A Touch of Frost

Tuesday night shift (4)

Upstairs, the party was throbbing away louder than ever and showing no signs of breaking up. Wells heard stamping, shrieking, roars of laughter, and the sound of glass smashing. A load of bloody hooligans, he thought as he tried to hear what the caller was saying. “I’m sorry, sir, bit of a disturbance outside. Would you mind repeating that?”

The man sounded out of breath and was barely whispering into the phone.

“I’ve found a body. In Denton Woods. A girl.”

Wells stiffened. Another body! Just when he was praying for a nice, quiet, peaceful night. With his free hand he knuckled the panel to Control and, when Ridley opened it, signalled for him to listen in on the extension.

“A girl’s body, you say, sir?” He picked up his pen, ready to write down the details.

“That’s right. A young girl.. ‘. a kid.”

A kid! The sergeant’s first thought was of the previous call he had logged. Karen Dawson, fifteen, missing from home since this afternoon.

“I see, sir. And where exactly is she?”

“I told you. In Denton Woods. Off the main path, behind some bushes.”

“Where in the woods, sir? We’ll have to have the exact location.”

A pause, then a click and the line went dead. The caller had hung up.

Wells replaced the receiver and cursed. “Damn!”

“Sounded a nutter to me,” called Ridley, hanging up the extension.

Wells nodded. They were always receiving bogus calls from cranks with a grudge against the law, who took delight in wasting police time and money. But you couldn’t take chances. It had to be assumed that all calls were genuine until proved otherwise. “What cars have you got?” he asked the controller.

Ridley didn’t need to consult his map. With half the strength drinking themselves stupid upstairs, only two cars were available, and one of them, PC Shelby’s patrol car, was failing to respond. This was not untypical of Shelby! “There’s only Charlie Alpha, Sarge, and that’s on the way to a domestic on the red-brick estate.” A ‘domestic’ meant a family row or disturbance.

“Forget the domestic,” he was told. “I want Charlie Alpha to divert immediately to Demon Woods.” He vented his annoyance by kicking the leg of his desk. “One bloody area car! How am I supposed to cover a division of this size with one lousy area car?”

Shutting his ears to the sergeant’s moans, Ridley thumbed the transmit button and called Charlie Alpha. While he waited for the response, he asked, “Exactly where in Demon Woods, Sarge?”

“How the hell do I know?” snarled Wells. “I’m not a bloody mind reader! You heard what he said off the main path, behind some bushes.”

A burst of static from the loudspeaker. “Charlie Alpha to Control. On our way to domestic on the red-brick estate in response to your previous message, over.”

“Forget the domestic, Charlie Alpha. Proceed immediately to Denton Woods and initiate search. Anonymous report of young girl’s body behind bushes, off main path. Over.” He waited, his thumb hovering over the transmit button, for Charlie Alpha to request the precise location.

“Would you give us a more precise location, Control? There are main paths running the length and breadth of Denton Woods.”

“That is all the information we have, Charlie Alpha,” replied Ridley in an aggravatingly reasonable voice. “Over and out.” He heard the door open behind him as Wells came into the room.

“But there’s four hundred acres of woods, miles of paths, and thousands of bloody bushes.. Charlie Alpha pointed out.

Wells was getting fed up with this. He snatched the handset from Ridley. “Then you’ll be spoiled for bloody choice, won’t you, Charlie Alpha? Just go and look for her and don’t bloody argue!”

“Over and out,” said Charlie Alpha hurriedly.

Ridley stuck the marker for Charlie Alpha in the green-coloured expanse of Denton Woods on his wall map. “They’ll need some help, Sarge. Should we break up the party?”

Wells pinched his nose and gave it some serious thought. It was tempting, very tempting, and it would serve those noisy sods right to be turfed out into the dark and cold to search the woods. But if the call turned out to be a hoax and he had deployed half the force on a fruitless search, all on overtime, he’d never hear the last of it. Mullett would grind on and on about it for weeks. On the other hand, if it was genuine and he ignored it — He groaned. He was in a no-win situation.

To play it safe, he decided to phone Jack Frost. It might be his missing schoolgirl, and if the inspector wanted more men, it was up to him to ask for them. He picked up the phone and dialled the number of the Dawson house. “Denton Police here, sir. Sorry to trouble you, but I wonder if I could have a word with Detective Inspector Frost?”

