A Touch of Frost

Tuesday night shift (5)

“I can’t give you any sort of description,” said the man. “I never saw him.”

“You must have seen something,” said Wells. “How are we supposed to arrest him if we don’t know what he looks like?”

The phone rang.

“Answer that, would you Ridley,” yelled Sergeant Wells. “I’m attending to someone.”

The man he was attending to had been robbed at knife-point while drawing cash from the automatic cash dispenser at Bennington’s Bank. “He stuck a knife in my back,” said the complainant, ‘then he grabbed the money and ran. By the time I’d plucked up courage to look around, he’d gone.”

“Was he short, tall, fat, thin, white, yellow, or what?” asked Wells.

“All I can tell you is he was a bloody fast runner,” said the man. “He went off with my money like a dose of salts.”

The phone kept ringing.

“Excuse me a moment, sir,” said Wells. He pushed open the door to the corridor and shouted, “Ridley!”

The toilet gurgled and roared, then Ridley appeared, doing up his belt.

“The bloody phone’s ringing,” snapped Wells. “You know I’m here on my own.”

“I’m entitled to go to the toilet, aren’t I?” argued the constable.

“Not when we’re short-staffed, you’re not.” He turned back to the man.

“And how much did you say was taken, Mr. Skinner?”

“Forty-five pounds. Nine five-pound notes.”

“Any idea where Mr. Frost is?” called Ridley, holding the mouthpiece against his chest.

“You’re on Control,” snapped Wells. “You’re supposed to know where everyone is.” It was really getting far too much. Every available man had been commandeered by Mr. Allen after the rape attempt in Denton Woods. Even young Collier had been roped in, leaving only Wells and the controller, PC Ridley, to run the entire station. He wasn’t good enough to go to their lousy party, but he was good enough to run a division almost single-handed.

“There’s been a robbery and a coshing over at The Coconut Grove. They got away with more than five thousand quid.”

“Hard bloody luck,” said Wells. “This gentleman’s lost forty-five pounds, and he was here first.”

The lobby doors crashed back on their hinges, and in bounded Frost in his party suit with the sodden trouser legs and his everyday mac and scarf. With him was the new bloke, the bearded ex-inspector Webster.

Ridley waved the phone. “Mr. Frost!”

While Webster went on to the office to make a start on the crime statistics, Frost ambled over to Ridley. “Yes, Constable?”

“Robbery at The Coconut Grove, Mr. Frost.”

“Sorry, I’m only doing bodies down public lavatories tonight,” replied the inspector. At Ridley’s look of reproach, he sighed and said, “All right. Take the details.” He crossed to the corridor and yelled, “Webster! We’re going out again.” Then he caught sight of Wells struggling to get a report form into the typewriter. “Everything all right, Sergeant?”

“No, it bloody well isn’t,” snarled Wells, ‘and I’m too busy for small talk.”

“I’ve seen a lady with rouged nipples,” said Frost.

“Are you going to take my details?” demanded the man who had been robbed.

“Just a moment, sir,” said Wells, waving him off as if he were intruding on a private conversation. “You saw what Jack…?”

Before it had time to blink at being brought out into the light, the crime statistics return was stuffed back into the filing cabinet and Webster was once again behind the wheel of the Ford Cortina, driving off into the night. As the car skirted the woods, they could see the firefly dots of torches dancing among the trees, where Allen’s team continued its painstaking search.

The Coconut Grove was part of a large leisure complex development on the outskirts of Denton, just north of the woods. It consisted of clubs, bars, restaurants, bingo halls, a theatre, a sports pavillion, and myriad other amenities. The police suspected that it catered for the odd spot of prostitution on the side, but they hadn’t been able to prove anything. It was run by a dubious character called Harry Baskin whose other enterprises included a chain of betting shops.

