A Touch Of Frost (24 page)

“Of course, sir,” smiled the inspector. “I’ll have it on your desk in half an hour. I’ve already started working it out.”

“This is how we found it, Inspector,” said PC Kenny, leading Frost and Webster into Tommy Croll’s rooms.

The two rooms were a chaotic mess with upholstery slashed, drawers pulled out, cupboards yawning open and their contents strewn all over the floor. The mattress in the bedroom had been dragged from the bed and knifed, its lacerations bleeding horsehair. A heap of clothing tumbled from the wardrobe had a snowy coating of feathers from ripped pillows. In the kitchen the contents of packets of soap powder and corn flakes had been spewed all over the floor where they scrunched noisily underfoot.

“It’s been done over, sir,” said PC Kenny.

“Funny you should say that,” said Frost, “I was thinking the same thing myself.” He kicked at a tin of baked beans which rolled to rest against some broken slices of bread. “No sign of Croll, I suppose?”

“No, sir. His landlady downstairs didn’t even know he was out of hospital.”

“Does she know who did this?”

“No, sir. Says it happened while she was out.”

Frost picked up a battered transistor radio from the floor. “Well, there’s no mystery about who did it—a couple of Harry Baskin’s heavies searching for the stolen money and putting in the frighteners at the same time.” He plugged in the radio and clicked it on. An angry crackle followed by a blue flash. He switched it off. “We’ll have to find Tommy before Baskin’s boys get hold of him. We don’t want him ending up like his mattress, with his innards poking out.” He told Kenny to ask Control to put out a priority signal that Croll was to be found and brought in immediately for questioning in connection with the robbery at The Coconut Grove.

Their next stop was at the house of the other security guard, Bert Harris, who lived in one of the newly built houses east of the main Bath Road. Harris, a cropped-haired, thickset man in his late twenties, sported a black eye and a bruised nose, souvenirs of his reprimand from Harry Baskin the previous night. He didn’t seem at all pleased to see the two policemen.

“It’s not really convenient, Mr. Frost,” he protested, but the inspector pushed past him.

“We don’t mind if it’s a bit untidy, Bert.” He opened the lounge door and peeped inside. A carbon copy of Croll’s place with slashed upholstery and emptied cupboards. “Looks like my house on a good day,” commented Frost as he managed to find a dining chair with its seat intact so he could sit down. “I take it some friends of Mr. Baskin’s have paid you a visit.”

“I’ve got no comment to make on that,” said Harris.

Frost lit up a cigarette. “Did they find the money before they left?”

Harris laughed hollowly. “They couldn’t find it because I haven’t got it. I had nothing to do with that robbery.”

“It had to be an inside job, Bert, which has got to mean you and Tommy Croll.”

Harris pulled a tobacco tin from his pocket and began to roll a hand-made. “We’re talking about five thousand lousy quid, Mr. Frost. If me and Tommy split it down the middle, that is two and a half thousand apiece. Do you seriously think I’d risk Harry Baskin’s boys ripping me open for a lousy two and a half thou? Look at this bloody mess!” He indicated the rubble of his lounge. “There’s at least a thousand quid’s worth of damage. If I was going to stitch Harry Baskin up, I’d pick a night when there was at least ten thousand quid in the office, and when I’d nicked it, you wouldn’t see my arse for dust. I wouldn’t hang around so Harry could use me as a punching bag.”

Frost was forced to admit that this made sense. “So who do you reckon took the money . . . Tommy Croll?”

“It’s not for me to say, is it, Inspector? But he’s stupid enough, and it’s bloody funny he’s done a runner from the hospital.”

The radio was talking to an empty car. “Control to Mr. Frost. Come in, please.”

Frost picked up the handset and in a mock, quavering baritone, sang, “I hear you calling me.”

A pause from the other end, then a reproving voice sniffed, “Please observe the correct radio procedure, Inspector.”

It was Mullett!

“Sorry, Super,” said Frost. “We seem to be on a crossed line.”

County had been on to Mullett about the non arrival of the crime statistics, and Accounts had contacted him wanting to know where the overtime returns were. Frost breezily told Mullett that both returns would go off that day without fail, then signed off quickly.

“Next stop The Coconut Grove, son. I think we should have a little talk with lovable Harry Baskin.”