The traffic lights glowed an angry red in the darkness as Webster ignored them, speeding the car straight across the road junction. “Slow down, son,” Frost murmured. “There’s four hundred acres of forest to search. The odd second isn’t going to make much difference.”

Frost’s request received the same sort of treatment as the traffic lights, and Webster’s foot pressed down on the accelerator. Watching the street lights zip past at seventy-five miles an hour, Frost checked that his seat belt was fastened, then fumbled in his pocket for the photograph of the missing girl and studied it gloomily. I hope this body isn’t Karen Dawson, he told himself. I’d hate to be the one who had to break the news to her father. Break the news! He sat up straight and banged his fist on the dashboard. “Knickers! We were supposed to be breaking the news to Ben Cornish’s old lady. What time is it?”

Webster twisted his hand on the steering wheel so he could see his wristwatch. “Ten past one.”

Frost settled back in the seat, relieved it was too late to do it tonight. “We’ll do it tomorrow, first thing. It’ll be our number-one treat before the post-mortem.” He paused for a second. “Are you any good at breaking bad news, son?”

“No,” said Webster hurriedly. The inspector wasn’t dumping that rotten job on him.

“Pity,” sighed Frost. “I’m bloody hopeless. How do you tell someone their son was found dead, choked in his own vomit, floating in a pool of piddle. There’s no way you can tart up that sort of news.”

They were approaching the dense blackness of the woods. Frost scrubbed the wind-screen with his cuff and squinted through, trying to locate Charlie Alpha. “There it is, son,” he yelled, pointing to the white-and-black Ford Sierra tucked neatly into a lay-by. Webster coasted the Cortina snugly in behind it.

The wind slashed at them as they left the warmth of the car. Frost wound his scarf tighter and buried his hands deeply into his mac pocket as they trudged along a path in search of Jordan and Simms, the Charlie Alpha crew. Webster was the first to spot the dots of torch beams bobbing in the distance.

The path they followed twisted and turned, so it was nearly five minutes before they heard low voices. A sharp turn, and just ahead of them were the two uniformed men, Jordan and Simms, greatcoat collars turned up, huddled against the trunk of an enormous oak tree, dragging at cigarettes. At the approach of the detectives they spun around guiltily, pinched out their cigarettes, and snapped to attention.

“Hard at work, I see,” said Frost.

They grinned sheepishly. “Have you come to give us a hand, then, sir?” asked Jordan, who sported a drooping, Mexican-bandit moustache.

“You mean to say you haven’t found her yet?”

“Found her, sir? Some nutter phones the station and says there’s a body behind a bush, and me and Simms are supposed to search four hundred acres in the dark. It’s bloody ludicrous.”

Frost showed them Karen Dawson’s photograph. “There’s a chance it might be this kid. She’s fifteen years old, missing from home since one o’clock this afternoon.”

They studied it under the light of Simms’s torch. “Why should it be her?” asked the moon-faced Simms. “As many as twenty teenagers around here go missing every week.”

“A man was reported lurking inside her house as she came home from school. She hasn’t been seen since,” said Webster.

Heads turned toward him. They hadn’t seen the bearded bloke before.

“Are you the ex-inspector?” asked Simms. “The one who got kicked out of Braybridge?”

Another sneering bastard, Webster thought, his hands balling into fists. “What if I am?”

“Rotten luck,” commented Simms mildly.

The oak offered shelter from the wind, and Frost was in no hurry to move on. He offered his cigarettes around. Only Webster, with an impatient jerk of his head, declined to accept one. Jordan’s lighter did the rounds.

Webster looked out on to the dark mass of trees which seemed to stretch on and on for miles. “It’s hopeless with only the four of us. We should ask the station for reinforcements.”

Frost forced out a stream of smoke which the wind snatched and tore into shreds. “A full-scale search would have to be properly organized, so it couldn’t even begin until the morning. Let’s give it a whirl ourselves first — unless anyone else wants to chip in with a suggestion?” He looked hopefully at the two uniformed men, who shook their heads, engrossed in studying the branches of the oak tree. They were paid to do what they were told, not to work out campaign plans.

“Right,” said Frost, pulling himself up straight. “Lacking evidence to the contrary, we’ve got to assume that there is a body a girl alive or dead. While we’re assuming, let’s give ourselves a bit of incentive and make her alive… not only alive, but a rampant quivering nymphomaniac with enormous knockers, fully prepared to bestow her hot lusty favours on the man who finds her.”

Jordan and Simms grinned. At least Frost was making it interesting.

