Hard Frost

Seven

Two o'clock in the morning and cold. Bitterly cold. The moon glared down from a cloudless sky on to a frost-rimmed landscape where a raw, cutting wind moaned and punched the side of the dark green Ford transit van as it turned the corner into Cresswell Street and drew up outside a small bungalow. The man sitting next to the driver climbed out and went to the back of the van. This was Mark Grover, twenty-six years old, married with three children, a fourth on the way. He opened the rear doors and took out his metal tool box. Closing the doors, he banged on the side of the van. Without looking back the driver acknowledged with a grunt and a curt wave as he drove off. Grover watched its rear lights disappear as it rounded the corner, then, humping the heavy tool box, he turned towards the house.

He shivered. It wasn't just the cold. He had the uneasy feeling that someone was watching him. He stared up and down the street. Moon shadows rippled across the pavement as the wind shook the trees, but no sign of anyone.

The front gate was swinging back and forth, creaking in the wind. He frowned, trying to remember. He was sure he had closed it when he had left earlier that night to go to work. He hurried up the path, tugging the front door key from his trouser pocket. But he didn't have to use it. The front door also was swinging ajar. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

He stepped into the dark of the hall, and was fumbling for the light switch when a loud crash made him drop the tool case and spin round. The front door had slammed shut behind him. A strong blast of wind hit him in the face. A door or a window at the back of the house must be open somewhere. He hurried along the passage to the kitchen. There it was. The back door to the rear garden was wide open. He looked outside. Crystals of frost on bushes glinted in the moonlight. The gate in the wall leading to the path running along the rear of the properties seemed to be firmly closed. He closed the back door and turned the key in the lock. Then he saw that the piece of plywood he had nailed over the broken door pane was loose. The nails had been wrenched out of the woodwork. Someone had broken into the house.

He ran into the passage and called his wife's name. He flung open their bedroom door. She wasn't there. Across the passage to the children's room. He opened the door. He listened… Silence. An awful silence. Steeling himself, he clicked on the light.

The woman in the house opposite couldn't sleep. Another one of her blinding migraine headaches. She lay in bed, biting her lip against the pain, then flung back the bedclothes and went to the window where she stared out into the empty street which was almost as bright as day under the moon. Headlights. Then the transit van pulled up. She watched Mark Grover get out and walk to his front door while her mind debated whether to take a second sleeping tablet. Lights came on in the bungalow. She had often watched the children playing on the front lawn. Beautiful children, but noisy. Their mother didn't seem able to control them.

She checked the time. Five past two. Another six hours of tossing and turning. She went to the bedside cabinet and shook out two more sleeping tablets, swilling them down with a glass of water.

A piercing, animal-like wail of agony drew her back to the window. The man came stumbling from the bungalow. He was carrying something in his arms. Good God! It was a child, its arms flopping limply. He must have taken leave of his senses to bring it out in the bitter cold.

Grover was yelling and shouting. She couldn't make out what he was saying, it was incoherent and he seemed to be crying. Lights came on in other houses and windows were raised. The woman in number 25 shouted angrily for Grover to stop that bloody row before he woke up her kids.

Someone phoned the police and complained about the noise. A yawning Bill Wells sent a car across to investigate.

Frost staggered down to the phone and yelled to the police motor cyclist who was banging at the front door that he would be there in a minute.

Bill Wells on the phone. He sounded grim. "Nasty one for you, Jack. Three kids killed in their cots and the mother's gone missing."

Frost slumped down in the chair by the phone. "How old were the kids?"

"The eldest was three, the youngest a few months."

"Bloody hell," said Frost. "Bloody, bloody hell."

Most of the houses now had lights showing and curtains were twitching back as curious neighbours watched the comings and goings. A few, wearing dressing-gowns, were clustered at front gates, talking in hushed, disbelieving voices and shaking their heads sadly. One neighbour who ventured across the road was abruptly turned back by the police. "Please keep to the other side, madam. Nothing to see here."

The line of vehicles parked opposite the bungalow were filled with duffle-coated reporters and photographers with flashy Japanese cameras fitted with enormous telescopic lenses. Standing apart from the representatives of the big London dailies was Sandy Lane, Chief Reporter of the Denton Echo, his ears timed to what the big boys were saying, but hoping to use his local knowledge to talk to the people who mattered. This was a big story which he could sell to London with a by-line, although it would be too late for the morning editions.

