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Indicating blood-matted hair and a discoloured area on the scalp Drysdale invited them to inspect the damage.

‘If she struggled, doc,’ asked Frost, ‘wouldn’t she have marked him… scratched him… gouged out chunks of flesh?’

A tight smile. ‘If you’re hoping for pieces of tell tale flesh under her fingernails, I must disappoint you, Inspector.’ He lifted the girl’s misshapen right hand and displayed the fingernails. They were bitten down to the quick.

‘Damn,’ said Frost.

Carefully Drysdale lowered the hand to its original position. ‘Clear evidence of sexual intercourse just before she died.’

Frost nodded glumly. He had expected this. ‘Rape?’

‘I think so,’ replied the pathologist blandly.

‘You think so?’ echoed Gilmore, incredulously. ‘You only think so.

‘There is evidence of bruising that could suggest intercourse took place against her will…’

‘Then she was raped,’ cried Gilmore.

‘If I might be allowed to continue,’ grated Drysdale. ‘The girl was a virgin. She could have submitted willingly, but have been tensed instead of relaxed. This might account for the bruising. Equally, she could have been raped. There is no magic way of knowing at this stage.’

‘If she submitted willingly, doc,’ said Frost, ‘there would have been no real need to have wrung her neck afterwards.’

‘That’, snapped Drysdale, ‘is in your province, Inspector Frost, not mine. I give the medical facts. It’s up to you to speculate.’

Frost nodded ruefully. ‘Then give me some facts on the way the bastard burnt her so I can speculate how to catch the sod.’

‘I was coming to that,’ said Drysdale testily. ‘As you can see, the genital area is badly charred. In my opinion this occurred very soon after death, within an hour, say.’

‘Dr Maltby thought it could have been done with a blow-lamp.’

Drysdale frowned. ‘For once, Dr Maltby might have been right. To do that sort of damage you’d need some thing like a blowtorch.’

‘But why would anyone do it, doc? Is it a new kind of sexual perversion?’

‘I’ve come across something like this once before. A murdered rape victim, a thirty-eight-year-old prostitute. She was found in some bushes near a railway embankment. The lower part of the body was badly burnt where her killer had doused paraffin over her and set it alight. It seems he had heard about genetic fingerprinting. You’ve probably read about it.’

‘No,’ said Frost. ‘I only read comics and dirty books.’

‘There’s a newly developed technique,’ lectured Drysdale, ‘that allows us to determine an individual’s genetic fingerprint from traces of body fluid — semen, say.’

Frost’s mouth dropped open. ‘You mean a dick print instead of a fingerprint?’

The pathologist winced. ‘I wouldn’t put it as crudely as that, Inspector, but yes, by DNA testing we can positively identify the donor of a semen sample.’

‘So if I produced a suspect…’ began Frost, hoping Burton had traced the plumber.

‘If you produced a suspect, we could either positively incriminate him, or positively eliminate him, but he would have to supply us with a blood sample for comparison.’

‘I’ll get a blood sample for you,’ said Frost. ‘And if he won’t give us one voluntarily, I’m sure we can arrange for him to fall down the station stairs.’

The pathologist’s smile wavered. Like many people, he never knew when Frost was being serious or when he was joking. ‘Unfortunately, Inspector, it wouldn’t work with this poor girl. Even without the burning, the advanced stage of decomposition of the body precludes any possibility of carrying out the test.’

‘This bastard’s having all the luck,’ moaned Frost. ‘Anything else, doc?’

Drysdale made a mental note to include in his complaint to the Divisional Commander his displeasure at the way Frost chose to address him. ‘Yes.’ He held out his hand and clicked his fingers. Miss Grey gave him a large sealed jar full of squishy, lumpy brown unpleasantness dotted with green. ‘The stomach contents. She hadn’t had time to digest her last meal before she died.’

Frost screwed his face and turned his head. ‘Tell me what it is, doc, so I can make a point of not ordering it.’

