“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 of 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.
Susan tried the handle and banged on the door. “Karen, I’m a police officer. Open up.”
“Piss off,” called the girl.
“That’s French for “go away”,” explained Frost. “Boot it in again, son.”
The door crashed back from the onslaught. Karen, her eyes blazing, fingernails clawed, was crouching, ready to meet them, like a karate fighter. She was still stark naked and was not going to let them take her without a fight.
Sue moved into the room; the girl lunged forward to meet her. At the last moment, the woman officer sidestepped and stabbed out her foot to catch the girl on the ankle, sending her sprawling to the floor. Then Sue was down on her, her knee in the girl’s back, her hand forcing the girl’s arm high above her shoulder blades. All Karen could do was scream obscenities and pound the floor impotently with her free hand.
“You can either get dressed,” said the woman detective pleasantly, ‘or I can handcuff you and take you out to the car as you are. Which is it to be?”
To Frost’s disappointment, Karen agreed to get dressed.
A quick phone call to Clare Dawson before the runaway was returned. Frost was hoping she could get her husband out of the house so mother and daughter could get their stories sorted out. When they arrived Max Dawson was out, cruising the streets, looking for his daughter, and wouldn’t be back for half an hour. Apparently his wife hadn’t yet passed on the good news, wanting to surprise him on his return.
With sulky defiance, Karen shrugged off her mother’s attempts to make a fuss of her and just stood staring, with a sly, superior, knowing smile on her face, the smile of one who has power over another. Just wait until my daddy comes home, the smile said. Just wait until I tell him why I ran away.
But Clare, from long practice, knew just how to handle her daughter.
“Do you still want to go to ballet school, darling?”
Instantly, Karen changed back to the fifteen-year-old, the dance-mad schoolgirl, her eyes bright with excitement. “It’s what I want more than anything, Mummy.”
“I think it can be arranged,” said Clare confidently.
“But Daddy has always said no.”
“You leave your father to me,” replied her mother. “But first we’d better have a little chat so we can explain to him what’s been going on.”
Clare showed them to the front door. “Thank you so much,” she gushed. Frost grunted his acknowledgement and walked with Susan to the car. As Webster followed, Clare took his hand and gave it a gentle, conspiratorial squeeze, her finger caressing his palm. “I’m alone here most afternoons,” she whispered. “Always glad of a bit of company.”
As he joined the others in the car, Webster didn’t know whether to feel annoyed or flattered. But he did know it was the best offer he’d had since he arrived in Denton.
“You look happy, son,” commented Frost as Webster slid in behind the steering wheel. “Your beard’s gone all stiff.”
Wednesday day shift (6)
The time had wormed its way around to three o’clock. None of them had eaten, so they took a meal break at a little back-street cafe. The food wasn’t up to much, but it was a happy time for Webster, who found he was hitting it off with Susan Harvey.
It was ten past four as they climbed back into the car. Webster,
hoping the woman detective would sit next to him, was disappointed when
she and Frost settled themselves down in the back seat. “The cop shop
please,
driver,” said Frost grandly, ‘and go the pretty way round via the gasworks.” Webster acknowledged the order with a petulant grunt. Frost’s pathetic attempts at humour had long worn paper-thin as far as he was concerned.
“Control to all units in the Denton area.”
Webster turned up the volume.
“Armed robbery at Glickman’s pawnbrokers, 23 North Street. Owner reported shot. Charlie Alpha in attendance but assistance urgently required.”
Frost leaned over to snatch up the handset. “Hello, Control. Frost here. We’re within two minutes of North Street. On our way. Over.”
Webster slammed the car around corners and in and out of back streets as he tried to meet the inspector’s rash and impossible estimate of two minutes. Frost and the girl were sent sliding from one side of the car to the other, their movements echoed by Frost’s spare pair of Wellington boots on the back ledge. Reaching the High Street, they slowed down to let Susan off, then roared away to North Street, a side-turning off Bath Road.
“Left here,” barked Frost. The Cortina nosed into North Street and pulled up abruptly behind area car Charlie Alpha.
