A Touch Of Frost (6 page)

“Of course they’re not bloody genuine,” snapped Dawson. “They’re replicas. I’ve got the genuine guns locked away.”

“I take it you have a gun licence, sir,” persisted the detective constable, forgetting he wasn’t in charge of the case.

Annoyed at this digression from the main business, Dawson jerked open the drawer of a long sideboard and pulled out some papers. “Yes, I bloody have. Do you want to waste time seeing it, or shall we talk about my daughter?”

Stubbornly, Webster held out his hand for the licence. Frost jumped in quickly before the constable got too entrenched in his detective inspector act. “We can spare the gentleman that formality,” he said firmly.

Reluctantly, Webster’s hand dropped. That’s right, you bastard, make me look small, he smouldered, his expression mirroring his thoughts.

Clare Dawson returned with Mr Taylor, a nervous little man with a pencil moustache who entered the lounge hesitantly, as if not certain of his reception. He clasped the hand of his daughter, Debbie, whose face was hidden in the hood of a thick blue duffel coat.

“So sorry about the misunderstanding, Max,” he began, offering his hand.

“Misunderstanding?” snarled Dawson, knocking the hand away. “You little creep. If anything’s happened to my Karen, I’ll break you . . .”

His wife tried to make peace. “I’m sure nothing’s happened to her, Max.”

Dawson spun round, his face furious. “What are you, bloody clairvoyant all of a sudden? How do you know she’s all right? You don’t even bloody-well care!” He paused and waved his hand jerkily in what was intended as a gesture of apology. “I’m sorry. I’m overwrought.” He squeezed out a smile for Taylor and the girl. “Please sit down.”

Debbie unbuttoned the duffel coat and slipped it off. Beneath it she wore a green long-sleeved pullover. A serious-faced little girl wearing glasses, her hair twisted in pigtails, she looked half asleep, frightened, and a lot younger than her fifteen years.

“Right,” said Frost. “Let’s make a start so Debbie can get back to bed.” He checked to see what Webster was up to and was annoyed to locate him back with the guns. “Do you think you might spare the time to take a few notes, Constable?” he called.

Webster’s frown crackled across the room like a lightning flash as he dragged out his notebook.

“Karen’s been kidnapped,” said Dawson. “There was a man hiding in the house. You saw him, didn’t you, Debbie?”

“Well, I think I did,” whispered the girl. She seemed too shy to look at anyone in the room and kept her head bowed down.

“You think you did?” shouted Dawson angrily. “What do you mean ‘think’? You told me over the phone you definitely saw him.” He spun around to Mr Taylor. “Have you been getting her to change her story?”

“Hold hard everyone,” pleaded Frost. “This is getting confusing. I’m a bit on the dim side, I’m afraid, so everything has to be explained very slowly to me. How about starting right from the beginning with not too many long words?” He nodded for Dawson to begin.

“I’m managing director of Dawson Electronics. Tonight was the firm’s annual dinner and dance, which my wife and I attended. As we wouldn’t be back until late, our daughter, Karen, had arranged to go straight from school with Debbie to see a film at the Odeon—
Breakdance
or some such name—they’re both mad on dancing. After the film they were going back to Debbie’s house, where Karen was to stay the night. My wife and I got back home from the function a little after 11.30. I phoned Taylor to see if Karen was all right. He told me they hadn’t seen her. Debbie had turned up outside the Odeon at the appointed time, but no Karen. Debbie waited and waited, but, as Karen hadn’t arrived by the time the programme started, she went in and saw the film on her own.”

“Hold on a minute,” said Frost. “You say Debbie waited for her outside the cinema? I thought the original idea was that they went straight there together—from school?”

“Tell the inspector, Debbie,” said Dawson.

“The school closed at lunch time,” said Debbie, her head bowed, talking to the floor. “We were all sent home. The teachers went on strike.”

“Did you hear that?” demanded Dawson, quivering with barely suppressed anger. “The teachers went on bloody strike! If they worked for me I’d sack the lot of them. And this isn’t the state-run comprehensive school we’re talking about. This is St Mary’s.”

Frost nodded. St Mary’s College for Girls was a very exclusive, extremely expensive private school for the daughters of the filthy rich.

“They kick the kids out, lock up the school, and don’t bother to tell the parents,” ranted Dawson. “If anything has happened to Karen as a result of this, I’ll sue that bloody school for every penny it has.”

