Hard Frost

Eighteen

The dog began barking again the minute they walked up the path. They could hear it scratching furiously at the kitchen door, trying to get out. Frost rang the bell and hammered on the door, just in case. He waited a couple of seconds then gave the nod to Burton, who moved forward with the heavy hammer. Two blows were enough. The door shuddered and screws squealed as they were wrenched from the woodwork. Burton kicked it open and they entered the house. The dog was barking itself into a state of hysteria and Frost had to raise his voice to make himself heard.

"This is make or break," Frost told his team. "Strip the place bare, peel the bleeding wallpaper off if you have to, but find me something that leads us to the kid."

He left them to it and wandered out to the Metro in the drive. Burton, with the help of an enormous bunch of keys borrowed from Traffic, had got the door open and was sitting in the front seat, going through the contents of the glove compartment. Car handbook, road map, old parking tickets… Frost took the road map, which was of Denton and the surrounding area. His pulse quickened when he saw a section carefully ringed, but it was simply showing the location of the caravan that Felford Division were keeping an eye on. Burton rummaged through the dash compartments. They yielded nothing. Frost left him to it and returned to the house and the barking dog. He told Collier to try and get the animal to keep quiet.

Collier wasn't too happy about this. It was yapping non-stop and scratching frenziedly at the door, sounding ready to tear the intruders' throats out. Gingerly, he opened the kitchen door inch by inch. The barking stopped. Collier froze. A danger signal. He had been told that when the barking stopped, the animal attacked. The dog waddled towards him, growling menacingly, then leapt up and licked his hand. He gave it a pat, and fed it some tinned dog food from the larder. It gulped the food down, then went off to sleep oblivious to the houseful of strangers. "Bloody good house dog," commented Frost.

In the lounge Jordan was on his knees by the magazine rack, taking each magazine out in turn, shaking it, then leafing through the pages. Frost wanted to tell him not to bother Finch wasn't going to hide the boy's location in a magazine but he didn't want to discourage enthusiasm, no matter how misplaced.

Everyone was bustling with their own search areas. No need now to put everything back exactly as it was. Upstairs, in Finch's office, Burton was studying the items on the cork-based pin board taking each off and checking the backs. Nothing very exciting. A few business cards… a hand-written list of his premium bonds, a picture postcard from Spain… the telephone number of a plumber. In the bedroom Liz was going through the pockets of all the clothes in the wardrobe.

Frost was in the lounge. On a coffee table was an answer phone its little green light flashing to signal that a message had been left. He played it through… it was a call from a firm asking if Finch could do their accounts a week earner than planned. He switched it off. The phone had several numbers stored in its memory so he tried them all, only to get other people's answer phones They were all to do with Finch's accounting business. The man didn't seem to have much of a private life.

Bill Wells called him on the radio. "We've just had a complaint from the woman who lives next door. She says there's a gang of scruffs in Finch's house acting suspiciously."

"OK," said Frost. "I'll see to her." Everyone else was busy, so he ambled over to the next house himself and charmed his way into a cup of tea.

"Knock the dog off the chair," said the little grey-haired woman, pouring hot water into a cup and adding a tea-bag. As soon as Frost sat down, the animal, a fat, snuffling bulldog, was up on his lap dribbling all over his trousers.

"You're honoured," said the woman. "He doesn't take to everyone." She added milk and passed the cup, with its floating tea-bag, to Frost. "Why are the police here?" she asked. "Mr. Finch isn't in any sort of trouble, is he?" She said it as if she hoped he was.

"Good Lord no!" said Frost. "He kindly gave us permission to search his house in case we overlooked something." He didn't elaborate further.

"I saw him go out earlier," said the woman, 'but I didn't see him come back… and I usually notice."

I bet you do, you nosy cow, thought Frost. "Any idea where he might be?"

She shook her head. "Hardly know anything about him. I used to chat with his wife, but that stopped when she died."

"Yes, I suppose it would," said Frost.

"Killed herself," she said confidentially. "He never got over it." Frost nodded sympathetically, then his nose began to twitch. A most foul aroma. He hated to suspect the woman, but the dog was looking very innocent.

"Oh dear," said the woman, catching a whiff. "He's not being naughty, is he? He suffers from the odd touch of flatulence."

"He's not selfish. He shares it around," said Frost. He lifted the dog off and stood up. "I'd better make a move." The woman followed him to the front door where he bent and gave the dog a pat to show he bore it no grudge. "How does he get on with Mr. Finch's Jack Russell?"