“Right,” he continued. “Now keep that dirty picture in mind while we transfer our attention to the herbert who tripped over her and phoned the station.”

He dropped his cigarette end to the ground and crushed it under his heel. “It’s late at night. So what was he doing skulking behind bushes? Obvious answer: He wanted to do a pee and, either ashamed of or too modest to flaunt his equipment, decided to commune privately with nature behind a convenient bush, only to find this nympho’s supine body. So he bottled it up and legged it to the nearest blower to call the cops. How does that sound?”

They paused to consider this. It sounded feasible.

“Sergeant Wells said the man was phoning from a public call box,” Frost continued.

“I noticed a phone box near where we parked the car,” offered Webster.

“There are phone boxes all over the bloody place,” said Jordan gloomily.

“We’ve got to start from somewhere,” said Frost, ‘and that’s as good a place as any. We’ll go up the main paths, searching behind the bushes on either side. If we can’t find anything, we’ll go to another phone box. And if we have no joy in a couple of hours, we’ll call in the heavy mob from the station.” ‘

It was Simms who found her. And by pure chance, because Frost’s reasoning was completely wrong. After getting himself entangled in a flesh-clawing clutch of blackberry thorns, he made a wide detour to take him clear of another thicket and bramble. He squeezed through a tight gap between two bushes.

And there she was, white and still, lying on her back.

She was naked, her cold, still flesh gleaming like silver in the harsh moonlight.

“Here!” yelled Simms. “Over here.” He directed his torch beam into the sky like a beacon, then knelt beside her, shining his torch on her face. He shuddered. Her face was a swollen, bloody mess, the eyes puffy and blackened, the nose misshapen and broken. Blood from her nose had clotted, forming a sticky mask all over the lower part of her face and neck.

The body was blood-streaked, scarcely an inch free of livid bruises.

Scattered on the grass around her were items of ripped-off clothing. She looked dead. He touched her. Her body was icy. He bent his ear to the wreckage of her mouth, holding his breath as he tried to detect the slightest whisper of life. Nothing at first, only the hammering of his own heart, but then the faint wheezing rasp of tortured lungs. Fumbling with the buttons, he dragged off his greatcoat and draped it over the girl.

There was a crash in the undergrowth as Frost lumbered through, Webster hard on his heels. “She’s still alive,” Simms told him. “Some bastard’s smashed her face in.”

Frost dropped to his knees and made his own check for signs of life, feeling for the pulse in her neck. Satisfied, he called over his shoulder to Webster. “Radio the station. We want an ambulance bloody quick. And you can tell Sergeant Wells, with my compliments, that the party’s over. We’ve got another rape victim.”

As Webster was radioing through, Frost studied the extent of the girl’s injuries. It took some resolve to look at her face, which must have been kicked. He suspected the jaw was broken as well as the nose.

Jordan was the last to arrive. He stared down at the girl, and what he saw made him shudder.

“See what the bugger’s done to her neck,” said Frost, indicating bruises cut deeply into the flesh where the rapist’s fingers had gripped and squeezed her into unconsciousness.

“The same pattern as the other one,” observed Simms dispassionately. “That nurse he raped over at the golf course. But she wasn’t beaten up anything like this.”

Webster switched off the radio and dropped it into his pocket. “Ambulance on its way,” he reported. Frost, still bent over the girl, acknowledged his message with a grunt, then ordered Simms out to the main road to home the ambulance crew in.

“Is it Karen?” Webster asked, only to wince and turn his head away as Frost moved back so Webster could see what the animal had done to the girl.

“If it is, then she’s nothing like her photograph,” muttered the inspector. “The poor cow’s been kicked in the face. Give me just five minutes alone with the bastard.”

He pulled back the greatcoat so he could examine the rest of her. She was naked except for thick black stockings, the tops banded by sexy red garters. The stockings were short, coming not much higher than her knee, then there was an awful lot of white thigh. Somehow, it reminded Frost of dirty French postcards he had seen when he was a kid, all black underwear and white flesh. Her body, like her face, was mapped with huge green-and-yellow bruises. As gently as he could, Frost ran his hands along her sides. He thought he could detect at least two broken ribs. She moaned softly as he touched her.

Could this possibly be young Karen? There was no way he could tell from the face. The body looked too well developed for a kid of fifteen, but girls seemed to be maturing earlier and earlier these days. He frowned and bent forward. The nipples. There was something odd about them. The colour was wrong. He took out his handkerchief and rubbed. The red came off. It was lipstick. Lipstick? He stood up and stared at the red on the handkerchief, unable to believe it. It couldn’t be Karen.

