Eight

The early morning TV news showed pictures of the 'sad bungalow of death' and of the undertakers carrying out the bodies in a single coffin. Interviewed neighbours said how shocked and saddened they were and what a loving family it was and how everyone was shattered. A photograph of the mother filled the screen and a grim-faced Superintendent Mullett explained that the police were concerned for her safety and appealed to members of the public to look out for her.

Mullett clicked off the set with a nod of approval. An impressive performance, he thought. He picked up his gloves and patted his pocket to make sure he had his car keys. A final check in the hall mirror, a slight repositioning of the knot of his tie to dead centre and he was out to the car. As he opened the driver's door, he frowned and turned his head away, his nose wrinkling. The blue velvet seat cover on the passenger's side had been removed and was in soak with lots of disinfectant, but the smell still lingered. He vigorously squirted the interior with air freshener and drove to the station with the window open in spite of the cold. That damn woman! And Frost! Frost would have known all about her. He had set this up deliberately. He smiled grimly. Well, Detective Inspector Jack Frost was due for the biggest dressing down he had ever received.

His car purred down Bath Hill and glided into Cork Street. A young, uniformed officer spotted his car and gave a smart salute which Mullett acknowledged with a smile and a wave, delighted to see that the officer was in uniform. He had noticed two officers entering the station in their street clothes and would have a few sharp words with Sergeant Wells about that.

The car-park was crowded with vehicles of all types, most of which belonged to members of the search party. It was still dark and they would be having breakfast in the canteen before the main briefing. In the far corner two men were offloading aqualung cylinders from a van. The frogmen had arrived. Mullett had difficulty manoeuvring into his own parking space. As he locked the doors and tested the handle he was almost run down by a dirt-streaked Ford which squealed to a halt within inches of his heels. His face darkened when he saw Frost, a cigarette dangling insolently from his mouth, climb out.

"Frost!"

Frost looked up, startled. He hadn't expected to see Mullett in so early. A quick check confirmed that Hornrim Harry's seat cover was missing. A warm glow started up inside him. God bless incontinent old ladies. "Good morning, super!" he called cheerily.

"That woman you induced me to take home spluttered Mullett.

"Yes, very kind of you, sir," interrupted Frost. He smacked a palm to his forehead as if the thought had just struck him. "Meant to warn you about Ada, although I'm sure it isn't necessary in your case. I was going to say don't get sexy with her. If you rub your knee against hers, tickle her groin, or anything like that, she'll pee all over your front seat."

Mullett's mouth opened and closed. He never quite knew how to take Frost.

"What was it you wanted to say to me, sir?" asked Frost innocently.

"Nothing," snapped Mullett. "Nothing." He spun on his heel and stamped off into the building.

In the incident room, PC Jordan was waiting to report to Frost. He had got the information from the Discount Warehouse on the posthumous purchase made with Lemmy Hoxton's credit card. "That was flaming quick," said Frost, "I thought they didn't open until nine."

"Mr. Cassidy said I should drag the manager and his staff out from their homes," said Jordan. "He reckoned a murder enquiry shouldn't have to wait for the store to open up."

"Quite right," said Frost, wishing Cassidy wouldn't poke his nose in. Lemmy had been dead for months, so what was the point of dragging people out of bed to save a few minutes? "So what have you found out?"

"The item purchased was a 28-inch Nicam Stereo Panasonic TV set. But after two weeks no-one at the Discount Warehouse had any recollection of the purchaser or what he looked like."

"They wouldn't have known what he looked like after two flaming minutes," said Frost. "AH they look at is your credit card. You could walk in those places with your dick hanging out and they wouldn't spot it."

Jordan had asked the credit card company to fax a copy of the actual Visa docket and this was clipped to his report. Frost compared it with a genuine Lemmy signature. It was an all too obvious forgery. "You'd think the store would have queried the different signatures," he muttered. "I suppose there's no chance the set was delivered and we've got an address?" v

"No, it was collected."

Frost swung from side to side in his chair, sucking at his fourth cigarette of the day. Someone had used Lemmy's credit card to buy an expensive large screen TV. So was Lemmy killed for his credit card? Hardly likely. The card was only used once and that was months after his death. More likely that someone with a reason had done Lemmy in and the credit card was a bonus. Or perhaps the killer had thrown the card away and someone else had used it? He flapped the Visa docket to shake off cigarette ash. He couldn't work up much enthusiasm in finding Lemmy's killer. The sod deserved to die. A thought struck him. "Check with Panasonic. See if the guarantee's been registered."

