Night Frost

Wednesday night shift (1)

Greenway twisted his head round to look at the clock high on the wall behind him in Interview Room number 2. Half past nine. He resumed his sprawl in the chair and rubbed his injured hand. Opposite him, leaning against the mushroom emulsioned wall, the young thug of a detective sergeant scowled down at him. Unblinking, Greenway scowled back

‘How much longer?’ asked Greenway.

Gilmore said nothing.

‘As long as that?’ said Greenway in mock surprise. He turned to the little blonde WPC standing guard by the door. ‘How long have I got to waste my time here, darling?’

WPC Ridley stared through him and didn’t answer.

‘Natter, natter, natter,’ said Greenway. The door swung open and Frost breezed in, a bulging green case file under his arm. He chucked the file on the table, together with his matches and his cigarettes.

'Where’s the doctor?’ asked Greenway.

‘He’s putting someone’s cat down at the moment,’ said Frost, dropping into the vacant chair. ‘He’ll be along as soon as he can.’ He poked a cigarette in his mouth and dragged a match along the table top. He lit up, then pushed the packet towards the prisoner.

‘What’s this?’ asked Greenway with a sneer. ‘The good guy and the bad guy routine?’

‘No,’ said Frost, grinning sweetly. ‘We’re both the bad guys. We both hate your guts.’ He lit Greenway’s cigarette. ‘Make us hate you some more. Tell us all about it, blow by blow, thrust by thrust.’

Greenway spread his palms in mock bewilderment. ‘Tell you about what? I haven’t the faintest idea what this is all about.’

Frost puffed out a smoke ring and watched it drift up and curl around the green-shaded light bulb. ‘If you don’t know what it’s about, why did you do a runner?’

‘I panicked. I’m not used to the police barging into my house at night.’ He stood up. ‘If you’re going to charge me, charge me. If not, I’m walking out of here.’

Gilmore pushed him back in the chair. ‘The charge, as you bloody well know, is murder.’

A scornful laugh from Greenway. ‘Murder?’ His eyes flicked from Gilmore to Frost. ‘Who am I supposed to have murdered?’

A damn good act, thought Frost, grudgingly. If I didn’t have the forensic evidence I might start having doubts. He flipped open the folder and took out the photograph of Paula Bartlett, then steered it with his finger across to Greenway.

‘Only fifteen. Must have been easy meat for a great hulking bastard like you.’

Greenway stared at the colour photograph with an expression of utter disbelief. ‘The school kid? This is getting bloody farcical. I gave a statement to that other bloke… the miserable-faced git, Inspector Allen. She never even reached my place. I never got a paper that day.’

Gilmore moved his face forward close to Greenway’s. ‘Yes, you bloody did. She delivered the paper. On your own admission you were home that morning. You dragged her in… a fifteen-year-old kid, a virgin…’

‘A fifteen-year-old virgin? There’s no such thing!’ smirked Greenway.

The detective sergeant’s control snapped. He grabbed the man by the lapels, lifted him and slammed him against the wall. ‘Don’t come the funnies with me, you sod. I saw her body. I saw what you did to her.’

WPC Ridley coughed pointedly, reminding Gilmore that she was there to make notes of everything that happened between the detectives and the prisoner. Gilmore pushed Greenway away and wiped his hands down his jacket as if they were contaminated.

Greenway smouldered. ‘I’m not answering any more questions.’

‘Yes, you are,’ said Frost, ‘otherwise I might accidentally tread on your bad hand again.’ He leant back, balancing the chair on its rear legs, and shot a column of smoke at the yellow ceiling. ‘Let’s talk about mitigating circumstances. Perhaps you didn’t mean to kill her. What did she do — lead you on? Waggle it under your nose, then snatch it away?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ yawned Greenway, feigning boredom. ‘Whoever poked and killed that kid, it wasn’t me. I like them older with big knockers — like that little policewoman there — not flat-chested schoolgirls.’

Frost’s chair crashed down, the sudden noise almost making Greenway leap from his seat. ‘Flat-chested, was she? When you stripped her off you saw she was flat-chested.’ He jabbed a finger at Gilmore who was busy with his notebook. ‘Underline that, Sergeant.’

‘You don’t have to strip anyone off to see if they’re flat chested or not,’ sneered Greenway. ‘That kid used to deliver here in the summer wearing only a T-shirt. You could see she had nothing.’

‘You’re quite right,’ Frost agreed. ‘She didn’t have much to show when I saw her stretched out on the slab in the morgue. It didn’t stop you raping her, though, did it?’

‘Rape?’ He snorted a hollow laugh. ‘You must be bloody hard up for suspects.’

