A gentle wind was ruffling the tops of the trees, which seemed to twitch and shrug off its advances. But it was a cold wind. Frost looked up at the sky. Black, the moon obscured by clouds. And the woods were dark and heavy with menace.
Frost shivered, but not from the cold. He suddenly had a feeling that things were going to go wrong. Webster was right. He hadn’t enough men, the planning was half-baked, and it was dangerous. If Webster hadn’t been so smart-arsed about it, Frost might have listened to him, but that scowling, sneering face and waggling beard just increased his stubbornness.
It was darker than Frost had expected. Not too bad when they stuck to the main path, where some of the glow from the sodium lamps filtered through, but as soon as they branched off and plunged deeper into the woods, where trees and shrubs pressed in on each side of them, they had to slow down and almost feel their way through. They needed a torch but daren’t risk drawing attention to themselves at this stage.
A torch! Frost clicked his radio on. “Frost to van. Is sexy Sue there?”
“Sexy Sue here,” came the reply, her voice sounding childlike and breathless through the loudspeaker, almost like the young Marilyn Monroe’s.
“Take a torch with you, Sue. You’ll be able to find your way about better, and if our chum is lurking it will help draw him to you.”
Pleased with himself for having thought of this, he now felt better disposed toward Webster, who was sulkily stamping alongside him. “We’re going to get him tonight, son. I know it.”
“I hope so,” grunted Webster without conviction. He didn’t share Frost’s enthusiasm for the torch ploy. With Susan flashing the torch, the rapist could keep his distance. He would be able to see her without being seen by her.
“I think this is where we turn off,” whispered Frost, his eyes screwed up as he tried to penetrate the darkness. “This is where the seventeen-year-old was attacked last night.” Frost, then Webster, squeezed through the gap in the bushes to reach their pre-selected stakeout stations between two subsidiary paths. First Frost settled down in his position, leaning up against the rough bark of some sort of tree, leaving Webster to flounder on to his own allotted station. He was crashing through the undergrowth like a wounded rhino, and Frost gritted his teeth until the sounds finally stopped as Webster found his position and settled down. “Let’s hope the bastard’s deaf,” Frost muttered to himself. He then checked that everyone was in his assigned position.
“Collier to Base. In position. Over.”
“Burton to Base. In position. Over.”
“Webster. In position. Over.”
Then, suddenly. “Burton to base. Someone’s coming along the path. Too dark to see yet.”
A pause. Burton’s breathing over the speaker. Then, “I can see him. A man middle-aged, receding hair. He’s got a dog with him.”
Jordan’s voice. “There was a bloke with a dog lurking about last night.”
Frost couldn’t imagine a rapist bringing a dog along with him but wasn’t going to take chances. “Which direction is he heading?”
“He’s gone on to the north path,” reported Burton. “I think he’s heading for the main road.”
“Let’s give him a chance to go, then,” said Frost. He struck a match against the bark of the tree and cupped the flare with his hands as he lit up and settled himself down to wait.
The smell of cigarette smoke wafted across to Webster, who was crouching in wet grass, peering through bramble bushes to the narrow, overgrown path. “I don’t think it’s safe to smoke,” he whispered into his radio.
“You’re a bastard, Webster, but you’re absolutely right,” replied Frost, pinching out the Rothman’s King Size and returning it to the packet. He changed position from one foot to the other. It was boring and tiring just standing still in the dark, keeping dead quiet and waiting. The forest creaked, groaned, and murmured. The wind scuffled leaves, making them sound like stealthy, shuffling footsteps. Twigs snapped for no reason.
Frost found he was lusting for a cigarette. He would have sold his soul for just one puff. He took the packet from his pocket and sniffed the heady tobacco smell, which only made his longing worse. Waiting was hell. He looked at his watch. 11.12. The hands didn’t seem to be moving. Then Jordan called from the van, “Van to Base.”
“Frost. Over.”
“Bait ready to enter woods. Over.”
“Has the bloke with the dog emerged yet?”
“Two minutes ago, sir.”
“Then bloody tell me,” snapped Frost. “I’m not a mind reader. Give us a sound check, Sue.”
“Mary had a little lamb,” whispered Susan into her lapel badge.
“Loud and clear,” confirmed Frost. He did a final check on all the radios, then gave the signal for the girl.
Time: 11.15; very dark, the moon hidden by clouds. Ideal conditions for a rape.
From the van, Simms was able to watch Susan through night glasses right to the point where the main, path veered around to the right. Then she was completely out of sight to the two men in the van.
She walked slowly, trying to appear unconcerned. From time to time she flashed the torch on the path as Frost had suggested. Once she was positive there was someone right behind her, almost touching her. She could hear his footsteps, feel his breath ruffling the hair on the back of her neck. She swung around. The path was empty.
The earpiece emitted occasional bursts of static. “Walking down the main north-south path,” she said very quietly into her lapel badge. “So far, so good.”
“Say again?” queried the earpiece. “We lost you then.”
“So far, so good,” she repeated.
“Roger,” acknowledged the earpiece.
It should have been reassuring to hear a friendly voice, but she was beginning to realize how astronauts must feel, thousands of miles up in space. They could talk to Houston. Houston could talk to them. But if anything went wrong, no matter how many voices were in contact, you were up there on your own. And she felt very much on her own. There was no-one else on the main path. Her feet scuffed through fallen leaves as she walked. At least the crackle of dry leaves should give her warning if anyone tried to sneak up behind her. She flashed her torch down on the path as she walked, beginning to feel more confident. But this was the easy bit. The rapist wouldn’t make his move until she left me comparative security of this main pathway. And she would have to leave it very soon.
“Frost to bait. All OK?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“We keep losing you. To stop us peeing ourselves with worry, Sue, report in a position check every five minutes unless you’re raped beforehand, of course.”
“Acknowledged.” She clicked off the transmit switch. She was now at the safest point of her route, the section where the path hugged the ring road and was warmly splashed with yellow from the sodium lamps. Then the path veered toward the centre of the woods, where the black mass of trees and bushes squeezed out the light and muffled the reassuring sounds of traffic and people.
She was now off the main path, following a smaller side route. Bushes on each side clutched and pulled. Halfway down, she stopped. This wasn’t the route Frost had mapped out for her. She had turned off too soon. She was walking away from the stakeout, not toward it.
She turned. And there was a man, crouching.
She backed away, one hand on the transmit button, the other bringing up the torch. Under the beam of the torch the crouching man changed into a small straggling bush. She started to breathe again and slowly made her way to the main path.
From a long way off, a diesel train bleated as it dragged itself away from Denton Station, a lonely, mournful sound that made her feel more isolated than ever. She quickened her pace. Then stopped.
Footsteps. Slow. Shuffling.
Someone was coming up the path toward her!
Her thumb hit the transmit button. “Bait to Base. I can hear someone.”