The man in the BBC Television van, an early arrival on the scene and able to park almost directly opposite the murder house, drained his cup of thermos coffee and mounted his video camera on his shoulder to film the arrival of Detective Inspector Frost. He panned the approach of the Ford as it coughed exhaust and jerked to a halt behind the police cars. He focused sharply on the figure at the wheel wearing a none too clean mac with a maroon scarf, then zoomed in to show him climbing wearily out and surveying the murder house which had lights blazing from every room.

Outside the front door Mike Packer, the young PC who had found the body of eight-year-old Dean Anderson, moved to one side to let the inspector pass. "Sergeant Hanlon is inside, sir."

Frost looked back at the knots of people outside the other houses. "Don't waste time here, son. Go and knock on doors… talk to people … Most of the street are up anyway. It'll save time in the morning." Relieved to be doing something useful, Packer hurried off.

The duty police doctor, anxious to get away, was waiting for him in the hall which had its grey carpeting covered with plastic sheeting. From a far door came the heart-rending moan of a man in the depths of despair. "The father," explained the doctor. "He's in shock. I've given him a mild sedative but he needs to go to hospital. The ambulance should be here shortly."

"Can I talk to him?"

"I don't advise it. He'll be out cold soon, anyway."

Frost nodded as if he accepted this, but he intended to question the father as soon as the doctor had departed. The children?"

"Asphyxiated, probably by a pillow being held over their faces. They've been dead two to three hours. You'll need a pathologist."

"Drysdale's on his way," said Frost.

The doctor snatched his bag and made for the door. "Then you can manage without me." Like Frost, he was not over-fond of the Home Office Pathologist.

Detective Sergeant Arthur Hanlon emerged from the door where all the wailing was coming from. Usually perky whatever the circumstances, he looked shattered. "It's a mess, Jack. Three little kids dead and the mother's gone missing."

Frost rested against the wall and fished out his cigarettes. He hated this type of case. "She killed the kids and did a runner? I wonder what drove the poor bitch to do that. We're looking for her, I hope?"

"Yes," said Hanlon. "I've circulated her description."

Frost rubbed his hands together to restore the circulation. The pervasive breath of death made the house seem very cold. Outside with that saw-edged wind it was colder. "How was she dressed? Was she wearing a coat?"

"No idea, Jack. Haven't been able to find anyone who saw her leave yet."

A row of clothes were hanging neatly from hooks in the hall: a man's raincoat and anorak, lots of brightly coloured children's coats and hats and, at the far end, a woman's thick red woollen coat with chunky black buttons. Frost patted the pockets and took out a suede leather purse which contained about 19. "I reckon this is the coat she would have worn, Arthur. So it looks like no coat and no money probably just wearing a dress. If we don't find her soon, the poor cow will freeze to death. Has she got any friends, or relatives living nearby, she might have gone to?"

Hanlon shrugged helplessly. "We can't get any sense from the husband and none of the neighbours have come up with anything yet, except to say she kept herself to herself and she loved the kids."

"Never mind," said Frost. Tdoubt if she's gone to anyone. I can't see her saying, "Can you put me up for a few days, I've done in the kids."

"I'll show you the bodies," said Hanlon

Frost took another deep drag at his cigarette. "There's no hurry they're not going anywhere." He coughed as the smoke irritated his lungs. "Fill me in on the facts, first."

"Married couple. Mark Grover, aged twenty-six '

"He's the one making that bleeding row?"

Hanlon nodded. "The father he found them. The missing wife is Nancy Grover, aged twenty-one. They had three kids, two boys and a girl, the eldest is three, the youngest that's the girl eleven months. Difficult to get details, but from what I can piece together, the husband is a self-employed carpet fitter. He had to go out at eight last night on a rush job."

"Funny bleeding time to lay carpets?"

"That's what I thought. Anyway, he came home just after two this morning and found the front door wide open. The back door was open as well. He dashed to the kids' room…" Hanlon straightened up. "I'll show you what he found."

Frost took one last, long drag at his cigarette and pitched it out into the street. "Let's go."

