“He had a mask on plastic of some kind. All I could feel was plastic.
He even had plastic gloves on his hands.” She sunk back on the pillow.
“They won’t let me have a mirror. How bad is my face?”
“It looks like a baboon’s backside,” said Frost, bluntly, ‘but it will heal. Now what about your attacker? Did he have any minor blemishes that might help us identify him, such as a wooden leg, or a plastic dick, or a mechanical appliance?”
The cigarette was threatening to set fire to the bandages. She took it from her mouth and dropped it into the flower vase. A woman after my own heart, thought Frost.
She thought for a while. “His trousers,” she said. “There was something about them.”
“What about them?” asked Frost quickly.
“I could be wrong. It was as I was passing out. I reached down ... to
grab him, you know. I got the impression his trousers were made of
some sort of to welling
Frost sat up excitedly. This was something new. “Like jogging trousers, or part of a track suit?”
“Could be,” she said.
“Anything else?”
“Sorry,” she said, sounding tired. “I can’t help any more. You wouldn’t have a fag on you by any chance?”
Frost located her mouth through the slit and pushed a cigarette in. He lit it for her. “You know he didn’t rape you?”
“Yes. That’s the final bloody insult, that is.” She inhaled deeply and coughed, her head banging on the pillow. “I can’t tell you anything else.”
“You’ve been a big help,” said Frost, standing up. “If anything comes to mind, here’s my card.” He laid a grimy card next to the one from the girls at The Coconut Grove. “And here’s some fags.” A fresh packet was pressed into her hand. He waved goodbye and was halfway down the ward when he remembered something else he had wanted to ask her. Telling Webster to wait, he ambled back to the bed.
“Quick,” she said, pulling back the clothes, ‘get in before Sister comes back.”
He grinned. “If only I had the time, love, I’d be in there like a ferret up a rabbit hole. Couple of quick questions. You live in the same flats as Julie King, don’t you?”
“That’s right. Why?”
“Happen to know if she was in last night?”
“Yes. She had her posh boy friend with her that MP’s stuck-up son. I happened to look out of my window about sixish and saw his car pull up.”
“What time did you leave for The Coconut Crove?”
She tapped her chin as she thought. “About ten to eleven.”
“And was Roger Miller still there when you left?”
“As far as I know.”
“Oh,” said Frost, sounding disappointed.
“Julie went out, of course, but Roger didn’t.”
Frost felt his heart misfire a couple of times before it started beating faster. If Julie had gone out, she could no longer alibi her boy friend. “How do you know she went out?”
“I saw her, didn’t I? I was dashing off down the street, worried about being late and what bastard Baskin would say, when Julie roared past in that Jag.”
“Roger’s Jag?”
“Yes.”
“Was Roger with her?”
“No, only Julie. I yelled after her, hoping for a lift, but she didn’t hear me. If she had, I wouldn’t be in this lousy place.”
“You saw Julie driving off in Roger Miller’s car about ten to eleven last night?” repeated Frost, anxious there should be no misunderstanding.
She nodded. “How many more bleeding times?”
Frost beamed with delight. “Paula, my love, if ever you feel like being raped again, any hour of the day or night, just give me a ring and I’ll be right over.”
He clattered off down the ward and grabbed Webster’s arm, urging him to move faster as he explained the latest development. As soon as they were back in the car he radioed through to Control, requesting that Julie King be brought in for questioning immediately.
Wednesday night shift
Frost could smell her loin-tickling perfume the minute he entered the lobby. It made him forget the misery of the previous few hours.
“She’s in the interview room,” called Bill Wells, ruling a line under the previous entry in the Incident Book. “Jordan and Simms have just brought her in.”
Webster was sent to relieve the two uniformed men from their arduous task of keeping an eye on Julie King while Frost shuffled over to the station sergeant.
“She’s a nice bit of crumpet,” commented Wells.
“Yes,” agreed Frost. “So long as you don’t mind getting run over. Any progress with the murder investigation?”
