"Hard Frost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wingfield R. D.)

1.57," he dictated.

"Oh!" interrupted Frost. "Sorry, doc should have told you. This isn't Bobby. We don't know who he is."

Drysdale glowered, his lips tight. "Thank you for sharing that information, inspector. I find these little details rather important." As he turned back to the table, Frost thumbed his nose at him.

Very slowly, Drysdale inspected the body, lifting the hands to examine the fingernails, searching for cuts, abrasions, any marks of injury. He raised the head and his fingers explored the scalp.

"If you could hurry it up, doc," urged Frost. "We don't know who the poor little sod is yet, and we want to get photographs off to the media."

Ignoring him, Drysdale dictated his findings to his secretary. "Little finger of right hand severed, but no other signs of external injuries." He bent over the face. "Vomit exuding from nose." He took samples and passed them over to Harding. "Mouth and eyes covered with brown plastic masking tape approximately 50mm wide." He moved to one side. "You may remove the tape now."

Harding carefully eased it off with tweezers, first from the eyes, then the mouth. A sour smell of vomit and chloroform. The boy's mouth, distorted by the tape, had been frozen into a grotesque teeth-baring grin. The flash gun crackled and the film-winding motor whirred as Evans took pictures.

Drysdale studied the area around the lips and nostrils, pointing out where small fibres of cotton wool still adhered. He tweeze red them off and passed them over to Harding. "The anaesthetic was poured on a pad of cotton wool and clamped over the mouth, causing a slight burning of the flesh… here… and here." He forced open the uiouth and shone a small pen torch inside. "Particles of undigested food and vomit. looks like ground meat, onion…" Then he tweeze red out a piece of sodden cloth and held it aloft before dropping it into the large glass container Harding was holding out for him. "The gag," he announced. Then, with agonizing slowness, he extracted more samples from the mouth and nose.

"Any sign of sexual interference, doc?" asked Frost impatiently.

"I'll jtell you when I'm ready," murmured Drysdale, 'and not before." He then proceeded to work even more slowly.

Frost sighed. The man was a bastard. He wandered off to a side room and helped himself to a mug of coffee from a thermos he found on the table. He had no wish to see the body opened and the organs removed and weighed. All he wanted was the findings… He sipped the coffee and smoked and tried to think of anything he should have done, but hadn't. He poured another mug of coffee, then wandered back to the autopsy room. The pathologist had finished and was washing his hands at the sink, while the mortuary attendant was busily suturing the gaping wounds. "Brief findings, doc?" He stressed the 'brief. Drysdale was inclined to be long-winded.

Drysdale tugged at the automatic towel dispenser. "No sign of sexual assault. If that was the intention, then it wasn't carried out."

"Good," nodded Frost, although this meant there was no way of knowing if they were looking for a sex attacker or not.

"His last meal was a proprietary hamburger sesanu seed bread roll, ground beef, onion rings, eaten verj shortly before death."

"How shortly?" Frost asked.

"Half an hour at the most."

Frost thought this over as he tried to rub some life intc his cheek. It was freezing cold in the autopsy room and his scar was starting to ache. The kid had a hamburger half an hour before he died. They'd have to check all the likely places McDonald's, Burger King in the hope someone might remember serving him amongst their hundreds of other customers… You're bound to remember him, he bought a hamburger! A forlorn, bloody hope, he knew.

"There's a very faint mark around the hair-line," said Drysdale, leading him back to the body. "You can hardly see it." He slipped a finger under the hair to lift it and showed Frost what he meant… a barely perceptible white mark, just under an eighth of an inch wide, running across the forehead.

"What do you make of it, doc?"

"Something elasticated pulled over the hair. My secretary suggested a shower cap." He nodded to the woman, who blushed and went back to writing out labels for the specimen jars.

"A shower cap?"

"Doesn't make much sense, but something like that. You'll get my fuller report in the morning."

"Send it to Mr. Allen," said Frost. "Not me it's not my case, thank God!" Then he remembered what he meant to ask. "Chloroform. Do they still use it in hospitals?"

Drysdale shook his head. "Not for many years. It's been superseded."

"So where would you get it a chemist?"

Another shake of the head. "Only if they've got some very old stock they haven't got around to throwing away yet. Years ago it was used in certain prescribed medicines, but not any more. Anything else?"

Frost scratched his head. "That's all I can think of, doc."