“It’s Karen, all right,” called Webster, and he showed Frost the school blazer he had picked up from the grass. “And there are pieces of school uniform all over the place.” His torch stabbed out at the straw boater, the gym slip, the navy-blue knickers.

“I’ve found this, sir,” called Jordan, pulling a white plastic carrier bag out of a clump of nettles. Frost delved through the contents… sweater, jeans, bra… a complete change of clothing. Also a purse which held about a pound’s worth of silver, a worn, Yale-type key, and three packets of male contraceptives.

School uniform, red garters, painted nipples, and contraceptives. It wasn’t making sense. And the Yale key, its chromium plating wearing away, looked far too old to be the key to the Dawsons’ elegant front door. He put everything back into the bag. Where was the ambulance? It should be here by now. As if in answer, the piercing warble of a siren came floating over the trees.

Deep in thought, Frost followed the trail of flattened grass back to the bush where the rapist had stood hidden, waiting. He looked along the empty path, from where the girl would have come, trying to put himself into the mind of a man who would do such things to a kid.

Muffled sounds came from his jacket pocket. His radio was trying to talk to him.

“Sergeant Wells calling Inspector Frost.”

“Yes, Bill, what is it?”

“Message from Detective Inspector Allen. He’s on his way with a full team. He said don’t anyone touch anything until he gets there.”

“I won’t even touch my dick,” said Frost.

“Is it Karen Dawson, Jack?” asked Wells. “I’m getting phone calls every five minutes from her father asking if there’s any news.”

“Hard to tell. The way the bastard’s rearranged her face she could be anyone… Karen, Bo Derek, or Old Mother Riley. Keep stalling her old man. We might want him to identify her, but I’ll be back to him as soon as there’s anything positive. Over and out.”

He pushed the radio back into his pocket. No surprise that Allen was taking over. Allen was in charge of the “Hooded Rapist’ investigation and would want to get Frost as far away as possible the second he took command.

Car doors slammed, then Simms pushed his way through the bushes to report that the ambulance men were hot on his tail. “Do you want me and Jordan to start looking around, sir… to see what we can find?”

He shook his head. “We’ve been ordered not to touch anything. Mr.

Allen is on his way, so we can expect an arrest in seconds.”

Out of sight behind him, Webster grinned. It was common knowledge that Frost and Allen didn’t get on, but then, coldly efficient Allen was a real detective, unlike the clown in the mac. Webster had successfully led many rape cases back in his old division. Tomorrow he would request a transfer to Allen’s team.

“Where the hell are you?” came a cry for help from the ambulance men, floundering about in the dark. Simms waggled his torch like a cinema usherette and yelled, “This way!” then, lowering his voice, said to the inspector, “Something a bit odd about the girl, sir. Did you notice?”

“Painted nipples, you mean?”

“No, sir. Something else… lower down.”

“If it was something else, then I have missed it.” Frost pulled back the greatcoat again and Simms directed his torch. “I keep feeling like a dirty old man every time I do this, Simms. What am I supposed to be looking for?” The torch beam moved down and pointed. “Oh!” exclaimed Frost, very surprised.

He replaced the greatcoat and straightened up. “You’re probably too young to be told this, Simms, but that feature is known to us men of the world as “the sleek bikini line.” You can buy special shavers for it. Webster’s wife has one. That’s why he grew a beard he didn’t want to share the same razor.” He called Webster over and showed him.

“It’s got to be her,” said Webster. “It’s got to be Karen.”

Frost still couldn’t convince himself. “This is hardly bikini weather, son. Still, we’d better get her father to meet us at the hospital, just in case.”

The ambulance men forced their way through and lifted the girl on to a stretcher, covering her with thick red blankets. “Anyone travelling with her?” one asked.

“No,” Frost told him, ‘but we’ll be sending a woman police officer to the hospital as soon as we can.”

As the ambulance pulled away, a convoy of cars containing Detective Inspector Allen and his team roared up. There was a barrage of overexcited shouting and door-slamming as everyone piled out, immediately silenced when Allen bawled that they were all to get back inside their cars and wait. “No-one to move until I give the say-so.” He didn’t want people trampling all over the evidence before he had a chance to see it, especially as some of them were clearly the worse for drink.

