Webster raised his eyebrows. “Why do you say that?”
“Because if it’s not him, then it’s got to be someone else, hasn’t it?” muttered Frost, slouching lower into his seat.
They drove in silence until they reached the station, where Frost was dropped off. He had suddenly realized that he hadn’t obtained the Divisional Commander’s authority for the night’s decoy operation.
He trotted into Mullett’s secretary’s office to find the grey-haired Miss Smith crouched over her electronic daisy-wheel typewriter, bashing out a report at high speed.
“Yes, Inspector?” she asked, her eyes not moving from her notebook.
“I’d like to see Hornrim Harry.”
“If you mean the Divisional Commander,” she sniffed, ‘he’s had to go over to County Headquarters. Perhaps I can do something for you?”
“That’s damn generous of you, Ida,” grinned Frost. “Your place or mine?” Still guffawing at his cheap wit, he wandered away, leaving Miss Smith hot-cheeked and fuming.
He ambled over to Sergeant Johnny Johnson at the front desk. “How many men can you spare me for tonight, Johnny?” he asked.
“None,” replied the sergeant, ruling a line to finish an entry. “What did you want them for?”
“Operation Mousetrap. A decoy operation to nab our rapist.”
Johnson nodded. Vaguely he recalled the details, but as far as he knew it hadn’t been officially approved. “Have you spoken to Mr. Mullett about it?”
Frost offered his cigarettes. “I’ve just come from his office,” he said truthfully.
Johnson accepted a light, then consulted the shift rota. “How long would you want them for?”
“As long as it takes, Johnny. Two or three hours, perhaps. If he hasn’t taken the bait by one o’clock, say, I’ll call it off for the night.”
“Tell you what,” said Johnson. “Providing I can call them back if there’s an emergency, I can let you have four men and a patrol car.”
Frost grimaced. This was totally inadequate. Allen’s plan called for a minimum of fifteen men. “Bloody hell, Johnny. It’s Denton Woods I’m trying to cover, not a flaming window box.”
The station sergeant shrugged and returned to the Incident Book. “You can’t have what I haven’t got. Take it or leave it.”
There could be no question about Frost’s answer. No way could the plan possibly succeed with such a pathetically inadequate force. It would be disastrous.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
Webster had just sat himself down in the armchair in his room and closed his eyes for a couple of minutes before shooting off in the Cortina to Sue’s place to spend almost an hour with her before they would have to leave for Operation Mousetrap. But he must have drifted into a deep sleep.
He and Susan, together with Dave Shelby and Mrs. Dawson, were all enjoying a naked, sweaty, lusty foursome in that bed with the padded leather headboard when the door burst open. In the doorway, twitching with fury, was Max Dawson with the shotgun. As Dawson pulled the trigger, Webster suddenly jerked awake and the blast changed into the jangle of the phone.
It was Sue. Angry. Demanding to know where the hell he was. He looked at his watch. Damn and bloody blast! Ten minutes to ten and the briefing meeting at 10.15 sharp.
He splashed cold water over his face and leaped down the stairs to the
car. By anticipating a couple of traffic light changes he was outside
her flat, honking the horn, at three minutes to ten. She scurried
across to the car, not looking at him. She looked marvelous. She had
scrubbed her face clean of make-up and her skin glowed. Her hair was
pulled back in a simple style, and she wore faded jeans and a white
nylon zip-up windbreaker over a red-and-white-striped T-shirt. Look
virginal and innocent, Frost had told her. She looked so virginal and
innocent, Webster was all ready to drag her straight back to the flat,
into the bed,
and to hell with Denton, Frost and Operation-bloody-Mousetrap.
She sat tight-lipped beside him in the car, her face set, her eyes smouldering.
“Sorry, Sue,” he said meekly. “I fell asleep in the chair. I was so damn tired.” He clouted the horn with the palm of his hand as some idiot on a pedal bike swerved directly into their path.
Sue fidgeted with the shoulder strap of her handbag. “It doesn’t matter,” she said sniffily, staring straight ahead.
“Look, I said I’m bloody sorry ...”
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated.
