sodded it up. We were too far away from you, and I should have called it off when your radio packed in.”
She drew on the cigarette. “I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe. He kept hitting…”
He took her hand and patted it. “I know, love. I know.”
Webster staggered back and leaned against a tree, his legs sagging, his mouth open as he tried to satisfy the demand of his lungs for air.
“Any luck, son?”
Between gasps, Webster shook his head. “I thought I’d got him, but he must have doubled back and suddenly shot away behind me. Chased after him, but he was too far ahead. Heard a car drive off.”
“Are you sure it was our man?”
“Positive. The bugger was stark naked. How’s Sue?”
“Beaten up, but not too bad. Take her to Casualty, then drive her home.”
She pushed herself up to her feet and began brushing leaves and pieces of dead grass from her clothes. “I don’t want to go to Casualty, I just want to go home.” She picked up her shoulder bag, then looked around for her torch.
“Well, drive her home anyway,” Frost told Webster. He then radioed all units requesting they stop and search all cars driving away from the vicinity of Denton Woods. They were helping Susan back to the car when the radio blurted out.
“Kenny to Mr. Frost. Come in, please.”
“Frost here.”
Kenny’s voice was triumphant. “I’ve got him, sir. I’ve got him!”
Thursday night shift
An almost liquid surge of warm relief flooded over Frost. He could hardly take in what Kenny was saying. Kenny had spotted the man charging out of the woods, stark naked. The man had jumped into a car and roared off, but the police constable had managed to swing the patrol car across his path and bring him to a halt. “Where are you?” asked Frost.
“In the slip road, about four hundred yards southwest of you.”
They cut across until they could see the sodium lamps and the flashing blue of Kenny’s patrol car, which was sprawled across the road, hemming in a metallic silver D-registered Mercedes. The windows of the Mercedes were misted with streaming condensation.
Kenny had a man in an arm-lock, bent across the bonnet. The man was not quite naked. He wore red socks and black shoes.
“You dirty bastard!” snarled Webster.
Frost moved to block Webster, who seemed ready to lunge at the man. “Put the cuffs on him,” he said. Kenny spun the man round, then snapped handcuffs on his wrists.
“Well, well, well,” commented Frost, running his eye over their captive, who was about thirty-five, short, plumpish, and looking absolutely terrified. “Is this him, Sue?”
“I don’t know, sir. I didn’t see him at all.”
“Would you mind telling me what this is all about,” squeaked the man, bringing down his handcuffed wrists to cover himself.
“Don’t you know, sir?” asked Frost, mockingly. Then his eye caught a movement inside the Mercedes. “Who’ve you got in there?” The misted windows blocked his view. He yanked open the rear door. “Flaming heck!”
In the back seat, frantically trying to get into a dress, was a young woman, naked except for a pair of briefs. The heater had been going full pelt and the interior was overpoweringly hot and thick with the lingering cloy of cheap perfume and sweat. The woman snatched up the dress and bundled it to cover her breasts. “Shut that bloody door,” she hissed.
Frost slammed shut the door. The first doubts crept in. “Who is your passenger, sir?”
“None of your business, officer. Would you please allow me to get dressed. I’ll end up with pneumonia.”
Frost risked the passenger’s wrath and opened the rear door again.
“You’re not being raped by any chance, are you, madam?”
“No, I bloody-well am not,” she snapped. “Now piss off, all of you!”
The inspector closed the door yet again. “Your friend has a charming way with words, sir. Would you care to explain what you are doing here?”
The man raised his eyes to the dark, moonless sky. “Are you sure you’re a detective? We’re in the car. I’m stripped. She’s stripped. What do you think we were doing, playing bingo? What I’d like to know is what the hell you are doing here?”
“Attempted rape, sir. About five minutes ago.”
“Well it certainly wasn’t attempted by me, Inspector. It’s taking me all my time trying to keep up with that nymphomaniac in the back seat. Now, can I please get dressed?”
Frost shook his head. “You weren’t in the car when my officer first saw you, sir. You were running, stark naked, from the area where the attempted rape took place.”
The man snorted with exasperation. “All right. If we have to go into detail then I’ll go into detail. I left the car because I felt the need to relieve myself. I also felt the need for a bit of a break. It’s like working a treadmill trying to satisfy her in there. I’m having a nice, quiet restful pee under the stars when suddenly there’s someone charging up on me. I think it’s her husband so I race back to the car to get the hell out of there. Next thing I know I’m in a scene from “Starsky and Hutch” sirens… skids… police. I pull over and I’m yanked out of the motor and spreadeagled all over the bonnet. I’ve committed no offence and I don’t see why I should be treated like this.”
Frost signalled for Kenny to unlock the handcuffs. The man rubbed his wrists, then snatched up his clothes from the front seat and started dressing as quickly as he could.
“Who is the lady, sir?”
The man looked to left and to right, then lowered his voice. “She’s my secretary. We’re both married so, for God’s sake, be discreet.”
“Of course, sir.” Frost stepped back so Kenny could take down names and addresses and details of the man’s driving licence.
“Can I go now?” asked the man, zipping up his trousers. Frost turned inquiringly to Kenny, who was on the radio to Control, checking the driving licence details with the central computer. Kenny nodded. The details all tallied.
The man stuffed the driving licence back into his pocket and peeked inside the car where the misted windows were now clearing. “Look at that,” he hissed. “She’s not even bothered to get dressed. Well, if she expects me to carry on where we left off after this fiasco, then she’s got another think coming.”
He hurled himself inside the Mercedes and slammed the door. A querulous babble of conversation, followed by a snarl from the man, and the car jerked into gear and shuddered off.
“We’ll hang on to her address,” murmured Frost, watching the dwindling taillights. “It might come in handy if time drags one night.” He pushed his hands deep into his mac pockets and stared up at the night sky. Operation
Mousetrap was back to being a disastrous balls-up -the rapist clean away, a policewoman knocked about, the farce with the couple in the car, and to cap it all, he had no bloody fags left.
A se aching wind found where they were and punched away at them. Susan shivered. It was cold and everyone was feeling dejected. Frost told Kenny to take Sue and Webster back to her flat. He would go home in his own car.
He was trying to find the Cortina when Collier called him on the radio.
In the excitement he had forgotten all about the rest of his team.
“We’re still searching, Inspector. Haven’t spotted anyone yet.”
At first he considered telling them to pack it in. But, what the hell, there was nothing to be lost by letting them rummage around for a while longer. He radioed Jordan and Simms, asking them to join the other two and do a sweep of the section. If they found nothing in an hour, they should report back to the station. As senior officer he supposed he should really show willing and join them, but he wasn’t in the mood.
The patrol car drew up outside the flat. Webster helped Sue out and slipped his arm around her. She was shivering. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine.” She smiled. “I’ll take a couple of pain killers when I get in and I’ll be as right as rain.”
He took the flat key from her shoulder bag and opened the door for her, turning to wave to Kenny who had been summonsed to a reported break-in at Beech Crescent. His wave was acknowledged by a toot on the horn.
The flat was warm and cozy. She had left the gas fire on and the bed had been made, the covers invitingly pulled back. No sign of a nightdress. Susan slumped into an armchair and held her hands out to the fire. She looked all in.
“I’ll do you some hot milk,” said Webster, opening the fridge. There, on the rack, chilled to perfection, was a bottle of white wine, and on the shelf, a cold roast chicken. Everything laid on for a marvelous night that now wasn’t to be.
She shook a couple of aspirins on to her palm and swallowed them down with the hot milk. She was hunched in front of the fire, still trembling, unable to get warm. “Run me a hot bath, please.”
He turned on the taps and swished in the bath crystals. She was in the bathroom with him, peering at the steam-misted mirror, which she wiped clean with her hand. “Don’t I look a fright?”
He wished he could say she didn’t. But she did. Her face was swollen, all greeny-black around the eyes.
“You can stay if you like,” she said, testing the water and pulling off her T-shirt. “But I just want to sleep.”
“Yes, of course,” said Webster.
He let himself out.
Rot in hell, Frost. Rot in bloody hell.
Jack Frost sat in the car. His hands explored the door pockets, but there were no cigarettes. Damn. He scavenged the ashtray for a decent-sized butt and lit it, almost burning his nose with the match. The smoke from the resurrected cigarette tasted hot and bitter, but it suited his mood.
Then he noticed the bulge in the door pocket on the passenger side. He hadn’t thought of looking there. His hand dived down to meet something cold and hard. He pulled it out. A bottle. Lots of bottles, the spoils from the party of two nights ago… the night they had found Ben Cornish’s dead body. The retirement party! Mullett kept dropping unsubtle little hints about Frost’s own retirement. Well, he’d be dropping even bigger ones when he learned about tonight’s monumental foul-up.
He tore the metal cap from the vodka bottle and took a swig. The spirit tiptoed over his tongue with the velvet delicacy of a cat’s paw, but as it reached his stomach the scratching claws came out. He shuddered. Neat vodka wasn’t his favourite drink. He found a miniature whisky. With his head thrown right back, he poured it down to flush away the vodka taste. A little furnace roared in his stomach. He felt good. The next bottle made him feel better. In fact he felt like taking a drive round to Mullett’s house, heaving a brick through his window, and yelling, “Come on, you bastard, sack me!” The more he thought about this, the more the idea appealed to him.
“Control to Mr. Frost. Come in please.”
What the hell was that? His eyes focused on the radio. He decided to answer the call first, then drive round to Mullett’s house. He fumbled for the handset and pressed the transmit button. “Frost here. Over.”
Bill Wells sounded excited. “Jack, can you get over to the station right away? Burton and Collier are bringing in the rapist.”
Frost’s heart skipped a beat. He was now stone-cold sober. “Are you sure it’s the right man? I’ve already had one disappointment.”
“Positive, Jack. They nabbed him in the woods about ten minutes ago.
He was carrying a black plastic mac. It was stained with blood.”
Burton was waiting for him in the lobby, grinning all over his face.
Over his arm was a cheap black plastic mac.
The desk phone rang. Wells answered it, his face changing as he listened. “It’s for you, Jack,” he called, holding the receiver at arm’s length as if it might explode. “Mr. Mullett.”
Mullett had heard about the decoy fiasco. His message was icily terse. “My office, nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” A click and then the dial tone. Pretending the Commander was still on the line, Frost said loudly into the phone, “Why don’t you get stuffed, you miserable old bastard?” He hung up. “That’s put the po-faced bleeder in his place,” he told the others, who were looking horrified. He beckoned to Burton. “Let’s go and see what Superdick looks like.”
The man in the interview room was hunched at the table, his back to the door, watched over by PC Collier. As Frost and Burton entered, the man turned around. Frost’s euphoria burst and his heart took a sickening nose-dive down to his bowels. The alleged rapist, spluttering with indignation, was Desmond Thorley from the converted railway carriage. “I demand an explanation, Mr. Frost. This is an outrage.”
“I’m as outraged as you are, Desmond,” said Frost, sinking wearily into a chair. “We’ve both been dragged here on false pretences.” He searched his pockets for a cigarette, then remembered he was out. Behind him, Burton and Collier were exchanging puzzled glances, wondering where they had gone wrong. “You pillocks,” he told them, feeling dead tired. “The Demon rapist rapes women. Desmond wouldn’t know what to do with a bloody woman if she came into his bedroom stark naked.”