Frost pulled a sheet of typescript from the folder. ‘This is the statement you gave to my colleague, Inspector Allen, the miserable-faced git. You say you’re a self-employed van driver?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You were asked to account for your movements for September 14th, the day Paula went missing.’ He let his eyes run over the typed page. ‘You said you didn’t go out at all that day. Is that correct?’

‘Bang on! There was no work for me.’ Greenway flicked his ash on the floor and looked as if he was enjoying the questioning. His expression said, ‘Ask what you like, pigs, you’ll get nothing out of me!’

Frost scratched at his scar. ‘The girl usually delivered your paper — the Sun — around eight o’clock?’

‘Yes. But that day, she didn’t turn up.’

‘And you didn’t get a paper?’

‘Brilliant,’ said Greenway, sarcastically.

Frost produced the copy of the Sun in its transparent cover. ‘This is the paper you say wasn’t delivered. And this…’ He fluttered the forensic report, ‘is scientific evidence which proves you are a lying bastard.’

Greenway snatched the report, his head moving from side to side as he skimmed through it. He gave a scoffing laugh and handed it back. ‘A load of balls.’

Gilmore moved forward. ‘Solid scientific evidence. The court will love it.’

Greenway smiled disarmingly. ‘All right. Let’s pretend it’s genuine. So the newspaper was pushed through my letter-box and pulled out again. That doesn’t prove the girl was in my house and it doesn’t prove I bloody touched her.’

‘We’ll soon have all the proof we want,’ said Frost. ‘A Forensic team is going over your place inch by inch right now. One hair from her head… a thread of cotton from her clothes, and we’ve got you, you bastard.’

‘Tell you what then,’ smirked Greenway. ‘If you find any thing, I’ll give you a full, sworn confession. Now I can’t say fairer than that.’

Frost switched on his sweetest smile. ‘We’ll find it,’ he said, trying to sound convincing. But he was worried. Greenway was too damned cock-sure. He looked up with irritation as the door opened and Wells beckoned. The sergeant didn’t look the bearer of good news. ‘Just heard from the Forensic team, Jack. They’ve been all over the cottage and found nothing.’

Frost slumped against the wall. ‘There’s got to be something.’

‘It’s been over two months since she was there,’ said Wells. ‘Forensic are bringing in more men to go over the entire place again, but they’re not optimistic. Are you getting anything from Greenway?’

‘Only the bleeding run-around.’

Mullett’s office door opened. He saw Frost and hurried towards him. ‘What joy?’ he asked eagerly.

‘No joy, all bloody misery,’ replied Frost. ‘Unless Forensic can come up with something quick, the best I can charge Greenway with is dangerous driving.’

Mullett’s smile flickered and spluttered out. ‘I hope this is not going to be another of your foul-ups, Frost. I’ve really stuck my neck out with the Chief Constable on this one.’ He spun on his heel and marched back to his office.

‘Let’s hope the bastard chops it off for you,’ muttered Frost to the empty passage.

Back to the Interview Room where Greenway was making great play of nursing his injured hand. ‘I’m in agony. I want medical treatment and I want to go home. You’ve got nothing to hold me on.’

‘Lock the bastard up and get him a doctor,’ said Frost. He felt tired and miserable and even more incompetent than usual.

His office was a hostile dung-heap of bulging files, snarling memos, and complicated-looking returns. Rain splattered against the window and drummed on the roof. He stared out to the rain-swept car-park, and was puzzled be cause he couldn’t see his Cortina, then remembered it had been towed away for repairs after Greenway smashed into it. Gilmore poked his head round the door. He had his hat and coat on in the hope he could nip back home for an hour or so. He’d been on duty solidly since six and a busy night was still looming ahead. ‘Greenway wants to know what’s happening about his dog.’

‘A dog-handler’s on his way to pick it up and take it to kennels,’ Frost told him. ‘You off home then?’

‘Yes… only for an hour… if it’s all right with you.’ Gilmore’s tone implied that it had better be all right.

‘Drop me off on the way, would you, son. I haven’t got wheels.’

Gilmore readily agreed. It was only when he turned the car into the Market Square to take the short cut to the inspector’s house that Frost broke the news that he wanted to be dropped off at Greenway’s cottage. It was miles off Gilmore’s route, but all right, he’d dump Frost off and then get the hell out of there. Frost could find his own way back.

Lights were spilling from every room of the cottage. From the backyard the dog kept up its monotonous yapping. The Forensic team were busy. Hardly any surface was free of fingerprint powder, small vacuum cleaners whirled gulping up dust, hairs and fibres for analysis, men crawled over the car pet with tweezers. Tony Harding, in charge of the team, looked up wearily as Frost entered. Gilmore hovered impatiently behind, scowling at the inspector who had said he would be a couple of minutes at the most and wanted a lift back.

