“You seem to know your way about,” commented Webster.
“My wife was in here,” explained Frost. “I used to come every day.”
The detective constable remembered being told that Frost’s wife had died recently and thought it best not to ask further questions. They turned right into the main causeway, which had wards leading off from either side.
Frost stopped and pointed. “Look! The place is crawling with filth tonight.”
Webster saw a young police constable, dark curly hair, small moustache, leaning against the wall, engaged in animated conversation with a ridiculously young night nurse who had a wisp of stray hair escaping from her cap. Webster scratched his memory for the man’s name; he had been introduced to so many people. Then he remembered. Dave Shelby, married with two young children but with the reputation of being woman-mad, or ‘crumpet-happy,” as Frost had crudely termed it.
Catching sight of the inspector bearing down on him, Shelby quickly whispered something to the girl, making her blush, then in a loud voice, said, “Thank you very much, Nurse.” She hurried off, giving an apologetic smile to Frost as she passed.
“Stay away from him, love,” Frost called after her. “He meets men in toilets after dark.” To Shelby, he said, “You want to try and stay off it for five minutes, son it can make you go blind.”
Shelby grinned nervously. “Just passing the time, sir. I’m a respectable married man.”
“So was Dr. Crippen,” sniffed Frost. “Anyway, what are you doing here?”
Shelby jerked his thumb at the glass-ported swing doors behind him.
“I’m with the hit-and-run victim. They’re operating on him now.”
Frost squinted through one of the portholes. Not much to see. A huddle of green-robed figures, working silently. One of the robes was smeared with blood.
“Rather him than me. It looks like an abattoir in there.”
He looked over Shelby’s shoulder. Farther down the corridor all alone, an old lady was sitting. She looked bewildered and frightened.
“That’s the victim’s wife,” whispered Shelby. “She slept through it all. Didn’t even know her husband had got out of bed until a neighbour knocked to tell her he’d been run over.”
‘ Poor old cow,” muttered Frost. “What are his chances?”
Shelby gave a hopeless shrug. “His skull is smashed, he’s hemorrhaging internally, and he’s seventy-eight years old.”
“The car that hit him was supposed to have shed its licence plate,” said Frost. “Have we traced the driver yet?”
“I don’t know, sir. I’m not really on this one. Mr. Allen pulled the area car off to help with the search for the rapist.”
“That reminds me said Frost, staring closely at him have you been up to your larks tonight?”
Shelby started visibly. “What do you mean, sir?”
“The woman who was attacked. You haven’t been in Denton Woods tonight with your little truncheon at the ready?”
A wave of relief seemed to wash over the constable. “No, sir,” he said, forcing a smile. “It wasn’t me.”
But you have been up to something, my lad, thought Frost, and for a minute you thought I was on to it. Well, I’m not on to it. I’m not that clever… I can’t even tell the difference between a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl and a thirty-year-old woman.
They had to pass the old lady on their way out to the car. She reached up and clutched at Frost’s arm. “My husband she said they’re operating on him. He is going to be all right, isn’t he?”
“Of course he is,” beamed Frost. “He’s going to be fine.” He gave her a reassuring pat.
They walked on.
“Why raise her hopes?” asked Webster. “He’s going to die.”
“Then you bloody tell her,” said Frost.
Tuesday night shift (5)
“I can’t give you any sort of description,” said the man. “I never saw him.”
“You must have seen something,” said Wells. “How are we supposed to arrest him if we don’t know what he looks like?”
The phone rang.
“Answer that, would you Ridley,” yelled Sergeant Wells. “I’m attending to someone.”
The man he was attending to had been robbed at knife-point while drawing cash from the automatic cash dispenser at Bennington’s Bank. “He stuck a knife in my back,” said the complainant, ‘then he grabbed the money and ran. By the time I’d plucked up courage to look around, he’d gone.”
“Was he short, tall, fat, thin, white, yellow, or what?” asked Wells.
“All I can tell you is he was a bloody fast runner,” said the man. “He went off with my money like a dose of salts.”
The phone kept ringing.
“Excuse me a moment, sir,” said Wells. He pushed open the door to the corridor and shouted, “Ridley!”
The toilet gurgled and roared, then Ridley appeared, doing up his belt.
“The bloody phone’s ringing,” snapped Wells. “You know I’m here on my own.”
“I’m entitled to go to the toilet, aren’t I?” argued the constable.
“Not when we’re short-staffed, you’re not.” He turned back to the man.
“And how much did you say was taken, Mr. Skinner?”
“Forty-five pounds. Nine five-pound notes.”
“Any idea where Mr. Frost is?” called Ridley, holding the mouthpiece against his chest.
“You’re on Control,” snapped Wells. “You’re supposed to know where everyone is.” It was really getting far too much. Every available man had been commandeered by Mr. Allen after the rape attempt in Denton Woods. Even young Collier had been roped in, leaving only Wells and the controller, PC Ridley, to run the entire station. He wasn’t good enough to go to their lousy party, but he was good enough to run a division almost single-handed.
“There’s been a robbery and a coshing over at The Coconut Grove. They got away with more than five thousand quid.”
“Hard bloody luck,” said Wells. “This gentleman’s lost forty-five pounds, and he was here first.”
The lobby doors crashed back on their hinges, and in bounded Frost in his party suit with the sodden trouser legs and his everyday mac and scarf. With him was the new bloke, the bearded ex-inspector Webster.
Ridley waved the phone. “Mr. Frost!”
While Webster went on to the office to make a start on the crime statistics, Frost ambled over to Ridley. “Yes, Constable?”
“Robbery at The Coconut Grove, Mr. Frost.”
“Sorry, I’m only doing bodies down public lavatories tonight,” replied the inspector. At Ridley’s look of reproach, he sighed and said, “All right. Take the details.” He crossed to the corridor and yelled, “Webster! We’re going out again.” Then he caught sight of Wells struggling to get a report form into the typewriter. “Everything all right, Sergeant?”
“No, it bloody well isn’t,” snarled Wells, ‘and I’m too busy for small talk.”
“I’ve seen a lady with rouged nipples,” said Frost.
“Are you going to take my details?” demanded the man who had been robbed.
“Just a moment, sir,” said Wells, waving him off as if he were intruding on a private conversation. “You saw what Jack…?”
Before it had time to blink at being brought out into the light, the crime statistics return was stuffed back into the filing cabinet and Webster was once again behind the wheel of the Ford Cortina, driving off into the night. As the car skirted the woods, they could see the firefly dots of torches dancing among the trees, where Allen’s team continued its painstaking search.
The Coconut Grove was part of a large leisure complex development on the outskirts of Denton, just north of the woods. It consisted of clubs, bars, restaurants, bingo halls, a theatre, a sports pavillion, and myriad other amenities. The police suspected that it catered for the odd spot of prostitution on the side, but they hadn’t been able to prove anything. It was run by a dubious character called Harry Baskin whose other enterprises included a chain of betting shops.