Winter Frost (46 page)

   
"Perhaps he's got a second car hidden away somewhere," Burton suggested. "Changes cars when he picks up toms, then changes back to the Honda when he drives home."

   
"And changes his flaming suit as well?" said Frost, shaking his head. "It's too complicated. Either we've got the wrong man, or we're missing something. In any case, it's too bloody late and I'm too tired to think." He buttoned up his mac. "First thing in the morning we contact all the toms who work in that area and find out if any of them saw Sarah going off with anyone." He stretched his arms and yawned. "I'm for bed before any more bodies turn up."

   
He got as far as the corridor.

   
"Frost!"

   
He winced. Bloody Mullett. Half-past four in the morning and there was Hornrim Harry, uniform razor-creased, face all shining and squeaky clean, making Frost feel dirtier and more dishevelled than ever.

   
"Super?"

   
"My office . . . now!"

   
Frost followed him to the old log cabin and flopped wearily into the visitor's chair. Mullett marched to his desk and sat ramrod straight behind it, treating the inspector to a long, disapproving glare. What the hell have I done now, thought Frost, digging in his pocket for a cigarette and finding the note Bill Wells had given him in-the interview room. Mullett demanding to see him urgently. Knickers! He'd forgotten all about it.

   
"I was just about to phone you when you called out," lied Frost, thinking Sod it, a couple of minutes earlier and I'd have made it to the car-park and been off home. He put on his tired, overworked copper face. "This won't take long will it, Super? It's been one hell of a night."

   
"Not only for you. Frost. I too have had one hell of a night. Woken up in the small hours by the press demanding my comments on the latest killing and asking if it was true that we had arrested a man in connection with the serial killings. And I didn't know a damn thing about it."

   
Frost frowned. "I didn't know the press had got the story. They didn't phone the station."

   
Mullett picked up his paper knife and beat a gentle tattoo on his desk top. "Er . . . no . . . I had arranged that all press calls were to be diverted to me. I wanted to spare you the burden of having to deal with them." He wouldn't look Frost in the eye as he said this. His concern was firstly that he didn't trust Frost to deal with the media, dreading seeing some of the man's more outrageous comments spread across the front pages of every London daily, but more important, it didn't do his own career any harm to have his name featured as spokesman in such an important case—and it also gave him the opportunity to deflect blame and misdirect credit.

   
"You spoil me, Super," murmured Frost, who wasn't fooled for one minute.

   
Mullett modestly shrugged off what he took to be a compliment and returned to the attack. "I couldn't give them answers, so I had to stall them. I asked you to phone me immediately you were free, and you ignored me. Then . . . then . . ." He banged the paper knife down on the desk to show the importance of his next point. ". . . the Chief Constable phoned me. The press had gone through to him. He demanded answers which, thanks to you, I was unable to provide."

   
"Sorry about that, Super," mumbled Frost, sounding just like Morgan.

   
"Sorry isn't good enough, Frost. I've been made to look a complete idiot."

   
Frost bit his tongue and said nothing.

   
"I told the Chief Constable that the suspect you are questioning had, at my instigation, been under surveillance and that, although I didn't have the details, I was sure you had caught him red-handed and this was yet another feather in Denton Division's cap. He complimented me and is waiting for my return phone call to tell him we have formally charged this man with the serial murders."

   
"You stuck your neck out a bit, Super," reproved Frost. "We're questioning Ashby, but he denies everything and we haven't yet got enough to charge him."

   
"But you had him under surveillance. You must have seen him dumping the body?"

   
"We had him under surveillance," said Frost, blandly, "but we lost him."

   
Mullett's face turned to stone. "You lost him?"

   
"Yes," agreed Frost. "By the time we found the body, he was back home."

   
"You lost him?" Mullett could think of nothing else to say. "We set up an expensive surveillance operation, but at the vital moment, you lose him?" The enormity of how he was going to explain all this to the Chief Constable was tempered by the thought that he could put all the blame for this monumental mess-up on Frost's bungling. He waggled a reproving finger.

   
"There is no way County will overlook this, Frost. Heads will roll."

   
"You mustn't blame yourself, Super," said Frost, sounding very concerned. "You meant for the best and it's not entirely your fault."

   
Mullett blinked rapidly. His fault? How could the blame be put on him? "What on earth are you talking about? You're the one who lost your prime suspect."

   
"As I said to you at the time, Super, you hadn't given us enough men to do the job properly." 

   "Not enough men? Three of you to tail one man?" 

   "At two in the morning there's hardly another car on the road. It was vital he shouldn't know he was being tailed. We had to keep well back so he wouldn't keep seeing the same two cars wherever he went. He suddenly put on a bit of speed and we lost him. Two more men in another car and we would have nailed him, but obviously, with County watching the pennies, the money angle took precedence over stopping another killing. Let's hope they see it's their fault and don't try to blame you. I'll back you up, Super."

   
Mullett's head was in a flat spin. Frost always seemed able to wrong-foot him. How to wriggle out of this? "But I've told the Chief Constable you would be charging him."

   
"He has opportunity and motive. We just need a bit more evidence."

   
"And how do you propose to get it?"

   
"We'll be questioning the local toms tomorrow. One of them might have seen him drive off with Sarah. If so, we've got him."

   
"And if not?"

   
"If not, we let him go and hope we catch him next time."

   
He left a stunned Mullett staring at the telephone, mentally drafting out his call to the Chief Constable.

   
"Frost seemed to think three men were enough. I urged him to take more . . ."

   Frost didn't make it to the car-park. Bill Wells called him into the cell area. "Ashby wants to speak to you. Jack."