Detective Inspector Allen, a wiry man with a thin sour face and a permanent sneer, looked sharp, alert and efficient despite being dragged away from the drinking party well after midnight. His assistant, Detective Sergeant Vic Ingram, slightly unsteady on his feet, his breath redolent of whisky fumes, was a thickset, charm less man of twenty-nine, cursed with a foul temper and a vindictive streak. He hated the newcomer, Webster, and delighted in giving him menial tasks to perform. If Webster hesitated to comply, he invariably taunted him with his stock response: “Too lowly for a detective inspector, is it? Well, you’re a detective constable now, Sunshine, and a bloody rotten one at that.” It was rumoured that Ingram was currently having domestic trouble, which everyone thought served him damn well right. He certainly had a cracker of a wife, much lusted after by all the red-blooded station personnel and, by general consensus, far too good for him.

“You’ve let the damn ambulance men take her away,” complained Allen. “I wanted to see her.”

“Then you should have got here quicker,” said Frost.

“Fill me in,” said Allen curtly.

Don’t tempt me, thought Frost. He told Allen how they had found her and the extent of her injuries.

Allen listened intently, his eyes flicking from side to side, missing nothing. When he saw that Webster, contrary to his instructions, was holding the girl’s school hat in his hand, he raised an eyebrow to Ingram and jerked his head toward the detective constable. Used to his master’s sign language, Ingram swaggered over to Webster and snatched the hat away.

“You bloody wally, don’t you understand English? You were told not to touch anything.”

Webster snatched his hands from his pockets, ready to swing and to hell with the consequences. “Who are you calling a wally, you drunken slob?”

Quickly, Frost, the peacemaker, thrust himself between the two men.

“Now cool it, lads. We’ve got more important things to attend to.”

“You heard him, Inspector,” appealed Ingrain. “He called me a drunken slob.”

“All he meant, Sergeant,” said Frost soothingly, ‘is that you’re a slob, and you’re drunk. No disrespect was intended.” Over his shoulder he ordered Webster to wait for him in the car.

Ingram, swaying, spoiling for a fight, glowered as — Webster stamped off. Allen decided to continue as though nothing had happened. Somehow, Frost always got the best of these unsavoury encounters.

“You reckon the victim is this teenager, Karen Dawson?”

Frost hunched his shoulders. “It’s possible. We’re getting the father over to the hospital to identify her.”

“Let me know as soon as it’s confirmed. I’ll be there later.” Then, seeing Frost was making no attempt to move, he added, “Thank you, Inspector, that will be all.”

Back in the car, Webster waited, seething. Frost slid into his customary position. “Denton General Hospital… first on the left, then follow the main road.” As Webster jarred the car into gear, Frost radioed through to the station requesting them to contact Max Dawson and ask him to meet them at the hospital. That done, he slouched back in his seat, digging deep for a cigarette before he said, “Ingram’s a provocative bastard, son. He’s out for trouble. Try not to rise to his bait.”

Webster growled a noncommittal reply, his eyes straight ahead, looking for the left turnoff.

“What you must remember,” Frost continued, ‘is that one punch and you’re not only out of the division, you’re off the force. You should also remember that Ingram is a great big bastard who could probably knock the living daylights out of you.”

“Spare me the sermon,” muttered the detective constable, spinning the wheel to turn into the main road.

“It’s not a sermon,” said Frost, ‘it’s the gypsy’s warning.” Webster was well down the wrong road before Frost added, “Sorry, did I say left? I meant right…”

Demon General Hospital had originally been a workhouse and was built, like the public toilets, in the reign of Queen Victoria, when things were meant to last. So it was as strong and solid as a prison, but not as pretty and nowhere near as comfortable. Over the years it had sprouted additional wings and outbuildings and was now a sprawling melange of various styles of municipal architecture. It stood on the outskirts of Denton and was dominated by the huge, factory-type chimney poking from the boiler house where, according to Frost, the incinerator was fuelled by amputated arms and legs.

They waited for Max Dawson in the porter’s lodge, a small, partitioned cubbyhole just inside the main entrance. The night porter, a bright-eyed old man with a nicotine-stained walrus moustache, was pouring creosote-coloured liquid into three enamel mugs. Milk was added, then sugar was shovelled in from a tin marked Sterile Dressings. Frost always seemed to know where to get a free cup of tea at any hour of the day or night.

“Get that inside you, Mr. Frost,” said the porter, sliding a mug over.