Like an ageing prostitute who’d had a rough and busy night, The Coconut Grove didn’t look its most seductive in the harsh glare of daylight. Shafts of gritty sunlight grated in through grimed windows, spotlighting every blemish. On asking for Baskin, Frost and Webster were directed through a back door, across a yard piled high with crates of empty beer bottles, and on through to another building from which the sound of a misused piano floated out.

Pushing through a side door marked Staff Only—Keep Out, they found themselves in a darkened hall. At the far end of a well-lit stage a long-haired blonde girl, wearing nothing more than a bright-red bra and matching G-string, was twisting and gyrating to the repetitive thump of Ravel’s Bolero, which a pretty, golden-haired man in a floral shirt was bashing out on the stage piano.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” asked Webster.

“Definitely,” replied Frost.

They were halfway down the aisle when the music reached a climax and the girl suddenly twisted around, whipped off the bra with a flourish and stood bare-breasted, nipples quivering, arms triumphantly outstretched, panting with exertion, and smiling into the dark of the auditorium.

“No, no, no,” yelled a man’s voice from the front row.

“Yes, yes, yes!” cried Frost, thudding down the aisle.

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Frost,” said Baskin. The girl looked startled, then embarrassed, and immediately covered her breasts with her hands.

“Get those bloody hands off,” called Baskin. “You’ve got to get used to people seeing you stripped. Flaunt them, darling, flaunt them.”

Baskin was slouched in one of the front-row-centre seats, an enormous cigar in his mouth pointing almost vertically upward like a Titan rocket ready for launch. “Breaking in a new girl,” he explained as Webster and Frost filled the seats on either side of him. “She’s still a bit shy.”

“I reckon it’s your cigar that’s frightening her,” said Frost.

“From the beginning,” yelled Baskin. The girl put the bra back on and the pianist started butchering Ravel all over again.

“You got my money back yet?” asked Baskin.

“Not yet,” said Webster.

The three men sat side by side, talking to each other but looking straight ahead, their eyes glued to the stage where the blonde was working herself up into a fair simulation of erotic frenzy. The building reeked with the aphrodisiac combination of cigar smoke and female sweat.

“You’ve been up to your old tricks again, Harry,” reproached Frost, eyes dead ahead. “Putting your frighteners on people. Wrecking their rooms.”

“Now don’t take the bra off so quickly,” pleaded Baskin. “Get the audience drooling for you to unpack your goodies. Tease them, just like you teased me last night.” He turned his head to Frost. “Don’t know what you’re talking about Inspector. I don’t put the frighteners on people. I’m a respectable businessman. She’s got terrific knockers, hasn’t she?”

“Has she?” said Frost vaguely. “I was so engrossed in the music, I didn’t notice. Tell me something, Harry. Do you know Roger Miller?”

Baskin flicked about half a pound of ash from the end of his cigar. “The MP’s son? Of course I know him. He plays the gee-gees. Knocks around with one of my show girls.”

“How’s his luck with the horses?”

Baskin shrugged. “Sometimes he wins, but not often. Usually he loses. His trouble is he doesn’t know when to stop. He burned his fingers last month doubling up. Would have cost me a packet had he won, but, thank God, he didn’t.”

“Does he owe you any money?”

Baskin waggled his cigar reproachfully. “My client’s personal affairs are strictly confidential.”

“Very reassuring,” said Frost. “You should be a doctor at a VD clinic. Gawd, look at that!” The girl had reached the end of her routine and stood stark naked in the centre of the stage, the spotlight sparkling on tiny dewdrops of sweat which glistened on her body like jewels. Frost nudged Webster heavily in the ribs. “The Intimate Bikini Styler Strikes again!” he commented coarsely.

Applauding loudly, Baskin leaped from his seat then he made a circle with his forefinger and thumb and kissed it wetly. “Perfect, darling, absolutely perfect . . . take a breather.” She draped a red bathrobe over her shoulders, straddled a rickety chair, and began talking earnestly with the pianist, looking even more erotic half covered than she did when she was naked.

“You know Roger Miller’s Jaguar?” asked Frost, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the girl.

“Concorde on four wheels? Yes, I know it. Why?”

“It knocked down an old man last night,” said Frost, watching Baskin closely.

“Oh yes?” murmured Baskin, apparently more concerned with getting his cigar to draw properly.

“The old man died,” continued the inspector.

A streamer of smoke drifted from Baskin’s mouth and lazily twisted and turned as it hit the beam of the spotlight. “I always knew he’d end up killing someone. He drives like a bloody maniac.”