‘Still no joy,’ said Harding, ‘but we haven’t finished yet.’ Frost received the news gloomily. ‘Keep looking. Any clue — no matter how small. A pair of schoolgirl’s knickers, a confession, a half-eaten chicken and mushroom pie.’ He scuffed the carpet with his foot ‘At the moment, all we’ve got is the paint samples on the newspaper.’

‘Ah,’ said Harding, sounding shamefaced. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’ He took the inspector by the arm and led him to one side. ‘The paint sample evidence might not be as conclusive as we first thought. It might not have come from this letter-box.’

A cold shiver of apprehension trickled down Frost’s back. ‘What do you mean? You did a spectrograph analysis. You told me it was conclusive.’

‘Yes… well… it was… up to a point…’

Frost’s shoulders slumped. ‘Get to the bad bloody news. I don’t want the death of a thousand cuts.’

‘We did a spectrograph analysis of the paint sample from the newspaper. There were traces of three layers of paint, the bottom layer brown, the middle a grey undercoat, the top layer black. The spectrograph analysis of the sample taken from Greenway’s letter-box showed three identical paint layers, same colours, same chemical composition.’

‘Yes,’ nodded Frost. ‘That’s the point in the story where I started believing Forensic weren’t the big, useless twats I’d always thought them to be.’

Harding’s faint smile accepted the rebuke. ‘The test was fine as far as it went, but we should have tested other letter-boxes on the girl’s delivery route. This I’ve now done.’

‘And?’ asked Frost, ready to wince, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.

‘Quite a few letter-boxes came up with identical spectrograph readings.’

‘But how the hell…?’

‘Most of the properties on the girl’s route are owned by the Denton Development Corporation. Every four years their maintenance department repaint exteriors… standard colours, standard specification. What I hadn’t appreciated was that Greenway’s cottage is also owned by the Development Corporation. They bought the land some twenty-five years ago for a new housing estate, but haven’t yet found the money.’

‘So it’s received the same coats of identical paint every four years as all the other houses?’

Harding nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. And that means that the girl could have pushed the newspaper through any of those letter-boxes by mistake, then tugged it out again. It doesn’t have to be this cottage.’

‘Thank you very much,’ muttered Frost bitterly, knowing that Mullett would blame him for this. ‘So unless you can find evidence that the girl has actually been inside here, we’ve got sod all to hold Greenway on?’

‘Unfortunately, yes,’ agreed Harding.

Frost wandered across to the window and looked out on to the puddled, muddy back yard where a black shape prowled up and down like a caged wolf. At the end of the garden a sorry-looking shed crouched under pouring rain. ‘You done the shed yet?’

‘Not with the Hound of the Baskervilles out there,’ replied Harding. ‘We’re waiting for the dog-handler.’

As if answering his cue, the dog-handler’s van drew up outside and a short stocky man wearing a padded jacket and thick leather gloves came in, swinging a muzzle and a leash. “What sort of dog is it?’

‘A bloody man-eater,’ said Frost, leading him to the back door.

The dog-handler opened the door a fraction, squinted through the crack, then closed it firmly as the door bulged inwards when the dog hurled himself at it. He didn’t look very happy. ‘I hate Dobermanns. They’re vicious sods.’ He zipped up the padded jacket and pulled the gloves up over his wrists, then nodded. ‘Right. Here goes.’

‘Geronimo!’ said Frost, opening the door just wide enough for the handler to squeeze through. He then shut it quickly and listened to the noises off — several minutes of ill-tempered barking and a lot of swearing.

‘OK. I’ve got it!’

The bedraggled dog, muzzled and shaking with rage, snarled as it was pulled through by the leash. It charged at Gilmore then shook rain all over him as it was dragged off.

Frost beckoned to Gilmore who, frozen-faced, waited with ill-concealed impatience. ‘Let’s take a quick look in the shed, son.’

Shoulders hunched, they splashed to the end of the yard. The rusty padlock which secured the shed door yielded to the first key from Frost’s bunch.

The torch beam danced over rubbish. The shed was stacked roof-high with junk. The dirt-encrusted frame of a deck-chair rested against a rusting lawn-mower. Twisting, crumbling remains of old chicken wire strangled sodden strips of mouldering carpeting, rotting fence posts and jagged-edged sheets of warped plywood. The torch beam bounced from item to item. Junk. Stacks of half-empty paint tins, torn bags spewing damp fertilizer. Useless, hoarded rubbish. Frost tugged at the deck-chair, but this caused paint tins to topple and he had to jump back quickly.

‘Satisfied?’ asked Gilmore, smugly.

Frost’s shoulders drooped. ‘Yes, I’m satisfied, son. A quick poke around the house, then we’ll go.’

He really thought he had found something in the kitchen. On the work top, thawing from the freezer and ready to be popped into the microwave, was Greenway’s planned evening meal. A box of microwave crinkle-cut chips and a chicken and mushroom pie. ‘Stomach contents,’ exclaimed Frost delightedly. He yelled for Harding, who listened and shook his head.

