Back in the car, Frost lit up a much-needed cigarette. ‘Friends in high places,’ he mused. ‘I bet they live on the top floor of a tower block.’
‘What do you reckon, Inspector?’ Jordan asked.
Frost exhaled smoke. ‘I don’t know. I still think she’s having it away with the boyfriend, but I’ve got a nagging suspicion that something nasty has happened to her. If we had more manpower down here instead of on loan to flaming County, courtesy of Superintendent bloody Mullett, I’d start searching – but we haven’t. Right, after you drop me off, go to the boyfriend’s house, check his hands for bra marks and check that Debbie isn’t there. Then go and see this girl Audrey, see if she knows more than she is telling – and find out why she stopped coming for sleepovers. Oh – and check the swimming baths. See if anyone remembers Debbie there last night. I still reckon she’ll be back in time for her birthday party, but we might as well pretend we’re thorough for a change.’
Superintendent Mullett, the Denton divisional commander, held the phone away from his ear. The shouting from the other end was overpowering.
‘… And I want a proper detective on the case, not that scruffy, rude, ignorant individual you saw fit to send to me this morning.’
‘Inspector Frost is a very capable officer,’ said Mullett, trying to sound as if he believed it.
‘Inspector Frost is an incompetent, ignorant oaf. A disgrace to the force. Are you going to organise a search party to look for my daughter, or do I have to go direct to my friend, the Chief Constable.’
Mullett straightened up in his chair at the mention of the Chief Constable.
‘He’s Debbie’s godfather – did you know that?’
Her godfather! Mullett’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Leave it to me, Mr Clark. I’ll get a search party organised right away.’
‘Is that a promise?’
‘You have my word,’ floundered Mullett, nodding furiously to emphasise the fact.
‘Good, because I have recorded this conversation.’
A click and the dialling tone.
Mullett carefully replaced the receiver, mopped his brow and picked up the internal phone to summon Frost.
Frost’s radio gave an attention-snatching cough as he coasted into his place in the station car park. It was PC Jordan reporting.
‘Inspector, we checked the swimming baths. Yesterday was senior citizens’ night. A twelve- year-old girl in a bikini would have stuck out like a sore thumb.’
‘Lots of other things would have stuck out as well,’ said Frost.
‘Next, we went round to the boyfriend’s house. No reply. I checked with the neighbours. His parents are away for a couple of days and he is looking after himself. They saw him cycle off around seven yesterday evening, but didn’t see him come back and didn’t see any lights come on. There’s milk on the doorstep, the paper’s in the letter box, and no answer to our knocks.’
‘Have you spoken to that girl, Audrey?’
‘We’re on our way there now.’
‘Right. Let me know what she says.’ He clicked off and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Boy missing, girl missing, both on bikes. It was looking more and more obvious that they had done a bunk together. But a nagging doubt kept chewing away.
As he opened the door to his office, the insistent ringing of his phone greeted him. Before he could pick it up, Sergeant Wells burst in.
‘Just had Beazley – the boss of the supermarket – on the blower, Jack. They’ve heard from the blackmailer – he wants fifty thousand pounds.’
Frost re-buttoned his coat. ‘Tell him I’m on my way.’ As he left the office, he jerked a thumb at his phone. ‘Answer that, would you?’
‘It came this morning,’ grunted Beazley, a short, piggy-eyed man in his late fifties. ‘The bastard wants fifty thousand quid.’ He passed a sheet of paper with an envelope clipped to it over to Frost.
Frost held it carefully by the edges and skimmed through it. Like the previous note, it was handwritten in block capitals:
THAT WAS ONLY A TASTER. I’VE PLENTY MORE POISONS LEFT. PEOPLE WILL DIE. TO STOP ME PAY?50,000 INTO ACCOUNT NUMBER FDZ32432, FORTRESS BUILDING SOCIETY. DO IT TODAY OR THERE’S MORE POISON TOMORROW.
As Frost was reading, Beazley stripped the wrapping off an enormous cigar and lit up. ‘I phoned the building society to get the bastard’s name. They wouldn’t give it to me. Said they had to respect their client’s confidentiality. The sod’s trying to screw me for 50K and they want to respect his bleeding confidentiality
This is a copycat crime, thought Frost. There had been a similar extortion case in London some years before, where the blackmail money was paid into a building society account which the villain had opened with a false name and address. But today building societies insisted on proof of identity so this bloke, obviously an amateur, must be a real prat giving away a traceable number.