"He'd be a bloody fool to do that," said Jordan.

"It's the sort of stupid thing I'd do," said Frost. "Check it."

Burton stuck his head round the door. "Time for the briefing, inspector.",

A fair-sized crowd waited for him in the canteen, not quite so many as the day before when hopes were high that the boy would be found alive. Frost noticed that Liz Maud was there, alone at a corner table, snatching a hurried breakfast, even though she must have been up until the small hours with the tragedy in Cresswell Street. He bought himself a hot sausage sandwich, its melted butter making the bread soggy, and took it, with a mug of tea, to the raised section at the end. He yelled for silence. As the burble of conversation died down he let his eyes drift around the room, checking who was present. He couldn't see Detective Sergeant Hanlon.

"He's in the toilet," someone told him. Almost on cue there was the rumble off of a cistern emptying and Arthur Hanlon, looking a mite bedraggled, stumbled into the canteen, doing a mock bow to the applause that greeted his entrance. "Sorry I'm late, inspector," he apologized.

"Flaming hell, Arthur," said Frost. "You always come out of the toilet looking as if you've just gone twelve rounds with Mike Tyson. Which reminds me… did you hear about the constipated mathematician? He had to work everything out with a pencil and a piece of paper." A roar of laughter, the loudest coming from Frost himself who then almost choked on a lump of sausage sandwich. Mullett, who had just come in and was standing at the back, frowned. This was not the time nor place for poor taste jokes.

"OK.," said Frost as the laughter subsided. "That's probably the last laugh any of us will have today." He jabbed his sandwich at the enlarged photograph of Bobby Kirby on the wall. "We didn't find the poor little sod yesterday. My gut feeling is that he is either dead, or he's being held captive somewhere. As you all know, another boy, Dean Anderson, was found dead near where Bobby went missing. Dean's naked body was stuffed into a black plastic dustbin sack and we've got to consider that the same fate might have overtaken Bobby. This means that some of you are going to have to go down to the Council refuse depot and start examining the hundreds of filled rubbish sacks collected by the Council yesterday." He gave a nod to Burton. "DC Burton will tell you which of you lucky lads and lassies have drawn the short straw." He took another sip at his tea. "But let's hope Bobby is still alive… in which case we've got to find him "bloody quickly, so the sooner you get started the better."

Mullett moved forward and indicated to Frost that he would like to say a few words.

"Bit of hush for Mr. Mullett," called Frost. "You've seen him on the telly, now hear him in the flesh."

The thinnest of smiles from Mullett. "Inspector Frost forgot to mention that we are also looking for this woman." He waited as Liz Maud rose from her table and pinned up a large photograph on the wall by the side of the boy. "A tragic case. Her three children dead and she has gone missing. You have other priorities, I know, but please keep an eye out for her." A brisk nod to Frost and he strode back to his office.

Frost sat on the corner of a table, legs swinging, watching the main group file out. He wiped the front of his jacket where the melted butter from the sandwich had dripped, then wandered over to the table where Liz was doing her crossword puzzle. He leant over her and pretended to read a clue. "Four down "Little Richard that ladies love big?" That must be Dick!" She found herself looking at four down before she realized it was another of his childish jokes. Too tired even to fake a laugh, she knuckled her eyes and took another sip from her mug of black coffee.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" Frost asked.

She shook her head. "I was questioning neighbours until six and the postmortems are at eight thirty." She took the offered cigarette. "Mr. Cassidy suggested I attended."

Frost clicked his lighter. "The kids? I'll get someone else to go if you like."

Her eyes blazed. "Do you think I'll faint? I've been to postmortems before."

"I've been to the dentist before," said Frost, 'but that don't make me anxious to go again. It's worse when it's children, love. Wild horses wouldn't drag me if I didn't have to."

"Very kind of you to be so concerned for me, but I'm going," she said, firmly.

He drained his tea then dumped the crust from his sandwich in the mug. "Any developments after I left last night?"