Baskin had bought the land cheap. No-one thought he’d get planning permission for his leisure complex because, under the new town development plan, the area was designated for agricultural purposes only. But, to everyone’s astonishment, planning permission was granted. A couple of months later, the chairman of the planning committee resigned and retired to the

Bahamas. Some cynics unkindly suggested that these two events were connected, but no-one said so to Baskin. People who got on the wrong side of Harry Baskin suddenly found they had become extremely accident-prone.

Harry Baskin! Webster wondered where he had heard that name before?

“He runs some betting shops, doesn’t he?”

Frost nodded.” He has thirty-seven all over the country. He also has subtle ways of making reluctant losers pay up. The punter wakes up one morning to find his dog’s had its throat cut, or that his car has mysteriously self-combusted… little nudges like that. No-one owes Harry money for long.”

Leaving the main road, they followed large illuminated signs which beckoned this way to den ton fabulous leisure complex. A sharp turn, and there it was, a cluster of buildings in gleaming black-and-white mock marble, spangled with tasteful neon signs… Bingo… Fish and Chips… Striptease. Most of the satellite buildings were in darkness, but Frost steered Webster across a car park to the rear section, which a discreet blue neon sign proclaimed to be the coconut grove.

They went through revolving doors into a dimly lit foyer where their way was barred by a wall of flesh, the bouncer, a hefty, ex-wrestler in evening dress. He had been watching the approach of the mud-splattered Ford and had seen the two men get out. His orders from Mr. Baskin were to exclude potential troublemakers, and these two were trouble if ever he’d seen it, especially the load of rough in the crumpled mac.

“Sorry, gentlemen. Members only…” he began, moving forward to urge them back through the exit doors.

“American Express,” said Frost, waving his warrant card under the man’s nose. “Tell Harry Baskin the filth are here.”

The bouncer muttered a few words into the house phone, then led them through a passage to a door marked Private… No Admittance. Above the door an illuminated sign in red announced Engaged… Do Not Enter. The bouncer rapped with his knuckles. The sign turned green and said Please Enter.

Baskin, dark and swarthy, in his late thirties, swivelled morosely from side to side behind a huge desk which contained nothing but the remains of a smoked-salmon sandwich. He wore a midnight-blue evening suit, the sleeves of the coat pulled back slightly to ensure an unrestricted view of oversized solid gold cuff links, which clanked on his wrists like shackles. Everyone’s in evening dress tonight but me, thought Frost, his trousers still damp about his ankles, his shoes squelching slightly as he walked.

On the walnut-veneered wall behind Baskin were framed and signed photographs of the various celebrities who had visited the leisure complex boxers, film stars, pop stars their arms around, shaking hands with, or handing charity cheques to a smiling Harry Baskin. But he wasn’t smiling now. His face was black with anger and furrowed in a frown that could give one of Webster’s a hundred-yard start and still romp home. He didn’t seem very pleased to see Frost.

“Oh, it’s you, Inspector!”

“I’m afraid so, Harry,” acknowledged Frost, sitting uninvited in the visitor’s armchair and rubbing his legs against the upholstery to dry his trousers. “All the good cops are busy on a rape case. A woman attacked in the woods earlier tonight I hope you’ve got a cast-iron alibi?”

“Do me a favour!” pleaded Baskin, the cufflinks rattling as he flicked a hand to dismiss the bouncer. “I can get all the crumpet I want without moving from this desk. They come knocking on my door begging for it.” He jettisoned the remains of the sandwich into a bin. “I’ve had one hell of a night. First the bloody stripper doesn’t turn up, then the so-called cordon bleu chef burns the bloody meat pies, and lastly, this stinking robbery. So forgive me if I find it hard to raise a smile.” He jabbed a finger in Webster’s direction. “What the hell is that?”

Frost introduced the detective constable.

Baskin found it possible to smile thinly as he recognized the name. “Webster! The cop they kicked out of Braybridge! Blimey, we’re getting all the rejects tonight, aren’t we? You’d better watch out for him, Mr. Frost. He beats inspectors up.”

