'Did you check the registration number of the cab that did pick her up?'
Morgan looked anywhere but at Frost. 'It belongs to a VW Beetle sold as scrap six months ago.'
Frost dropped in a chair and stared into space. 'Bloody, bloody hell.'
A howl of rage as Burton, hearing the tail end of this, hurried over to them. 'What are you saying?'
'It doesn't look good, son,' Frost told him. 'Unless Simms tells us she's tucked up in her flat, we've got to face the possibility that our serial killer has got her.' The phone rang. Control. Simms had just radioed in. Liz wasn't in her flat and the tom's outfit wasn't back in the wardrobe . . . He broke the news to Burton.
Burton's face reddened with anger. 'And that Welsh bastard just abandoned her?'
'I thought she'd be all right,' muttered Morgan, stepping back quickly as Burton, swinging wild punches, lunged at him.
'You thought, you bloody Welsh sod? When have you ever thought in your life?'
'Pack it in!' Frost pushed himself between the two men, forcing them apart. 'I'm as much to blame as Morgan,' he told Burton. 'I was in charge so I'm even more bloody guilty. If you want to beat me to a pulp, son, fair enough, but let's find her first.'
'Find her?' snarled Burton, still glaring daggers at Morgan. 'Find her dead body, you mean?'
Frost poked a cigarette in his mouth and lit up, a delaying tactic to give him time to think. They hadn't the faintest idea where she was so where the hell did they start looking? All they had to go on was the minicab, a black Ford. He opened the door and shouted to Bill Wells: 'I want as many cars as we can get to go out on the road and look for this Ford. The fake registration plates have probably been dumped by now, so let them stop any minicab, any vehicle in fact: car, van, articulated lorry, I don't care what colour or make, and search it. I want everyone in on this, off-duty men as well.'
'I'll need authority,' said Wells stubbornly. 'Sod authority. I'll get the authority and if I can't get it, I'll carry the can.'
'And you'll have to let Mr Mullett know.' Frost snatched up the phone. 'I'm letting him know now. Just do what I bloody ask.' As he waited for Mullett to answer he yelled for Burton and Morgan to phone all the minicab and taxi firms and find out if any of their drivers had noticed a maverick cab in the area and, if so, where it was heading. The ringing tone went on in his ear. 'Come on, come on,' he muttered. 'It's only four o'clock in the morning, you can't be in bed yet.' At last a disgruntled, still drowsy Divisional Commander answered the phone. It took some time for the import of what Frost was saying to sink in and when it did, Mullett was wide awake.
'What are you trying to tell me?' Mullett's voice soared to a screech.
Frost pulled the phone away from his ear and let the sizzle of accusation and fury crackle round the incident room. When the noise stopped for a while, he tentatively returned the phone to his ear in case the superintendent was simply pausing for breath, but he seemed to have finished his initial tirade.
'Couldn't agree with you more, Super,' said Frost. 'A proper balls-up. I presume I have your full authority to do whatever is necessary to locate and rescue Detective Sergeant Maud?'
'How much is this going to cost?' shrilled Mullett.
'Cost?' echoed Frost incredulously. 'What the hell does the cost matter? A police officer's life is at stake.'
'I've got to get sanction from County and the first question they will ask is "How much?" '
'£2,300,' said Frost, plucking a figure from the air. 'Might be less if we're lucky.' And a bleeding sight more if we're not, he told himself.
'Right,' said Mullett, seemingly content now that he had a figure. 'Hold fire. I'll get back to you.'
Frost hung up quickly. Sod holding fire. 'All agreed,' he told Wells. 'I've got carte blanche to do whatever is necessary. Oh, and get someone to keep checking her flat. We'd look proper prats if we had the helicopters and the dogs out and she'd only popped out for some fish and chips.'
But he knew she wouldn't be back. He knew the rapist had got her and his face creased with pain at the mental picture of Liz, naked, tied to a bed, while the sadistic bastard stubbed fags out all over her. Smoke from the cigarette in his mouth drifted up his nose. It tasted foul. He stubbed it out on the polished surface of the desk. Don't worry, we'll be following you every inch of the way, he had promised. God, he'd made some balls-ups in his time, but this . . .
Wells returned, only to be sent out again as Frost thought of something else. 'Get on to the other Divisions. I want all their off-duty men standing by in case we have to do a house-to-house.'