Desmond shuddered. “What a repulsive thought.”
“But he was carrying the mac,” insisted Burton. “There’s blood on it.”
He opened it out to display the stains.
Jack Frost took the garment and examined it.” It’s blood all right,” he agreed. He folded it carefuly and placed it on the table. “So what’s the answer, Desmond? Are you our rapist? Are you AC/DC? Does your plug fit all sockets?”
Thorley’s faced flushed at the insult. “The very idea!”
Again Frost searched his pockets for a cigarette. Infuriatingly Desmond had none and neither Burton nor Collier smoked. A mental picture of the silver box in Mullett’s office swam before him like the mirage of an oasis to a thirst-crazed man in the desert. He excused himself, sneaked into the Commander’s office, found a key on his bunch that would unlock the desk drawer, and liberally helped himself from the Divisional Commander’s special stock.
He returned to the interview room, puffing happily. “Right,” he said, diffusing expensive Three Castles smoke, ‘let’s get down to business.” He pointed to the mac. “Where did you get this, Desmond?”
“The man dropped it. If that thug of a policeman had asked, I’d have told him. But no, he hurls himself at me, frog-marches me to a dirty old van, and when I try to protest, he yells at me to shut up.”
“He’s a courtesy cop,” explained Frost, letting the smoke trickle slowly from his lungs. “Who dropped it?”
“I don’t know. He bashed into me nearly knocked me over.”
“Start from the beginning,” said Frost.
“Might I have a cigarette?”
Frost puffed across a steam of smoke so Desmond could savour its quality second-hand. “These are really too good for you, Desmond, but tell me about tonight, and if you don’t leave anything out, you might get one.”
“Well,” said Desmond, clasping his hands together,
“I was out on my little nocturnal expedition, looking for courting couples, when I noticed this great big car parked very suspiciously. It was bouncing up and down on its springs and the most peculiar noises were coming from inside. I tiptoed over and peeped through the back window, and what do you think I saw?”
“A disgustingly naked lady underneath a plump little man in red socks?” offered Frost.
Desmond’s eyebrows soared in admiration. “Who’s a clever boy then? Anyway, while I was peeping, the man looks up from his endeavours and shakes his fist at me.”
“You sure it was his fist he shook?” murmured Frost.
“Anyway, I beat a hasty retreat. Good job I did, because a short while later there’s crashing and yelling and police whistles. I thought they might be after me, so I took one of my little shortcuts. Then this man suddenly looms up out of nowhere, carrying something bundled under his arm. He barges into me and sends me flying. When I pick myself up, there’s no sign of him, but the mac is lying on the ground. I picked it up, intending to hand it in at the police station
…”
“I bet you were,” scoffed Frost.
“When,” continued Desmond, ‘this oaf of a policeman hurls himself at me. That is every word the gospel truth.”
Frost chucked him a Three Castles and lit it for him, then prodded the mac. “Nothing in the pockets, I suppose?” he asked Burton.
Burton looked embarrassed. “I don’t know, sir. I didn’t look.”
“Well, look now,” said Frost.
Picking up the mac, Burton went through the pockets. The left-hand pocket was empty, but in the other, something he first thought was the bottom of a pocket turned out to be a crumpled plastic bag. He pulled it out and, as he did so, he felt something else. Something the bag had wedged tight in the depths. A key. An old, worn Yale-type key. Not an original, but a copy, with no identification number.
Collier was sent for some fingerprint powder just in case the rapist had forgotten to wipe it clean. He hadn’t!
The screwed-up plastic bag was straightened out. Two holes had been cut from it. The inspector pulled it over Collier’s head. The holes matched his eyes. They had found the “Hooded Terror’s’ famous mask. Originally a waste-bin liner, it didn’t look at all impressive.
Frost turned his attention to the key. He placed it in the centre of the table and stared at it.
“It could be the key to the rapist’s house,” suggested Collier.
“Yes,” agreed Frost. “All we’ve got to do is try it in every front door in the county. If it fits, we’ve got him.”
“Rather like Cinderella’s slipper,” said Desmond.
“Trust you to think of fairy stories,” said Frost, dropping the key into his pocket. “I’ll try it in Mullett’s front door tomorrow. You never know your luck.” He rose from the chair, all the tiredness and depression coming back.
“Can I go now?” asked Thorley.
“Take his statement, then chuck him out,” said Frost. “And get that mac over to Forensic’
He left the interview room and drooped across the lobby, shoulders down, his scarf dragging behind him.
“You all right, Jack?” asked Wells. “You don’t look too good.”
“Just tired,” Frost told him. “I need some kip.”
“Don’t forget you’ve got to see Mr. Mullett at nine o’clock sharp.”
“I won’t,” said Frost, stepping out into the cold, dark, friendless night.
Friday day shift
He took the key from the black plastic mac and tried it in the lock. It slid in easily. He turned it. The lock clicked and the door swung open on to a long, narrow passage. At the end of the passage was a woman, young, stark naked, her arms wide open, warm, welcoming. He ran to her, but there was Mullett barring his path. An angry, snarling Mullett.
Frost woke with a jolt and opened his eyes to blazing sunlight. Sunlight? He sat up in bed and snatched up the alarm clock, staring in disbelief at what it was telling him. 11.30 a.m. It couldn’t be! The alarm was supposed to have woken him at seven. He had an interview with Mullett at nine. He tested the winding key. It was fully extended. Either he had forgotten to wind it last night or it had rung itself to exhaustion and he had slept right through it. Damn.
Swinging his bare feet to the floor, he screwed shut his eyes against the harsh probing jab of the morning sunshine. Who wanted sunshine on a day like this? If he was going to get a bollocking, let it pee with rain.
He broke all speed records dragging on his clothes, which were in a heap on the floor. Then he stopped, sat on the bed, and lit up one of
Mullett’s cigarettes. What the hell? There was no point hurrying. If he skipped a shave, skipped breakfast, and roared nonstop to the station he would still be nearly three hours late.
So why not be four hours late? A leisurely wash and shave, followed by a fry-up and plenty of time to try and think up some novel excuse, some heart-rending sob story that would stop Hornrim Harry stone cold in his tracks.
Whistling happily, he bounced down the stairs, scooping up two letters from the mat, and taking them into the kitchen. The first was a statement of account from Bennington’s Bank. He wasn’t ready yet for more bad news, so he tossed it, unopened, into the kitchen bin. The second envelope was a mystery with handwriting he didn’t recognize. Propping it against the bread bin, he filled the electric kettle and switched it on. Two dubious-looking rashers of bacon sweated and cowered in the corner of the fridge. He took them out, sniffed them, and decided to chance it.
The rashers were laid into the frying pan with a generous chunk of recycled dripping, then two eggs were cracked and dropped in, and everything started sizzling and spitting and filling the kitchen with greasy smoke. He turned his attention to making the tea. No tea bags left. Damn and flaming blast!
He ferreted around in the rubbish bin and found a swollen, soggy used bag looking like a drowned mouse. Beggars can’t be choosers, he thought as he dumped it in his cup and drowned it again in hot water. Then he buttered some bread, tipped the contents of the frying pan on to a plate, fished a knife and fork out of the washing-up bowl, and settled down to eat.
Something white caught his eye. The letter. Sliding a greasy knife under the flap, he slit it open. A birthday card. He frowned and took another look at the envelope, which immediately explained itself. It was addressed to Mrs. J. Frost. Of course. Today was his wife’s birthday and the card was from someone who didn’t know she was dead. The handwritten message inside read “Happy Birthday from Gloria… still at the same address… would love a letter.” He closed his eyes and tried to remember. Gloria? Who the hell was Gloria? He thought he had let everyone know. Giving up, he replaced the card in its envelope.
He had forgotten today was her birthday. But then, he always did forget. Time after time that awful realization as he descended the stairs and saw the pile of cards on the mat.
He recalled her last birthday, when she was in hospital and looked nearly twice her age. And the birthdays when they were first married, when she was different, when everything was different, when his jokes made her laugh, when they were happy together. How had it all changed? He was no different. He never changed. And that was the trouble. She wanted him to change, to be a big success. But he couldn’t.
He jerked himself back to the present and to the cold food congealing on the chipped plate. “Happy birthday, love,” he muttered, dropping the card on top of the bank statement in the rubbish bin. He supposed he ought to put some flowers on her grave, pretending that this time he had remembered. Pushing the plate away, he lit up the last of Mullett’s Three Castles and decided no flowers. It would be hypocritical.
Mullett buzzed through on the internal phone yet again. “Is Inspector Frost in yet?” A routine that was fast becoming a regular feature of his day.
“I don’t think so, sir,” said Sergeant Johnny Johnson. As if there was any doubt! He knew darn well Frost wasn’t in. Hadn’t he been ringing his house continually since five to nine getting only the engaged signal? The inspector must have left his phone off the hook again, but Mullett couldn’t be told that.
“I want to see him the second he gets in… the very second,” said Mullett grimly.
“The very second,” echoed Johnson, who seemed to know this script by heart. He banged the phone down and yelled for Webster.
“You went to Mr. Frost’s house, Constable?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” replied Webster. “As I told you, his car wasn’t outside.”
“Did you knock on his door?”
“No point, Sergeant. If his car wasn’t outside, then he wouldn’t be in.”
“You go straight back to that house, Constable, and you knock, kick, and bang at that bloody front door. If you get no answer, then go and find him. And next time I tell you to do something, do it properly!”
“Hear, hear,” said a familiar voice. “Morning all.”
“Where the hell have you been?” Johnson yelled at the inspector. “Mr.
Mullett’s been having kittens?”
“Kittens?” frowned Frost. “I thought we’d had him doctored.”
The sergeant could only bury his head in his hands. “It isn’t funny, Jack. Look at the time! It’s gone twelve. You were supposed to see him at nine.”
Frost made a great show of consulting his watch. “I can spare him a few minutes now if he likes.”
Johnson snatched up the internal phone and punched out Mullett’s number. “Mr. Frost is here now, sir. Yes sir. Right away sir.” He turned to the inspector. “The Divisional Commander’s office, Jack. Now!” He replaced the phone, then clicked on a smile to greet a woman who wished to report strange goings-on at the house across the street.
Frost spun on his heels to answer the summons when Collier called him back. “A call for you on your office phone, Mr. Frost. A woman. She wouldn’t give her name.”
“Right,” said Frost, making a sharp right-hand turn toward his office.
Johnson looked up from the complaining woman. “Where’s Mr. Frost gone?”
“His office, I think,” answered Collier.
“His office?” screamed the sergeant. “Mr. Mullett’s waiting for him.
Attend to this lady, would you.” He pushed Collier toward the woman.
The internal phone rang. Mullett was getting impatient.
“Leave it!” yelled Johnson, too late. Collier answered it and held the phone out to the sergeant. “The Divisional Commander for you.”
“Run and fetch Mr. Frost,” shrilled Johnson, pushing Collier in that direction.
“What about me?” snapped the woman.
“Be with you in a moment, madam,” replied Johnson, his head spinning. “Yes, sir,” he told the phone. “Yes, sir, I did tell him. I think he had another urgent call, sir. Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” He replaced the receiver and wiped a hand wearily across his face.
