A Touch of Frost

Tuesday night shift (3)

Out to the car park and the Cortina, Frost scuffling along behind Webster, the bright lights from the canteen windows looking down on them. Absent-mindedly, Webster slid into the passenger seat and stretched out as he used to in the days when a detective constable drove him around. Frost opened the passenger door and peered in. “I think you might be sitting in my seat, son.”

With a grunt of irritation, Webster shifted over to his rightful, lowly place behind the wheel, listening sullenly to the muddled directions Frost gave him as they drove off.

It was Frost who broke the uneasy silence.

“This might come as a surprise to you, son, but you’re not exactly the flavour of the month around here.”

Webster, in no mood to accept any form of criticism, especially from a twit like Frost, stiffened. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, son, that you’ve been behaving like a spoiled brat ever since you arrived. I know we’re not God’s gift to the demoted, but why don’t you try and meet us halfway? The odd little smile twinkling through your face fungus wouldn’t come amiss.”

“I treat people the way they treat me,” snapped Webster, slowing down to wait for the lights to change. “I’m sick of having to put up with all this “Thank you, Inspector… sorry, I mean Constable” crap.”

“Young Collier’s harmless,” said Frost.

“It’s not only Collier,” said Webster, accelerating as the lights changed, ‘it’s everyone, especially Sergeant Wells. He delights in making me look small.”

“There’s a reason,” Frost said. “Bill Wells wants to be an inspector so badly it hurts. He’s passed all the exams but the Promotion Board keeps turning him down. So when he comes across someone who was an inspector, something he’s never going to be, and who chucked it all away, well, he’s bound to feel resentful.”

“And there’s Inspector Allen,” began Webster.

“Inspector Allen is a bastard,” Frost cut in. “Lots of inspectors are bastards. I bet you were one yourself.” He peered through the dirty wind-screen. “Turn right here.”

Webster spun the wheel, braking suddenly as the car headlights picked out a brick wall charging towards them. They had driven down a cul-de-sac.

“Sorry,” said Frost. “I meant left.”

Stupid bastard, thought Webster, backing out with great difficulty. “And another thing. Why was I deliberately excluded from that dead junkie investigation tonight?”

“Because I’m a stupid old sod who never does the right thing,” replied Frost disarmingly. “I’m sorry about that, son, honest I am.”

The reminder about Ben Cornish made him feel guilty. He knew he hadn’t been very thorough. All he had wanted to do was get out of that stinking hole and off to the party. And there was no mystery about it. Accidental death, like the doctor said. But something nagged, itched away at the back of his mind. He shut his eyes, trying to picture the scene… the filth, the body… the sodden clothes. Wait a minute, the clothes! He had the feeling that the pocket linings of the overcoat were pulled out slightly as if someone had gone through the pockets. Yet Shelby had said he hadn’t searched the body. It wouldn’t be the first time a copper had been through a dead man’s pockets and kept what he found. Immediately he discounted this possibility. Shelby might be a lousy copper in many ways, but he wasn’t a thief. Besides, what would Ben have had that was worth plunging your hands in vomit-sodden pockets to find?

He shook his head and erased the picture from his mind. Then he realized he still hadn’t broken the news to Ben’s mother. He sighed.

There were so many things he had left undone. Which reminded him

“Did you manage to finish the crime statistics?” he asked hopefully. cNo,” said Webster, ‘your figures didn’t make any sense.”

Frost nodded gloomily. They didn’t make any sense to him either, which was why he had passed them on to the detective constable. The returns were a monthly headache. This month Mullett had received a rocket from County Headquarters because, yet again, in spite of firm assurances, the Denton figures hadn’t been received on time. Fuming at his division’s failure, Mullett, in turn, had castigated Frost, and County had reluctantly agreed to extend the deadline by thirty-six hours. This deadline expired tomorrow.

“First thing tomorrow, son… as soon as we get back from the post-mortem… we’ll make a determined effort.”