Hanlon opened the nearest door, which was painted a nursery blue. Frost followed him into the small children's bedroom with its nursery wallpaper and heavy duty orange and brown carpeting, also covered with plastic sheeting. It held two single beds and a cot. Frost found himself tiptoeing across and holding his breath as if afraid to wake the tiny children lying in them. At the nearest bed he touched the cold, slightly swollen, face of a boy who could not have been more than three. He was lying on top of the bedclothes and wore white, knitted cotton pyjamas with Dennis the Menace figures printed on them.

"His name was Dennis," said Hanlon in a soft voice, 'aged three."

"Was he found like this on top of the bedclothes?"

"No, Jack. When we arrived the father was cradling the dead kid in his arms. We had a job getting the boy away from him. We put him back here."

Frost nodded. The room had a lingering smell of Johnson's baby powder which reminded him of the little Chinese nurse. God, was that only last night?

They moved across to the other bed, by the window. Another boy, fair-haired and slightly chubbier than his brother. His eyes were wide open and there were small dots of blood in his ears and nose. The bedclothes were drawn up to his chin.

"Jimmy, aged two," murmured Hanlon.

Frost shuddered and shook his head. "Poor little bleeder!"

A crumpled pillow lay on top of the bedclothes at the foot of the bed. There was a slight discoloration in the centre. It had been used to smother the three children.

The sound of a car pulling up outside. Frost looked through the window to see if it was the pathologist, but it was a black Vauxhall which he didn't instantly recognize. He turned back and went over to the cot.

Sandy Lane, stamping his frozen feet on the pavement, looked up as a black Vauxhall pulled in behind Frost's car. The man who got out and scowled at the press looked familiar. Cassidy! Detective Sergeant Cassidy who had been transferred from Denton some four years back after his young daughter was killed in a hit and run accident. So what was he doing back here? Sandy made a mental note to ask around.

The baby in the cot, so still and small, looked like a child's doll. Her arms, covered by the sleeves of a pink nightdress, lay on top of the bedclothes.

"Linda, aged eleven months," said Hanlon.

Very gently, Frost touched the pale cheeks. They were ice cold. He felt he couldn't take much more and found something interesting to study out in the street, his eyes misting. Why the hell did he become a copper? "Poor little bastards!" he muttered. It was all he could think of to say.

Angry voices from the hall. He frowned and went to look. Cassidy was snarling away at young PC Packer.

"He was supposed to be guarding the front door," called Cassidy. "Any Tom, Dick or Harry could have walked in."

"Then we'd tell the bastards to walk out again," replied Frost. "I asked him to get statements from the neighbours."

"Well, I've told him to come back on the door."

Frost exchanged a sympathetic glance with Packer, but said nothing. He wasn't going to row over trivialities with three dead children in the house. He could have done without flaming laughing boy tonight. If he had known Cassidy would want to come he would cheerfully have let him handle the case.

Cassidy was out of sorts, annoyed that Frost had managed to get here before him. He went with Hanlon into the children's room, then emerged, tight-lipped, and they all went into the parents' bedroom with its large double bed and scarlet duvet. The bed, neatly made, its matching scarlet pillows plumped with nightdress and pyjamas folded on top, hadn't been slept in.

Frost wandered across to the window and parted the velour curtains to look out on to the rear garden which was lit up from the lights streaming from the bungalow. Beyond it there seemed to be fields and woodlands stretching to the horizon. At first he couldn't orientate himself as to where they were, then he realized he was looking at the golf course and on the far side was the bungalow of Mullett's golfing friend where the little girl was stabbed. "Get someone to search the golf course. The mother might have wandered out there."

"Doing it now," said Hanlon, pointing to little pinpricks of bobbing lights from distant torches.

They went back through the hall to the dining-room where the father was sitting by the table, staring straight ahead. He was quieter now that the sedative had started to work, but from time to time he shook convulsively and seemed to have no control over his hand which was drumming a tattoo on the table top. His zip-up suede jacket was grease marked and scruffy. There was the tiniest smear of blood across the front.

"From when he carried the body of his son out to the street," whispered Hanlon.

"Someone make some tea," said Frost, drawing up a chair to sit opposite the man. "Mr. Grover. My name is Frost. I'm a police officer."

Grover stared straight through him, his lips moving, but saying nothing.

"Mr. Grover…"

Grover's head came up slowly, his face wet with tears. "My kids. She killed them."

Someone must have given him whisky. Frost could smell it on his breath. "Who killed them, Mr. Grover?"