“They’re always at it, morning, noon, and night,” said the woman. “Here.;. where do you think you’re going…?”
Frost pressed the phone tighter to his ear. “No, we haven’t got your sovereigns back yet, Lil. I know we’re a load of lazy good-for-nothing bastards. Have I ever denied it? When I have some news, I’ll tell you… and the same to you, Lil.”
He hung up, looked at his desk and shuddered. It was awash with papers. Where did they all come from? He scooped up an armful and transferred it to Webster’s desk so he could have a frown at it when he came in. He poked a cigarette in his mouth and pressed the top of the gas lighter he had found in the kitchen drawer. A six-inch column of flame seared past his nose and reminded him why he had stopped using it.
The door crashed open. A panting Sergeant Johnson. “For Pete’s sake, Jack!”
“Oh blimey,” said Frost. “Hornrim Harry!” He sprang to his feet for the sprint to the Commander’s office and then saw the other shape behind Johnson. Mullett, his face tight with rage.
“My office, Frost… now!” He spun on his heel and stamped out. The ambient temperature seemed to have fallen by thirty degrees.
“I tried to warn you, Jack,” hissed Johnny Johnson. “I’ll start a collection for you.”
“You worry too much,” said Frost, marching to the Star Chamber with his chin held high.
Miss Smith, Mullett’s mirror, was at her typewriter, her face simmering with displeasure. His anger was her anger. With a passable impression of the Commander’s glare, she stared icily at Frost as he passed her.
“The Commander said you were to go straight in,” she snapped.
Frost had been caught out like that before. He knocked.
A snarl from the inner sanctum. “Come in!”
Mullett sat stiff and straight behind the satin mahogany desk, Frost’s personal file open in front of him. It was his intention to bring up again all of the inspector’s past misdeeds and to suggest without equivocation that Frost should look elsewhere for employment as he clearly lacked the attitude and discipline necessary to be a police officer. He kept his eyes down, ignoring Frost’s ambling entrance. But before he could pull the pin out of his first grenade, Frost got in first.
“Sorry about this morning, Super, only I suddenly remembered it was my wife’s birthday. I thought I should put some flowers on her grave.”
A brilliant pre-emptive strike which put Mullett completely off his stroke. “My dear chap,” he said, ‘do sit down.” He made a mental note to ask Miss Smith to check the files to ensure the date was correct, then he paused and bowed his head for a few seconds to show respect for the dead. That down, he steeled himself for the unpleasant task in hand.
“Operation Mousetrap, that un authorised fiasco of last night. You knew my permission was essential and would only be given if I was assured the plan was viable. Why didn’t you ask me?”
“Sorry about that, Super,” said Frost, his legs crossed, his unpolished shoe waggling. “I tried to see you, but you’d sneaked off somewhere.”
Mullett’s lips tightened. “I was at County HQ. You only had to pick up the phone, but instead you flagrantly disobeyed standing instructions and went ahead regardless, and if that wasn’t bad enough, you gave Sergeant Johnson the impression that I had agreed to it.”
“He must have misunderstood me,” said Frost brazenly. “Still, no harm done.”
Mullett leaned back in chair, wide-eyed with incredulity. “No harm done? A police woman was injured.”
Frost shrugged. “A few bruises and a black eye. I’ve seen brides come back from their honeymoons with worse than that.”
“She could have been killed, Inspector.”
“She could have won fifty thousand pounds on the pools, sir, but she didn’t.”
Burying his face in his hands, Mullett felt like crying. How could you reason with a man like this? He picked up a newly sharpened pencil from his pen tray and twiddled it between his fingers. “I’m taking you off the case, Inspector.”
Frost’s jaw dropped. He looked disbelievingly at Mullett as if the man had taken leave of his senses. “You’re bloody what?”
The pencil snapped in two between Mullett’s fingers as he stiffened with fury. “Don’t you ever speak to me like that again, Frost,” he croaked, anger making his voice barely audible.
“Sorry, Super,” said Frost in the tone of a man pulled up on some minor and obscure breach of etiquette, ‘but I want to stay with this one. I think I’m close to cracking it’
“Yes… the plastic mac and the door key,” said Mullett, referring to his notes. “Pass them all over to Mr. Allen. It’s his case from now on. By the way, how are you getting on with your murder inquiry that drug addict?”
“Not too well,” said Frost, mentally adding ‘as well you know, you four-eyed git.”
“Then you’ll have more time to concentrate on it now you’re off the rape case, won’t you?” smiled Mullett, showing the interview was at an end by pulling his in-tray toward him and taking out the letters for signature. “One last thing. The Chief Constable is very concerned at our mounting number of housebreakings Let that be your number-one priority. That will be all, Frost.” He unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen and began signing his letters only to see his pen jump and splutter ink all over Miss Smith’s pristine typing as Frost left, slamming the door behind him with unnecessary force.
He put the letter to one side for retyping, then buzzed Miss Smith for some aspirins. There had to be some way he could get rid of the man.
The door slamming was repeated as Frost fumed back into his own pigsty of an office, where he further vented his rage by giving his in-tray a right-hander, sending the contents flying all over the floor. He spun around on Webster, who was regarding his tantrum with amused tolerance. “Don’t just sit there plaiting your beard, Constable. Help me pick this lot up.”
Without a word, Webster began gathering up the papers, smirking with inward satisfaction at Frost’s rage. Obviously he had been given a roasting by the Divisional Commander for last night’s debacle. And it served the stupid fool right.
Frost was down on his knees after a couple of burglary reports that had found their way under his desk just out of reach. He poked at them with a ruler and managed to fish one out. “By the way, son. As of today I’m off the rape case.”
Webster grunted noncommittally.
“How’s your girl friend this morning?” said Frost, reading through the form.
“She’s come to work,” the constable told him, ‘wearing dark glasses to hide the black eye, but otherwise OK.” And no thanks to you, he added under his breath.
Frost flung himself into his chair and read the burglary report again. “Do you know anything about this attempted break-in at Beech Crescent?”
“Just the bare details,” said Webster. “PC Kenny was called to it last night as he was dropping Sue and me off at her flat.”
According to the report, a Mrs. Shadbolt at number 32 saw a man climbing over the fence into her back garden, so she dialled 999. Kenny did a search of the area and found that the back door of a house a couple of gardens away had been forced open. Kenny woke up the householder and they went over the premises from top to bottom, but nothing had been taken.
“Hmm,” muttered Frost, scratching his chin thoughtfully. He swivelled around to the wall map to locate Beech Crescent. Most of the streets adjoining the woods were named after trees, and he found Beech Crescent not too far from the spot where Sue was attacked. He had a feeling that this might be worth following up. “Get the car, son. We’re going out.”
They had just started out when Control radioed. Sammy Glickman, the pawnbroker, had phoned. The man with the sovereigns for sale was back in his shop with another batch.
“We can be there in five minutes,” said Webster, looking out for a turnoff.
“No,” said Frost firmly. “We’re following up the burglary.” He told Control to send an area car to the pawnbroker’s immediately to pick the man up. He would interview him on their return. Webster couldn’t see why this attempted break-in was so important all of a sudden, but Frost was the boss.
Mrs. Shadbolt, her grey hair dyed lavender, wore bright orange beads over a fluffy mauve cardigan. Under her arm she carried a tiny overweight Pekinese, which she called “Mummy’s darling.” It was a sour-faced animal with a protruding tongue, continually snuffling and panting as if its oxygen supply was running out. The woman had another dog, a French poodle, its hysterical bark hitting the eardrums at a frequency bordering on the threshold of pain. To its Gallic fury, it hadn’t been allowed to bite the two detectives, but had been dragged by the collar to the kitchen and shut in. Its incessant high-pitched yap threatened to shatter all the glasses in Mrs. Shadbolt’s display cabinet.
“The poor dear gets so excited when we have company,” explained Mrs.
Shadbolt.
“Tell us about last night,” shouted Frost over the noise.
“Well, I was upstairs in bed…”
Frost heaved himself out of the chintz-covered sofa. “Let’s re-enact the crime,” he suggested. Anything to get away from that bloody ca strato barking.
Up the stairs, past pictures of kittens romping with balls of wool on the walls, and into the little bedroom overlooking the garden. A nightdress holder in the shape of a fox terrier sprawled across the twin pillows of the double bed.
“My bed,” Mrs. Shadbolt explained.
“Make a note of that, Constable,” Frost muttered to Webster.
“I retire every night at ten on the dot, Inspector. I’m a creature of habit, regular as clockwork. Bed at ten, up at six forty-five.”
“Is there a Mr. Shadbolt?” asked Frost, eying the twin pillows.
She dabbed an eye with a tiny handkerchief. The Pekinese snuffled in sympathy. “He passed over six years ago.”
“Sorry to hear that, madam. So you were in bed…?”
“Fast asleep. I go off the instant my head touches the pillow. Then Fifi started to bark. I woke up instantly.”
“Yes, I imagine you would,” said Frost. “Where was Fifi?”
“Up here with me. Fifi sleeps on the floor; Mummy’s darling sleeps on the bed with Diddums.”
“Diddums?” queried Frost.
She simpered and patted the fox terrier nightdress case. “We call him Diddums. Fifi was leaping up at the window, barking incessantly. I got out of bed and opened the window.”
They all moved over to the window in question. Frost opened it and looked out on to the garden below. A tiny garden, a wooden fence on each side, a brick wall at the rear. Beyond the brick wall were the back gardens of the houses in the street running parallel to Beech Crescent. Mrs. Shadbolt’s lawn was infested with green and red plaster gnomes, some peeking through bushes, some sitting cross-legged on plaster toadstools, others fishing down a plastic magic wishing well.
“Very tasteful,” murmured Frost, thinking he had never seen anything so ghastly in his life.
“I looked out,” continued the woman, ‘and there he was climbing over the fence into my garden, right down at the end, near the gnome on the toadstool. I just screamed and screamed and he immediately leapt over the fence.”
“What, back the way he was coming?” asked Frost, pulling his head back in.
“Oh no,” Mrs. Shadbolt told him. “He carried on across my garden and over the fence into next door.” She indicated the wooden fence to the right.
Frost spun around, frowning. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I am. It was dark, but I could still see him. And the fence shook as he clambered over it.”
Frost looked out of the window again. “Where’s the house of the bloke whose back door was forced?”
“To the right. The way the intruder was going. Next door but one, number 36.”
Frost sat down on the bed and wriggled because he was sitting on something uncomfortable. He pulled Diddums out from under him and dropped it on the floor. “This isn’t making sense.”
“It’s making sense to me,” said Webster, who couldn’t understand why the inspector was wasting time on this piddling little abortive break-in. “The man climbs over the fence into Mrs. Shadbolt’s garden. She screams, so he climbs over the next fence. Where’s the problem?”
“Probably nothing,” said Frost, seeming to lose interest. “What are the people like at number 36, Mrs. Shadbolt?”
“I can’t really say, Inspector. They only moved in recently but they seem a nice couple.”
“Right,” said Frost, standing up. “We’ll have a chat with them. Thank you so much for your help.”
Out in the street, as they turned toward number 36, Frost said, “Do you ever get the feeling that things are suddenly going to start going right, son?”