"That's not Mr. Finch's dog," she said. "He's looking after it for someone while they're on holiday."

He gave her a wave and returned to Finch's house. A glum-faced team awaited him. "Nothing," reported Burton. "Not a damn thing."

He sat on one of the bottom stairs and fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette to give him time to think. This was his last hope. There just had to be something here.

"I hate to say it," said Burton, 'but it could be you've made a mistake about Finch."

He shook his head. "It's him," he said, stubbornly. He was at his lowest ebb. The investigation had come to a dead end, it was peeing with rain and a seven-year-old was out there somewhere and he hadn't the slightest hope of doing anything about it.

"It's all a mess here," said Liz. "Shall we tidy up?"

"No," he said. "Leave it… Let's all go to the pub and get pissed."

From the kitchen a salvo of barks. Something must have disturbed the dog. Frost stopped dead. The barking triggered the memory of what the next-door neighbour had said, something that didn't seem important at the time. "It's not his dog!" he exclaimed. "It's not Finch's bloody dog!"

They looked at him as if he was mad. "Have I missed something?" asked Liz.

"No, but I nearly did," said Frost, beckoning to Burton. "Up on that pin board in his office there's a holiday postcard from Spain. Go and get it."

With a puzzled shrug to the others, Burton galloped up the stairs and brought down the card which he handed to Frost. A highly coloured beach scene with towering hotel blocks in the background. He turned it over and read the message." "Dear Henry: Very hot here. We pity you shivering in Denton. Yes, please pay the phone bill for us and I'll settle up when we get back next week. Ethel and Wilf."

He looked up at them expectantly, only to be greeted by a wall of blank stares. "Flaming hell!" he moaned. "I'm supposed to be the dim one." He jabbed his finger on the card."… please pay the phone bill for us…" Doesn't that suggest anything?"

They looked at each other, eyebrows raised in bewilderment. "It means they want him to pay their phone bill," said Jordan as if answering a stupid, self-evident question.

"So how would Finch know about their phone bill?"

It was Liz who saw what he was getting at. "Finch is keeping an eye on their place while they're on holiday. He's checking their post for them."

"Which means he's got the key… to an empty house. A perfect place to hide a kid."

"Possible, I suppose," said Liz, grudgingly.

"It's all we've got, so it had better be bloody probable. So let's find out where Wilf and Ethel live. Did anyone spot an address book?"

They all shook their heads.

"His computer!" said Frost. "People keep names and addresses in their computers."

"I tried to access it," said Burton, 'but it's password-protected."

"What does that mean?" frowned Frost.

"It means you've got to key in the password to gain access to the information. We could probably crack it, but it would take time."

"Time is what we haven't bloody got!" He paced up and down pounding his palm with his fist. "They must live in or near to Denton otherwise Finch couldn't keep popping in to check all was well."

"If we knew their surname it would help," said Burton.

"So would their bloody address," said Frost, 'but we haven't got it." Then his head came up slowly and he smiled. "I know how we can find them. The electoral register."

"How would that help?" Liz asked.

"The electoral register lists everyone living in the Denton area eligible to vote and I'm damn sure that anyone called Ethel and Wilf have got to be of voting age. All we've got to do is look through it until we find an Ethel and a Wilf living at the same address."

"But there's thousands of names on the register," moaned Burton.

"Then the sooner we start checking, the better. Let's go."

A blue haze of cigarette smoke was rolling around the incident room, the silence broken only by the drumming of rain from outside and the rustle of turned pages from within. Everyone available had been dragged in to help, even patrols dropping in for their meal break had to take sections of the register up to the canteen with them.

"I've got a Wilfred and Elizabeth Markham," called Jordan.

"Check it out," said Frost, blowing cigarette ash from his sheet. "People sometimes use a different name from that on their birth certificate." But he wasn't optimistic. No-one changed their name to Ethel from choice.

"What is going on?"

Frost raised his eyes from the page and groaned. Mullett again, scavenging around, trying to find something to complain about. Still, he was an extra pair of hands. He quickly explained and pushed a section of the register across to the Divisional Commander.

"Delighted to help," boomed Mullett. "We are, after all, a team." He settled himself down at an empty desk, which made Frost's heart sink as his stomach was rumbling and he was hoping to send out for another feast of fish and chips. "You'd be more comfortable in your own office, sir," he suggested hopefully.

"I'm quite happy here," smiled Mullett. "What were those names we were looking for… George and Mildred?"

"Wilf and Ethel."

"Of course, of course." Mullett coughed pointedly. "I'm sure we'd all work a lot better if people didn't smoke."