Webster said nothing. Frost’s intentions were always of the best, but when the morning came, and the question of doing the returns was raised, Frost would suddenly remember some pressing reason why he and Webster had to go out. Webster badly needed to make good, but his chances of clawing his way back to his old rank of inspector were being sabotaged by his involvement with this hopeless, incompetent idiot.

“Left here,” directed Frost. Webster spun the wheel and the Wellington boots on the back seat crashed to the floor.

Frost leaned back and picked them up. “Must get the car cleaned up soon. We’ll do it as soon as we finish the crime statistics.”

High up, ahead of them, a large house, its grounds floodlit. “That’s the Dawson place, son. Dead ahead.”

Max Dawson was waiting for them at the open front door. He barely glanced at the warrant cards they waved at him, almost pushing them into the house and through the double doors which led to the lounge.

The split-level lounge, which ran almost the full length of the ground floor, was roomy enough to hangar a Zeppelin. It smelled strongly of expensive leather, rich cigar smoke, and money… lots of money. A welcome contrast to the gents’ urinal back of the High Street, which smelled of none of these things, thought Frost.

The lower level, panelled in rich oak, gleamingly polished, boasted a bar as big as a pub counter but much better stocked, and an enormous natural-stone fireplace with an unnatural but realistic log fire roaring gas-powered flames up a wide-throated brick chimney. The room’s trappings included a giant-screen projection TV posing as a Chippendale secreta ire a concealed screen that emerged from the wall at the touch of a button, and at least five thousand pounds’ worth of custom-built hi-fi equipment in flawlessly handcrafted reproduction Regency cabinets. The carpeting was milk-chocolate Wilton over thick rubber, underlay. It set off the deep-buttoned, soft leather couches in cream and natural brown.

The second level, up a slight step, housed a full-sized snooker table with overhead lights, cue racks, and score-board. One wall was lined with what appeared to be banks of gilt-edged, leathes-bound books that probably concealed a wall safe, the other with open-fronted cabinets displaying sporting guns, revolvers, and rifles.

Dawson came straight to the point. “My daughter’s been kidnapped,” he said, flicking his hand for them to sit. “I’ll co-operate with the police, but if there’s a ransom demand, I intend to pay it. My only concern is my daughter’s safety.” Then, as an afterthought, he indicated the woman seated by the fire, cradling a glass, “My wife.”

Dawson, in evening clothes, the two ends of his bow tie hanging loose, was a short stocky man of about fifty with thinning hair, hard eyes, and tight, ruthless lips. Clare, his wife, was much younger and quite a looker, with dark hair, rich, creamy flesh, and the most sensuous mouth Frost had ever seen.

“Right,” said Frost, unbuttoning his mac. “We’d better have the details.”

The door bell chimed. Dawson jerked his head to his wife. “That’ll be the Taylors. Let them in.” Obediently, she tottered out of the room. “I want you to hear what this girl has to say,” he told the two policemen.

While they waited, Webster rose from his chair and wandered over to the second level, where he took a closer look at the guns. He removed a Lee Enfield Mark III from a rack and squinted down its sights. “Are these genuine, sir?” he asked.

“Of course they’re not bloody genuine,” snapped Dawson. “They’re replicas. I’ve got the genuine guns locked away.”

“I take it you have a gun licence, sir,” persisted the detective constable, forgetting he wasn’t in charge of the case.

Annoyed at this digression from the main business, Dawson jerked open the drawer of a long sideboard and pulled out some papers. “Yes, I bloody have. Do you want to waste time seeing it, or shall we talk about my daughter?”

Stubbornly, Webster held out his hand for the licence. Frost jumped in quickly before the constable got too entrenched in his detective inspector act. “We can spare the gentleman that formality,” he said firmly.

Reluctantly, Webster’s hand dropped. That’s right, you bastard, make me look small, he smouldered, his expression mirroring his thoughts.

