The office phone rang. It was the telephone engineers. Very sorry, but they hadn't been able to trace the call. They were told to monitor the call box outside the antique shop. Frost yelled across for George Martin to get Mrs. Uphill on her phone before she left, then he spun round and ordered Clive to ask Control to send Charlie Alpha two tearing round to the other phone box to wait for Mrs. Uphill. Immediately she received the kidnapper's fresh instructions they were to radio them back to Control.
Frost leaned back in his chair, happy. This is what he could understand, this is what he could do. Action. But something was wrong. George Martin, the phone pressed to his ear, was drumming impatient fingers on his desk.
'Mrs. Uphill isn't answering, Jack.'
'You sure you got the right number?'
In reply the detective sergeant leaned over and turned up the volume of the monitor speaker. The ringing tone of his call roared out. He hung up and the ringing tone was replaced by the dial tone.
'All right, turn it down. You've made your point. Couldn't the stupid cow have waited for a minute?'
Barnard, his shoulder hunched to hold the internal phone to his ear, called across. 'Message from Charlie Alpha two, sir. They're at the new phone box and are waiting for Mrs. Uphill to arrive.'
Frost acknowledged with a nod.
George Martin thumbed some tobacco in his pipe. 'We should have someone following her, sir.'
168 i
'She's on foot,' retorted Frost, 'and she's going tip Bath Road which is as straight as a bloody die. Anyone following would be spotted a mile off. If this bloke's keeping tabs on her, we'd frighten him away. Apart from that, I didn't bloody-well think of it.' He yawned and offered round his cigarettes. Everyone who smoked took one to relieve the tension and the room was soon blue-hazed. No one spoke. The clock ticked. All eyes were on Barnard who was waiting for Control to pass the message from Charlie Alpha that Mrs. Uphill had reached them.
Frost found his chair suddenly hard. He stood and stretched wearily, then looked out of the window. It was snowing again. He flicked ash into the wastepaper basket.
'What was that? Control?'
All eyes swiveled to Clive. They saw him nod, then ease the phone from his ear. 'Charlie Alpha, sir-nothing to report.'
'Then tell them not to be so bloody efficient. I'm not interested in nothing!'
The minute hand on the hall clock clunked round to the next division.
The warning buzzer sounded in the inspector's brain.
'Something's gone wrong. She should have reached there by now.'
Martin tried to reassure him. 'You can't walk very quickly in this snow, Jack-especially in high heels.'
'She won't give a sod about high heels,' snapped Frost. 'She'd run to get her kid back… she'd run: ' He paced up and down, kicking at imaginary balls. The minute hand on the wall clock clunked relentlessly on.
'She's had time to walk all the way to bloody Bath and back by now. Are you sure those two bright herberts are waiting at the right phone box?'
Barnard relayed the query to Control and then reported the reply back to Frost. Charlie Alpha two was waiting in a side road near the phone box by the antique shop. They could see some way down the Bath Road. There was no sign of Mrs. Uphill.
Frost phoned her house again. It was just possible she had returned for something. Brr… brr… The speaker relayed the sad, lonely sound a phone makes when it isn't going to be answered. He thumped the receiver down. 'I remember phoning a girl once…'
But the anecdote was left untold. The hairy face of the station sergeant poked round the door.
'Excuse me butting in, Inspector, but you've got Charlie Alpha two standing by on the Bath Road, haven't you?'
'Yes, Johnnie-why?'
'We've just had a motorist phone in. He's found a woman unconscious at the side of the road. We've sent for an ambulance, but Charlie Alpha could be there in a couple of seconds and I'd like them to get some details.'
The silence was electric. Everyone in the room was thinking… fearing… the same thing.
'Yes-tell Control it's all right, and say that Charlie Alpha has got to wait for me. Come on, son!' He flew out of the room with Barnard hard on his heels. Clive prided himself on his fitness but had a job keeping up with the older man charging across the car park in the snow. By the time Clive had reached the car, Frost had already started up the engine, but he moved to let his detective constable take the wheel.
'Which way, sir?'
'Just follow that ambulance.'
The flashing blue light led them through the darkness like a frantic Pied Piper, hurling round corners, ignoring traffic signals. And then, ahead, another flashing blue light. Charlie Alpha. They skidded to a snow-spraying halt, just avoiding running into the back of the ambulance whose brakes were better than Frost's. A police constable, bending over a shape on the ground covered by a police greatcoat, straightened up as the ambulance men ran over with their stretcher and thick red blanket. They moved so quickly, they were sliding the laden stretcher into the back of the ambulance before Frost and Barnard could reach them. The Inspector yelled for them to stop and pulled the blanket from the face. It was Mrs. Uphill. Eyes closed, face chalk white, looking about fifteen years old.
'How is she?'
'She's had a nasty wallop on the head. Don't think the skull's fractured, though. Lucky that chap found her, otherwise she could have frozen to death.'
The man, wearing a sheepskin motoring coat, was leaning against a yellow Escort and was being questioned by a policeman.
The rear doors of the ambulance clunked shut and its flashing blue light dwindled to a pinprick along the straight-as-a-die Bath Road.
Clive bent and picked something from the ground. It was Mrs. Uphill's handbag. Frost opened it and flashed his torch inside. The usual female brickabrack, but the change purse that should have been there was missing. Clive was detailed to search the vicinity for the PS2000 in the carrier bag, not that Frost had any hopes it would be found.
The man in the sheepskin coat had just finished giving details to the police constable as Frost sauntered over and introduced himself.
'You didn't see anything then, sir?' Frost asked the man when the constable had filled him in.
'No. I just saw her lying there-my headlights picked her out. I thought she'd been knocked down by a hit- and-run. 1 phoned and waited for your chaps, but I didn't really expect I'd have to stand here and answer all these questions. I've got an urgent appointment and I'm late now.'
Frost sympathized with him. 'It's usually the way when you try and help, isn't it, sir? Makes us all the more grateful when, in spite of it all, the public still bothers to assist us. You've got the gentleman's particulars, Constable?'
The police driver handed him the man's driving license. Frost flipped through it; it was all in order. Barnard returned from his search and gave the thumbs-down sign.
'You didn't spot a carrier bag, I suppose, sir?' asked Frost on the off-chance.
The man shook his head emphatically. 'I'm afraid I can't help you any more.' His hand moved to the door handle.
'Just before you go, sir, do you think we could take a look in the boot of the car?'
'The boot? Look-I just stopped to report an accident.'
'Won't take a minute, sir. There's some money missing and my superior would take it amiss if I deviated from my usual high standards and let a car go off unsearched. If I could have the keys, sir…' He held out a demanding hand. The key-ring was thrown into it.
Frost opened the boot and switched on his torch. 'Be over in a flash, sir, I-' And then Frost paused, at a loss for words. The boot was full of small, expensive electronic calculating machines of the type reported stolen from Buskin's Electronics on the Factory Estate. The case inherited from Inspector Allen. The case that Mullen had ordered him to treat as urgent. A quick radio call to Control confirmed that the serial numbers tallied.
The inspector sighed at the thought of all the paperwork this would involve. 'On any other day I'd have been overjoyed to have copped you, sir. Why did it have to be tonight?'