‘They don’t help us, Mr Frost.’ He picked up one of the packets. ‘Both common brands… the market leaders. Even if we could prove the girl’s last meal was an identical product, the supermarkets sell tens of thousands of these every week.’

‘Damn!’ growled Frost.

‘You ready to go yet?’ asked Gilmore pointing yet again to his watch.

‘A quick sniff around the bedroom and then you can get off to your conjugals,’ Frost promised.

The bedroom reflected the state of the rest of the house with the bed and the floor strewn with dirty clothing and unwashed, food-congealed crockery. Was this where Greenway dragged her and raped her? Was this pigsty of a room the last thing that fifteen-year-old kid saw before he choked the life out of her?

One of the Forensic team pushed past him and began stripping the clothing from the bed. ‘We’re taking the bed clothes for further examination, Inspector, but I get the feeling they’ve been washed during the past four weeks or so.’

‘I only wash mine once a year,’ said Frost gloomily, ‘whether they need it or not.’

Another long, deep, irritating sigh from Gilmore.

‘All right, son,’ said Frost. ‘We’re going now.’

In the hall, Harding looked even gloomier than Frost. ‘We haven’t come up with a thing, Inspector. There’s no evidence at all that the girl was ever in the house.’ He plucked a Dobermann hair from his jacket. ‘There’s dog’s hairs all over the place. Would have been helpful if we’d found some on the girl, but we didn’t.’

‘Find me something, for Pete’s sake,’ pleaded Frost, ‘otherwise I’m in the brown and squishy up to my ear-holes.’

Gilmore put his foot down hard on the drive back in case the inspector thought of some other outlandish spot to visit. Frost slumped miserably down in the passenger seat, stared at the rain-blurred windscreen, smoked and said nothing. Gilmore could almost feel sorry for him.

Then Frost sat up straight, pulled the cigarette from his mouth and rammed it into the ashtray. ‘I’m a number one, Grade A twat!!’ he announced.

Tell me something I don’t know thought Gilmore, slowing down at the traffic lights in the Market Square.

‘Turn the car around,’ ordered Frost. We’re going back to the cottage.’

‘You’re kidding!’ gasped Gilmore, looking at Frost whose face was bathed red by the traffic signal.

‘Under my bloody nose and I missed it… All that junk in the shed. You’d expect it to be dry, but it was wet, dirty, muddy and rusty. It must have been out rotting in the open for months… so why gather it up and bung it in the shed?’

‘Perhaps he just wanted to tidy up his garden,’ said Gilmore.

‘Do me a favour. His place is a rubbish tip, just like mine. I’d never tidy up my garden and neither would he. That junk was dumped in his shed to hide something… so let’s go and find out what.’ Frost’s face was now bathed in green. Wearily, Gilmore spun the wheel round and headed back to the cottage.

The Forensic team had almost completed their work and Harding shook his head at them as they passed through. ‘Nothing. We’re now going to try the shed.’

‘Then you can give us a hand,’ Frost told him. ‘Bring a torch.’ Harding slipped on a plastic mac and followed them down to the bottom of the yard.

‘This would be easier in the morning,’ moaned Gilmore as rain trickled down his collar.

‘Shouldn’t take us long,’ said Frost dragging out the deck-chair frame and flinging it into the dark of the garden.

It took nearly half an hour. As one item of useless junk was removed more and more was revealed.

‘I can’t think why he bothered to keep this,’ grunted Harding, struggling with a muddy iron-framed bedspring, heavily corroded with rust.

It was not until the shed was nearly empty that they found what Greenway had been hiding. Stacked high against the far end of the shed, white cardboard boxes, piled almost to the roof. Frost moved back to let Gilmore reach up and drag one down. He tore open the stapled lid. Inside, tightly packed, were cartons of Benson and Hedges Silk Cut cigarettes. Gilmore took out a carton and tossed it over to Frost who ripped off the wrapping. No ‘Government Health Warning’ on the side of the packets. These cigarettes were made for export.

Frost stared at the packets, feeling even more depressed. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find, but certainly not this. This would effectively shoot his case against Green way right up the anal passage. He went to the shed door and swore bitterly into the rain and the wind and the dark.

The Interview Room now reeked strongly of stale shag tobacco smoke and cheese and onion crisps. There was a spit-soaked, thin hand-rolled cigarette end in the ashtray. Some one else had been interviewed since Frost’s questioning of Greenway.

‘All right, all right. Stop shoving.’ Greenway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with a neatly bandaged hand, stumbled into the room, urged roughly from behind by a foul-tempered Gilmore. Frost waited until the man was sitting down, then he pulled a packet of Benson and Hedges from his pocket and pushed it across. Greenway stared at it for a while, turned the packet gingerly with a finger so he could confirm the absence of the health warning. ‘You took your bloody time finding them,’ he grunted.

