“Breaking in a new girl,” he explained as Webster and Frost filled the seats on either side of him. “She’s still a bit shy.”
“I reckon it’s your cigar that’s frightening her,” said Frost.
“From the beginning,” yelled Baskin. The girl put the bra back on and the pianist started butchering Ravel all over again.
“You got my money back yet?” asked Baskin.
“Not yet,” said Webster.
The three men sat side by side, talking to each other but looking straight ahead, their eyes glued to the stage where the blonde was working herself up into a fair simulation of erotic frenzy. The building reeked with the aphrodisiac combination of cigar smoke and female sweat.
“You’ve been up to your old tricks again, Harry,” reproached Frost, eyes dead ahead. “Putting your fright-eners on people. Wrecking their rooms.”
“Now don’t take the bra off so quickly,” pleaded Baskin. “Get the audience drooling for you to unpack your goodies. Tease them, just like you teased me last night.” He turned his head to Frost. “Don’t know what you’re talking about Inspector. I don’t put the frighteners on people. I’m a respectable businessman. She’s got terrific knockers, hasn’t she?”
“Has she?” said Frost vaguely. “I was so engrossed in the music, I didn’t notice. Tell me something, Harry. Do you know Roger Miller?”
Baskin flicked about half a pound of ash from the end of his cigar. “The MP’s son? Of course I know him. He plays the gee-gees. Knocks around with one of my show girls.”
“How’s his luck with the horses?”
Baskin shrugged. “Sometimes he wins, but not often. Usually he loses. His trouble is he doesn’t know when to stop. He burned his fingers last month doubling up. Would have cost me a packet had he won, but, thank God, he didn’t.”
“Does he owe you any money?”
Baskin waggled his cigar reproachfully. “My client’s personal affairs are strictly confidential.”
“Very reassuring,” said Frost. “You should be a doctor at a VD clinic. Gawd, look at that!” The girl had reached the end of her routine and stood stark naked in the centre of the stage, the spotlight sparkling on tiny dewdrops of sweat which glistened on her body like jewels. Frost nudged Webster heavily in the ribs. “The Intimate Bikini Styler Strikes again!” he commented coarsely.
Applauding loudly, Baskin leaped from his seat then he made a circle with his forefinger and thumb and kissed it wetly. “Perfect, darling, absolutely perfect… take a breather.” She draped a red bathrobe over her shoulders, straddled a rickety chair, and began talking earnestly with the pianist, looking even more erotic half covered than she did when she was naked.
“You know Roger Miller’s Jaguar?” asked Frost, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the girl.
“Concorde on four wheels? Yes, I know it. Why?”
“It knocked down an old man last night,” said Frost, watching Baskin closely.
“Oh yes?” murmured Baskin, apparently more concerned with getting his cigar to draw properly.
“The old man died,” continued the inspector.
A streamer of smoke drifted from Baskin’s mouth and lazily twisted and turned as it hit the beam of the spotlight. “I always knew he’d end up killing someone. He drives like a bloody maniac’
“Is he a good customer?” asked Frost.
“He’s a good customer when he wins,” Baskin replied.
“Trouble is, when he loses he don’t want to pay. You have to give him a little nudge.”
“Put in the frighteners, you mean?”
Baskin laughed out a cloud of smoke. “Frighteners? You’re becoming obsessed with that word, Inspector. I sent one of my accounts executives round to his flat to remind him of his obligations. Mr. Miller apologized for his regrettable oversight and immediately gave him a cheque in full settlement.”
“When was this?” asked Webster.
“Two days ago. Why? How come it’s of interest to you?”
It’s of no bloody interest at all, thought Frost dejectedly. Another of his theories had been well and truly booted in the groin. If Miller didn’t owe Baskin any money, then Baskin had no cause to nick Miller’s Jag for a joyride. “Come on son,” he told Webster, ‘time to go.”
They were out amongst the beer crates when Frost stopped dead in his tracks. He looked back at the rehearsal hall and a smile crawled across his face. He jabbed a finger at Webster. “Do you know what we are, son, you and me? Do you know what we are?”