“I often get the feeling,” said Webster, ‘but never the follow-up.”
“Me too,” muttered Frost, ‘but I’m hoping today might prove the exception. Now, what’s this geezer’s name?”
“Price,” said Webster, “Charles Price.”
Charles Price was a shy-looking man in his late thirties with dark hair and an apologetic smile. He was painting the front door of his house and was so engrossed in his work, he didn’t hear the two policemen walking up his front path.
“Mr. Price?” asked Frost. “We’re police officers.”
He spun around, startled, the paintbrush shaking in his hand. “You did give me a turn,” he said. “I never heard you. Is it about last night?”
Frost nodded. “Just a few questions.”
“Nothing was stolen,” said Price. “He must have been scared off. Your police constable was on the scene in minutes.”
“All part of the service,” said Frost with a smile. “Do you think we might come in?”
Methodically, Price replaced the lid on his tin of yellow paint, wiped the brush with a rag, and immersed it in a jam jar half filled with white spirit. “Trying to get it all finished before the wife comes back,” he explained, wiping his hands on another piece of rag. “We only moved in three weeks ago and there’s so much to do to get the place shipshape.”
Warning them to be careful of the wet paint, he guided them through the passage and into a small lounge, which was spotlessly clean and had double sheets of newspaper laid over the floor to protect the carpet. “If I spill so much as a single drop of paint, my wife will never let me hear the end of it.” Noticing the inspector’s dirty mac, he spread another sheet of newspaper across the settee before inviting them to sit down. “She’s very fussy about the furniture.” He brought a kitchen chair over and perched himself on the edge.
“Just a couple of questions, then we’ll let you get back to your decorating,” said Frost, the newspaper crackling beneath him as he tried to get comfortable. “You’ve been here only three weeks, you say?”
“That’s right. We used to live in Appian Way, over by Meads Park, but we had to move. My wife couldn’t get on with the neighbours.”
“And where is your good lady, sir?” Frost was wondering if it would be possible to light a cigarette without causing a towering inferno with the sheets of newspaper.
“She went to Darlington on Tuesday to look after her sick mother. The poor old dear is eighty-seven and can’t do a thing for herself can’t even get to the toilet. My sister-in-law usually looks after her, but she had to go into hospital with her varicose veins.”
Frost cut in quickly before they got the entire family medical history.
“I see, sir. Thank you.”
“She’s not due back until tomorrow,” said Price, ‘but she was away when the man broke in, so she wouldn’t be able to help you. Is it all right if I patch up the back door where he broke in? She’ll be furious when she sees the damage.”
“Perhaps my hairy colleague and I could take a look at it first, sir.”
They tramped over more newspaper, past skirting boards glistening with newly applied white paint, as he took them into a small utility room. The room housed a large chest freezer and the gas and electricity meters. On the far wall was the back door, which opened on to the garden. This was the door the intruder had forced. As the lock was now useless, the door was bolted top and bottom to keep it shut. Price unbolted and opened up. The back garden was similar to Mrs. Shadbolt’s, but overgrown and minus the gnomes.
Frost stepped outside and filled his lungs with fresh air to get the taste of paint out of his mouth. He and Webster examined the door. The jamb was crushed and splintered where it had been jemmied open.
“He was determined to get in, wasn’t he, sir?” muttered the inspector, straightening up. “Was anything taken? Are all your tins of paint accounted for?”
“The constable kindly went through the house with me. Everything was intact. We haven’t really got anything worth stealing, but he might have thought the previous occupants were still here. They had lots of expensive silver, I believe.”
“That’s probably the answer!” Frost exclaimed delightedly. “You should have been in the force, Mr. Price.”
Price blinked and beamed his pleasure, then a shrill whistle screamed from the kitchen. “The kettle! Would you like some tea?”
“Love some,” said Frost. “Be with you in a second.”
As soon as Price had retired to kitchen, Frost scratched his chin thoughtfully and advanced on the chest freezer. “Had a case once, son. This bloke strangled his wife and buried her under the floorboards, telling the neighbours she had gone to visit her sick mother. When the body started to niff a bit, and the Airwick was fighting a losing battle, he dumped her in the freezer and started painting the house so the smell of paint would mask everything else.. .”
Webster groaned. “Surely you’re not suggesting…?”
“I bet you tuppence she’s in the freezer.” He flung up the lid, looked inside, then let it thump down again. “Tuppence I owe you.” Something tucked down between the back of the freezer and the wall caught his eye. He leaned across to peer into the dark space. “Something down there, son. Give us a hand to shift this thing.”
What on earth is the prat up to now? Webster struggled to ease the fully loaded freezer away from the wall. At last there was room for Frost to poke his arm down. It emerged clutching a pair of rusted garden shears, the wooden handles missing.
“Hooray!” exclaimed Webster sarcastically.
“I’m doing my Sherlock Holmes stuff and you’re taking the piss,” reproved Frost. He held the shears to the light. “See these small splinters of wood stuck on the blades? They’re off that door. This is what our burglar used as a jemmy, my son.”
Webster took the shears and offered them to the door jamb. “You could be right,” he admitted grudgingly.
“Don’t strain yourself,” muttered Frost. He carried the shears out to the garden, his head bent, searching. With a cry of triumph he pointed to a shear-shaped indentation in the earth of a flower bed that ran along the fence. “And this is where our burglar got it from.”
“So?” said Webster.
“So,” Frost continued patiently, ‘he didn’t bring it with him. Not a very well-equipped burglar, was he? Didn’t have anything on him to open a door, so he had to use an old, rusty pair of shears that just happened to be in the garden. And wasn’t he lucky finding them in the dark?”
“Tea’s ready,” called Price.
Frost put the shears on top of the freezer, bolted the back door, then called, “Coming!”
They took tea in the lounge. It was served in dainty china cups on a tray containing milk, sugar, and a selection of biscuits. Price’s wife had him well house trained Frost praised his tea.
The man smiled modestly. “I can turn my hand to most things. Take a biscuit.”
Frost took a custard cream. “I forgot to ask you, sir. What’s your job? You’re not a house painter, are you, like Hitler?”
“I’m a night maintenance engineer with Broughtons Engineering Works on the Industrial Estate, but I’m on holiday this week.”
The custard cream was delicious. Frost took another one. “Night work?
What hours do you do?”
“We start at eight at night and finish at six the following morning. The machines are going nonstop all day, so repairs and maintenance have to be carried out when the factory is closed.”
Frost parked his cup on the arm of the settee. Price snatched it up and put it on the tray. “Are you there all alone, sir?” He brought out his cigarettes.
Price jumped up to fetch an enormous ashtray which he placed in front of the inspector. Then he opened wide the window. “My wife can’t stand the smell of tobacco smoke.” He returned to his chair. “No, I don’t work on my own. There’s two of us, the senior engineer and the deputy. I’m the deputy. You will be careful with your ash, won’t you?”
“I’ll swallow it if you like,” said Frost, starting to get irritated. He thought for a moment. “The Industrial Estate. That’s not far from the golf links where those two girls were raped?”
“That’s right,” agreed Price, fanning Frost’s smoke out the window, “The nurse on April 4th, the office worker on the 5th.”
Frost stiffened. Price had the dates exactly. “You’ve a good memory for dates, sir?”
“Not really. The police questioned me about it. I was able to help them.”
Webster and Frost exchanged glances. “In what way, sir?”
“It’ll be on your files,” said Price.
I haven’t read the bloody files, thought Frost. “I’m sure it is, sir, but tell us anyway.”
“Your lot suspected our senior engineer, a man called Len Bateman. He’d been in trouble with the police years ago for messing about with young girls. I was questioned by a Detective Inspector Allen. Do you know him, Mr. Frost?”
“One of our junior officers,” said Frost.
“Anyway, I was able to tell Mr. Allen that Len Bateman had been working right alongside me at the time of all the rapes, so there was no way he could have done them.”
Frost took another custard cream. “Does Bateman still work for your firm?”
“Oh no. A few weeks later the works manager caught him stealing engine components. He was sacked on the spot and a new man took his job.”
“When was he sacked, sir?”
“About mid-April.”
“Which was about the time the rapings stopped,” said Frost thoughtfully. There were no more custard creams left, so he helped himself to a chocolate digestive. Price moved the tray out of his reach.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed the coincidence, sir,” continued Frost, munching away. “Three of the rapes took place near where you work, and two at Meads Park near where you used to live. No sooner do you move down this way than the rapes start up again in Denton Woods, almost on your doorstep.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting it is anything other than a coincidence?” said Price, rubbing a rag on a speck of white paint he had noticed on his chair leg. “I couldn’t have done it, I was at work. Ask Len Bateman, he was working alongside me.”
“You’re quite right,” said Frost. “You’ve got a cast-iron alibi.” He thought for a moment. “I used to know a bloke who worked nights just like you. He worked with one other bloke just like you and Len Bateman. They used to get up to a fiddle between them. If one wanted a night off, the other one used to clock in for him. No-one ever found out.”
“I wouldn’t dream of doing a thing like that,” said Price.
Frost beamed at him. “Of course you wouldn’t, sir -it’s dishonest. But just supposing you and Bateman did work the same fiddle. There would be nights when you’d be all on your own in the factory, perfectly free to nip out for the odd rape when the mood struck you. And if Len Bateman was asked, he’d have to swear blind he was with you all the time because your alibi was his alibi.”
Webster shifted uneasily in his chair. He hoped Frost wasn’t going to make some wild accusation without a shred of evidence.
Completely unabashed, Frost carried on. “A new man took over when Bateman got the sack, so you couldn’t work your fiddle any more. Which is probably why there were no more rapings for nearly four months.”
No-one could have looked more stunned than Price. “This is some kind of nightmare! My house is broken into and the investigating officer is almost accusing me of multiple rape.”
“Almost?” cried Frost. “I didn’t mean to be as vague as that.”
Price stood up and, as forcefully as he could, said, “I must ask you to leave. This is most upsetting.”
Frost didn’t budge. “Does your wife visit her mother very often?”
“Two or three times a year.”
“Leaving you all alone in the house. I wouldn’t be at all surprised that if we started comparing dates, we’d find you were either at work on your own or all alone in the house when the rapes took place.”
“I really can’t believe what I’m hearing,” exclaimed Price, his eyes blinking rapidly.
“Let’s take last night,” said Frost, lighting up a second cigarette. “There was an attempted rape in the woods, just across the road there a policewoman, a very tasty bit of stuff, young, big boobs the sort you like. You had a go at her, but she fought back. The cops came running, so you had to scoot off.”
Price just shook his head at every word as if unable to believe anyone could be so stupid or so cruel.
Webster kept his face impassive and stared out the window in case the inspector wanted to involve him in this flight of fancy.
Frost carried on doggedly. “You wore a track suit, jogging trousers with no pocket, and a sweatshirt with no pocket. Under your arm you carried a plastic mac -the mac you used to chuck over their heads before you half strangled them. You ran off like mad, but in the dark you bumped into someone, which made you drop the mac’
Price’s Adam’s apple was travelling up and down like an express lift.
“This is nonsense!”