He spun the wheel, turning the car into a dimly lit side road, and jammed on the brakes. He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her, forcing her mouth open, finding her tongue. When they parted, they were both gasping for air like stranded fish. He offered her the radio handset. “Call Frost and tell him you’re not coming. You’ve changed your mind. If he’s running the show the whole thing’s going to be a bloody farce anyway.”
She pushed the handset away. “I always keep my promises.”
He started up the car, then rejoined the traffic flow in the main road. “When Operation Mousetrap finishes, can I spend the rest of the night at your place?”
Her lips curved into a well-scrubbed, virginal, simple, roaringly erotic smile. “That’s a promise,” she said.
Webster put his full weight on the accelerator and left the rest of the traffic standing. He wouldn’t be sleeping alone tonight.
Unless, of course, there was another of Frost’s monumental sod-ups.
They were only five minutes late reaching the briefing room. A burst of raucous laughter billowed out as they opened the door. Frost, sitting on the table up on the dais, had just reached the punchline of some crude joke and was chortling away louder than any of his audience. It was a very small audience. Five men, four of them in casual clothes. At first Webster had difficulty recognizing them, they looked so different out of uniform. The one with the drooping moustache and that moon-faced one, both wearing polar neck sweaters, weren’t they Jordan and Simms, the crew of Charlie Alpha? The young kid in the zip-up leather jacket was, of course, Collier, happy to be away from Police Sergeant Bill Wells for a night. Next to Collier, also in a leather jacket was PC Burton, twenty-five, a tough-looking thug with closely cropped hair, and a very good man to have on your side in a fight. The fifth man, PC Kenny, was the only member of the team wearing uniform.
As Susan entered in her rapist-bait outfit, there were yells of delight and a salvo of wolf whistles. Webster glowered his disapproval. This was a serious business, not a pub outing. He snatched a glance at his watch. Twenty-one minutes past ten. So where were all the others? He was expecting between fifteen and twenty at least.
“This is all there is,” Frost told him.
All? Four hundred acres of woods, miles of paths and a total of seven men. It was ludicrous, farcical, irresponsible, dangerous. “Sue’s not going ahead with it,” he told Frost.
Frost’s face fell. “Aren’t you, Sue?”
She slashed a look at Webster. “Of course I am, sir.”
“That’s all right then,” said Frost, looking relieved. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and ripped out an ear-piercing whistle as an appeal for silence. “Round the map,” he called. They crowded around the wall map.
“This mass of green,” began Frost, ‘is Denton Woods. There’s no way we can cover it properly, so we concentrate on the area where he made his two previous assaults and we bank on Sue’s sex appeal being strong enough to make him come to us, hot and panting, with more than just his tongue hanging out. Now, we know he’s a cautious bastard. He sniffs out the area in advance. If he sees cops, he stays away, which is probably why Mr. Allen’s previous decoy operations failed. So we are going to try a double decoy. We’ve got PC Kenny here in uniform. Kenny will be driving his patrol car with his blue light flashing, doing the rounds of the woods, covering the entire outer perimeter.
I’m hoping that our rapist will be deceived into thinking that what he sees is all there is and that as long as he keeps out of Kenny’s way, he’s going to be safe. In the meantime, long before Sue begins her little nocturnal walk, the rest of us will insinuate ourselves into our positions in this tight little area here.” He tapped the map. “All right up to now?”
Webster’s hand shot up. “Supposing he follows Sue but decides to, attack her long before she leads him anywhere near to where we are?”
“Good question, son, but as long as Sue sticks to the main paths she’ll be all right. He never attacks anyone on the main path.”
Webster snorted in derision. “What do you mean “never”? Just because the two previous assaults were off the main track, that in no way establishes a pattern.”
“You don’t rape women on the main path,” insisted Frost. “It’s too public. Besides, his usual ploy is to wait in the bushes and grab at his victims as they walk past. The main paths are too wide. If Sue sticks to the middle, I reckon she’ll be safe.”
“You reckon?” sneered Webster. “And supposing your reckoning is wrong? It’s not you who’d get raped .. . it’s Sue.”
