She pulled the cigarette from her mouth and spat out the answer. 'Don't you think I've reproached myself? I thought she'd be all right. Just this once, I didn't meet her…' And then her anger crumbled and her body shook with dry spasms of tearless grief. Clive raised himself from his chair, ready to bound across and comfort her, but a warning glance from Frost pushed him back.
Frost's hand shot out and grabbed the woman's shoulder. 'Listen. There was a man lurking outside that Sunday school last summer trying to molest the kids. You knew about him. Ever since then you've met her. When the sun was streaming down you met her. But yesterday, when it was pitch dark, you thought she'd be all right. Why?'
She shook off his grip and screamed at him, 'Leave me alone, you bastard!' And then she sobbed into her hands, tears squeezing between her fingers. Frost brutally pulled the hands away and shoved his face close to hers. 'I don't care a sod about your feelings, Mrs. Uphill. AH I care about is getting your daughter back and I expect you to help, not go into bloody hysterics. Why didn't you meet her?'
She recoiled as if he'd slapped her face. 'I… I had a man here.'
Frost beamed and settled down in a chair, his tone friendly and cheerful. 'A regular?'
She nodded.
'Was he late?'
She dabbed her eyes with one of the few Kleenex tissues remaining in the box and compressed it in her hand.
'Yes. Usually he was away by 3:30. That gave me plenty ' of time to meet Tracey. But yesterday he said his train was late, or canceled, or something. It was nearly 3:30 when he arrived.'
'What time did he usually come?' Frost, who had a memory like a sieve when it came to detail, glanced across the room to make sure Barnard was jotting down the times in his notebook.
'2:30.'
'You'd better let us have his name and address.'
She shook her head.
Frost insisted. 'I'm afraid you must, Mrs. Uphill. I know you ladies have this Hippocratic oath to protect your clients' identities.…'
'It's not that,' she cut in. 'I don't know his address, or his name. He said it was Bob, but they don't usually tell you their right names.'
'What time did he leave you yesterday?'
'About 4:25. But what has this got to do with Tracey?'
'Probably nothing, but he left as she was coming out of Sunday school. He could have seen her. Describe him.'
'Well, he had a beard-'
Frost's mind raced. A beard! The man trying to entice the kids into his car… He had a beard.
The description, she gave was detailed-very detailed- right down to the appendix scar. Age thirty-four or thirty-five, light-brown hair and beard, brown eyes. From some of the other things she'd observed, Frost decided she must have seen him from some pretty unusual angles.
While Clive's pen was racing to get it all down, Frost produced the photograph. 'Anyone you know, Mrs. Uphill?'
She stared at it. 'No!'
'We found it in Tracey's room, hidden in a book.'
Her face froze in disbelief. 'Tracey's room…? You couldn't have…'
'Would it be one of yours, perhaps? I understand you ladies keep a supply of stimulating snapshots to help some of your clients get ready to perform.'
'I haven't found that necessary!' she snapped.
'Perhaps she found it somewhere,' said Frost, blandly, pushing it back in his pocket. 'It means nothing to kids. Well, thanks for all your help. As soon as there's any news…'
She saw them out and watched them walk to the car. Curtains twitched at windows on each side of the street.
'Bloody nosey neighbors,' snorted Clive, 'and none of them bothered to go in and comfort her. In London you wouldn't have been able to move for women making pots of tea.'
But Frost was looking through the car window at the figure in the doorway. 'If I had thirty quid to spare, son, I'd ask you to keep the engine running for five minutes.' He shivered. 'Hurry up, it's cold. Bung on the heater.'
Clive started the engine. 'Back to the station, sir?'
No reply. Frost was deep in thought. Suddenly he snapped out of his trance. 'Tell me, son, why the hell should anyone want to jemmy the front doors of a bank at three o'clock in the morning?'
'Eh?' said Clive, wondering what the hell this had to do with Tracey Uphill.
'Someone tried to jemmy the front door of Bennington's Bank in the Market Square in the wee small hours of this morning. I'm wondering why.'
'To force an entry, sir?' suggested Clive, in the tones of one explaining the obvious to an idiot.
Frost snorted. 'Through the front door of a bank? The big main doors?'
Clive tried again. 'Perhaps someone just wanted to damage the door, someone with a grudge against the bank.'
The inspector wasn't having this either. 'You could do more damage peeing through the letterbox. Ah well, life has its little mysteries. Well, come on, son, what are we waiting for? Reverse and back out the way we came.'
Barnard reversed. 'Where are we going, sir?'
'To find this lucky sod with the beard, the appendix scar, and the weekly season ticket.'
'And how are we going to do that?' persisted Clive.
1 Frost smiled and rearranged his scarf. 'If he came by train, we start with the railway station. I'll tell you the way.'
They passed a dark, gloomy building. Frost jerked a thumb. 'That's the vicarage and Sunday school. The church is farther back.'
'Looks a bit of a dump, sir.'
'Yes. My wife's buried in the churchyard.'
An uneasy silence as the journey proceeded, then: 'Doing anything for Christmas, son?'
'I don't know yet, sir.'
'I'm on duty Christmas Day. You can come on with me if you like.'
Christ, thought Barnard, I'd rather have all my teeth out. Aloud he said, 'I might have to go to my uncle's.'
'Well, don't say I didn't offer,' replied Frost. 'Oh, we should have turned right at that crossing.'
MONDAY-4
A taxi was parked on the railway station forecourt; there was no sign of the driver. Clive pulled up alongside and the two men got out. The sky was darkening and the wind had gathered strength since the morning.
The booking office was empty, the platforms deserted, no signs of porters or ticket collectors.
'The mystery of the Mary Celeste,' murmured Frost, leading Clive past the ticket barrier to a door painted olive-green and marked 'Staff Only'. Voices bubbled gently from inside. The inspector quietly turned the handle and crashed the door open.
'All right-nobody move!'
A tiny room reeking of shag tobacco, over-stewed tea, and sweat. Four startled heads jerked to the door. A small bald man clutching an enormous brown-enameled teapot was the first to recognize the intruder.
'It's the bloody fuzz! They can't catch crooks, but they can smell a teapot a mile off.' Then he smiled. 'Come on in, Jack.'
They squeezed in. The room now held six people and very little air. Apart from the detectives there were the