“Trouble was,” continued the inspector, ‘when you lost your mac, you also lost this.” From his pocket he produced a tagged Yale key which he held out for Price to see. “Your front-door key. Which presented you with a problem. How do you get back inside your house? You can’t knock up your wife; she’s away in Darlington.”
Price turned in appeal to Webster. “I didn’t leave the house all night. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Can you prove that?” Webster asked.
“How can I prove it?” Price said hopelessly. “I was here on my own.
It’s like a nightmare.”
“It was a nightmare for those poor girls, sir,” said Frost. “Anyway, back to our poor old rapist, who you say isn’t you. It’s not his night. His dick’s been disappointed, he’s lost a perfectly good mac, and he hasn’t got his front-door key. So how is he going to get back inside his house? Too noisy to smash windows, and the front door is too exposed and too solid. Which leaves the back door. This means climbing over garden fences. Unluckily for him, old Mother Shadbolt’s yapping dog wakes her up and she screams blue murder and rings for the law.” “Whoever Mrs. Shadbolt saw,” insisted Price, ‘it wasn’t me. It was the burglar.”
“A bloody weird burglar, sir. He’s spotted by a screaming woman. Instead of doing what any self-respecting house breaker would do get the hell out of there as fast as he could he calmly hops over another couple of fences and starts to jemmy open your back door with a pair of rusty shears he finds in the pitch dark in your back garden. He enters your house, hides the shears behind your freezer, then nips off unseen without taking anything. That was no burglar, Mr. Price. That was you, breaking back into your own house because you’d lost your key in Denton Woods.”
Price stared first at Frost, then at Webster. He put a sheet of newspaper over a dining chair and sat on it. “What can I say?” he mumbled, almost on the verge of tears. “I’m innocent. It wasn’t me. What can I say?”
Frost shook his head in unstinted admiration. “You’re a bloody good actor, sir, I’ll give you that. But let’s put it to the test, shall we?” He tossed the tagged key over to Webster. “Go and see if this fits the gentleman’s front door, would you, son?”
Webster left the room. Frost sat on his sheet of newspaper, watching Price through narrowed eyes. Price, on his sheet of newspaper, fidgeted uncomfortably.
They could hear Webster’s footsteps as he walked toward the open front door. Then came the click of the key being inserted into the lock. A pause. Webster came back into the room and handed the key to the inspector.
An uneasy, cold, prickly sensation crept up Frost’s spine. “Well, son?”
“It doesn’t fit,” said Webster. “It’s not the right key.”
Frost seemed to crumble visibly. Webster almost felt sorry for him. The big buildup, all the pieces apparently fitting until the last, vital ingredient. It was the wrong key.
“Are you sure?” asked Frost flatly.
“Positive,” said Webster. “The key doesn’t fit the lock.”
“Well, Mr. Price,” said Frost. “It looks as if I’ve made a bit of a balls-up. I can only say I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” said Price generously. “You were only doing your job. I must feel thankful that I’ve been eliminated. Now, if you’d excuse me, I’ve so much to do before my wife returns. I presume it’s now all right for me to repair the back door?”
Frost nodded. Webster stood up, ready to go, but Frost remained seated, his mind racing, re-examining the facts. He was so bloody sure he was right. He felt it. He knew it. So where had he gone wrong? But at last he was forced to admit defeat. Slowly he heaved himself up. “Thank you for your co-operation and for your understanding, Mr. Price.”
The door bell rang, loudly and insistently.
Price jumped to his feet. “I’ll get it. You wait here.” He sped from the lounge, closing the door firmly behind him. Frost darted for the door and opened it a crack so he could see right down the passage.
Price opened the front door. A hard-faced woman, a key in her hand, stood in the porch alongside a suitcase. She wore sensible tweed clothes, flat shoes, and her greying hair was pulled back into a bun. She must have been some twenty years older than Price.
“Maud!” exclaimed her husband. “I didn’t expect you back until tomorrow.”
“Mother’s dead,” said the woman, lifting the suitcase into the hall. “Now what on earth has been going on? Why doesn’t my key open the front door? Have you changed the lock or something?”
From the lounge, Frost charged down the passage. In his haste he sent a tin of yellow paint flying all over the floor.
While Mrs. Price was insisting on knowing what on earth was going on, Frost snatched the key from her hand and compared it with the one from the plastic mac. There could be no mistake this time. The two keys were identical.
The colour drained from the man’s face as he edged toward the door and escape. But Frost darted forward to block his way.
“Who is this man?” demanded the woman of her husband. But he could only open and shut his mouth and shake his head.
“I’m a police officer,” Frost told her. “Terribly sorry to hear about the death of your mother, Mrs. Price. But I’m afraid I’ve got even more bad news for you.”
“She wasn’t like a wife,” said Price tonelessly while they waited in the interview room for Webster to come back with the typed statement for signature. “She was always strict with me, always laying down the law about what I should and what I shouldn’t do. She treated me like a child, even when we had sex. It was horrible like making love to my own mother. It made me feel unclean. I wanted someone young and innocent. I was driven to those young girls, I couldn’t help myself.”
“You could have left her,” said Frost, ‘gone off with someone younger.”
He shook his head, horrified at the enormity of the suggestion. “She wouldn’t have let me do that. She’d have got so angry.”
Frost felt irritated. Here was the swine who had smashed and kicked and violated those poor girls. He should be elated that he had caught the bastard. He should be revelling in the thought of what other prisoners, who loved to wreak vengeance on sexual offenders, would do to Price once he was put away. But the man was so ineffectual, so pathetic, that Frost had to fight hard to stop feeling sorry for him.
Webster came in with the typed statement. He slid it across the table to Frost, who checked through it, then passed it over to Price.
“This is a typed copy of the statement you have just given us, Mr. Price. Please read it through carefully. Unless there’s anything you wish to change, I’d like you to initial every page, then sign it at the end.” But Price, anxious to get the unpleasantness over, initialled the pages automatically with barely a glance at the contents, endorsing the final page with a signature in almost childlike handwriting. Frost and Webster witnessed it.
“No chance of bail, I suppose?” Price asked hopefully.
“No chance,” confirmed Frost.
“I’ve got some books hidden under the bed,” Price confessed shamefaced. “Dirty books. It would be awful if my wife found them. Any chance you could get to them before she does?”
“Happy to oblige, Mr. Price,” smiled Frost. “We don’t want you to get into any trouble.”
He took a copy of the signed statement and marched with it, in triumph, to Mullett’s office, pausing first to chat up Miss Smith. “You can take your rusty chastity belt off, Ida,” he smirked. “We’ve caught the rapist.” She stared right through him and continued sealing the flaps of envelopes marked Confidential. Not in the least put out, Frost asked, “Is Dracula in his coffin?”
“The Superintendent is off,” she snapped, encouraging a flap to stick with a thump of her fist and wishing it was Frost’s nose. “He won’t be back until tomorrow.”
Damn, thought Frost. He’s never here for my rare moments of triumph and never absent when I foul things up.
When he got back to the office, Detective Sergeant Hanlon was chatting up Webster. Hanlon, beaming from ear to ear was bursting with news.
Sod your news, thought Frost, you listen to mine. “We’ve caught the rapist, Arthur. The flower of Denton womanhood can safely walk knicker less in Denton Woods tonight, as long as you stay at home.”
Hanlon giggled. “Well done, Jack.”
Frost slumped into his chair. On his desk was a subscription list for the widow of PC Shelby. He saw Mullett was down for fifty pounds so, out of spite, he put himself down for sixty, which he could ill afford, and tossed it into the out-tray. He looked up to see Hanlon grinning down.
“Why are you still hanging about, Arthur? Do you fancy me or something?”
Hanlon pulled up a chair. He had a lot to tell. Charlie Bravo had sped off to the pawnbroker’s shop in time to arrest the man who was trying to sell Glickman a further quantity of stolen sovereigns.
“Marvellous!” exclaimed Frost. The earlier message from Control had completely slipped his mind. “I’m solving so many cases these days, I can’t keep track of them all.”.
“You haven’t solved this one,” retorted Hanlon. “I have. They’ve coughed the lot and I’ve charged them.” He handed Frost the carbon copies of two statements.
“Why are there two statements?”
“Because there are two prisoners,” explained Hanlon. “They’re brothers.”
Responding to Glickman’s phone call, Charlie Bravo had roared round to the pawnbroker’s and apprehended Terry Fowler, twenty-four. Fowler had thirty-three Queen Victoria sovereigns in his possession. He was brought back to the station and searched. Six packets of a substance believed to be heroin were found in his jacket. The drug squad was informed, and a team went to Fowler’s digs, where they arrested his brother, Kevin, twenty-five. The room was systematically searched. Taped to the back of the wardrobe was a plastic bag packed tight with white powder, which tests confirmed to be heroin of the type being pushed around Denton for the past couple of weeks. The drug squad was overjoyed. They had found the two new pushers.
“The Drug boys will take all the credit for this, Arthur,” said Frost, skimming through the statements, ‘just as you’re trying to take all the credit from me.”
The brothers, Trevor and Kevin Fowler, came from Poplar, east London, but were now of no fixed address and were continually moving around the country. Two weeks ago they arrived in Denton, taking a room in a bed and breakfast boarding house near the railway station. The metropolitan police knew them and had tele printed details of their past form, which included petty theft, robbery with violence, and possession of drugs.
“If they’ve only been in Denton a couple of weeks,” observed Frost, ‘then we can’t push all those petty housebreakings on them.” This was a big disappointment. He had been hoping to clear up his backlog of unsolved burglaries in one fell swoop.
“They only admit to the sovereigns, Jack, not to anything else,” said Hanlon. He showed Frost the recovered coins. Thirty-three of them.
Tipping them on to his desk, Frost counted them. He only made it thirty-two. Webster counted them for him and made it thirty-three, which, added to the five already sold to Glickman, made a grand total of thirty-eight. Mrs. Carey had reported seventy-nine stolen, so where were the other forty-one? “Turn out your pockets, Arthur,” he said.
Hanlon grinned. “The drug squad tore their place apart, Jack. There were no more sovereigns. Both the brothers say that’s all there was. Mrs. Carey must have been mistaken.” v The inspector shook his head. “She never makes mistakes about money.” He scooped up the coins and returned them to the bag. “Still, I’ve got more important things to worry about. Now take all this junk off my desk, Arthur, and get the paperwork tied up. This is your case now.”
“You’re letting him have it?” asked Webster when Hanlon had left. “He only came in on it at the death.”
“I’ve got more than I can cope with, son,” said Frost. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Something was worrying him. “Those two blokes were only in Denton a couple of weeks. Ma Carey lives in a shitty little house down a back street. How come they picked on that house to rob? How, did they find out she had all that money?”
“They could have overheard someone talking about her,” suggested Webster.
“I suppose so,” said Frost, but he still looked doubtful.
“You’re not suggesting they’ve confessed to a crime they haven’t committed, are you?” asked Webster.
“Of course not, son.”
Webster fed a sheet of paper into the typewriter. “Do you want me to do the report on the rape arrest?” He knew that if he didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done.
“Yes please.” He gathered up the subscription list for Mrs. Shelby and took it out to Johnny Johnson in the lobby, where he received the sergeant’s congratulations on nabbing the “Hooded Terror’.
