Beazley pulled the cigar from his mouth and studied the glowing end. Frost noted it was still connected to his mouth by a thread of spittle, reminding him of the umbilical cord joining a space walker to his spaceship. Beazley stuck the cigar back in his mouth and let a writhing smoke ring drift lazily across the office. ‘Press charges? That won’t get my bleeding money back, will it? And giving other members of staff time off to testify in court? No bloody fear. She’s out on her arse.’ He gave a smug grin. ‘Ten thousand quid? It would have cost more than that to make the cow redundant. She’s out of here – and she can think herself bloody lucky.’ A worried frown deepened as a sudden thought struck him. He picked up his phone and stabbed a few keys. ‘If I sack someone for misconduct, can we avoid paying them their staff pension? What? Shit!! That’s a rule we’re going to have to get changed.’ He banged the phone down, then ground his cigar into his ashtray and glared at Frost. ‘Can you believe that? The bitch robs me and walks out of here with a flaming pension. Get her off my premises now. I don’t want to see her miserable face again.’
Frost pushed himself out of his chair and hurried to the door. He was doubly pleased. First, because Miss Fowler wasn’t going to prison, and second because, in all the excitement, Beazley had forgotten all about the latest withdrawal of five hundred quid.
A terrible scream interrupted his thoughts.
He dashed to the window. Six storeys down, in between the toy cars, lay a crumpled figure. People were running towards it.
There was red. Lots of red.
He sensed Beazley standing behind him, staring down in disbelief at the scene below.
Frost ran to the vacant office where he had left Miss Fowler, crashing into Morgan on the way. The DC was carrying a glass of water and seemed completely oblivious to the commotion outside. Frost barged him out of the way and flung the office door open. The room was empty. The window was wide open, the blind flapping. Behind him, Morgan was looking round the empty room, puzzled. ‘Where is she, Guv?’
‘Get an ambulance, you silly sod,’ screamed Frost. ‘Get a bloody ambulance…’
The ambulance took the body straight to the morgue.
Frost sat slumped in the passenger seat, listening to Morgan saying for the umpteenth time how sorry he was. ‘She said she felt faint, Guv. She asked for a drink of water. I had no idea – ’
‘You never leave a prisoner unattended,’ snapped Frost. ‘You should know that. Now bloody shut up!’ Why the hell am I taking it out on Taffy? he thought. If she’d told me she felt faint, I’d have done exactly the same thing. I should have warned Taffy. She said she’d rather die than go to prison. If she’d only waited a couple of minutes
…
‘I’m sorry, Guv,’ said Morgan yet again.
‘For Pete’s sake, shut up.’ Frost rammed a cigarette in his mouth. This had all the makings of another lousy day.
‘How did it go, Jack?’ asked Wells as Frost crashed through the lobby doors.
‘Don’t bleeding ask!’ he snarled.
In his office he thudded down in his chair and looked for something to hurl at the wall to give vent to his burning fury. She said she’d rather die than go to prison, so why didn’t he warn Taffy to be on his guard?
He looked up as Wells came in.
‘Morgan’s told me what happened, Jack. You can’t blame yourself.’
‘I do blame my bloody self.’ He shook a cigarette from the pack, stuck it in his mouth and passed another one over to Wells. ‘I expect there’ll be a bleeding inquiry.’
‘Bound to be, Jack, but they can’t blame you. You hadn’t charged her or arrested her, so she wasn’t in police custody. They can’t blame you.’
‘Maybe they can’t blame me, but I flaming well do. She said she’d rather die. I should have been on my guard.’
‘All right, so she said she would rather die. You had no reason to think she meant there and then. But if there is an inquiry, Jack, I wouldn’t mention that if I were you.’
Before Frost could answer, the door swung open and Skinner burst in. He glowered at the two men. ‘What’s this – a flaming mothers’ meeting?’ He jabbed a finger at Wells. ‘The lobby’s unattended. Why aren’t you there? And take that bloody cigarette out of your mouth.’
‘Just going,’ mumbled Wells, snatching at the cigarette and squeezing past Skinner, who watched him scurry down the corridor.
‘Bloody useless,’ he snarled, before turning to Frost.
‘Another of your sod-ups, I understand? A prisoner killed herself in police custody?’
‘She wasn’t a prisoner and she wasn’t in custody,’ Frost told him. ‘She hadn’t been arrested or charged.’
‘Hmmph,’ sniffed Skinner, as if it made no difference. ‘I’ve got some things to sort out with Superintendent Mullett this afternoon, so I won’t be able to attend the post-mortem of that body you found on the railway embankment. I want you to attend on my behalf and give me a report. And try not to balls it up, for a change.’ He spun on his heel and left the office.
Skinner was closing the door behind him when the sound of a soft, wet, juicy raspberry followed him out. He immediately charged back into the office to find Frost apparently deeply engrossed in paperwork. Frost looked up, eye brows raised, as if surprised at the DCI’s return.
All right, sunshine, thought. Skinner grimly. You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face soon.
He closed the door, waited a minute or two, his hand hovering over the door handle, in case of a repetition, then made his way back to his own office.
Frost was on his way to drag Taffy Morgan from the canteen when Wells called after him, ‘Hold on, Jack.’
‘I’m in a hurry,’ he replied. ‘I’m late for the autopsy.’
‘It’s about the autopsy. Skinner wants the new WPC to attend.’
‘No bleeding way,’ replied Frost. ‘This is going to be a stomach-heaver. What’s left of the body stinks to high heaven – it’s almost liquid. It would be enough to put anyone off the force, let alone a nineteen-year-old probationer.’
‘That’s what Skinner wants, I reckon. He’s finding all the shitty jobs for her. Oh, and he said to get that stupid Welsh prat to do the archive collation in her place.’
‘Stupid Welsh prat?’ echoed Frost. ‘Mullett isn’t Welsh.’
Wells grinned. ‘You know what prat he means, Jack. And about the girl – you’ll have to take her. You can’t ignore an order.’
‘All right, I’ll take her, but she can wait in the car outside. There’s no way she’s being subjected to this.’
There were three cars outside the mortuary. Frost parked behind a blue Citroen and Kate Holby made to get out.
‘Hold on, love. Sit down a minute.’ He handed her his mobile phone. ‘I want you to wait out here and take any phone messages.’
‘DCI Skinner said – ’
‘I know what Skinner said, love. Have you ever attended an autopsy?’
She shook her head.
‘They’re super-shitty at the best of times, but this one is super-shiny de-luxe, which is why Skinner has ducked out of going and sent me instead. You don’t want to see it, I promise you.’
She stuck her chin out defiantly. ‘I don’t want favours shown to me just because I’m a girl. I want to be a good cop.’
‘Listen, love, I’ll tell you what a good cop does. He does all the lousy stinking jobs that have to be done, but if he can get out of doing them, he bloody well gets out of doing them. I’ve seen strong men faint at post-mortems which were Mills and Boon stuff compared to this. I’ve come near to crashing out once or twice and I’ve seen hundreds. Skinner would love for you to go out cold. Well, I’m not going to let it happen. A good cop can lie his head off when it’s necessary. I shall tell him you watched it all the way without turning a hair. His disappointment will make my day.’
‘I still want to come inside,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Then I’m ordering you to stay in the car.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘I know I can’t, love, so I’m saying “please”.’ He put on his appealing, heartfelt expression, which had never failed him before. It didn’t fail him this time. She stayed in the car.