They had three false dawns. Two "Wilfred and Ethel's that seemed promising, but were at home watching television when the car called to check. At the third, the house was empty, but the next-door neighbour said they were at the pub and would be back in half an hour.

Frost rubbed a weary hand over his face. The names were beginning to blur and wriggle in front of his eyes. At one stage he suddenly realized he had turned a page but hadn't consciously read any of the names on it. There must be an easier way.

"What names did you say again?" asked Mullett.

Bloody hell. The man had a memory like a bleeding sieve and how could he have been checking away for half an hour without knowing the names he was looking for? "Wilf and Ethel," said Frost patiently.

"I've got a Wilfred and Ethel here," said Mullett, tapping the page with his finger. Frost dashed across and snatched it from him. "Wilfred Percival Watkins and Ethel Maureen Watkins, 2 Wrights Lane, Denton." He checked the map. Wrights Lane was a fairly exclusive area with a few detached Victorian houses in extensive grounds on the outskirts of Denton, not too far from the woods and the river.

After three disappointments, no-one got too excited; they plodded on with their own lists while Frost sent an area car to check this one out.

Within five minutes an excited radio message. "Charlie Baker to Mr. Frost. Checked the Wrights Lane address. Lights are showing, but as you instructed we did not approach. Neighbours say the owners are a retired pharmacist and his wife, holidaying in Spain. They also confirm they have a Jack Russell terrier which is being looked after by a friend."

"Bingo!" yelled Frost, throwing his list up in the air where the papers fluttered and autumn-leafed to the ground. He grinned broadly at Mullett. "Thank you, super. I always said you weren't entirely useless."

By the time Mullett had worked out that this wasn't the whole-hearted compliment he had assumed, Frost and his team were racing across the rain-swept car-park, leaving empty desks and sheaves and sheaves of printed lists.

The car slithered and bumped up the unmade road that led them to Wrights Lane. Rain bounced and drained off the road into an overflowing ditch which ran along its length. The road dipped sharply as the car went beneath a small, iron railway bridge and churned its way through a deep puddle; a slight bend and there was the house, just to their left behind a fringe of trees. Its lights were on.

They turned into the drive, skidding to a splashing halt by the front door, the second car with the rest of the team having to brake sharply to avoid running into the back of them. Out of the car, heads down against the driving rain, and Frost was hammering at the front door after sending Burton and Jordan round to the back. No answer but he could see someone moving about inside the hall through the frosted glass of the door.

He was about to knock again when Finch's voice called, "Who is it?"

"Police open up."

"Just a minute."

A brief pause, then the door was opened by Finch, his jacket off, a sponge mop in his hand. He raised his eyebrows in pretended surprise. "Inspector Frost! Twice in one day what an unexpected pleasure!"

"We want to search these premises," said Frost.

"Do you have a warrant?"

"No, but it won't take long to get one."

"Is it about the missing boy?"

"Yes."

"Then I waive my right to demand a warrant. Please search where you like." He moved back so they could pass. "Do wipe your feet… and don't make a mess. This isn't my house."

He's too cocky, thought Frost, hoping and praying this wasn't going to turn out yet another wasted exercise. He's too bloody cocky.

They thudded past him. Liz went straight through to the back door to let in Burton and Jordan who were shivering in the rain. They stepped thankfully into the dry and on to gleaming chequer-board linoleum tiles, dripping pools of water which Finch hastily sponged up with the mop. "Please," he admonished. "I've gone to a great deal of trouble to tidy this place up. It belongs to friends of mine who return from Spain tomorrow." He checked the washing machine which was churning away. "I've got so much to do before then."

Liz allocated areas of search, while Frost sat with Finch in the lounge, a large, high-ceilinged room, its gleaming furniture reeking of polish.

"How did you find me here?" asked Finch, slipping on his jacket. Then he smiled. "Of course the address on the dog's name tag. How clever of you!"

Bloody hell, thought Frost. Don't tell me it was on the flaming dog's name tag all the time! He smiled back modestly as if pleased at his cleverness. "That's right."

"Why do you think the boy is here, inspector?"

"Because you are here, Mr. Finch." He took a cigarette from the packet and lit up.

Finch grabbed at a heavy glass ashtray and pushed it over to him. "This smacks of harassment. I have already told you I know nothing about the boy. You have nothing to suggest otherwise, yet I am constantly having to put up with this cavalier treatment."

"Where is he?" asked Frost.

