Winter Frost (48 page)

  
"He sounds a cert to me," commented Liz Maud.

   
"That's what I thought when we brought him in, but the lousy swine has provided an alibi for more or less the exact time Helen Stokes's body was dumped." He showed them the service till receipt. "He never could have drawn the money out, then got back in time to shove her under the meat pie van."

   
Liz Maud, who had been studying the service till receipt, raised a hand. "Someone else could have used his card to withdraw the money."

   
Frost stared at her, then grinned happily. "You're right! His red-headed receptionist could have got the money out for him."

   Liz nodded. "She uses his card to draw the cash out while he dumps the body. She gives him a phoney alibi."

   
Burton looked doubtful. "But how would they know he was going to need an alibi for that time? It was only sheer chance the fast food van happened to be deserted."

   
Frost thought for a minute. "Supposing it wasn't meant for an alibi at the time. It was only later, after we arrested him, that he realized he could use it as one."

   
"The trouble is," said Liz Maud, "it's all theory—how do we prove it?"

   
Everyone went silent, but it was Frost, again, who came up with the answer. "Wait a minute. Some of these banks have closed circuit TV cameras set up by their cash machines in case someone swears blind it wasn't them who drew the money out." He jabbed a finger at Burton. "Phone Bennington's Bank at Lexton and find out if they've got one."

   
They waited anxiously while Burton made the call. As he listened, he smiled, then turned to give Frost the thumbs-up. "Yes, they have."

   
"Tell them we're on our way," said Frost, rubbing his hands with glee. "If it's anyone other than our teeth-pulling friend on candid camera, we've got him." He was snatching his mac and scarf from the coat hook when Bill Wells came in with a face that telegraphed trouble.

   
"13 Denton Way, Inspector. Frantic mother on the phone. Her two six-year-old daughters have gone missing."

   
Frost went cold. He had pushed the child killings right to the back of his mind. No clues and suspects. He had been hoping the killer had moved away to someone else's patch. "How long have they been missing?" 

   "I don't know, Jack. She was almost incoherent and her English wasn't too good. I said we'd get someone over right away. Shall I send an area car or do you want to take it?"

   
Frost crushed his cigarette under his heel. This sounded bloody nasty. "I'll take it if you like," offered Liz Maud.

   
He nodded. "Thanks. We'll join you as soon as we've checked the bank's video." He sat, slumped, sucking at an unlit cigarette in silence, as Taffy Morgan drove them to Lexton. He hoped that this, at least, would give him some good news.

The manager was busy with an important customer so he instructed one of his female clerks to get the videotapes out for the detectives to view. She was very young, sixteen or seventeen at the most, and wore tight jeans with an even tighter sweater. Morgan couldn't keep his eyes off her. As she knelt to get the tape from a bottom shelf, her sweater rode up as the jeans rode down, revealing the start of an inviting buttock cleft. Frost nudged Morgan who didn't need any nudging. "I wouldn't mind swiping my credit card down that," he whispered.

   
"Pardon?" asked the girl, turning her head.

   
"Nothing," said Frost. "Just hoping we weren't putting you to too much trouble."

   
"No trouble at all," she smiled, straightening up and tugging her sweater back into position, causing a sharp intake of breath from Taffy as it stretched and hugged. "I've got what you want," she told them.

   
"You certainly have," muttered Frost through smiling ventriloquist's lips. Aloud he asked, "Does the camera record all the time or only when there's someone using the cash point?"

   
"All the time, I'm afraid, so we'll have to run it through to try and find the right spot."

   
"I'd love to find her right spot," whispered Morgan as the girl fed the tape in the recorder and fast-forwarded. Smudgy, furtive-looking customers zipped across the screen poking in plastic, jabbing keys, removing money at high speed. A timer at the bottom counted through the hours and minutes. None of the pictures were very distinct. "I bet the bank paid at least two quid for that camera," said Frost.

   
The girl smiled. "The bigger branches get the best equipment." She checked the screen and slowed down the tape. "Ah . . . this is what you wanted."

   
But it wasn't what Frost wanted at all. There, on the screen, taking his money and carefully checking it as the timer showed 00.57, was the dentist.

   
"Shit," hissed Frost in dismay. "We're right back where we bloody started."

Detective Sergeant Hanlon was waiting in the murder incident room. He didn't look as if he was going to bring the smile back to Frost's doleful face. "We've checked out most of the known toms, Jack. Very few of them were working that late, but we did find a couple who were around. Neither of them saw Sarah after midnight."

   
"Have you ever considered how useless you are, Arthur?" asked Frost, dropping into a chair and fishing out his cigarettes. "A serial killer of toms who loves inflicting pain, and we haven't got a single flaming lead."

   
Hanlon took the offered cigarette. "Most of the girls are demanding police protection."

   
"They can flaming well demand. If they're that worried, they can stay indoors."

   
"Couldn't we ask Mr. Mullett to authorize extra patrols of the red light district?"

   
Frost exhaled smoke. "And what good would that do? Uniforms in cars buzzing around every five minutes would scare the sod off. And what are they looking for? How would they know he was not a genuine punter?"

   
"We could take notes of all car registration numbers," suggested Hanlon, "then follow them up if there's another killing."

   
Frost chewed this over. "Better than sod all, I suppose. We could give it a whirl."

   
The Phone rang. Hanlon held it out to the inspector. "Liz Maud for you, Jack."

   
Frost went cold. The two missing kids. What kind of a bloody detective was he? He had completely forgotten about the kids. He snatched the phone grabbing for his scarf with his free hand. "On my way," he began, but this time, for a change, it was good news. "The kids are all right, Inspector. They were with the father although he's denied right of access. Uniform are dealing."