Clare Dawson returned with Mr. Taylor, a nervous little man with a pencil moustache who entered the lounge hesitantly, as if not certain of his reception. He clasped the hand of his daughter, Debbie, whose face was hidden in the hood of a thick blue duffel coat.

“So sorry about the misunderstanding, Max,” he began, offering his hand.

“Misunderstanding?” snarled Dawson, knocking the hand away. “You little creep. If anything’s happened to my Karen, I’ll break you.. ”

His wife tried to make peace. “I’m sure nothing’s happened to her, Max.”

Dawson spun round, his face furious. “What are you, bloody clairvoyant all of a sudden? How do you know she’s all right? You don’t even bloody-well care!” He paused and waved his hand jerkily in what was intended as a gesture of apology. “I’m sorry. I’m overwrought.” He squeezed out a smile for Taylor and the girl. “Please sit down.”

Debbie unbuttoned the duffel coat and slipped it off. Beneath it she wore a green long-sleeved pullover. A serious-faced little girl wearing glasses, her hair twisted in pigtails, she looked half asleep, frightened, and a lot younger than her fifteen years.

“Right,” said Frost. “Let’s make a start so Debbie can get back to bed.” He checked to see what Webster was up to and was annoyed to locate him back with the guns. “Do you think you might spare the time to take a few notes, Constable?” he called.

Webster’s frown crackled across the room like a lightning flash as he dragged out his notebook.

“Karen’s been kidnapped,” said Dawson. “There was a man hiding in the house. You saw him, didn’t you, Debbie?”

“Well, I think I did,” whispered the girl. She seemed too shy to look at anyone in the room and kept her head bowed down.

“You think you did?” shouted Dawson angrily. “What do you mean “think”? You told me over the phone you definitely saw him.” He spun around to Mr. Taylor. “Have you been getting her to change her story?”

“Hold hard everyone,” pleaded Frost. “This is getting confusing. I’m a bit on the dim side, I’m afraid, so everything has to be explained very slowly to me. How about starting right from the beginning with not too many long words?” He nodded for Dawson to begin.

“I’m managing director of Dawson Electronics. Tonight was the firm’s annual dinner and dance, which my wife and I attended. As we wouldn’t be back until late, our daughter, Karen, had arranged to go straight from school with Debbie to see a film at the Odeon — Breakdance or some such name they’re both mad on dancing. After the film they were going back to Debbie’s house, where Karen was to stay the night. My wife and I got back home from the function a little after 11.30. I phoned Taylor to see if Karen was all right. He told me they hadn’t seen her. Debbie had turned up outside the Odeon at the appointed time, but no Karen. Debbie waited and waited, but, as Karen hadn’t arrived by the time the programme started, she went in and saw the film on her own.”

“Hold on a minute,” said Frost. “You say Debbie waited for her outside the cinema? I thought the original idea was that they went straight there together from school?”

“Tell the inspector, Debbie,” said Dawson.

“The school closed at lunch time,” said Debbie, her head bowed, talking to the floor. “We were all sent home. The teachers went on strike.”

‘ Did you hear that?” demanded Dawson, quivering with barely suppressed anger. “The teachers went on bloody strike! If they worked for me I’d sack the lot of them. And this isn’t the state-run comprehensive school we’re talking about. This is St. Mary’s.”

Frost nodded. St. Mary’s College for Girls was a very exclusive, extremely expensive private school for the daughters of the filthy rich.

“They kick the kids out, lock up the school, and don’t bother to tell the parents,” ranted Dawson. “If anything has happened to Karen as a result of this, I’ll sue that bloody school for every penny it has.”