‘Something with chips and peas. You’ll get a detailed analysis some time tomorrow. My report will be on your desk by noon.’

‘Do you feel like eating, son?’ asked Frost as they climbed back into the car. ‘Something with chips and peas?’

‘No,’ said Gilmore. All he felt like doing was going to bed and sleeping the clock round.

Five o’clock. Cold, raining steadily and still dark.

Tuesday morning shift (1)

They got back to the station at 5.15. A less than happy Sergeant Bill Wells was still on duty wearing his greatcoat against the cold of the unheated lobby.

‘Still here?’ asked Frost.

‘Yes, still bloody here. But I’m going home at six on the dot whether anyone relieves me or not. I’ve had it up to here.’ His hand indicated a point well above his head. He spun round to Gilmore. ‘And I’ve got enough to do without keeping on answering calls from your bloody wife demanding to know when you’re coming home.’

‘When did she phone?’ Gilmore asked.

‘Do you mean the first time, the second or the third? The last one was ten minutes ago.’

Gilmore hurried off to the office to use the phone and Wells accepted a cigarette from Frost. ‘She sounded well sozzled, Jack,’ he confided. ‘You could smell the gin over the phone.’

‘They’ve not been married long,’ said Frost. ‘She’s suffering from night starvation.’

‘Tough!’ grunted Wells, pulling his phone log over. ‘Couple of messages for you. Jill Knight phoned from the hospital. The old lady is still in intensive care. Doubtful if she’ll regain consciousness. And Arthur Hanlon says one of the neighbours spotted a blue van parked at the back of Clarendon Street just before midnight.’

‘Clues are pouring in thick and fast,’ said Frost, trotting off down the corridor.

In the office Gilmore was making apologetic noises down the phone. ‘I know, love… I’m sorry. What time will I be back?’ He clapped his hand over the mouthpiece and looked enquiringly at Frost.

‘Let’s pack it in now,’ said Frost. ‘Grab a few hours sleep and be back about twelve.’

Gilmore nodded his thanks and assured Liz, cross his heart, he’d be with her in fifteen minutes.

On the way out Frost pushed open the door to the Murder Incident Room. Burton was slumped by the phone, half asleep. Frost gave him a shake. ‘Come on, son. I’ll take you home.’

Burton smothered a yawn. ‘I’ve located the firm that did the work at the cemetery, but I won’t be able to get the plumber’s name and address until their offices open at nine.’

‘That’s what I want,’ mused Frost. ‘A nine to five job, an expense account with no limit and a sexy secretary with no knickers.’ He sighed at the impossibility of his dream. ‘Leave a note for your relief to follow it through. Let’s go home.’

The Cortina was juddering down Catherine Street, Gilmore fighting sleep at the wheel, Frost slumped with his eyes half closed at his side and Burton yawning in the back seat. They passed a row of shops; one, a newsagent’s, had its lights gleaming. Burton in the back seat stirred and peered through the car window. ‘That’s where Paula Bartlett worked.’

‘Pull up,’ yelled Frost. Gilmore steered the car into the kerb. The name over the shop read G. F. Rickman, Newsagent. ‘Let’s chat him up,’ said Frost. With a searing scowl at Burton for not keeping his big mouth shut, Gilmore clambered out after him.

George Rickman, plump and balding, was deeply engrossed in a study of the Page Three nude in The Sun. On the floor in front of the counter, stacked in neat piles, were the newspapers he had sorted and marked ready for the kids to take out on their rounds. The shop bell tinkled to announce a customer, old Harry Edwards from round the corner for his Daily Mirror and some fifty pence pieces for the gas. While he was serving Harry, the bell sounded again and two men he hadn’t seen before came in: one, in his early twenties, looking tired and irritable; the other, older, wearing a crumpled mac. They hovered furtively by the door, obviously waiting for the shop to empty before they approached. Rickman smirked to himself. Dirty sods. He knew what they were after.