Wells hesitated. 'Are you sure Mullett's agreed to this?'
Frost gave the sergeant his most reassuring and sincere smile. 'When have I ever lied to you, Bill?" he asked.
'Every bleeding day of the year,' said Wells.
As the off-duty men reported in, he found them jobs to do: phone all the hospitals for unknown casualties; get names and addresses of every minicab and taxicab driver from their firms and phone or knock them up to ask if they had seen a maverick cab lurking about at any time. He sent Burton out with Collier to call on all the local toms yet again to ask if they had ever been approached by this minicab with the woman driver. The place was a-bustle. He had given everyone something to do, but in his heart of hearts knew that none of this would do any good. They needed a break, one of his strokes of luck, but his guardian angel was refusing to do any more overtime.
The phone rang. 'Frost.' It was Arthur Hanlon. Liz wasn't at the drop-off point. He'd retraced the route back to her flat. No sign of her.
The phone hardly stopped ringing. Negative reports. Nothing from cab drivers, toms, the hospitals . . . A blaze of headlights in the grimy windows of the incident room. A car pulling into the car-park. Liz! It had to be Liz. It was Mullett, bloody Mullett, just in time to receive a 'Sod all' progress report.
Even at that unearthly hour of the morning, Mullett was a walking tailor's dummy in his immaculate uniform. 'My office!' he barked, flinging the words through the open door of the incident room as he marched down the corridor.
Frost heaved himself out of the chair. 'It's probably about my promotion,' he said.
In the old log cabin with its highly polished built-in wooden cupboards, Mullett sat stony-faced at his desk. 'A shambles,' he said. 'An absolute shambles.'
Frost said nothing. Mullett was right. Of course it was a shambles, but what was the point in stating the bloody obvious? How was this helping to get the poor cow back?
'Against my better judgement I bled our overtime budget dry, on your unequivocal assurance that by doing so we would definitely catch the killer and that nothing would go wrong. Teams of men, on expensive overtime, but when the killer turns up, what happens?'
'We sodded it up,' said Frost blandly. 'I know what happened, Super, I don't need telling.'
'And in addition you have put the life of one of our officers in peril, the very thing you assured me would be avoided. How on earth am I going to explain this to County?'
'I know it's the last thing you'd think of doing,' said Frost, 'but you could always put the blame on me.'
'The fact that I had put my trust in you could still reflect badly on me,' replied Mullett. His eyes lit up as he found a solution. 'We put the entire blame on DC Morgan, a man foisted on us by County against my better judgement. He deliberately disobeyed your explicit orders.' With luck, Denton Division could come out of this comparatively unscathed.
Frost shook his head. There was no way he was having the buck dumped solely on Morgan. 'I was in charge - ' he began.
Mullett cut him short. 'Technically in charge, perhaps, but you had given him explicit instructions and he would know the consequence should he disobey those instructions. I want no falling on swords here, Frost.' He jabbed a finger, happily recalling the phrase used by County. 'Damage limitation, that's what this is all about, Frost, damage limitation . . .'
Frost was about to snap, 'Sod damage limitation,' when there wa
s a tap at the door and Bill Wells looked in.
Mullett scowled, annoyed at being disturbed. 'Can't it wait, Sergeant?'
'Urgent call for Mr Frost,' said Wells. 'Mrs Beatty.'
'Drawers-dropping Doreen?' protested Frost. 'Get shot of her!'
'Who is she?' asked Mullett.
'A sex-starved spinster who imagines she's being stalked,' Frost told him.
'I think you'd better get over there, Inspector,' said Wells. 'She's in a hell of a state. She reckons the stalker broke into her house and she's killed him.'
'Shit!' said Frost. 'This is all we bleeding need.'
He took WPC Polly Fletcher along with him. 'Just in case she accuses me of raping her,' he said.
The young WPC gave a weak smile. She wasn't finding Frost very funny at the moment. It could have been her, instead of Liz Maud, who had been picked up by the killer. With her face wiped clean of the tart's make-up she looked about sixteen. Her hands on the wheel were shaking.
'Don't worry, love,' said Frost. 'We'll find Liz.' He wasn't even convincing himself. 'There's the house.' He nodded at the only one in the street with any lights showing.