As the tirade continued, Frost’s eyes wandered to Mrs. Dawson, who was quietly topping up her glass. She certainly was a seductive piece of stuff. At a guess, she was at least fifteen years younger than her husband, but it was difficult to tell those rich birds knew how to slow down the ageing process. Her low-cut red-and-black evening gown revealed acres of warm, creamy flesh just crying out for exploration. She was, if one were being hypercritical, just a trifle on the plump side, but warm and inviting nevertheless, just like an over-inflated sex doll. She’s wasted on her husband, he thought. I bet he only has sex if it comes up on his agenda. 11.02–11.04, sex with wife, weather permitting. As Frost tore his gaze away, his eyes met Webster’s. He too was taking a sly surveillance. Frost leered and gave the constable a knowing wink. Webster looked away quickly, finding his notebook of consuming interest.

“So the pupils were sent home at lunch time, sir?” Frost prompted.

“Yes. Debbie walked back with Karen as far as the gates to the drive, and they arranged to meet outside the Odeon that evening.”

“What time would this be, Debbie?”

“About a quarter to two,” she told the carpet.

“You would be at work at that time, sir?” Frost suggested to Dawson.

“Of course I damn well was.”

“And where were you, Mrs. Dawson?”

Clare began to reply, but her husband had no intention of yielding the floor and answered for her. “My wife was out at the hairdresser’s. That’s the point. The house was empty, and yet Debbie saw…”

“Debbie can tell us herself,” cut in Frost. He beamed at the young girl. “Tell us what happened, love, and the naughty man with the nasty beard will write it all down.” He had added this for Webster’s benefit as the constable’s notebook looked suspiciously devoid of shorthand.

Debbie spoke so quietly they had to lean forward to take in what she was saying. “I left Karen at the gates at the bottom of the drive. My house is farther on. As I turned and waved to her, I saw

… I thought I saw… someone at the window of Karen’s bedroom. I didn’t pay much attention. I didn’t know the house was supposed to be empty.”

“Was it a man or a woman?” asked the inspector.

She stared hard at the floor. “I can’t be sure but I think it was a man. He was closing the curtains. I only saw him for a second.”

“Closing the curtains? You mean the bedroom curtains were open. The man you saw was pulling them together?”

“Yes. I thought nothing of it at the time. I didn’t know it was supposed to be important.”

Frost rubbed his chin. “Did you see Karen go into the house?”

“No, but I saw her walking up the path toward the house.”

“And she had arranged to meet you outside the Odeon at what time?”

“Half past five.”

“You arrived on time?”

“I was there five minutes early. I waited until six… that’s when the programme started. She didn’t turn up, so I went in on my own.”

“Were you surprised she didn’t turn up?”

Her eyes blinked rapidly behind her glasses. “Yes. She’d been excited about it for weeks we both were and she was looking forward to spending the night at my house.”

“Any idea where she might have gone?”

She shook her head. “No. No idea at all.”

“We’ve phoned all her other friends,” said Dawson. “It’s bloody obvious. She’s been kidnapped. The man was inside the house, waiting for her.”

“Thank you, Debbie,” said Frost, ‘you’ve been a great help. Now, you go off home and back to bed. If you think of anything else, get your dad to phone me.” He dug around in his pocket until he found a dog-eared card, which he handed to Taylor. While Clare was showing father and daughter out, Frost asked for a photograph of Karen.

Max Dawson took a coloured photograph from a mosaic-topped coffee table and handed it to the inspector, who studied it, then passed it over to Webster. A photograph of a schoolgirl, dark, shiny, well-brushed hair, a scrubbed, glowing face with a hint of freckles, a snub nose, and a broad grin. If she was fifteen, then, like Debbie, she looked very young for her age.

“A pretty kid,” smiled Frost. “When was this taken?”

Dawson snapped a finger for Clare to reply. “About six or seven months ago,” she said obediently.

“And how old is she?” inquired Webster, writing the details on the reverse of the photograph.

“She was fifteen last Thursday,” Dawson answered.

“Thank you, sir,” said Frost. “And now a couple of questions for you, Mrs. Dawson.”