Webster fought hard to keep his face impassive, but behind the mask his anger was building up a rare old head of steam. It wouldn’t take much …

Frost bounced a thin smile back to the club owner. “He also beats up cheap crooks, Harry, so I wouldn’t upset him if I were you. He could knee you in the groin so hard those ladies you mentioned would be beating on your door in vain. What do you say we get down to business?”

Baskin stood up and carefully adjusted the lines of his dinner jacket.

“This way.”

He took them through a maze of passages to an office near the rear entrance, its door newly scarred with deep gashes in the wood. Webster dropped to one knee to examine it. Baskin looked down with a sneer. “You needn’t get out your magnifying glass, sonny. My men did that. We had to axe our way in. A bloody good door ruined.” He opened the bloody good door and showed them into a small cell of a room… concrete floor, grey emulsioned walls, and a single high window fitted with iron bars. A cheap-looking light-oak desk and a non-matching hard-backed chair comprised the furnishings. On the desk stood a phone and a wired switch.

Baskin checked that the corner of the desk was clean, made doubly sure by treating it to a flick of his silk monogrammed handkerchief, then sat on it.

“A lot of our trade is done by cheque and credit card, but we also get a fair amount of cash sloshing about. It jams up the tills, so twice a night we empty them, bring the cash here to be counted and checked, and then it’s taken to the night safe at Bennington’s Bank. There’s a security man on guard in this room all the time the money’s here. He locks himself in. Take a look at the door.”

They examined the inside of the door, which had two strong bolts top and bottom, a double security lock, and a thick iron bar which could be slotted into holders set tight into the concrete walls.

“Simple but effective,” continued Baskin, swinging his leg as he spoke. “We bung the money in the bank’s special bags, then a second security guard nips off to fetch the motor to take it to the night safe.”

“Do you use the same car each time?” asked Webster.

“Do I look that stupid, sonny?” scoffed Baskin. “If anyone wants to rob me, I make it bloody hard for them. A different set of wheels, a different time, a different route each night.”

Webster said, “And who decides on that?”

“I do, sonny, and I keep it to myself until the very last moment.”

“Don’t call me sonny,” snarled Webster.

“Touchy little sod, isn’t he?” grinned Baskin.

Frost had wandered across the room. Taped to the wall behind the desk was a collection of black-and-white glossy photographs, all of nudes, most of them strippers who had appeared at the club. As he scrutinised the various poses, he said, “So, you’ve got one man locked inside, another fetching the car. Then what?”

“The motor’s brought right up to the rear entrance, just outside here. The driver nips in, taps a prearranged signal on that door. The bloke inside gathers up the money bags, unlocks the door, and within five seconds he’s inside the car on his way to the bank.”

“Is it a different signal each night?” persisted Webster.

“Of course it’s a different bloody signal. I work it out myself and don’t tell them until the very last minute. If the bloke inside gets the right signal, he opens the door; if it’s wrong, he presses that switch, which raises the alarm. This was tonight’s signal.” He rapped out a short pattern of taps on the desk top.

“I can name that tune in one,” muttered Frost, seemingly much more interested in the pinups than in the robbery. “It sounds foolproof to me, Harry. Don’t change it.”

Baskin raised his eyes to the ceiling and sighed theatrically. “You’ll have me in stitches, Mr. Frost, with your droll humour. Well, it wasn’t so bloody foolproof tonight, was it? Croll locks himself in with more than five thousand quid. His mate, Harris, waddles off to fetch the motor when, guess what? There’s an urgent phone call for Mr. Harris in the foyer. From the casualty ward of Denton Hospital… matter of life and death. The wooden tops in the foyer call him over the Tannoy. He legs it across the foyer, picks up the phone and this tart says, “Hold on a minute, please, and we’ll get the heart specialist.” As it happens, his old lady has a wonky ticker, so he swallows it and holds on.”

Frost said, “Who spoke on the phone? A man or a woman?”