‘Are you going to pay it?’ he asked as a cloud of cigar smoke drifted across his face.
‘You tell me,’ grunted Beazley. ‘I’m not risking a single penny unless you can guarantee you can catch him. The sod could take the money and do it again.’
‘Pay it,’ said Frost. ‘He’s got to contact the building society to withdraw it. We’ll catch him.’
Beazley shook ash from his cigar and stared at Frost in disbelief. ‘Pay him? You’re saying I should cough up 50K on the off chance you might catch the sod as he withdraws it? Supposing you are up to your usual standard of efficiency and he draws the lot out while you’re arresting some poor sod for a parking offence? No way.’
‘Your choice,’ said Frost, standing and buttoning up his mac. ‘Let us know when he puts rat poison in your baby food and cuts holes in your condoms.’
‘Hold it!’ barked Beazley, flapping Frost back into the chair with his hand. He tugged at his lower lip in thought, drumming the desk with a gold fountain pen. Then he chucked the fountain pen down on the desk and jabbed a key on his phone. ‘Archer, get your arse in here now.’
Barely had he released the key than there was a timid tap at his door and a little man with thinning, sandy hair blinked nervously at him.
‘You wanted me, Mr Beazley?’
‘Yes,’ snapped Beazley. ‘I want a cheque made out right away for fifty thousand pounds.’
‘Who shall I make it out to?’ asked Archer.
Beazley stared at him in mock surprise, as if he was being asked a stupid question. ‘How the bloody hell do I know?’ He turned to Frost. ‘Who does he make it out to?’
Frost read from the blackmail letter. ‘Fortress Building Society account number FDZ32432.’
Archer had barely left the room before he was back, breathlessly clutching a large chequebook which he placed on the desk in front of Beazley. He stood back deferentially. With barely a glance at it, Beazley uncapped his fountain pen and slashed his signature as if signing for petty cash, then ripped out the cheque, more or less along the perforation, and handed it to Frost, who stuffed it unceremoniously into his mac pocket.
‘Right, Mr Beazley, leave the rest to us.’
Beazley flailed a podgy hand of dismissal and returned to his study of the store’s trading figures with a series of grunts and groans. As Frost left, Beazley was already on the phone to his hapless grocery manager. ‘Hoskins, what the bleeding hell is up with your weekend sales figures…?’
Once outside Beazley’s office, Frost dragged his cigarettes from his pocket and lit up. As he walked away, someone called out that he had dropped something. He looked down. Bloody hell! It was the flaming fifty-thousand-pound cheque. He scooped it up and put it in the comparative safety of his inside jacket pocket. ‘Your money’s safe with me, Mr Beazley,’ he told himself.
The note on Frost’s desk, pinned down by his ashtray, screamed in red block capitals: ‘MR MULLETT WANTS TO SEE YOU URGENTLY’. His internal and outside phones both rang together. Mullett would be on the internal, so he answered the other one first. It was PC Jordan.
&nb
sp; ‘Inspector, we’re over at that girl Audrey’s house. I think you’d better get over here right away and hear what her mother has got to say about Debbie’s father.’
Audrey, a serious-looking twelve-year-old wearing glasses, looked troubled.
Her mother – dark-haired, plumpish, in her late thirties – nodded grimly to Frost in greeting.
‘What have you got to tell me, Mrs Glisson?’ he asked.
She took one of Frost’s offered cigarettes. He lit up for both of them. She inhaled deeply and held the smoke in her lungs for a while before exhaling, a look of bliss on her face. A woman after Frost’s own heart. ‘I shouldn’t really be smoking. Those health warnings on the packets frighten the life out of me.’
‘It’s not a very good sales pitch, is it?’ smiled Frost. ‘So what can you tell us?’
Mrs Glisson turned to her daughter. ‘Go on, Audrey. Tell the inspector.’
‘Mum!’ protested the girl, shaking her head. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Tell the detective why you stopped going to sleepovers at Debbie’s house – go on, tell him.’