Frost retrieved the packet and shook out a cigarette. He lit up and sucked in smoke. ‘Feel like talking?’

Greenway helped himself to a cigarette and accepted a light from the inspector. ‘I take it I’m no longer being charged with killing the school kid?’

‘No. The bloke you coshed has identified your photograph.’

Greenway thought for a moment. ‘All right. I’ll give you a statement.’

But as Gilmore turned the pages of his notebook, Frost waved a hand for him to stop. ‘This isn’t our case. Detective Inspector Skinner from Shelwood Division is on his way over. You can give a statement to him.’

Gilmore snorted in exasperation. ‘Would someone mind telling me what this is about?’

‘Sorry, son,’ apologized Frost. ‘On the day Paula Bartlett went missing a van-load of Benson and Hedges king-size cigarettes for export was hijacked on its way to the docks. The driver was flagged down, coshed, and his load nicked. This happened on the motorway at Shelwood, miles outside Denton Division.’

‘But Greenway told Inspector Allen he never went out that day,’ protested Gilmore.

‘I think he was lying,’ said Frost. ‘People don’t always tell us the truth.’

‘Of course I was lying,’ said Greenway. ‘The bloody van, full of nicked fags, was standing outside my house when the other inspector called that evening. I thought he was on to me, so when he asked me, I said I hadn’t been out all day. But it was about the missing kid.. ’

‘Can you help us at all about the girl?’ asked Frost.

Greenway shook his head. ‘I left home at six in the morning.. didn’t get back until nine o’clock at night. The paper hadn’t arrived when I left and it wasn’t there when I got back.’

A tap at the door. ‘Detective Inspector Skinner is here,’ announced Sergeant Wells.

Skinner, a burly man in a trench coat, looked exactly how a detective inspector should look, a contrast to the rag-bag Gilmore had to work with. His sergeant, lean and mean, looked like a detective sergeant who would always be in his boss’s shadow, not how Gilmore intended to end up. ‘Understand you’ve got a little present for us, Jack?’ said Skinner, his eyes on the prisoner.

‘He’s all yours,’ said Frost. ‘I can’t solve any of my own cases, but I solve other people’s.’ He offered his cigarettes around and Skinner nearly choked when he was told he was smoking some of the stolen property.

Wells returned with papers to be signed for the transfer of the prisoner and whispered to Frost that Mr Mullett would like to see him in his office.

‘Shit,’ muttered Frost. ‘It’s been a rotten enough day already.’

In fact Mullett was hovering outside in the corridor and was full of charm and smiles for the two detectives from Shelwood. ‘Delighted to have been able to help,’ he smarmed. But as soon as they had gone, his smile froze to death. ‘My office!’ he hissed and spun on his heel away.

Frost was dead tired, but he kept his eyes open to pretend he was listening as Mullett droned angrily on. ‘You’ve made me look a complete and utter fool in the eyes of the Chief Constable…’

He let his gaze drift around the old log cabin and noticed to his horror that there was a foil take-away food container, yellowed with cold curry sauce, poking from under Mullett’s desk. He moved forward, looking very contrite, and nudged it out of sight with his toe.

‘… and it wasn’t even our case. We’ve improved Shelwood’s crime figures, which made ours look sick anyway, and done nothing for our own. What on earth am I going to tell the Chief Constable?’

The drone of Mullett’s voice roared and faded and Frost had to jerk his head up to keep awake. He fought back a yawn. This was all his life seemed to be lately, making balls- ups, getting bollockings from Mullett, and then sent out to make a fresh balls-up.

‘… and, in any case, I had told you to concentrate on the senior citizen killings. So leave the Paula Bartlett case for Mr Allen and try and find that other suspect you let slip through your fingers. I want no more mess-ups.’ He leant across his desk, his chin thrust out. ‘Are you receiving me, Inspector?’

‘Loud and clear,’ said Frost. ‘Loud and bloody clear.’

1.15 a.m. The lobby had a sour smell. A mixture of stale beer and spilt whisky. Wells was shouting at PC Jordan who, helped by young PC Collier, was struggling with a man in evening dress. The man’s legs kept giving way and he seemed ready to collapse in the pool of vomit at his feet. At last they managed to sit him down safely on the bench.

‘Anything in from the Met on Simon Bradbury?’ asked Gilmore.

‘How the hell do I know?’ snapped Wells, irritably. ‘I don’t keep track of every bit of paper that comes in and out of this building. And another…’ He stopped short and yelled, ‘Take him outside! Quick!’ The drunk was being sick again. Jordan and Collier grabbed him, but too late. More vomit pumped out and they jumped back just in time as it splattered on the lobby floor. Eyes squinting, the drunk tried to make out what the mess was at his feet.

