Wells returned, only to be sent out again as Frost thought of something else. 'Get on to the other Divisions. I want all their off-duty men standing by in case we have to do a house-to-house.'
Wells hesitated. 'Are you sure Mullett's agreed to this?'
Frost gave the sergeant his most reassuring and sincere smile. 'When have I ever lied to you, Bill?" he asked.
'Every bleeding day of the year,' said Wells.
As the off-duty men reported in, he found them jobs to do: phone all the hospitals for unknown casualties; get names and addresses of every minicab and taxicab driver from their firms and phone or knock them up to ask if they had seen a maverick cab lurking about at any time. He sent Burton out with Collier to call on all the local toms yet again to ask if they had ever been approached by this minicab with the woman driver. The place was a-bustle. He had given everyone something to do, but in his heart of hearts knew that none of this would do any good. They needed a break, one of his strokes of luck, but his guardian angel was refusing to do any more overtime.
The phone rang. 'Frost.' It was Arthur Hanlon. Liz wasn't at the drop-off point. He'd retraced the route back to her flat. No sign of her.
The phone hardly stopped ringing. Negative reports. Nothing from cab drivers, toms, the hospitals… A blaze of headlights in the grimy windows of the incident room. A car pulling into the car-park. Liz! It had to be Liz. It was Mullett, bloody Mullett, just in time to receive a 'Sod all' progress report.
Even at that unearthly hour of the morning, Mullett was a walking tailor's dummy in his immaculate uniform. 'My office!' he barked, flinging the words through the open door of the incident room as he marched down the corridor.
Frost heaved himself out of the chair. 'It's probably about my promotion,' he said.
In the old log cabin with its highly polished built-in wooden cupboards, Mullett sat stony-faced at his desk. 'A shambles,' he said. 'An absolute shambles.'
Frost said nothing. Mullett was right. Of course it was a shambles, but what was the point in stating the bloody obvious? How was this helping to get the poor cow back?
'Against my better judgement I bled our overtime budget dry, on your unequivocal assurance that by doing so we would definitely catch the killer and that nothing would go wrong. Teams of men, on expensive overtime, but when the killer turns up, what happens?'
'We sodded it up,' said Frost blandly. 'I know what happened, Super, I don't need telling.'
'And in addition you have put the life of one of our officers in peril, the very thing you assured me would be avoided. How on earth am I going to explain this to County?'
'I know it's the last thing you'd think of doing,' said Frost, 'but you could always put the blame on me.'
'The fact that I had put my trust in you could still reflect badly on me,' replied Mullett. His eyes lit up as he found a solution. 'We put the entire blame on DC Morgan, a man foisted on us by County against my better judgement. He deliberately disobeyed your explicit orders.' With luck, Denton Division could come out of this comparatively unscathed.
Frost shook his head. There was no way he was having the buck dumped solely on Morgan. 'I was in charge-' he began.
Mullett cut him short. 'Technically in charge, perhaps, but you had given him explicit instructions and he would know the consequence should he disobey those instructions. I want no falling on swords here, Frost.' He jabbed a finger, happily recalling the phrase used by County. 'Damage limitation, that's what this is all about, Frost, damage limitation…'
Frost was about to snap, 'Sod damage limitation,' when there was a tap at the door and Bill Wells looked in.
Mullett scowled, annoyed at being disturbed. 'Can't it wait, Sergeant?'
'Urgent call for Mr Frost,' said Wells. 'Mrs Beatty.'
'Drawers-dropping Doreen?' protested Frost. 'Get shot of her!'
'Who is she?' asked Mullett.
'A sex-starved spinster who imagines she's being stalked,' Frost told him.
'I think you'd better get over there, Inspector,' said Wells. 'She's in a hell of a state. She reckons the stalker broke into her house and she's killed him.'
'Shit!' said Frost. 'This is all we bleeding need.'
He took WPC Polly Fletcher along with him. 'Just in case she accuses me of raping her,' he said.
The young WPC gave a weak smile. She wasn't finding Frost very funny at the moment. It could have been her, instead of Liz Maud, who had been picked up by the killer. With her face wiped clean of the tart's make-up she looked about sixteen. Her hands on the wheel were shaking.
'Don't worry, love,' said Frost. 'We'll find Liz.' He wasn't even convincing himself. 'There's the house.' He nodded at the only one in the street with any lights showing.
He thumbed the doorbell. 'Come on, come on,' he muttered, urging the woman on as she fumbled with the locks and chains. The sooner he got this farce over and was back in the station, the better.
Doreen Beatty was fully dressed, a thick grey coat over her skirt and cardigan. She looked distraught. 'I told you I was being stalked but you wouldn't believe me. He got into my bedroom. He would have raped me.'
They stepped inside and she closed the door behind them. 'I couldn't sleep. I went to the all-night supermarket for some milk. When I came back, there he was, in my bedroom. I hit him with my walking-stick. I killed him.'
'Good for you,' murmured Frost, not believing a word of it. 'Where's the body?'
She pointed a trembling finger to an open door. Frost nodded for Polly to take a look as he yawned and consulted his watch.
'Inspector!' The WPC was trying to keep her voice steady. 'You'd better come in here.'
The man was lying face down on the floor, blood from his head staining the beige carpet. A pillow was half-way down the single bed, an empty pillow case on the floor by the sprawled man. Frost felt for a pulse. The pulse beat was strong, but the man was out cold. He straightened up. 'Not dead and not a stalker, Mrs Beatty,' he told her. 'You've knocked out the pillow case burglar.'
'More than half of our unsolved crime figures wiped out in a stroke,' he told Bill Wells bitterly. 'Any other time I'd be over the moon but tonight I don't give a toss.' Polly had gone with the ambulance to the hospital. Slight concussion, nothing broken and he'd be fit for questioning in the morning. 'Morning? It's bleeding morning now,' said Frost, mooching back to the murder incident room.
He steeled himself to push open the door. All heads turned, everyone expectant, waiting for him to come up with an instant solution so they could roar out and pick up Liz unharmed. He flashed a pleading glance to Burton and Morgan who had just finished their phone calls to cab drivers. They both shook their heads. 'Nothing,' reported Burton. 'What do we do now?'
Pray, thought Frost as he peeled the cellophane off yet another pack of cigarettes. Bloody hell. All these men at his disposal, plus — although Mullett didn't know it yet — men from other Divisions standing by on overtime, and nothing to give them to do. Fall on his sword? If he had a bleeding sword he'd skewer himself on it right now.
They were still looking at him, thinking his silence was deep, studied thought instead of blind panic. He sucked down a lungful of smoke. Then, suddenly, his guardian angel decided to soften her heart. He leapt to his feet. 'The mobile phone… she had a mobile phone!'
Burton sighed. What was the fool on about? 'I've tried calling her on it,' he said. 'No reply.'
Frost flapped an impatient hand. 'I know, it's in silent ringing mode. Get on to the mobile phone company. Tell them to pin-point its location.'