Frost shook the ash from his cigarette. “I know that, son,” he said mildly. “But there’s a risk to everything. All we can do is minimize that risk. But if Sue wants to back out?” He raised an eyebrow at the woman detective, who shook her head. “In any case, Sue will be in radio contact with us all the time. If she’s attacked on any of the main paths, we will still be able to get to her, although it will take that little bit longer.”
But Webster would not back down. “The extra distance could make all the difference. She could be unconscious and raped by the time we finally get to her.”
“Sue isn’t helpless,” replied Frost. “She’s been trained in unarmed combat and karate. She could have broken his John Thomas in six places by the time we got there. Everyone happy up to now?”
All heads turned to Webster, daring him to complain further. He folded his arms and stared straight ahead, his face a solid scowl of displeasure.
“Passed nem-con. One last point. I’ve got a theory that our rapist will be in the disguise of a jogger, so look out for men in track suits or running shorts.” He indicated a pile of walkie-talkie sets on the side table. “Now everyone grab a radio, and make sure it works.”
While the team surged around the table, sorting out the communications equipment, Frost drew Susan to one side. “I know it’s a ramshackle operation, love, but I think it might work. The important thing is you must take no chances. Anything the slightest bit suspicious, let us know even if it means warning our rapist off. I’d rather abort the whole operation than have anything happen to you.”
She smiled. “I think I can trust you, sir.”
“You’re mad if you do,” said Frost. “I wouldn’t trust me a bloody inch. Let’s fit you up with your radio.”
Susan’s transmitter-receiver was concealed in her shoulder bag, the aerial wire running under the strap. A small hearing-aid-type earpiece enabled her to receive messages, and a tiny microphone disguised as a CND badge and pinned to her wind-breaker would transmit information.
She was sent outside into the corridor to test the equipment, the men all holding their receivers close to their ears with the volume turned down low. They didn’t want the sound of police messages to scare their man off. A long pause with nothing coming through. They all checked their receivers and adjusted the fine tuning. Still nothing. Frost opened the door and yelled to ask if Susan had started transmitting yet.
“Can’t you hear me?” she called from the far end of the corridor. She fiddled with the CND badge, and suddenly there was a loud click and a rustling sound from all the receivers as Susan’s voice rang out loud and clear, “Testing, testing, testing .. .”
Frost radioed back and she confirmed that the receiver was working.
“Hadn’t we better change her radio?” asked Webster, worried that the initial failure might be repeated at a less convenient moment.
“That’s the only one I could find,” said Frost. He sent Sue out again for another test, and this time it worked perfectly. Webster still wasn’t happy. This entire operation was a botch-up, cobbled together at the last moment. It was too risky. Too much depended on luck, which usually stayed away when it was wanted most.
Frost looked up at the wall clock. Eighteen minutes to eleven. “Time to tea ve he called.
Collier and Burton travelled in the Cortina, Webster driving and boiling over because he always ended up the chauffeur. Why couldn’t one of the others drive for a change?
Kenny went on ahead in the patrol car, its lights flashing, the siren warbling. Sue would be travelling with Jordan and Simms in the station’s unmarked van, which would follow on later to give Frost’s team a chance to get established in their concealed positions. Everyone felt excited, laughing and cracking jokes. No-one, apart from Webster, seemed to be taking it seriously.
As the Cortina pulled out of the car park, Burton turned his head and looked out of the rear window at Susan in her tight jeans and T-shirt, waiting by the van. He gave her a wave, then nudged Collier and leered. “Cor, if the rapist doesn’t oblige, I think I’ll have a go raping her myself. Rumour has it she’s very tasty.”
Webster’s face turned crimson. He slammed on the brakes, jerked his head around, and yelled, “Why don’t you shut your face, you coarse bastard!”
Burton rose from his seat, fists clenched, his lip curling back like a snarling mongrel. “Why don’t you try and make me, you hairy sod.”
Frost stuck his arm between the two men and pushed them apart. “Pack it in, you two. You’re like a pair of bloody kids.”
They drove on in uneasy silence. From time to time Burton would whisper something to Collier and the two of them would snigger;
Webster’s knuckles, as he gripped the steering wheel, would get whiter and whiter.