He thumbed the doorbell. 'Come on, come on,' he muttered, urging the woman on as she fumbled with the locks and chains. The sooner he got this farce over and was back in the station, the better.
Doreen Beatty was fully dressed, a thick grey coat over her skirt and cardigan. She looked distraught. 'I told you I was being stalked but you wouldn't believe me. He got into my bedroom. He would have raped me.'
They stepped inside and she closed the door behind them. 'I couldn't sleep. I went to the all-night supermarket for some milk. When I came back, there he was, in my bedroom. I hit him with my walking-stick. I killed him.'
'Good for you,' murmured Frost, not believing a word of it. 'Where's the body?'
She pointed a trembling finger to an open door. Frost nodded for Polly to take a look as he yawned and consulted his watch.
'Inspector!' The WPC was trying to keep her voice steady. 'You'd better come in here.'
The man was lying face down on the floor, blood from his head staining the beige carpet. A pillow was half-way down the single bed, an empty pillow case on the floor by the sprawled man. Frost felt for a pulse. The pulse beat was strong, but the man was out cold. He straightened up. 'Not dead and not a stalker, Mrs Beatty,' he told her. 'You've knocked out the pillow case burglar.'
'More than half of our unsolved crime figures wiped out in a stroke,' he told Bill Wells bitterly. 'Any other time I'd be over the moon but tonight I don't give a toss.' Polly had gone with the ambulance to the hospital. Slight concussion, nothing broken and he'd be fit for questioning in the morning. 'Morning? It's bleeding morning now,' said Frost, mooching back to the murder incident room.
He steeled himself to push open the door. All heads turned, everyone expectant, waiting for him to come up with an instant solution so they could roar out and pick up Liz unharmed. He flashed a pleading glance to Burton and Morgan who had just finished their phone calls to cab drivers. They both shook their heads. 'Nothing,' reported Burton. 'What do we do now?'
Pray, thought Frost as he peeled the cellophane off yet another pack of cigarettes. Bloody hell. All these men at his disposal, plus - although Mullett didn't know it yet - men from other Divisions standing by on overtime, and nothing to give them to do. Fall on his sword? If he had a bleeding sword he'd skewer himself on it right now.
They were still looking at him, thinking his silence was deep, studied thought instead of blind panic. He sucked down a lungful of smoke. Then, suddenly, his guardian angel decided to soften her heart. He leapt to his feet. 'The mobile phone . . . she had a mobile phone!'
Burton sighed. What was the fool on about? 'I've tried calling her on it,' he said. 'No reply.'
Frost flapped an impatient hand. 'I know, it's in silent ringing mode. Get on to the mobile phone company. Tell them to pin-point its location.'
Burton frowned. 'Pin-point it?'
'I'm not sure how they do it,' said Frost, 'but they can pin-point the location of all the mobile phones on their network - cross-bearings from their transmitters or something. Never mind how they do it, just get on to them.'
They waited impatiently as Burton made the call. A lot of hanging on, then being transferred to someone else with even more hanging on and Burton getting more and more uptight. Frost crushed out a barely smoked cigarette and lit up another one. At last Burton put the phone down. 'They'll get back to us. It could take a few minutes.'
'You did tell them it's a matter of life or death?'
'Of course I bloody did,' snapped Burton testily-Then he flushed. 'Sorry, Inspector.'
'It's all right, son,' soothed Frost. 'We're all uptight. I was a prat to ask.'
Silence as they all stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Frost was constantly glancing at his watch. How long had the bastard had Liz? What was he doing to her now?
'Inspector!' The angry voice of a furious Mullett from die doorway. He had just been told by Sergeant Wells of the men from other Divisions standing by and the time bomb of a mega-overtime bill ticking away. 'My office - now!'
'Later,' grunted Frost, his eyes back to the phone.
Mullett's face furrowed with annoyance. 'I said now!'
'And I said later,' snapped Frost. 'When I can fit it in.'
Mullett's mouth opened and closed. He couldn't think of what to say. Conscious of all eyes in the room witnessing his discomfiture, he forced a smile and nodded. 'Keep me informed.' He stamped back to his office. Frost would pay for this.
