R. Wingfield - A Touch of Frost

She sat tight-lipped beside him in the car, her face set, her eyes smouldering.

“Sorry, Sue,” he said meekly. “I fell asleep in the chair. I was so damn tired.” He clouted the horn with the palm of his hand as some idiot on a pedal bike swerved directly into their path.

Sue fidgeted with the shoulder strap of her handbag. “It doesn’t matter,” she said sniffily, staring straight ahead.

“Look, I said I’m bloody sorry…”

“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated.

He spun the wheel, turning the car into a dimly lit side road, and jammed on the brakes. He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her, forcing her mouth open, finding her tongue. When they parted, they were both gasping for air like stranded fish. He offered her the radio handset. “Call Frost and tell him you’re not coming. You’ve changed your mind. If he’s running the show the whole thing’s going to be a bloody farce anyway.”

She pushed the handset away. “I always keep my promises.”

He started up the car, then rejoined the traffic flow in the main road. “When Operation Mousetrap finishes, can I spend the rest of the night at your place?”

Her lips curved into a well-scrubbed, virginal, simple, roaringly erotic smile. “That’s a promise,” she said.

Webster put his full weight on the accelerator and left the rest of the traffic standing. He wouldn’t be sleeping alone tonight.

Unless, of course, there was another of Frost’s monumental sod-ups.

They were only five minutes late reaching the briefing room. A burst of raucous laughter billowed out as they opened the door. Frost, sitting on the table up on the dais, had just reached the punchline of some crude joke and was chortling away louder than any of his audience. It was a very small audience. Five men, four of them in casual clothes. At first Webster had difficulty recognizing them, they looked so different out of uniform. The one with the drooping moustache and that moon-faced one, both wearing polar neck sweaters, weren’t they Jordan and Simms, the crew of Charlie Alpha? The young kid in the zip-up leather jacket was, of course, Collier, happy to be away from Police Sergeant Bill Wells for a night. Next to Collier, also in a leather jacket was PC Burton, twenty-five, a tough-looking thug with closely cropped hair, and a very good man to have on your side in a fight. The fifth man, PC Kenny, was the only member of the team wearing uniform.

As Susan entered in her rapist-bait outfit, there were yells of delight and a salvo of wolf whistles. Webster glowered his disapproval. This was a serious business, not a pub outing. He snatched a glance at his watch. Twenty-one minutes past ten. So where were all the others? He was expecting between fifteen and twenty at least.

“This is all there is,” Frost told him.

All? Four hundred acres of woods, miles of paths and a total of seven men. It was ludicrous, farcical, irresponsible, dangerous. “Sue’s not going ahead with it,” he told Frost.

Frost’s face fell. “Aren’t you, Sue?”

She slashed a look at Webster. “Of course I am, sir.”

“That’s all right then,” said Frost, looking relieved. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and ripped out an ear-piercing whistle as an appeal for silence. “Round the map,” he called. They crowded around the wall map.

“This mass of green,” began Frost, ‘is Denton Woods. There’s no way we can cover it properly, so we concentrate on the area where he made his two previous assaults and we bank on Sue’s sex appeal being strong enough to make him come to us, hot and panting, with more than just his tongue hanging out. Now, we know he’s a cautious bastard. He sniffs out the area in advance. If he sees cops, he stays away, which is probably why Mr. Allen’s previous decoy operations failed. So we are going to try a double decoy. We’ve got PC Kenny here in uniform. Kenny will be driving his patrol car with his blue light flashing, doing the rounds of the woods, covering the entire outer perimeter. I’m hoping that our rapist will be deceived into thinking that what he sees is all there is and that as long as he keeps out of Kenny’s way, he’s going to be safe. In the meantime, long before Sue begins her little nocturnal walk, the rest of us will insinuate ourselves into our positions in this tight little area here.” He tapped the map. “All right up to now?”

Webster’s hand shot up. “Supposing he follows Sue but decides to, attack her long before she leads him anywhere near to where we are?”

“Good question, son, but as long as Sue sticks to the main paths she’ll be all right. He never attacks anyone on the main path.”

Webster snorted in derision. “What do you mean “never”? Just because the two previous assaults were off the main track, that in no way establishes a pattern.”

“You don’t rape women on the main path,” insisted Frost. “It’s too public. Besides, his usual ploy is to wait in the bushes and grab at his victims as they walk past. The main paths are too wide. If Sue sticks to the middle, I reckon she’ll be safe.”

“You reckon?” sneered Webster. “And supposing your reckoning is wrong? It’s not you who’d get raped… it’s Sue.”

Frost shook the ash from his cigarette. “I know that, son,” he said mildly. “But there’s a risk to everything. All we can do is minimize that risk. But if Sue wants to back out?” He raised an eyebrow at the woman detective, who shook her head. “In any case, Sue will be in radio contact with us all the time. If she’s attacked on any of the main paths, we will still be able to get to her, although it will take that little bit longer.”

But Webster would not back down. “The extra distance could make all the difference. She could be unconscious and raped by the time we finally get to her.”

“Sue isn’t helpless,” replied Frost. “She’s been trained in unarmed combat and karate. She could have broken his John Thomas in six places by the time we got there. Everyone happy up to now?”

All heads turned to Webster, daring him to complain further. He folded his arms and stared straight ahead, his face a solid scowl of displeasure.

“Passed nem-con. One last point. I’ve got a theory that our rapist will be in the disguise of a jogger, so look out for men in track suits or running shorts.” He indicated a pile of walkie-talkie sets on the side table. “Now everyone grab a radio, and make sure it works.”

While the team surged around the table, sorting out the communications equipment, Frost drew Susan to one side. “I know it’s a ramshackle operation, love, but I think it might work. The important thing is you must take no chances. Anything the slightest bit suspicious, let us know even if it means warning our rapist off. I’d rather abort the whole operation than have anything happen to you.”

She smiled. “I think I can trust you, sir.”

“You’re mad if you do,” said Frost. “I wouldn’t trust me a bloody inch. Let’s fit you up with your radio.”

Susan’s transmitter-receiver was concealed in her shoulder bag, the aerial wire running under the strap. A small hearing-aid-type earpiece enabled her to receive messages, and a tiny microphone disguised as a CND badge and pinned to her wind-breaker would transmit information.

She was sent outside into the corridor to test the equipment, the men all holding their receivers close to their ears with the volume turned down low. They didn’t want the sound of police messages to scare their man off. A long pause with nothing coming through. They all checked their receivers and adjusted the fine tuning. Still nothing. Frost opened the door and yelled to ask if Susan had started transmitting yet.

“Can’t you hear me?” she called from the far end of the corridor. She fiddled with the CND badge, and suddenly there was a loud click and a rustling sound from all the receivers as Susan’s voice rang out loud and clear, “Testing, testing, testing…”