“You’ll be in all the papers tomorrow, Jack.”
“Unless something bigger breaks,” said Frost, ‘like Allen finding Shelby’s murderer.”
“Shouldn’t be long now,” said Johnson. “Stan Eustace can’t hide much longer.” The phone rang. He answered it. “And who is it speaking, please?” He offered the phone to Frost. “Lady for you, Jack. Won’t give her name.”
Even before he took the phone he knew it was Sadie Eustace, but he hoped against hope he was wrong.
“Jack?” she whispered.
He picked up the complete phone and moved as far away from Johnson as the cord would allow. “I can’t talk to you, Sadie,” he hissed into the mouthpiece. “I got in too much trouble last time.”
“You’ve got to help, Jack. Stan’s been in touch…”
He cut her short before she gave anything away. “Sadie, whatever you tell me, I am going to report it.”
“He’s frightened, Jack. The police have framed him for this killing and he’s terrified at what they might do when they catch him. He’ll give himself up to you if you meet him just you, no-one else.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s…” She broke off as a series of soft clicks cut into the conversation. “What was that?”
“No idea,” lied Frost, realizing that Allen had her line tapped.
But she knew what it was. “The bastards! They’ve bugged the phone!”
The line went dead.
He replaced the receiver and returned the phone to its original position. “Sadie Eustace,” he told Johnson. No point in keeping it a secret now. He thought for a second, then made his way to the murder incident room.
The room was empty except for Detective Sergeant Ingram crouched over a large Revox reel-to-reel tape recorder, looking tired and drawn as he listened through earphones to the replay of the conversation between Sadie and Jack Frost. Seeing Frost, he pulled the earphones off and rubbed his ears. Quickly, he scribbled a note on a pad and dropped it into an in-tray marked “Mr. Allen -Immediate’. “Pity she twigged,” he said. “She was going to tell us where Eustace was hiding.”
“A great pity,” agreed Frost, looking around the room. Empty desks, silent phones, and the wall map marked with red pins indicating the numerous Stan Eustace sightings. “Where is everybody?”
“Tea break. They should be back in a minute.” He shook his head at Frost’s offer of a cigarette. “We could do with a lead,” he went on, knuckling tired eyes. “He seems to have gone to ground.”
“Mr. Allen’s only looking for Stan, then?” asked Frost. “He isn’t keeping his options open?”
“Why should we look for anyone else?” asked Ingram in a puzzled voice.
Frost didn’t answer. He shuffled over to the other side of the room to look at the various notices fastened to the cork bulletin board: duty rosters; search areas; phone numbers of off-duty men, a list headed Police Marksmen with names and phone numbers. Frost saw that Ingram’s name was on this list. “Why police marksmen?” he inquired.
“Eustace is armed,” replied Ingram wearily. He wished the inspector would go. He was tired. He didn’t feel like talking or answering questions. He just wanted to go somewhere quiet. For the past three nights he had hardly had any sleep.
“I don’t want him killed,” said Frost.
Ingram nodded. “I’ll let Mr. Allen know.” A green light flashed and the spools of the Revox began to revolve. Another call coming through on Sadie’s phone. Ingram turned up the volume control. The ringing tone. A click as the receiver was lifted.
Sadie’s voice. “Demon 2234.”
A man’s voice, tired, despondent. “Sadie. It’s Stan. Did you talk to him?”
Sadie’s voice, shouting. “Hang up, Stan. They’ve tapped the line.”
Click. The dial tone. Silence. The tape recorder switched itself off.
Behind them the door opened and closed. They turned to see Detective Inspector Allen. “We’ve found Stan Eustace’s old car,” he told Ingram. “It was abandoned under the railway arches, so he’s obviously nicked something else. Advise all units.”
As Ingram was phoning through to Control, Allen gave Frost an unfriendly nod, then moved to his Immediate Action in-tray. “Phone call 16.37. Sadie Eustace to Inspector Frost. Tape Index 033.” He grinned mockingly at Frost. “What was that about, Inspector? Were you and Sadie arranging another clandestine assignation?”
“I wish you wouldn’t use such long words,” said Frost. “You know what an ignorant sod I am.”
Friday night shift
Ken Jordan gently coasted Charlie Alpha down the side street, past the public toilets and into the empty parking space alongside four other parked cars. Seven o’clock in the evening and time for an unofficial coffee break. He leaned back in the driving seat and stretched his arms as his observer, Ron Simms, unscrewed the top of a thermos flask and the smell of strong, hot coffee filled the area car.
Taking their plastic cups with them, they climbed out of Charlie Alpha to stretch their legs. The night was chilly and there was a fresh wind blowing. “Isn’t that where they found that tramp’s body?” asked Simms, nodding his head toward the red-bricked building with its creaking enamelled sign.
“Yes,” muttered Jordan, but he wasn’t looking in that direction. His eyes, ever alert, had detected a movement inside one of the parked cars, a grey Honda. It was as if someone had quickly ducked down because he didn’t want to be seen. Jordan drained his coffee, took a torch from the door pocket, and strolled across for a closer look. The beam of his torch flared on the wind-screen. A face jerked up. The engine coughed, then roared, and the Honda leaped forward, forcing Jordan to jump to one side. He spun around, catching sight of the driver’s face as the car sped past.
“After him!” he yelled to Simms, clambering inside Charlie Alpha.
“What’s all the panic?” asked Simms as the police car, its siren wailing, bulleted after the Honda in hot pursuit.
“It’s Stanley Eustace!” shouted Jordan. “Radio Control and tell them we need all the assistance they’ve got.”
The red dots of the Honda’s rear lights were increasing in size. They were gaining on him. Closer and closer. Soon they would be able to pass him, to swing in front and force him to stop.
The road took a sharp curve. The rear lights of the Honda suddenly disappeared. Around the bend at full speed, tyres screaming in agony.
No sign of the Honda. The road shot straight ahead. You could see for miles, but the Honda had vanished.
Simms twisted his head to look through the rear window. “Back there!” he yelled. Far behind them, getting smaller and smaller as they roared on, was the Honda. It crouched on the grass verge, lights off, driver’s door open. Jordan slammed on the brakes and the Sierra shuddered to a stop.
“Three units on their way to assist you, Charlie Alpha,” radioed Control. “You are reminded that the suspect is armed and dangerous.”
“What shall we do?” asked Simms, warily eyeing the grey car, which appeared to be abandoned.
“We don’t just sit here like bloody Charlies,” snapped Jordan, reversing back to the other car. They got out and cautiously approached. There was a rustling in the grass to one side of them, and before they could turn, a shotgun barrel was rammed into Jordan’s face.
“Don’t force me to do anything stupid,” said Stan Eustace, the gun shaking in his hand, his trigger finger twitching. He looked tired, frightened, and desperately dangerous. “Facedown on the grass.”
They flung themselves, facedown, on to the wet grass.
“Move and I’ll blast your heads off,” croaked Eustace.
They stared at wet grass. A rustling sound. Simms jerked up his head. A shot blasted out. He banged his face down, hugging the ground as tightly as he could.
The slam of a car door. A car driving off at speed. Silence. Simms carefully lifted his head to see Charlie Alpha disappearing into the distance. They leaped up and raced to the Honda, then stopped dead. The front tyre was flat and peppered with shotgun pellets.
“Shit!” said Jordan.
Faintly at first, from a long way off, came the sirens of approaching police cars. Jordan moved out to the centre of the road to flag them down.
Jack Frost ambled into the station about eight o’clock, hoping he might catch Mullett. The news of the arrest of the Denton rapist should have put the Divisional Commander in a sufficiently good mood to allow the inspector more men to help with the Ben Cornish investigation. No-one seemed able to whip up much enthusiasm over the death of a junkie dropout who was living on borrowed time anyway.
“He’s been in and gone out again,” Johnny Johnson told him. “He’s with Mr. Allen at the house.”
“What house?” asked Frost. “The house at Pooh Corner? The house that Jack built? The house of Ul repute?”
“I thought you knew,” said the sergeant, delighted he had someone to break the news to. “It’s Stanley Eustace. They’ve got him cornered in a house on Farley Street. Allen’s in his element police marksmen, the press, television cameras. Stanley’s broken into this house and is holding a family at gunpoint. It’s a hostage situation.”
Detective Inspector Allen was leaving nothing to chance. He opened up a detailed street map of the area and went over the various points one more time with Detective Sergeant Ingram. “Are all the adjoining houses empty? Has everyone been evacuated?”
“Most of them,” said Ingram.
“Most of them? I told you to shift all of them, Sergeant.”
“The family in number 25 refuse to leave, sir.”
Allen’s voice rose.” Refuse? Who said they had a choice? Get them out. I don’t care how, but get them out.”
Ingram delegated this task to a uniformed constable, then looked up as a police car, flanked by two police motorbikes, screeched up with the rifles and handguns from County HQ armoury.
“Right, Sergeant. Issue the guns,” ordered Allen. “And make sure our marksmen are positioned exactly where I indicated. And emphasize that they are not, repeat not, to fire a single round unless they have my explicit authorisation. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Inspector,” said Ingram. He handed out the Smith and Wesson specials to the five police marksmen, keeping a Ruger. 222 rifle for himself. Ammunition was carefully counted out, allocated, and signed for. He made sure they all knew their locations, repeated Allen’s instructions, then sent them out to take up position.
Ingram’s own position was in the top room of a house across the street. From this vantage point his telescopic sight could shrink the distance across the road and the garden and let him look directly into the top back room of number 57, where Eustace was holding his hostages.
Allen had arranged for the street lamps to be turned off and for batteries of spot lamps to be directed to the back of the hostage house. If Eustace looked out he would only be able to see the blinding glare and the darkness beyond. He checked with his radio that the marksmen were all in position and again reminded them they were only to fire on his express command.
He turned his head impatiently as a black van edged its way along the cleared side street. The uniformed man whose job it was to turn back traffic had waved the van on. Didn’t the fool have the sense to check with him first? The van pulled in to the kerb and an officious looking swine strode out. “Who’s in charge here?”
“I am,” snapped Allen. “Who are you?”
“Detective Inspector Emms, Communications. What’s the situation?”
“The situation,” said Allen, ‘is that we have a police killer armed with a shotgun holding a woman and two children hostage in the top back room of that house over there. He’s threatening to kill them all if we don’t meet his demands -a Concorde to take him to Rio or some such rubbish.”
“Have you made contact with him?”
“Only through the loud hailer. He won’t let us get near.”
“You’ve got to make voice contact,” said Emms. “You’ve got to establish rapport.”
“You’re not teaching a bunch of bloody rookies,” snarled Allen. “I know what we ought to do. At the moment we can’t do it.”
Emms looked up to trace the direction of the overhead phone lines. “There’s a phone in the house. I can wire you into it. If he picks up the receiver, he’ll be directly through to you.”
“The phone is downstairs. Our man is upstairs. I can’t see him trotting down just to see who’s ringing him, but wire it in anyway.”
“Right,” said Emms, pleased to have the chance to show off his expertise. He disappeared into the back of his van.
Allen’s walkie-talkie paged him. “Reporter from the Denton Echo would like to talk to you, Inspector.” Allen’s first thought was to tell the man to go to hell, but, on reflection, it wouldn’t do him any harm to get his name in the papers. “Send him over,” he said.