As the tirade continued, Frost’s eyes wandered to Mrs Dawson, who was quietly topping up her glass. She certainly was a seductive piece of stuff. At a guess, she was at least fifteen years younger than her husband, but it was difficult to tell—those rich birds knew how to slow down the ageing process. Her low-cut red-and-black evening gown revealed acres of warm, creamy flesh just crying out for exploration. She was, if one were being hypercritical, just a trifle on the plump side, but warm and inviting nevertheless, just like an over-inflated sex doll. She’s wasted on her husband, he thought. I bet he only has sex if it comes up on his agenda.
11.02–11.04, sex with wife, weather permitting
. As Frost tore his gaze away, his eyes met Webster’s. He too was taking a sly surveillance. Frost leered and gave the constable a knowing wink. Webster looked away quickly, finding his notebook of consuming interest.

“So the pupils were sent home at lunch time, sir?” Frost prompted.

“Yes. Debbie walked back with Karen as far as the gates to the drive, and they arranged to meet outside the Odeon that evening.”

“What time would this be, Debbie?”

“About a quarter to two,” she told the carpet.

“You would be at work at that time, sir?” Frost suggested to Dawson.

“Of course I damn well was.”

“And where were you, Mrs Dawson?”

Clare began to reply, but her husband had no intention of yielding the floor and answered for her. “My wife was out at the hairdresser’s. That’s the point. The house was empty, and yet Debbie saw . . .”

“Debbie can tell us herself,” cut in Frost. He beamed at the young girl. “Tell us what happened, love, and the naughty man with the nasty beard will write it all down.” He had added this for Webster’s benefit as the constable’s notebook looked suspiciously devoid of shorthand.

Debbie spoke so quietly they had to lean forward to take in what she was saying. “I left Karen at the gates at the bottom of the drive. My house is farther on. As I turned and waved to her, I saw . . . I thought I saw . . . someone at the window of Karen’s bedroom. I didn’t pay much attention. I didn’t know the house was supposed to be empty.”

“Was it a man or a woman?” asked the inspector.

She stared hard at the floor. “I can’t be sure but I think it was a man. He was closing the curtains.
I
only saw him for a second.”

“Closing the curtains? You mean the bedroom curtains were open. The man you saw was pulling them together?”

“Yes. I thought nothing of it at the time. I didn’t know it was supposed to be important.”

Frost rubbed his chin. “Did you see Karen go into the house?”

“No, but I saw her walking up the path toward the house.”

“And she had arranged to meet you outside the Odeon at what time?”

“Half past five.”

“You arrived on time?”

“I was there five minutes early. I waited until six . . . that’s when the programme started. She didn’t turn up, so I went in on my own.”

“Were you surprised she didn’t turn up?”

Her eyes blinked rapidly behind her glasses. “Yes. She’d been excited about it for weeks—we both were—and she, was looking forward to spending the night at my house.”

“Any idea where she might have gone?”

She shook her head. “No. No idea at all.”

“We’ve phoned all her other friends,” said Dawson. “It’s bloody obvious. She’s been kidnapped. The man was inside the house, waiting for her.”

“Thank you, Debbie,” said Frost, “you’ve been a great help. Now, you go off home and back to bed. If you think of anything else, get your dad to phone me.” He dug around in his pocket until he found a dog-eared card, which he handed to Taylor. While Clare was showing father and daughter out, Frost asked for a photograph of Karen.

Max Dawson took a coloured photograph from a mosaic-topped coffee table and handed it to the inspector, who studied it, then passed it over to Webster. A photograph of a schoolgirl, dark, shiny, well-brushed hair, a scrubbed, glowing face with a hint of freckles, a snub nose, and a broad grin. If she was fifteen, then, like Debbie, she looked very young for her age.

“A pretty kid,” smiled Frost. “When was this taken?”

Dawson snapped a finger for Clare to reply. “About six or seven months ago,” she said obediently.

“And how old is she?” inquired Webster, writing the details on the reverse of the photograph.

“She was fifteen last Thursday,” Dawson answered.

“Thank you, sir,” said Frost. “And now a couple of questions for you, Mrs Dawson.”