She started as he addressed her, catching her glass just in time to stop it from falling over. Then she tried to light a cigarette from a statuette of a visored knight in armour that doubled as a table lighter, but she had difficulty in steering the flame to the end of her cigarette. At last the cigarette was alight, but still she kept the statuette in her hand, fidgeting with it, clicking the flame on and off, on and off. “Yes, Inspector?”

She was understandably nervous, and of course worried… but there was something else… something almost furtive about her. The same furtiveness Frost had seen in the face of Dave Shelby. Later, he would remember how he had linked her with Shelby and all for the wrong reasons.

“What time did you leave the house to go out, Mrs. Dawson?”

“This evening you mean?”

“Of course he doesn’t bloody-well mean this evening,” snarled her husband, snatching the lighter from her hand and putting it on the oak mantelpiece above the fireplace, well out of her reach. “He means when you went out to get your bloody hair shampooed and set.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. The appointment was at two. I left the house shortly after one.”

With a quick glance to make sure Webster was recording these details, Frost then asked, “And what time did you get back home?”

“Five o’clock, perhaps a little later.”

“Three hours for a shampoo and set?” queried the inspector. “I didn’t think it took that long.”

“It only took an hour, but afterward I walked around the town, looking at the shops, then I went in Aster’s Department Store and had afternoon tea.”

“When you returned home, was there anything that didn’t seem quite right… any feeling that someone had been in the house while you were out?”

She considered this for a moment, then firmly shook her head. “No, nothing.”

Frost smiled his thanks, then switched his attention to the husband. “You suggest your daughter has been kidnapped, sir. I take it there’s been no contact from anyone claiming to be holding her, no phone calls or ransom demands?”

“There’s been no approach… yet. But it will follow, I have no doubt about that. I’m a rich man, a bloody rich man. My daughter is missing, a man was hiding in here, waiting for her. You don’t have to be a genius to see she’s been kidnapped.”

Frost leaned back in the chair and stared up at the high ceiling with its indistinguishable-from-real oak beams and its crystal chandelier. He worried at his scar and chewed the facts over. He wasn’t sold on Dawson’s kidnap theory. If the kid had been kidnapped, surely her abductors would have immediately warned her parents not to contact the police. And here it was, some ten hours or more after the event, and they still hadn’t made their approach. No, he couldn’t buy the kidnap scenario.

Webster watched the old fool drifting off into his reverie, trying to find inspiration from the ceiling. Look at him, he thought. He hasn’t a clue about what to do next. Well, if the inspector didn’t know what to do, Webster certainly did. Abruptly he snapped his notebook shut and stood up.

“Right, Mr. Dawson. Debbie saw a man in your daughter’s room, so we’ll start by taking a look up there.”

The inspector’s face went tight, but after a couple of seconds he relaxed and forced a smile. Pushing himself from the armchair’s cream-and-brown embrace, he said mildly, “Upstairs is it, Mrs. Dawson?”

Clare drained her glass and rose unsteadily to her feet. “I’ll show you.”

They followed her up a wide, deeply carpeted staircase to the first floor. Her tight-fitting evening dress did more than hug her figure. It intimately explored it, and they were treated to a glorious display of wriggling buttock cleft which Webster might have missed had not Frost nudged him and pointed.

A short wade through the knee-deep carpet of the landing to a dove-grey padded door, which she opened. She clicked on the light, then moved back slightly for them to squeeze past. It was a tight squeeze and she didn’t seem to want to make it any easier. “This is Karen’s room.”

“Thanks very much, Mrs. Dawson,” said Frost, taking her arm and steering her out of the room. “We’ll give you a shout if we want anything.” The door had barely closed behind her before he added coarsely, “Though it’s pretty obvious what you want, darling.”

Webster scowled but didn’t respond. He was becoming inured to the inspector’s tasteless comments on the people with whom they came into contact. But he would have thought even Frost would draw the line at a mother whose kid was missing.

