Hard Frost

Three

Phones in the incident room were ringing non-stop. The TV appeal for Bobby's return made by his distraught parents, the tear-stained mother with her husband's arm firmly around her, Terry Green and the Chinese nurse tactfully absent, had provoked a terrific response from people convinced they had seen Bobby. None of the leads seemed very hopeful, but all would have to be followed up.

In the same TV bulletin, a photograph of the dead boy was shown with a statement that the police were anxious to identify him. No mention was made of the fact that he was dead, nor that there might be a connection with Bobby.

DC Burton, his ear sore from being constantly pressed against the phone, scribbled some details and thanked the caller. He tossed the form into the main collection basket.

"Any news from Forensic?" asked Frost, dropping in the chair next to him.

"Nothing worth having. The masking tape on the boy's face is run of the mill stuff and there were no prints on it. The cotton wool is a standard type. The plastic bag round his hand came from Bi-Wize supermarket and there were no prints on the rubbish sack the body was in."

"If we didn't have a Forensic Department," said Frost, 'how would we know we had sod all to go on? What about the prints on the other rubbish sacks?"

"The only prints found so far came from the shop staff."

"This bloke is too bloody clever to leave prints," said Frost gloomily. He glanced up at the clock. Nine twenty-five. The kid had been dead for some sixteen hours and no-one had yet reported him missing. "Who's in charge of checking the schools?"

"Wonder Woman. She's in Mr. Allen's office."

"Right, son." Frost pushed himself up from the chair. "Let's go and see what she's got if you'll pardon the expression,"

Bill Wells was distributing the internal mail. From force of habit he knocked on the door of Inspector Allen's office and a red light signalling "Wait' flashed. Dutifully, he waited. Then a green light bade him "Enter'. He went in and stared goggle-eyed. Sitting at Inspector Allen's desk as if she owned the bloody place was Liz bloody Maud. The cow! Flicking the switch to make him wait. Who the hell did she think she was?

She didn't look up, just waggled her finger at the in-tray. "In there, please." Fuming, Wells flung the mail in. As he reached the door, she called him. "Sergeant!"

He turned. She was holding up a red folder and beckoning for him to come over. "Do you mind taking this to MrMullett?"

"Yes, I bloody well do mind," he snapped, and his slamming of the door echoed around the building.

Liz shrugged. She knew Wells resented her. Well, he would just have to learn to start taking orders from a woman, because her immediate aim was to be made up to acting detective inspector during Allen's absence. She had seen Superintendent Mullett and explained why she was the most suitable person for the temporary promotion. He had nodded vigorously and agreed wholeheartedly with everything she had said. "The decision is not up to me," he had told her, 'but it will receive my strongest personal recommendation." As she didn't yet know Mullett very well, she believed him.

Spluttering with indignation, Wells buttonholed Frost as he came out of the murder incident room and poured out his moans about Liz Maud. "In Allen's office and with the red light on."

"Perhaps she's turning it into a knocking shop," suggested Frost.

But Wells was too angry for jokes. "Who the hell does she think she is? She's only a flaming sergeant and she's acting like a…" He stopped open-mouthed as the almost unthinkable thought struck him. "Flaming hell, Jack. You don't think she's going to be made up to acting DIdo you?"

"Could be," said Frost. "I saw her coming out of Mullett's office with her knickers in her hand."

"I wonder she wears any," snarled Wells, stamping off. "I bet that's how she was made up to sergeant."

Frost went into Allen's office without knocking although the red light was on. "What news from the schools?" he asked.

"Five boys in the right age group didn't attend for lessons today," she told him. "Three they know about — one to the dentist, one in hospital and one the mother phoned through this morning to say he had a cold…"

"Check that one," said Frost. "The mother could be lying. What about the other two?"

"I've sent Collier round to the houses. I'll let you know as soon as he reports in."

Ten o'clock. A lull in the incident room. The phones had stopped ringing and Frost was sitting on the corner of a desk, watching Liz who was stretching across to stick coloured pins into the wall maps, to mark the progress of the various search parties, and was showing lots of leg into the bargain. "I wouldn't mind sticking something in her," he murmured to Burton.

Progress was slow. Everything up to now was negative. The five boys who were away from school had all been accounted for. The fingerprints on the rubbish bags all came from the shop staff, except for two which were too blurred to provide any positive identification but like the others probably came from a shop assistant. The little Chinese nurse was reported to be very fond of Bobby and wouldn't lift a finger to harm him. A missing boy and a dead boy and no leads to follow on either.