‘Bloody marvellous!’ cried Wells, and he looked around for someone to vent his anger on. PC Collier decided this was a good time to take a refreshment break and sidled out towards the rest room, but didn’t quite make it.

‘And where do you think you’re going, Collier?’

‘Refreshment break, Sergeant.’

Wells consulted his watch and found, to his disappointment, that Collier was entitled to his break. ‘Right. When you come back you can clean up this mess.’

‘That’s not my job, Sergeant,’ Collier protested, firmly.

‘Your job is to do what I bloody well tell you to do,’ yelled Wells as Collier stamped out, slamming the door behind him. Red-faced Wells charged, fists clenched, after him. ‘I’ll have you, Collier.’

Frost cut across to bar his way. ‘Hold it, Bill. Hold it,’ he said, soothingly. ‘We’re all tired and overworked.’ He poked a cigarette in the sergeant’s mouth and led him back to the desk. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’

‘There’s a kettle in the rest room,’ said Wells. ‘You might bring me one.’

The only occupant of the rest room was Collier who was huddled in a chair in front of a 14-inch colour TV set, warming his hands round a mug of instant coffee and brooding over the injustices of working under Sergeant Wells. On the screen, a young girl in pigtails who didn’t look much older than twelve was sprawled naked on some grass, sun bathing. The camera moved to show a man with a riding crop watching from the cover of some bushes. Behind the man a board read Trespassers Will Be Punished.

‘Where did you get that video?’ demanded Gilmore, sharply.

Snatched too abruptly from his morose meditation, Collier started, spilling instant coffee down the front of his uniform. He reached out to switch off the set, but Frost grabbed his wrist. ‘Leave it, son. Where did you get it?’

‘We only borrowed it, Inspector. We were going to put it back.’ He held up a video case which had the typed label A Thrashing For Fiona. It was one of the haul of pornographic videos removed from the newsagent’s.

On the screen the naked girl was on her knees, pleading with the man who was slapping the riding crop against his leg.

‘Go and fetch Sergeant Wells,’ ordered Frost, dragging another chair in front of the set.

Collier registered dismay. It was unlike the inspector to report people. ‘I only borrowed it, sir.’

Dragging his eyes from the TV set where the girl was across the man’s knees, being thrashed with the riding crop, Frost gave a reassuring grin. ‘Don’t worry, son. I’ll tell him I took it. Just send him in.’

Gilmore spooned instant coffee into three mugs and filled them with boiling water. He passed one to Frost and sat beside him in the, chair vacated by Collier.

A clatter of footsteps up the passage and Wells came in. ‘Look, Jack, I haven’t got time…’ He stopped dead as he caught sight of the screen. ‘Bloody-hell…!’ He grabbed the other chair and sat down.

Engrossed, Frost gulped down his coffee, unaware that he hadn’t added his usual three heaped teaspoons of sugar. The man was now using the riding crop to do something unspeakable. ‘He caught her trespassing,’ Frost told Wells, explaining the plot.

‘Serves her bloody right,’ said Wells. ‘She’ll think twice before she does it again.’

The video finished abruptly. Frost fed another one in. The title read Animal Passions. An interior scene this time. The same pigtailed girl, naked and with a dog, a large white and brown Great Dane with a torn left ear, its tail wagging furiously. The girl lay on her back. The dog, slowly and deliberately, was licking her.

‘I bet he prefers that to Pedigree Chum,’ croaked Wells.

‘Who wouldn’t,’ said Frost.

Gilmore looked at his watch. Nearly two o’clock. He’d told Liz he’d try and pop in during the shift, even if it was only for half an hour. He tried to catch Frost’s attention as the fool sat there, eyes bulging, like a schoolboy with a dirty book. ‘Do you mind if I take a break, Inspector? About half an hour or so? I’d like to pop home.’

‘Sure,’ muttered Frost, his eyes glued to the screen where the dog, tongue lolling, whites of eyes showing, was coupling with the girl.

This was too much for Gilmore who turned away in disgust. As he reached for the door handle it was abruptly snatched away from him as the door opened and there, framed in the doorway like an avenging angel, stood a furious and angry Mullett.

The internal phone rang.

Gilmore stared at Mullett, open-mouthed. Bloody Frost had dropped him in it again. He was sure the Divisional Commander had gone home.

Frost and Wells, eyes fixed rigidly on the screen, were blissfully ignorant of this visitation and Gilmore could do nothing to alert them.

Mullett pushed Gilmore to one side and strode into the rest room. He stood between the two men and the TV set and glowered down at them, his face thunder black.

Wells nearly had a heart attack.

‘Hello, Super. This is a pleasant surprise,’ said Frost, managing an unconvincing grin.

The phone kept on ringing. Glad of something to do, Gilmore answered it. It was Collier warning them that the Divisional Commander was on his way in.