"I wish I knew," said Finch. "The poor little mite, away from his parents…"

An urgent call from upstairs. "Sir here!"

Burton had found something. Frost shot a glance across to Finch, who remained impassive and was carefully blowing flakes of cigarette ash from the polished top of the table.

"In here, sir." Burton was waiting on the landing outside a grey-painted door. "Put your cigarette out, please." Frost, puzzled, did as the DC requested. He exhaled smoke which Burton fanned away before opening the door a fraction, pushing Frost in, then quickly closing it behind them both.

They were in a small bedroom at the back of the house. An oak wardrobe, a small matching dressing-table and a single bed which was pushed tight against the wall. The bed had been stripped down to the ticking on the mattress and pillows. A smell of wet wool from the carpet which had been shampooed recently and was still slightly damp.

"Take a sniff, sir," said Burton.

Frost sniffed. "Polish? Carpet shampoo?"

Burton looked disappointed. "Nothing else?"

Frost tried again, then frowned. A sickly, sweet smell. Very faint, but it was there. "Chloroform?"

Burton nodded in agreement. "That's what I think."

"The kid's been in this room," said Frost. "On that bed!" He lowered his nose to the mattress and sniffed, but could detect nothing. He went to the door, opened it briefly and called for Liz to bring Finch up.

Finch came in and stood in the middle of the bedroom. "Smell anything?" Frost asked him.

With a cocky smile, Finch took a deep breath, his nose twitching delicately as if he was savouring the bouquet of a rare wine. "Furniture polish… carpet shampoo…?" he suggested. His nose wrinkled in distaste. "And stale tobacco smoke which I imagine is coming from you. May I open the window?"

"No," snapped Frost. He gave a tentative sniff, but by now the dying linger of the anaesthetic had expired. "We could smell chloroform!"

Finch gave a knowing smirk and shook his head. "Dry cleaning fluid. There was a stain on the carpet the dog. I cleaned it off and shampooed it." He bent over and peered. "It's completely gone now."

Frost pointed to the stripped bed. "Where's the bedding?"

"In the washing machine. The dog again he was sick over the pillow."

Liz was told to dash down to the kitchen and rescue the bedding from the washing machine in the hope Forensic could do their stuff on it.

"Inspector!" Jordan calling from below. It sounded important. Frost scuttled down the stairs, two at a time, hoping and praying that it was something that would wipe the supercilious smile from Finch's face. Under the stairs an open door led to steps to the cellar. Jordan was calling from there.

A large cellar, its floor of flagstones, the bare brick walls white-washed. An unshaded 75-watt bulb swung in a holder, flickering grotesque shadows on the walls, along which ran metal shelving stacked high with cardboard boxes, bottles, carboys, drums, stock left over from when Finch's friend sold his chemist shop.

"I found this," said Jordan, handing the inspector a large bottle in blue, fluted glass with a label that read "Trichloromethane CHCI3 Chloroform'.

Frost held it up to the light. It was about a third full. Removing the stopper, he lifted it to his nose. Not white spirit this time. Definitely chloroform. He nodded grimly, then looked down at the floor, stamping his foot down on the flagstones, pointing out a couple that appeared loose. Where better to bury a body? "Have them up, son. All of them… especially the ones that don't look as if they have been moved."

Back up the cellar steps, squeezing tight against the wall to get out of the way of the Forensic team who were crawling everywhere. Harding didn't look very optimistic even when he told him about the chloroform. "You'd expect to find it amongst a chemist's stock. It doesn't really prove anything."

"How's the search going?" Frost asked.

"He seems to have made sure there's nothing for us to find. This place has been scrubbed, sponged, polished and vacuumed. The vacuum cleaner is a wet and dry model, so it's had water through it which has removed nearly all traces of dust and fibre."

"What about the bedding from the washing machine?"

"We'll have a go at it over the lab, but I reckon it's been too well washed to yield anything."

"The kid was here," said Frost firmly. "I'm pretty certain he was here up to a couple of hours ago."

"Would he have had the run of the place?" asked Harding.

"Hardly," replied Frost. "I reckon the poor little sod was trussed like a chicken on that bed."

Harding shrugged. "Then he wouldn't have left much trace in the rest of the house, would he?"

"Inspector!" Liz, this time calling him from the landing. Another bloody clue that would probably lead nowhere. Harding followed up the stairs. She took them into a small box room which had been converted to an office. It was very similar to the one in Finch's house. A small desk had been jammed up against one wall. On the desk was an IBM 286 PC connected to a printer. Liz pointed. "A twenty-four pin dot matrix printer, the same type as the one used for the ransom demand."