"That bitch… that lousy bitch…" His fingers flexed and clawed as if squeezing someone's throat.

"Do you mean your wife?"

Grover suddenly stared at Frost as if seeing him for the first time. "Who are you?" He slumped forward, buried his head in his hands and started to sob.

Frost wriggled uncomfortably and fished out a cigarette stub. Grover wasn't going to be of any use to anyone. Where was that flaming ambulance?

More commotion from outside then a tap at the door. PC Packer looked in and said, "Ambulance is here, inspector. And there's a bloke outside who says he's able to help us. His name is Phil Collard. He was working with Mr. Grover tonight. He drove him back here this morning."

Frost took an instant dislike to Collard the minute the man waddled in. Balding and in his late thirties, Collard was running to fat, had a beer gut and an air of oily concern. "Mark! It's not bloody true, is it? God tell me it's not true!"

Grover looked up at him and gave a chilling, mirthless smile. "They're dead," he said simply. "They're all dead." Then he saw the ambulance man and stood up. "I've got to go to the hospital." Without another glance at any of them, he walked out of the room with the ambulance man. The passage crackled with blue flashes as the waiting pressmen took their photographs of the bereaved.

Frost waved Collard into the chair vacated by Grover. "How do you fit into this, Mr. Collard?"

"Mark's my best mate. We went to school together and now we work together."

"Carpet fitting?"

"Yes."

"So what can you tell us about tonight?"

"Not much. We usually go to the pub, but just after seven we had this phone call from Denton Shopfitters asking if we could help out with a rush job."

"What rush job?"

"Fitting a new carpet in the restaurant at Bonley's department store. It's been completely refurbished. Tomorrow is the grand opening David Jason cutting the ribbon but the special carpeting got held up by Customs at the docks. It wouldn't reach the store until well after ten. They wanted us to work all night and lay it. Two hundred quid each, no tax so we jumped at it."

A tap at the door and a rattle of cups. Packer with the tea. He handed it out in the mugs he had found in the kitchen and put a bag of sugar on the table. "Thanks," grunted Frost, nodding for Collard to continue.

"I called round with the van just after eight to pick him up. Nancy had the hump. Sat there sulking, not saying a word… the kids screaming and shouting."

"Why did she have the hump?"

"She said she was frightened she didn't like being left on her own all night. She was always moaning about being left on her own, even if we only went to the pub for a couple of hours. Anyway, we got to Bonley's about a quarter past eight and fitted all the grippers and underlay. At five past ten the delivery van turns up with the special new carpeting. We worked like the clappers to get the job done and finished about ten to two. I drove Mark back, dropped him off outside here, then went off home. Later I hear all the police sirens so I goes out to take a look and someone tells me Nancy's done the kids in. I couldn't believe it."

"Did she ever threaten anything like this?"

"She threatened to do herself in we had all the bleeding dramatics but never the kids."

Frost showed him the red coat from the hall. "Is this the coat she usually wore?"

Collard nodded. "Mark bought it for her last Christmas."

"Any idea where we might find her?"

He pursed his lips and shook his head. "I heard she'd legged it, but she's got nowhere to go."

"Friends… relatives…?"

"She didn't make friends. She was a funny cow, very moody. Relatives?" He shrugged. "Not as far as I know. When she was fourteen her mother's boyfriend started getting fruity so she ran away from home and never went back."

Frost took a sip at his tea. "Just for the record, Mr. Collard, is there anyone at Bonley's who can confirm you were there all night?"

"The night security guard he's on duty until six." Then he realized the implication. "You're not suggesting…?"

"Just for the record, Mr. Collard," smiled Frost. "We have to check everything and everybody, innocent or guilty." He thanked him and let him go, then lit another cigarette. "I'm beginning to feel a lot of sympathy for the poor cow," he told Hanlon. "Three kids, no friends, a husband who's either round the pub or out all night."

"I can't feel sorry for her," said Hanlon. "They had all their lives in front of them, and she killed them." "Something must have snapped, Arthur." He lifted the mug of tea to his lips when he saw it was a child's mug. It bore the name Dennis. He put it down and pushed it away. He didn't feel like tea any more.