Wells shook his head sadly. “That was a lousy business, Jack. A damn fine officer.”
“Yes,” muttered Frost flatly. “Pity he wasn’t so bloody good while he was still alive. So Allen hasn’t got anywhere yet?”
“He’s put an all-stations alert out for Stan Eustace. We’ll get him.”
“Assuming he did it,” said Frost, sounding doubtful.
Wells looked surprised. “Mr. Allen is convinced of it.”
“Ah, well,” sniffed Frost, ‘that’s the end of it, isn’t it? We needn’t bother with a trial.”
“The men were asking about their overtime,” said Wells, abruptly changing the subject.
“It’s my number-one priority,” said Frost, swinging his scarf around his head like a lasso and heading for the interview room and Miss Julie King. He almost made it.
“Mr. Frost!” It was Mullett, his face sombre.
What now? thought Frost. He dived in first with the good news. “We’ve learned Roger Miller wasn’t driving the hit-and-run car, sir. It was his girl friend. We’ve brought her in for questioning.”
Mullett twitched a smile. “That’s excellent news, Inspector. Sir Charles will be delighted.” The smile twitched off. “Did you see Mrs. Shelby?”
“Yes, sir. I broke the news.”
“How is she taking it?”
“She’s shattered, sir. I’ve arranged for a man to stand guard outside the house to keep the TV and press away.”
Mullett’s lips tightened. “Of course, Frost, quite right.” He bowed his head sadly and studied his shoes. “We’ll miss him, Frost. A damn fine officer.”
“So everyone keeps telling me, sir,” said Frost, thinking of all the colour photographs, most of which were taken when Shelby was supposed to be on duty. He turned to go, but he wasn’t quick enough. Mullett still had one more bullet left to fire.
“Did the crime statistics go off?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Frost, instantly regretting the lie. Mullett was in such a good mood about Roger Miller he might well have overlooked the truth.
In the interview room Julie King, wearing orange slacks, a yellow jumper, and a white beret, sat on the edge of one of the hard chairs, her fake leopard-skin coat slung over the back. She smouldered, her cigarette smouldered, and her orange-painted nails seemed ready to claw at the slightest provocation. And provocation was the only thing not denied her. They wouldn’t let her phone Roger, they wouldn’t tell her what it was about, and this bearded wonder wouldn’t even talk to her. He just stood leaning against the wall, his eyes half closed, ignoring all her questions. She was all ready to explode when in came Scarface, as scruffy as ever, a long scarf sweeping the floor as it trailed behind him.
“Why am I here?” she demanded. “No-one’s said a damn word. What is this, the bloody Gestapo?”
“A few questions, fraulein,” said Frost, settling himself down at the table and arranging his cigarettes and matches within easy reach.
She consulted her jewelled wristwatch. “I’m due at the club in thirty-five minutes.”
Frost flicked a match into life with his thumbnail and lit up. “I don’t think you’re going to make it, Miss King. We’ve found out you’ve been telling us fibs.”
She dug into her h
andbag for a nail file and began rasping away a couple of inches of orange nail. “Everything in my statement was true. Roger was with me all the time.”
A theatrical sigh from Frost. “You’d better tell her, Constable. I don’t like breaking bad news to girls with moles on their behinds.”
Webster dragged a chair over and sat beside her. “You were driving the Jag, miss, not Roger Miller.”
She studied her nails and decided some minor adjustments were necessary. She filed carefully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You were seen driving the Jaguar.”
“Was I?” She blew away a puff of orange dust.
“Yes,” said Webster.
She gave him a sweet, pitying smile. “You must think I’m bleeding stupid. No-one saw me getting in the car for the simple reason I wasn’t in it.” She dropped the file in her handbag and snapped it shut. “I’m not obliged to stay here, and you have no right to keep me.” She stood up. “I’ll find my own way out.”
