‘You think you’re so bloody funny,’ snarled Kelly, peering down the stairs as the sound of crashing and banging came from below. ‘What are they looking for?’
‘Other illicit substances you might have overlooked, Patsy.’ Frost ripped open one of the packets. ‘And what have we here?’ He dabbed a finger into the powder and licked it. ‘I don’t think it’s sherbet. I do believe it’s coke.’ He turned to PC Lambert. ‘That’s against the law, isn’t it, Constable, or am I thinking of parking on a yellow line?’
‘I’ve never seen these packets before in my life,’ said Kelly, moving slightly to one side to block the airing-cupboard door.
‘I spy with my little eye an airing cupboard,’ said Frost, pushing him out of the way. ‘What have you got in there that you don’t want me to see?’ He shoved Kelly to one side and flung open the door. Then he did a double take and his heart sank. The box containing the phone – it wasn’t there! He knew where he had left it and it wasn’t there. There were two other boxes that hadn’t been there before. He pulled them out and lifted the lids. More packets of coke – Kelly’s visits to the Blue Parrot were clearly made to collect fresh supplies. Sod the drugs – what had Kelly done with the bloody phone? Had the bastard forestalled him? Had he moved it?
A stack of folded tea towels had toppled over. Had it fallen on the box containing the phone when he hurriedly rammed it back earlier? It had to be that. It just had to be.
Holding his breath, he lifted up the tea towels. He breathed again. The box was there! He pulled it out. ‘What’s in here then, Patsy?’
Kelly gave it half a glance and shrugged. ‘No idea. Something you’ve planted, I expect.’ Frost shook his head in mock sadness. ‘Come now, Patsy. We only do things like that as a last resort.’ He riffled through the contents, leaving the phone until last. ‘Watches, credit cards, debit cards… all sorts of flaming cards, but none in your name. I wonder why that is? Flaming credit-card companies – they never seem to get your name right.’ He held one aloft. ‘This one’s made out to Susan Carter.
‘I’ve never seen them before in my life,’ repeated Kelly.
‘I must be a mind-reader,’ beamed Frost. ‘I knew you were going to say that.’
He continued his rummage. ‘More watches… keys… and, hello – what’s this?’ He carefully lifted out the mobile phone.
‘It’s a mobile phone,’ said Kelly. ‘I don’t nick mobile phones.’
‘Someone else got the franchise?’ asked Frost. He held the phone aloft. ‘Now I wonder whose phone this is?’ He turned to Jordan, who had by now come in through the back door to join him. ‘Isn’t there some way a phone will tell you its own number so we can check the owner’s name with the phone company, because Mr Kelly says it isn’t his?’
‘Yes,’ nodded Jordan. ‘I’ve got one exactly like that.’ He carefully took the phone from Frost and turned it on. He frowned, switched it off and on again, then shook his head. ‘Battery’s dead.’
‘Where’s the charger?’ Frost asked Kelly.
‘You should have brought the flaming charger along when you planted the phone,’ he answered.
‘I always forget little things like that,’ grinned Frost. ‘There’s one back at the nick. We’ll finishing searching your gaff, then we’ll nip down to the station.’
The toilet flushed, the bathroom door opened and a sweaty, green-faced Bridget Malone staggered out. She was dark-haired and plump, in her mid-forties. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘I knew that lobster was off,’ she snarled at Kelly. She focused blurry eyes on Frost and his team. ‘What are the flaming police doing here?’
Frost held up the mobile phone. ‘Ever seen this before, Bridget?’ She stared, then shook her head, not looking at him. ‘No.’
Guilty as arseholes, thought Frost. ‘We’re going to continue this little tete-a-tete down the station. Get your coats.’
‘I’ll go in a separate car to her,’ said Kelly. ‘She spews up every five minutes. My car’s swimming in it.’
‘Good point,’ nodded Frost. ‘Taffy – take her in your car.’