‘Thank you,’ hissed Gilmore through clenched teeth, “but we know.’

‘What the devil is going on here?’ spluttered Mullett. ‘I look in on my way back from a function and what do I find? The lobby floor plastered with vomit, a junior officer left on his own to cope and the station sergeant and other officers in the rest room, watching…’ His eyes bulged as he looked over his shoulder to see just what they were watching, obscene, bestial videos.’

Wells was on his feet, his mouth opening and closing in the hope that his brain would provide him with something mitigating to say. Gilmore wished the ground would open and swallow him. At the first opportunity he would request an interview with Mullett to explain that he was not there from choice.

Frost didn’t appear to be paying his Divisional Commander much attention, but leant forward to study the antics on the screen more closely.

Mullett’s lips compressed as he bottled up his rage. This was the last straw. ‘Would you please wait outside,’ he asked the other two men. A mad scramble for the door as they raced to comply, leaving the inspector as hostage for the superintendent’s fury.

Frost dragged his chair closer to the TV set. Angrily, Mullett pushed in front of him, blocking his view. ‘If I might have your attention,’ he began icily then nearly burst a blood vessel as Frost had the temerity, the brazen-faced in subordinate impudence, to reach out and push his Divisional Commander to one side.

‘How dare you,’ he spluttered when the words finally came.

Flapping a hand for Mullett to be quiet, Frost roared out, ‘Gilmore… in here! Quick.’

The detective sergeant came back in the room, looking first at the purple-faced, rage-quivering Mullett, then at Frost who was on his knees operating the rewind button on the video recorder. Like a silent film in reverse, the naked girl and the dog moved jerkily backwards at high speed.

‘Watch,’ ordered Frost, releasing the rewind. The dog, panting with excitement, again approached and straddled the girl.

‘For the last time, Inspector…’ roared Mullett.

Curtly jerking his hand for silence, Frost jabbed the pause button. On the screen, in full close-up, the vacant face of the girl froze, quivering slightly as the video head passed over and over the same section of tape.

‘The pigtails and blonde hair are a wig, son,’ said Frost, his hands moving to block them out.

Gilmore stared hard at the girl’s face, her lips slack, eyes glazed and unseeing, tiny flecks of sweat on the forehead.

‘Recognize her, son?’

Gilmore nodded. Yes, he recognized her. The suicide. The Snoopy watch. The Mickey Mouse night-shirt. Fifteen-year-old Susan Bicknell. The marks of the beating were now explained.

Frost straightened up. ‘Come on, son. I think we should ask her stepfather a few questions.’

‘I demand to know what this is all about!’ shrieked Mullett. But they were gone, the door slamming firmly shut behind them, leaving him alone in the room. Behind him the dog had worked itself up into a frenzy. He tried to switch it off, but none of the buttons, seemed to work. He pushed the door open and thundered down the corridor. Tomorrow. He would see Frost tomorrow. And then it would be his turn. The lobby wall suddenly zipped upwards and the ceiling stared down at him as his back hit the floor. His feet had found a slippery patch of vomit.

‘Whatever you do,’ hissed Frost to Wells, just before he darted out to the car-park, ‘don’t laugh.’

A cold black night, made blacker by purple rain clouds that covered the face of the moon. They didn’t have to drag anyone out of bed. A downstairs light was still on at the house and a shirt-sleeved Kenneth Duffy, tired and drawn, opened the door to them.

‘Remember me, Mr Duffy?’ asked Gilmore, showing his warrant card.

Duffy stared through the card and nodded.

‘We’d like to come in, please,’ said Gilmore. ‘Just a couple of questions.’

Duffy twisted his head. ‘It’s for me, love,’ he called, ushering the two detectives into an unheated lounge. ‘I don’t want my wife troubled,’ he explained. ‘She’s broken up about this. We both are.’ He dropped into a chair and stared at the drawn red curtains. He shivered. ‘Sorry there’s no heat.’

Frost sat down on the settee, facing Duffy. ‘You’re up late?’

‘My wife can’t sleep. I stay up with her. I don’t like leaving her alone.’

Frost gave a sympathetic nod and looked up for his sergeant to start the questions.

‘We’re worried at the absence of a suicide note,’ Gilmore said.

‘Oh?’ He tried to rub some warmth into a shirt-sleeved arm.

‘You’re quite sure there was no note?’

‘Positive.’

Silence, broken only by the measured ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Then another sound. Frost had taken something from his mac pocket and was tapping it on his knee. It snatched Duffy’s attention away from his study of the curtains.

The object was black, made of plastic, and Frost, a half-smile on his face, was tapping it slowly and regularly, again and again, on his knee.

At first Duffy couldn’t make out what it was. Then his eyes widened and he sucked in air. It was a video cassette.