“A woman supposed to be a nurse, wasn’t she, the bloody slag. Anyway, this burke, this cretin, this lump of horse manure, just holds on for bloody ever listening to sod all. After about six minutes of deafening silence, it suddenly occurs to him that perhaps he’s being taken for a mug. He hangs up and dials his old lady’s house… and she answers the phone, bright and cheerful, fit as a bleeding fiddle. So then it’s his turn to have a heart attack. He nip’s back here, wallops out the signal. No reply. He tries again. Nothing. Finally he plucks up the courage to come and tell me about it. Me and the boys come running. Takes us nearly ten minutes with a sledge hammer and an axe to smash our way in and… surprise, surprise! The money isn’t there any more, but Croll’s out cold on the floor, blood trickling from his head, a surprised look on his stupid face, and a pain in the leg where I booted him.”

Frost poked a cigarette in his mouth and scratched a match on the desk top. “So what happened? How come the foolproof scheme didn’t work?”

Baskin stared at the desk top and tried to erase the mark of Frost’s match with a spit-moistened finger. “You tell me. The ambulance took him away before I could get any proper answers.” He took out his silk handkerchief and worried away at the mark on the desk. “That won’t bloody come off, you know.”

Frost puffed a smoke screen over the blemish. “What did you say his name was?”

“Croll… Tom Croll.” Baskin didn’t miss the quiver of recognition from the inspector. “Don’t tell me the little bastard’s got form? Don’t tell me I’ve employed an ex-con to guard my bloody money? I’ll break both his bleeding legs.”

“Live and let live, Harry,” soothed Frost. “If he doesn’t mind working for a crook, why should you mind employing one? Tommy Croll’s done the odd bit of time, but only for petty stuff. He hasn’t got the bottle to pull off a stunt like this. Where’s the other guard, Harris, the one who got the dodgy phone call?”

Baskin seemed preoccupied in watching his cuff links glitter in the light. “He… er… had a bit of an accident walked into a door hurt his nose and blacked both his eyes. I sent him home to recover.”

“You’re a nasty piece of work, Harry,” Frost told him. “I hope he sues you.”

“What was the exact sum of money taken?” asked Webster, realizing that Frost had asked a lot of questions but hadn’t touched on the basics.

“Five thousand, one hundred thirty-two pounds,” answered Baskin. “One of our slack nights the end of the week it could be nearer twenty grand.”

Webster jotted this down. “And what time did the robbery take place?”

“Round about five past eleven,” said Baskin casually.

Frost, whose eyes had again been drawn to the magnetic north of the breasts and bottoms of the pinups, spun around. “Five past eleven?” he said incredulously. “That’s more than four hours ago!”

Baskin spread his hands. “So what? I had no intention of calling you in, but my expensive lawyer told me that as a crime’s been committed I’ve got no choice. Your being here is just a formality to satisfy our insurers. What’s a lousy five thousand quid to me? It’s chicken feed! I can stand the loss, but what I can’t stand is the humiliation. He who pinches my purse steals trash, but he who filches my good name gets both his bloody legs broken. So I’ll find the bastard myself. Just take the details, go to the bar and have a free drink on the house, and then push off and forget all about it. Leave the hard work to me.”

Frost shook his head. “Sorry Harry, but we like to beat our own prisoners up. It’s one of the few pleasures we’ve got left. What was the money packed in?”

There was a black fibreglass attache case in the corner. Baskin picked it up and showed it to the two men. “It was in two cases like this.” He held it out for Frost to examine, but the inspector wasn’t there.

“Where’s the old git got to?”

“The old git’s down here,” called a voice from behind the desk where Frost, on his knees, was almost rubbing his nose on one of the photographs. “Just admiring your art collection, Harry.”

Making no attempt to hide his contempt, Baskin said, “If dirty pictures turn you on, I’ll find some. But in the meantime, could we just concentrate on the matter in hand?”

Still preoccupied with the nude, Frost asked if anyone had seen anything unusual at the time of the robbery.