Frost smoked, ignoring it all. His mind was going over his plan again and again, searching for weaknesses and finding plenty. The car slowed down. He looked through the window to see the orange sodium lights of the ring road. He nodded for Webster to stop and let off Burton and Collier, who would approach the stakeout area from this direction, while he and Webster would drive on and approach it by another route. They didn’t want the rapist to see a gang of men all walking up the same side path.
‘ Control your bloody temper, son,” said Frost when they were alone in the car. “You’ll end up hitting someone.”
Yes, you for a start, thought Webster, coasting the Cortina into a lay-by and tucking it tight against a hedge. He made one last appeal to the inspector. “Call this damn thing off before it’s too late. It’s never going to work.”
“I think it will, son,” said Frost, un clicking his safety belt.
“Then you’re a bigger bloody fool than I took you for,” said Webster, throwing caution to the winds. “You haven’t got the start of a decent plan, and you haven’t got anything like enough men, and there’s no backup in case things go wrong. Susan could be beaten up, attacked, raped, and we wouldn’t be anywhere near her. It’s the height of criminal stupidity.”
It was Frost’s turn to lose his cool. He thrust his face very close to Webster’s. “Listen to me, you mouthy sod. Susan Harvey isn’t just your bit of crumpet on the side. She also happens to be a bloody good police officer. She knows the score. We all do. And of course there are risks. The public expects us to take risks that’s why they chuck petrol bombs at us and kick us in the face at football matches. If by taking risks Susan can help us catch the bastard who’s been raping seventeen-year-old kids, then I reckon it’s all worthwhile, even if it puts in jeopardy your chances of knocking her off in bed tonight. So shut your bleeding mouth, son, because your constant whining is getting on my bloody nerves.”
Frost flung open the car door and stamped out, leaving the constable
fuming. Webster fought to regain control,
> then locked the passenger door and climbed out after the inspector. Perhaps Frost was right. Perhaps he was being overly protective about Susan. But that didn’t make this threadbare decoy operation any the safer.
A gentle wind was ruffling the tops of the trees, which seemed to twitch and shrug off its advances. But it was a cold wind. Frost looked up at the sky. Black, the moon obscured by clouds. And the woods were dark and heavy with menace.
Frost shivered, but not from the cold. He suddenly had a feeling that things were going to go wrong. Webster was right. He hadn’t enough men, the planning was half-baked, and it was dangerous. If Webster hadn’t been so smart-arsed about it, Frost might have listened to him, but that scowling, sneering face and waggling beard just increased his stubbornness.
It was darker than Frost had expected. Not too bad when they stuck to the main path, where some of the glow from the sodium lamps filtered through, but as soon as they branched off and plunged deeper into the woods, where trees and shrubs pressed in on each side of them, they had to slow down and almost feel their way through. They needed a torch but daren’t risk drawing attention to themselves at this stage.
A torch! Frost clicked his radio on. “Frost to van. Is sexy Sue there?”
“Sexy Sue here,” came the reply, her voice sounding childlike and breathless through the loudspeaker, almost like the young Marilyn Monroe’s.
“Take a torch with you, Sue. You’ll be able to find your way about better, and if our chum is lurking it will help draw him to you.”
Pleased with himself for having thought of this, he now felt better disposed toward Webster, who was sulkily stamping alongside him. “We’re going to get him tonight, son. I know it.”
“I hope so,” grunted Webster without conviction. He didn’t share Frost’s enthusiasm for the torch ploy. With Susan flashing the torch, the rapist could keep his distance. He would be able to see her without being seen by her.
“I think this is where we turn off,” whispered Frost, his eyes screwed up as he tried to penetrate the darkness. “This is where the seventeen-year-old was attacked last night.” Frost, then Webster, squeezed through the gap in the bushes to reach their pre-selected stakeout stations between two subsidiary paths. First Frost settled down in his position, leaning up against the rough bark of some sort of tree, leaving Webster to flounder on to his own allotted station. He was crashing through the undergrowth like a wounded rhino, and Frost gritted his teeth until the sounds finally stopped as Webster found his position and settled down. “Let’s hope the bastard’s deaf,” Frost muttered to himself. He then checked that everyone was in his assigned position.
A Touch of Frost Page 31