Muffled sounds came from his jacket pocket. His radio was trying to talk to him.
“Sergeant Wells calling Inspector Frost.”
“Yes, Bill, what is it?”
“Message from Detective Inspector Allen. He’s on his way with a full team. He said don’t anyone touch anything until he gets there.”
“I won’t even touch my dick,” said Frost.
“Is it Karen Dawson, Jack?” asked Wells. “I’m getting phone calls every five minutes from her father asking if there’s any news.”
“Hard to tell. The way the bastard’s rearranged her face she could be anyone… Karen, Bo Derek, or Old Mother Riley. Keep stalling her old man. We might want him to identify her, but I’ll be back to him as soon as there’s anything positive. Over and out.”
He pushed the radio back into his pocket. No surprise that Allen was taking over. Allen was in charge of the “Hooded Rapist’ investigation and would want to get Frost as far away as possible the second he took command.
Car doors slammed, then Simms pushed his way through the bushes to report that the ambulance men were hot on his tail. “Do you want me and Jordan to start looking around, sir… to see what we can find?”
He shook his head. “We’ve been ordered not to touch anything. Mr.
Allen is on his way, so we can expect an arrest in seconds.”
Out of sight behind him, Webster grinned. It was common knowledge that Frost and Allen didn’t get on, but then, coldly efficient Allen was a real detective, unlike the clown in the mac. Webster had successfully led many rape cases back in his old division. Tomorrow he would request a transfer to Allen’s team.
“Where the hell are you?” came a cry for help from the ambulance men, floundering about in the dark. Simms waggled his torch like a cinema usherette and yelled, “This way!” then, lowering his voice, said to the inspector, “Something a bit odd about the girl, sir. Did you notice?”
“Painted nipples, you mean?”
“No, sir. Something else… lower down.”
“If it was something else, then I have missed it.” Frost pulled back the greatcoat again and Simms directed his torch. “I keep feeling like a dirty old man every time I do this, Simms. What am I supposed to be looking for?” The torch beam moved down and pointed. “Oh!” exclaimed Frost, very surprised.
He replaced the greatcoat and straightened up. “You’re probably too young to be told this, Simms, but that feature is known to us men of the world as “the sleek bikini line.” You can buy special shavers for it. Webster’s wife has one. That’s why he grew a beard he didn’t want to share the same razor.” He called Webster over and showed him.
“It’s got to be her,” said Webster. “It’s got to be Karen.”
Frost still couldn’t convince himself. “This is hardly bikini weather, son. Still, we’d better get her father to meet us at the hospital, just in case.”
The ambulance men forced their way through and lifted the girl on to a stretcher, covering her with thick red blankets. “Anyone travelling with her?” one asked.
“No,” Frost told him, ‘but we’ll be sending a woman police officer to the hospital as soon as we can.”
As the ambulance pulled away, a convoy of cars containing Detective Inspector Allen and his team roared up. There was a barrage of overexcited shouting and door-slamming as everyone piled out, immediately silenced when Allen bawled that they were all to get back inside their cars and wait. “No-one to move until I give the say-so.” He didn’t want people trampling all over the evidence before he had a chance to see it, especially as some of them were clearly the worse for drink.
Detective Inspector Allen, a wiry man with a thin sour face and a permanent sneer, looked sharp, alert and efficient despite being dragged away from the drinking party well after midnight. His assistant, Detective Sergeant Vic Ingram, slightly unsteady on his feet, his breath redolent of whisky fumes, was a thickset, charm less man of twenty-nine, cursed with a foul temper and a vindictive streak. He hated the newcomer, Webster, and delighted in giving him menial tasks to perform. If Webster hesitated to comply, he invariably taunted him with his stock response: “Too lowly for a detective inspector, is it? Well, you’re a detective constable now, Sunshine, and a bloody rotten one at that.” It was rumoured that Ingram was currently having domestic trouble, which everyone thought served him damn well right. He certainly had a cracker of a wife, much lusted after by all the red-blooded station personnel and, by general consensus, far too good for him.