The phone rang. He looked up hopefully, but it was Mullett asking for a progress report.

"Tell him it consists of two words," grunted Frost, 'and the second is "all"!"

"Still following up leads, sir," translated Liz. "We'll let you know as soon as we have something positive." She went back to her wall map.

Bill Wells came in, grinning all over his face. "Control have just had a phone call from a motorist. Said a naked girl tried to flag him down in Hanger Lane."

Frost brightened up. Naked girls interested him very much. "Did he pick her up?"

"No. He couldn't stop. Said he was in a hurry to keep an appointment. He phoned us on his mobile."

Frost frowned and shook his head in disbelief. "A naked girl and he didn't stop? I'd have stopped if she was only half naked… Bloody hell, I'd have stopped if she was fully dressed with one titty hanging out."

"You're all heart, Jack,"said Wells.

"Some people say I'm all dick," said Frost, 'but I try not to brag." A snort of disgust from Liz Maud made him pull a face at Wells.

"I've sent Jordan and Simms to pick her up," said Wells.

"Some people have all the luck," said Frost.

Another phone rang. Liz answered it. She listened and her expression changed.

"What's up?" asked Frost.

"That naked girl. It's not as funny as you thought it was. She's only fifteen. She was abducted last night by a gang of men. Her parents had to pay a 25,000 ransom to get her back."

"Shit!" swore Frost. "We've got enough on our flaming plates without this.. He stared at her thoughtfully before reaching a decision. "You can handle this one, love," he said, 'if you don't mind me coming with you."

They went in Liz's car, Frost sitting next to her and Evans, the Scene of Crime officer, in the back seat. It was a white-knuckle drive as she slammed the car in and out of the tight country lanes, trusting to luck there was nothing coming in the opposite direction. Frost sank down low in his seat and tried not to look at the blur of greenery flashing from side to side across the windscreen as she spun the wheel, slammed on the brakes and skidded, narrowly avoiding catastrophe after catastrophe.

"Left here," he murmured.

"No right," said Evans from the back seat.

She turned right. Up to now, Frost had been wrong with his directions every time and she'd had to slam on the brakes and do a reverse.

"There it is," said Evans.

Liz turned the car into a long drive leading to a large, ivy-clad Edwardian house standing alone and surrounded by fields. Frost stared at the house. He'd been here before, but couldn't remember when, or why. A police car was parked just outside the front door. She slowed and parked behind it. Frost and Evans staggered out. PC Jordan came from the house to brief them.

"Family of three husband, wife and fifteen-year-old daughter. Husband and wife travelled up to London last night to see a show. They got back home around three in the morning. The house had been ransacked, jewellery and furs valued at 50,000 missing. They found this on the kitchen table." He gave Frost a sheet of A4 white paper which had been slipped inside a transparent folder to preserve any prints. The message had been printed on a bubble jet printer, and read: to mr amp; mrs stan field we have your daughter. if you go to the police we will gang rape her. one of us is hiv positive. if you want her returned unharmed you will go to your bank as soon as it opens at 9.30 and withdraw 25,000 in used notes. you will put the money in a small suitcase. as you pass the white gate in clay lane you will throw the case out of the car into the ditch. you will drive straight home. you will not look back. if you do all this and there are no tricks we will release your daughter unharmed. if you try to trick us she won't be worth having when we return her. the enclosed is to show we mean business!

"This was with it," said Jordan, handing Frost a Polaroid photograph, also in a transparent cover. It showed the girl, kneeling on the floor. A hand of someone out of sight had grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. The other hand held a knife which was pressed against the girl's throat. Her eyes were closed and her mouth sagged open. She was naked.

"They ripped her nightdress off with a knife," said Jordan.

"I usually use my teeth," grunted Frost, passing the photo and the message to Liz.

"The family are in the lounge with Simms," Jordan told him. "Do you want to see them?"

"Show me round the house first," said Frost, hoping it might jog his memory as to when he was here before. "How did the gang get in?"

"Through the back door I'll show you."

Jordan walked them down a side path to the rear of the property where a small patio with tub bed plants backed on to the lawn. The back door had one of its glass panels smashed. The gang had punched a hole in the glass, reached in and turned the key which had been conveniently left in the lock.

