‘Get him a doctor,’ ordered Mullett, who was hovering excitedly in the background, grinning like a man with two dicks. ‘We’re going to play this one by the book.’ He called the inspector over. ‘The Chief Constable’s thrilled to bits about this, Frost.’
‘Then let’s hope we don’t disappoint the old git,’ replied Frost. ‘Our suspect’s playing the injured innocent at the moment.’
‘I’ve got a full Forensic team going over Greenway’s cottage, inch by inch,’ said Mullett. ‘As soon as they come up with something, I’ll let you know.’ He squeezed Frost’s shoulder. ‘I have every confidence in you, Inspector.’
Then you must be bloody mad, muttered Frost under his breath as Mullett returned to the old log cabin. Whenever people expressed confidence, the doubts welled up.
‘Shall I get a doctor?’ asked Wells.
‘Later,’ said Frost. ‘When I’ve finished with him. The odd jolt of pain might improve his concentration.’
Wednesday night shift (1)
Greenway twisted his head round to look at the clock high on the wall behind him in Interview Room number 2. Half-past nine. He resumed his sprawl in the chair and rubbed his injured hand. Opposite him, leaning against the mushroom-emulsioned wall, the young thug of a detective sergeant scowled down at him. Unblinking, Greenway scowled back.
‘How much longer?’ asked Greenway.
Gilmore said nothing.
‘As long as that?’ said Greenway in mock surprise. He turned to the little blonde WPC standing guard by the door. ‘How long have I got to waste my time here, darling?’
WPC Ridley stared through him and didn’t answer.
‘Natter, natter, natter,’ said Greenway. The door swung open and Frost breezed in, a bulging green case file under his arm. He chucked the file on the table, together with his matches and his cigarettes.
‘Where’s the doctor?’ asked Greenway.
‘He’s putting someone’s cat down at the moment,’ said Frost, dropping into the vacant chair. ‘He’ll be along as soon as he can.’ He poked a cigarette in his mouth and dragged a match along the table top. He lit up, then pushed the packet towards the prisoner.
‘What’s this?’ asked Greenway with a sneer. ‘The good guy and the bad guy routine?’
‘No,’ said Frost, grinning sweetly. ‘We’re both the bad guys. We both hate your guts.’ He lit Greenway’s cigarette. ‘Make us hate you some more. Tell us all about it, blow by blow, thrust by thrust.’
Greenway spread his palms in mock bewilderment. ‘Tell you about what? I haven’t the faintest idea what this is all about.’
Frost puffed out a smoke ring and watched it drift up and curl around the green-shaded light bulb. ‘If you don’t know what it’s about, why did you do a runner?’
‘I panicked. I’m not used to the police barging into my house at night.’ He stood up. ‘If you’re going to charge me, charge me. If not, I’m walking out of here.’
Gilmore pushed him back in the chair. ‘The charge, as you bloody well know, is murder.’
A scornful laugh from Greenway. ‘Murder?’ His eyes flicked from Gilmore to Frost. ‘Who am I supposed to have murdered?’
A damn good act, thought Frost, grudgingly. If I didn’t have the forensic evidence I might start having doubts. He flipped open the folder and took out the photograph of Paula Bartlett, then steered it with his finger across to Greenway. ‘Only fifteen. Must have been easy meat for a great hulking bastard like you.’
Greenway stared at the colour photograph with an expression of utter disbelief. ‘The school kid? This is getting bloody farcical. I gave a statement to that other bloke . . . the miserable-faced git, Inspector Allen. She never even reached my place. I never got a paper that day.’
Gilmore moved his face forward close to Greenway’s. ‘Yes, you bloody did. She delivered the paper. On your own admission you were home that morning. You dragged her in . . . a fifteen-year-old kid, a virgin . . .’
‘A fifteen-year-old virgin? There’s no such thing!’ smirked Greenway.
The detective sergeant’s control snapped. He grabbed the man by the lapels, lifted him and slammed him against the wall. ‘Don’t come the funnies with me, you sod. I saw her body. I saw what you did to her.’
WPC Ridley coughed pointedly, reminding Gilmore that she was there to make notes of everything that happened between the detectives and the prisoner. Gilmore pushed Greenway away and wiped his hands down his jacket as if they were contaminated.