“You’ve let the damn ambulance men take her away,” complained Allen. “I wanted to see her.”
“Then you should have got here quicker,” said Frost.
“Fill me in,” said Allen curtly.
Don’t tempt me, thought Frost. He told Allen how they had found her and the extent of her injuries.
Allen listened intently, his eyes flicking from side to side, missing nothing. When he saw that Webster, contrary to his instructions, was holding the girl’s school hat in his hand, he raised an eyebrow to Ingram and jerked his head toward the detective constable. Used to his master’s sign language, Ingram swaggered over to Webster and snatched the hat away.
“You bloody wally, don’t you understand English? You were told not to touch anything.”
Webster snatched his hands from his pockets, ready to swing and to hell with the consequences. “Who are you calling a wally, you drunken slob?”
Quickly, Frost, the peacemaker, thrust himself between the two men.
“Now cool it, lads. We’ve got more important things to attend to.”
“You heard him, Inspector,” appealed Ingrain. “He called me a drunken slob.”
“All he meant, Sergeant,” said Frost soothingly, ‘is that you’re a slob, and you’re drunk. No disrespect was intended.” Over his shoulder he ordered Webster to wait for him in the car.
Ingram, swaying, spoiling for a fight, glowered as — Webster stamped off. Allen decided to continue as though nothing had happened. Somehow, Frost always got the best of these unsavoury encounters.
“You reckon the victim is this teenager, Karen Dawson?”
Frost hunched his shoulders. “It’s possible. We’re getting the father over to the hospital to identify her.”
“Let me know as soon as it’s confirmed. I’ll be there later.” Then, seeing Frost was making no attempt to move, he added, “Thank you, Inspector, that will be all.”
Back in the car, Webster waited, seething. Frost slid into his customary position. “Denton General Hospital… first on the left, then follow the main road.” As Webster jarred the car into gear, Frost radioed through to the station requesting them to contact Max Dawson and ask him to meet them at the hospital. That done, he slouched back in his seat, digging deep for a cigarette before he said, “Ingram’s a provocative bastard, son. He’s out for trouble. Try not to rise to his bait.”
Webster growled a noncommittal reply, his eyes straight ahead, looking for the left turnoff.
“What you must remember,” Frost continued, ‘is that one punch and you’re not only out of the division, you’re off the force. You should also remember that Ingram is a great big bastard who could probably knock the living daylights out of you.”
“Spare me the sermon,” muttered the detective constable, spinning the wheel to turn into the main road.
“It’s not a sermon,” said Frost, ‘it’s the gypsy’s warning.” Webster was well down the wrong road before Frost added, “Sorry, did I say left? I meant right…”
Demon General Hospital had originally been a workhouse and was built, like the public toilets, in the reign of Queen Victoria, when things were meant to last. So it was as strong and solid as a prison, but not as pretty and nowhere near as comfortable. Over the years it had sprouted additional wings and outbuildings and was now a sprawling melange of various styles of municipal architecture. It stood on the outskirts of Denton and was dominated by the huge, factory-type chimney poking from the boiler
house where, according to Frost, the incinerator was fuelled by amputated arms and legs.
They waited for Max Dawson in the porter’s lodge, a small, partitioned cubbyhole just inside the main entrance. The night porter, a bright-eyed old man with a nicotine-stained walrus moustache, was pouring creosote-coloured liquid into three enamel mugs. Milk was added, then sugar was shovelled in from a tin marked Sterile Dressings. Frost always seemed to know where to get a free cup of tea at any hour of the day or night.
“Get that inside you, Mr. Frost,” said the porter, sliding a mug over.
“And you, young fellow.”
Webster smiled his thanks.
They sipped, blinked, and shuddered.
“What’s it like, Mr. Frost?” asked the porter.
“Delicious, Fred. Do we have to sign the poison register?”
The old boy cackled, showing teeth browner than his tea. “Your lot are keeping us busy tonight, Mr. Frost,” he said, rolling a hand-made cigarette from a pouch of coarse, dark tobacco. “First the old tramp in the morgue, then the poor kid who was raped, and last, that old man who was run over by a hit-and-run.”