Frost stirred his mug of tea with his Bic pen, sucked the sugar from the cap and sighed. ‘All this sodding hanging about.’
‘Kelly won’t talk to you until his brief arrives, Jack, you know that,’ said Sergeant Wells.
‘Give me back the good old days,’ said Frost. ‘If your suspect wouldn’t talk you kneed him in the groin, wrote his statement yourself and forged his signature.’ He sighed deeply. ‘The golden days.’ He looked up at the clock. Four thirty ‘How’s Jordan getting on with that flaming phone?’
‘Still looking for a battery-charger, Jack. Our one is the wrong sort.’ He drained his mug and lowered his voice. ‘Are you sure it’s the girl’s phone?’
‘Of course I’m bleeding sure,’ answered Frost. ‘I checked it before I got the flaming warrant.’
Wells looked alarmed and moved hurriedly to close the open door. ‘For Pete’s sake, Jack, I don’t want to know.’
Frost sank into a chair. ‘I wish he’d hurry up with that charger. Even when Kelly’s brief Slippery Sam arrives, without confirmation that it’s Debbie’s phone I can only question him on the drugs and the piddling jewellery and credit cards, nothing else – and that other kid, Jan O’Brien, might still be alive.’
He shook a cigarette from the packet and offered one to Wells, who shook his head. Frost lit up and moved over to the window, staring down to see if the solicitor’s car had arrived. ‘Bloody nine-to-five solicitors,’ he muttered.
There was a tap at the door and Jordan looked in. ‘I found a charger, Inspector, and it is Debbie Clark’s phone.’
‘I’d be flaming surprised if it wasn’t,’ said Frost, ‘but well done, son.’
‘And even better news, Inspector. The last call she received was from Kelly’s phone!’
Frost punched the air with delight ‘Then we’ve got the sod!’ He peered out into the car park again. ‘Where’s that flaming brief?’ He turned to Jordan. ‘And how’s Molly Malone?’
‘Still throwing up,’ said Jordan. ‘I don’t know where it’s all coming from. She wanted us to send for a Harley Street specialist, but she’s got the duty quack.’
‘We’ve got to talk to her,’ said Frost. ‘She’ll be the one who made the phone call to Sandy Lane about the video tape.’
Car doors slammed in the car park. Frost turned back to the window. ‘Slippery Sam’s here. Look at the bleeding posh car he’s got.’ He swilled down the dregs of his tea and cuffed his mouth dry. ‘Right, let’s get cracking…’ He stopped dead and smacked a palm on his forehead. ‘Shit! That last call on the flaming phone – that was me checking if it was Debbie’s mobile!’ He spun round to Jordan. ‘Is there any way we can erase it?’
Jordan thought for a moment. ‘We could probably wipe it off the phone’s memory, but the phone company will still have a record.’
‘Human dung!’ cursed Frost. ‘All right. If it comes to it, they will have to prove they didn’t make the call and I’ll do what every good police officer does – lie my bleeding head off!’ He rubbed his face with his hands. He was always skating on thin flaming ice. One day it would crack and he’d fall in the freezing water.
PC Collier looked round the door. ‘Sarge, Kelly’s solicitor is here. He wants to see his client.’
‘Coming,’ said Wells.
Frost looked at his empty mug. They would have to wait until Kelly had briefed Slippery Sam on the lies he was going to tell before he could be questioned. ‘Any more tea on the go?’ he called.
Deadly silence.
‘Then someone bloody well make some,’ said Frost, giving Taffy an encouraging kick. ‘Tea all round, Lloyd George.’
Taffy reluctantly pulled himself out of his chair, where he was half asleep. ‘Tea, Guv? Right away,’ he yawned.
Frost didn’t have to wait long. Halfway through the next mug of tea Bill Wells came back.
‘They’re ready for you, Jack, and Kelly wants bail.’
‘I want a sex-mad teenage virgin,’ said Frost, ‘and Kelly’s got the same chance as me!’