Frost squinted through the smashed pane. "Stupid bastards! They install an expensive, six lever mortice lock, then they leave the flaming key in it." He waited as Evans, his hand gloved, opened the door for them. They stepped over broken glass on the mat, into the kitchen, Evans staying behind to dust the door for prints. A pine wood table had been laid the night before with cups and cereal bowls for a breakfast that had not been eaten. Frost picked up the cereal packet. "All Bran nature's laxative. I bet no-one needed that this morning." Jordan laughed, but Liz didn't find it funny. "How many of them were there?"

"Four, we think," said Jordan, taking them through a door leading to the hall. "The first thing they did was to turn the electricty off at the mains." He opened a small cupboard door under the stairs and revealed electricity and gas meters, side by side, with the central heating control box just below.

Frost frowned. "Why did they do that?"

"So the girl couldn't call the police. She had a phone in her bedroom it was one of those cordless models. If the electricity is off, they don't function."

"I thought they were battery powered," said Liz.

"The handsets are, but most base units are mains powered without electricity they just don't work," Jordan told her.

"I thought they only didn't work when I dropped the bleeding things on the floor," said Frost, checking the clock on the central heating timer with his watch. It was only a couple of minutes slow. "It wasn't switched off for long, then?"

"Once they got the girl, they switched the power back on. They needed the electric light so they could ransack the rooms."

Evans rejoined them, shaking his head sadly. "No-one leaves fingerprints any more."

"Crooks today have no consideration for the police," said Frost. He still couldn't remember why he had been in the house. "Let's see the girl's bedroom."

A typical teenager's room. Posters on the wall advertising past pop concerts and a large one saying "Save The Whale'. A black ash wall unit held a hi-fi system with two tiny Wharfdale speakers and a 10-inch colour TV set. The room had been turned over. Drawers gaped, their contents strewn all over the floor. Frost's nose twitched. The girl's perfume lingered. A bit sexy for a fifteen-year-old, and so were the pair of scanty briefs he bent and picked up. He showed them to Liz. "You'd have a job stuffing your hankie up the leg of these."

Jordan grinned, but Liz stared stonily. The man was an ignorant pig.

Frost flicked the briefs across the room and they butterflyed delicately down to the carpet. "What was taken from here, Jordan?"

"The girl's too upset to check, but her mother doesn't think anything is missing." He pointed to a heap of chunky beads, bangles and necklaces tipped out on the floor. "It's all junk, not worth pinching."

"I'm surprised they didn't take that little telly," said Frost. "I wouldn't mind having that myself."

"They were after bigger fish," said Jordan. "Jewels and furs from the parents' room. I'll show you."

The main bedroom was a bigger shambles than the girl's, with drawers dragged open and clothes strewn about apparently just for the hell of making a mess. On the big double bed the contents of a drawer had been tipped out underwear, perfume bottles, cosmetics, in an untidy heap. "The jewel box was in that drawer," said

Jordan. "They took the lot, box as well… fifty thousand quid's worth, they claim including the fur coats from the wardrobe." He nodded towards the far wall where the sliding door of the woman's wardrobe was open, showing a jumble of coats and dresses on the floor and empty hangers swinging above.

Frost picked his way through the mess on the floor to take a closer look. "Why did they drag all these dresses off?" he asked. "They could have got to the furs without doing that."

"Some people get a kick out of leaving things in a mess," said Liz.

Frost grunted. It could be the answer. He peered through the large picture window which overlooked the garden and the fields and the winding lane which was the only access to the house. Some more houses in the far distance, but not a soul to be seen. He was fumbling for his cigarettes when a man's voice bellowed from downstairs.

"When you've finished sodding about up there, what about talking to us or aren't the victims important any more?"

He went to the landing and looked down. An angry-looking man was glaring up at them. Robert Stanfield, early fifties, sallow complexion and a tight, thin little mouth.

Frost frowned. He'd seen Stanfield before… in this house, but still couldn't recall the circumstances. He clattered down the stairs, followed by Liz and Jordan, Evans staying behind to photograph and check for prints. Then it all came back to him. He smiled broadly. "We meet again, Mr. Stanfield."

The man's eyes crawled over Frost's face. A brief flicker of apprehension, then a thin, scornful smile. "Ah yes the arson attack. Let's hope you are more successful this time, inspector. In here…" He jerked his head to direct them into the lounge.