The communications expert emerged from the van. In his hand he held a telephone on a long length of cable which trailed behind him. “It’s ringing,” he announced proudly, offering the handset to Allen.
“When I want you to ring him, I’ll bloody well tell you,” said Allen, snatching the phone. He listened. The ringing tone, on and on and on. He looked for someone to take the phone over. “You… Constable!”
PC Collier came forward. Allen pushed the phone at him. “Listen to this. It’s ringing in the house. I don’t suppose he’ll answer, but if he does, keep him talking and let me know immediately.”
A man in a duffle coat ran down the street toward him. “Mr. Allen? My name’s Lane chief reporter Denton Echo. What’s the story?”
“The man with the gun is Eustace, Stanley Eustace, but I don’t want his name published. There are other, more serious, charges pending.”
The reporter lifted his pencil from the page. “What charges?”
“Strictly off the record, Mr. Lane, the charge will be the murder of Police Constable David Shelby, but that is not for publication at this stage.”
Lane nodded. Nothing linking the armed man with any other of fences could be printed as it could prejudice the chances of a fair trial. “Who are the hostages?”
“Mrs. Mary Bright, thirty-four, separated from her husband, and her two children, Bobby, seven, and Scott, eight.” Allen looked over Lane’s shoulder to Collier, still holding the phone tightly to his ear. “We’ve got a direct line through to the house. It’s ringing, but he won’t answer. I’ll try the loud hailer again in a minute.”
Allen squinted as car headlights hit his face and another car pulled up. Parley Street was starting to look like a public car park. He was about to yell for it to be moved on when he saw Mullett climbing out.
Mullett marched briskly over. He nodded to Allen, then raised an inquiring eyebrow at the reporter.
“Mr. Lane, chief reporter, Demon Echo,” Allen told him.
Mullett clicked on his professional smile. “Mullett two Ts and two ‘t’s Superintendent Mullett, Commander of Demon Division.” While the reporter was writing that down he asked, “How do you intend to play this, Inspector?”
“As long as the hostages are in no danger, sir, we’re prepared to sit tight and hang it out. We hope to commence a dialogue with Eustace soon, when I’ll try and get him to release the children. Our aim is for a peaceful conclusion.” Allen said this loudly for the reporter’s benefit and was pleased to see his words being taken down verbatim.
“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.
The Chief Constable marched briskly over, slapping his gloves against his leg. “A quick update please, Mr. Mullett.” Mullett had just started to explain when the Chief caught sight of Frost. “Good Lord! Is that Inspector Frost?”
Frost, his body wet with sweat and all his limbs aching, had reached the back door. He stretched up until his hand touched the door handle. Tentatively he turned it. The handle turned, but the door was double-bolted from the inside. Stan wasn’t stupid! He wished he’d worked out the problem of how to get inside before he took this mad plunge. A fine bloody fool he’d look if, without even getting over the first hurdle, he now had to worm his way back and face Allen’s wrath.
The next thing to try was the kitchen window. Pressing tight against the wall, he eased himself up and edged toward it. It was an old-fashioned sash type, and by pressing his face against the pane he could see the catch was fastened inside. To unfasten it he would have to break the glass, but could he break it without attracting the attention of Stan and his shotgun? He looked around him for something to use. In the flower bed at his feet was half a brick. He pulled it out and slipped off his mac, which he wrapped around it.
Allen, squinting through night-glasses, couldn’t make out what Frost was up to. It was Ingram, radioing through, who gave him the answer. “He’s going to break the window, sir.”
The bloody idiot! As soon as Eustace heard the glass break, he could take it out on the hostages. He might even lean from the window and shoot Frost… The temptation to let this happen was quickly dismissed, and Allen felt ashamed for even considering it. They would have to provide a distraction and quickly. He radioed through to all surrounding units. When he gave the signal they were to sound their horns and their sirens and keep them going until ordered to stop. This, he hoped, would drown the sound of breaking glass, or at least divert Eustace long enough for Frost to get inside.
The field glasses to his eyes, Allen watched. Frost had the wrapped brick balanced in his hand. “Allen to all units… Stand by.”
Frost shut his eyes, turned his head, and swung back the brick.. .
“Now!” screamed Allen. The cacophony shredded the night air into a thousand pieces.
“Stop that bloody noise!” screamed Eustace, dragging the woman again to the window.
“Off,” said Allen. Abruptly the noise stopped.
The contrasting silence was so tangible it could almost be touched.
Gritting his teeth, Frost slipped his hand through the broken windowpane and reached for the catch. A needle of broken glass slashed his wrist. Damn. He felt warm blood trickling down. He flicked the catch back, then scrabbled for the bottom of the window, which creaked peevishly as he raised it. Up with his knee to the sill, the jab of more broken glass, then he was over and inside the dark kitchen.
“He’s inside,” cried Allen. They now had no contact with him. All they could do was wait and see.
“Well done, Mr. Allen,” said the Chief Constable.
“Yes… well done,” added Mullett hastily.
From his vantage point across the road, Ingram again called Allen on the radio. “Sir. I have a clear, uninterrupted view of Eustace by the window. Permission to fire?”
“No, damn you,” snapped Allen. “Only at my specific command.” He turned to the Chief Constable. “I’m trying to bring this to a successful conclusion without a single shot being fired by the police, sir.”
“I quite agree,” said the Chief Constable, nodding.
“All the way,” echoed Mullett, feeling rather left out of things.
Frost crouched in the darkened room and wished the gash on his wrist would stop its sticky trickle. It felt as if gallons of blood were pumping out and it reminded him of the way ancient Romans committed suicide. His knee felt wet, sticky, and gritty from embedded chunks of glass. All in all he had made rather a mess of his spectacular entrance.
A door faced him. He limped over to it and cautiously pushed it open.
He could make out carpeted stairs leading to the upper rooms. Good. The carpet should deaden the sound of his approach. His impromptu plan was to creep into the room, get behind Stan, and throw him to the ground so he couldn’t use the shotgun. He fought several different versions of this encounter in his mind, but somehow they all seemed to end up with Stan on top of him and the shotgun barrel rammed halfway up his nose. But this was no time for pessimism.
He padded to the foot of the stairs and listened. All seemed quiet above. He tried the first stair, carefully placing his foot well to one side to avoid any creaking. Then the other foot. A splash of blood plopped to the stair carpet, marking his progress. He paused and listened. Nothing!
The next stair, then the next. His approach was absolutely soundless.
The SAS couldn’t have done it any better.
He raised his head for the final stair and his heart suddenly stopped. The terrified face of a woman was staring at him. An arm encircled her neck. Jammed under her chin, the barrel of a shotgun. Behind her, a twitching Stanley Eustace, his finger quivering on the trigger.
“Shit!” said Frost. “I didn’t think you could hear me.”
“One move out of turn, Mr. Frost,” said Stan, ‘and I’m pulling this trigger.” And he pushed the barrel even more tightly under the woman’s chin. “Now, come up!” Frost had never seen the man as uptight as this before. He was a hairbreadth from breaking point.
“All right, I’m coming,” said Frost. “Don’t do anything daft.”
Pulling the woman back, Stanley led Frost into the bedroom. On chairs against the wall were two terrified young boys.
Eustace took the gun from the woman’s throat and pushed her away from him. “Go and sit down with your kids and not a move, do you hear? Not a move and not a word.” He swung the gun around to cover Frost.
“Sadie sent me,” said Frost. “She said you’d be pleased to see me. I wouldn’t have come had I known it would be like this.”
“I want a car,” said Eustace. “A getaway car. And they’ve got to promise not to come after me.”
“Sadie said if I came up here, you’d let the hostages go,” said Frost.
“No. I need them!” His finger kept touching the trigger then moving off.
“You don’t need them, Stanley. If you want a hostage, you’ve got me. Besides, you haven’t the slightest intention of harming them, and those kids ought to be in bed.”
Allen put down the phone. “Eustace says he’s letting the woman and the kids go, but Frost remains.”
“That’s excellent news,” said Mullett.
“Is it?” muttered Allen. “All we’ve done is swap one set of hostages for another. We’re back to where we started.”
“Jack Frost will get Stanley to come out, don’t you worry,” chimed Sadie. “He won’t let you bastards kill him.”
PC Collier, watching the garden, called out excitedly to Allen. “The hostages are coming out now, sir.”
Frost was reaching for his cigarettes. “Stan, if I take out a fag, will you promise not to blow my head off.”
The gun moved with Frost’s hand as it dived into his pocket. The gunman shook his head when the packet was offered to him. “Given it up.”
Frost clicked his lighter. “Wish I could, Stanley.” He sucked on the cigarette and let the smoke fill his lungs, then slowly exhaled. “You’ve got to give yourself up some time, Stan. Why not now?”
“I want a car, petrol…”
Frost waved his hand impatiently. “You know bloody well they’re not going to give it to you. They’ve got the press and the TV cameras out there, all waiting for the happy ending with the crook losing and the police coming out on top. Mr. Mullett’s hoping for a different happy ending you blowing my brains out. But there’s no way they’re going to let you get into a motor and drive away.” The man’s entire body started to shake. “If the bastards want a fight, I’ll give them one. They framed me. I never touched that copper.”
The waiting and the hanging about was making Mullett impatient. “What’s going on, Allen?”
Allen wished Mullett would get back to the office and stop being a pain. All this standing behind him and fidgeting and expecting things to happen just because the great Chief Constable was there was getting on his nerves. He radioed Ingram. “What’s happening, Sergeant?”
“Mr. Frost is by the window, sir, Eustace well back, the gun trained on the inspector. No chance of a shot at the moment, sir, I might hit Mr. Frost. Hold on, sir something’s happening…”
“As God is my witness,” said Eustace, the finger on the trigger shaking dangerously, “I never touched that copper. I never even saw him that day. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Stanley,” said Frost uneasily, ‘with a gun rammed in my gut I’m prepared to believe anything.”
Stanley laughed. An overwrought laugh. “It’s not even bloody loaded, Mr. Frost.”
“What?”
“I fired my last cartridge half an hour ago. It’s empty -look.” His finger tightened on the trigger to demonstrate.
Frost’s arm swung out to knock the gun away, just in case Stan was mistaken, but even as he moved the explosive blast hammered at his ears. Stanley stared, open-mouthed, in horror, pointed an accusing finger at Frost and pitched forward, vomiting blood, the red stain on his chest spreading, spreading…
“Get an ambulance!” shouted Frost as armed police charged into the room. He cradled Stanley’s head in his arms. Outside a woman was screaming uncontrollably -Sadie Eustace.
“You silly sods!” yelled Frost. “The gun wasn’t loaded. You silly sods…”
Ingram had fired the shot.
They carried Stanley’s body out on a stretcher, the red blanket pulled up to cover his face. As Frost emerged Sadie lunged at him. “You bastard you let them kill him.” Webster and a woman police officer held her back. Frost walked on. There was nothing he could say to her.
Back in the room, the post-mortem.
“It wasn’t even loaded,” said Frost.
“I didn’t know,” said Ingram. “I saw him pulling the trigger. I didn’t know.”