"Nothing particularly helpful. The father is still in hospital, heavily sedated, so we haven't been able to question him. I've found two more neighbours who say they heard raised voices from the bungalow just before midnight. They thought it was the husband and wife having one of their frequent rows."

Frost frowned. "The husband? Could it have been him?"

She shook her head. "Mark Grover never left the department store until just before two."

"Are we sure about that?"

"I've spoken to the night security guard. He confirms that the two men were there until a little before two o'clock in the morning."

"Could they have got out without his knowledge?"

"No. All the main doors are security locked and he would have to operate the release switch."

"Damn," said Frost. The wife rowing with another man around midnight was a complication he would have preferred to be without.

"And I've spoken to the owner of Denton Shopfitters," continued Liz. "He phoned the store just before midnight to check on their progress and spoke to the husband."

"You're very thorough," said Frost ruefully.

"Mr. Cassidy is suggesting that the man the neighbours heard could have been Sidney Snell."

Frost treated this with scorn. "You don't have a row with a man who breaks into your house… you scream and shout at the bastard. Did the neighbours think she sounded frightened?"

"No. They said it was a heated row."

"Well then.. He stood up. "Sidney Snell is not a killer. Don't waste your time going down that road." He glanced up at the clock, then flicked his scarf over his shoulder and stood up. "Frogman time … if anyone wants me I'll be paddling in the canal." At the door he paused, trying to remember what it was he intended asking Liz to do. Oh yes. He wanted her to check with the Council to find out who used to live in the derelict houses where Lemmy's body was found. But the poor cow looked ready to drop and she had a three-body postmortem to attend. He'd get someone else to do it.

PC John Collier pulled at the oars and winced as his blistered hands throbbed. He wished he hadn't volunteered for this. He'd thought it would be pleasant, scudding the boat across the water, watching the frogmen plunge in with a kick of their flippers. But it was hard, back-breaking work. There was a strong wind blowing the boat in the opposite direction to which he wanted it to go.

"Steady as she goes, Number One." PC Ken Ridley, systematically prodding the murky bottom of the canal with a long pole, was doing his captain of the battleship act which got progressively less funny with constant repetition. Ahead of them a line of bubbles marked the progress of one of the police frogmen.

Frost sat on the bank, moodily surveying the proceedings and sucking at a cigarette while tossing small stones into the water. It was cold and windy and he had the strong feeling this would be a waste of time. The canal at this point was crossed by the road bridge which made it the ideal point from which to hump junk out of a car boot and chuck it into the black soup of the stagnant water. Much of this had been retrieved by the frogmen and the towpath was cluttered with foul-smelling heaps. There were sodden mattresses, a couple of bundles of carpeting that looked almost new, but which would never lose the ripe canal smell, a black plastic bag which turned out to be full of offal from a butcher's shop and the bloated carcass of a long-dead goat. Particularly revolting was a soggy cardboard box crammed full with maggoty chickens' heads and feet. "All we want now is a few spuds and we've got ourselves our dinner," he commented bitterly, pulling a face as the wind changed and drove the smell of putrefaction straight at him. Many years ago, when he was a small child, he had sat on this same towpath, probably not far from this same spot, and had fished for tiddlers. But there was nothing living in the water now. Denton Union Canal, long since abandoned by the once thriving barge trade, was now a choked, evil-smelling backwater.

A frogman's head broke the surface. He had been tying a rope to something enveloped in mud at the bottom and was signalling for Collier and Ridley to haul it up. A bulging, black plastic dustbin sack was dragged into the boat. Frost's heart sank. It was the right size and shape for a young boy's body.

The boat bumped against the side of the towpath and the two policemen lifted out the sack which streamed water from holes, apparently punched in it to make it sink. They laid the sodden mass alongside Frost who regarded it gloomily, dreading to think what was inside. He stood up, chucked his cigarette into the canal, then gave the sack a tentative prod with his foot. Something soft and yielding, like flesh… He crouched down and sliced through the string tying the neck of the sack with his penknife. He peered inside. A sodden mass of water-blackened human hair. He looked up at Ridley and nodded grimly. "It's the boy." He pulled the neck of the sack open wider, then the cold sweat of relief flooded through him. He looked up again at Ridley. "I'm a prize twat!" he said. It wasn't human hair. He reached inside the sack and pulled out a heavy sodden fur coat. He had no idea what a mink coat looked like, but this, even dripping with filthy canal water, looked expensive. As did the silver fox cape which was under it. At the bottom of the sack was a grey plastic bag which was tied tightly with clumsily knotted string and held something heavy. His penknife sawed through the string, leaving the knot intact so Forensic could submit it to their scrupulous examination and come up with sod all. Inside was a brick, put there to ensure the sack sunk, and also a jumble of jewellery. The haul from Robert Stanfield's house.