PC Dave Simms, sitting by the door, jumped up as Frost entered. It was a large and comfortable room with a recently lit log fire crackling in the grate. Wide casement windows gave a view across the garden. In the corner stood a large screen television set on a stand, beneath it a video recorder, its clock, not yet reset, flickering on and off showing there had been a break in the current.

Stanfield hurled himself into an armchair by the fire and swilled down a glass of whisky which had been perched on the arm. Opposite him, in a settee drawn close to the fire, sat his wife and his daughter. His wife, Margie Stanfield, dark-haired, in her early forties, wearing a red and black satin housecoat, was flashily attractive. Frost couldn't remember seeing her before. But it was the girl, Carol, PC Simms's greatcoat draped around her, who held Frost's attention. She looked much older than her fifteen years. Her dark brown hair was long and flowing and uncombed, giving her a wild, untamed appearance. She kept her head down, but her eyes, narrow like her father's, were watching Frost suspiciously and reminded him of a cornered animal with nothing to lose and ready to fight back.

Somehow I don't trust you, my love, thought Frost as he gave her his warm and friendly smile.

"I want you to get these bastards," said Stanfield. "They've stolen my wife's jewellery and fur coats, they've subjected my daughter to hours of terror and they've blackmailed me into giving them 25,000."

"Not your day, sir, was it?" said Frost.

Stanfield opened his mouth to reply when he noticed Liz Maud who had followed Frost in. "Who the hell is she?"

Liz took the warrant card from her handbag and handed it to him. He looked at it and gave a contemptuous sneer as he handed it back. "A bloody woman

sergeant! I'm not being fobbed off with second best, am I?"

"No," said Frost. "I'm second best she's class. And it's her case." Stanfield's snort showed what he thought of this. He hadn't invited them to sit down, so Frost dragged the other armchair over to the fire and offered it to Liz while he sat on the arm. "Ask the gentleman your questions, sergeant."

She opened her notebook. "Tell me everything that happened."

"I've already told that police officer." Stanfield nodded at Simms. "He wrote it all down."

"We can't read his writing," said Frost. "So tell it again."

"My wife and I went up to London to see a show The Phantom of the Opera."

"Just you and your wife?" interrupted Liz. "Not your daughter?"

"As she was bloody abducted while we were away, it's obvious we didn't take her."

"I know you didn't take her," said Liz through clenched teeth. "I'm wondering why."

"If I'd booked the tickets myself, I obviously would have included Carol. Friends of ours had two tickets but found they couldn't go, so they passed them on to us. Satisfied, darling?"

She gritted her teeth at the 'darling' and nodded.

"We left just after four yesterday afternoon, drove up to London, saw the show, had a meal, and came home."

"What time did you arrive back?"

"A little after three in the morning. I parked the car, Margie went upstairs to switch on the electric blanket and found the bedroom had been ransacked."

"Perfume, make-up, dresses, just thrown anywhere," said his wife. "I screamed for Robert. He charged up and made for Carol's room to see if she was all right."

"The bastards had got her," said Stanfield. "My first thought was to phone the police, but I couldn't find the cordless phone it should have been by Carol's bed."

"They threw it out of the window," said the girl. She spoke almost mechanically, staring straight ahead. Her mother put an arm round to comfort her.

"Anyway," continued Stanfield, "I couldn't find it so I went to use the phone in here." He pointed to a phone next to the TV set. "A note and a photograph were propped up against it."

"We've seen them," said Liz.

"Then you know what the bastards threatened to do if I called the police. I had no choice. I did exactly what they wanted. We sat in here, staring at each other until the bank opened. It was the longest bloody night of my life. I drew out the money, chucked the case out in Clay Lane, then roared back here to wait. We were going mad with worry and then your two officers brought her back."

' 25,000? You had that sqrt of money in the bank?"

"Yes — I run a used car business. Most of my suppliers insist on hard cash."

Liz then turned to the girl, who had been staring down at the floor all the time her father was talking. "Right, Carol. Can you tell me what happened to you?"

Carol drew Simms's greatcoat tighter around her and Frost realized she was naked underneath. Her voice was not much more than a whisper and they had to strain to hear what she was saying. She had gone to bed just after midnight and was just dropping off when she heard the sound of breaking glass from downstairs. She thought it might be her parents back early, so she clicked on the bedside lamp. Almost immediately the lamp went out. Then she heard men's voices from inside the house. She fumbled in the dark for the cordless phone and dialled 999, but nothing happened. The phone was dead. Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs…

"I jumped out of bed and tried to wedge a chair under the door handle, but he burst in on me and there was this light in my eyes and the knife…" She started to shake. Her mother held her tighter.

