Skinner’s briefing ended. He was a bit too fragile to face Skinner at this unearthly hour of the morning.
‘I’m off out,’ he told Wells, speeding back to his office.
He was winding his maroon scarf round his neck when he heard the clatter of many foot steps down the corridor. The morning briefing was over. The search party was making its way to the car park to resume the hunt for the two missing girls and the boy. He was glad it wasn’t his case any more. He doubted Debbie, for one, would still be alive. If she had run off with her boyfriend, she would have let her mother know by now, just to reassure her. He was glad Skinner would be the one to have to break the news to the parents when the bodies were found. The parents. This reminded him that Debbie’s father and the other paedophiles were waiting to be questioned, Again, thank God it was Skinner’s case. And then there was Graham Fielding, the Christmas killer. But they were all Skinner’s concerns, not his. Fatso had some uses, after all.
He opened his office door and his heart sank as he came face to face with Godzilla.
‘My office,’ snapped Skinner, turning on his heel, not even checking if Frost was following or not.
Skinner’s office was sparsely furnished; most of the furniture had been removed, ready for the decorators. Frost sat down opposite a simmering detective chief inspector.
‘What the bloody hell do you think you were up to, Frost? You don’t bloody authorise over time – I do. And what do we get for our overtime money? We get a bloody fiasco of a stake-out and chummy gets the five hundred quid anyway. You let that Welsh twit watch the most likely cashpoint and he gets himself knocked unconscious, but not unconscious enough for us to be spared his bleeding useless company for long…’
Frost did his usual trick in such circumstances. He switched off his ears and let his eyes wander over the contents of Skinner’s in-tray. He was extremely interested in the ‘Request for Transfer’ form which lay on the top of the heap of papers. It was the second such form he had seen in so many days. Who the hell was requesting a transfer? Was it the new girl? Had Skinner succeeded in driving the poor cow out of Denton? He shifted his position so he was nearer the in-tray and able to read the details, but Skinner forestalled him by pulling the form from the tray and sliding it into his desk drawer, which he locked. What’s so bloody secret about a ‘Request for Transfer’ form? thought Frost.
‘You are listening to me, I hope?’ barked Skinner.
‘Every word,’ said Frost, ‘and I agree with you all the way.’
He hoped this was the right response.
Skinner stared hard at him. ‘And you don’t take that girl away from doing my work, do you hear?’
‘Loud and clear,’ nodded Frost. His policy was to agree with everything, then go his own way.
He slid his chair back and stood up. ‘If that’s all…’
‘That’s not bloody all,’ snarled Skinner, his hand waving Frost back to his seat. But he’d run out of steam. His mouth opened and closed as he tried to think of something else, but he had covered everything in the tirade Frost had closed his ears to. ‘Just make sure you obey my orders to the letter in future. Comprende?'
‘Absolument pas,’ said Frost.
He stuck his head round the door of the Incident Room to find Collier seated in front of a monitor, watching CCTV footage of late-night traffic the previous night. Collier pressed the Stop button when Frost came in.
‘More traffic about last night than we thought, Inspector,’ he reported, showing Frost the list of registration numbers he had noted down.
‘What do “L” and “V” mean?’ asked Frost.
‘That means it’s a lorry or a van, Inspector. All the rest are private cars.’
‘He won’t have come in a lorry or a van,’ said Frost. ‘Concentrate on the cars. We got the tape from the building society yet?’
‘There isn’t a tape, Inspector.’
Frost gaped. ‘Why not?’
‘We took the CCTV tape out yesterday for examination. They didn’t replace it.’
‘You are bloody joking?’ croaked Frost.
Collier shook his head. ‘I’m not joking. They didn’t replace the tape.’
Frost stared at him incredulously. ‘The stupid bleeding sods.’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing we can do about it except swear, I suppose, and that’s not my style. Carry on, son.’
Collier returned to the monitor and started the video again. A mustard-coloured Volkswagen Beetle sped across the screen. Frost’s eyes dimmed as he remembered… He’d had a mustard Beetle before he was married. He used to take his young wife-to-be out into the depths of Denton Woods. The larks they had got up to in that old car. They were mad about each other then, so what went wrong? Why did it all go sour? Why did she die hating him? Why?… Why?
It must have been his flaming fault. Couldn’t he do anything bloody right?
‘You all right, Inspector?’ asked Collier, concerned.
‘I’m fine, son,’ grunted Frost. ‘Just fine.’
He told Bill Wells about the ‘Request for Transfer’ form on Skinner’s desk. ‘It’s not Kate Holby, is it?’ he asked.
‘Not as far as I know,’ said Wells. ‘It would have come through me first, surely?’
‘Yes,’ nodded Frost. ‘And why would he lock it in his drawer if it was her?’ A sudden thought occurred to him. ‘It must be him – Skinner. Perhaps there is a God after all, and he’s not staying.’
‘He’s been on the blower to the decorators, chasing them up to do his office. He wouldn’t do that if he was leaving.’
Frost shrugged and shook his head. He’d exhausted all possibilities. He picked up Wells’s phone. ‘I’d better ring the hospital to see how Taffy is. I want to find out if I can spend his wreath money.’ He dialled. ‘Hello Nurse. Is that the morgue? Do you have the body of a Welshman – little bloke, big dick? You’ve got lots of little men? Right, I’ll hold on while you check the other bit.’
Wells looked concerned, then grinned when he saw that Frost still had the phone rest down. ‘You nearly had me going there, Jack.’
Frost dialled the hospital and spoke to the Ward Sister. ‘He’s being discharged as we speak,’ he told Wells. ‘I’ll go and pick him up.’
He was driving Taffy – who was rabbiting away about one of the young nurses on the ward – back to the station when the radio paged him. It was PC Lambert from Control.
‘Inspector, Mr Beazley from the supermarket has phoned. He’s heard about – his words – the balls-up last night. Leaving out the swear words, he wants to see you right away. He says if you’re not there in fifteen minutes he’s getting his money back from the building society and suing the police for the rest.’
‘All right,’ sighed Frost. ‘As he’s asked nicely, I’m on my way.’
The customer car park was filling up so he drove round the back to the staff car park. ‘Try and look as if you’re at death’s door, Taff,’ he said. ‘I want to get a bit of sympathy.’
Morgan stepped out of the car and surveyed the staff car park, then nudged Frost and pointed. ‘Cor. Look at that, Guv. I had one of those years ago. Smashing little cars – mine was pillar-box red.’
Frost looked where Morgan was pointing. He stopped dead. It was a mustard-coloured VW Beetle.
He slipped back into the driving seat. ‘Hold on a minute, Taff.’ He radioed the station. ‘Tell Collier I want the registration number of that bilious yellow VW Beetle we picked up on CCTV last night.’ He waited, then nodded. ‘Thanks.’ It was the same car.
‘That car, Taff, was logged coming into and leaving the town centre at the time the money was taken last night. If our luck’s in, we’ve found the bloke who clouted you round the head. Let’s find out whose it is.’
The brown-overalled delivery man humping empty boxes down the stairs was most helpful. ‘The Beetle? Yeah… I had one years ago. Great little cars. That one belongs to Miss Fowler – Beazley’s secretary.’