‘It’s a lot harder to delete things on a computer than one would think,’ said Edwards, sitting down and switching the computer back on. He frowned impatiently at the monitor as the computer seemed to be taking forever to boot up. ‘Come on, come on,’ he urged. At last the ‘Welcome’ screen appeared, but repeated clicking of the mouse brought nothing else up.
‘You need the password,’ Alman told him. ‘But in all this excitement and upset, I’m afraid I’ve completely forgotten it.’
‘No need to apologise,’ said Edwards. ‘Nearly everyone seems to forget their password when I’m around. Now let’s see if we can jog its memory and make everyone happy.’ His fingers blurred over the keyboard as Frost held his breath. Lines of text flashed across the screen, only to vanish and be replaced by more text. Frost hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on, but hoped Edwards did. It was taking so long, he was beginning to lose hope. Alman seemed to be sighing with relief, but his optimism was short-lived.
At last Edwards stopped, and pushed the chair back from the screen. ‘I’ve got it all back, ‘Inspector,’ he announced.
‘What do you want – applause?’ grunted Frost. ‘If you’ve got it, let’s flaming well see it.’
Edwards slid the mouse across its pad and clicked away. The screen rapidly filled up with postage-stamp-sized coloured images with text underneath, all too small for Frost to make out what they were. One small picture was selected, a magnifying-glass icon was clicked and the image filled the screen.
Frost screwed up his face in disgust at the photograph of a naked, hairy man forcing a naked child of no more than seven or eight on to a bed. The child was terrified and tearful.
Frost swung round to Alman in disgust. ‘So what’s your text for today, Father Alman? “Suffer the little children to come unto me”?’
Alman flushed deep red, but said nothing. Clark, pretending to be disinterested, was edging towards the door.
‘That’s one of the milder ones,’ Edwards told him. ‘Take a look at this.’ He brought up another image.
‘Leave it,’ cried Frost. ‘It might give these two bastards a sexual thrill, but I’m ready to throw up. I’ve seen enough.’ He turned to Alman. ‘You, sunshine, are under arrest.’
Clark cleared his throat. ‘Look, Inspector, this has got nothing to do with me. I just popped in to visit a friend. I know nothing about these images, so if you will excuse me…’ He scooped up his briefcase and moved towards the door, but Frost blocked his path and held out a hand. ‘I’d like to see what you have in your briefcase, Mr Clark, if you don’t mind.’
‘I’m afraid I do mind, Inspector,’ said Clark. ‘This has absolutely nothing to do with me. I came here for a Bible class. I had no idea Alman was involved in anything like this. You may have a search warrant to search this house, but not the property of innocent people who are only visiting.’
‘I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong,’ Frost told him. ‘The search warrant covers everyone and everything that happens to be in the house at the time.’ He spoke with all the conviction he could muster, but wasn’t sure of the facts himself and hoped he was right. The bleeding law was so tricky, but he didn’t have time to mug it up. Again he extended his hand. ‘Your briefcase, please.’
With a snarl, Clark hurled the briefcase at Frost and looked away as if isolating himself from its contents. Frost opened it. Inside was a laptop computer.
‘I wonder what we’re going to find on here?’ beamed Frost. ‘I’m all agog.’ He passed the lap top over to Edwards.
The computer man cleared a small table of papers and positioned the laptop. He opened the lid, pressed some keys and little coloured lights flashed. It took less time to boot up than the desktop model. He stroked the touchpad, clicked on an icon and the screen filled with thumbnail images similar to those on the desk top. He enlarged one. Another small child being abused.
Frost waved an agitated hand in disgust. ‘Switch the bleeding thing off.’ He turned to the two men. ‘Well, well, well. Two dirty bastards for the price of one. No Bible class for you, I’m afraid, Mr Clark – I’m arresting you as well. I hope your friends in high places won’t get too upset.’
Alman shook off Morgan’s hand. ‘This is outrageous! We’ve done no harm. These were bought for our private and personal use. Think we are perverted if you like, but we have harmed no one.’
Frost jabbed a finger at the desktop computer. ‘Done no harm? If bastards like you weren’t prepared to pay through the nose for this filth, bastards like that hairy sod wouldn’t be putting kids through such torment.’
The doorbell rang. Alman and Clark exchanged worried glances. Frost twitched the curtain and looked out. A thin, middle-aged man clutching a laptop-sized briefcase was waiting on the doorstep. ‘Another student for the Bible class,’ said Frost. ‘Show the gentleman in, Taff.’ He peeked through the curtains again. Another car pulled up outside and another man, also holding a briefcase, got out and made for the house.
Frost beamed with delight. ‘This is like shooting fish in a barrel. I’ll have to get some more back-up. I think this is going to be our lucky day.’
Sergeant Wells slammed the cell door shut and turned the key. ‘We’re going to run out of cells at this rate, Jack,’ he moaned.
‘The price you have to pay for my brilliant success,’ said Frost. ‘Five of the bastards. All we had to do was wait for them to ring the doorbell and then run them in.’
‘Inspector Frost!’ Clark was calling from the end cell. ‘Can I have a word?’
Wells unlocked the door and Frost went in. Clark was sitting on the bed, looked deflated and dejected.
‘What is it?’ asked Frost.
‘I know what you must think of me, but I’m still a father. Any news of Debbie?’
‘We’ve got teams out searching now, but nothing so far. As soon as there’s any news, you’ll be informed.’
Clark’s head sank. ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled, knuckling tears from his eyes. ‘Thank you so much.’
Wells closed the cell door and locked it again, then raised an eyebrow at Frost.
‘Crocodile tears,’ Frost told him. ‘Clark is my number-one, prime bleeding suspect. When we find his daughter she’ll be dead, and that bastard will have killed her.’
He looked in on the Incident Room, where Harry Edwards was now checking and priming out the contents of the confiscated computers.
‘Lots of duplicates, Inspector,’ he said. ‘They obviously swapped the goodies around.’
Frost had a sudden thought. He unpinned a photograph from the pinboard and gave it to him. ‘If she’s in any of the downloads, let me know.’
Edwards studied the photo and laid it on the desk. ‘Lovely little kid. Who is it?’
‘Clark’s missing daughter, Debbie.’
The man looked at the photo again. ‘But she’s only about six or seven. I thought the missing girl was in her early teens?’
‘It’s the only photo we have of her,’ said Frost. ‘Her doting father had a thing about her being photographed in case dirty bastards other than himself drooled over her. There might be early photos of her on the computer.’
‘I’ll see what I can find.’ Edwards pinched his nose and rubbed his eyes. ‘Some of these are the nastiest I’ve seen, and I’ve seen some bloody filth in my time. There’s a couple with kids and dogs.’
‘Rather you than me,’ said Frost.
Morgan was waiting for him when he got back to his office.
‘We’ve turned Alman’s place over, Guv. Nothing else, but a few more addresses we can check.’
‘We’ve got enough on our hands with the bodies we picked up today,’ said Frost. ‘The rest will have to wait.’
‘One of them is a doctor,’ said Morgan.
‘Show me!’ Frost took the list and whistled softly. ‘Dr Cauldwell! Mrs Clark’s GP. The one Clark invited me to contact to confirm his wife imagined things about him lusting after his daughter. Hardly an unbiased confirmation, then. We’ll check that sod out first.’ He flopped into his chair and fished out his cigarettes. ‘Anything else?’