Frost got PC Collier to phone Bonley's and listened to PC Jordan who had been knocking on doors and talking to the neighbours. "The mother didn't mix with anyone, inspector. She and her husband were always rowing — someone heard them quarrelling tonight just after seven. Another witness thought she heard raised voices just before midnight this morning, but couldn't be sure if it was coming from this bungalow or not. Oh the woman at number 22 said she was getting undressed a couple of nights ago when she saw a man staring in at her through the window."

"Did she report it to the police?" asked Cassidy.

"No she didn't think we'd do anything about it."

"How well she knows us," grunted Frost. "Any description?"

"No. She screamed and he legged it."

Frost nodded. "Thank you, constable. You've been sod all help." He looked up as Collier returned to report he had tried to phone Bonley's but could only get the answer phone

"Send a car round," ordered Frost. "I want to know what time Collard and the husband arrived and what time they left and check that they were there all the time."

"You're surely not suggesting they've got anything to do with this?" asked Hanlon.

"Just being thorough," replied Frost. "Mr. Mullett suggested I gave it a try in case the novelty appealed to me."

Cassidy finished his tea in silence, staying aloof from the others, then went back into the children's bedroom. He wanted to take a thorough look around. He was bending over the body of the three-year-old Dennis when he spotted something that Frost, in his usual slapdash manner, had missed. On the upper arm of the pyjama jacket, a small stain. A bloodstain. His eyes glinted. Very gently, he lifted the arm and tugged back the sleeve until he could see a small blob of blood from a recent wound on the upper arm. It looked as if Dennis Grover had been jabbed with something sharp, exactly the same as the little girl in the other bungalow.

He pulled the pyjama sleeve down and lowered the tiny arm. What to do about it? He smiled grimly and decided he would keep this titbit to himself for the time being. He began feeling happy for the first time since he arrived in Denton.

Cassidy walked back to the dining-room where Frost was staring moodily up at the ceiling. "I'll take over now," he said.

"Thanks," said Frost, trying not to sound too grateful. This was the sort of case he was only too happy to give up. Not much satisfaction in arresting a poor bitch of a mother who just couldn't take any more and getting her locked away in a mental institution.

He bumped into Liz Maud in the hall. "Sorry I'm late getting here," she told him. "I lost my way. I couldn't find Cresswell Street on my map."

"Apologize to the bloke who kicked you out of your office," said Frost. "He's in charge now."

He walked back to his car, deaf to the questions of the waiting reporters. Then everyone's attention was diverted by the arrival of a gleaming black Rolls-Royce. Flash guns fired as Drysdale and his secretary walked into the bungalow. They flashed again when the bodies were brought out, bodies so tiny the undertaker was able to accommodate all three in a single coffin shell.

Frost drove back past the golf course, all silver and black in the moonlight. The flag on the club house was whipped out stiff and straight by the wind. No longer any sign of police with torches looking for the mother. The search had proved fruitless.

He detoured to skirt Denton Woods, a place where the mother might make for. His headlights picked out the odd small animal furtively crossing the road, but no sign of the woman. He shivered and turned up the heater. Something white caught his eye, something moving behind one of the bushes. He braked sharply, but it was only a plastic carrier bag blown by the wind.

As he turned into Bath Street he caught sight of the blue lamp outside the police station. He reversed and drove into the car-park. It would be warmer there than in his cold, empty house. He found the station a relaxing place to be in the wee, small hours when the phones were quiet, the office empty, and he could prowl around and read the contents of other people's in-trays to see what was going on. And best of all there was no Mullett to keep finding fault with everything he did.

"Nasty business with those kids," said Wells, taking the offered cigarette.

"Yes," grunted Frost. "Any tea on the go?" He was munching away at the tuna fish sandwich Wells had brought in for his own consumption. The canteen wouldn't open until five so the night shift had to fend for themselves.

Wells clicked on the wall switch with his foot. The kettle was already plugged in. "Did I tell you that Mullett's got me working here on Christmas Day again?"

"Yes, I believe you did mention it," said Frost. It was Wells's sole flaming topic of conversation these days. Frost was not really sympathetic. He always got the Christmas Day shift, but didn't mind. It was just like any other day to him with the added bonus of the absence of the Divisional Commander.

"I'm going to have it out with him," continued Wells. "I can be driven just so far." He picked up a written message. "We've had two more sightings of the missing boy one in Manchester and one in Sunderland."

