R. Wingfield - Hard Frost

"What are you daring to say about my daughter?"

"Your daughter was on drugs. Your lovely, pure, fourteen-year-old daughter was on hard drugs."

Cassidy's knuckles whitened as he clenched his fists tight. "You're lying!"

"And to support her habit," continued Hanlon doggedly, 'your fourteen-year-old daughter turned to prostitution."

"You take that back, you bastard." Cassidy had grabbed the front of Hanlon's jacket.

For a short man, Hanlon showed unusual strength. He pulled Cassidy's hand away. "What do you think she was doing at the Coconut Grove that night? She was stoned to the eyeballs and plying for trade to pay for her next fix. Tommy Dunn saw her and hustled her out. He put her into his car and was about to drive off when she opened the door and flung herself out, right into the path of an oncoming car. The driver had had a few drinks, but there was no way he could have avoided her."

Cassidy stared straight ahead as if he wasn't listening, but the muscle on the side of his face was twitching uncontrollably.

"She was killed instantly. Nothing could bring her back, but Jack Frost wanted to spare your feelings. He didn't want the facts to come out in court, so he let the driver go. Then he got the doctor at the hospital to do a very cursory post-mortem, ignoring the drugs abuse, the sexual activity, the disease. He wanted you to have the pure fourteen-year-old daughter you had always boasted about, so he lied and he covered up."

Cassidy stared blankly and shook his head as if it would shake away everything he had heard. He turned to Frost. "He's lying, isn't he?" Then back to Hanlon. "You're lying! The old pals act. Everyone cover up for everyone else… just like Mullett and his mates lied when Chief Inspector Formby wrapped his car round that lamp post."

He walked to the door. "Sod you all!" he yelled, almost in tears. A flutter of paper as he tore up the registration number and hurled it to the floor. "Sod you all!"

The door swung shut behind him.

"I wish you hadn't done that, Arthur," said Frost. "But thanks, anyway." He poked a cigarette in his mouth and tried to think. What was he going to do before Cassidy sounded off? Oh yes. Have another word with Finch.

Liz looked tired and washed out so he sent her home. "Burton will drive you," he said. Burton seemed pleased at this. He kicked the door of the interview room shut. Just him and Finch.

"No deal," he said tersely.

Finch shrugged. "A pity, but I gave you a chance."

Frost scraped a chair across the brown linoleum and sat down. "I might be able to get the court to go lenient with you. The first boy's death wasn't intended and you co-operated in letting us recover Bobby. You could be out in five years."

"According to my consultant, I haven't got five years," said Finch. "Any prison term, no matter how short, would be a life sentence, so you've got no carrots to offer me."

"Tell us where he is," said Frost.

"Only the kidnapper would know that," replied Finch.

Frost stood up. "I'll make you a promise," he said. "Whether we find that boy alive, or dead, or never, I'm going to nail you. I hope your consultant is right, because you are going to die in prison,"

He called for a uniformed constable to take Finch back to the cell. Fine bleeding words, he told himself, but how the hell am I going to do it?

Frost helped himself to a mug of tea from Bill Wells's thermos flask, then paid for it by having to listen to the sergeant's moans about the way Mullett kept blocking his chances of promotion and kept putting him down for duty on Christmas Day. He was only half listening. The kid was out there somewhere in the cold, torrential rain, and teams of men were looking for him. He was toying with the idea of driving over there to help, if only to be doing something constructive, but knew he'd just be getting in the way. He looked up as Burton returned from driving Liz back to her digs.

"Get your leg over, son?" he asked.

Burton grinned. "Never had the nerve to ask her."

"Did you hear about the bus conductress who married a bus driver?" asked Frost. "On their wedding night she stripped off and said, "Room for one on top." When he'd finished he said, "But you didn't tell me there was room for five standing inside." He cackled the loudest at his own joke, then stopped abruptly. It didn't seem right to be laughing while that poor little sod… He wryly recalled the empty threat he had made to Finch. Well, there was no way he was going to find the kid, drinking tea and telling dirty jokes. He swilled down the dregs and banged down the mug. "Come on, son," he said to Burton. "Let's go for a drive."

He sometimes thought better in the car so he lay back in his seat, smoking, eyes half closed, letting Burton drive through the stair rods of rain. The little buzzer in his brain started to sound off again. The house. There was something that had puzzled him when they went into the house in Wrights Lane. But what the hell was it?

"What happened when we banged on the door to get in there, son?" he asked Burton.

Burton couldn't help. "You sent me and Jordan round the back."

Frost leant back and gazed up at the roof of the car for inspiration, but none came. "Drive me to her digs," he told Burton. "I want to talk to Liz."

"She'll be in bed," said Burton.

"Then she can get out of it again," said Frost. "I've got to talk to her."

He banged on the door and kept his thumb jammed in the bell push. At last a light came on in an upstairs window, then the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. Bolts slid back and there was Liz, an unfastened dressing-gown over her nightdress, a police truncheon swinging menacingly in her hand.

"Bloody hell!" gawped Frost. This was a transformed Liz. Her hair, usually screwed back tightly, was now free-flowing down her back. It was gorgeous hair and she had a lot of it.

She had scrubbed off her make-up and her skin looked fresh and dewy. Her flimsy nightdress didn't conceal very much. "What do you want?" she hissed to the dark shape standing in the doorway.

I'd love to tell you, thought Frost. "It's me, Liz. Sorry it's so late." He told her what was worrying him.

Liz shook her head. "We knocked at the door, Finch let us in and then we searched the house."

"All right, love," he said. "You go back to bed. I'm going to take another look around that house."

"Wait," she said. "I'm coming with you."

He waited in the car with Burton, who wanted all the tantalizing detail.

"She had a dressing-gown on," said Frost, embroidering the facts to suit his audience. "Nothing on underneath… she must sleep in the nude… and it kept flapping open."

"Flaming heck!" breathed Burton.

"And her Bristols," he added. "Wow… I've never seen such nipples."

"Tell me, tell me!" pleaded Burton.

"Have you ever seen ripe, Royal Sovereign strawberries, warm from the sun with the dew still on them?" said Frost, getting excited at his own fantasy.

"No, but I can imagine it," said Burton, wriggling in his eat.

"Well…!" His expression changed abruptly. "Look out, she's coming." Burton leant back and opened the door for her.

Liz sat in the back seat. Burton kept eyeing her with renewed interest. She certainly looked different with her hair hanging loosely. As they paused at the traffic lights he turned and gave her a smile. "You look smashing with your hair like that."

"Keep your eyes on the road, constable," she said icily.

The house was unguarded. With the search party out in force they didn't have enough men for that luxury. They went inside with Frost mooching from room to room, not knowing what the hell he was doing there or what he was looking for. Fingerprint powder was everywhere, but the only prints found were those of Finch and a few of the householder and his wife which had survived Finch's vigorous polishing and cleaning operation. In the bathroom and the kitchen, the sink traps had been removed and the contents taken away by Forensic for examination. The couple returning from Spain were going to have a shock when they arrived home tomorrow.