   
A hot surge of relief flooded through his body. "Thanks, Liz," he croaked. His hand was shaking as he put the phone down. What if they had been killed and he hadn't even remembered they were missing? God! The thought made him shudder.

   
"Jack!" Bill Wells had poked his head round the door. "Bloke called Scrivener in the lobby, asking for you."

   
"Unless he's come to confess to something, I haven't got time."

   
"He works for the Samaritans and said there was a message on his answering machine asking him to contact you."

   
Scrivener was on duty Friday night with Helen Stokes and they had been trying to contact him. "On my way," said Frost.

Scrivener, a nervous, twitching individual, was furtively smoking a cigarette hidden in his cupped hand, like a man having a sly fag at a petrol dump. He kept shaking his head in disbelief. "Shocking, bleeding shocking," he told Frost. "I was only speaking to Helen Friday night. Came home today and there she is all over the local paper."

   
"You didn't know until today?" Frost asked.

   
"I've been away. After I finished my stint at the Samaritans, I drove straight down to my weekend cottage in Cumbria. It was a rough bloody night and I needed a break, otherwise I might have ended up doing myself in."

   
"I know how you feel," sympathized Frost. "I've got the Samaritans' phone number pasted inside my gas oven, just in case."

   
"She never hurt a living soul, spent all her spare rime helping these poor sods and this is what happens to her."

   
Frost nodded sympathetically. "We've been trying to get in touch with you."

   
"Sorry about that. Mervyn left a message on my answerphone, but when he said the police wanted to talk to me I thought he'd reported me for the lousy five quid from the petty cash. I'd only borrowed it, for Pete's sake."

   
"I know nothing about that," said Frost.

   
"I wouldn't put it past the sod to call in Interpol," continued Scrivener. "He might be good for the Samaritans, but he does everything by the flaming book. I'd have paid that money back. Does he think I'm short of five lousy quid?"

   
"Yes, well . . ." began Frost.

   
"And he hates anyone smoking." Scrivener's eyes flicked from side to side as he raised the cupped cigarette to his lips, looking as if he expected Mervyn to burst in. "The minute you light up he starts coughing and clutching his throat and flinging windows open in the middle of flaming winter—"

   
"Yes," cut in Frost. Talk of smoking opened a nasty wound. It was in this very interview room that Weaver had asked him not to smoke. "You were probably the last person, apart from the killer, to see Helen alive, Mr. Scrivener. Mr. Adams tells us she had an upsetting telephone call just before she left. Any idea what it was about?"

   
"Yes," said Scrivener. "It was that flaming pervert Sam. If ever I got my hands on him I'd string him up by his flaming privates." 

   "She told you about the call?"

   
"She was in tears. These bastards think it's a joke to get you upset. If I get the call I always hang up on the sod. Mervyn doesn't like that, he says this could be the one time it's genuine, but I know a slimy faking bastard when I hear one."

   
"You're losing me," Frost told him. "He phones, usually late at night when we're at our lowest ebb. Says he can't go on living, that he's going to chuck himself under a train—we should be so bloody lucky!"

   
"Why?" asked Frost.

   
"It's all a flaming act. He calls again, says he's on the railway bridge and is about to jump. You can hear the train getting nearer and nearer. Whoever he phones is yelling, 'Don't jump—let's talk.' Then there's a scream, the train roars past, then silence. The first time it happened Mervyn went berserk. He called the police and they traced the call to a public call box on a railway bridge. The phone was swinging from its cord, but no mangled body, no sign of the bastard. He's back home having a good laugh. He's done it to other Samaritans as well. Week before last he was on the phone to me. I said, 'Jump, you bastard, jump' and got a right ear-wigging from Mervyn."

   
"And this was Helen's caller?"

   
"Yes." Scrivener lit up another cigarette from the stub of the old. "Does this help you at all?"

   
"I don't think so." Frost sighed smoke. Another dead end. "And that was the last you saw of her?"

   
"Yes—except when she came back to phone for a taxi."

   
Frost's head jerked up. "She came back?"

   
"Yes—couldn't get her car to start so she called a cab. She didn't have any cash on her for the fare, neither did I, so I borrowed five quid from the petty cash box."

   
Frost's brain went on overdrive. This knocked all his previous assumptions to smithereens.

   
"Mervyn never told us she came back."

   
"He didn't know. He was brewing up tea in the kitchen. He would have made such a stink about us borrowing from the petty cash, so I never told him."

   
"She called a cab?"

   
"They said it would be along in five minutes, so she went down in the street to wait."

   
"Do you know what cab firm?"

   
"Denton Minicabs."

   
Frost scribbled this down on the back of his cigarette packet. "She went down in the street and waited?"

   
"Yes. I kept an eye on her through the window. The cab was there in a couple of minutes. She got in and off it went."

   
Frost stood up, almost shaking with excitement. A cab! She was picked up by a cab! This altered everything. "You've been a great help, Mr. Scrivener." He called PC Collier in to take a statement and dashed back to the murder incident room. "We've got a new lead." He filled them in on Scrivener's statement. "We could be on the wrong track looking for someone posing as a punter. Our killer could be a cab driver. Go out and chat up the toms again. Find out if any of them have had nasty experiences with cabbies. Inspector Maud and I will cover Denton Minicabs." He nodded at Taffy Morgan whose hand was raised to attract his attention. "Yes, you can do a wee, Taffy, but wash your hands afterwards."

   
Morgan grinned. "I've had a phone call from my contact in the council, guv. We could have a lead on Nelly Aldridge."

   
"Wow!" exclaimed Frost. "And who the hell is Nelly Aldridge?"

   
"The lady with the nipples in that old photograph," explained Morgan. "The one with the missing son."

   
The skeleton in the garden. He hadn't time to sod about with that. "Make my day, Taffy . . . tell me she's dead."