"Take your time, love," said Frost.

"I opened my mouth to scream, but he jabbed the knife at my throat and said if I made a sound he'd slice through my vocal cords. I must have passed out." The recollection made her shrink back inside the greatcoat. "The next thing I remember was being bumped about. I realized I was in the back of a van, being driven at speed. I was blindfolded and I was cold. They'd thrown a sack over me, but I was freezing. I tried to get up, but a hand pushed me down and a man's voice said, "I think she's with us again." They pulled the sacking back."

"They}' queried Liz.

"There were two of them in the back with me. They pulled the sacking back and they… they did things…"

"The bastards," exploded her father.

"What things?" asked Liz.

The girl shook-her head. "I'm not going to talk about it."

"Did they rape you?" asked Liz.

"No."

"How many of them were there?" said Frost.

She switched her gaze to him. "Four. Two in the back with me, the other two in the front."

"And all men?"

"I only heard men's voices."

"How old would you say they were?"

She shrugged. "I don't know late twenties, early thirties."

"And you didn't recognize any of the voices?"

"No."

Liz waited patiently for Frost to finish. "I'd like a doctor to examine you, Carol."

"No."

"If they raped you, there are DNA tests that would help us identify them."

"They didn't rape me, I told you… I'm not going to talk about it any more."

"Ah right," soothed Liz. "What happened then?"

"The van stopped and they changed places… the other two men came in. I pretended I'd passed out, so they didn't do anything much, just sat and smoked. After what seemed such a long time, someone banged on the side of the van and called, "We've got the money." The van drove off, then it stopped and I was pushed out. By the time I'd got the blindfold off, it was out of sight. A car came… but it wouldn't stop… and then the police car picked me up." She wrapped the greatcoat around her like a cocoon.

"I really would like a doctor to take a look at you," urged Liz.

"No!" She screamed the word out. "I'm all right. Just leave me alone." With an abrupt shrug she shook off her mother's arm. "Just leave me alone."

"She's upset," said her mother.

"That's right," exploded Stanfield sarcastically, 'explain it to them. They wouldn't bloody know otherwise." To Frost he said, "Right inspector, you've had a nice sit-down now go and catch the bastards."

"Just a few more questions," said Frost. He smiled at the girl. "You heard breaking glass. You switched on the bedside lamp and tried to dial 999. The lamp went out and the phone was dead '

"Because they'd switched off the current," said Stanfield, as if explaining to an idiot.

"Exactly. Between the time you heard the sound of glass breaking, which was them getting into the house, and the phone going dead, how much time elapsed?"

"I don't know… seconds…"

Frost nodded. "They were bloody quick, weren't they? They knew exactly where the meter was."

"It wouldn't take a bloody mastermind to work that out," exclaimed Stanfield. "Most people have their meter cupboard under the stairs."

"Yes," agreed Frost, 'but these people had to be sure.

They had to do it bloody quickly otherwise Carol would have made her phone call. There's only one way out of here along that four mile lane. The police would have been waiting for them. How did the gang know that the phone in Carol's bedroom was cordless?"

"I've had this house up for sale for the past four months," said Stanfield. "We've had estate agents in and out measuring up, we've had prospective buyers and every nosy sod imaginable poking and touching everything with their grubby fingers… any of them could have been casing the place."

"We'll need names," said Liz.

"Then get them from the estate agents, darling. They didn't leave flaming visiting cards, just sticky bloody finger marks on the wallpaper."

"When did your friends offer you the tickets for the show?" asked Frost.

"The day before yesterday. He had to go to Paris on business. Why?"

"I'm wondering how the crooks knew Carol would have been alone in the house last night."

"They could have been watching the place and picked their moment. We do go out at night from time to time."

Frost pulled a face. He didn't think much of this explanation. Before he could ask another question, Jordan was beckoning from the doorway. "Sorry to disturb you, inspector, but it is urgent."

Frost stood up. "What was the value of the jewellery they nicked?"

"I haven't added it up around 50,000," said the woman.

"But you are insured?"

"It's not the money, is it it's the sentimental value."