The monotonous shrill of an alarm bell cut through the air. A small crowd of sightseers was being pushed away from the entrance to a shuttered shop by a uniformed police constable. Above the shop door a stout iron bracket supported the universal pawnbrokers’ trademark, three brass balls. A fading painted wooden sign announced s. glickman, jeweller and pawnbroker. The premises had a shabby, down-at-heel appearance and didn’t look nearly prosperous enough to warrant the attention of an armed robber.
They darted from the car to the shop, the uniformed man giving a nod of recognition to the inspector. Inside, their feet scrunched over shards of broken glass that powdered the carpet.
It was a tiny, dingy shop. A couple of paces and they were at a glass-fronted counter, its shelves stripped bare of the jewellery it once held. On the wall, to the left of the counter, a shattered glass showcase containing a mess of broken glass, cheap watches, and cigarette lighters. The wall showcase to the right of the counter contained nine-carat gold chains and pendants and appeared to be untouched.
The fat man in the shiny blue-serge suit dabbing blood from his face was Sammy Glickman, the owner. Balding, middle-aged, tiny shifty eyes behind thick-lensed glasses, and a few more chins than the usual allowance, Glickman was slumped on a chair in front of his counter. A police officer, PC Keith Sutton, was questioning him, jotting down his replies.
The sound of the alarm bell was magnified in the enclosed space of the shop. “Can’t someone turn that bloody thing off?” pleaded Frost.
Holding his now crimson and soggy handkerchief tightly against his forehead, the pawnbroker fished a bunch of keys from his pocket, sorted one out, and offered it to Webster. “There’s a switch under the counter.. . left-hand side.”
Webster killed the alarm. It died immediately but the ghost echo of its high-pitched ringing still scratched at their ears.
The shop was too small to hold four men comfortably, so Frost instructed Webster to go with the other officer and start knocking at doors to find out if anyone saw anything. “Have a look in the road for a licence plate,” he called. “You never know your luck.”
There was now room to move and Frost was able to get close enough to the pawnbroker to examine his injuries. The forehead wound was little more than a deep cut. “The radio reported you were shot, Sammy,” said Frost, sounding disappointed. “I was expecting to find you with your head blown off.”
“Another couple of inches and it could have been, Mr. Frost,” Glickman replied.
“I’ve sent for an ambulance, Inspector,” said Sutton, ‘but it’s not very serious.”
The eyes behind the thick lenses focused indignantly on the constable. “Not very serious? I’m bleeding like a stuck pig. It’s a miracle I’m still alive. He fired straight at me.”
“He missed you, though, didn’t he?” observed Frost, moving behind the counter to poke at the damaged showcase. “And you’re hardly a small target.” Amongst the fragments of shattered glass and the cigarette lighters he spotted some flattened lead pellets. He picked one up with his finger and thumb and displayed it to the constable.
“Yes, sir, I did notice,” said Sutton, sniffing. These damn plainclothes men seemed to think the uniformed branch was blind. “Shotgun pellets. The man fired a warning shot as he was leaving. A splinter of flying glass caused the damage to Mr. Glickman’s forehead.”
“It could have gone in my eye,” moaned Glickman. “Blinded me for life.”
“It could have gone up your arse,” snapped Frost, ‘but it didn’t, so let’s stick to what actually happened.” He dug out his cigarettes and offered the packet around, then had a nose around the shop, pulling at drawers, prodding at showcases. He opened a door behind the counter, and his nose wrinkled at the musty smell of old clothes. Clicking on the light, he faced dusty shelves piled with brown-paper parcels, old suitcases, and hangers full of outdated garments. He returned to the shop, where he examined the security bars and locks fitted to the inside of the main door and shop window. “He got nothing from the window display, then?” he asked.
“Only from the counter,” said Sutton. “Mr. Glickman said he was in and out in a flash.”
Frost nodded, then sat on the corner of the counter, swinging his leg.
“Right, Mr. Glickman. Tell me what happened.”
“What’s there to tell?” asked Glickman. “I’m in my shop, the bell on the door rings, telling me a customer has come in. I raise my head to greet him and I’m looking straight down the barrel of a shotgun. Behind it is this great hulking brute of a man wearing a stocking mask.”