Frost stared at it. Why had it been stolen, then dumped? It suggested an insurance fiddle, although the furs and jewellery looked genuine enough. He put everything back inside the plastic sack. "Trot it down to the station. We'll get Old Mother Stanfield in to identify it."

Ridley's pole had prodded something that belched up large, rancid-looking bubbles which burst to exude a stomach-churning smell. He signalled to the frogmen, but before they could respond, Frost's radio squawked. Control calling him urgently. "Can you get back here at once, inspector. We've received a ransom demand for the missing boy."

"What's the betting it's a bleeding hoax?" muttered Frost, clicking the radio off.

He took one last look at Collier and Ridley, who were hauling up something slimy and phosphorescent that broke in half as they tried to get it into the boat, then made for his car.

There was quite a crowd waiting for him in the incident room including Cassidy, Hanlon, Burton and Harding from Forensic, all looking grim. "So where's this ransom demand?" asked Frost.

Cassidy pointed to a padded envelope lying on the desk. "It came in this morning's post." The typed label was addressed to The Missing Boy Officer, Denton Police Station." The postmark, date-stamped the previous evening, was that of the main Denton post office. "This was inside." He handed Frost a sheet of white A4 paper which had been slipped inside a transparent cover for protection.

The message was printed out on a dot matrix printer in draft mode. Frost read it aloud.

"To the officer in charge:

"I have the missing boy the enclosed should enable you to convince Sir Richard Cordwell, Managing Director of the Savalot supermarket chain, that this is genuine."

Frost paused. "What was enclosed?"

Cassidy shook out a matchbox from the padded envelope and, holding it carefully by the corners, passed it to Frost without a word. Frost pushed open the tray, and stared in horrified disbelief. "No!" On a bed of blood-flecked cotton wool lay a severed human finger. He looked away, then back again in the hope it wouldn't still be there. A tiny finger, the flesh waxen, grime under the nail, dried blood caking the severed end. It almost looked too small to be real, but Forensic confirmed it was from a child of seven or eight years old.

Frost stared at nothing, lost for words. Then, very carefully, he closed the tray and handed the matchbox back to Cassidy.

He poked a cigarette in his mouth to compose himself before he resumed reading the letter.

"I am sorry about the first boy. That was an accident, but if Bobby Kirby is to die, that will not be an accident. It will be because you have failed to carry out my instructions.

'1. For the safe return of the boy, I require to be paid the sum of 250,000. This money is to be paid to me by Sir Richard Cordwell, Managing Director of the Savalot supermarket chain. This money will be a flea-bite to him.

'2. I have also written to Sir Richard Cordwell explaining how the money is to be paid. If he refuses to pay, the boy will die and his company's name will be mud.

'3. Your job is to convince Sir Richard he must pay and then to stay out of it. You will take no further part in the proceedings if the boy is not to be harmed further. Any sign of the police when the money is handed over to me even if a police car should accidentally pass by then the boy will die. I will be monitoring all police radio calls to ensure you keep out of it.

'4. Any attempt at stalling for time and the boy will lose another finger.

'5. The boy is well, but in some pain. He is hidden where you will never find him. Do what I request and I will tell you where he is. Ignore my requests and you will never see him again.

'6. I am sending a copy of this letter and a cassette tape to the Denton Echo so the public are aware that it is up to Savalot whether the boy lives or dies."

"Give credit where credit's due," muttered Frost, 'but he's a cold, calculating, business-like bastard." He read it through again, silently this time, then tossed it on the desk. "He forgot to sign it."

"There were no prints on it," said Harding from Forensic.

"Never mind," said Frost. "It's not entirely your fault." He pinched the scar on his face as he thought things over. "Someone get on the phone to Sandy Lane at the Denton Echo. I want that letter. He's not to open it or play the cassette he's to bring it straight over here."

"Already done," said Cassidy. "He should be on his way over now."