“I hope we’re getting our usual discount for bulk,” said Frost, steeling himself for another swig. “Hello, you’ve got a customer.”
Someone was rapping on the frosted-glass panel over the counter. The porter slid it back to reveal a young woman in her early twenties, her bust in the high thirties, and her hair dark with a hint of auburn. She wore a light-blue raincoat over which was slung a white shoulder bag. Her eyes sparkled with pleasure when she saw the inspector.
“Hello, Mr. Frost.”
Frost was up and out of his seat. “Good Lord, it’s sexy Sue with the navy-blue knickers. What are you doing here, Sue? They don’t do pregnancy tests after midnight you know.”
She smiled, showing teeth as perfect as her figure. “Inspector Allen sent me. I’ve got to stay with the rape victim and try and get a statement. He said you’d have the details.”
Frost trotted out the details, adding that the girl hadn’t yet been identified but that a man who might be her father was on his way over. He caught sight of Webster staring at the girl in wide-eyed approval, his tongue almost hanging down to his stomach. It was the first time he had caught his assistant without a frown on his face. “Sorry, Sue, I should have introduced you. The bearded gent at my side is Detective Constable Webster.”
“I’ve seen you about the station,” she told him, warming him with a loin-tingling smile. “I’m Sue… Detective Constable Susan Harvey.”
“Take Sue up to Casualty,” Frost told Webster. “Ward C3.”
And for the first time, Webster obeyed an order without a display of resentment.
Frost returned to his tea, sipping slowly as the porter puffed away at his evil-smelling homemade cigarette.
“We used to see a lot of you when your wife was here, Mr. Frost.”
“That’s right, Fred.”
“How is she? Did she get better?”
“No,” said Frost, ‘she didn’t get better.”
The main doors opened and footsteps rang out on the tiled passage. Frost went out to meet Max Dawson, who was shaking with rage. Beside him stood his wife, wearing a silver-fox fur. She was crying.
“Is it true?” hissed Dawson. “Is it true?” “That’s what we want you to confirm,” Frost told him. He drew Dawson to one side and said quietly, “It might be better if your wife stayed down here, sir.”
“No,” said Clare firmly. “She’s my daughter. I want to be with her.”
“How bad is she?” asked Dawson as they walked towards the lift.
“She’s taken a very nasty beating. I think her nose, jaw, and ribs are broken,” Frost answered.
Dawson sucked in air angrily. “When you find the swine who did it, let me have him,” he pleaded.
“I think there’d be quite a queue, sir,” said Frost, pausing to look around as a clatter of footsteps chased after them.
“Mr. Frost!” called the porter. “Telephone call for you. Ward C3 they say it’s urgent.”
An icy cold hand clutched at Frost’s heart and squeezed hard. Karen
Dawson was in ward C3. Had she died? Phase don’t let her be dead. The
Dawsons had followed him and were watching him intently. He took the phone, then turned his back so the parents couldn’t see his face. “Frost,” he said quietly.
It was Susan Harvey’s voice on the other end. “Inspector, I’m with the rape victim. Did you say Karen Dawson was only fifteen?”
“That’s right, Sue. Why?”
“Then this can’t possibly be her. It’s not a girl, it’s a woman
… she’s thirty at least.”
Thirty! Flaming hell, thought Frost. “Are you sure, Sue? I’ve got the parents with me.”
“There’s no doubt at all, Inspector.”
He handed the phone back to Fred, took a few deep breaths to compose himself, then slowly turned to face the Dawsons.
Max Dawson was pacing up and down, unable to keep still, anxious to be with his daughter. His wife, who had sat down on one of the wooden benches that lined the corridor, stood up anxiously as Frost approached, trying to read the message in his face.
He gave them both what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “It’s all right, Mrs. Dawson, it’s all right…”
Dawson pushed himself forward. “All right? How can it be all right?
My daughter’s been beaten and raped, and you tell us it’s all right.”