Frost sprawled out on Karen’s bed and bounced up and down to test the springs. He found a half-smoked cigarette hiding in his pocket and lit it gratefully. “Well, you wanted to search the room, son, so search it. If you find any important clues, such as a severed hand, or a warm bra with the contents intact, let me know. Wake me up if I’m asleep.” He closed his eyes and relaxed.

“I was hoping for your co-operation.”

“Oh, it’s me who’s supposed to co-operate with you, is it?” he asked, as if understanding for the first time. “I thought it was the other way around. I’ll co-operate by keeping out of your way.” And he wriggled comfortably.

Who needs your bloody help? thought Webster.

It was a teenager’s dream bedroom, straight out of the pages of an up-market pop magazine. The ceiling was finished in sky blue and dotted with a firmament of silver stars. Along one wall a custom-built unit held a music centre, a video recorder, and a small fourteen-inch colour TV to which was connected a computer keyboard.

Opposite, behind light-oak sliding doors, a built-in wardrobe travelled the entire length of the wall. Webster slid back the door to reveal rows of dresses and coats rippling on hangers. In a separate section a white ballet dress shimmered and rustled next to a cat suit and three pairs of leotards. Neat lines of tap and ballet shoes occupied the wardrobe floor.

Webster moved to the corner, where a small desk faced a double row of bookshelves. On the desk were two blue-covered school exercise books with Karen Dawson, Form VB neatly written along the top. He opened one of them to read, in Karen’s neat handwriting, If I were Prime Minister, the first thing I would do on taking office would be to abolish poverty throughout the land… He dropped the exercise book back on the desk.

Frost was still stretched out on the bed, eyes half closed, watching puffs of cigarette smoke drift like clouds across the star-spangled ceiling. “OK, son, if you’ve got any theories, let’s have them.”

“Well,” Webster began, ‘if she has been kidnapped…”

“Kidnapped!” snorted Frost, reaching out for the exercise books. “I wish she had been, son. A nice kidnapping case might make Mullett forget I hadn’t done his lousy crime statistics.”

“The man Debbie Taylor saw…” said Webster.

Frost sighed deeply. “Yes. I wish she hadn’t seen him, son. That bloody man messes up all my theories. My theory is that Karen comes home, finds the house empty, and decides it would be a good opportunity to do a bunk.”

“Run away, you mean?”

“That’s right. Teenagers run away from home all the time, especially when their parents are always rowing like those two charmers downstairs.”

“The father’s a swine,” retorted Webster, ‘but the mother’s all right.”

“All right?” cried Frost. “Her daughter’s missing and she still finds the inclination to polish our buttons with her knockers as we have to squeeze past her into the bedroom? We could have had a quickie behind the door if we played our cards right. The pair of them aren’t worth a toss, my son. Karen’s run away, but give her a couple of cold nights and no clean knickers and she’ll soon come crawling back to finish her essay about saving the world from poverty.”

“But the man…”

Frost ran his teeth along his lower lip. “Yes, son, what about the man?” He crossed to the window, noticing that the curtains were open. Debbie had said she saw the man closing them. He opened the window and hurled out his cigarette, then leaned forward and peered along the drive, which sloped down to the main road, trying to locate the spot where Debbie would have been standing when Karen left her. Reluctantly, he was forced to agree that if there was a man, young Debbie would have been able to see him from the road. He withdrew back into the room and closed the window.

“If it was a kidnap,” said Webster, thoughtfully, ‘then how would the man know Karen would be home from school early?” He thought for a second, then answered his own question. “Suppose he was one of her schoolteachers?”

“The teachers are all women,” said Frost, poking another cigarette in his mouth, ‘though a couple of them have got moustaches. The only man is the caretaker, but he’s pushing seventy.” His fingers found a gap in his mac pocket. “Sod it!”

“What’s up?” asked Webster.

“There’s a hole in this pocket. My lighter must have dropped out. Now when did I use it last?”

“About five minutes ago. It’ll be near the bed.”