Frost tapped the matchbox. "Have we confirmed that this is Bobby Kirby's finger and not the dead boy's… or even some other boy we don't know about yet?"

"I've sent someone over to the mother's house to get prints from Bobby's room," said Harding. "We're also checking with the prints of the dead boy in the morgue."

"For Pete's sake don't tell the mother about the ransom demand," said Frost.

"Of course not," said Harding.

Frost spun his chair round and looked at the wall map which charted the progress of the search parties. "Call off the search."

"We haven't checked this is the boy's finger yet," protested Cassidy. "It could be some medical student's hoax."

"A hoax? We should be so bloody lucky," said Frost. "It's genuine, I promise you." He waved a finger at Arthur Hanlon. "Call it off, Arthur." Back to Cassidy. "What about the letter he's sent to Sir Richard Cordwell?"

"I've been on to Savalot's main office. They're going through all their post now. I've also spoken to his private secretary. She's going through the personal mail."

The internal phone buzzed. Sandy Lane from the Denton Echo was here.

Bill Wells ushered him in. Lane was carrying a padded envelope, identical to the one in front of Frost. He handed it over. It had been opened.

"We asked you not to open it," said Cassidy.

"I didn't get the message until I'd just slit the flap," lied Sandy.

"Did it photostat all right?" Frost asked.

"Perfectly," grinned the reporter. The postmark was the same. The envelope was addressed to "The Chief Crime Reporter, Denton Echo'.

"Chief Crime Reporter?" queried Frost.

"That's me, Jack Chief Crime Reporter, Chief Sports Reporter, Jumble Sales and Church Fetes."

"I expect your bleeding fingerprints are all over it," said Frost, letting Harding extract the contents and slip them into transparent folders. There were two letters and a cassette tape. The first letter read:

To The Chief Crime Reporter.

I have the boy Bobby Kirby. The police will confirm this. I require 250,000 from Sir Richard Cordwell, Managing Director of Savalot supermarkets. His company can well afford this sum. If he refuses to pay, the boy will die and I am sure it will make an interesting story for your newspaper.

Let the police have the tape after you have listened to it. Copy of my letter to the police enclosed.

"I suppose you've played the tape as well?" said Frost.

"I might have accidentally listened to it," affirmed Sandy.

Burton took the tape and poked it into a cassette player. Everyone quietened down.

For a second or so, nothing, just the hiss of raw tape and the rumble of the recorder motor, then a boy's voice. There were lots of pauses and clicks. The recorder had been switched on and off a few times while the man obviously told the boy what to say. Bobby was clearly distressed and it made harrowing listening.

"My name is Bobby Kirby. I'm tied up and blindfolded. The man says if you do what he tells you, he will let me go home. He says you know what will happen if you don't do what he says. I want to go home. Please… I want to go home…" A click and the sound of raw tape without the recorder motor noise. Burton switched the machine off.

Harding leant across and fast-forwarded the rest of the tape on cue and review. There was nothing else on it. He removed the cassette and carefully examined it. "I think that was the first recording on a brand-new tape, but I'll get it checked in case we can pick anything else up."

"Any idea what sort of machine it was recorded on?" asked Cassidy.

"Judging by the sound quality certainly not a state of the art hi-fi. I'd guess at a cheap portable model with a built-in microphone that's why it's picking up the sound of the motor."

"Are they rare?" asked Frost.

"There's millions of them," said Harding.

"What about the cassette? Could we trace the shop where he bought it?"

Again Harding shook his head. "One of the commonest types… sold in their thousands. I'll replay it back at the lab and boost up the background. It might give us a clue as to where it was recorded."

"Get a copy made," said Cassidy, 'and take it to the mother see if she can identify the voice."

"No!" said Frost. "Why upset the poor cow? If the fingerprint matches, we'll know it's genuine."

Cassidy scowled. He resented being contradicted in front of everyone. He resented even more the fact that Frost was right on this occasion.

"What's this about the boy losing another finger?" asked Sandy.

Frost filled him in. "But I don't want it reported. We've got to keep that up our sleeve. In fact, I don't want any of this reported until we've got the boy back safe."

"Bloody hell, Jack," the reporter protested, 'it's the biggest scoop I've ever had. I could make a bomb selling it to the London papers."