“And you, young fellow.”

Webster smiled his thanks.

They sipped, blinked, and shuddered.

“What’s it like, Mr. Frost?” asked the porter.

“Delicious, Fred. Do we have to sign the poison register?”

The old boy cackled, showing teeth browner than his tea. “Your lot are keeping us busy tonight, Mr. Frost,” he said, rolling a hand-made cigarette from a pouch of coarse, dark tobacco. “First the old tramp in the morgue, then the poor kid who was raped, and last, that old man who was run over by a hit-and-run.”

“I hope we’re getting our usual discount for bulk,” said Frost, steeling himself for another swig. “Hello, you’ve got a customer.”

Someone was rapping on the frosted-glass panel over the counter. The porter slid it back to reveal a young woman in her early twenties, her bust in the high thirties, and her hair dark with a hint of auburn. She wore a light-blue raincoat over which was slung a white shoulder bag. Her eyes sparkled with pleasure when she saw the inspector.

“Hello, Mr. Frost.”

Frost was up and out of his seat. “Good Lord, it’s sexy Sue with the navy-blue knickers. What are you doing here, Sue? They don’t do pregnancy tests after midnight you know.”

She smiled, showing teeth as perfect as her figure. “Inspector Allen sent me. I’ve got to stay with the rape victim and try and get a statement. He said you’d have the details.”

Frost trotted out the details, adding that the girl hadn’t yet been identified but that a man who might be her father was on his way over. He caught sight of Webster staring at the girl in wide-eyed approval, his tongue almost hanging down to his stomach. It was the first time he had caught his assistant without a frown on his face. “Sorry, Sue, I should have introduced you. The bearded gent at my side is Detective Constable Webster.”

“I’ve seen you about the station,” she told him, warming him with a loin-tingling smile. “I’m Sue… Detective Constable Susan Harvey.”

“Take Sue up to Casualty,” Frost told Webster. “Ward C3.”

And for the first time, Webster obeyed an order without a display of resentment.

Frost returned to his tea, sipping slowly as the porter puffed away at his evil-smelling homemade cigarette.

“We used to see a lot of you when your wife was here, Mr. Frost.”

“That’s right, Fred.”

“How is she? Did she get better?”

“No,” said Frost, ‘she didn’t get better.”

The main doors opened and footsteps rang out on the tiled passage. Frost went out to meet Max Dawson, who was shaking with rage. Beside him stood his wife, wearing a silver-fox fur. She was crying.

“Is it true?” hissed Dawson. “Is it true?” “That’s what we want you to confirm,” Frost told him. He drew Dawson to one side and said quietly, “It might be better if your wife stayed down here, sir.”

“No,” said Clare firmly. “She’s my daughter. I want to be with her.”

“How bad is she?” asked Dawson as they walked towards the lift.

“She’s taken a very nasty beating. I think her nose, jaw, and ribs are broken,” Frost answered.

Dawson sucked in air angrily. “When you find the swine who did it, let me have him,” he pleaded.

“I think there’d be quite a queue, sir,” said Frost, pausing to look around as a clatter of footsteps chased after them.

“Mr. Frost!” called the porter. “Telephone call for you. Ward C3 they say it’s urgent.”

An icy cold hand clutched at Frost’s heart and squeezed hard. Karen

Dawson was in ward C3. Had she died? Phase don’t let her be dead. The

Dawsons had followed him and were watching him intently. He took the phone, then turned his back so the parents couldn’t see his face. “Frost,” he said quietly.

It was Susan Harvey’s voice on the other end. “Inspector, I’m with the rape victim. Did you say Karen Dawson was only fifteen?”

“That’s right, Sue. Why?”

“Then this can’t possibly be her. It’s not a girl, it’s a woman

… she’s thirty at least.”

Thirty! Flaming hell, thought Frost. “Are you sure, Sue? I’ve got the parents with me.”

“There’s no doubt at all, Inspector.”

He handed the phone back to Fred, took a few deep breaths to compose himself, then slowly turned to face the Dawsons.

Max Dawson was pacing up and down, unable to keep still, anxious to be with his daughter. His wife, who had sat down on one of the wooden benches that lined the corridor, stood up anxiously as Frost approached, trying to read the message in his face.

He gave them both what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “It’s all right, Mrs. Dawson, it’s all right…”

Dawson pushed himself forward. “All right? How can it be all right?

My daughter’s been beaten and raped, and you tell us it’s all right.”