Frost went down on his knees and began patting the thick pile of the shag carpet. As his hand explored the area beneath the bed he touched something. He dragged out a small metal case covered in pale-blue leatherette. The legend on the lid read The Intimate Bikini Styler for That Sleek Bikini Line. Flicking open the lid, he looked inside. “Here’s a weird-looking electric razor, son.” He passed it over to Webster, who nodded curtly.

“They’re called Bikini Stylers.”

“I know that,” said Frost, still searching for his lighter. “It’s printed on the lid, but I’m none the wiser.”

Webster looked embarrassed. “Some of these modern bathing suits that girls wear… the bottom half is cut very low… they expose parts of the lower stomach… the very low lower stomach.”

Frost looked at him blankly, then his eyebrows rocketed up as the penny dropped. “You don’t mean…? Are you trying to tell me that women actually shave themselves down there before they put their bathing drawers on?” He stared hard at Webster. “You’re having me on.”

“It’s a fact,” Webster insisted “My wife uses one.” His eyes glazed reflectively. “She looked a cracker in a bikini.”

Frost regarded the dainty shaver, shaking his head in awe. “Now I’ve heard everything. I wish the hospital had one of these when I had my appendix out. Before the operation they sent in a short-sighted nurse with a Sweeny Todd cutthroat. That was the first time in my life I really prayed.”

He snapped the lid shut and poked the case back under the bed, wondering what a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl would be doing with a thing like this.

“By your left foot,” called Webster, pointing to the missing lighter.

Frost retrieved it, lit up, and flopped back on the bed. He yawned. “I could stay here all night, son, especially if young Karen, all fresh, sweet, and clean-shaven, would slip under the sheets beside me.” He turned his head and saw the photographs. Two of them on the bedside cabinet, propped up against a tiny Snoopy digital alarm clock.

He sat up to examine them. One showed Karen in the white ballet dress from the wardrobe, standing en pointe, hands outstretched, looking demure and sweet. The other was a beach scene, brilliant sky, silver sand. Two girls — one, young Debbie minus her glasses, flat-chested in a one-piece dark-blue bathing costume, looking as embarrassed as if she were stark naked; next to her, smiling with the sensuous mouth she had inherited from her mother, Karen Dawson, long-legged, well-developed, posing in a white two-piece swimsuit that caressed and stroked every curve of her young body. An entirely different Karen from the scrubbed schoolgirl in the other photograph.

“No sign of five o’clock shadow,” muttered Frost, looking closely before handing the prize over to Webster.

The detective constable winced. Anything prurient and Frost flogged it to death. But the photograph certainly showed the girl in a different light. Unlike the inspector, Webster wasn’t convinced the girl had left home of her own accord. There was one way to check, of course. He asked Frost to get off the bed, then he rummaged under the pillow and pulled back the bedclothes.

“I don’t think you’ll find her in the bed,” said Frost. He had pulled out the drawers of the bedside cabinet and was rummaging through the contents.

“I was checking to see if her pyjamas were there,” sniffed Webster. “If she’d done a bunk I would have expected her to take them with her. They’re not here.”

“But that doesn’t mean she’s taken them with her,” said Frost, pushing the drawers shut. “She might be like Marilyn Monroe and wear nothing in bed but her aftershave.” He lifted the top sheet and brought it to his nose. “Tell you what, though, my hairy son, she wears a pretty sexy perfume in bed… smells like that stuff farmers use to get pigs to mate. Mullett’s wife smothers herself in it.”

Webster took a sample sniff. It certainly was pretty heady stuff for a fifteen-year-old. He was reassessing young Karen by the minute. “Could we check the bathroom to see if her toothbrush and stuff have gone?” he asked. “No girl would run away without her toothbrush.”

“Good idea,” said Frost, “I’m dying for a pee.”

The first door they tried led to the Dawsons’ bedroom, a vast room with a canopied bed, the walls covered in some kind of padded velvet. The next door opened on to the bathroom, fully tiled in red Italian marble. It contained a large circular sunken bath that could have doubled as a swimming pool. The bath had taps made of gold, as did the matching sink basin. A red carpet matched the tiles, and all the towels matched the carpet.

