Winter Frost

'Come off it, Tommy — you were seen picking her up.'

'Whoever saw me wants their eyes tested. I tooted my horn a couple of times, but no-one turned up, so I drove off. Lucky for me a bloke flagged me round the corner, and I took him instead.'

Frost lit up a cigarette. 'Then how come your boss has you logged in for doing this shout?'

'Because I was flagged in the street and it's against the law for an unlicensed cab to pick up passengers who haven't booked in advance. I didn't tell Max. He'd have screamed blue murder if he knew I was putting his business at risk.'

'Fair enough, Tommy. Give us your passenger's address and we'll check out your story.'

'I don't know his flaming address. I took him to the multi-storey car-park where I assume he'd parked his motor.'

'There's a pity,' said Frost, shaking his head in mock sadness. 'We could have checked it and cleared you.' His expression hardened. 'Gone one o'clock in the morning, vulnerable woman, car broken down. Why wasn't she there waiting?'

'How the hell do I know? Perhaps a licensed cab drove by and she hired that.'

Frost dismissed this with a snort. 'It's a cul-de-sac, Tommy. Why should a licensed cab be cruising down there?'

'Perhaps he was dropping a passenger off,' suggested Jackson.

Frost grimaced ruefully. He hadn't thought of that. 'Where's your cab?'

'Why?'

'We'd like our Forensic boys to give it a sniff. If we find her blood all over the seat, it might refresh your memory.'

'You'll have to ask Max Golding where my cab is.'

'Why?'

'The cab doesn't stand idle just because I'm not driving it. When I get out, another driver gets in. The seat's red hot sometimes.'

Great! thought Frost. Bloody great!

He took one last swig from the mug of canteen tea, then committed his cigarette end to a sizzling death in the dregs. He was back in the murder incident room with the rest of his team. 'As you know, we've got yet another prime suspect. Tommy Jackson, minicab driver with form for violence. He was due to pick Helen Stokes up Saturday morning but claims she wasn't there when he arrived. He reckons another cabbie dropped off a passenger and picked her up. DC Burton has been checking all the cab firms to see if they had anyone in the vicinity at that time of the morning.' He raised an enquiring eyebrow at Burton who stood up.

'I've checked all the local minicab and licensed cab firms. None of them had cars in that immediate vicinity Saturday morning and none of them had drops anywhere near the Samaritans.'

'Right,' added Frost. 'I've been back to the Samaritans. Jackson said he tooted his horn when he arrived but there was no-one there waiting. Melvyn, the bloke in charge, thinks he might have heard a horn from the street, but he was on the phone and can't be certain of the time.'

'Which isn't much help to Jackson, or to us,' said Arthur Hanlon.

Frost grunted his agreement. 'Forensic are giving his cab the once-over, but I'm not optimistic. Other people have driven it as well as Jackson. However, Inspector Maud has been proving she's not just a pretty face.' He nodded for Liz to make her report.

She stood up. 'I checked the duty rotas at Denton Minicabs. Jackson was on duty every night the murder victims went missing.'

A buzz of excited conversation.

'Secondly,' continued Liz, 'I checked the pick-up records for the nights the victims were last seen. The firms don't always record destinations, only the pickup points, but the night Big Bertha went missing, Denton Minicabs had a call from Downham Street, which is in the red light area, to Fenton Street, which is where Bertha shared a flat. Jackson was the driver, but, surprise, surprise, he told his firm there was no one there when he arrived.'

'We've got enough to charge him,' said Sergeant Hanlon.

'But not enough to get a conviction, Arthur.' The phone rang. Burton answered it. 'Forensic, Inspector. About the cab.'

Frost took the phone without much enthusiasm. Forensic hadn't been much help in the past. 'Right, give me the good news. You've found matching bloodstains, a pair of knee-length knickers and a signed confession?'

'No, Inspector,' said Harding patiently, 'but we did find a used condom so we can do DNA checks to see who used it and on whom. We also found fibres from that fur coat you were on about and traces of a considerable amount of dried blood on the carpeting which we are currently matching against the blood of the victims. Apart from that, little of interest.'

Frost squeezed the phone hard and stared up at the ceiling. 'Say that again.'

Harding said it again.

Frost beamed. 'The next time anyone says you're a lot of useless bastards, tell them I don't entirely agree.' He put the phone down and spun round. 'We've got him,' he said.

Jackson's scowl had deepened when he was brought back into the interview room. He snatched at the cigarette Frost offered.

'So you smoke cigarettes?' Frost commented, clicking his lighter.

'What else can you do with cigarettes,' snarled the cab driver, 'stick them up your arse? It's not a crime, is it?'

'Depends where you stub them out,' said Frost. He pulled out a wad of photographs of the murdered women and dealt them out, one by one. 'Recognize any of these?'

Jackson bent over to study them. 'I know most of them. They've used my cab quite a few times. They're prostitutes.'

'Dead prostitutes,' Frost told him. 'And by a strange coincidence, they all went missing on the nights you were on cab duty.'

'Hardly surprising, considering I only work nights.'

Frost flicked across the photograph of Big Bertha taken on the autopsy slab. 'Toms who phone for cabs on the nights you are on duty end up looking like that!'

Jackson screwed up his face and quickly turned his head away. 'That's sick. Just because they ride in my cab, it don't mean I murdered them. If they rode on a bus would you arrest the flaming bus driver?'

'If he was in the habit of beating up his passengers, I might, and if I found forensic evidence inside his bus, I damn well would.'

'Well, you found nothing inside my cab.'

'I'm afraid we did, Tom.' Frost tapped a finger on the photograph of Sarah. 'She was wearing a tatty fur coat the night she was murdered. We found fibres from it inside your cab.'

'I didn't say she'd never been in my cab. I just said I didn't pick her up the night she went missing,' smirked Jackson.

'At 2.36 last Thursday, this lady,' and Frost held up the photograph of Big Bertha, 'phoned for a cab to collect her from Downham Street. Max Golding gave the pick-up to you, but you claimed she wasn't there when you arrived, just as you claim Helen Stokes wasn't there when you arrived, and like Helen Stokes, the next time we saw her, she looked like this.' He waggled the autopsy photograph.

Jackson pushed the photograph away. 'If she wasn't there, she wasn't bloody there.' He clicked his fingers. 'I remember now. Yes, I radioed Max that the customer wasn't there so he gave me another pick-up just round the corner.'

'Another pick-up? I don't suppose you remember what it was?'

'No,' snarled Jackson. 'When you're murdering prostitutes all the time, you don't remember trifling little details like that. Max booked it, he'll know.'

Frost nodded for Liz to go and get the details from the minicab firm. 'Would you have any objection to giving up samples for DNA testing?'

'Why?'

'The killer raped the toms, using a condom. found a used one in your cab.'

Jackson folded his arms and smirked. 'Take all the samples you like, Inspector. My bodily fluids are at your disposal.'

You're too flaming sure of yourself, thought Frost. 'So how do you suggest the condom got there?'