Somewhere in the distance a church clock chimed a solitary one. Frost was cold, stiff and fed up. He didn’t care a sod if the blackmailer turned up or not. He could have Beazley’s sodding money. He just wanted to get back to the station and thaw out. The thought of a hot sausage sandwich was much more alluring than the prospect of capturing a flaming blackmailer. Sod it! If the blackmailer intended to come, he’d have been here by now.
Frost phoned Taffy; who took ages to answer.
‘Wake up, you Welsh git. I’m calling it a night. Jordan’s going to pick you up – stay awake until then.’ Then he called Jordan and Collier and told them to pick everyone up and take them back to the station. ‘There’s a bottle of Johnnie Walker in my desk drawer,’ he said. ‘We can kill it while we watch Mullett’s overtime bill mount up.’ Bloody hell. The thought gave him a clout. The soaring overtime bill and nothing to show for it. He shrugged. He’d face that when it came. Tomorrow, as Scarlett O’Hara said after Clark Gable legged it, was another bleeding day.
The Rest Room was warm and cosy, a welcome contrast to shivering in shop doorways. They sat sprawled out sipping mugs of whisky, half an eye on the television screen with the sound turned off. Kate Holby had taken a sip, screwed up her nose and decided she didn’t like it.
‘We’ll have some coffee soon,’ Frost told her. ‘I hope you enjoyed your stake-out. They’re not all as exciting as this. Sometimes you just stand in doorways for hours and get bleeding cold and sod all happens…’
The microwave pinged. Collier took out the first two curries and carried one over to Frost, then slapped a couple more in.
‘Well,’ grunted Frost, peeling the film top from the plastic container. ‘A bollocking from Mullett and Fatso tomorrow, a hefty bleeding overtime bill and sod all to show for it, but at least I’ll have about three hours’ sleep before that happens.’ He dug out a spoonful of curry.
The phone rang.
He paused, the spoonful of hot curry quivering near his lips. He raised an eyebrow to the wall clock. Three twenty-five. Who the hell would be phoning at this godforsaken time? He tried to ignore it but it kept on ringing.
‘Would someone who doesn’t sound half-pissed answer that bloody thing?’ he said. ‘It might be Mullett enquiring about our welfare, or Tom Champagne telling me I’ve won the Reader’s Digest prize draw.’
‘I’d better do it,’ smiled Kate. She picked up the phone. ‘It’s Fortress Building Society computer control,’ she told Frost.
He pushed himself out of his chair. ‘Don’t tell me the bastard waited until we had all left.’ He took the phone. ‘Frost.’
‘Sorry we’ve been so long getting through to you, Inspector,’ said the voice at the other end of the line. ‘But it’s been panic stations here. All our computers went down. We’ve only just got them back up again. Did you get him?’
Frost’s heart nosedived to the pit of his stomach. ‘Get who?’ But he knew bloody well who. Sod and double sod.
‘Your blackmailer. He withdrew another five hundred pounds.’
Frost’s drink-befuddled brain switched falteringly in and out of focus. ‘Which cashpoint?’
‘The one in Market Square. The same one as before.’
‘What time?’
‘Four minutes past one. You did catch him, didn’t you?’
‘I’ll get back to you,’ said Frost, slamming the phone down. ‘If we’d caught him, I’d have bleeding said so, wouldn’t I, you stupid prat,’ he yelled at the handset.
The team had gone silent, all eyes on Frost, realising something had gone badly wrong. Frost spun round in his chair. ‘He took another five hundred quid from the till in Market Square about a minute after we pulled out. The bastard must have known we were there. Where’s Taffy Morgan? He was supposed to be watching that cashpoint.’
They looked blankly at each other.
‘He never came back with us,’ said Collier after a pause.
Frost turned to Jordan. ‘I thought you were picking him up?’
‘He wasn’t there. I assumed he’d gone with Collier.’
Collier shook his head. ‘He didn’t come with me, Inspector.’
Frost fished out his mobile and keyed in Morgan’s number. ‘I bet the bastard’s fallen asleep and is snoring his head off in the shop doorway.’ The whisky was making him sweat. He wanted to go into the washroom and stick his head under the tap. Morgan’s mobile was ringing. ‘Come on, come on, you Welsh git,’ urged Frost. But it just went on ringing. He clicked off and beckoned Jordan over. ‘You sober enough to drive?’