"Thanks," grunted Frost gloomily, stuffing the message in his pocket. "In a couple of hours we start dragging the canals and the lakes. God knows how many dead dogs and horses we're going to turn up." He watched Wells drop a tea-bag in each of two mugs and fill them with hot water and his mind drifted back to the bungalow. "That place was spotless. The nippers were well nourished… clean… bags of toys." He sighed. "Poor cow. Better if we do find her dead. How can you carry on living knowing you've killed your own kids?"

Wells nodded sympathetically as he brought out the carton of milk. Then he stiffened. He had heard something. A car door slamming in the car-park. "That sounds like Mullett's car."

"You're just trying to frighten me," said Frost.

But it was Mullett, shiny and polished in his uniform, chin pink and smooth and freshly shaved. "I've just come from Cresswell Street."

"Ah!" Frost gave a knowing nod. Cassidy must have told the publicity-hungry Mullett that the press and TV boys were there in force with half a million quid's worth of Japanese cameras. "Get your photograph taken, did you, super?"

Mullett smoothed his moustache. "I thought it advisable to take advantage of the TV cameras to appeal for help in tracing the mother." He flashed a smug smile. "I think it went very well. It'll be shown on breakfast television."

That should put people off their cornflakes, thought Frost.

"Ah, tea!" beamed Mullett. "You must have known I was coming, sergeant." He picked up the mug Wells had poured for himself. "I'll take it with me." His smile clicked off abruptly. "And I'd like a word in my office, Frost… now!" He spun on his heels and marched up the corridor.

"He's found out about the fags," said Frost, horrified.

"Don't implicate me," called Wells. "I had nothing to do with it." He looked at the cigarette smoking in his hand and quickly stubbed it out.

But it wasn't about the cigarettes. "Sit down," began Mullett, but he was too late, as usual. Frost had already slumped into one of the visitor's chairs, putting his mug of hot tea on the polished top of Mullett's desk. Mullett hastily put a sheet of blotting paper under it.

"Cassidy seems to think these unfortunate children might not have been killed by their mother."

"Oh?" said Frost. "First I've heard about it."

"He detects strong similarities between these killings and the spate of child stabbings we've had over the past weeks."

"Stabbings?" said Frost. "The kids were asphyxiated."

"There was a stab wound on the eldest boy's upper arm."

Frost frowned. "I never spotted it."

"But Cassidy did. We're fortunate in having him, Frost, otherwise goodness knows what vital clues might be missed."

"Kids always get knocks and scratches," said Frost.

"This was definitely a stabbing wound… and the Home Office Pathologist says it was inflicted after death."

That bastard Cassidy, thought Frost. He's deliberately kept this from me. "No doubt when we find the mother she'll tell us what happened."

"If the mother was responsible. Cassidy is beginning to suspect Sidney Snell."

"Snell? Rubbish!"

"Consider the coincidences, Frost. Snell likes jabbing very young children on the arms or buttocks. This boy was jabbed in the arm. Snell likes staring in windows, watching women undress. There was a report of a man doing just that in the same street. The previous stabbing was in a bungalow by the golf course… This also was a bungalow by the golf course. Too many coincidences to be ignored."

"Snell gets his kicks from seeing little drops of blood on chubby arms and legs. He doesn't kill with pillows."

"There's always a first time for everything," retorted Mullett. "Something could have gone wrong tonight. The children all woke up and started crying. He panicked and tried to silence them with a pillow."

"And the mother?"

"Mr. Cassidy thinks she could have heard the commotion and come running in, so he had to kill her as well."

"And then he took her body away in case someone tripped over it?"

Mullett flapped away the awkward question. "We don't know the exact details."

"The mother killed her kids and did a runner," said Frost firmly. "Snell had nothing to do with it."

"I hope, for your sake, you are right," said Mullett. "I understand Cassidy wanted you to arrest Snell, but you were content to warn him off. Might I ask why?"

"We've got too much on at the moment to sod about with Snell. Let Newcastle handle him."

Mullett took a sip of his tea. "If we find that the man you couldn't be bothered to arrest then goes out and murders three innocent children, I will personally throw the book at you, Frost."

Frost gave him a sweet smile and stood up, ready to go. "I wouldn't expect anything else of you, sir."