Frost stuck out a leg, barring her way. “We haven’t got time to sod about, miss,” he snapped. “You were seen by your next-door neighbour, Paula Grey. She yelled out, hoping for a lift. But you couldn’t have heard, because you roared straight off. I’m not bluffing. She’s given us a signed statement.” To prove it, he waved a piece of paper at her. It was only a typed request from County for the crime statistics, but it looked important.
Slowly, she sank back in her chair. Her mind seemed to be racing. “That’s right,” she said at last, “I remember now. I went out for some cigarettes. I bought some and came straight back.”
Frost was doing a trick with his chair, rocking it and making it balance on its two back legs. He beamed her a paternal smile of complete understanding. “I knew there would be a perfectly logical explanation. Where did you go for the cigarettes?”
She hesitated. “A pub. The Black Swan.”
“A twenty-minute round trip,” said Frost. “Ten minutes there, ten minutes back .. . plus the time it took for you to get served.”
“So?” she said warily.
“I’d have thought it was bloody obvious,” said Frost. During those twenty minutes, the hit-and-run took place. It was you who knocked Hickman down. It was you who killed him.”
She shivered and rubbed her arms, then pulled the fur coat over her shoulders. “It’s cold in here.”
“It’s colder in the morgue,” said Frost. He dribbled smoke through his nose. “Why prolong the agony, love?
There’s no way you can wriggle out of this. Get it off your lovely chest. Tell us the truth.”
He settled back in his chair while Webster took it all down in his notebook.
“I had never driven a Jag before. I asked Roger if I could take it for a thrash down the Bath Road. He said yes and gave me the keys. At about ten minutes to eleven I left. Roger stayed behind in the flat.
“I might have been going a bit fast round the old people’s flats, but I’m sure I was within the speed limit. It was dark, and as I turned a corner I felt a bump. I never saw anything and didn’t know I had hit anyone.
“When I got back to the flat Roger started moaning because the headlamp was broken. Then we saw the blood on the wing. I got frightened. Roger said he would report the car as stolen, so we hid it down a side street and then went back to the flat, where Roger phoned the police. I never knew at the time I had hit anyone, otherwise I would have stopped. And I hadn’t been drinking. I didn’t have a drink all night.”
When she had finished, she looked to Frost for his reaction. He showed none.
“Is that it?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Right, we’ll get it typed, then you can sign it. In the meantime, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait in the cells.” Seeing her dismay, he added, “Not for long, only until we fix bail.”
After the girl was taken out, he yawned and stretched. “Right, son.
Let’s go and pick up Master Roger and see if he confirms her story.”
At first Roger Miller blustered, demanded to be released, and threatened all kinds of lawsuits that would leave Frost and Webster jobless, penniless and prospect-less. But when they told him that Julie King had made a statement admitting she alone was driving the Jaguar, he calmed down and without further prompting gave them a statement that confirmed the girl’s story in every detail.
Webster borrowed the station Underwood from Collier, dumped it on his desk on top of the crime statistics, and started pecking out the statements. Frost, who had found some salted peanuts left over from the previous night, was slouched in his chair, his crossed feet up on his desk, hurling peanuts in the air and trying to catch them in his mouth.
Mullett swept in without knocking. Frost flung his feet off the desk, managing to knock a file on the floor, splashing papers everywhere. But there were no frowns from the Divisional Commander, who was in a most affable mood. “Well done, Frost. I’ve’just put the phone down after speaking to Sir Charles. He is absolutely delighted to learn that you have been able to clear his son. In fact, he’s coming over to see me right away. Are the statements ready yet?”
“On the last one now,” said Webster, rubbing out a mistake and blowing away the rubber dust.
“Excellent,” said Mullett, smiling, “I’ll take them with me.”
The warning light at the back of Frost’s brain blinked on and off. What was the sly old sod up to now? “Take them with you, Super?”
Mullett’s insincere smile blinked on and off. “I’d like to show them to Sir Charles. He’s bringing his solicitor with him.”
He hovered over Webster, completely putting him off, causing him to hit the wrong keys repeatedly. But at last the final page was typed. Mullett snatched it from the machine and bore the statements away.