"It'll still be a scoop when we get the boy back. You can have it as an exclusive."

Sandy sighed. "All right. I'll make do with that."

"How do you know you can trust him?" asked Cassidy when Lane had left.

"I can trust him," said Frost firmly. He read through the letters again. "The bastard's on to a winner here. Kidnap someone anyone. It doesn't matter if the parents have got any money because you then blackmail some large corporation into coughing up the cash, knowing the public will think them shit if they refuse and let the kid die." He groaned inwardly as Mullett came bustling in. He could do without another dose of Horn-rim Harry this morning.

"I've just come from your office, Frost," said Mullett. "There's a terrible smell in there."

"You don't have to apologize, super," said Frost, pretending to misunderstand. "We all have the odd accident." Mullett glared and Frost snapped his fingers. "Oh sorry. You mean the stuff we fished from the canal. It's the loot from the Stanfield robbery. I'm getting the insurance assessor over to have a look at it."

"I understand there's been a ransom demand?" said Mullett, trying not to show his irritation at the suppressed giggles from some of the others in the room.

Frost pushed the letter across, then showed Mullett the contents of the matchbox. Mullett's face creased with concern which grew as he listened to the tape. He took his glasses off and pinched his nose. "I do hope Savalot agree to co-operate."

"They'll co-operate," said Frost. "They daren't risk the bad publicity."

"Bad publicity?"

"When the papers print the story that they've refused to come up with money they can well afford and the kid dies."

"It's blackmail," said Mullett.

"All ransom demands are blackmail," retorted Frost.

Burton, the phone pressed to his ear, called him over. "Savalot. Sir Richard Cordwell's private secretary. She's been through all his private post nothing. The main office has opened up all the general mail and there's nothing there either."

"It's got to be!" frowned Frost. "It's bloody well got to be." He scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to think… "Wait a minute. He must have sent it to Cordwell's house. Get the number."

The number was ex-directory which the secretary refused to pass on, but she did condescend to phone the house herself and was back within two minutes. The letter, marked "Strictly Personal and Confidential', was waiting for Cordwell who was still in bed.

"Tell him not to touch it we're on our way over," said Frost. She started to suggest he made an appointment, but Frost had slammed the phone down.

The internal phone rang. "There's a Mr. Hicks here to see you," said Bill Wells.

"Send the sod away," said Frost. "We're too busy."

"He says you asked him to come," insisted Wells. "He's the claims assessor from Cityrock Insurers."

Frost snatched his mind away from the kidnapping and on to the furs and jewels dredged from the canal. "Send him to my office. Tell him to follow his nose he can't miss it."

Hicks, a jolly little man wearing heavy horn-rimmed glasses, beamed as Frost tipped out the contents of the plastic bag. He held the furs at arm's length, his nose screwing up at the smell, nodded, then let them drop to the ground, more interested in the jewellery. His smile widened as he compared each item with his typewritten list. "Looks as if it is all here, inspector."

"Is it worth what they're claiming?"

A firm shake of the head. "They're claiming 75,000. I'd put it at 35/40,000 top whack."

"An insurance fiddle?"

Hicks pursed his lips. "Not a very clever one if it was. We'd have knocked the claim down to something nearer 35,000 which is what the items are worth. They could have sold them for that and there'd have been no need to chuck them in a canal." He zipped up his briefcase. "As far as my company is concerned, the stolen items have been recovered and we don't have to pay out. Mr. Stanfield can carry on paying the premiums for his own inflated valuation, but should they be "stolen" again, we'll settle on the basis of my own figure."

"What about the money he claims he handed over to get his daughter returned?"

Hicks shrugged. "If he was insured for such a loss then it wasn't with my company, but I don't think any insurers give cover for money held in a bank."

Frost drummed the desk with his fingers. He still wasn't convinced this was a genuine robbery and abduction. If it was genuine, why steal stuff then dump it? He thanked Hicks, and steered him in the direction of the street.

Back in the incident room Burton was on the phone. He put his hand over the mouthpiece as Frost entered. "Forensic were on. The prints check. The finger is from Bobby Kirby."

Frost grunted his acknowledgement.

"And I've got PC Ridley on the phone. He wants to know what we should do with all the stuff we pulled out of the canal."

"He shouldn't have to ask," replied Frost. "There's a Keep Britain Tidy campaign in force this week. Tell him to chuck it back in the canal."