"I'll bid you good night then." He jerked his head to his secretary, who followed him out.

Evans began to bag up the materials removed from the body… the masking tape, the cotton wool and sticking plaster… The mortuary attendant came out to take the body back to the storage area, but Frost held up a hand to delay him. "Take a couple of Polaroid shots of the face," he instructed Evans. "I want them faxed out to all forces in the hope someone can identify the poor little git." He moved out of the way as the flash gun fired. One last look at the body. He lifted the hand with the severed finger. "Why the hell would anyone want to do this?"

"Liz Maud has got a weirdo breaking into houses and stabbing kids," said Burton. "Could be him."

"Could be," said Frost, not sounding very convinced. "I'll have a word with her."

On the way out they passed Drysdale and his secretary in the midst of an angry exchange with the mortuary attendant who was hotly denying helping himself to coffee from their thermos flask.

In the car Frost settled back into the passenger seat and offered his cigarettes to Burton. "I want you to check up on that little Chinese nurse. Find out where she was from four o'clock onwards, today."

Burton frowned. "You surely don't suspect her?"

"Sticking plaster, cotton wool, chloroform, things you'd find in a hospital. And she'd certainly know how to lop off a finger."

"But what on earth would her motive be?"

"I don't know, son." The cigarette waggled in his mouth as he spoke and sent a shower of ash down the front of his mac. "Perhaps she was jealous of Kirby's son perhaps he was spoiling their relationship."

"But this is a different boy."

"They all look the same to us maybe our kids all look the same to them. Perhaps she got the wrong kid." Even as he said it, it sounded weak. "Just check her out, son. It'll give us something to do. We've got no other leads at the moment."

A disgruntled Bill Wells grabbed Frost as soon as he entered the station. "If you want me to do anything for you, Jack, like organize a search party, do me the courtesy of talking to me direct. I'm not having that stuck-up tart telling me what to do."

"Sorry," said Frost, knowing how prickly Wells could be. "Have one of Mullett's fags and we'll say no more about it." Wells took one and let the inspector light it for him. He was still not mollified.

"And where is the good lady in question?" asked Frost.

"Lording it up in the murder incident room."

Frost nodded and breezed off down the corridor. "I'll give her your love," he called.

He sailed into the incident room. Liz had done a good job gel ling it organized, and under way. The fax machine in the corner was chirping away, spewing out yards of messages; two uniformed men were taking calls and another phone was ringing on an unoccupied desk. As Burton followed Frost in, she yelled, "Answer that phone."

Sullenly, Burton snatched it up. Like Wells, he wasn't happy taking orders from a woman.

"Be with you in a minute," she called to Frost, putting down her phone and galloping over to the fax machine. She skimmed through the messages, shook her head in disappointment and dumped them in an already full wire basket. She was annoyed. "We fax all forces asking if they've had a boy answering our description reported missing and they send us details of every missing boy they've got on their books whether he fits our description or not. Some have even sent details of missing girls!"

"Anything remotely like our boy?"

She pulled a fax from the pile. "Just this seven-year-old, Duncan Ford, reported missing this afternoon from Scotland."

Frost took the fax. "Last seen in Montrose just after four thirty," he read. "Well, unless Concorde has changed its route, we can rule him out." He gave her the Polaroid shots taken at the mortuary. "Fax these around." Then he remembered the photograph of Bobby the mother had given him. "You'd better send this out as well."

As she busied herself at the fax machine, he riffled through the heap of faxes received, then pushed the tray away. His gut feeling told him that the murdered child came from Denton and they were wasting their time enquiring elsewhere. When Liz came back he asked her about her child stabber.

"We've had four cases over the past week," she told him. "He breaks into the house, usually through a window, and stabs the kids while they sleep… just cuts their flesh. I think he gets a sexual kick out of seeing blood."

"Do you think he'd get a bigger sexual kick cutting off a finger?" She shuddered as he told her about the dead boy and of Drysdale's findings. "Let Mr. Allen know tomorrow and tell him his company is requested at the post-mortem, 10 a.m." top hat, white tie and tails." He yawned. It was nearly three o'clock in the morning. "I'm off home." A wave to everyone. "See you next week."

As he left, she was yelling for one of the PCs to start checking through the rubbish bags stacked in the car park to see if the dead boy's clothes had been dumped inside.

"Bossy little cow, isn't she?" whispered Frost to Burton.

