Then the brittle early-morning quiet was shattered as carloads of hastily summonsed off-duty men and the team from Forensic arrived. Soon the area swarmed with men crawling over every inch of the Vauxhall and its surroundings. The car was dusted for prints inside and out, the interior was given microscopic scrutiny for traces of blood and tissue, and then the seat covers and carpets were removed and vacuumed to retrieve clinging hairs and fibres.
Other men were on their hands and knees, noses almost grazing the road surface as they looked for anything the murderer might have dropped. It was still dark, but the area was floodlit. The first success was the finding of a small patch of oil a few yards up the lane, indicating that another car had recently been parked on that spot for some time. More than likely this car was the backup that Stan Eustace transferred into after he had dumped the Cavalier. Judging from the amount of oil leakage, the other car must have been an old banger.
One team was given the task of knocking on the door of every house in the vicinity to ask if anyone had seen a car parked in the lane during the previous day, or if they had seen the Vauxhall drive up.
“I know it’s early and most of the householders are going to be tucked up in bed,” said Allen, addressing the team, ‘but that is their hard luck. Today they are all going to see the dawn break for a change. How you wake them, I don’t particularly care. Just do it. And if anyone complains that their beauty sleep is more important than finding the murderer of a police officer, let them write to the Chief Constable. Most important, I want you to make sure you speak to everybody in the house, not just the poor sod who staggers downstairs to open the door. Now off you go.”
Another two men went with Ingram to search the section of the field near the hedge. It wasn’t expected to yield anything but Allen, unlike Detective Inspector Jack Frost, always did things thoroughly.
Webster tried to catch the inspector’s eye to ask permission to leave, but Allen had marched straight past and was at the Vauxhall to talk to the two men dusting it for prints. “Anything yet?”
One of them looked up from his work and shook his head. “Not a damn thing so far, Inspector. It’s been wiped clean.”
As Allen turned away, Webster moved forward to let the inspector know he was going to make a move.
“Good morning, son. The whole bloody place stinks of coppers, doesn’t it?”
Webster visibly cringed at the familiar breezy voice. Where the hell had he come from? It was far too early in the morning to stomach a fresh dose of Jack Frost.
With a grin and a nod to his assistant, Frost, looking as if he had slept in his clothes in a ditch, shuffled over to the immaculate Allen.
“Hello, Frost,” said Allen without the slightest hint of enthusiasm. Events were going quite well and he didn’t want Frost’s jarring presence messing everything up. “Bit early for you, isn’t it?”
“Bit late, actually,” yawned Frost, rubbing an unshaven chin. “I haven’t been home all night. I fell asleep in the office.” With his head on one side he gave the Vauxhall the once-over, his hands scratching an itch on his stomach through his mac pockets. “So this is where Useless Eustace switched motors?”
“Yes,” acknowledged Allen curtly. “Your assistant spotted it.” He was now beginning to wonder if he wouldn’t be better served with Webster than with Ingram, who had been getting quite slapdash of late.
“It’s the way I train them,” Frost said, moving forward for a look inside the car. The two men from Forensic shifted out of his way as he poked his head inside the driving door. “I can’t see much blood.”
“We haven’t found any yet,” Forensic admitted, ‘but we’re still searching.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d have to look very hard for it,” said Frost. “Shelby’s head was half blown off. The inside of the car ought to be swimming with blood, brains, and bits of ear hole.”
Allen pulled a face. Frost’s crudeness was hard to take at the best of times, but at this tender hour of the morning…! “Eustace could have wrapped the body in waterproof sheeting. A sheet was missing from the boot of Shelby’s patrol car when we went through it yesterday.”
Frost tapped his first cigarette of the day on the packet and lit up. Then he had his first cough of the day. “I don’t care what you say,” he spluttered, “I just can’t see Useless Eustace as a police killer.”
Allen started to reply, but his attention was diverted by a shout.
“Mr. Allen!”
He looked up. An arm was being waved from behind the hedge. Ingram had found something. “Excuse me,” he muttered, hurrying over to see what it was.
Frost took a stroll across to the Cortina, where Webster, slumped in the front seat next to Sue, was fighting hard to keep his eyes open. Sue was talking to him, but he just didn’t seem able to take in what she was saying. Wasn’t it just his rotten luck spotting that car! If he’d kept his eyes closed, he would now be lying in the snug warmth of Sue’s little single bed, his arms locked around her un-night dressed body, caressing her gorgeous but why torment himself? He yawned. The thought of yet another long, dreary day muddling through with Frost seemed an unbearable prospect.
Frost spotted the yawn and, of course, with his one-track mind, misinterpreted it. “Tired, my son? Heavy night with Sue, was it? You should have tried getting some sleep instead.”
Webster was so tired he couldn’t even raise a scowl in protest.
“One thing about a beard,” bur bled Frost, rasping his chin again, ‘you don’t suffer from five o’clock shadow.” He turned his head. “Hello, what’s Old Clever Balls looking so happy about?”
Allen was striding over, Ingram trotting at his heels. “Thought you might be interested to see this, Frost, especially as you can’t see Eustace as a police killer.” He held up something in a polythene bag. “We’ve found Shelby’s notebook.”
Frost took the bag from Allen and turned it over and over in his hands.
“Where was it?”
Ingram pointed. “I found it in that field, close to the hedge, near where the Cavalier was parked.”
Frost looked puzzled. “And how the hell did it get there?”
Allen sucked in air, then sighed. How dense could you be? “I’d have thought that obvious, Inspector. Eustace found it in the car after he dumped the body. It must have fallen from Shelby’s pocket. It was incriminating evidence and he had to get rid of it in a hurry.”
“Oh, I see,” exclaimed Frost as if this now explained everything. “He wipes the car clean of prints, doesn’t leave a speck of blood behind, but he gets rid of vital evidence by just chucking it over the nearest hedge.”
“What did you expect him to do with it?” snapped Allen in exasperation. “Eat it? Stick it up his arse? He daren’t keep it on him, it linked him with the killing. What else could he do but chuck it?”
A uniformed man approached and gave Allen a smart salute. “Lady in the cottage down the lane, sir. Says she saw a black Morris Minor parked down here for most of yesterday afternoon.”
Allen’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Good work. I’ll be with you in a couple of seconds to talk to her.” He took the polythene bag from Frost and handed it back to Ingram. “I want the notebook checked for fingerprints. Odds are it’s been wiped clean, but you never know your luck.” He noticed Frost still hovering. “I’m sure you’re very busy, Inspector. Don’t let me hold you up.”
“Actually, I want to take a look in the notebook. Dave Shelby was supposed to have interviewed our anonymous phone caller. I’m hoping he kept his mind on the job long enough to write down the name and address.”
Ingram held open the bag so Frost could carefully extract the notebook, holding it by its corners with his handkerchief. An elastic band looped around the unused pages allowed Frost to go directly to the entry, the very last entry Shelby had made before he died. It read Desmond Thorley, Dove Cottage. Interviewed re rape case phone call.
“Bingo!” cried Frost, snapping the notebook shut and dropping it into the polythene bag. He trotted across to the Cortina. Neither Webster nor Sue seemed willing to yield their front seats, so he climbed into the back.