Frost took a deep breath and plunged up to his armpits into icy water. “I’m afraid we’ve worried you unduly. The girl who has been raped isn’t your daughter.”
Clare caught her breath, then began to laugh hysterically. Her husband grabbed her shoulders and shook her roughly. Still she laughed: He slapped her face… hard, the pistol-shot sound echoing on and on down the long corridor. She gasped, her hand touching the red mark on her face, then she shrivelled and burst into tears, dropping on to the bench.
Dawson stared into space for a while, then said, “Not my daughter …?”
“No, sir. It turns out she’s a much older woman.”
The look of concern returned to Clare’s face. “But it could be Karen. She’s very well developed for her age. We’ve got to check.” She stood up and frantically tried to push past Frost to get to the lift and the ward. He gently restrained her.
“It couldn’t possibly be Karen, Mrs. Dawson. The victim is at least thirty maybe even older…”
Dawson froze, staring at the detective in open-mouthed incredulity. “Am I hearing you correctly? You thought this woman, this thirty-year-old woman, was my daughter? My wife and I have been worried sick because you told us our daughter had been raped and beaten, and all the time… all the time it was a thirty-year-old woman!”
All Frost could do was shuffle his feet, mumble how sorry he was, and wish that Dawson would push off home so he could face his own humiliation in private.
With a sudden lunge, Dawson grabbed Frost by the lapels of his coat. “Sorry? Is that all you can say?” Then, with a look of contempt, he pushed him away and wiped his hands down the front of his coat. “You stupid, bloody incompetent fool, I’m not going to soil my hands on you.” He took his wife’s arm and led her out. At the main doors he paused. “Find my daughter, you bastard,” he said, and then they stepped out into the dark.
Frost flopped down on the bench, which was still warm from Mrs. Dawson, and fumbled for his cigarettes. Opposite, on the wall, a large red-and-white sign frowned its disapproval: No Smoking… Please! His hand returned from his pocket, empty. “As you’ve said please,” he said aloud.
He heard someone clearing his throat. He looked up and there was Webster. “Did you hear all that, son?”
Webster nodded.
“A stupid, incompetent fool!” Frost repeated. “And he’s right.. that’s just what I am.”
From his inside pocket he again took out the photograph and stu
died it. He would have to start thinking of Karen as a schoolgirl again, far too young for boys, too young to keep contraceptives in her handbag. So who was the anonymous victim, and why the fancy dress?
He pushed himself up from the bench. “Come on, son, let’s nip up to ward C3 and see what we can find out.”
“It isn’t our case,” protested Webster.
“I know, son. My trouble is I’m such a nosey bastard.”
Sue Harvey was waiting for them by the door of C3, a small side ward with only four beds. “The doctors are with her now,” she whispered, pointing to the end bed, which was screened off by curtains.
After a few minutes the curtains jerked open and a small Asian doctor in a white coat emerged, followed by the night nurse. Behind them, on the bed, a white huddle, absolutely motionless. The night sister whispered something to the doctor and pointed to the two detectives. He examined them with tired eyes, then walked over.
“How is she, Doc?” asked Frost.
“Still unconscious. She has been punched, kicked, and badly beaten. There are two fractured ribs, a broken nose, fracture of the jaw, and hairline skull damage. In addition, she has severe bruisings, and contusions all over her body. There are external marks on the throat, which is badly swollen, indicative of manual strangulation; also, of course, internal bruising. I imagine she was rendered unconscious, then repeatedly kicked and punched while she was lying on the ground.”
“Would the beating have been before or after she was sexually assaulted?”
The doctor frowned and looked puzzled. “Sexually assaulted? Who said she was sexually assaulted?” He turned to the night sister and spread his hands in appeal. “Did I say she was sexually assaulted?”
It was Frost’s turn to frown and look puzzled. “Are you saying she wasn’t raped?”
“Raped? If my patient had been raped, do you think I am such a damn fool I would not have mentioned it?”
Frost shook his head, then wiped his face with his hands. He just couldn’t believe this! “You’re quite sure, Doc? You wouldn’t like to nip over and take another look?”
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