But this was all speculation. He’d have to look in on her parents to see if there had been any contact. It was a forlorn hope, but people didn’t always bother to tell the police when a missing person suddenly returned.
And God, he still had to tell Thomas Harris’s parents that their son’s bike had been found, before they read about it in the press. It was definitely the boy’s, but he’d need a formal identification. But more importantly, he had to see Debbie’s mother to find out if she knew of any reason why her daughter would go to that deserted office block. And then there was the dreaded visit to bloody Beazley.
A policeman’s lot was not a flaming happy one. Why the bloody hell wasn’t Skinner down here to help?
The butcher’s! In chewing over all the other things he had to do, he had almost forgotten the flaming butcher’s, his main reason for coming out in the first place. Where the hell was he? He had been driving on autopilot. An angry tooting of a horn snatched him away from his self-pitying thoughts and back to his driving. Shit! He had nearly driven straight through a red light and had narrowly missed crashing into a petrol tanker whose driver was mouthing obscenities at him. He pretended not to notice.
He jerked his head from left to right, trying to find a landmark, and realised he was near Thomas’s parents’ house – so that would be his first port of call.
The boy’s parents were still numb from grief and shock. They sat side by side on a settee in the lounge, holding hands, staring into space. They seemed barely aware of Frost’s presence and he had to repeat each question several times before he got an answer. No, they knew of no reason why their son would have gone to the office block. Yes, Mr Harris would come down to the station to identify the bike. There were long moments of silence. Eventually, Frost mumbled his goodbyes and let himself out.
Then he headed to Jan O’Brien’s house. He didn’t have to ask if they had heard from the girl. As soon as his car pulled up outside, the mother came running out to ask if there was any news. ‘Not yet,’ said Frost, ‘but we’re pulling out all the stops trying to find her.’ That was a bloody lie. They’d looked everywhere while searching for the other two kids and that was it. Details had been circulated to all divisions with no results. The trail had gone cold and congealed. There was little more that could be done, especially with Denton’s limited resources.
‘She’s dead,’ sobbed Mrs O’Brien. ‘Like that poor Debbie Clark. She’s dead. I know it.’
‘We’ll find her,’ soothed Frost, trying to sound convincing. ‘Don’t worry, love, we’ll find her.’ Another bloody lie, but what the hell? He couldn’t tell her what he really thought.
Back in the car. Where next? Debbie Clark’s mother. Gawd, he was dreading this. His mobile rang: it was Bill Wells.
‘Jack, Beazley’s going ballistic.’
‘Soon, Bill. I’ve got Debbie’s mother to see, then I’m going to check Lewis’s old shop for pussy’s pieces, then I’ll see Beazley.’
‘The mother? You told me you were going straight to the butcher’s and that was your only call.’
‘I lied, Bill. Get off my back. I’m having a sod of a morning.’ He terminated the call and switched the phone off.
Outside the Clarks’ house, Frost sat in the car and smoked. It was his usual delaying tactic and this was something he definitely wasn’t looking forward to. Come to think of it, there was very little to look forward to these days. If Skinner got his way, which looked inevitable, Frost would be out of Denton in a matter of weeks. He’d have to see about selling his house and finding some where to live in Lexton. Lexton! A dump that made Denton look like Palm Springs. Bastard, bleeding Skinner. His mind skimmed over various painful deaths he could plan for the man, but none was drastic enough.
He yanked the cigarette from his mouth and hurled it through the car window. Debbie’s mother might be able to come up with some thing – anything to reinforce the sod-all they already had.
She took ages answering the bell. He could hear shuffling footsteps, as if someone was dragging themselves along, and when she opened the door he was shocked at her appearance. Mrs Clark had aged ten years since he last saw her: grey-streaked, uncombed hair sprawled over her shoulders, her eyes were unfocused, a cigarette dangled from her lips and there was the reek of whisky on her breath. She squinted red-rimmed, tear-stained eyes at him, her face screwed up as she tried to remember who he was.
‘Frost,’ he said. ‘Inspector Frost. How are you?’ Stupid question. He could see how the poor cow was.
‘How am I? On top of the effing world,’ she snapped. ‘How the bloody hell do you think I am?’ She turned and shuffled back up the hall. Frost followed, closing the front door behind him.
The hall was littered with unopened letters that had dropped through the letter box. Frost scooped them up and took them into the lounge, where Mrs Clark had slumped in an armchair. He quickly shuffled through the post in case there was anything addressed to Debbie or anything from vindictive cranks who took delight in writing abusive letters to bereaved families. Nothing.
Mrs Clark was clutching a photograph of a younger Debbie and was rocking from side to side, silently sobbing. Frost felt overwhelmed with pity for her – he was determined to get the bastard who had ravaged and killed her only child. ‘We think Debbie went to that deserted office block just outside Denton,’ he said softly. ‘Any idea why she would go there?’
She shook her head. ‘Ask my husband. He killed them both. He lusted after his own daughter. If he couldn’t have her, no one else could… that’s why he killed my lovely baby.’
Frost stood up to go. He had heard all this before. ‘We’re looking into that, Mrs Clark.’
She thrust the photograph she was holding at him. ‘I haven’t even got an up-to-date photograph. This is all I have.’ In the colour print, Debbie was no more than nine or ten. ‘That bastard… She was so beautiful… She wanted to be a model, but he wouldn’t let her.’
Frost sank down in the chair again. This was something new. ‘A model?’
‘She sent a photograph and they did a test. They wanted her. All he had to do was sign the consent form, but the bastard refused. He said models were involved in sex and drugs and he wasn’t having his daughter mixed up with that and this from a man lusting over pornographic pictures of young children. It was everything Debbie wanted and he refused. It broke her heart.’
‘Twelve’s a bit young to be a model,’ said Frost, handing back the photograph.
‘This was years ago when she was nine. It was for a mail-order catalogue for children’s clothes. He wouldn’t let her have any more photographs taken in case she applied again.’ She clutched the picture to her chest. ‘This is all I’ve got.’
‘Do you remember the name of this model agency?’
She thought for a while. ‘Dagmar – Digmar Child Modelling. Something like that. Why, is it important?’
‘It probably isn’t,’ shrugged Frost, scribbling the name down on the back of an old envelope. Important or not, they had sod-all else to go on. ‘You wouldn’t have any papers about them – an address?’
‘He threw them away. Tore them up in front of her and threw them away in case she tried to go back to them. He threw everything away.’
‘Where did Debbie go to get the photographs taken? Was it local?’
‘It was somewhere not too far away, I think. She did it all without telling us and when the papers came for signature he tore them up.’
‘And how did Debbie take all this?’
‘I told you. It broke her heart. I tried to comfort her. I said, “Wait until you’re sixteen, my love. You won’t need his consent when you’re sixteen.”’ She covered her face with her hands and started sobbing again. ‘She’s never going to be sixteen. She’s dead.’