Audrey lowered her head and talked to the tabletop. ‘It was her dad. He used to keep bursting in on us when we were getting undressed for bed. Never knocked or anything. And when I was in the shower, he’d charge in saying, “Oops, sorry, didn’t know you were there.” But he knew. He’d taken the bolt off the door – said it was broken.’
‘Did he touch you – interfere with you?’
‘No. I made sure I wasn’t alone when he was about.’
‘He’s a dirty bastard,’ said her mother.
‘What did Debbie say about this?’ Frost asked.
‘She seemed embarrassed… wouldn’t talk about it. She started to tell me something about him once, then clammed up.’
‘If you ask me, he’s been abusing his own daughter,’ offered Mrs Glisson, flipping ash on the floor. ‘If Debbie’s gone missing, Audrey reckons she’s either run away from her father or the sod’s done her in.’
‘Oh, Mum!’ protested Audrey. ‘I told you not to tell anyone.’
‘Debbie’s gone missing,’ insisted her mother. ‘You shouldn’t hide these things. It could be serious
‘It may not be that bad,’ Frost told them. ‘She could have run off with her boyfriend.’
‘What, Tom Harris?’ asked Audrey. ‘She might have done. She said they were going to get up to larks round his house this week while his mum and dad were away.’
‘They’re not round the parents’ house,’ Frost told her. ‘We’ve checked.’ Then he remembered. ‘Debbie took her new bikini with her. Any idea why?’
‘I know she and Tom used to go skinny dipping in that lake in the woods. She might have gone there.’
Skinny dipping? thought Frost. Bloody hell. What a lucky bastard that Tom is. In my day, if you caught sight of a girl’s bare knee you had to have a cold shower. But you wouldn’t take a bikini if you were going skinny dipping.
He stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. ‘Anything else you can tell me?’
The girl and her mother both shook their heads.
‘Well, thanks for the information. If you think of anything else that might help, let me know.’ He scribbled his name and phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to the mother. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’
‘What do you reckon, Inspector?’ Simms asked when they were outside
Frost frowned thoughtfully. ‘The father definitely sounds like a dirty bastard. He might be interfering with his daughter, but we’ve got no proof. His wife knows something, but I don’t think she’d tell. When Debbie turns up we can see if she wants to make a complaint, but we’ve got to find her first.’ He stuck his hands in his pockets and stared across to the dark shape of Denton Woods. ‘Skinny bloody dipping? A bit too flaming cold for that, surely. Just to be on the safe side, after you drop me off, go and have a look round the lake. It’s deep enough to drown in and you could easily get cramp swimming when it’s cold. See if their bikes are there.’ In his pocket, his hand found a piece of paper. The building-society account number given by the blackmailer. Shit, he’d forgotten about it… and he still had the cheque to pay in and he also hadn’t checked to see if the account details were genuine.
His mobile played its little tune. It was Bill Wells.
‘Jack, Mr Mullett’s going spare. He wants to see you right now.’
‘I think he fancies me,’ said Frost. ‘Tell him I’m on my way. And Bill, would you contact the Fortress Building Society and see who, if any one, has an account number FDZ32432.’
Mullett slid the heavy glass ashtray across just too late to stop Frost’s cigarette dropping a cylinder of ash on his desk. ‘His daughter,’ he said, ‘missing since last night and you tell him you have no intention of organising a search?’
‘Not at this stage,’ said Frost. ‘I’m more or less convinced she’s done a runner with her boyfriend…’ His voice tailed off. Doing his usual trick of reading upside-down memos in Mullett’s in-tray, he spotted one from Head Office with his name at the top. He carefully moved his chair forward so he could read what it was about, but Mullett forestalled him, quickly pulling the in-tray away and dropping some other papers on top. Frost’s eyes narrowed. Hello, what’s the slimy bastard up to?
‘Don’t you realise who you are dealing with, Frost? Clark is a very important man. He has the Chief Constable’s ear.’
‘I don’t care if he has the Chief Constable’s dick,’ replied Frost. ‘There’s no way I’m organising a full-scale search yet.’