She started as he addressed her, catching her glass just in time to stop it from falling over. Then she tried to light a cigarette from a statuette of a visored knight in armour that doubled as a table lighter, but she had difficulty in steering the flame to the end of her cigarette. At last the cigarette was alight, but still she kept the statuette in her hand, fidgeting with it, clicking the flame on and off, on and off. “Yes, Inspector?”

She was understandably nervous, and of course worried . . . but there was something else . . . something almost furtive about her. The same furtiveness Frost had seen in the face of Dave Shelby. Later, he would remember how he had linked her with Shelby—and all for the wrong reasons.

“What time did you leave the house to go out, Mrs Dawson?”

“This evening you mean?”

“Of course he doesn’t bloody-well mean this evening,” snarled her husband, snatching the lighter from her hand and putting it on the oak mantelpiece above the fireplace, well out of her reach. “He means when you went out to get your bloody hair shampooed and set.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. The appointment was at two. I left the house shortly after one.”

With a quick glance to make sure Webster was recording these details, Frost then asked, “And what time did you get back home?”

“Five o’clock, perhaps a little later.”

“Three hours for a shampoo and set?” queried the inspector. “I didn’t think it took that long.”

“It only took an hour, but afterward I walked around the town, looking at the shops, then I went in Aster’s Department Store and had afternoon tea.”

“When you returned home, was there anything that didn’t seem quite right . . .  any feeling that someone had been in the house while you were out?”

She considered this for a moment, then firmly shook her head. “No, nothing.”

Frost smiled his thanks, then switched his attention to the husband. “You suggest your daughter has been kidnapped, sir. I take it there’s been no contact from anyone claiming to be holding her, no phone calls or ransom demands?”

“There’s been no approach . . .  yet. But it will follow, I have no doubt about that. I’m a rich man, a bloody rich man. My daughter is missing, a man was hiding in here, waiting for her. You don’t have to be a genius to see she’s been kidnapped.”

Frost leaned back in the chair and stared up at the high ceiling with its indistinguishable-from-real oak beams and its crystal chandelier. He worried at his scar and chewed the facts over. He wasn’t sold on Dawson’s kidnap theory. If the kid had been kidnapped, surely her abductors would have immediately warned her parents not to contact the police. And here it was, some ten hours or more after the event, and they still hadn’t made their approach. No, he couldn’t buy the kidnap scenario.

Webster watched the old fool drifting off into his reverie, trying to find inspiration from the ceiling. Look at him, he thought. He hasn’t a clue about what to do next. Well, if the inspector didn’t know what to do, Webster certainly did. Abruptly he snapped his notebook shut and stood up.

“Right, Mr Dawson. Debbie saw a man in your daughter’s room, so we’ll start by taking a look up there.”

The inspector’s face went tight, but after a couple of seconds he relaxed and forced a smile. Pushing himself from the armchair’s cream-and-brown embrace, he said mildly, “Upstairs is it, Mrs Dawson?”

Clare drained her glass and rose unsteadily to her feet. “I’ll show you.”

They followed her up a wide, deeply carpeted staircase to the first floor. Her tight-fitting evening dress did more than hug her figure. It intimately explored it, and they were treated to a glorious display of wriggling buttock cleft which Webster might have missed had not Frost nudged him and pointed.

A short wade through the knee-deep carpet of the landing to a dove-grey padded door, which she opened. She clicked on the light, then moved back slightly for them to squeeze past. It was a tight squeeze and she didn’t seem to want to make it any easier. “This is Karen’s room.”

“Thanks very much, Mrs Dawson,” said Frost, taking her arm and steering her out, of the room. “We’ll give you a shout if we want anything.” The door had barely closed behind her before he added coarsely, “Though it’s pretty obvious what you want, darling.”

Webster scowled but didn’t respond. He was becoming inured to the inspector’s tasteless comments on the people with whom they came into contact. But he would have thought even Frost would draw the line at a mother whose kid was missing.

Frost sprawled out on Karen’s bed and bounced up and down to test the springs. He found a half-smoked cigarette hiding in his pocket and lit it gratefully. “Well, you wanted to search the room, son, so search it. If you find any important clues, such as a severed hand, or a warm bra with the contents intact, let me know. Wake me up if I’m asleep.” He closed his eyes and relaxed.

“I was hoping for your co-operation.”

“Oh, it’s me who’s supposed to co-operate with you, is it?” he asked, as if understanding for the first time. “I thought it was the other way around. I’ll co-operate by keeping out of your way.” And he wriggled comfortably.