With a snort, Baskin said, “No-one saw a bleeding thing. Some slag legs it off with five thousand quid of my money and no-one sees anything!”

Frost seemed to lose interest in his questions. He ripped a photograph from the wall and held it nearer the light.

The old fool’s going senile, thought Webster, deciding he had better take over. He opened the door and walked the short distance to the rear entrance. Down a couple of steps, and he was out in the car park where the night wind hurled a few handfuls of rain in his face. Despite the lateness of the hour, there were still quite a few cars dotted about. At 11.05, when the money was snatched, the area would have been crawling with motors and surges of arriving and departing customers. A man strolling to his car with a couple of small fibreglass suitcases, perhaps concealed under a mac, would attract no attention at all.

He stepped back into the building to escape the rain squall and bumped into Harry Baskin, a huge cigar wedged in his mouth.

“I left your inspector dribbling over that tart’s photo. I suppose the poor old git hasn’t had a woman since his wife died and it’s making him go funny.” He pushed Webster aside to stare at a car turning off from the road and splashing over puddles as it crossed the car park. “Who the hell is this?”

The new arrival was a Ford Escort, one of the pool cars from the station. Two men got out, heads down, and made their way to the front entrance. As they passed under an overhead light, Webster identified them. Detective Inspector Allen and his charming sidekick, Detective Sergeant Ingram. He nipped back to the office to warn Frost.

The inspector was now sitting on the corner of the desk, looking quite pleased with himself. He only grunted when told about Allen, but as soon as Baskin returned, he snatched up the photograph of the stripper and asked the club owner if it had been retouched.

Baskin frowned. “What do you mean?”

“This lady seems to be devoid of hair in an area where I would expect to find some.”

Baskin took the photograph, holding it at arm’s length. “Don’t you know nothing? Strippers have to make themselves look more artistic before they perform in front of an audience. The raw human body is quite repulsive if left to its own devices, you know.”

Frost dropped his cigarette on the floor and gave it the full weight of his foot. “You said earlier that one of your strippers didn’t turn up for work?”

“That’s right. Paula Grey, the stripping schoolgirl.”

Frost turned to Webster like a stage artist awaiting an ovation, and Webster had the grace to reward him with a silent hand clap. The old fool wasn’t always as stupid as he made out.

“She does a routine in schoolgirl uniform,” continued Baskin. “It gives the dirty old men in the audience a cheap thrill to think they’re watching a juicy young bit of under-aged crumpet peeling off. To be honest, we have to keep the lighting well down so they can’t see how ancient the old cow really is we don’t want to put the punters off their meat pies.” A sudden thought hit him and he stopped in his tracks. “Here, you’re not suggesting she was involved in this robbery, are you?” He warmed to this theme. “Hold on, though. It makes sense. I should have twigged the minute she didn’t turn up to do her routine. She had inside knowledge… and she could have pretended to be the nurse on the phone.”

“No,” said Frost, ‘it couldn’t have been her. While you were being robbed, she was out in die woods getting herself booted in the kisser by the famous Denton “Hooded Terror”.” Baskin listened, shaking his head in amazement, as the inspector told him what had occurred.

“Who in his right senses would try to rape Paula, Inspector? You could have her any time for the price of a packet of fags, and if you didn’t have the price she’d lend it to you.” He grimaced with irritation as the door crashed open and Allen and Ingram barged in. “What the hell? This is a private office. Get out!”

Allen ignored Baskin and stared past him to the scruffy figure by the desk. “What are you doing here, Frost? I told you this was my case.”

Baskin looked from one inspector to the other.” Blimey, you’re not going to fight over it are you? Just find the joker who robbed me and you can split the money up between you.”

“Robbed you?” cried Allen, his lips quivering as he fought back a smile. “Dear, dear, dear, what a tragedy! How much was taken? A not inconsiderable sum, I trust?” He shook with silent laughter. Ingram, leaning against the wall, obediently joined in.