"Of course," said Frost.

Stanfield sprang to his feet. "And just what are you insinuating?"

Frost switched on his look of injured innocence.

"Nothing, Mr. Stanfield. Nothing at all. Now, if you'll excuse me…"

He followed Jordan into the hall, closing the door behind him. "What is it, son?"

It was a radio message from Control. A woman had just phoned in reporting her eight-year-old son had been missing since the previous afternoon. Her description matched the dead boy.

Frost swore softly. "I suppose no-one's given the poor cow any hint that he's dead?"

"No, sir," said Jordan.

"We'll go in your car," said Frost. "Sergeant Maud can stay and finish up here." He went back into the lounge and quietly explained the position to Liz. "Got to go," he told Stanfield. "Something important has come up."

Stanfield stared incredulously. "Something more important than this?"

"Yes," sighed Frost. "Something more important than this."

Jordan negotiated the car round the twists and turns of the narrow lane with much more care and skill than Liz had done. Frost was sitting alongside him, smoking, lost in his thoughts. If the dead boy was her son, how was he going to break it to her? Eight years old… God… He had radioed for Burton to meet him outside the house. He would have preferred to have a woman police officer with him, but they were all out helping with the search for Bobby Kirby. Still, breaking news like this was a job he had done many times before. Too many bloody times.

Jordan dragged him back from his brooding thoughts. "What do you reckon is behind this abduction, inspector?"

Frost took the cigarette from his mouth and dribbled smoke down his nose. "I'm not even sure there was an abduction, son."

Jordan frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I've come across Stanfield before. He runs this second-hand car business. About four years ago the Customs and Excise were suspicious that he was working some VAT fiddle. The day before they were due to examine his books' there was a mysterious and very convenient arson attack on his office. All his receipts and records were destroyed."

"And you believe he started the fire himself?"

"I bloody know he did, son, but I couldn't prove it." He wound down the window and chucked the cigarette end out. "If you want my utterly biased opinion, last night's escapade was an insurance fiddle… hide the furs and jewels and claim the insurance."

"But if it was an insurance fiddle," protested Jordan, 'the girl would have to be in on it as well."

"Ten out of ten," said Frost.

Jordan spun the wheel and the track wriggled before turning into Hanger Lane. "This is where we found the girl… standing in the middle of the road, starkers."

"You're only saying that to make me jealous," said Frost. A thought hit him. "Stop the car!"

The car coasted to a halt and Jordan watched as Frost poked and prodded amongst the undergrowth of the grass verge, then disappeared from view as he squeezed through a gap in a hedge. Rustling sounds, then a whoop of delight and Frost emerged carrying something grey. He climbed back into the car. "What do you reckon to this, son?"

"A blanket," said Jordan. "From a single bed."

"Exactly."

Jordan stared at it blankly. He hadn't the faintest idea what the inspector was on about.

"Listen," explained Frost. "You're a fifteen-year-old girl, all throbbing thighs and tits. You've been dumped in the road by your father to flag down a car. You're starkers and it's freezing and Dawn's icy fingers are toying with your privates. So what do you do? You take a blanket with you to keep yourself warm. When you hear a car, you chuck the blanket behind a hedge, step in the middle of the road and waggle your dugs. If the car doesn't stop, you retrieve the blanket and wait for the next one."

"It's possible," said Jordan, begrudgingly.

"Sniff it," said Frost.

Jordan lifted the blanket delicately to his nose. "Perfume?"

"And what's the betting that if you sniffed Simms's greatcoat where it was wrapped round her naked, hot, rampant little body, you'd smell the same perfume?"

"But the gang could have taken the blanket from her bed and wrapped it round her."

"So why wasn't it still wrapped round her naked little figure when she was flagging cars down?" He sighed. "But that little mystery must wait, son. We're putting off the pleasure of telling a mother her son has been murdered." He tossed the blanket on to the back seat and smoked silently until they reached the address given to them by Control.

Kenton Street consisted of large, three-storeyed houses, converted into flats. Burton_was waiting outside number 3a. Frost steeled himself and reached for another cigarette. A few quick delaying drags before he would have to confront the mother. But like Bobby's mother the night before, the woman had seen the police car draw up and was already on the doorstep. Frost gave a deep groan and poked the cigarette back in the packet. "They can't wait for bloody bad news, can they?" He nodded at Burton. "Come on, son. Let me do the talking."