Greenway smouldered. ‘I’m not answering any more questions.’
‘Yes, you are,’ said Frost, ‘otherwise I might accidentally tread on your bad hand again.’ He leant back, balancing the chair on its rear legs, and shot a column of smoke at the yellow ceiling. ‘Let’s talk about mitigating circumstances. Perhaps you didn’t mean to kill her. What did she do – lead you on? Waggle it under your nose, then snatch it away?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ yawned Greenway, feigning boredom. ‘Whoever poked and killed that kid, it wasn’t me. I like them older with big knockers – like that little policewoman there – not flat-chested schoolgirls.’
Frost’s chair crashed down, the sudden noise almost making Greenway leap from his seat. ‘Flat-chested, was she? When you stripped her off you saw she was flatchested.’ He jabbed a finger at Gilmore who was busy with his notebook. ‘Underline that, Sergeant.’
‘You don’t have to strip anyone off to see if they’re flat-chested or not,’ sneered Greenway. ‘That kid used to deliver here in the summer wearing only a T-shirt. You could see she had nothing.’
‘You’re quite right,’ Frost agreed. ‘She didn’t have much to show when I saw her stretched out on the slab in the morgue. It didn’t stop you raping her, though, did it?’
‘Rape?’ He snorted a hollow laugh. ‘You must be bloody hard up for suspects.’
Frost pulled a sheet of typescript from the folder. ‘This is the statement you gave to my colleague, Inspector Allen, the miserable-faced git. You say you’re a self-employed van driver?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You were asked to account for your movements for September 14th, the day Paula went missing.’ He let his eyes run over the typed page. ‘You said you didn’t go out at all that day. Is that correct?’
‘Bang on! There was no work for me.’ Greenway flicked his ash on the floor and looked as if he was enjoying the questioning. His expression said, ‘Ask what you like, pigs, you’ll get nothing out of me!’
Frost scratched at his scar. ‘The girl usually delivered your paper – the Sun – around eight o’clock?’
‘Yes. But that day, she didn’t turn up.’
‘And you didn’t get a paper?’
‘Brilliant,’ said Greenway, sarcastically.
Frost produced the copy of the Sun in its transparent cover. ‘This is the paper you say wasn’t delivered. And this . . .’ He fluttered the forensic report, ‘is scientific evidence which proves you are a lying bastard.’
Greenway snatched the report, his head moving from side to side as he skimmed through it. He gave a scoffing laugh and handed it back. ‘A load of balls.’
Gilmore moved forward. ‘Solid scientific evidence. The court will love it.’
Greenway smiled disarmingly. ‘All right. Let’s pretend it’s genuine. So the newspaper was pushed through my letter-box and pulled out again. That doesn’t prove the girl was in my house and it doesn’t prove I bloody touched her.’
‘We’ll soon have all the proof we want,’ said Frost. ‘A Forensic team is going over your place inch by inch right now. One hair from her head . . . a thread of cotton from her clothes, and we’ve got you, you bastard.’
‘Tell you what then,’ smirked Greenway. ‘If you find anything, I’ll give you a full, sworn confession. Now I can’t say fairer than that.’
Frost switched on his sweetest smile. ‘We’ll find it,’ he said, trying to sound convincing. But he was worried.
Greenway was too damned cock-sure. He looked up with irritation as the door opened and Wells beckoned. The sergeant didn’t look the bearer of good news. ‘Just heard from the Forensic team, Jack. They’ve been all over the cottage and found nothing.’
Frost slumped against the wall. ‘There’s got to be something.’
‘It’s been over two months since she was there,’ said Wells. ‘Forensic are bringing in more men to go over the entire place again, but they’re not optimistic. Are you getting anything from Greenway?’
‘Only the bleeding run-around.’
Mullett’s office door opened. He saw Frost and hurried towards him. ‘What joy?’ he asked eagerly.
‘No joy, all bloody misery,’ replied Frost. ‘Unless Forensic can come up with something quick, the best I can charge Greenway with is dangerous driving.’
Mullet’s smile flickered and spluttered out. ‘I hope this is not going to be another of your foul-ups, Frost. I’ve really stuck my neck out with the Chief Constable on this one.’ He spun on his heel and marched back to his office.
