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‘You’ve found her? I knew you would. I told you you’d find her. Thank God!’ She was weeping with happiness.

Flaming hell! thought Frost. This is an unmitigated balls-up. That bleeding clairvoyant, I could tear his dick out by the roots.

Behind the woman, her husband, a sad-looking man, read the message in Frost’s expression, a message his wife was refusing to see. He moved forward and put his arm around her. She looked at him puzzled, not understanding why he wasn’t rejoicing with her… and then she looked at Frost again. And then she knew.

‘Do you think we might come in?’ asked Frost.

They were in Paula’s bedroom where everything had been left exactly as it was on the day she went missing. The bed was made, blue pyjamas folded neatly on the pillow and the alarm clock, wound each day ready for her return, set to ring at 6.45 so she wouldn’t be late for her paper round. From downstairs the heart-tearing wail of Mrs Bartlett, her grief for her daughter sounding uncannily like that of the mother of the fifteen-year-old who had killed herself. It reminded Frost that they had to visit the mortuary to see the marks on Susan Bicknell’s body. He felt in his inside pocket for something to jot a reminder down on and felt an unfamiliar wad of papers. His car expenses. Something else he had forgotten about. How the hell was he going to find the time to get the proper copies made that bloody County were demanding? He stuffed them back in his pocket and forgot about them again.

‘What are we doing here?’ asked Gilmore.

‘I don’t know,’ said Frost wearily. ‘I just wanted to have a think away from all the bloody crying.’ He looked around the room. Everything plain and simple, just like the dead girl. No posters, no pop records. On the bedside cabinet was a framed photograph of her mother and father. A small bookcase held some children’s books, her school textbooks, a Collins Concise Encyclopedia and a Pocket Oxford Dictionary. Inside the bedside cabinet, standing on its end, was a black and green Adidas nylon holdall. He unzipped it and looked inside. Some gym clothes, a track suit and a couple of exercise books. He stuffed it back again. On the floor by the cabinet was a wastepaper bin. The bin contained a crumpled Milky Way wrapper and a small cardboard carton that had once held a lipstick.

‘You’re right, son,’ he said. ‘We’re wasting our bloody time here.’

He opened the door and they went downstairs.

The crying went on and on.

They let themselves out.

Monday night shift (2)

Sergeant Wells stared glumly at the cold scummy tea left in the cup, palmed two aspirins into his mouth and flushed them down in a shuddering swallow. It was just a headache. He envied those lucky devils who had gone down with the flu virus and were tucked up in their nice warm beds, leaving mugs like him to do the extra duties they were being paid for. He had been on duty since half-past nine, no-one to help him, the heating on the blink, no canteen and Mullett demanding cups of tea or coffee every five minutes.

‘Two teas and a fairy cake, please, Sergeant.’ Wells jerked two fingers up at Jack Frost who came bouncing in with that aftershaved ponce, Gilmore.

Frost ambled over and pulled out his cigarettes. ‘Bleeding cold in here, Bill. It was warmer down the crypt.’

‘Only the people who matter get heat. It’s like St Tropez in Mullett’s office. And he wants to see you’

‘He can’t get enough of me,’ said Frost, trotting off to the inner sanctum.

‘Gilmore!’ Wells called as the detective sergeant headed for the office. ‘Your wife phoned about two hours ago. Wanted to know when you were coming home.’

‘Thanks,’ said Gilmore. ‘if she phones again…’

‘If she phones again,’ cut in Wells, ‘you talk to her. I’m off in fifteen minutes.’ In any case, he wasn’t acting as messenger boy for a lousy jumped-up ex-detective constable.

It wasn’t cold in Mullett’s office. The 3-kilowatt heater purred happily, and Frost had to flght to keep awake in the hot room as he gave the Divisional Commander a brief update, sparing none of the details.

‘Burnt with a blow-lamp?’ gasped the shocked Mullett. ‘That’s depraved… You kept it from the parents?’

‘Yes,’ said Frost. ‘And I want it kept from the press — that and the fact she was wearing shoes.’ There’d be the usual spate of nutters coming up with false confessions based on details they’d read in the papers.

‘And the pathologist is quite certain the body wasn’t placed in that crypt tonight?’ asked Mullett, reluctant to let the inspector off the hook.

‘The poor little cow was dumped weeks ago… that’s why she’s stinking to high heaven now.’

Mullet winced and moved his chair back slightly. Frost’s description of the advanced state of decomposition had been so graphic, he was sure he could smell it. Or perhaps the stench was clinging to that dirty old mac Frost insisted on wearing. Frost took a cigarette end from behind his ear and pushed it into his mouth. He struck a match on his fingernail. Mullett sighed deeply. This case would get extensive press and TV coverage. He daren’t risk exposing this slovenly, foul-mouthed lout to the media as typical of the Denton constabulary.

He cleared his throat. ‘I have decided to take full executive control of this case, Inspector.’

The lighted match paused an inch from the end of the cigarette. ‘Executive control?’

‘Yes. You will be responsible for the day-to-day routine, but under my direct control. Do you understand?’

I do all the work and get the bollockings when things go wrong, and you take all the credit when they go right, thought Frost grimly. ‘Yes, I understand,’ he said aloud.

‘I’ve promised the Chief Constable an early result. This must be our number one priority. What do you need to achieve an early result?’

‘A lot of bloody luck and some more men.’

‘We can’t have any more. Normal schedules will have to go by the board. Everyone will have to follow my lead — work that little bit harder, push themselves to the limit.’ He yawned and glanced at his watch. Time he was back home and in bed. ‘Everyone must pitch in. We’re all one big team.’ He gleamed white teeth at Frost in a crocodile smile as he stood up and slipped on his overcoat.

The phone rang. Mullett answered it and passed it over to Frost. The pathologist. He had a heavy schedule for the morning, so he was doing the post-mortem on the newspaper girl in an hour’s time.

‘I’ll be there,’ Frost said, yawning.

‘Good,’ nodded Mullett, moving to the door. ‘Well, I must try and snatch a few hours’ sleep so I can be fresh for the morning. Report to me tomorrow at nine and we’ll go over our plan of campaign.’ He clicked off the heater and, when Frost had left, turned out the light and locked the door. As he passed through the lobby he saw Wells moodily staring at the clock. The wretched man was — clock-watching. He would have a word with him about it in the morning. He responded with a curt nod as the sergeant called good night to him.

Miserable sod, thought Wells. It was 2.59 a.m. Sergeant Johnnie Johnson, who had the morning shift, was coming in three hours early to relieve him. Usually Johnnie was early, arriving a good five minutes before the start of the shift, but Wells wasn’t worrying yet. He began stuffing away his pens and notepads in the drawer to leave a clean desk for his relief. The phone gave a timorous, half-hearted ring. ‘Denton Police, Sergeant Wells speaking.’

‘Hello, Bill. It’s Doreen.’

The cold tea curdled in his stomach. Doreen. Johnnie Johnson’s wife. What the hell did she want at this time of the morning?

‘It’s John, I’m afraid, Bill. We’ve had to have the doctor in.’

That bloody hypochondriac! A headache and he thinks he’s got a brain tumour. ‘Oh dear, Doreen. Nothing serious, I hope?’

‘The doctor thinks it’s this flu virus that’s going around.’

One sniffle and the bastard’s down with flu… typical. ‘Terribly sorry to hear that, Doreen.’