Frost took a deep breath and plunged up to his armpits into icy water. “I’m afraid we’ve worried you unduly. The girl who has been raped isn’t your daughter.”

Clare caught her breath, then began to laugh hysterically. Her husband grabbed her shoulders and shook her roughly. Still she laughed: He slapped her face… hard, the pistol-shot sound echoing on and on down the long corridor. She gasped, her hand touching the red mark on her face, then she shrivelled and burst into tears, dropping on to the bench.

Dawson stared into space for a while, then said, “Not my daughter …?”

“No, sir. It turns out she’s a much older woman.”

The look of concern returned to Clare’s face. “But it could be Karen. She’s very well developed for her age. We’ve got to check.” She stood up and frantically tried to push past Frost to get to the lift and the ward. He gently restrained her.

“It couldn’t possibly be Karen, Mrs. Dawson. The victim is at least thirty maybe even older…”

Dawson froze, staring at the detective in open-mouthed incredulity. “Am I hearing you correctly? You thought this woman, this thirty-year-old woman, was my daughter? My wife and I have been worried sick because you told us our daughter had been raped and beaten, and all the time… all the time it was a thirty-year-old woman!”

All Frost could do was shuffle his feet, mumble how sorry he was, and wish that Dawson would push off home so he could face his own humiliation in private.

With a sudden lunge, Dawson grabbed Frost by the lapels of his coat. “Sorry? Is that all you can say?” Then, with a look of contempt, he pushed him away and wiped his hands down the front of his coat. “You stupid, bloody incompetent fool, I’m not going to soil my hands on you.” He took his wife’s arm and led her out. At the main doors he paused. “Find my daughter, you bastard,” he said, and then they stepped out into the dark.

Frost flopped down on the bench, which was still warm from Mrs. Dawson, and fumbled for his cigarettes. Opposite, on the wall, a large red-and-white sign frowned its disapproval: No Smoking… Please! His hand returned from his pocket, empty. “As you’ve said please,” he said aloud.

He heard someone clearing his throat. He looked up and there was Webster. “Did you hear all that, son?”

Webster nodded.

“A stupid, incompetent fool!” Frost repeated. “And he’s right.. that’s just what I am.”

From his inside pocket he again took out the photograph and studied it. He would have to start thinking of Karen as a schoolgirl again, far too young for boys, too young to keep contraceptives in her handbag. So who was the anonymous victim, and why the fancy dress?

He pushed himself up from the bench. “Come on, son, let’s nip up to ward C3 and see what we can find out.”

“It isn’t our case,” protested Webster.

“I know, son. My trouble is I’m such a nosey bastard.”

Sue Harvey was waiting for them by the door of C3, a small side ward with only four beds. “The doctors are with her now,” she whispered, pointing to the end bed, which was screened off by curtains.

After a few minutes the curtains jerked open and a small Asian doctor in a white coat emerged, followed by the night nurse. Behind them, on the bed, a white huddle, absolutely motionless. The night sister whispered something to the doctor and pointed to the two detectives. He examined them with tired eyes, then walked over.

“How is she, Doc?” asked Frost.

“Still unconscious. She has been punched, kicked, and badly beaten. There are two fractured ribs, a broken nose, fracture of the jaw, and hairline skull damage. In addition, she has severe bruisings, and contusions all over her body. There are external marks on the throat, which is badly swollen, indicative of manual strangulation; also, of course, internal bruising. I imagine she was rendered unconscious, then repeatedly kicked and punched while she was lying on the ground.”

“Would the beating have been before or after she was sexually assaulted?”

The doctor frowned and looked puzzled. “Sexually assaulted? Who said she was sexually assaulted?” He turned to the night sister and spread his hands in appeal. “Did I say she was sexually assaulted?”

It was Frost’s turn to frown and look puzzled. “Are you saying she wasn’t raped?”

“Raped? If my patient had been raped, do you think I am such a damn fool I would not have mentioned it?”

Frost shook his head, then wiped his face with his hands. He just couldn’t believe this! “You’re quite sure, Doc? You wouldn’t like to nip over and take another look?”

Indignantly, the little man pulled himself up to his full height. “Are you questioning my competence, Inspector? I have examined her. There are definitely no signs of recent sexual congress, nor of any attempt of forced sexual congress. You obviously cannot take in what I am saying, so you will please excuse me. I have other patients to attend to.” He pushed past them, bustling out of the ward, his white coat flapping behind him.

