King’s face fell when he saw Frost. ‘Twice in one flaming day! I must have run over a black cat or something. What am I supposed to have done now?’
Frost flashed a smug, self-satisfied smile. On the passenger seat next to Billy was a Fortress Building Society passbook, poking out from which was a cashpoint card. ‘Been making a little withdrawal, Billy?’
‘It’s not a flaming crime, is it?’
‘It’s too cold standing here talking, Billy. Let’s get you down to the nice, warm station so we can rough you up a bit. First of all, where’s the money?’
‘What flaming money?’
Frost sighed. ‘Search him, Taffy.’
King shrunk back. ‘Oh no. Not with them greasy fish-and-chip fingers. Let the other bloke do it.’ He raised his arms as Jordan patted his pockets then withdrew a wallet from inside his jacket. Jordan opened it and pulled out a couple of notes.
‘Twenty quid, Inspector, that’s all,’ reported Jordan.
‘And there had still better be twenty quid in there when I get the wallet back,’ sniffed King. ‘I know what sticky-fingered bastards you coppers are.’
‘Where’s the rest, Billy?’ asked Frost.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘It’s in the car somewhere,’ said Frost. ‘Too bleeding cold to search here. We’ll do it back at the station.’ He took King’s arm. ‘Come on, sunshine. Let’s go to the nice cop shop. My Welsh colleague will drive your car back.’
‘He’d better take care of it,’ scowled King. ‘I ain’t paid for it yet.’
‘He’ll treat it as if it were his own, Billy,’ Frost assured him. ‘He wrote his off yesterday.’ He radioed through to the stake-out team and told them they could go home, but to book an extra hour for their trouble.
Frost dribbled smoke through his nose and watched King through the haze, on the other side of the table in the Interview Room. Billy squirmed in his chair. ‘I don’t know what this is all about, Inspector. You’re setting me up, aren’t you? You’re flaming well setting me up.’
Frost puffed out a smoke ring and watched it writhe its way up to the nicotine-stained ceiling. ‘I have a strict code of ethics, Billy. I only set people up if I can’t beat a confession out of them.’ He was feeling pleased with himself. He never expected such a quick result. He was just waiting for Morgan and Jordan to return from their search of Billy’s car bearing the five hundred quid.
‘How much longer before you tell me what this is all about?’ asked King. ‘My old lady will be worried sick.’
‘Not long, Billy,’ said Frost. ‘Ah!’ He could hear approaching footsteps. Jordan and Morgan came in. In reply to his questioning gaze, they shook their heads. They had searched the car and found nothing.
Frost groaned and scrubbed his face with his hands. This was going to take longer than he had hoped. ‘Give us a clue, Billy. Where have you hidden the money? Have you swallowed it? Shall we get out the syrup of figs or the enema we use for our horses?’
‘You give me a clue, Inspector Frost. What money are you talking about?’
‘The money you withdrew from the building society’
‘It’s in my bloody wallet, if that copper hasn’t nicked it.’
‘There was only twenty quid in there, Billy.’
‘So? That’s all I had in my account. I told you.’
‘You also told us, Billy, you had your cashpoint card stolen.’ He flashed the plastic under Billy’s nose. ‘So what is this?’
‘That’s my wife’s card. It’s a joint account. Mine was pinched, so I used hers. So how about telling me what this is all about, or is it a flaming state secret?’
Frost’s heart took a nosedive. He looked at the card. It was in joint names. ‘You didn’t bloody tell me it was a joint account.’
‘You didn’t bloody ask!’
Frost just stared at him. His mobile phone rang. Still looking at Billy he fumbled for the phone and put it to his ear.
‘Frost,’ he grunted.
As he listened, his heart nosedived even further into the depths of his stomach. Vindictive fate was kneeing him in the privates. ‘Shit! Thanks for telling me.’ He clicked off, shifted his gaze from Billy and stared in disbelief at his phone, then spun the chair round to face Jordan and Morgan. ‘You want the bad news or the bad news? That was the Fortress Building Society. While we’ve been wasting our time with this prat, someone has used the stolen card to with draw four hundred and eighty quid from the Minton Street cashpoint.’
‘Four hundred and eighty?’queried Jordan
‘That was all the machine would let him have. Apparently twenty quid had been withdrawn earlier.’
Billy King smirked. ‘That was me. Will you believe me now?’
Jordan moved to the door. ‘Shall I get over there?’
Frost shook his head. ‘It’s too flaming late. He’ll be miles away by now.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘It’s not my bleeding night.’
‘It even more of a rotten night for you now, Inspector Frost,’ smirked Billy. ‘I’m having you up for false arrest.’ He stood and scooped up the stuff taken from his pockets, which was on the table between them.
Frost’s hand shot out to grab King’s wrist.
‘Hold on, Billy, it might not be your bleeding night either.’ He hooked a keyring on his index finger and spun it so it flashed in the light. ‘I meant to ask you about this before, but there’s an awful lot of keys here for just one small-time crook’s crappy house.’
The smile faded from Billy’s face. ‘Oh – they’re old keys, Inspector. I’ve never got around to throwing them away.’ He held out his hand. ‘If I could have them…’
Frost whirled the keys around.
King stared at them as if hypnotised.
‘You used to rob old ladies, didn’t you, Billy? Nick their handbags, pinch their money and then use their door key to sneak into their houses when they were out.’
‘That was a long time ago. I don’t do things like that any more.’
Frost gave him a long, hard stare, remembering how worried the man had seemed when the wallet was first taken away from him. Frost had only done a quick flip through, looking for the money, and Billy had seemed quite relieved when the wallet was put down again. Frost held out his hand. ‘Show me your wallet again, Billy.’
An even more worried look. ‘What for? You’ve seen it once.’
‘I’ve got a looking-inside-wallets fetish,’ said Frost, thrusting his open hand forward. ‘Give it to me.’
Reluctantly, King pulled the wallet from his pocket and handed it over, watching apprehensively as Frost flipped it open. There were two credit cards inside. One was in Billy’s name, but the other…
Frost smiled. ‘What a coincidence, Billykins. We had an old lady in here earlier complaining some toe-rag had nicked her handbag. Now, her name is exactly the same as the name on this credit card and you’re a toe-rag. Isn’t that a coincidence?’
‘I found it in the gutter, Inspector. I was going to hand it in, but what with you trying to stitch me up on a false charge…’
‘She identified you, Billy,’ continued Frost. ‘We showed her the mugshots and she picked you out. “That’s him – that fat little sod,” she said.’
‘You’re lying. Any mugshot of me must be years old.’
‘Policemen don’t lie, Billy – unless they want to get a conviction. You know that.’
‘I still think you’re lying, Inspector.’
Frost opened the Interview Room door and yelled down the corridor to Sergeant Wells. ‘Sergeant, was Bill King’s mugshot in those photos we showed the old dear this morning?’
‘Yes,’ shouted back Wells.
‘And did she pick him out as the bastard who robbed her?’
‘You know she did!’ yelled Wells.
Frost shut the door quickly, in case Wells decided to qualify his statement by adding that she identified every flaming face she saw. He sat down, put on his disarming smile and pushed his packet of cigarettes across the table. ‘It’s late, Billy, we’re all shagged out and we want to go home. Now we can either bang you up for the night, sharing a cell with a frustrated, seventeen-stone raging queer, or you can cough the lot, give us a statement and we’ll let you go home on police bail.’