Frost surveyed the bath in awe. “If I had a bath like that, son, I’d definitely have to get out if I wanted a pee.”

The bathroom cabinet was concealed behind a mirror over the sink. Webster opened it and was searching through its contents when the door burst open and Dawson charged in. He reacted angrily when he saw what Webster was doing.

“Who gave you permission to go through our private possessions?”

“We’re checking to see if your daughter’s toothbrush is still here, sir,” said Webster patiently. He had found two toothbrushes in a beaker, one red, the other green. He showed them to Dawson. “Do either of these belong to Karen? It is important, sir.”

“Karen’s brush is orange.” He pushed Webster out of the way and rummaged impatiently through the cabinet. “It should be here somewhere.” He yelled for his wife to come up. “Karen’s toothbrush he snapped as she entered the bathroom, ‘where is it?” He moved so she could get to the cabinet.

Standing on tiptoe, she peered inside, moving things out of the way.

“It should be here,” she said.

“I didn’t ask where it should be,” Dawson told her sarcastically, “I asked where it was. Apparently, it’s important.”

“It isn’t here,” Clare said eventually. “None of Karen’s stuff is here her toilet bag, flannel, toothpaste…”

Webster leaned against the wall and folded his arms. Annoyingly, it looked as if Frost’s theory was correct. The girl had run away.

“If Karen took her toilet things with her,” Frost told the parents, ‘it does rather suggest she went of her own free will.”

Dawson’s face reddened to match the Italian tiles. “Are you suggesting Karen has run away from home? You’re an idiot, man. A bloody idiot. You don’t know my daughter. She loved her home. She wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“Lots of teenagers do it, Mr. Dawson,” said Webster. “Not necessarily because of anything to do with home. There could be trouble at school… or an upset with a boy friend.”

Dawson regarded the detective constable as if he were an imbecile. “A boy friend? My Karen? She’s only fifteen, for God’s sake, a mere child! And what about that man Debbie saw? What is he supposed to be, a mirage… a teenage sex fantasy?”

“I’m not convinced she saw anyone, sir,” Frost said. “She had doubts herself.” He buttoned up his mac to show he was ready to leave.

“So you intend doing nothing?”

“Not a lot we can do,” said Frost. “We’ll issue her description, circulate her photograph, ask everyone to keep an eye open for her. I don’t think she’ll be away for long.”

They heard a phone ringing. Dawson snapped his fingers for his wife to answer, but when Frost suggested the caller might be Karen, he dashed out to answer it himself.

Frost sat down on the toilet seat and lit up his thirty-eighth cigarette of the day. He gave the woman a friendly smile. “Anything you want to tell us while your husband isn’t here, Mrs. Dawson?”

Her face went white, then she pretended to be puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Frost shrugged. “Then it’s my mistake, Mrs. Dawson.” He stood up as her husband returned. “It’s for you, Inspector Denton Police Station. You can use the phone in Karen’s room.”

The caller was Bill Wells. To Frost’s delight, he could hear the noise of the party in the background. There was still a chance he would make it.

“Hello Jack,” Wells intoned in his usual gloomy voice, “Can you talk freely?”

“Yes,” confirmed Frost.

“What’s the score with Karen Dawson?”

“Zero. Her old man thinks she’s been kidnapped, but my bet is she’s done a bunk.”

“Don’t be too sure she’s all right, Jack. We might have found her.”

Frost caught his breath. Suddenly he felt cold and apprehensive.

“Might?”

“We’ve had an anonymous phone call. A man. He says there’s a girl’s body in Denton Woods. I think you’d better take a look.”

Dawson poked his head round the door. “Anything wrong, Inspector?”

“No,” said Frost. “Just something we’ve got to look into. I might be back to you later on, sir. If there’s any news, that is.”