As Glickman was talking, Frost studied the pattern of the shotgun pellet pockmarks on the wall. The spread seemed fairly concentrated and not widespread as would be the case if the gun barrel had been sawn off.
“This gun, Sammy. Was the barrel full-size or had it been sawn off?”
Glickman shrugged. “When a man pokes something like that at you, Mr.
Frost, you don’t get down and measure it.”
“That’s what the girl who was raped said,” murmured Frost.
PC Sutton’s shoulders shook as he tried not to laugh. “It’s pretty certain the barrel wasn’t sawn off, Inspector the damage is too localized. Someone from Forensic should be here soon. They’ll be able to tell us.”
“Yes, they’re such clever bastards,” commented Frost, who had little time for the geniuses of the forensic section. He nodded for Sammy to continue.
“He don’t say a dicky bird, just prods me in the gut with the shooter and indicates I should come around the front and lay facedown on the floor. I don’t need to be told twice. Down I go and I hear him sliding back the counter doors and scooping the cream of my stock into a plastic bag.”
“What sort of stuff, Sammy?”
“Rings, bracelets, brooches, all exquisite items twenty thousand quid’s worth.”
Frost snorted out a lungful of smoke. “Twenty thousand! Do me a favour, Sammy. We’re the police, not the insurance company.”
“All right,” said Sammy reluctantly, ‘perhaps it might have been nearer six thousand. Anyway, he then rams the gun in the back of my neck and says I’m not to move a muscle for ten minutes, otherwise he’ll blow my head off. So I lie there all still, but as soon as I hear the door close, I’m up in a flash and I’m out the street yelling, “Stop, thief”.” He dabbed his forehead again and was disappointed to see that the flow of blood had stopped. “Picture the scene, Air Frost. I’m out in that street yelling, “Stop thief,” and who’s there to hear me? Not a bloody soul! The only person in the street is the robber, climbing into his motor and yanking the stocking mask off his head.”
Frost slid down from the counter. “You saw him with the mask off? Did you see his face?”
“It was the only bloody face in the street. Of course I saw it.”
“Wou
ld you recognize him again?”
Glickman folded the handkerchief carefully and put it in his pocket. ‘listen, Mr. Frost, when a man robs me of thirty thousand pounds’ worth of prime stock, I promise you his face becomes memorable.”
“I suppose you didn’t get the registration number of the car?” asked Frost, not too hopefully.
“Of course I got the bloody registration number. It was a red Vauxhall Cavalier, registration number CBZ2303. They’re nice little motors my brother-in-law has one.”
Frost couldn’t believe his luck. Licence plates falling off Jags, and now an armed robber seen without his mask, his car details noted. He instructed Sutton to buzz Control and get the car’s particulars circulated.
“Already done, sir,” said Sutton flatly. He didn’t need to be told to do something as basic as that.
“And you’ve warned Control that the man is armed and dangerous?”
“Of course, sir.” Or as basic as that, either.
Glickman, piqued that he was no longer the centre of attraction, said peevishly, “Do you want to know what else happened, or am I of no further interest now I’ve done half your work for you?”
Frost hitched himself back up on the counter and waved for Sammy to go on.
“Like I said, I’m screaming to an empty street. He must have got fed up with me yelling at him because he swings his shooter round and fires point-blank range. But he misses me and hits that showcase.”
Frost looked at the showcase and lined up the angles. “Either he was a rotten shot, Sammy, or he only meant to frighten you.”
“He certainly frightened me, Inspector. I’ll be putting the biological washing powder to the test tonight, I promise you. Anyway, I fling myself facedown on the pavement until I hear the car roaring off. Then everyone comes running out to see what’s up. When I’m screaming, “Stop thief,” and being fired at, the street is empty. The minute he’s gone they’re standing eight deep on the pavement.”
The shop door opened and Webster, with the other uniformed man, returned to report that they hadn’t come up with a single witness who had seen anything other than a red, or a blue, or a black car roaring off in the distance. Plenty of people said they had heard the gunshot but thought it was a car backfiring.
A Touch of Frost Page 20