“I’ve already had this patter from your number-two comic,” snorted Baskin, nodding his head in Frost’s direction. “If you’re not here about the robbery, then what the hell do you want?”

Allen folded his arms and rocked with smug satisfaction on the balls of his feet, biting his lip to stop himself from laughing too soon. How he was going to love telling Frost that the girl he had identified as a fifteen-year-old school kid was an old scrubber. What sort of idiot could make a mistake like that? “Do you know a girl called Paula Grey, Mr. Baskin?”

But, annoyingly, before Baskin had a chance to reply, Frost chimed in with, “Paula Grey? That name rings a bell!” He knuckled his forehead in mock concentration, then snapped his fingers triumphantly. “Got her! Paula Grey, the stripping schoolgirl. She works for Harry. She’s the girl who was attacked in Denton Woods tonight. Didn’t you know that, Allen?”

Allen, completely put out, stopped rocking. “Of course I damn well knew that. I’ve just taken a statement from her. But how did you know?”

Frost shrugged modestly. “Intelligent deduction.”

“Is this a private conversation, or can anyone join in?” asked Baskin peevishly.

Allen transferred his attention to the club owner. “Your employee Paula Grey was savagely attacked tonight. She claims you had threatened to sack her if she turned up late for a show.”

“That’s right,” nodded Baskin.

“She overslept,” Allen continued grimly, ‘so, to save time, she put on her stage clobber in her flat and took a shortcut through the woods, and that’s where it all happened. The bastard jumped her, chucked something over her head, then squeezed her throat until she passed out.”

Baskin took his cigar from his mouth and shook the spit from the end. “If he was after a nice young bit of the other, he must have been broken-hearted when he took the cloth from her face. I think the poor old cow draws her old-age pension next month.”

“You’ve got a heart as big and warm as Golders Green Crematorium,” observed Frost.

“He’s right, though,” said Ingram, moving to the centre of the room. “We think that’s why he beat her up instead of raping her. He only likes young stuff, and Paula was a great big turnoff.”

The malicious glint in Allen’s eye warned Ingram he would pay for having stolen his master’s thunder.

Taking advantage of the situation, Webster thought he’d try a spot of ingratiation in the hope it would improve his chances of being transferred from Frost to Allen. “How’s the search in the woods going, sir?” he asked, politely.

“Search?” shrieked Allen. “Don’t talk to me about the search. It’s a farce! I doubt if half of the search team are sober. I’ve called it off until tomorrow morning.” His head moved from Webster to Frost. “I’m holding a briefing meeting tomorrow, at nine. You were there when the victim was found, so I want you to attend.”

“Sure,” said Frost, wondering how he could fit in some sleep. “I’ll have to be away pretty sharp, though. I’ve got to go to a post-mortem.”

Telling Baskin he’d be back in the morning after he’d taken statements from the two security men, Frost signalled to Webster, busily engaged in a silent scowling match with Ingram, that it was time to leave. They were almost through the door when Allen fired his parting salvo.

“You will have the overtime returns done by the morning, won’t you? You know it’s the last day if we’re to catch the computer.”

“Sure,” said Frost automatically while his brain shrieked at him in horror. The bloody overtime returns! Was it time for them already? In the worry of trying to get the crime statistics off, he’d completely forgotten the damn things. Quickly he closed the door behind them before Allen could think of any more horrors he should have done.

As they crossed the car park, heads down against the slanting rain, he told Webster to remind him about doing the overtime figures the minute they got back to the office.

“Sure,” said Webster. It seemed to be the ‘in’ word.

They didn’t make it to the station. Control diverted them to Denton Hospital to follow up a complaint about a man prowling around the nurses’ sleeping quarters.

Ridley was most apologetic. “Sorry to dump this one on you, Inspector, but there’s no-one else available.”

“I hope you realize, Constable,” replied Frost sternly, trying to keep the delight from his voice, ‘that you’re stopping me from doing the overtime returns.”