It was an hour later that Frost was summonsed into Mullett’s office, an hour spent grappling with the crime statistics that had supposedly already gone off. Webster, frowning and scowling more than ever as he tried to make some sort of sense out of the inspector’s hopeless jumble of figures, decided he had had more than enough. As soon as the door closed behind Frost, he hurled down his pen and stuffed the papers back into their folder.
He was dead tired, it was past one o’clock in the morning, and there were limits to the number of hours he could work without sleep. If it were something important, he’d have stuck it out, but not for the lousy crime statistics. It was Frost’s incompetence that had caused the trouble, and if he wanted them done tonight, he could damn well do them himself.
Webster grabbed his overcoat from the hat stand and put it on. Through the grime of the windows the night looked cold, windy, and unfriendly. He turned up the collar of his coat and awaited the inspector’s return.
It was time to assert himself.
Frost tapped at the door of Mullett’s office and went in. As soon as he was inside he started coughing and his eyes stung. The room, blue-fogged with smoke, stank of cigars and an overpowering after-shave, a legacy of the now-departed Sir Charles Miller.
“Come in,” boomed Mullett, valiantly drawing on a Churchillian cigar. Frost shuffled over to the desk and lit up a cigarene, his nose twitching as he sampled the air. “Smells like a lime house knocking shop in here, Super.”
268 .
“It’s very expensive after-shave,” rebuked Mullett, pushing out the tiniest of smoke rings and coughing until his eyes watered.
“You’d be surprised what gets shaved these days,” began Frost, but Mullett didn’t let him expand.
“Thought I’d put you in the picture, Frost. First of all, allow me to pass on Sir Charles’s congratulations. He’s absolutely delighted that we have been able to completely clear his son.”
“Not completely,” corrected the inspector. “We’ve still got him on conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, making false statements, falsely reporting his car was stolen .. . and that’s just for starters.”
Mullett took off his glasses and began to
polish them, slowly and deliberately, so he wouldn’t have to look at Frost. “I was wondering whether it was absolutely necessary to involve the son? It’s entirely up to you, of course.”
“I don’t see what you mean,” said Frost, adding his cigarette ash to the corpses of two fat cigars in Mullett’s large ashtray.
“The girl’s admitted everything. Roger was only trying to help her.
Should he be punished for that?”
“Yes,” said Frost.
Mullett sighed a mouthful of cigar smoke. The inspector wasn’t being at all understanding. He readjusted his smile and pressed on. “I wouldn’t dream of interfering, of course, but I can’t help feeling that everyone’s interests would be better served if we didn’t make it known that Roger Miller falsely claimed his car was stolen. It can only complicate things.”
“Oh?” grunted Frost.
“Yes,” said Mullett, bravely plunging on to deeper and more dangerous waters. “If we remove that element he was beaten. Wearily, he stood up. “All right, sir. Whatever fiddles you’ve arranged with your mate Sir Charles, you go right ahead. I just don’t want to know about it.” The slam of the door as he left rattled everything moveable in the office.
With only a brief frown at the manner of the inspector’s exit, Mullett sighed, relieved that the unpleasantness was over. He picked up the phone and dialled the ex-directory number Sir Charles had given him.
“Hello, Sir Charles. Mullett here. That little matter we discussed.
I’ve put it in hand, sir... Not at all, Sir Charles .. . my pleasure.” He hung up and tapped the receiver lightly with his fingertips. Most satisfactory. Sir Charles wasn’t the sort of man who would forget a favour.
Fuming and desperate for something to kick, Frost stamped back to his office. The wastepaper bin provoked him by standing in his path, so he booted it across the office floor. It bounced off the desk leg and voided its contents all over the feet of the scowling, Pm-going-home-and-just-you-try-to-stop-me Webster.
“Sorry, son,” muttered Frost, crashing down in his chair, ‘but there are some rotten shits in this station, and they’re all called Mullett. You’ll never believe what’s happened. Shut the door.”
A Touch of Frost Page 24
