'Things were getting dodgy between us for some time. I thought she was seeing someone else. There were these mysterious phone calls, stuff locked away in her drawer which I wasn't allowed to see. Coming back from the match that night, some of the boys had a go at the bloke in the off-licence and the cops hauled us into the nick. On the way there we diverted through King Street where all the tarts hang out and everyone in the coach started to yell and whistle and make obscene remarks at this prostitute, all slit skirt and big tits, picking up a drunk. I couldn't believe it. It was her… Mary… my bleeding girlfriend… the so-called bloody nurse…"
He scrubbed his face with his hands as if trying to wipe out the recollection.
'Go on, son,' prompted Frost.
'It was now all making sense. A couple of weeks ago I went to get some change from her purse and there was this key tagged "1 °Clayton Street". When I asked her about it she said she'd found it in the street and hadn't got round to returning it. I told her that was where all the whores hung out, and she was all wide-eyed and innocent. "I never knew that," she said, all bleeding butter won't melt stuff. The cow. Going with all sorts of trash, and I was sleeping with her!' He raised his head. 'You wouldn't have a cigarette?'
Frost pushed the packet over and waited as Lewis took deep drags.
'I couldn't wait to get my hands on her. Your lot had us all in the nick, but there were too many of us. Suddenly the fuzz all sloped off because there was a fight or something, so I nipped down a corridor when no-one was looking and ended up in the car-park. I legged it round to Clayton Street and the first thing I see is my car, my Toyota, smashed to buggery. That was the last straw. I did my nut. I charged up the stairs and crashed into the flat, yelling and screaming at her. She grabbed for a knife to keep me off. We struggled. I got the knife away from her and kicked it under the bed. I don't remember exactly what happened then, but I must have had my hands round her neck as I banged her head against the wall. Suddenly she went all bloody limp and slithered to the ground and I sobered up fast. I thought God, what have I done? I carried her to the bed and tried the mirror trick, but she wasn't breathing. Then the bloody phone rang and I panicked. I snatched the car keys, hoping I could drive away and get home before anyone saw me, but the windscreen was shattered — it was undrivable. I wandered down back streets and I bumped into some of the blokes from the coach, staggering from pub to pub. I tagged on with them and they assumed I'd been with them all the time — they were too drunk to know otherwise. I got a lift home. You know the rest.'
Frost nodded. 'The clothes you gave us for testing? They weren't the ones you were wearing, were they?'
'No. I bagged them up and put them out with the rubbish. It was collected this morning.'
'We'll find it,' Frost told him. 'Searching through rubbish bags at the council tip is what my Welsh colleague was born for. He certainly wasn't born for altering the bleeding calendar…'
'Well done,' said Mullett grudgingly. 'A case tied up quickly with the minimum of manpower. It can be done, you see, if you put your mind to it.' Frost jerked a two-fingered gesture of acknowledgement under the desk, unseen by Mullett who was hurrying back to his office, anxious to let County know that Denton Division, under his leadership, had done it again.
Frost yawned. Too many nights with insufficient sleep were catching up on him. There was nothing that couldn't wait a couple of hours so he'd nip back home and get his head down before the next crisis.
But the next crisis was waiting for him in the lobby.
Bill Wells, filling in his overtime claim form on the front desk, grunted with annoyance at the interruption as a woman in her mid-thirties, uncombed straw-blond hair, a cigarette dangling from her lips, barged through the swing doors and dumped a plastic carrier bag on the floor in front of the desk.
'Can I help you, madam?'
'You'd bloody better. My little girl's gone missing.'
Wells kept his expression fixed. Here was one of those 'I pay my rates so you'd better bloody jump to it' brigade. He pulled the cap from his pen. 'If you could let me have some details.'
'Details? Sod the bloody details. I want you out there looking for her.'
Wells sighed. Just his luck to get this loud-mouthed bitch. Collier, who should have been here, was out with DC Morgan scavenging the local rubbish tip on a job for Jack Frost. 'Let's try and keep it calm, shall we, madam?'
'Calm?' she shrieked. 'Calm? Some bleeding pervert's got my kid and you want me to keep calm.'
'The quicker I get the details down, the quicker we can start looking for her. Your name please, madam…?' Ever since Vicky Stuart went missing nine weeks ago they had had a stream of agitated mothers panicking because their kids were late back from school. Wells looked up at the wall clock. Ten past five… school had been out less than two hours. The mothers were always insistent their kids had never been home late before, but when the kid eventually turned up, they'd been round a friend's house and had done it time and time again. '… and your address, please.'
'Mary Brewer, 2 Rosebank Road, Denton.'
'And the little girl — how old is she?'.
'Jenny. She's only seven.'
'Is there a Mr Brewer?'
'No, there flaming well isn't. It's going to be pitch dark soon and you're asking these stupid questions.'
'And when did you see Jenny last?'
'When she came home from school for her dinner. I haven't seen her since.'
'What school?'
'Denton Junior.'
Wells stiffened. Denton Junior. The same school Vicky Stuart attended. 'Have you checked with her friends? She might be round one of their houses.'
'What — all bleeding night? Don't be stupid. She went missing yesterday.'
Wells blinked in astonishment. 'Yesterday? Your daughter's been missing since yesterday and you've only just got around to reporting it?'
The woman glowered back at him. 'Don't adopt that attitude to me. I couldn't report it any flaming earlier. I thought she was staying with her Nan, but she wasn't.'
Frost bustled through the door on the way to his car. He gave a brisk nod to Wells.
'Inspector!' Wells wasn't going to be stuck with this woman.
'It will have to wait, Sergeant. I'm off home.' He pushed open the swing door.
'Missing seven-year-old… Denton Junior School…' barked Wells.
Frost froze. The door swung back. He slowly turned round and walked back to the desk. 'How long has she been missing?'
It was the woman who answered. 'All bloody night. Don't tell me I've got to go over it all again.' The cigarette in her mouth quivered with annoyance.
Frost's shoulders slumped. God, he could have done without this. 'You'd better come with me,' he told her, unbuttoning his mac. 'Send us in a couple of cups of tea,' he called over his shoulder as he pushed through the door to No. 1 interview room and nodded her into the chair so recently vacated by Lewis. This was like seeing the same film over and over again. Lewis's cigarette butts were still piled in the ashtray.
Mrs Brewer drummed nicotined fingers impatiently on the table, watching Frost settle himself down, arranging his cigarettes and matches in front of him. Who was this scruff they had foisted off on her? They said he was an inspector, but he certainly didn't look like one.
'Right, Mrs Brewer,' said Frost, ready at last. 'Let's have the details.'
'How many more flaming times? I've already given them to that silly sod out there.'
'And now you're going to give them to this silly sod in here so he can tell the other silly sods who'll be out half the night looking for your daughter.' She was getting on his nerves. 'The last time you saw Jenny was yesterday around midday when she came home from school for her dinner?'