What now? thought Webster, shaking his head wearily and asking, “What are we?”
“A couple of stupid twits, that’s what we are, son. Under our bleeding noses, and we missed it. The bikini line, son, the sleek bloody bikini line!”
Webster leaned resignedly against a tower of crates to listen to Frost’s latest output of garbage. The old fool had been obsessed about this ever since they’d found that shaver in Karen’s bedroom. He was like an overgrown, sniggering schoolboy.
Realizing the constable still hadn’t twigged, Frost took the coloured photograph of Karen Dawson from his pocket and passed it to Webster. “Forget the blonde hair, son, it’s been bleached. Look at the face.
Look carefully at the face.”
Webster stared at the photograph. He still didn’t know what Frost was getting at. Then it hit him. He took the photograph and stared again. The blonde stripper they had been watching on the stage was fifteen-year-old Karen Dawson. The girl that Harry Baskin had mauled with his greasy hands, kissed with his fleshy lips, boasted of taking to his bed, was a kid, an underaged schoolgirl. The swine. The dirty, stinking pig. He was running back to the hall, Frost at his heels, trying to keep up with him.
Baskin was at the door of the hall, lecherousness all over his filthy face. Webster’s feet hammered the ground as he thundered toward him, his hands already balled into fists. Too late Frost realized what was going to happen. “Hold it, Webster!” he yelled, but nothing could hold him now. He seized Baskin by the lapels and slammed him hard against the wall.
“You bastard! You dirty, lecherous bastard!” Before Frost could pull-him off, his fist had smashed into Baskin’s face and there was blood everywhere.
“You stupid sod!” cried Frost, pushing between the two men and shoving Webster away. Baskin’s face was dead white in contrast to the vivid red of the blood pouring from his nose, splashing down his suit and on the ground. One of Baskin’s heavies came thudding around the corner. Frost held out his warrant card and yelled, “Police. Piss off!” The heavy faltered, then turned back.
Webster was still shaking with rage, his shoulders heaving up and down as he fought to gain control of himself. A trembling Baskin stared incredulously at the blood that still cascaded down. He fumbled in his top pocket for a handkerchief and tried to stem the flow. “My God!” he croaked, as the handkerchief rapidly changed colour, “I’m bleeding to death.”
“Hold your head back,” ordered Frost, then, taking him by the arm, steered him toward his office. Webster moved as if to join them. “You stay here,” hissed Frost. “And don’t move an inch not one bloody inch.”
Inside the office he sat Baskin in a chair, his head well back, the now sodden handkerchief held to his nose. Frost’s fingers gently explored the swollen area. “Nothing broken, Harry.”
“No bleeding thanks to that pig out there,” snarled Baskin. “Get me a drink.” Feeling he deserved one himself, Frost poured two drinks.
Baskin was now pulling himself together. He gulped down the whisky, hurled the sodden handkerchief into the wastepaper basket, and found himself a clean one in his desk drawer. “You bastards will pay for this. I’m suing you, I’m suing that sod outside, and I’m suing the whole bloody police force from the Home Secretary downward.” He picked up his phone and began dialling the number of his solicitor. Frost reached out and pressed down on the cradle, cutting him off.
“Forget it, Harry.”
“Forget it?” shrieked Bas
kin. “No bloody way!” He dragged a mirror from his desk drawer and examined the damage to his face. “Look what that bastard has done to me.”
“No worse than what you did to your security guard last night,” murmured Frost. “So let’s say this evens the score.”
Baskin shook his head so firmly it started his nose bleeding again. “No way, Inspector. That gorilla of yours has gone too far this time.” He moved the phone from
Frost’s reach. “I am now going to phone my solicitor and instruct him to institute proceedings.”
Now it was the inspector’s turn to shake his head. “No you won’t, Harry. If you attempt to sue my detective constable for assault, I shall be reluctantly forced to lie my head off. I’ll swear on oath that you attacked him first and that he was compelled to act in self-defence. It’ll be my word against yours the word of a heroic police officer with the George Cross against the word of a strip-club owner who deflowers fifteen-year-old schoolgirls.”