Frost scratched his head and tried to make sense of this unexpected development. “Not raped? He stripped her off but didn’t rape her. It’s like unwrapping your Mars bar then not eating it.”

“Perhaps he was disturbed before he could actually do it,” suggested Webster.

“Disturbed?”

“The bloke who made the anonymous phone call — perhaps he barged in on them at the crucial moment?”

Frost rubbed his chin. “I can’t buy that, son. I had a quick look at her clothes. There was no blood on them, which means he kicked and punched her after he’d stripped her. If he had time to kick her, he had bags of time for the old sexual congress.” He shrugged. “Still, it’s not our case anymore. Let Inspector Allen solve it.”

The ward door was barged open by a wheeled stretcher manoeuvred by a theatre orderly who had come to collect the patient for surgery. Through the open door Frost suddenly spotted Detective Inspector Allen, with Sergeant Ingram at his side, purposefully advancing toward the ward. He had no wish to be around when Allen learned of his foul-up with the victim’s age, so he quickly looked for a way of escape. With a quick wave to Sue, he hustled Webster through a rear door, down some dimly lit stone stairs, then along another empty, winding corridor.

“You seem to know your way about,” commented Webster.

“My wife was in here,” explained Frost. “I used to come every day.”

The detective constable remembered being told that Frost’s wife had died recently and thought it best not to ask further questions. They turned right into the main causeway, which had wards leading off from either side.

Frost stopped and pointed. “Look! The place is crawling with filth tonight.”

Webster saw a young police constable, dark curly hair, small moustache, leaning against the wall, engaged in animated conversation with a ridiculously young night nurse who had a wisp of stray hair escaping from her cap. Webster scratched his memory for the man’s name; he had been introduced to so many people. Then he remembered. Dave Shelby, married with two young children but with the reputation of being woman-mad, or ‘crumpet-happy,” as Frost had crudely termed it.

Catching sight of the inspector bearing down on him, Shelby quickly whispered something to the girl, making her blush, then in a loud voice, said, “Thank you very much, Nurse.” She hurried off, giving an apologetic smile to Frost as she passed.

“Stay away from him, love,” Frost called after her. “He meets men in toilets after dark.” To Shelby, he said, “You want to try and stay off it for five minutes, son it can make you go blind.”

Shelby grinned nervously. “Just passing the time, sir. I’m a respectable married man.”

“So was Dr. Crippen,” sniffed Frost. “Anyway, what are you doing here?”

Shelby jerked his thumb at the glass-ported swing doors behind him.

“I’m with the hit-and-run victim. They’re operating on him now.”

Frost squinted through one of the portholes. Not much to see. A huddle of green-robed figures, working silently. One of the robes was smeared with blood.

“Rather him than me. It looks like an abattoir in there.”

He looked over Shelby’s shoulder. Farther down the corridor all alone, an old lady was sitting. She looked bewildered and frightened.

“That’s the victim’s wife,” whispered Shelby. “She slept through it all. Didn’t even know her husband had got out of bed until a neighbour knocked to tell her he’d been run over.”

‘ Poor old cow,” muttered Frost. “What are his chances?”

Shelby gave a hopeless shrug. “His skull is smashed, he’s hemorrhaging internally, and he’s seventy-eight years old.”

“The car that hit him was supposed to have shed its licence plate,” said Frost. “Have we traced the driver yet?”

“I don’t know, sir. I’m not really on this one. Mr. Allen pulled the area car off to help with the search for the rapist.”

“That reminds me said Frost, staring closely at him have you been up to your larks tonight?”

Shelby started visibly. “What do you mean, sir?”

“The woman who was attacked. You haven’t been in Denton Woods tonight with your little truncheon at the ready?”

A wave of relief seemed to wash over the constable. “No, sir,” he said, forcing a smile. “It wasn’t me.”

But you have been up to something, my lad, thought Frost, and for a minute you thought I was on to it. Well, I’m not on to it. I’m not that clever… I can’t even tell the difference between a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl and a thirty-year-old woman.

They had to pass the old lady on their way out to the car. She reached up and clutched at Frost’s arm. “My husband she said they’re operating on him. He is going to be all right, isn’t he?”

“Of course he is,” beamed Frost. “He’s going to be fine.” He gave her a reassuring pat.

They walked on.

“Why raise her hopes?” asked Webster. “He’s going to die.”

“Then you bloody tell her,” said Frost.