Frost nodded. ‘Take the lady back to where you found her, Jordan, but try not to succumb to her charms on the way.’
‘I’ll try,’ grinned Jordan, ‘but I’m only human.’ When they had left, Frost pushed the rest of his toasted sandwich in his mouth and flushed it down with a swig of tea. A woman? He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and made his way to the Incident Room.
‘Let’s see the CCTV video of the blackmailer again,’ he said to Collier.
Again the blurred, indistinct image shuddered across the screen.
‘Could be a man, a woman, or even a bleeding giraffe for all the good this flaming thing is,’ he muttered.
As he passed through the lobby on the way back to his office, Bill Wells waylaid him. ‘Graham Fielding wants to make a statement, Jack.’
‘Bloody prisoners. Just because they’ve raped and murdered someone, they think they can make statements any flaming hour of the day or night. He’s Skinner’s prisoner, not mine. Skinner should be back tomorrow.’
‘If a prisoner wants to make a statement, he’s entitled to make one, Jack.’
‘Stall him. I’ve been warned to keep my dirty hands off this one and you know how I always obey orders.’
DC Morgan was engrossed in the Daily Mirror when Frost returned to the office. He pushed it away hurriedly. ‘We managed to get the body over to the morgue more or less in one piece, Guv. The undertaker says you owe him one. Oh – and Mr Harding said to tell you there were no traces of clothing under the body, so he reckons she was stripped before she was dumped.’
‘That figures. It makes me more and more certain those clothes we fished out of the lake were hers. As soon as we get some idea from the pathologist as to age, height, how long dead, and so on, we’ll try and find out who the hell she is. We’ve already put out an all-stations request on the clothes, but sod all so far.’
Someone had dumped a wad of papers in his in-tray. He gave the covering memo a cursory glance.
It was from Mullett: Frost: this is urgent. PL. attend. SCN Divisional Commander. Without bothering to see what it was about, he chucked it over to Morgan. He had enough on his plate without any of Mullett’s rubbish. ‘Get this done, Taff.’
‘What is it, Guv?’
‘I don’t know, but Mullett says it’s urgent. Read it and chuck it in the waste bin – not necessarily in that order.’
Morgan turned to the front page, then let out a low whistle. ‘It’s from the FBI – the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’
‘The FBI? They’re not investigating my flaming car expenses, are they?’
Morgan grinned. ‘No.’ He read for a while, then looked up. ‘The FBI have cracked a big paedophile ring op on the internet. They’ve got the names of people paying by credit card for pornographic images of kids to be downloaded to their computers.’ He flipped through the next two pages. ‘And some of them live in Denton.’
‘Anyone we know?’ asked Frost.
Morgan carefully studied the pages before replying. ‘No, Guv.’ He turned a page. ‘Lots of small fry but there’s a bloke from Denton here who’s supposed to be a lay preacher – he’s spent a packet on child porn over the last few months – well over a thousand quid.’
‘Right, Taff,’ said Frost. ‘See Sergeant Wells. Get search warrants, get a computer expert and a couple of uniforms to assist and bring the bastards in.’
As Taffy left, Frost’s phone rang. Mullett wanted to see him.
‘What’s happening about that paedophile ring?’ asked Mullett.
‘Being dealt with even as we speak, Super. I gave it top priority as you requested.’
‘Good,’ nodded Mullett. ‘DCI Skinner won’t be back today. Some form of stomach upset.’
‘Yes, I heard you treated him to a meal,’ said Frost. ‘You have to be very careful what you eat in these transport cafes – some of them just have buckets for toilets.’
‘I took him to my club,’ retorted Mullett indignantly, ‘as you know damn well, Frost. Anyway, he wants you to keep an eye on his cases, but take no action without consulting him first.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Frost.
As he passed through the outer office, Ida Smith, Mullett’s secretary; was hammering away at her keyboard at finger-blurring speed.
‘Poor old Skinner,’ said Frost. ‘He swallowed a bad winkle. Have you ever had a bad winkle stuck inside you, Ida?’
She affected not to hear him. The man was foul-mouthed, uncouth and insufferable. She pretended to be concentrating on her work and typed even faster.
Frost’s phone was ringing incessantly as he came back to his desk. No bleeding peace for the wicked, he thought as he picked up the handset.
‘Jack,’ said Sergeant Wells, ‘Fielding’s brief is here. He wants bail.’
The solicitor was a young woman in her early twenties, severely dressed, with a big nose, no chest and horn-rimmed glasses.
‘I want police bail for my client,’ she told Frost. ‘He is happily married, runs a courier business which needs his presence and has a full answer to this accusation.’
Frost scraped a chair across the brown lino, dumped the case file on the table and sat down facing them. ‘I’m standing in for my colleague, Detective Chief Inspector Skinner. There’s no way we can grant bail.’
Fielding leapt up. ‘I must have bail. I can’t stay locked up here. I’ve got a business to run.’
His solicitor waved him down. ‘Leave this to me, Mr Fielding.’ She turned to Frost: ‘I understand you have DNA evidence from semen found on the victim’s clothes.’
‘That’s right,’ nodded Frost. ‘On her dress.’
‘My client now admits that he did have sexual intercourse with this girl, but on an earlier occasion. The semen could well have come from that occasion – after thirty years there is no way you can prove otherwise.’
‘A good point,’ agreed Frost. ‘I wish I’d thought of that. Trouble is, she wore that dress for the first time on Christmas Eve – she bought it for a party, so there’s no way the semen could have got on it earlier. And to sod your client up even further, the scrapings of flesh from under her fingernails match your client’s DNA too.’
She stared at Frost, then at her client, who wouldn’t meet her gaze. She shuffled through her papers to give herself time to think. She had never been presented with a situation such as this at law school. With a last glare at her client, she took-a deep breath. ‘I might have misunderstood my client’s instructions, Inspector. Might I have a few words with him in private?’
‘Be my guest,’ said Frost grandly, gathering up the file and leaving them to it.
‘How’s it going?’ asked Wells as he passed Frost, who was leaning on the wall in the passage outside the Interview Room, sucking at a cigarette.
‘Him and Fanny are concocting a new story line to prove he didn’t do t. I think she raped herself, then strangled herself. How’s the paedophile thing going?’
‘We got the search warrant you wanted and they’re on their way now. Do you think you can trust Morgan with this?’
‘By the law of averages he must do something right now and again,’ said Frost. ‘But I’ll poke my nose in as soon as I get Skinner’s ancient murder out of the way. Ah!’ The door opened and the solicitor beckoned him in.
‘We’re ready, Inspector.’
He stubbed out his cigarette and followed her back in. ‘I’m all ears,’ he said, dumping the file on the table and dropping down into his chair.
The woman nodded for her client to begin.
‘All right, Inspector,’ said Fielding. ‘I’ll tell you the truth. I was afraid to say it before as it looked bad for me. Yes, I was with her on Christmas Eve. Yes, we had sex, but she was alive when I left her. I swear by my baby’s life, she was alive when I left her. I didn’t beat her up. I didn’t kill her. When I heard she was dead, I panicked. I didn’t come forward.’
‘Are you saying she willingly submitted to sex?’ asked Frost.
‘Yes.’
‘That doesn’t add up, I’m afraid, son. The poor little cow must have been terrified. She fought off her attacker… fought like mad. Like I told you, there was skin under her fingernails where she had scratched him. And it was your skin, son. The DNA test proves that conclusively.’