Burton snatched up the phone on its first ring. The mobile phone company. 'What?' He spun round to survey the large wall map of Denton behind him. 'Are you sure? Thank you.' He banged the phone down. 'We're in luck. They've traced it.' They crowded round as he tapped a section of the map. 'The phone is somewhere in this area here - the outskirts of Denton Woods.' He peered again at the map. 'It's nearly all trees and scrubland, but there is one house. There!' His finger jabbed the position. 'That's got to be it!'
'Right,' said Frost, rubbing his hands briskly. 'First thing is to find out who lives there. If it's a nunnery or a home for castrated clergymen, we could be sniffing up the wrong tree.'
Burton dashed out to the computer in Control to check. 'Occupants a Mr and Mrs Gerald Vernon,' he informed them. 'Vernon's had a couple of parking tickets . . . nothing else known.'
'Anyone know the house?' Frost asked.
Jordan pushed forward. 'I do, Inspector. We were called there a couple of months ago for a suspected burglary. Big, posh place, dirty great lawn at the front, double garage, massive garden round the back.' Frost chewed this over. 'We'll all go. The more the merrier. If he manages to get out, we could be combing the woods for the sod, so we hem the place in tight and block all escape routes.' He squinted at the map. 'We don't want them to know we're coming, so once we get to this point . . .' he tapped the map, '. . . headlights off. We'll park well away from the house . . . here.' Again he tapped the map. 'We go the rest of the way on foot and we keep very quiet, so no talking, no torches, no car doors slamming and no bleeding sirens.' He snatched his scarf from the hook and wound it round his neck. 'One other thing. If he listens in to taxicab radios, he could listen in to police broadcasts, so we maintain radio silence.' He buttoned up his mac. 'Let's go.'
Burton was the first out, dashing to his car. Frost hung back for a quick word with Bill Wells. 'Get a doctor standing by, Bill. If we get to the poor cow in time we might need one. And if we don't get to her in time . . . the bastard who did it is going to need one because he's going to be seriously injured while resisting arrest, come what bloody may!'
Chapter 22
It was freezing cold in the car. 'You didn't fix the heater,' Frost grunted.
'Sorry, guv.' Morgan spun the steering wheel and turned off the main Bath Road into the side road that skirted the solid black mass of Denton Woods.
They weren't saying much
to each other, both eaten up with guilt, Morgan for abandoning Liz, Frost for letting him do it. Frost tried to close his mind to self-recrimination so he could concentrate on the task ahead. What state would the poor cow be in when they found her? Would she still be alive? From time to time he twisted round to make sure the other cars were following. Morgan was driving much too fast and nearly missed the lay-by, having to brake hard and reverse into it.
The rest of the team joined them, some having to park up on the grass verge. Only one forgetful, silly sod slammed his car door and had to be hissed into silence.
The night was dark with clouds obscuring the moon, but as they reached the top of a slight rise, the moon found a gap in the clouds and slid through, dousing the landscape in silver and black. Before them stood the house, imposing and isolated . . . Scream as loud as you like, love - no-one can hear you . . . In front of the house a gravelled drive cut through a large lawn which had in its centre a fountain in the shape of a nude nymph, trickling water from a cornucopia into a circular fish pond.
Frost looked anxiously up at the night sky. Everything was too flaming bright. They needed the cover of darkness to get across that expanse of lawn unseen. Then, to his relief, heavy black clouds scudded across the moon face and friendly darkness returned.
'Here's where we split into two groups,' whispered Frost. 'Take your lot round the back, Arthur, the rest come with me.' Burton grabbed Frost's arm and pointed. A gleam of light suddenly splashed out of an upstairs window, then a figure in silhouette drew the curtains together and all was black again. 'The bastard's still up,' whispered Frost, 'so let's be extra quiet. Arthur, signal with your torch when you're in position.'
A cold, anxious wait until the torch flashed its signal. Frost jerked his head to the others. 'Let's go.'
The scrunch of their running feet on the gravel drive decided him to veer across the lawn. A mistake. Half-way across, a ring of security lamps suddenly clicked on, flooding the lawn with blinding light. They froze stock still, holding their breath. They had triggered a sensor. Frost could hear his heart drumming away as he looked towards the house, waiting for the shaft of light from the window. Nothing. 'Back to the path,' he hissed. As soon as they left the lawn, the lights went out, leaving them with a brief attack of night blindness. Frost blinked and rubbed his eyes.
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