“Is he a good customer?” asked Frost.

“He’s a good customer when he wins,” Baskin replied. “Trouble is, when he loses he don’t want to pay. You have to give him a little nudge.”

“Put in the frighteners, you mean?”

Baskin laughed out a cloud of smoke. “Frighteners? You’re becoming obsessed with that word, Inspector. I sent one of my accounts executives round to his flat to remind him of his obligations. Mr. Miller apologized for his regrettable oversight and immediately gave him a cheque in full settlement.”

“When was this?” asked Webster.

“Two days ago. Why? How come it’s of interest to you?”

It’s of no bloody interest at all, thought Frost dejectedly. Another of his theories had been well and truly booted in the groin. If Miller didn’t owe Baskin any money, then Baskin had no cause to nick Miller’s Jag for a joyride. “Come on son,” he told Webster, “time to go.”

They were out amongst the beer crates when Frost stopped dead in his tracks. He looked back at the rehearsal hall and a smile crawled across his face. He jabbed a finger at Webster. “Do you know what we are, son, you and me? Do you know what we are?”

What now? thought Webster, shaking his head wearily and asking, “What are we?”

“A couple of stupid twits, that’s what we are, son. Under our bleeding noses, and we missed it. The bikini line, son, the sleek bloody bikini line!”

Webster leaned resignedly against a tower of crates to listen to Frost’s latest output of garbage. The old fool had been obsessed about this ever since they’d found that shaver in Karen’s bedroom. He was like an overgrown, sniggering schoolboy.

Realizing the constable still hadn’t twigged, Frost took the coloured photograph of Karen Dawson from his pocket and passed it to Webster. “Forget the blonde hair, son, it’s been bleached. Look at the face. Look carefully at the face.”

Webster stared at the photograph. He still didn’t know what Frost was getting at. Then it hit him. He took the photograph and stared again. The blonde stripper they had been watching on the stage was fifteen-year-old Karen Dawson. The girl that Harry Baskin had mauled with his greasy hands, kissed with his fleshy lips, boasted of taking to his bed, was a kid, an underaged schoolgirl. The swine. The dirty, stinking pig. He was running back to the hall, Frost at his heels, trying to keep up with him.

Baskin was at the door of the hall, lecherousness all over his filthy face. Webster’s feet hammered the ground as he thundered toward him, his hands already balled into fists. Too late Frost realized what was going to happen. “Hold it, Webster!” he yelled, but nothing could hold him now. He seized Baskin by the lapels and slammed him hard against the wall.

“You bastard! You dirty, lecherous bastard!” Before Frost could pull-him off, his fist had smashed into Baskin’s face and there was blood everywhere.

“You stupid sod!” cried Frost, pushing between the two men and shoving Webster away. Baskin’s face was dead white in contrast to the vivid red of the blood pouring from his nose, splashing down his suit and on the ground. One of Baskin’s heavies came thudding around the corner. Frost held out his warrant card and yelled, “Police. Piss off!” The heavy faltered, then turned back.

Webster was still shaking with rage, his shoulders heaving up and down as he fought to gain control of himself. A trembling Baskin stared incredulously at the blood that still cascaded down. He fumbled in his top pocket for a handkerchief and tried to stem the flow. “My God!” he croaked, as the handkerchief rapidly changed colour, “I’m bleeding to death.”

“Hold your head back,” ordered Frost, then, taking him by the arm, steered him toward his office. Webster moved as if to join them. “You stay here,” hissed Frost. “And don’t move an inch—not one bloody inch.”

Inside the office he sat Baskin in a chair, his head well back, the now sodden handkerchief held to his nose. Frost’s fingers gently explored the swollen area. “Nothing broken, Harry.”

“No bleeding thanks to that pig out there,” snarled Baskin. “Get me a drink.” Feeling he deserved one himself, Frost poured two drinks.

Baskin was now pulling himself together. He gulped down the whisky, hurled the sodden handkerchief into the wastepaper basket, and found himself a clean one in his desk drawer. “You bastards will pay for this. I’m suing you, I’m suing that sod outside, and I’m suing the whole bloody police force from the Home Secretary downward.” He picked up his phone and began dialling the number of his solicitor. Frost reached out and pressed down on the cradle, cutting him off.

“Forget it, Harry.”

“Forget it?” shrieked Baskin. “No bloody way!” He dragged a mirror from his desk drawer and examined the damage to his face. “Look what that bastard has done to me.”