   
His tiredness evaporated. A confession. It had to be. He waited as Wells unlocked the cell door. Ashby was sitting on the bunk bed, arms folded defiantly. "I'd like you to know, Inspector, that first thing in the morning, I am instructing my solicitor to instigate proceedings against you and this lousy police station for false arrest and wrongful imprisonment."

   
"Is that all you wanted to say?" asked Frost, disappointed.

   
"Yes."

   
"See you in the morning, then." He turned to leave.

   
"You'll see me," shouted Ashby. "And I won't be hanging from a bloody hook."

   
Pity, thought Frost.

A damp and misty morning. It was just pushing half-past eight as Frost turned into the station car-park. He'd had a phone call from Bill Wells telling him that Ashby's solicitor wanted to see him urgently at nine o'clock with his client.

   
He checked the cars in the car-park. DC Burton was in already but no sign of Taffy Morgan's motor. With a muttered curse he spotted Mullett's Rover in its designated parking space. Hadn't the sod got a home to go to? No sign yet of the solicitor's car so he had time to snatch something to eat.

   
As he pushed open the door, the siren smell of frying sausages and bacon wafted down from the canteen. A quick peek inside the murder incident room as he passed through. Sitting next to Burton, noisily slurping tea from a chipped canteen mug, sat one of the tallest women Frost had ever seen. Thin, with bleached blond hair, jangling curtain-ring ear-rings and wearing, below a short black jacket, a tiny leather miniskirt which made her long, skinny legs look even longer. Spotting the inspector, Burton hurried over.

   
"Who the hell is that?" whispered Frost. "The giraffe woman?"

   
"You asked us to check on toms. Lily saw a bloke Pick up Sarah last night."

   
"From her height she could see for miles," said Frost. He took one more look and shuddered. "I can't talk to her on an empty stomach. I'll be down when I've had something to eat."

   
He clattered up the stairs to the canteen, piled the full monty fried breakfast on a tray and sat down next to Bill Wells who was staring reflectively into an empty cup. "Did you see what Burton's dragged in?" Frost asked.

   
"I reckon it's a man dressed up," said Wells.

   
"Two men," said Frost. "One on the other's shoulders." He cut off a chunk of sausage and dipped it in his fried egg. "Did you hear the one about the midget who married the tall girl? His friends put him up to it!" He roared with laughter at his own joke, nearly choking on the sausage. "Do you get it?"

   
"I got it, when you first told it to me," said Wells glumly, "but I was a lot younger then."

   
"You're no fun any more," said Frost. "Do you know why Ashby's solicitor wants to see me?"

   
Wells shook his head. "Ashby phoned him about eight o'clock. Half an hour later the solicitor phoned us, saying he wanted to see you urgently at nine."

   
"Did he sound like someone whose client was going to confess and make a broken-down detective inspector very happy?" asked Frost hopefully.

   
"He sounded like someone who reckoned he had a broken-down detective inspector by the short and curlies."

   
"Talking of private parts," said Frost, "I see Mullett's in?"

   
"He's got Wonder Woman with him."

   
"Liz Maud? Back already? So I was wrong, it wasn't a heart and lung transplant?"

   
Wells leant over and lowered his voice. "She's had an abortion."

   
Frost's fork with a speared sausage hovered an inch from his mouth. "And Mullett's the father? Flaming heck. How do you know it was an abortion?"

   
"It stands to reason."

   
"So does my dick . . . but how do you know?"

   
"She used to keep throwing up . . . that's morning sickness."

   
"It could be the canteen food." He cocked an ear as the tannoy blared out: "Would Inspector Frost come to the phone, please."

   
The solicitor had arrived.

Mullett took off his glasses and gave them a careful polish with a paper tissue, then smiled at Liz who was seated in the visitor's chair opposite him. "So you are fully fit and ready to resume duties?"

   
"Yes, sir. It was only a minor operation."

   
He nodded. "Er . . . yes." He found his eyes being drawn to her chest. If it was a breast enlargement operation as Frost had suggested, they certainly didn't look that much larger than he remembered them. "If you could let me have your doctor's medical certificate—we need it for your sick pay, of course." That should tell him what had been done.

   
"I didn't take the time off as sick leave, Superintendent. It was part of my annual leave entitlement."

   
"I see." He took another quick peek. Perhaps her chest was a bit bigger than before. These damn women with their mysterious female ailments, taking time off at crucial moments for trivial operations. "Anyway, things should be a bit easier for you next week. Inspector Allen will be back and you will be able to revert to your proper rank as sergeant."

   
Liz stared coldly. "You did say you would see about getting my temporary rank of inspector made permanent."

   
Again Mullett took off his glasses and held them up to the light, looking for non-existent smears. "Ah, yes. I fought hard, Sergeant, but . . ." He shook his head sadly. "In spite of all my efforts on your behalf, County wouldn't agree." He beamed an insincere sympathetic smile. "If you had achieved any good results, things might have gone differently, but as it was . . . !" He spread out his hands.

   
Her eyes spat fire. "I see." And she was out of the chair and his office without another word, her door-slamming pushing Frost's into second place.

   
Mullett shook his head and sighed. Damn woman! How right he was not to have recommended her promotion to County.

The bald-headed solicitor was seated next to his client in the interview room, his briefcase on the table. He nodded curtly as Frost, followed by Burton, came in to take their seats. "An important development," he announced.

   You're looking too pleased with yourself, you smug bastard, thought Frost. Aloud he said: "Oh?"

   
"As I understand it, Inspector, the mainstay of your case is that all these killings were carried out by the same person, including the murder of my client's unfortunate receptionist?"