Jordan nodded. ‘Just about.’
‘Go and look for him. Wake him up gently. A knee in the goolies should do.’
‘Shall I check his digs?’ asked Simms.
He looked flushed, but in slightly better shape than Jordan.
Before Frost could answer, the phone rang. ‘This will be him,’ he said, picking up the hand set ready to give the DC an earful.
‘Inspector Frost? PC Wilson here from Traffic. I’m calling from Denton General Hospital. We’ve followed up an ambulance 999 call. Bloke found unconscious in the gutter. No identification. We thought it was a hit and run.’
‘There’s a point to this, I hope,’ said Frost, wedging the phone between his head and shoulder as he poked a cigarette in his mouth and reached for his lighter.
‘Yes, there is a point, Inspector. When we got to the hospital we recognised the victim. It’s DC Morgan.’
‘Morgan?’ echoed Frost.
‘Yes. He was unconscious when they brought him in. The doctor reckons he’s been clouted on the head with something heavy.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘Nothing broken, according to the X-rays, but they want to keep an eye on him overnight in case of complications.’
‘And you said there was no ID on him?’
‘That’s right. Whoever whammed him must have taken his wallet.’
‘Thanks,’ said Frost. ‘You can get back to booking motorists. I’ll be right over.’
He replaced the phone and raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘The end of a perfect bleeding night. Unauthorised overtime, the money taken any way, Morgan knocked unconscious and robbed and I’ve got a splitting bleeding headache.’ He looked across at Kate Holby. ‘You’re the only sober one here, love. You’d better drive me to the hospital.’
He followed the young nurse through a darkened ward to a curtained bed at the far end. Somewhere in the background a feeble voice kept calling, ‘Nurse… nurse,’ but she took no notice.
‘Shouldn’t someone see to him?’ asked Frost. She shook her head. ‘He only wants to know the time, then when you tell him, five minutes later he wants to know again.’ She opened the curtains so Frost could enter.
Morgan lay in the bed, eyes closed, a white bandage round his head.
‘Someone to see you, Mr Morgan,’ said the nurse.
Morgan’s eyelids fluttered as he turned his head. ‘Hello, Guv.’
‘Not too long,’ said the nurse.
‘Most girls think it’s long enough,’ nodded Frost, dragging a chair to the side of the bed. He unhooked the chart from the foot of the bed and flipped through it. ‘What does “Do Not Resuscitate” mean?’
Morgan grinned, wincing as the effort hurt his head. ‘What do you reckon to that young nurse, Guv? I wouldn’t mind a bit of that in bed with me.’
‘No chance, Taff,’ said Frost, pretending to read from the chart. ‘It says here “Nil by Dick”.’ He tossed the chart on the bed. ‘So what happened?’
‘I’m sorry; Guv,’ Morgan murmured, putting on his shame-faced expression. ‘I let you down.’
‘Deja flaming vu,’ said Frost. ‘I get the impression you’ve said that a few times before. So what happened tonight?’
‘It was him, Guv. The blackmailer.’
Frost’s head shot up. ‘What? Are you sure?’
‘I nearly had him – I nearly bloody had him. I tried to stop him, but he had something in his hand.�
��
‘His dick?’
‘No, Guv. Something heavy. One of those long torches, I think. He welted me round the head and I went out like a light. Next thing I knew I was in hospital and that lovely nurse was leaning over me. I thought I was in heaven, Guv.’
‘You’re sex mad,’ said Frost. ‘A couple of tits stuck up your nose and you’re away. Now, start from the beginning.’
‘Right, Guv. I see him approach the cashpoint.’
‘What time was this?’
'Just after you phoned me to say you was jacking it in. Anyway, he walks past, looks up and down, then goes back. I press right back in the doorway so he can’t see me. He takes the card from his pocket, bungs it in the machine, takes out the cash. Another quick look up and down and away he goes.’
‘In what direction?’