Baskin stared at Frost as if the man had gone mad. “Fifteen-year-old schoolgirls? What the hell are you going on about?”
In answer, Frost produced the coloured school photograph, pushed it, facedown, across the desk, then flipped it over as if it were the final ace to complete his running flush. “That stripper you’ve been bedding, Harry her name is Karen Dawson. She’s a schoolgirl, and she’s fifteen years old.”
Baskin jabbed a finger at the photograph, then snatched it back as if it had come into contact with something red-hot. He looked pleadingly at Frost for some indication that it was all a mistake. “Fifteen? I don’t believe it.”
“A week ago today she was only fourteen, Harry. I reckon you’re good for at least seven years. The courts hate child molesters. But from what I saw this afternoon, I’ve no doubt she was worth it.”
Harry found a clean section of his handkerchief and used it to mop the sweat from his forehead. Refilling his glass, he downed the contents in one gulp. “You’ve got to believe me Mr. Frost, I had no idea. Blimey, who could tell by looking at her? I’ve seen twenty-eight-year-old women with smaller knockers than she’s got.”
“You don’t tell a lady’s age by the size of her knockers,
Harry. That’s a fundamental principle of English criminal law.” As the whisky bottle was handy, Frost topped up his own glass. “Cheers.”
“Look,” said Baskin, ‘this is all a silly misunderstanding. I’m sure there’s some way of clearing it all up.” As he spoke, he brought out a fat, bulging wallet and riffled his thumb significantly through a hefty chunk of fifty-pound notes.
Frost stiffened. “Aren’t you in enough bloody trouble, Harry?”
The wallet was hastily replaced. “You’ve got to get me off the hook, Mr. Prost.”
Head on one side, lips pursed, Frost pretended to give it some thought. “There’s the question of this assault charge you’re going to make against my constable.”
“What assault charge?” asked Baskin, sounding sincerely puzzled. “I tripped and banged my nose on the wall.”
“No more taking the law into your own hands with your security men? We want Tommy Croll in one usable piece.”
His palms spread upward, Baskin said, “On my word of honour.”
“And lastly,” said Frost, ‘that poor slag of a stripper — who got herself beaten up in the woods. It would be a noble gesture if you kept her on your payroll until she was well enough to work again.”
“Now hold hard,” Baskin protested. “That could take ages… months.”
‘ But nowhere near as long as seven years,” Frost pointed out.
A deep sigh of total surrender. “All right. I’ll pay her.”
Frost drained his glass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stood up. “I can’t make any promises,
Harry. I shall simply tell the girl’s parents that she applied for an audition here as a dancer and that’s where we picked her up. I’ve got a pretty shrewd idea the girl will keep her mouth shut, but there’s no way I can force her.”
“I owe you one,” said Baskin.
“Where do I find the girl?” asked Frost.
“In her dressing room, first left, the end of the corridor.”
Webster was waiting outside, still glowering but inwardly feeling sick in the knowledge that this was the end of his career in the force. Why, oh why, couldn’t he learn to control his temper? As Frost approached he glared at him with all the bitter resentment of a man who knows he is completely in the wrong. Let him say one word, just one bloody word, he thought.
With a curt jerk of his head, Frost ordered the constable to follow him. When at last he spoke, the rebuke was fairly mild. “That was bloody stupid, son.”
“Thank you, I’ve worked that out for myself,” snarled Webster. “I suppose you can’t wait to report me to Mullett?”
“Report what to Mullett?” asked Frost. “I saw nothing. Baskin tells me he tripped and banged his nose against the wall. From the size of his hooter I’m inclined to believe that’s more than possible.”
At first he couldn’t take in what the inspector was saying. In that one punch he was sure he had thrown everything away, but suddenly, with his feet on the gallows trap, the last-minute reprieve. Relief made sweat trickle coldly down his back. He wanted to thank Frost but couldn’t bring himself to do it. “How did you get Baskin to agree to that?”
‘ By telling him we wouldn’t bring any charges in respect of the girl.”
