“But there’s four hundred acres of woods, miles of paths, and thousands of bloody bushes.. Charlie Alpha pointed out.
Wells was getting fed up with this. He snatched the handset from Ridley. “Then you’ll be spoiled for bloody choice, won’t you, Charlie Alpha? Just go and look for her and don’t bloody argue!”
“Over and out,” said Charlie Alpha hurriedly.
Ridley stuck the marker for Charlie Alpha in the green-coloured expanse of Denton Woods on his wall map. “They’ll need some help, Sarge. Should we break up the party?”
Wells pinched his nose and gave it some serious thought. It was tempting, very tempting, and it would serve those noisy sods right to be turfed out into the dark and cold to search the woods. But if the call turned out to be a hoax and he had deployed half the force on a fruitless search, all on overtime, he’d never hear the last of it. Mullett would grind on and on about it for weeks. On the other hand, if it was genuine and he ignored it — He groaned. He was in a no-win situation.
To play it safe, he decided to phone Jack Frost. It might be his missing schoolgirl, and if the inspector wanted more men, it was up to him to ask for them. He picked up the phone and dialled the number of the Dawson house. “Denton Police here, sir. Sorry to trouble you, but I wonder if I could have a word with Detective Inspector Frost?”
The traffic lights glowed an angry red in the darkness as Webster ignored them, speeding the car straight across the road junction. “Slow down, son,” Frost murmured. “There’s four hundred acres of forest to search. The odd second isn’t going to make much difference.”
Frost’s request received the same sort of treatment as the traffic lights, and Webster’s foot pressed down on the accelerator. Watching the street lights zip past at seventy-five miles an hour, Frost checked that his seat belt was fastened, then fumbled in his pocket for the photograph of the missing girl and studied it gloomily. I hope this body isn’t Karen Dawson, he told himself. I’d hate to be the one who had to break the news to her father. Break the news! He sat up straight and banged his fist on the dashboard. “Knickers! We were supposed to be breaking the news to Ben Cornish’s old lady. What time is it?”
Webster twisted his hand on the steering wheel so he could see his wristwatch. “Ten past one.”
Frost settled back in the seat, relieved it was too late to do it tonight. “We’ll do it tomorrow, first thing. It’ll be our number-one treat before the post-mortem.” He paused for a second. “Are you any good at breaking bad news, son?”
“No,” said Webster hurriedly. The inspector wasn’t dumping that rotten job on him.
“Pity,” sighed Frost. “I’m bloody hopeless. How do you tell someone their son was found dead, choked in his own vomit, floating in a pool of piddle. There’s no way you can tart up that sort of news.”
They were approaching the dense blackness of the woods. Frost scrubbed the wind-screen with his cuff and squinted through, trying to locate Charlie Alpha. “There it is, son,” he yelled, pointing to the white-and-black Ford Sierra tucked neatly into a lay-by. Webster coasted the Cortina snugly in behind it.
The wind slashed at them as they left the warmth of the car. Frost wound his scarf tighter and buried his hands deeply into his mac pocket as they trudged along a path in search of Jordan and Simms, the Charlie Alpha crew. Webster was the first to spot the dots of torch beams bobbing in the distance.
The path they followed twisted and turned, so it was nearly five minutes before they heard low voices. A sharp turn, and just ahead of them were the two uniformed men, Jordan and Simms, greatcoat collars turned up, huddled against the trunk of an enormous oak tree, dragging at cigarettes. At the approach of the detectives they spun around guiltily, pinched out their cigarettes, and snapped to attention.
“Hard at work, I see,” said Frost.
They grinned sheepishly. “Have you come to give us a hand, then, sir?” asked Jordan, who sported a drooping, Mexican-bandit moustache.
“You mean to say you haven’t found her yet?”
“Found her, sir? Some nutter phones the station and says there’s a body behind a bush, and me and Simms are supposed to search four hundred acres in the dark. It’s bloody ludicrous.”
Frost showed them Karen Dawson’s photograph. “There’s a chance it might be this kid. She’s fifteen years old, missing from home since one o’clock this afternoon.”
They studied it under the light of Simms’s torch. “Why should it be her?” asked the moon-faced Simms. “As many as twenty teenagers around here go missing every week.”
“A man was reported lurking inside her house as she came home from school. She hasn’t been seen since,” said Webster.
Heads turned toward him. They hadn’t seen the bearded bloke before.
“Are you the ex-inspector?” asked Simms. “The one who got kicked out of Braybridge?”
Another sneering bastard, Webster thought, his hands balling into fists. “What if I am?”
“Rotten luck,” commented Simms mildly.
The oak offered shelter from the wind, and Frost was in no hurry to move on. He offered his cigarettes around. Only Webster, with an impatient jerk of his head, declined to accept one. Jordan’s lighter did the rounds.
Webster looked out on to the dark mass of trees which seemed to stretch on and on for miles. “It’s hopeless with only the four of us. We should ask the station for reinforcements.”
Frost forced out a stream of smoke which the wind snatched and tore into shreds. “A full-scale search would have to be properly organized, so it couldn’t even begin until the morning. Let’s give it a whirl ourselves first — unless anyone else wants to chip in with a suggestion?” He looked hopefully at the two uniformed men, who shook their heads, engrossed in studying the branches of the oak tree. They were paid to do what they were told, not to work out campaign plans.
“Right,” said Frost, pulling himself up straight. “Lacking evidence to the contrary, we’ve got to assume that there is a body a girl alive or dead. While we’re assuming, let’s give ourselves a bit of incentive and make her alive… not only alive, but a rampant quivering nymphomaniac with enormous knockers, fully prepared to bestow her hot lusty favours on the man who finds her.”
Jordan and Simms grinned. At least Frost was making it interesting.
“Right,” he continued. “Now keep that dirty picture in mind while we transfer our attention to the herbert who tripped over her and phoned the station.”
He dropped his cigarette end to the ground and crushed it under his heel. “It’s late at night. So what was he doing skulking behind bushes? Obvious answer: He wanted to do a pee and, either ashamed of or too modest to flaunt his equipment, decided to commune privately with nature behind a convenient bush, only to find this nympho’s supine body. So he bottled it up and legged it to the nearest blower to call the cops. How does that sound?”
They paused to consider this. It sounded feasible.
“Sergeant Wells said the man was phoning from a public call box,” Frost continued.
“I noticed a phone box near where we parked the car,” offered Webster.
“There are phone boxes all over the bloody place,” said Jordan gloomily.
“We’ve got to start from somewhere,” said Frost, ‘and that’s as good a place as any. We’ll go up the main paths, searching behind the bushes on either side. If we can’t find anything, we’ll go to another phone box. And if we have no joy in a couple of hours, we’ll call in the heavy mob from the station.” ‘
It was Simms who found her. And by pure chance, because Frost’s reasoning was completely wrong. After getting himself entangled in a flesh-clawing clutch of blackberry thorns, he made a wide detour to take him clear of another thicket and bramble. He squeezed through a tight gap between two bushes.