Burton relayed the message and hung up. "All search parties stood down," he reported.

Frost nodded and walked over to study the photographs of the two boys. "He intended Dean to be the kidnap victim. He chloroformed him, but the kid died. This didn't put the bastard off, he just looked for someone else and he found Bobby."

"What made him pick Dean Anderson in the first place?"

Frost took a deep drag at his cigarette then pushed out smoke. "Any kid would have done that's the clever part. The money is coming from a rich supermarket chain pay up or your customers will know you let a kid die. This bloke is a clever bastard and he's on to a flaming winner." He dropped his cigarette on the floor and crushed it with his foot. "Come on, son, let's find out how the rich people live. We're off to see the Supermarket King."

Mullett stopped them on their way out. He had been told the result of the fingerprinting, but not by Frost as he should have expected.

"Can't stop, super," grunted Frost, edging past. "We're on our way to see tricky Dicky."

A concerned frown from Mullett. With someone as important as Sir Rirchard Cordwell involved, he was wondering if the uncouth Frost was the right person to handle the interview. "He's a very influential man, Frost, and I understand he can be quite nasty when he likes, so handle him with kid gloves."

"Don't worry, super," said Frost, sidling past him towards the door to the car-park. "I shall treat him with my usual tact."

Mullett's smile tightened to vanishing point. This was exactly what he feared. "I think I'd better come with you," he said.

The Manor House was an imposing edifice, solidly Victorian, forests of chimney pots, standing in extensive grounds and enclosed by a high stone wall thickly coated with ivy. The black, cast-iron gates were firmly closed and a video security camera scrutinized them closely as Burton announced who they were into a microphone. Their credentials established, the gates swung back, closing again immediately they were inside. They coasted up to the main entrance behind a gleaming, pearl grey Rolls-Royce. Frost checked its tax disc and seemed disappointed to find it was current. Up stone steps to the front door where a female secretary hovered and led them directly to Cordwell's study, a large, high-ceilinged room with tall french windows opening out on to a billiard table lawn, a rose garden, and a large fish pool with a weathered stone fountain in the shape of a boy with a dolphin.

CordweU, a thickset, coarse-featured man in his early fifties, was at an antique mahogany desk, its green leather top scarred with cigarette burns. As they entered he was bawling down a white and gold phone and didn't give them a second glance. "If he's not measuring up, then chuck him out you can find a reason. I'm not carrying bloody passengers." He banged the phone down, grabbed an enormous cigar from a silver box and lit up with a lighter fashioned from a genuine flintlock pistol, then flapped a hand for Frost and Mullett to sit. Cordwell had started business selling broken biscuits from a barrow in street markets and, by cheating, scheming and doing down his associates, had worked his way up to owning one of the largest cut-price grocery chains in Britain. A grunt and a snap of his fingers signalled the hovering secretary to place a folder in front of him. He slid it across to the two policemen. "The letter."

Frost opened the folder. The envelope had been slit open and the letter was fastened to it with a paper clip.

"We asked you not to open it," he said.

Cordwell gave him a sweet smile. "Nobody tells me what to do."

While Frost read the letter, Cordwell was back on the phone tearing some other poor devil off a strip. "Cancel the bloody order!" he barked. "I don't care if they have got a binding agreement there's bound to be a bloody loophole somewhere, so cancel it." As he slammed the phone down he shouted across to his secretary. "What's that prat's name?" She told him. He scribbled the name on his pad. "Next lot of redundancies, he's got pole position."

Frost shut his ears to this as he and Mullett skimmed through the letter. Similar to the others, it read:

Dear Sir Richard Cordwell:

I have the boy Bobby Kirby. The police will confirm this is genuine. For his safe return I require from your company the sum of 250,000 in used notes… no marked money or the boy dies. Be near the public telephone kiosks in the shopping mall outside your Denton store at 8 o'clock tonight with the money and I will phone you with instructions for the han dover Just you no police I'll be checking to make sure. If you do not comply, the boy will die. The press have been informed and the public will know the consequences.

"We'll keep this," said Frost, closing the folder and daring Cordwell to refuse, but this was agreed to with a wave of the hand.

"Is it genuine?"

"We believe so," said Mullett.

"Believe so? I'm not sodding about with it if it's a try-on."