‘Woof woof,’ said Frost, and grinned.

‘You bastard!’ With a howl of rage Duffy hurled himself across the room at the inspector, his fists swinging wildly. Gilmore leapt forward to grab his wrists and fling him back into the chair.

‘Was it something I said?’ asked Frost in pretended puzzlement.

‘You bastard,’ repeated Duffy, this time near to tears. He shrank down into the chair and covered his face with his hands and his body convulsed with the sobbing he was no longer able to hold back ‘Don’t tell my wife. It would kill her.’ His voice was muffled by his hands.

Gilmore turned away. Raw emotion embarrassed him. Frost dribbled smoke and tried to look as if he knew more than he did

Kenneth Duffy knuckled his eyes dry. ‘What do you want to know?’

Frost waved the video. ‘Tell me about it.’

Duffy bowed his head. ‘I watched a few seconds — that was enough.’

‘Where’s the suicide note?’

The man shivered again and folded his arms around him self. ‘I destroyed it.’

‘Why?’ snapped Gilmore who was standing behind him. ‘Because it incriminated you?’

He twisted his head round and looked up at the sergeant. ‘No. Because Susan asked me to. The note was addressed to me.’

Frost lit up a fresh cigarette from the stub of the old. ‘What did it say?’

‘It said, “The letter will explain. I can’t face mum after what I’ve done. Please help me. Destroy this. She must never know.”’

‘Letter? What letter?’

‘It was with Susan’s note. An anonymous letter.’

Anonymous letter! Frost started, as did Gilmore. ‘Tell us about it.’

Duffy paused to control his agitated breathing. ‘It was addressed to my wife. Susan must have known it was coming so she waited for the postman. She opened it, read it and…’ He shrugged as if referring to something trivial. ‘… and killed herself.’

‘I want that letter,’ said Frost grimly.

‘I’m sorry. I haven’t got it. I burnt it with the suicide note.’

‘Shit!’ said Frost vehemently. ‘Describe it. The notepaper, the handwriting.’

‘Is it important?’ asked Duffy wearily.

‘Yes, it bloody is.’

‘Blue notepaper. Typed. Posted in Denton.’

Frost nodded grimly to Gilmore. ‘What did it say?’

‘What do you bloody think it said?’ replied Duffy again near to tears. ‘It said, “Dear Mrs Duffy. Did you know that your dear darling, pure daughter Susan has taken part in depraved, bestial practices with men, with other women… even with animals, and is so proud of what she did that she allowed herself to be filmed. If you doubt me, I’m sending you a video.” ‘He paused and listened to the clock tick.

‘And did he send a video?’ prompted Frost.

‘Yes. It came the next morning… the day after Susan died. Imagine the effect on my wife if she’d received it. I waited for the postman, just like Susan must have done.’ He shuddered. ‘It was the one with the dog.’

All heads turned to the door as it clicked open. Mrs Duffy came in, a shrunken, stooped figure, face tired and lined, eyes red. Duffy rose from his chair. ‘It’s the police, love. Just asking a few questions.’

‘Routine,’ muttered Frost, avoiding her eyes. She’d have to know, but he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

She forced a smile. ‘I’ll make some tea.’

‘We can’t stop, I’m afraid,’ said Frost. ‘Lots of things to do.’

‘I won’t be long, love,’ said Duffy, helping his wife out of the room. ‘You go in the warm.’ When he came back he said, ‘How old does she look? Sixty?’ Not far short, thought Frost. ‘She was forty last month and she never looked her age. Losing her only daughter was bad enough, but when this other business comes out, it’ll kill her. You’ll have another death on your hands.’

‘You’ll have to tell her,’ said Frost.

‘You bloody tell her,’ said Duffy. He went to the side board and opened a drawer where he took out a small box. ‘You see these?’ He rattled it. ‘The bloody doctor’s put her back on the same tablets Susan took.’

Frost looked away. There was nothing to say.

Outside, in the car, Gilmore said, ‘That video. Did you notice Susan’s feet?’

‘Her feet were the last thing I thought of looking at,’ said Frost. ‘Why?’

‘The ground was rough so she was wearing shoes,’ said Gilmore. ‘Stark naked, but wearing shoes… just like Paula.’

Frost worried away at his scar, then shook his head. ‘Coincidence, son. No-one would want to make a porn video with Paula. The poor little bitch didn’t have the looks, or the figure.’ He salvaged a decent-sized butt from the ashtray and lit up. ‘The doc was right. He said that poison pen bastard would kill someone some day.’ He huddled down in his seat, suddenly feeling cold. ‘And I haven’t the faintest idea how to go about catching the sod.’

Gilmore started up the engine. ‘Where to?’

‘Drop me off at the station, then go home, son. You’ll be fit for sod all in the morning if you don’t get some kip.’