"Too bleeding bossy," muttered the DC.

"Still," added Frost, "I wouldn't kick her out of bed on a frosty night."

Burton sniffed derisively. "I wouldn't have her in my bed in the first place."

It wasn't until he got home and the front door slammed behind him that he suddenly remembered Shirley. Shirley, who had been on holiday with him and who was going away again with him in the morning. He had left her in the house while he went off to the station to nick some fags from Mullett's goody box. Bloody hell! He had told her he would only be a couple of minutes and that was nearly five hours ago.

She wasn't in the living-room. He looked hopefully in the bedroom. The unmade bed was empty. Sod it! He snatched up the phone and dialled her number. The engaged tone. She had left the phone off the hook. Sod, sod and double sod. He considered driving round to her place, but was too damn tired. What a bloody fine holiday this was turning out to be. Piddling with rain all the time he was away, a murder case, a post-mortem and a solitary bed. He undressed, letting his clothes fall on the floor by the bed, then flopped down on the mattress.

He slept soundly until seven thirty when the insistent ringing of the phone brought him reluctantly to the surface. It could only be Shirley. But at this time? He lifted the phone.

"Frost," he mumbled, sounding very contrite.

It wasn't Shirley. It was the station. Mullett wanted him to report there right away.

"Tell the silly sod I'm on holiday," said Frost.

"The silly sod knows that," answered Bill Wells. "But he still wants to see you and he's in a real right mood."

Frost's heart nose-dived. "He's not been counting his bloody fags, has he?"

It was ten past eight and still dark as he turned the Ford into the car-park at the rear of the station. Usually half empty at this time of the morning, it was now jam-packed with alien vehicles of all kinds. Bobby Kirby was obviously still missing and the search party was assembling. Every available officer had been called in to help, including off-duty personnel and officers who could be spared from neighbouring divisions. All very efficiently organized. Frost was glad it wasn't his case. Organization and efficiency weren't his strong point. He'd have made a complete sod-up of it all.

As he bumped along, looking for somewhere to leave the Ford, a stray dog in the kennels started to bark and was answered by suppressed whining from the dog-handler's van over in the far corner. Space was at a premium, but he managed a clumsy double-park which effectively boxed in Mullett's blue Jaguar.

In the lobby, a weary-looking Sergeant Bill Wells, who should have gone off duty at six, was directing a group of constables from Thorrington Division up to the canteen where the main briefing was to take place. "Follow the smell of stewed tea and burnt bacon you can't miss it," called Frost.

Wells beckoned Frost over, his eyes glinting as they always did when he had an item of tasty gossip to impart. "Did you hear what happened last night?"

"You got your leg over with Liz Maud?" suggested Frost.

"She should be so lucky!" snorted Wells. He leant across the desk. "That booze-up that Mullett and Allen attended. It was some sort of senior police do top brass from all divisions were there."

"My invite must have been lost in the post," said Frost.

"Anyway," continued Wells, 'meting to the meaty bit, 'my information is, they sunk a lot more booze than was good for them and they were all well over the limit. Chief Inspector Formby from Greenford Division was giving four of them a lift back. He was in no fit state to drive, but that didn't stop him. Just outside the hotel car-park there's a lamp post. Formby wraps the car round it and turns it over."

Frost beamed. "I like happy endings."

"It's even happier," continued Wells. "They're all in Felstead Hospital with broken arms and ribs Formby's leg is broken as well."

"Serves the bastard right," said Frost. "If he had an inch of common decency he'd have given Allen and Mullett a lift as well and broken both their bloody legs."

Two more uniformed men swept in. Wells steered them up the stairs to the canteen, then leant over to Frost, lowering his voice. "Here's the best bit, Jack. The ambulance was called and the Traffic boys turn up anxious to breathalyse the driver the car just stunk of malt whisky."

"Bloody hell," said Frost. "I'd give up my pension for the chance to breathalyse a sod like Formby."

"He wasn't breathalysed, Jack. Someone pulled rank."

"There's no justice," said Frost.

"Anyway, five senior officers in hospital is going to make them a bit thin on the ground for a few weeks." The internal phone rang. Mullett. "He wants you," said Wells.

"He can't have everything he wants," said Frost.