Bill Wells could hear raised voices rolling down the corridor and was deciding whether to take a stroll past Mullett's office in the hope he could overhear what was going on. But a sudden blast of cold air that ruffled the papers on his desk made him look up. A little old woman had toddled in from the street. Frail-looking, in her eighties, she clutched a large empty shopping bag. Her feet flip-flopped across the lobby. She was wearing pink bedroom slippers with large red pom-poms.

"What's happening with the buses?" she demanded in a shrill voice. "I've been waiting ages at that bus stop for a number 6 and nothing has turned up nothing. I've got to get to the shops before they close." Wells sighed and shook his head sadly. "It's four o'clock in the morning, Ada. The buses stopped running long ago and the shops are all shut. Everyone's in bed — and that's where you should be."

The old woman blinked at him in confusion. "But I've got to get dinner ready for my husband. He…" Her voice tailed off. Her husband had been dead for more than sixteen years.

The phone rang. "Yes," said Wells, 'she's just walked in here. I'll get someone to drive her back." He put down the phone and went over to the woman. "That was your daughter. She's worried about you."

"Did you tell her I'd gone shopping?"

"I think she knows," said Wells, taking her arm and sitting her down on the bench.

Frost came charging through, still seething after his bout with Mullett, but he brightened up when he saw the woman. "Hello, Ada. What are you doing here?" He gave her his mug of tea.

"I'm doing my shopping."

"Shopping? Not the sex aids shop again you cleaned them out of mechanical dicks last time."

She giggled and slurped her tea. She liked Frost. He made her laugh.

"Any chance of giving her a lift home?" whispered Wells.

"I've still got things to do here," replied Frost.

A brisk clatter of feet as Mullett bustled through. Frost called him over and spoke quietly. Mullett frowned and looked across to the old woman sipping noisily from Frost's mug of tea. "It's on your way, sir," wheedled Frost.

"Very well." Mullett wasn't too happy about it. It would take him well out of his way, but one had to do one's duty to the public. He walked over to her and shouted in her ear. "If you'll come with me, madam, I'll drive you home."

"I'm not deaf," she snapped, gathering up her shopping bag. "Can we stop at the shops on the way?"

"They're closed, madam," said Mullett, ushering her out.

As the swing doors closed behind them, Wells turned in agitation to Frost. "Did you warn him, Jack?"

Frost frowned. "About what?"

"About Ada she's incontinent."

Frost sounded surprised. "Is she?"

"You know damn well she is. The last time you took her home she piddled all over your front seat."

"I thought that was Mrs. Mullett," said Frost innocently. Then he snapped his fingers as if he had just remembered. "No, you're right … it was Ada." He smiled. "I suppose I shouldn't have let her drink my mug of tea."

Wells's jaw sagged. "You gave her tea? Bloody hell, it'll go straight through her."

"Let's hope he drives fast," said Frost. "Them blue velvet seats don't half stain, and Ada's output always seems to exceed her input."

Feeling considerably bucked, he wandered into the incident room where Burton, the only occupant, was sitting by the phone, reading a paperback as he munched on a sandwich. He looked up guiltily as Frost entered. "It's all right, son." Frost dropped into the seat beside him. "Anything happened? Has the kid been found, but it slipped your mind to tell me?"

Burton grinned and pointed to a filing basket brimming over with the night's phone messages. "Sightings galore, most of them worthless, but we're following them up. No joy from the road blocks. Too many kids out with guys for anyone to recall one specific boy." He tugged out a message from under the stapler. "This bloke phoned a couple of hours ago. Wouldn't give his name, but was most insistent we should follow it up. He said he and his girlfriend were having it away under the canal bridge off Union Street when they heard a car draw up overhead. He heard some grunting and groaning as if something heavy was being lifted from the car, then something was chucked into the canal. It sunk right away. He reckons it could have been a body."

"Grunting and groaning?" said Frost. "I reckon him and his girlfriend were doing all the grunting and groaning." He took the message and skimmed through it. "We've got the frogmen arriving tomorrow, they can start off looking by the bridge."

He poked a cigarette in his mouth. "Having it away under the canal bridge? Some people pick the most romantic spots it's cold, it's damp and it stinks. I'm not fussy, but even I would think twice." He stood up and stretched. "Let's go home, son. Early start tomorrow. The briefing is at eight." He consulted his wristwatch. "Just under four hours time."