A real detective looked thin, wiry, and sour, but on top of the job, his chilly office reeking of floor polish and uncluttered efficiency, with the desk clinically clear, the "In" tray empty, the "Out" brimful of memos and instructions in Allen's neat hand.
Allen frowned when he saw Frost had brought someone in with him, but forced out a wintry smile when he realized it was the Chief Constable's nephew. As soon as he'd restored Tracey Uphill to her mother he'd take the new D.C. under his wing. Another career man, Allen knew his promotion to chief inspector would be announced shortly and he was aiming to be detective superintendent within a year. He'd overtake Mullen yet. The commandership of the new, enlarged division wasn't the one-horse race his superintendent blithely imagined.
Shaking hands briskly with Clive he nodded his visitors to chairs.
"You weren't at the meeting this morning, Frost?" It was barked out as a question.
"No, Allen," beamed Frost, lighting a cigarette and dropping the match on the polished lino, "I forgot."
Allen rose from his chair, picked up the discarded match, and deposited it carefully into his empty waste-paper basket.
"Thanks," said Frost cheerfully.
Allen took a couple of deep breaths and returned to his seat.
"The missing girl. I want you to question the mother. Something's wrong. If this was a straightforward missing-from-home we should have found the kid by now."
"There's always the possibility she's done the kid in," suggested Frost.
Clive smiled tolerantly at this outrageous suggestion. You'd only got to look at the woman… But Inspector Allen seemed to agree with Frost.
"Precisely. That's what I want you to check. Have a nose around. It wasn't searched properly last night."
"Right," said Frost, stretching out his legs and drawing on the cigarette.
Allen's eyes narrowed. "I mean now!" he barked.
That's the way to treat lazy buggers like Frost, thought Clive as the inspector shot to his feet.
"Congratulations," said Frost.
"On what?" asked Allen in surprise.
"On your promotion to chief inspector coming through."
"But it hasn't," said Allen.
"Oh," said Frost, "I thought it had," and he sat down again and finished his cigarette.
Frost took Clive with him to the control room to pick up a personal radio, but the constable in charge was loath to part with any more.
"You've already got two and you haven't returned them, sir," he said, pointing to the signed receipts in his issues book.
"Important job for Inspector Allen," said Frost, breezily signing for a third. "You'll have them all back this afternoon, without fail." He snatched a radio from the shelf and hustled Clive out before the constable could protest further.
His car, a gray, mud-splattered Morris 1100, was hidden in a side street. It was a cold day and as soon as Frost had cleared the passenger seat of a pair of dirt-caked gumboots and some yellowing Daily Mirrors, he slid in and rammed the heater switched to "High". Then he chucked the keys across to Clive and allowed himself to be chauffeured.
Inspector Frost was the sort of navigator who screamed "Turn right!" just as the car was. passing the appropriate turning. He didn't bother with advance warnings; Clive was forever slamming on the brakes and executing tight U-turns and the gumboots on the back seat kept falling to the floor.
They had left the town and were winding their way eastward down a rutted road running alongside forlorn miserable fields, unfarmed and overgrown, sites compulsorily purchased for the future expansion of Denton New Town.
To the right was one of the search parties, a thin straggle, moving slowly and methodically, poking the undergrowth with sticks, a cumulus cloud of smoky breath hovering over their heads in the cold air. Frost leaned over and honked the horn. One of the searchers turned and waved, then resumed the slow, patient prodding. Even at that distance the mud-splattered Morris was plainly identifiable.
Frost settled back in his seat, then drew dive's attention to a large clearing where a smoke-belching bulldozer was rooting up the stumps of trees.
"Used to be woods there when I was young, son. Thick woods-with birds, squirrels, the lot. Many's the time in the hot fiery days of my youth when I've taken the shy trembling lady of my choice for an advanced anatomy lesson under the green bough." He sighed deeply. "That was weeks ago, of course. Oh, we should have turned left back there, son. All right, back a bit. More… more… you've bags of room."
She was waiting for them on the doorstep, skin scrubbed clean of makeup, ash-blonde hair pulled off her face and tied with a black boot-lace ribbon. She could have been a child, until you got close and saw the lines of worry, the eyes puffy from crying and lack of sleep. When she heard the car pull up outside she was sure they were bringing Tracey back, but when she opened the door she could see there was only two men. Please, please, she thought, don't let it be bad news.
The untidy man with the scarf gave her a reassuring smile. "No news, I'm afraid, Mrs. Uphill. Couple of questions you might help us on though."
She led them through to the lounge, buttocks wriggling in tight slacks, even in grief arousing strong sexual responses from the two men.
Frost settled down in an armchair and worried away at his scar for a minute before starting his questions. He was going to have to upset her and he hated upsetting anyone. The question he should ask was, "Have you killed your daughter, Mrs. Uphill, and hidden her body somewhere?
If so, you might tell us so we can call in those poor sods searching in the cold." Instead he said, "Any further thoughts as to where Tracey might have gone, Mrs. Uphill? We've covered all the obvious places."
She brushed back a straying wisp of hair. "If I had I'd have phoned the police."
"You had no quarrel with the child? Any reason why she might have left home?"
"No. We went through all this last night!"
Frost pushed himself up from the chair. "We'd like to search the house, if you don't mind."
She looked startled. "It was searched last night."
"Children can be devils, Mrs. Uphill. She could have sneaked back in and hidden somewhere."
"She's not in the house." The woman hugged herself as though for warmth. The room was hot, but the cold was inside her. Her teeshirt had ridden up showing naked cream beneath. She looked like a frightened, lonely child and Clive wanted to put his arms around her-and not just because he wanted to reassure her.
"We haven't got all sodding day, son," snapped Frost. "We'll start at the top and work our way down."
The upper floor contained two bedrooms and a bathroom. They looked in the main bedroom first. Thick drawn curtains shut out the daylight. Clive found the switch and a tinted bulb slashed the bed with rose-colored light. The large double bed was unmade, a crumpled, flimsy lemon nightdress lying on a pillow. A pyramid of half-smoked cigarettes in the ashtray testified to a sleepless night.
They searched the room thoroughly, moving the bed and the large dressing table. Then Clive slid open the door of the built-in wardrobe and his startled gasp of horror sent Frost running over. But it was a doll; an expensive, life-sized, blonde-haired doll, the hidden-away Christmas present Tracey had asked Father Christmas for. Clive braced himself for some biting comment, but Frost mildly remarked, "Blimey, son, it looks bloody real, doesn't it?"
It was a large wardrobe, but apart from the doll, it held only clothes swaying on hangers; lots and lots of expensive clothes.
Frost pulled back the curtains and looked out on Vicarage Terrace. You could just see the vicarage and the Sunday school at the end of the street. What had happened to the child after she left that Sunday school? He shifted his gaze back to the room and the ceiling…