Mullett dropped the Alka Seltzers in the glass of water and winced at the head splitting fizzing noise. He shouldn't have drunk so much last night, but the other officers were so insistent and he didn't want to appear the odd man out. A perfunctory tap at the door and before he could say "Enter' Frost had shuffled in. Mullett groaned. Was that the only suit the man had? He squeezed out a thin smile and waved Frost to a chair, then swilled down the Alka Seltzer.

"Have a good holiday?" he asked.

"Peed with rain all week," grunted Frost.

"Good," said Mullett, who wasn't listening.

"Did you get my comic postcard?" asked Frost.

Mullett frowned. Yes, he had got the card. And torn it up immediately. "It was extremely rude," he muttered.

Frost looked puzzled. "Rude? You must have spotted some double meaning I missed."

Mullett flapped a hand. "Be that as it may. Sorry to drag you in, Frost, but things happened last night. Five of our top men involved in a car accident."

"So I heard," said Frost. "The car had a fight with a lamppost."

"Yes a patch of oil on the road. They skidded." Mullett, not a good liar, didn't sound very convincing.

"Was Formby breathalysed?" asked Frost. "I understand he'd had a few."

"Oh Chief Inspector Formby wasn't driving," said Mullett, carefully avoiding Frost's eye. "His daughter was driving and she hadn't been drinking."

Frost smiled and gave a conspiratorial wink. "Bloody clever! You're a lot of crafty sods, sir, that's all I can say."

"What do you mean?"

"It's obvious. Formby was driving. He didn't dare be breathalysed, so you brought his daughter in from home to pretend she was the driver."

Mullett tried to sound suitably shocked. "That's a libellous thing to say, Frost. His daughter was driving. We all gave statements to that effect."

"Then the witness who claims to have seen it all differently is telling lies?" said Frost. He put on his innocent expression. "What did you want to see me about?"

But Mullett was now in a high state of agitation. "What witness? What does he claim to have seen? You must tell me."

"If what you say is true, then he couldn't have seen anything, could he, sir?" said Frost blandly. "It would be your word against his anyway, even if he is a vicar."

Mullett stared hard and jotted a note on his pad. He would have to talk to Frost about this later man to man on a friendly basis. He hadn't wanted to get involved in this wretched deception anyway, but they had pulled rank and twisted his arm. He cleared his throat. "The result of this unfortunate accident is that five senior officers are nursing broken bones in hospital."

"Then it wasn't all bad," said Frost.

Mullett ignored this. "Obviously, this has meant some temporary relocation of personnel. In our case it means that Inspector Allen has been seconded to Greenford Division as acting chief inspector until such time as Mr. Formby is fit enough to return."

"When is he going?" asked Frost.

"He's already gone. It was arranged last night."

"Do you mean to tell me," said Frost, 'that Allen knew he wouldn't be here when he conned me into taking over his cases on a temporary basis last night?"

"I don't know anything about that," said Mullett, again not meeting Frost's eye.

"The bastard," said Frost, banging his fist on Mullett's desk which jolted the headache into overdrive.

"Please!" Mullett held his head. "You will take over all his cases."

"That still leaves us a man short."

"There will be a temporary replacement for Mr. Allen… a detective sergeant as acting inspector. We haven't finalized the details yet."

"The sooner the better we're pushed enough as it is."

Mullett waved a hand of dismissal. "I'll leave you to it then. Sorry to have to cut your holiday short, but it couldn't be avoided."

"A few less drinks last night and it would have been," said Frost, pushing himself out of the chair.

As the door closed, Mullett heard a startled cry from his secretary and a raucous laugh from Frost. "Caught you bending there, Ida!"

The Divisional Commander shook his head sadly. What could you do with a man like that?

Frost took a quick look in Allen's office on his way up to the briefing. He shuddered. The room was so neat and tidy it almost hurt. Desk tops clear, wall charts meticulously entered, and the prissy smell of lavender wax polish. A cold, heartless room, which matched its former occupant, and which made Frost itch to get back to the warm, untidy fug of his own office. He delved into Allen's in-tray, and pulled out a neat stack of forms and returns which had to be completed and sent off to County by the third of the month. Trust the sod to leave them behind. He put them back and went across the corridor to the incident room where Liz Maud, still in her drab grey outfit, was surprised to see him.

"I thought you were on holiday, inspector?"

He explained about Allen. Her eyes narrowed. If a detective sergeant was to be made up to acting inspector, then who better than her!