Frost grinned with delight. "Then we've got him." He turned to Harding. "Can we prove the ransom note was written on this machine?"

Harding swiftly disillusioned him. "All we can say is that the note was printed on a machine of the same type. There is no way we can prove this was the actual machine used."

Yet again Frost was deflated. "There must be some way."

"I don't think so." Harding sat himself down at the desk and peered at the printer. It was a Star 24–10, some five years old. "There's no typeface, only little pins."

"The ribbon," suggested Frost. "Wouldn't it leave an imprint on the ribbon?"

Harding sniffed his doubts. "The ribbons are a continuous loop. They go round and round with subsequent letters printed on top of earlier ones. It would be almost impossible to separate them out."

"Try anyway," said Frost.

Harding lifted the printer cover. "If it was a fairly new ribbon I suppose there might be a chance." He took out the cassette and examined it, before shaking his head and passing it across to Frost. "Out of luck again, inspector. It's too damn new. It hasn't been used. The old one has been replaced. As I said, your Mr. Finch is determined not to give us anything to go on."

Frost thudded down the stairs with the cassette and held it aloft. "We're looking for a used printer ribbon, just like this one. Check waste bins, rubbish bags, dustbin sacks. We've got to find it." But he knew Finch was too damn clever to replace the ribbon without making sure there was no way they could get at the old one.

In the living-room Finch was sitting, watching the proceedings with a cynical smile, a smile which said, all too clearly, There's no way you dumb policemen are going to find anything that would incriminate me.

"We found chloroform downstairs," said Frost.

"That's hardly surprising. My friend used to run a chemist shop. Old stock, I imagine."

"Chloroform was used on the first boy."

"So you said." He looked at Frost in mock reproach. "You are surely not suggesting my friend had anything to do with it? I think you will find he was in Spain at the time."

"You seem to be finding this all very amusing, Mr. Finch. A boy of seven kidnapped, mutilated, frightened… a boy who might even be dead."

"I don't find it remotely amusing, inspector. What I do find amusing although I suppose "pathetic" is the right word is that you should be wasting your time here… all these men… all these resources." He stared at Frost. "Can you tell me one thing, one single thing, you've found that proves I had anything to do with it… just one…?" He gave a superior smile that made Frost fight hard to control the urge to smash his face in. "You can't, because there isn't anything."

"We'll find it," said Frost, trying to believe it himself. He jerked his head at Liz and told her to take Finch to the station. "We'll question him again there."

Clanging noises echoing from the cellar drew him down the stairs to investigate. Jordan and Collier, both sweating profusely, were levering up flagstones. It was a tiring job. The flagstones were big and heavy, needing all their efforts to lift and move without crushing their fingers. Two stacks of removed flagstones stood in one corner. A large rectangle of earth was exposed. Dry earth, untouched since the floor was laid. Jordan wiped sweat from his brow. "Nothing yet, inspector."

Frost went over to the stacks. The flags were nearly three inches thick. He thought for a second. "Pack it in — forget it. If it's taking two of you to lift one of them, he could never had done it on his own." The smug look on Finch's face had convinced him they could tear the place apart and not find anything. They would have to look elsewhere. But where… where?

When he went back into the lounge to check progress, one of the Forensic team going over the upholstery with a hand-held vacuum cleaner kept moving him on from wherever he tried to settle. He took the hint he was in the way and yelled that he was going back to the station.

He was standing in the shelter of the porch, turning up his mac collar ready for the plunge through the rain to his car, when he noticed the garage door was slightly ajar. It had already been searched, but on impulse he splashed across and went inside. A chocolate brown Renault took up most of the space. He squeezed through and checked the boot in the remote hope that the original searcher had been as slapdash as he usually was and that he would find Bobby curled up, fast asleep, happy to be rescued. All the boot yielded was a spare tyre, some tools, a metal petrol can and a towing rope. He flashed his torch to the ceiling and the beam caught a shelf high up on the wall. On the shelf were a couple of bulging blue plastic bags which didn't look as if anyone had had them down to check. He reached up and managed to grab the corner of one bag. He tugged, then a bit harder. The entire shelf tipped up and the bags slithered off and thudded to the ground, bouncing off his head on the way. Hitting the cement floor, they burst open, spewing out tins of summing foods which rolled and clattered everywhere, and packs of cotton wool. More junk from the chemist's shop.