‘The left, Guv. Towards the car park. As he turns the corner, I go after him. I grab his arm and yell, “I’m a police officer.” There was this flash of silver – must have been the torch. My flaming head splits open. I see red flashes, then black…’
‘Then a pair of nurse’s tits,’ snorted Frost. ‘You should have called in for some flaming back-up before going after him.’
‘I know, Guv. But I thought I could handle him.’
Frost heaved a deep sigh. ‘I’ve told you before, Taff. Never rely on your own flaming judgement. Describe him.’
‘About five foot eight or nine, dark zip-up jacket, dark trousers, balaclava and a cap, so you couldn’t see his face or hair.’
‘Marvellous, Taffy. That narrows our prime suspects down to around fifteen million. He went through your pockets and pinched your wallet. Did you know that?’
‘No, Guv. Wasn’t much money in it.’
‘He was probably after your condoms.’ Frost heaved himself up out of the chair. ‘I’ll look in to see you tomorrow if you last the night.’
His footsteps clattered down the darken ward. He waved goodbye to the young nurse, who was at a desk writing up some notes. ‘He said he’s ready for his enema now, nurse.’
In the background the same man’s voice whined on and on, ‘Nurse
… nurse…’
WPC Kate Holby made coffee as soon as they got back to the station. She seemed brighter and much happier than Frost had previously seen her, clearly glad to be involved and part of a team. He gratefully accepted the mug and savoured the steaming aroma. Most of the team still looked the worse for wear, but were slowly sobering up. They had killed a bottle of whisky between them.
Frost tipped sugar from a packet into his mug and stirred the coffee with his pencil. ‘Well,’ he said, taking a sip, ‘let’s look on the bright side. Thanks to Taffy we’ve now got a bloody good excuse why the bloke got away with the money. And if Taffy dies, we get the sympathy vote as well. First thing tomorrow I want all the CCTV footage you can get. If – which is bloody doubtful – the building society have put in a new tape and cleaned the tape head, we might get a clearer picture of a bloke in a balaclava and a cap, which will do us no sodding good at all. Now I’m banking on him coming to collect the dosh by car. He’s not going to risk walking the streets with five hundred nicker in his pocket.’
‘He could have come by cab,’ suggested Simms.
‘I don’t think he’d be that stupid,’ said Frost, ‘but check out all the cab firms anyway. I want details of everyone they picked up from, say, eleven thirty to half past one. One of you do that now.’
Jordan drained his coffee and stood up. ‘I’ll do it, Inspector.’
Frost grunted his thanks. ‘I’ll hang on here until you get back.’ He turned back to the rest of the team. ‘First thing tomorrow, I want CCTV tapes covering all roads in and out of Denton. There won’t be much traffic about at that time of night, so I want every vehicle checked out. We’re looking for vehicles coming into and leaving Denton at the right times.’ He took another sip of his coffee and scratched his head with the pencil. ‘Can’t think of anything else you should do, but if you think of it, do it! Go and get some kip. We’ll start bright and early tomorrow.’
Jordan shook him awake at half past four. No cab firm had any customers during the specified time span apart from a couple of prostitutes and their clients. Frost blinked gritty eyes as he took this in, then decided he was far too drowsy to attempt the drive home. He would sleep in his office and be ready for the CCTV tapes in the morning.
‘Get someone to wake me at eight,’ he yawned.
Chapter 8
Frost woke up suddenly and reached out for an alarm clock that wasn’t there, his hand flapping in empty space. Where the hell was he? His paper-strewn office desk juddered into blurry focus and he remembered the abortive stake-out of the night before. Gawd. He’d have to face Mullett and Godzilla Skinner about that – and flaming Beazley, of course. He’d forgotten that Beazley would be spitting blood at the news that another five hundred pounds of his money had found its way into the blackmailer’s pocket in spite of a police stake-out which was intended to prevent any possibility of such a thing happening.
He shuddered at the thought, then winced as his splitting headache went into overdrive. He had a stiff neck and it hurt him to move his head. The perfect start to the day.
From the corridor outside came the persistent sound of clanging buckets as the cleaners sloshed their mops down the corridor, making the station reek of bleach and pine disinfectant, punctuated by the yells of the drunks in the cells demanding to be let out on bail, and Bill Wells yelling for them to shut up.