“You’re not expected to know, Sergeant,” snapped Allen. “If a killer points a gun at a police officer and then pulls the trigger, you are entitled to assume the gun is loaded.”
“I quite agree,” said Mullett. “The person reproaching himself should be you, Frost. You placed this entire operation in jeopardy because of your cheap tactics. We’ll talk about this further in my office, first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, sir,” said Frost. Stan dead. Sadie widowed. That was all that mattered. He sat in a chair and lit a cigarette.
“We’d better see the press now,” said Mullett to Allen. He sighed. “Pity that damn shotgun wasn’t loaded. It would have made a splendid story.” They went out together.
Frost dribbled smoke and peered at Ingram through the haze. The sergeant looked shattered.
“I thought he was going to kill you. I saw him pulling the trigger. I didn’t know the gun was empty.”
“Sit down,” said Frost. “I think we ought to have a talk.”
Ingram sat.
“It’s a mess, isn’t it son?” said Frost.
“Yes,” muttered Ingram.
“I was hoping a bloke called Dawson had done it,” said Frost. “Dave Shelby had been knocking off his wife. But Dawson had an alibi. He was in some shooting contest until late evening.”
“Oh,” said Ingram.
Frost lit a second cigarette from the first. “He belongs to the same shooting club as you do. In fact you were both down for the clay pigeon shooting contest that afternoon, but you left early didn’t even go in for your heat. The club secretary told me. He said you left just before five with your shotgun tucked under your arm.”
“I wasn’t feeling well enough to shoot,” said Ingram.
“So the secretary said,” agreed Frost. He reached in his pocket for the packet of photographs and put them on the small table in front of him. “Shelby was knocking your wife off as well, wasn’t he?”
The sergeant sprung up. “How dare you, you swine…!”
“You don’t have to put.-on an act for me, son’ said Frost wearily, “I’m an unworthy audience.” He sorted through the photographs and pulled one out. “This is Shelby with Dawson’s wife. It was taken on Tuesday afternoon. If you turn it over you’ll see that these instant pictures all carry a printed number. This is number seven.” He sorted through to find another which he turned facedown. “This is number eight, which means it was taken after the other one.” He flipped it over. “The lady with Shelby it’s your wife, isn’t it?”
Ingrain stared at the photograph. Two nude figures interlocked. He didn’t say anything.
“That must have been taken Tuesday night,” Frost went on. “It couldn’t have been much later because the next day he was dead.”
The detective sergeant seemed unable to tear his eyes away from the photograph.
Frost went on. “You were at the party Tuesday night so Shelby had the coast all clear. He’d parked his patrol car out of sight near the toilets and was on his way up to your place when he noticed the grille was broken. He was just about enough of a policeman to investigate, and he found Ben Cornish’s body. He was all fidgety that night. I thought he’d been up to something, but he was just anxious to be on his way for a spot of fun with your Stella and his camera.”
Ingram picked up the photograph, then turned it facedown. “I never knew this was going on,” he said.
With tired sadness, Frost shook his head. “You did, son. That’s why you killed him.”
“Eustace killed him,” said Ingram. “Shelby’s notebook was found near his car.” He waved away Frost’s offered cigarette.
“The grass in that field was wet with dew,” said Frost. “The notebook was supposed to have been lying there all night, but it was bone-dry. I never twigged at the time, but I’m a slow old sod. It was dumped there a few minutes before it was found and by you, my son.”
“No,” said Ingram.
Frost dabbed at the gash on his wrist. “It’s difficult to get rid of every trace of blood. You’ve probably scrubbed and scrubbed the inside of your motor, but I bet it wouldn’t take Forensic long to find what you’ve missed. Shelby must have been bleeding like a pig.”
Jagged blue flashes from outside as the press took photographs of Allen and Mullett.
“Shelby and your wife expected you to be away at your shooting match Wednesday afternoon. But you suspected something was going on so you left early. You crept into the house and found them together beating the hell out of the bedsprings. Is that what happened, son?”
Ingram stared down at the floor and then had to turn his head away as he found his eyes focused on the section of bloodstained carped where Eustace had been lying.
“No. I didn’t catch them in the act, Mr. Frost. I didn’t want to. I suspected what was going on, but I didn’t want to believe it. I got back early and there was Shelby’s patrol car down the side street. I parked alongside and walked toward the house. The blinds were drawn in our bedroom. I didn’t want to go in. I didn’t want to believe it. But after a while, the door opened and out he came, smirking all over his damn face. When he saw me, he charged off to his car and roared away. I followed and eventually managed to force him to stop in Green Lane.”
“Where we found his abandoned police car?” Frost prompted.
“Yes. I was beside myself with rage. I wanted to hurt him. He was laughing, taunting me. He said if I wasn’t able to satisfy Stella, it was no wonder she had to turn to a real man.” He hesitated, unwilling to go on. “I will have a cigarette if you’ve got one, Inspector.”
Frost handed him the packet, then lit the cigarette for him.
“Go on, son. I’m a good listener.”
“The shotgun was on the back seat. I only meant to scare the hell out of him. I think that’s all I meant. I don’t even remember pulling the trigger. God, his face! In my dreams I see his face!” He shuddered.
“Why did you drag him to your car?” asked Frost. “Why didn’t you leave him?”
“I was going to take him to the hospital, but I soon saw it was far too late. I found a secluded spot to dump him, cleaned up the car, then drove home. I said to Stella, “Did you have a good day?” and she said, “Yes -did a bit of shopping and baked a cake.” And she asked if I’d had a good day, and I said, “Marvellous.” Both of us lying our heads off.”
Frost shrugged his shoulders. “I’d have done the same, son.”
“I don’t know how long I thought I could keep quiet. I wanted to tell someone. I felt sure it would all come out.”
“And then you heard about Stan Eustace and the armed robbery.”
“Yes. Everyone but you assumed Eustace had killed Shelby. I wanted to keep the suspicion on him. I had to get rid of the notebook anyway I’d found it in my car.”
“So you planted false evidence?”
A pause. “Yes.”
“So it must be a godsend for you now that Stan Eustace is dead and can’t tell his side.”
“You’ve got to believe me, Mr. Frost. I really thought he was going to kill you. That’s why I fired for no other reason you’ve got to believe me.”
“Supposing I’d got Eustace out of this alive and he was charged with Shelby’s murder. What then? Would you have come forward, owned up?”
Ingram bowed his head dejectedly. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. All I know is I didn’t mean to kill Shelby, but he’s dead. Now Eustace is dead and everyone believes he did it. Can’t we leave it like that?”
Frost pinched his scarred cheek to try and bring some life back into it. “It would be a nice easy way out, wouldn’t it, son? The trouble is, I’m a cop. Not a very good one, perhaps, but still a cop. I don’t really know why I became one, but one thing I’m sure of, I didn’t become a cop to turn a blind eye to planted evidence -or to let a dead man, even if he was a crook, be wrongly accused of murder. Your way would be easy. It would keep everyone happy. But it would be wrong son. I just couldn’t do it.”
Ingram took the cigarette from his mouth and hurled it through the open window. “It had to be you, Mr. Frost, didn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so, son,” murmured Frost apologetically. “I’m always around when I’m not wanted.”
“So what are you going to do… arrest me?”
Frost shook his head. “Best if I don’t son. Much better if I’m kept right out of it. As it was you who shot poor old Useless Eustace, a voluntary confession might make nasty-minded people less inclined to query your motives. What do you reckon?”
Ingram nodded.
“And I’d be a lot happier if we didn’t have to bring these into it.”
Frost held up the photographs. “Shelby’s widow has suffered enough.”
Again Ingram nodded.
“So keep my name out of it. Make it a voluntary confession, all off your own bat. It’ll make things a lot easier for you.”
Ingram heaved himself out of the chair and moved slowly to the door. He paused as if to say something, but shook his head and went out, closing the door firmly behind him.
Frost sighed and looked at his watch. A shuffling of feet made him turn his head. Webster was leaning against the wall in the corner of the room.
“Hello, son. Didn’t know you were there. Been there long?”
“Not very long, sir.”
Sir? This was the first time Webster had ever called Frost ‘sir’
“You didn’t hear any of that, I suppose?”
Webster paused, then lied. “No sir, not a word.”
“That’s what I thought,” lied Frost. He stood up. “Let’s have an early night, son. I’ve got to report to Mullett for a bollocking first thing in the morning and I don’t want to keep yawning in his face.”
Saturday day shift
Frost sat in his office and smoked, waiting to be summonsed to the Divisional Commander’s office. Seven minutes past nine. Mullett was prolonging the agony, making him sweat.
The news of Ingram’s arrest had shocked everyone. Apparently he had walked up to Detective Inspector Allen in the middle of the press conference and confessed to the accidental killing of Dave Shelby. This further blow to the prestige of Denton District, following so hard on the heels of the fiasco of the shooting of the now-cleared Stan Eustace, had fanned the flames of Mullett’s fury. Frost wasn’t looking forward to the coming interview.
A tap on the door. The summons to the torture chamber, he thought. But that treat was still to come.
“Lady to see you,” announced Johnny Johnson.
He hoped and prayed it wasn’t Sadie. Not this morning. He couldn’t face her.
The lady was Mrs. Cornish, straight-backed, dressed in mourning black, and clutching an ugly brown handbag. Frost sprung to his feet to shake the rubbish off a chair so she could sit down.
“What brings you here then, Ma?”
In answer, she undid the clasp of the handbag and took out a small paper bag. She tipped its contents on to his desk.
Sovereigns, all minted in the reign of Queen Victoria. Frost counted them. There were forty-one.
He looked at her incredulously. “Where did you get these?”
“I stole them from a tin box in Lil Carey’s piano,” she said. “There were seventy-nine in all.”
“And what happened to the rest of them?” Frost asked.
“Ben took them.”
“Ben?”
She nodded. “Tuesday evening he pushed his way into the house begging me for money for drugs. He was in a terrible state. He couldn’t stop himself shaking and looked as if he hadn’t eaten for days. I said I’d give him food but not money. I left him alone while I went down to the corner shop for some eggs. When I came back the house had been turned upside-down and Ben had gone. He’d taken one of the bags of sovereigns. The other bag was too well hidden, otherwise he’d have taken that as well.”
“What time was this?”
She snapped her handbag shut. “A little after nine.”
A little after nine! The pieces were all slotting together. He could visualize it. Ben hurrying from the house, desperately anxious he shouldn’t be late for his meet with the two drug pushers, the sovereigns heavy in the pockets of that ragged filthy overcoat, enough to buy many little packets. But he didn’t buy any. By nine thirty he was dead.
And yesterday two drug pushers were arrested with the sovereigns in their possession.
It now made sense. Better for them to confess falsely to a burglary than risk being linked by the coins to the murder.
“Those bastards killed my son,” said Mrs. Cornish.
Frost scooped the coins back into the bag. “Let’s get our basic facts straight. You never stole the se coins from old Mother Carey. Danny, perhaps, or even your daughter-in-law -I spotted her family allowance book in Lil’s piano but not you, Ma.”
She met his gaze and stuck out her chin defiantly. “It was me. I’ll swear to it in court.”
The internal phone buzzed. Miss Smith informing him that the Divisipnal Commander would see him now.
“Tell him to wait,” said Frost.