"It's genuine," said Frost. "He sent us a tape of the boy."

Cordwell flicked a long cylinder of ash from his cigar on to the carpet. "And you reckon he'll carry out his threat to kill him?"

"Yes," said Frost.

Cordwell beamed. "Good. You got a photograph of the kid?" Frosj slid one across the desk. Cordwell studied it through a fog of cigar smoke and nodded his approval. "Nice-looking kid I was afraid he'd be an ugly little bastard with a squint and bad teeth." He flipped the switch on his intercom. "Roberts come in!"

A tap on the door and Roberts entered. A lean, mean-looking man in a sharp silver-grey suit. Cordwell showed him the photograph. "The kidnapped kid," he grunted.

Roberts looked at it and nodded. "Nice-looking kid… and a good photograph. Should come up well in half-tone… I think we should go ahead."

"So do I," said Cordwell. "This is what I want you to do." He barked his orders. "Check with the parents and see if there are any more photographs the kid as a baby would be nice. Then a press release for tomorrow to all the London dailies Supermarket Chief To The Rescue, you know the sort of thing. And get me some television interviews me and the boy." He dismissed Roberts then turned back to Frost. "If you give a press conference you can quote me as saying that to save the boy I'm giving the police my unstinted, wholehearted co-operation."

"You're too good for this world," said Frost. "Can you get the money together in time?"

"No problem."

"How soon can you get it over to us?"

Cordwell frowned. "Why should I let you have it?"

"We've got to mark the notes and record as many of the numbers as we can. We also need to put a small radio transmitter inside the case."

"No!" Mullett winced as Cordwell's fist thumped down on his desk top making the silver cigar case rattle. "The object of the exercise is to save the kid, so no tricks, no marked notes and no transmitters." He reached over and clicked on the intercom again. "Roberts! You can add this to the press release. "The police wanted the notes to be marked, but supermarket chief, Sir Richard Cord well, said no. Even though the ransom money is being paid by Sir Richard, his first and only consideration is for the safe return of the boy." He clicked Roberts off in mid-acknowledgement.

"Now, listen to me began Frost.

"No!" snapped Cordwell. "You listen to me. I'm not doing this for the love of humanity. This bastard has grabbed a kid and is on my back for the money. He thinks he's blackmailing me, but he's not I'm doing this of my own volition, because it suits me to do so."

"Hardly," smirked Mullett. "What would the public say if you refused?"

"Sod the public. They wouldn't desert Savalot. Knock tuppence off a tin of baked beans and they'd be fighting to come in whether the kid's dead or not. I don't usually give in to blackmail, but I can get some publicity out of this. For a lousy two hundred and fifty thousand quid I can get a million quid's worth of publicity and that's the sort of bargain I like. So you either do it my way, or I'm out!"

"All right," said Frost reluctantly. "We do it your way."

"No police involvement in any shape or form until the kid is safely returned?"

"No police involvement," agreed Frost.

"Do I have your word?"

"You have my word."

Cordwell jabbed a stubby finger at Frost. "Cross me and I'll crucify you do you read me, buster?"

Frost put on his hurt look. "I've given you my word," he said.

They were curtly dismissed and ushered out to the car by the secretary. As Frost settled himself down in the seat, Mullett turned to him angrily. "You had no business giving him your word, Frost."

"Don't worry, super," said Frost, "I have no intention of keeping it."

Mullett's eyebrows soared. "What?"

Frost gave the same sort of sweet smile that Cordwell had given him. "No-one tells me what to do," he said. As the black gates closed behind them, he dug down in his pocket and produced three cigars. He stuck one in his mouth and offered the others to Mullett and Burton.

Mullett hesitated, but they were excellent cigars, probably costing something like 9 each. He accepted a light from Frost and inhaled with deep satisfaction. Soon the interior of the Ford was hazy blue and redolent with the rich Havana aroma. He thought wryly of the smell in his own car from that wretched woman last night. He took another drag and beamed with a glow of well-being. There was something about a good cigar… Maybe it wasn't Frost's fault. Perhaps, at times, he was too hard on the man. He took the cigar from his mouth and contemplated the glowing end. "An excellent smoke, Frost. Where did you get them?"

"I pinched them from Cordwell's box when he wasn't looking," said Frost.

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