He rubbed his head ruefully, then booted one of the tins to relieve his feelings. It rolled underneath the car. He dropped on his hands and knees to retrieve it and it was then he noticed there was mud in the tread of the tyres. Fresh mud, still wet. Finch had been out in the car, very recently, and then must have dried off the body work to disguise the fact. Frost stood up. The kid. Finch ri used the car to move the kid. That was why he was so smug and unconcerned when they were searching the house.

He yelled for Harding, who was annoyed at having to run through the rain and glared at Frost with his hair streaming and his jacket soaking. Frost indicated the mud and asked if there was any way of determining where it came from… "Some little six-inch square of Denton which had this unique type of mud, found nowhere else in the universe?"

Harding squatted and studied it, then he stood up. "I can tell you exactly where this came from, inspector." He pointed. "From the lane just outside the front gate. Wherever he went, he picked that up on the way back but I don't suppose that is much help."

"About as good as the sort of help Forensic have been giving me all bloody day," snarled Frost, plunging out through the heavy curtain of rain back to the house. He went to the bedroom. The smell of chloroform had completely gone. He wondered how long it would have lingered. He was guessing that Finch had chloroformed and removed Bobby not too long before the police turned up. Burton came in to join him. He told the DC of his theory.

"You're saying that wherever he took the kid, it isn't very far away from here?" said Burton.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," said Frost. "Otherwise we wouldn't still have been able to smell chloroform." He went to the window and looked out. The wind was blowing the rain almost horizontal. A few dotted lights of houses could be seen, but beyond them, just visible, was the dark, sprawling mass of Denton Woods. The woods! That had to be it. That's where the boy was. "He's dumped the kid in the woods, somewhere," said Frost.

Burton joined him at the window. The woods stretched on and on. "If you're right, he could be anywhere."

"I know," said Frost.

"We'll have to wait until morning," said Burton. "We'll never find him in the dark in this weather."

"By the morning the poor little sod could be dead," said

Frost. He tugged his radio from his pocket and called Mullett.

Mullett wanted an almost cast-iron guarantee from Frost that they would find the boy before he agreed to authorize a full-scale search party.

Frost gave it to him.

"Two hours," added Mullett, quickly checking the balance of the overtime account. "If they haven't found anything in two hours, call it off."

"Of course, sir said Frost.

In the interview room Finch had been reunited with the dog, which was stretched out on the floor at his feet. "Where did you go in the Renault?" demanded Frost.

"Out to the lane and back. I wanted to check if it was functioning all right. If so, I would drive back home in it, if not, I would call a cab."

"And?"

"It spluttered a bit water in the carburettor, I think — so I decided I would take a cab when the time came. I didn't anticipate you would kindly provide me with transport."

"Why did you dry the car off to conceal the fact you had been out in it?"

Finch waggled a reproving finger. "You attribute the basest motives to me, inspector. It is my friend's car. When I borrow things, I return them in the state in which I receive them. The car was clean when I drove out. I made certain it would be clean when my friend returns from Spain tomorrow." He smiled. "Satisfied?"

Frost concealed his irritation. The bastard had a glib answer to everything, all delivered with that snide, unconcealed smile which showed his satisfaction in putting one over on the police. "You took the kid to the woods, didn't you?"

Finch raised his eyebrows in mocking query. "Did I? That's news to me."

"We've got teams with dogs searching the woods now," said Frost. "It won't be so bloody funny when we find him."

"I hope you do find him," said Finch, 'but if you think I put him there, you are wasting your time."

Frost saw no point in pushing it further. "Interview suspended." He marched out to his office. Forensic must have turned something up by now, something that would wipe the smile off the face of this smug bastard.

He pulled the phone towards him, then hesitated. If they had anything they would have been through to him. He stared moodily at the rain. cascading down the window, blurring the view of the car-park.

The phone rang. He grabbed it. It wasn't Forensic, it was Arthur Hanlon.

"Radio message from Johnnie Johnson," reported Hanlon. Johnson was leading the search team in Denton Woods. "He says it's absolutely hopeless. The dogs are useless in this weather, the team can hardly see a hand in front of their faces and they're slithering and sliding all over the place. Unless we can pin-point a precise search area, they want to pack it in."

Frost looked out again at the atrocious weather. He could sympathize. Soaking wet, stumbling through sodden undergrowth in the dark, brambles snagging and slashing, visibility down to a few feet. They'd have to stumble over the poor little sod to locate him. Hardly any chance of finding him in those conditions, but no chance at all if they packed it in. "Tell them to give it another couple of hours," he told Hanlon, completely forgetting Mullett's limit of two. "Tell them I am sure the kid is there." But don't tell them I'm equally sure the poor little bugger is dead, he muttered after he had hung up.