‘Let’s hope the bastard chops it off for you,’ muttered Frost to the empty passage.
Back to the Interview Room where Greenway was making great play of nursing his injured hand. ‘I’m in agony. I want medical treatment and I want to go home. You’ve got nothing to hold me on.’
‘Lock the bastard up and get him a doctor,’ said Frost. He felt tired and miserable and even more incompetent than usual.
His office was a hostile dung-heap of bulging files, snarling memos, and complicated-looking returns. Rain splattered against the window and drummed on the roof. He stared out to the rain-swept car-park, and was puzzled because he couldn’t see his Cortina, then remembered it had been towed away for repairs after Greenway smashed into it. Gilmore poked his head round the door. He had his hat and coat on in the hope he could nip back home for an hour or so. He’d been on duty solidly since six and a busy night was still looming ahead. ‘Greenway wants to know what’s happening about his dog.’
‘A dog-handler’s on his way to pick it up and take it to kennels,’ Frost told him. ‘You off home then?’
‘Yes . . . only for an hour . . . if it’s all right with you.’ Gilmore’s tone implied that it had better be all right.
‘Drop me off on the way, would you, son. I haven’t got wheels.’
Gilmore readily agreed. It was only when he turned the car into the Market Square to take the short cut to the inspector’s house that Frost broke the news that he wanted to be dropped off at Greenway’s cottage. It was miles off Gilmore’s route, but all right, he’d dump Frost off and then get the hell out of there. Frost could find his own way back.
Lights were spilling from every room of the cottage. From the back yard the dog kept up its monotonous yapping. The Forensic team were busy. Hardly any surface was free of fingerprint powder, small vacuum cleaners whirled gulping up dust, hairs and fibres for analysis, men crawled over the carpet with tweezers. Tony Harding, in charge of the team, looked up wearily as Frost entered. Gilmore hovered impatiently behind, scowling at the inspector who had said he would be a couple of minutes at the most and wanted a lift back.
‘Still no joy,’ said Harding, ‘but we haven’t finished yet.’
Frost received the news gloomily. ‘Keep looking. Any clue – no matter how small. A pair of schoolgirl’s knickers, a confession, a half-eaten chicken and mushroom pie.’ He scuffed the carpet with his foot. ‘At the moment, all we’ve got is the paint samples on the newspaper.’
‘Ah,’ said Harding, sounding shamefaced. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’ He took the inspector by the arm and led him to one side. ‘The paint sample evidence might not be as conclusive as we first thought. It might not have come from this letter-box.’
A cold shiver of apprehension trickled down Frost’s back. ‘What do you mean? You did a spectrograph analysis. You told me it was conclusive.’
‘Yes . . . well . . . it was . . . up to a point . . .’
Frost’s shoulders slumped. ‘Get to the bad bloody news. I don’t want the death of a thousand cuts.’
‘We did a spectrograph analysis of the paint sample from the newspaper. There were traces of three layers of paint, the bottom layer brown, the middle a grey undercoat, the top layer black. The spectrograph analysis of the sample taken from Greenway’s letter-box showed three identical paint layers, same colours, same chemical composition.’
‘Yes,’ nodded Frost. ‘That’s the point in the story where I started believing Forensic weren’t the big, useless twats I’d always thought them to be.’
Harding’s faint smile accepted the rebuke. ‘The test was fine as far as it went, but we should have tested other letter-boxes on the girl’s delivery route. This I’ve now done.’
‘And?’ asked Frost, ready to wince, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.
‘Quite a few letter-boxes came up with identical spectrograph readings.’
‘But how the hell . . .?’
‘Most of the properties on the girl’s route are owned by the Denton Development Corporation. Every four years their maintenance department repaint exteriors . . . standard colours, standard specification. What I hadn’t appreciated was that Greenway’s cottage is also owned by the Development Corporation. They bought the land some twenty-five years ago for a new housing estate, but haven’t yet found the money.’
‘So it’s received the same coats of identical paint every four years as all the other houses?’
Harding nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. And that means that the girl could have pushed the newspaper through any of those letter-boxes by mistake, then tugged it out again. It doesn’t have to be this cottage.’