Mullett reddened as he shot a glance at his office door to make sure the Chief Constable wasn’t suddenly within earshot. ‘Less of that sort of talk, Inspector. You may not know how to handle these matters, but I do. I have told Mr Clark I am authorising a full-scale search immediately for his daughter.’
‘I admire you, Super,’ beamed Frost approvingly. ‘Even though you know it will be expensive and a complete waste of time, will put us way over budget and we haven’t got the men to do it, you are still prepared to stick your neck out and risk all that for a friend of the Chief Constable. I’ll get on to outlying divisions right away and tell them you have agreed to stand the cost of the search on Denton’s budget.’
‘Other divisions?’ spluttered Mullett, realising he should have made some checks before committing himself to Clark. ‘Why do we need to involve other divisions?’
‘Because we haven’t the faintest idea where they went,’ explained Frost. ‘They both went out on bikes. They could be twenty, thirty forty miles away for all we know. They could even be in London by now. The girl didn’t take any money, but the boy might well have done. Still, if you’ve committed yourself, Super, I’ll put it in hand right away.’ He made to stand up.
‘Wait!’ Mullett weakly waggled a restraining hand. ‘What did you intend to do?’
‘Put out an All Divisions Missing Persons, make a few local inquiries and wait for them to come slinking back, the girl with her knickers in her handbag and a satisfied smile on her face. If they haven’t turned up by tonight, then I’ll think about a more thorough search.’
‘A token search now,’ pleaded Mullett. ‘Just a token search, so I can assure Mr Clark we have it well in hand?’
‘Don’t worry Super, I’ll fiddle it for you,’ beamed Frost. ‘I might need you to do me a favour one day.’
DC Morgan was waiting for him in his office. ‘I’ve got a DNA sample from that bloke, Guv,’ he announced proudly.
‘Great,’ said Frost. ‘Any problems?’
‘It wasn’t easy. First. he denied being anywhere near the car park last night. Flatly denied it. When I told him we had CCTV footage he changed his story and said yes, now he came to think of it he might have been there.’
‘He’d forgotten where he was the night before?’ asked Frost. ‘What is he – a doddery old sod or a Welshman?’
‘No, Guv… in his early forties, I’d say. Anyway, I asked for a DN
A sample. I told him he had every right to refuse, but if he did refuse I’d arrest him on suspicion of assault and rape. In the end he agreed. He’s the rapist, Guv, I’m positive. It’s him.’
‘I wish you weren’t so bloody sure, Taff,’ muttered Frost. ‘You’re always flaming wrong.’ He thoughtfully fingered the scar that lined his cheek. ‘Do you think he might do a bunk?’
‘Nice house, nice wife, two kids and a dog, Guv. I can’t see him doing a runner.’
‘Play safe. Make an excuse to keep going back, Taff, and make sure he’s still there. And tell Forensic I want that DNA sample tested right away. We’re short staffed and the flaming cases keep piling up. Be great if we could get this one tied up sharpish.’
The door crashed open, banging against the wall, and an angry-looking Chief Inspector Skinner burst in. He glared at Frost. ‘You’ve let that Sadie tart go?’
Frost started to explain about the blackmailer and the baby milk powder, but Skinner cut him short.
‘Whatever the reason, in future you tell me first, not let me find out by walking into an empty cell.’
‘Good point,’ nodded Frost approvingly, as if praising Skinner for raising it.
‘Another thing. I’ve called a meeting for all station staff, four o’clock this afternoon in the main Incident Room. I’m briefing everyone on the way I’m going to run things here in future. Make sure you are there.’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ cooed Frost.
Skinner stared at him. Like Mullett, he was never sure when Frost was being sincere or was taking the pee. He turned his attention to Morgan. ‘What are you doing here?’
Morgan told him about the DNA sample.
Skinner grunted and turned his attention back to Frost. ‘Right. For the moment, this is your case, Frost, but if the DNA is positive and it looks like we’re going to get a result, then I take over… comprende?’
You bastard, thought Frost. We do the hard work, you take the credit. But he nodded. ‘Comprende, signora.’
Again Skinner glowered at Frost. Was the man being insolent or didn’t he know what signora meant? No way of knowing for sure, but the fool’s days in Denton were numbered, so there was no point making a scene now. He spun on his heel and barged out of the office, leaving the door wide open.
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