Joy Anderson, a plump, bouncy little brunette in her twenties, anxiously watched them approach, trying to read some sign of hope from their expressions. "Have you found him?"

"Give us a chance love," said Frost. "We've only just got your message."

They followed her up the stairs to a largish room which overlooked the street. It was basically furnished like a hotel room, with few signs of personal belongings. Two large suitcases stood beside the two-seater beige moquette settee. I

Frost parked himself in a chair by the window. "How long has Dean been missing?"

She sat opposite him, staring out of the window as she answered, leaning forward hopefully every time someone turned the corner, slumping back when it wasn't her son. "About half-past two yesterday afternoon."

"But you didn't report him missing until this morning," said Burton.

She took one of Frost's cigarettes. He lit up for both of them. "It's all my bloody fault. I thought he was in bed." She held the cigarette up vertically and watched the smoke wind up to the ceiling.

Frost didn't prompt her. He let her take her time.

"I've got this job at the Coconut Grove. It's a casino near Denton Woods."

"Yes," nodded Frost. "We know it."

"I'm one of the dealers on the blackjack tables eight in the evening until four in the morning. Not much of a job, but you've got to grab what you can get." A cylinder of ash fell from her cigarette. She blew it off the polished table top. "Dean gets himself to bed. I usually look in on him when I get back, but I didn't this morning. I …" She hesitated, then lowered her eyes. "I brought a bloke back here." She glared at Frost defiantly. "I'm not a prostitute just now and then. I need the money."

"Sure," said Frost. Baskin at the Coconut Grove employed plenty of girls like her. Punters went to the casino for a gamble, then some sex, and Baskin provided both. He probably owned this flat. Frost nodded for her to go on.

"I didn't let him know I had a kid… it puts some people off. They don't even know at the Coconut Grove that I've got Dean. Me and the bloke went to bed. He left just after six this morning and I was so bloody tired, I went straight off to sleep. I didn't wake up until half an hour ago, I staggered into Dean's room to see if he wanted any breakfast. His bed hadn't been slept in." She smashed the cigarette out in a heavy glass ashtray. "He's got himself lost, that's what's happened. We've only been in Denton for two days. He doesn't know his way around yet."

"When did you last see him?"

"Yesterday afternoon. He was fed up being stuck in here on his own, so I gave him the money for the pictures. He went off about half-past two."

The cinema! Of course, thought Frost. That would be where he bought the hamburger. Probably ate it as he watched the film. "Weren't you worried he hadn't returned home before you left for work?"

"I had to have my hair done and be fitted for my uniform. I left here just after five. He knows how to work the microwave if he wants anything to eat."

"How was Dean dressed when he left here?"

"Black trousers, Jurassic Park T-shirt and a red and white zip-up shell jacket and blue trainers."

Burton noted the details. Frost showed her a photograph of Bobby Kirby. "Would your son know this boy?"

She dragged her gaze from the window to look at it. "I don't think he knows anyone yet. He hasn't even started school here. Why do you ask?"

"It's not important," lied Frost, crushing out his cigarette alongside hers in the glass ashtray. He took a deep breath. Now for the moment of truth. "Do you have a recent photograph of Dean, Mrs. Anderson?"

"Miss," she corrected, 'not Mrs." She reached for her handbag which hung from the back of her chair. "Taken about three months ago. He's filled out a bit since then."

Frost looked at it, then passed it to Burton. Burton's eyes flickered, but his expression didn't change as he handed it back. Not the slightest doubt about it. It was the dead boy.

"How old are you, love?" asked Frost.

"Twenty-four."

Twenty-four. She would have had the boy when she was sixteen. "Where's Dean's father?"

"With his wife back in Birmingham."

"Does he support the boy?"

"No. He claims Dean isn't his. I can't even be sure myself."

"Any friends, or family, who can help you?"

"No!" She stood up and glared down at him. "Look — I don't want any help. I just want you to find my son."

Frost stood up and took her hand. "I've got some bad news for you, love," he said.

She looked at him. "How bad?"

"Bloody bad," said Frost. "As bad as it bloody well could be."

She shook her head. "No!"

"He's dead, love," said Frost. "We found him last night, but we didn't know who he was."

"No," she whispered. And then she shuddered and tears streamed down her face. "No…"

Frost took her and held her close to him. "You poor cow," he said. "You poor, poor cow…"