He steeled himself to phone Forensic. Let's get the bad news over. Harding answered the phone. He was most apologetic.

"That house has been cleaned so thoroughly, we've found nothing that would help, but there were a few fibres that could have come from the child's clothing."

Frost gripped the phone tightly. His luck had changed at last. "Then we've got him."

"I'm afraid not, inspector. The fibres mean nothing on their own. Find the child and from his clothing we can prove he's been in the house… but we need the child."

"If I had the child I wouldn't bleeding need you," growled Frost.

"We can't find what isn't there, inspector."

He banged the phone down, but Harding was right. Finch was being too clever for all of them. He had stripped Dean of his clothing to avoid leaving any clues and had probably done the same with Bobby.

"How is it going, Frost?"

Bloody hell! Bang on cue when things were going wrong, there was Mullett ready to twist the knife in the wound.

"Not too brilliant," he replied. "Without proof it looks as if the bastard is going to get away with it."

"Have you heard from Forensic yet?"

"Yes. They haven't come up with a flaming thing."

Mullett stared at Frost, his lips tightening. This, of course, was all Frost's fault. "So tonight's expensive exercise has achieved precisely nothing. In fact you've achieved nothing right from the moment you took on this case."

Frost smiled sweetly. "Thank you, super. You have the God-sent gift of stopping me from feeling big-headed." He barged past him out of the office. He'd had all he could stomach of Mullett for one night.

Back to the interview room for another crack at Finch, but he found Liz there on her own, patting the dog. "Toilet break for Mr. Finch," she explained.

"Let's hope the seat falls down on his dick," he grunted. He sat down and immediately the dog leapt up on his lap. He patted it and it licked his hand. "Friendly little sod, isn't he?" His eyes narrowed. He wondered if the dog had been friendly with the boy. If it had got on the boy's lap… nuzzled against him, licked him… could some hairs from the boy have got on to the dog? He scooped the animal up and dashed off to the incident room where he phoned Harding, catching him as he was just ready to go home.

"Worth a try, inspector," agreed Harding. "Extra overtime, of course."

"Of course," said Frost. An area car was called in to rush the dog off to the laboratory.

Finch, escorted by Burton, was led back into the interview room. He looked around. "Where's the dog?"

"He's helping us with our enquiries," Frost told him.

Finch stood up. "I want him here now!"

"Sit down," snapped Frost. He shook a cigarette from the packet and offered one to Finch who waved it away in annoyance.

Frost lit up and grinned. "Friendly little dog, isn't he? Did he jump up to the kid… was he the only friend the poor little sod had?"

"I've already told you '

"That you don't know anything about the kid. Well, you've been bloody clever with your sweeping and scrubbing and vacuuming, but I bet you didn't give Rin Tin Tin a bath. Our Forensic Lab are checking the dog over now. Want to bet they find the odd hair or two from the kid… the poor little kid whose finger you chopped off? Come on I'll give you ten to one we find something."

The briefest flicker of concern blinked on Finch's face, but was quickly suppressed. He stared at Frost, expressionless. "You won't find anything, because I know nothing about the kidnapping. I have already made a statement to that effect. I have no intention of saying the same thing over and over again. Unless you intend to charge me, I take it I am free to go?"

"Give my colleague another statement explaining your movements tonight," said Frost. "We'll get it typed up and you can sign it… but it might be best to wait until we get the results from the dog first in case you want to change it to a confession."

If this was meant to ruffle Finch, it failed. I'd hate to play poker with you, thought Frost, making his way back to the incident room.

Burton sat by the old Underwood manual typewriter on the end desk in the incident room pecking out the statement for Finch to sign. Frost had told him to take his time so they could hold on to Finch until the results from Forensic came through. Burton didn't need telling. He was a very slow typist at the best of times and this snail's progress was his top speed. Frost came in and looked hopefully at Hanlon who had just put down the phone.

"They're still looking, Jack… It's the wrong sort of weather for a search."

"It's the wrong sort of weather to be on holiday, but that's where I ought to flaming well be, not here." He hurled himself down into a chair and realized one of their party was missing. "Anyone seen Mr. Cassidy?"

"No, thank God," muttered Burton.

The external phone rang. Hanlon answered it, listening, then putting his hand over the mouthpiece. "For you, Jack Forensic'

He took the phone, pausing before he raised it to his ear. He didn't think he could take much more bad news without something to cheer him up, like Mullett falling over and breaking his neck. "Frost."