‘Thank you very much,’ muttered Frost bitterly, knowing that Mullett would blame him for this. ‘So unless you can find evidence that the girl has actually been inside here, we’ve got sod all to hold Greenway on?’
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ agreed Harding.
Frost wandered across to the window and looked out on to the puddled, muddy back yard where a black shape prowled up and down like a caged wolf. At the end of the garden a sorry-looking shed crouched under pouring rain. ‘You done the shed yet?’
‘Not with the Hound of the Baskervilles out there,’ replied Harding. ‘We’re waiting for the dog-handler.’
As if answering his cue, the dog-handler’s van drew up outside and a short stocky man wearing a padded jacket and thick leather gloves came in, swinging a muzzle and a leash. ‘What sort of dog is it?’
‘A bloody man-eater,’ said Frost, leading him to the back door.
The dog-handler opened the door a fraction, squinted through the crack, then closed it firmly as the door bulged inwards when the dog hurled himself at it. He didn’t look very happy. ‘I hate Dobermanns. They’re vicious sods.’ He zipped up the padded jacket and pulled the gloves up over his wrists, then nodded. ‘Right. Here goes.’
‘Geronimo!’ said Frost, opening the door just wide enough for the handler to squeeze through. He then shut it quickly and listened to the noises off – several minutes of ill-tempered barking and a lot of swearing.
‘OK. I’ve got it!’
The bedraggled dog, muzzled and shaking with rage, snarled as it was pulled through by the leash. It charged at Gilmore then shook rain all over him as it was dragged off.
Frost beckoned to Gilmore who, frozen-faced, waited with ill-concealed impatience. ‘Let’s take a quick look in the shed, son.’
Shoulders hunched, they splashed to the end of the yard. The rusty padlock which secured the shed door yielded to the first key from Frost’s bunch.
The torch beam danced over rubbish. The shed was stacked roof-high with junk. The dirt-encrusted frame of a deck-chair rested against a rusting lawn-mower. Twisting, crumbling remains of old chicken wire strangled sodden strips of mouldering carpeting, rotting fence posts and jagged-edged sheets of warped plywood. The torch beam bounced from item t
o item. Junk. Stacks of half-empty paint tins, torn bags spewing damp fertilizer. Useless, hoarded rubbish. Frost tugged at the deck-chair, but this caused paint tins to topple and he had to jump back quickly.
‘Satisfied?’ asked Gilmore, smugly.
Frost’s shoulders drooped. ‘Yes, I’m satisfied, son. A quick poke around the house, then we’ll go.’
He really thought he had found something in the kitchen. On the work top, thawing from the freezer and ready to be popped into the microwave, was Greenway’s planned evening meal. A box of microwave crinkle-cut chips and a chicken and mushroom pie. ‘Stomach contents,’ exclaimed Frost delightedly. He yelled for Harding, who listened and shook his head.
‘They don’t help us, Mr Frost.’ He picked up one of the packets. ‘Both common brands . . . the market leaders. Even if we could prove the girl’s last meal was an identical product, the supermarkets sell tens of thousands of these every week.’
‘Damn!’ growled Frost.
‘You ready to go yet?’ asked Gilmore pointing yet again to his watch.
‘A quick sniff around the bedroom and then you can get off to your conjugals,’ Frost promised.
The bedroom reflected the state of the rest of the house with the bed and the floor strewn with dirty clothing and unwashed, food-congealed crockery. Was this where Greenway dragged her and raped her? Was this pigsty of a room the last thing that fifteen-year-old kid saw before he choked the life out of her?
One of the Forensic team pushed past him and began stripping the clothing from the bed. ‘We’re taking the bedclothes for further examination, Inspector, but I get the feeling they’ve been washed during the past four weeks or so.’
‘I only wash mine once a year,’ said Frost gloomily, ‘whether they need it or not.’
Another long, deep, irritating sigh from Gilmore.
‘All right, son,’ said Frost. ‘We’re going now.’
In the hall, Harding looked even gloomier than Frost. ‘We haven’t come up with a thing, Inspector. There’s no evidence at all that the girl was ever in the house.’ He plucked a Dobermann hair from his jacket. ‘There’s dog’s hairs all over the place. Would have been helpful if we’d found some on the girl, but we didn’t.’
Night Frost Page 22