Webster stopped dead in his tracks. “No charges? After what he’s done? He’s corrupted a juvenile.”
“Corrupted?” repeated Frost. “Do you really think Baskin was the first? Your sweet, innocent fifteen-year-old virgin has been on the pill for God knows how long…”
Webster stared at him blankly. “On the pill..”.”
“Yes, son. I found the packet in her bedroom last night. They were prescribed for the mother, who must have passed them on to Karen.”
Webster was stunned. “You never told me?”
“I didn’t think it had anything to do with the case, son. The kid was missing. We were called in to find her. Anything else was between her and her mother. Ah, this must be her dressing room.”
They had turned the corner and were in a short corridor with three doors leading off it. One door was marked Staff Toilets Men, another Staff Toilets Women and the door in between, Artists’ Dressing Room. The glamour of show business, thought Frost. “Right, son. She’s inside. Go and get her.” He stepped back.
Webster rapped on the door.
“Yes,” called a girl’s voice.
“Karen, it’s the police.”
Frost groaned. Webster shouldn’t have given the game away. He should have barged straight in and grabbed her. His fears were confirmed by a scuffling sound from inside the dressing room, then two loud clicks as the door bolts were rammed home.
“It’s the police, Karen,” repeated Webster, banging on the door. “Open up.”
“Piss off,” screamed the young schoolgirl.
“Kick the door in,” ordered Frost. “Harry Baskin won’t mind.”
Webster stepped back and kicked, his toe landing just below the door handle. One kick was enough. The door crashed back. He stepped inside a cheerless room with a long, greasy finger marked mirror above a Formica ledge that ran the length of one wall. He couldn’t see Karen. Then someone in the mirror moved. He spun around and there was the girl, stark naked, her clothes bundled in her hand, moving quickly to the door. He reached forward to grab at her. She hurled the clothes in his face, then her knee came up savagely. He doubled up, breathless, almost screaming with pain. Sweet, innocent Karen certainly knew how to hurt a man! He reached out blindly and touched naked flesh, then jerked his head back as long red fingernails clawed bloodied lines down his face. He clutched her wrists, pulling her hands away, finding enough breath to yelp in agony as her teeth sank into his arm.
“I could do with some help, Inspector,” he roared, shaking his wrist free o
f teeth.
Frost’s head poked around the door, saw the problem, and hastily retreated. “Stand guard outside, son. I’ll send for a woman officer.”
Some fourteen minutes later Dave Shelby’s patrol car nosed its way to the club entrance, and Shelby, followed by detective constable Susan Harvey, climbed out. They sauntered across to the reception lobby where Frost was waiting.
“Here we are, Inspector,” Shelby announced. “One lady police officer delivered safe and sound, as requested.”
“Thank you, Constable,” said Frost coldly, not responding to Shelby’s jocular manner. He was going to have a few quiet words with him when he got him on his own, words that would knock the cockiness out of him.
Unabashed, Shelby asked, “You’re not on this rape inquiry, are you, sir?”
“No,” replied Frost. “If you want to confess you’ll have to see Mr.
Allen.”
Shelby flipped open his notebook. “Can I give you the details? I know who made that anonymous phone call last night. I’ve just interviewed him.”
Frost waved the notebook away. “Give it to Mr. Allen. I’m up to my armpits in naked fifteen-year-old girls at the moment.”
“Some people have all the luck,” called Shelby, quickly walking back to his car.
Frost watched him go. “He’s in a hurry. I’d have thought naked fifteen-year-olds were right up his street.” He turned to the woman constable. “Did he manage to keep his hands off you, Sue?”
She smiled. “He knows better than to try anything with me.”
Frost raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “I’ve summed you up all wrong then, Sue girl. I’d have thought one tickle of his Errol Flynn moustache on your cheek and you wouldn’t be able to get your knickers off fast enough.”
Susan grinned. “What’s the problem, sir?”
He filled her in on the details, then took her back to the dressing room where the wounded Webster, patiently mounting guard, managed a grin of delight when he saw Susan. “Karen’s wedged the chair against the door handle,” he told them.
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