"There's a few returns and things in his office," said Frost vaguely. "Perhaps you could see if you could handle them."

"No problem," she said. "I'll move in there."

"I take it we didn't find Bobby Kirby?"

"No. The briefing for the search party is in five minutes."

"Right -I suppose I'd better do it."

She concealed her disappointment. In the absence of Allen, she was hoping she could take this over.

"Have we identified the dead kid?"

"No."

"Damn." He lit up a cigarette and stared out of the window on to the car-park. "A young kid, eight years old at the most and dead for nearly fifteen hours. Why haven't his parents reported him missing?" He sucked hard at the cigarette as he had a thought. "It could be because it's his parents who killed him." He spun round to Liz. "As soon as the schools open, get on the phone to the head teachers. I want to know if there's any seven- or eight-year-old boys who haven't turned up for school today."

"Right."

"But don't tell them he's dead not until we've traced and informed the parents."

"Of course not." Give her credit for some common sense.

"Any joy with the rubbish sacks?"

"Plenty of prints, but we're checking with the shop people today to eliminate them. And no sign of the clothing."

"Has everyone in the briefing got copies of both photographs the dead kid and Bobby?"

"Yes."

"And the guy? People might not have noticed the kid, but they could remember the guy."

"Yes. And I've sent copies of the photograph of Bobby to the press and TV and we're having a pile of "Have you seen this boy" posters run off. Also some extra large ones to stick on a loudspeaker van to tour the neighbourhood."

"Good," nodded Frost. He had forgotten about that. "Right, let's get the search party briefed."

The canteen was packed. He snatched himself a mug of tea and a bacon sandwich and elbowed his way through to the front. "Your attention, please!"

There were murmurs of surprise. Everyone had been expecting Inspector Allen.

"First the good news and I must ask you to promise not to laugh. Chief Inspector Formby was injured in a car crash last night and is in hospital with two broken arms and a broken leg." He paused as delighted laughter roared out. "And this will really make you laugh he's in quite a bit of pain."

There were one or two cheers at this. Formby with his sneering manner and sarcastic tongue was not a popular officer.

"The bad news is that Inspector Allen has been seconded to Greenford as acting chief inspector and I'm in charge of this missing boy enquiry. You are looking for Bobby Kirby, aged seven. You all have a photograph and a description. His parents have split up and he lives with his mother and her boyfriend. Last night the mother and the boyfriend nipped out to the pub for a quick one, leaving the kid alone in the house. When they returned just after ten, the kid wasn't there. Apparently he sneaked out with his guy to collect money. About eleven o'clock last night we found the guy behind a pile or rubbish bags stacked in a shop doorway in Patriot Street. Next to the guy was a boy's body in a rubbish sack. The boy, aged around seven or eight, had been chloroformed and gagged with plastic masking tape and had choked on his own vomit. He was naked, but there was no sign of sexual assault. The boy was not Bobby Kirby and up to now he has not been reported as missing so we don't know who he is. We'll be checking with schools as soon as they open. So our task is twofold. To find Bobby and to find out all we can about the dead boy."

He deliberately didn't say anything about the severed finger. There'd be floods of hoax calls and fake confessions and he wanted there to be something that only the real murderer would know.

"About half an hour before he died, the boy ate a hamburger. It's going to be a bloody waste of time, but we've got to check all the fast food joints in Denton and ask if they remember serving something as unusual as a hamburger to the boy in the photograph around, say, four to five o'clock. I'm sure this will give us about three hundred useless leads, but it's got to be done. Any questions?"

A duffle-coated PC from Lexton Division put up his hand. "You think there's a connection between the dead boy and Bobby?"

"The dead kid was found next to Bobby's guy. That's the only connection we've got at the moment. It could be a coincidence, but it's good enough for me. I say there's a connection." He looked around. No-one else had any questions. "Right. You've been allocated your search areas, so the very best of luck."

He watched them file out clutching the copies of the photographs. He was hoping for the best, but he had a nasty feeling at the pit of his stomach that they were not going to find anything.

Three.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What's up?" asked Frost.

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

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

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

"Left here," he murmured.

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

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

"There it is," said Evans.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frost frowned. "Why did they do that?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Liz took the warrant card from her handbag and handed it to him. He looked at it and gave a contemptuous sneer as he handed it back. "A bloody woman sergeant! I'm not being fobbed off with second best, am