‘The Denton-nick flaming dawn chorus,’ he muttered to himself as he stood up and stretched to relieve the aches and pains in his back. Then he staggered out to the washroom, where he splashed cold water over his face and gave his chin a quick buzz with the electric razor. He studied the dishevelled, crumpled face that peered back at him from the steamed-up mirror and rubbed an easily satisfied hand over his chin. ‘Close enough for jazz,’ he muttered.
Passing the door of the Incident Room, he could hear the buzz of many voices inside. He opened it a crack and peeked in. Skinner was addressing the assembled search party. He closed it quickly before he was spotted and hurried to the lobby, where Bill Wells, bringing his logbook up to date, looked up and nodded a greeting. ‘How did it go last night?’
‘A bleeding disaster,’ said Frost. ‘Taffy Morgan got clonked and taken to hospital, but that was the only laugh we had.’
‘Skinner’s been screaming blue murder, Jack. He wants to see you about unauthorised over time and taking the new girl away from the job he gave her.’
Frost sniffed. The siren aroma of sizzling sausages and bacon was fighting its way through pine disinfectant and bleach, trying to lure him up to the canteen for breakfast, but he thought he’d better make a move and get away before
Skinner’s briefing ended. He was a bit too fragile to face Skinner at this unearthly hour of the morning.
‘I’m off out,’ he told Wells, speeding back to his office.
He was winding his maroon scarf round his neck when he heard the clatter of many foot steps down the corridor. The morning briefing was over. The search party was making its way to the car park to resume the hunt for the two missing girls and the boy. He was glad it wasn’t his case any more. He doubted Debbie, for one, would still be alive. If she had run off with her boyfriend, she would have let her mother know by now, just to reassure her. He was glad Skinner would be the one to have to break the news to the parents when the bodies were found. The parents. This reminded him that Debbie’s father and the other paedophiles were waiting to be questioned, Again, thank God it was Skinner’s case. And then there was Graham Fielding, the Christmas killer. But they were all Skinner’s concerns, not his. Fatso had some uses, after all.
He opened his office door and his heart sank as he came face to face with Godzilla.
‘My office,’ snapped Skinner, turning on his heel, not even checking if Frost was following or not.
Skinner’s office was sparsely
furnished; most of the furniture had been removed, ready for the decorators. Frost sat down opposite a simmering detective chief inspector.
‘What the bloody hell do you think you were up to, Frost? You don’t bloody authorise over time – I do. And what do we get for our overtime money? We get a bloody fiasco of a stake-out and chummy gets the five hundred quid anyway. You let that Welsh twit watch the most likely cashpoint and he gets himself knocked unconscious, but not unconscious enough for us to be spared his bleeding useless company for long…’
Frost did his usual trick in such circumstances. He switched off his ears and let his eyes wander over the contents of Skinner’s in-tray. He was extremely interested in the ‘Request for Transfer’ form which lay on the top of the heap of papers. It was the second such form he had seen in so many days. Who the hell was requesting a transfer? Was it the new girl? Had Skinner succeeded in driving the poor cow out of Denton? He shifted his position so he was nearer the in-tray and able to read the details, but Skinner forestalled him by pulling the form from the tray and sliding it into his desk drawer, which he locked. What’s so bloody secret about a ‘Request for Transfer’ form? thought Frost.
‘You are listening to me, I hope?’ barked Skinner.
‘Every word,’ said Frost, ‘and I agree with you all the way.’
He hoped this was the right response.
Skinner stared hard at him. ‘And you don’t take that girl away from doing my work, do you hear?’
‘Loud and clear,’ nodded Frost. His policy was to agree with everything, then go his own way.
He slid his chair back and stood up. ‘If that’s all…’
‘That’s not bloody all,’ snarled Skinner, his hand waving Frost back to his seat. But he’d run out of steam. His mouth opened and closed as he tried to think of something else, but he had covered everything in the tirade Frost had closed his ears to. ‘Just make sure you obey my orders to the letter in future. Comprende?'
‘Absolument pas,’ said Frost.
He stuck his head round the door of the Incident Room to find Collier seated in front of a monitor, watching CCTV footage of late-night traffic the previous night. Collier pressed the Stop button when Frost came in.
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