‘You’d better see this, Guv,’ said Morgan. ‘They were under our noses and we nearly missed them.’
Frost took the sheet of bright-green A4 paper. It was the weekly announcement of Alman’s Bible classes. He skimmed through it and handed it back. ‘So?’
‘Look at Sundays, Guv,’ insisted Morgan.
Frost took back the sheet and looked again. He went cold. His mouth dropped open and the unlighted cigarette fell to the floor. ‘Shit, shit and double shit.’ He read it again in disbelief. Sundays, 2.30 – 3.30. Children’s Bible Class. ‘Children! The bastard has kids in there.’ He pushed Morgan out of the way and marched down to the holding area, yelling for Bill Wells to unlock Alman’s cell.
‘We never touched the children,’ blurted Alman, white-faced. ‘On my word of honour, we never laid a finger on those kids.’
‘Your bleeding word of honour isn’t worth shit,’ roared Frost.
‘Look, Inspector,’ pleaded Alman in a ‘let’s be reasonable’ voice, ‘I’m a lay preacher. My Sunday School is all above board. Yes, I liked being with children. It gave me pleasure, but that is as far as it went. I might have wanted to do things, but I didn’t.’ He spread his hands. ‘Don’t you see? If I tried anything and they reported it, I’d be finished. I wouldn’t dare risk that.’
‘You’d better be telling me the truth,’ snarled Frost, ‘otherwise I’ll personally come in here, ruin my career and castrate you with my bare bleeding teeth.’ He stepped back and signalled for Wells to slam shut the door and lock it.
‘Do you think he’s been interfering with those kids?’ asked Wells.
‘My gut reaction is that he likes dribbling over photos, but hasn’t got the guts to do anything else. But we can’t take any chances. I want the names and addresses of all those kids, then I want a team to call on the parents.’
‘Where are we going to get this team from, Jack? I’ve got most of the lads out searching for Debbie Clark and her boyfriend.’
‘Scrape the bottom of the barrel… use Taffy – and that young WPC, the new girl – what’s her name, by the way?’
‘Kate Holby. And you can’t have her. Skinner’s got her correlating the past five years’ crime statistics.’
‘That’s a bleeding waste of time, and soul destroying.’
‘I know. That’s why Skinner gave it to her, Jack. He seems to have it in for her.’
‘Why?’
Wells shrugged. ‘I don’t know. All I know is he’s trying to get her to jack the job in, so he’s giving her all the shitty jobs he can find. He had her on a cot death yesterday, and you know how everyone fights shy of them.’
Frost nodded grimly. He’d had his share, so he knew only too well. Parents crying, the mother in hysterics clutching the dead baby, defying any one to try and take it from her.
‘He sent her on her own? We always send two officers.’
‘Skinner said he didn’t give a monkey’s what we always did – she went on her own. As you know, we have to treat all cot deaths as suspicious, so Kate had to get the baby from the mother, and strip it so she could examine it for signs of injury or abuse. Nineteen bleeding years old. She was shaken rigid when she came back. Skinner’s a real right bastard.’
‘What’s he got against her?’
‘I don’t know, Jack. There’s something, but she won’t say. Anyway, you can’t have her.’
‘Yes I bleeding can. She can stuff Skinner’s crime statistics. I want her and Taffy to interview the parents. They mustn’t mention the word “paedophile” or suggest the kids might have been sexually abused. They can tell the parents that one or two Bible Class pupils think they had stuff stolen, so have their kids lost anything? If the parents have any suspicions at all, I reckon they’re bound to tell a cop calling on them.’
Frost looked up as Taffy Morgan and Kate Holby returned to his office.
‘Covered most of the parents, Guv,’ reported Morgan. ‘None of them gave any hint. A couple reckoned their kids had lost money and now think it could have been pinched, but that’s all.’
Frost grunted his approval. This was what he had hoped for.
‘I’d better get back to DCI Skinner’s work,’ said Kate.
‘Hold it, love,’ said Frost. ‘I’ve got something better you can do. You were on the last Fortress Building Society stake-out, weren’t you?’
She nodded.
‘Then you’re on another one tonight. It’ll be an all-night job, so go home, get a bit of kip and report back at eleven o’clock for some overtime.’
‘But DCI Skinner said – ’
‘I’m overriding him. He’ll take it out-on me, love, not you, so don’t worry Now off you go.’
She smiled a loin-tingling smile. ‘Thank you.’
He watched her go. ‘Cor,’ he purred. ‘If I was thirty years younger, and a dirty bastard like Taffy.’
But Wells was looking puzzled. ‘What’s this about a stake-out? I’ve got no authorisation for overtime.’
‘Skinner’s left me in charge, so I’m giving you the authorisation,’ replied Frost. ‘The same team as before.’
‘But the blackmailer’s already taken the five hundred quid for today.’
‘So he’ll come just after midnight. Trust me, Bill, I’ve got one of my feelings.’
‘You’ll be in the shit if you authorise all that overtime and he doesn’t turn up, Jack.’
‘He’ll turn up,’ said Frost. But even as he said it the doubts began piling up and up…
Quarter past eleven. The Incident Room was warm and no one was looking forward to huddling in shop doorways on the off chance that the blackmailer might do Frost a favour and get himself arrested in the act of taking some more money from the building-society account. But the overtime money would come in handy and had to be grabbed while it was going. The red-hot rumour was that Skinner was going to cut overtime to the bone.
Frost gloomily sipped his mug of tea as he surveyed his team. His feeling that tonight would be the night they caught the blackmailer had long since evaporated and he suspected this was going to be another expensive waste of time. Too late to call it off now, though. But they were spread too thinly. Bill Wells had only managed to rake up Simms, Jordan and Collier. Everyone else was involved in the search for the missing teenagers and there was no way they could be expected to stay alert all night, then start the search again at seven the next morning.
Also there, of course, was Taffy Morgan, with WPC Kate Holby, who looked stunning and vulnerable, wearing a fleece jacket over a tight-fitting grey turtleneck sweater and slacks. She doesn’t look more than sixteen, thought Frost. Just a kid – who we’ll soon be sending out on her own into pubs to break up fights between knife-wielding drunken skinheads, or to scrape road-accident victims’ bodies off the road. Just a bleeding kid!
He glanced quickly at the clock. Twenty past eleven. ‘Right. You know where you’ll be stationed. Go and take up your positions, but do it in dribs and drabs. I don’t want a coach-load of the Old Bill all turning up at the same time. And remember, we’re only there for the stake-out. We turn a blind eye to muggings, rapes, peeing in shop doorways and flashers. We leave them to on-duty uniforms to handle. We don’t touch them – understood?’
A murmur of assent.
‘Right. If you want to do a wee, do it now, and off you go. If we catch him tonight, I’ll buy us all an Indian…’
Frost retreated further into the shop doorway as a squall of wind blew splashes of rain in his face. It had been threatening to rain all day, but there had only been the odd drizzle so far. He shivered. It was flaming cold. He looked quickly round Market Square to make sure Taffy Morgan was well concealed. He had given the DC the cashpoint the blackmailer had used before on the principle that lightning wouldn’t strike in the same place twice and Morgan was the one most likely to sod things up.
He checked his watch. Six minutes to one. The bastard wasn’t coming. He knew it. If he was going to come he’d have been here just after midnight. He’d give it another hour, then call it off. He tried to concentrate on watching the cashpoint, but his mind was whirling with thoughts of the missing teenagers. Three missing and no flaming idea where they were. Were the disappearances associated or was it just a coincidence?