"We've taken samples from the dog's fur," reported the lab technician flatly. "We've found three hairs that could have come from a young boy…" Frost's elation flared, but was instantly doused.".. but they do not come from Bobby Kirby. Sorry, inspector."

He held the phone and stared blankly as waves of despair washed over him. Then his head snapped up. They'd only tried to match it with Bobby. "The other boy Dean the dead boy. See if they come from him," he roared into the mouthpiece. "No don't ring back. I'll hold."

The phone at the other end went down with a bang and he could hear mutterings and echoing footsteps and then silence. He thought they had forgotten him and started whistling into the mouthpiece. Someone picked up the phone, said, "Be with you in a minute," and immediately put it down again.

He hunched up a shoulder to hold the phone to his ear while he fished out his cigarette packet. Before he could light up, Harding was back. This time he wasn't apologetic. He was downright jubilant. "You were right, inspector. Those hairs come from the dead boy, Dean Anderson."

It was so long since he had heard good news, he didn't know how to take it. "Are you sure? Lie to me if you're not… but please say you're sure."

"Positive. Absolutely positive."

A hot surge of relief flooded his body. "You're not so bloody useless as I thought." He spun round in his chair and yelled in triumph. "We've got the bastard! We've got him!"

He bumped into Mullett, nearly spinning him round, as he sprinted down the corridor to the interview room. "You look absolutely ravishing tonight, super," he cooed to a puzzled and gaping superintendent. "We've got the bastard!" he explained. "I'm going to charge him now."

Finch was sitting, looking bored, as he waited to sign his statement, when Frost burst in. Right, thought Frost, now we wipe the smile off your face, you supercilious sneering sod.

He crashed down in the chair opposite Finch and leaned forward. "It's the end of the line, you sod. Man's best friend has let you down. There are hairs from the dead boy all over it."

Finch flinched as if he had been hit. He struggled to keep his face impassive, but he was clearly shaken. "I don't think I want to say anything," he said.

"Is Bobby still alive?"

Finch didn't answer.

"Don't sod about," said Frost. "It's all over. We've got you. Where is the boy?"

Finch sank his head and squeezed his chin in thought. Then he straightened up. "I want the tape recorder switched off."

"Why?" asked Frost.

"Turn it off and I'll tell you."

Frost nodded to Liz who stopped the recording and removed the cassette tapes.

"I would now like the young lady to leave," said Finch. "What I have to say is for your ears only."

Frost nodded and waited until Liz went out. "Well?"

"You believe me to be the kidnapper."

"I bloody know you are!"

"But your first concern is for the boy."

"So?"

"Only the kidnapper would know where the boy was, and in telling you, he would be sealing his guilt."

"Go on," urged Frost.

"If I were the kidnapper, I would want a deal. An assurance, in writing, that if I reveal the boy's whereabouts, all charges would be dropped and any evidence you might have against me would be destroyed."

"We don't make deals," said Frost.

Finch shrugged. "Well, in that case the boy will most certainly die." He looked up to the ceiling, through which the rain bucketing down on the roof could be heard. "Such shocking weather. If that poor boy is out in it, he'll be dead by the morning."

"You're telling me he is still alive?"

A thin mirthless smile from Finch. "Only the kidnapper would know that, inspector." He moved his chair closer to the table. "You've got nothing on the kidnapper. If he kept his mouth shut, the boy would die and the kidnapper would walk free. Do a deal and the kidnapper would still walk free, but the boy would live. As they said in The Godfather, surely an offer you can't refuse?"

"But you wouldn't walk free," said Frost. "We have evidence."

The supercilious sneer returned and Frost began to worry again. What had the swine up his sleeve? "Are you talking about the hairs from the boy you say you've found on the dog? I hardly think that would stand up in court."

"It's good, solid, forensic evidence." But even as he said it, he saw the flaw, the gaping hole in the evidence that he realized Finch had spotted first.

"It is only evidence that the hairs taken from the dog came from the dead boy. But how did they get there? You were at the scene of the crime when the boy's body was found… You could have picked up the hairs and when the dog jumped up on your lap, they could have been transferred. I wouldn't be at all surprised if many of the constables who have been in contact with the dog were also at the crime scene. The hairs could even have been picked up from the car that took the dog to your laboratory. Hardly good, solid evidence against me, inspector, especially as it is all you have."

"You bastard!" said Frost.

"Do we have a deal?" asked Finch.

"I'll see," said Frost.

He went out to find Mullett.