“No,” said Frost. “Just something we’ve got to look into. I might be back to you later on, sir. If there’s any news, that is.”
Tuesday night shift (4)
Upstairs, the party was throbbing away louder than ever and showing no signs of breaking up. Wells heard stamping, shrieking, roars of laughter, and the sound of glass smashing. A load of bloody hooligans, he thought as he tried to hear what the caller was saying. “I’m sorry, sir, bit of a disturbance outside. Would you mind repeating that?”
The man sounded out of breath and was barely whispering into the phone.
“I’ve found a body. In Denton Woods. A girl.”
Wells stiffened. Another body! Just when he was praying for a nice, quiet, peaceful night. With his free hand he knuckled the panel to Control and, when Ridley opened it, signalled for him to listen in on the extension.
“A girl’s body, you say, sir?” He picked up his pen, ready to write down the details.
“That’s right. A young girl.. ‘. a kid.”
A kid! The sergeant’s first thought was of the previous call he had logged. Karen Dawson, fifteen, missing from home since this afternoon.
“I see, sir. And where exactly is she?”
“I told you. In Denton Woods. Off the main path, behind some bushes.”
“Where in the woods, sir? We’ll have to have the exact location.”
A pause, then a click and the line went dead. The caller had hung up.
Wells replaced the receiver and cursed. “Damn!”
“Sounded a nutter to me,” called Ridley, hanging up the extension.
Wells nodded. They were always receiving bogus calls from cranks with a grudge against the law, who took delight in wasting police time and money. But you couldn’t take chances. It had to be assumed that all calls were genuine until proved otherwise. “What cars have you got?” he asked the controller.
Ridley didn’t need to consult his map. With half the strength drinking themselves stupid upstairs, only two cars were available, and one of them, PC Shelby’s patrol car, was failing to respond. This was not untypical of Shelby! “There’s only Charlie Alpha, Sarge, and that’s on the way to a domestic on the red-brick estate.” A ‘domestic’ meant a family row or disturbance.
“Forget the domestic,” he was told. “I want Charlie Alpha to divert immediately to Demon Woods.” He vented his annoyance by kicking the leg of his desk. “One bloody area car! How am I supposed to cover a division of this size with one lousy area car?”
Shutting his ears to the sergeant’s moans, Ridley thumbed the transmit button and called Charlie Alpha. While he waited for the response, he asked, “Exactly where in Demon Woods, Sarge?”
“How the hell do I know?” snarled Wells. “I’m not a bloody mind reader! You heard what he said off the main path, behind some bushes.”
A burst of static from the loudspeaker. “Charlie Alpha to Control. On our way to domestic on the red-brick estate in response to your previous message, over.”
“Forget the domestic, Charlie Alpha. Proceed immediately to Denton Woods and initiate search. Anonymous report of young girl’s body behind bushes, off main path. Over.” He waited, his thumb hovering over the transmit button, for Charlie Alpha to request the precise location.
“Would you give us a more precise location, Control? There are main paths running the length and breadth of Denton Woods.”
“That is all the information we have, Charlie Alpha,” replied Ridley in an aggravatingly reasonable voice. “Over and out.” He heard the door open behind him as Wells came into the room.
“But there’s four hundred acres of woods, miles of paths, and thousands of bloody bushes.. Charlie Alpha pointed out.
Wells was getting fed up with this. He snatched the handset from Ridley. “Then you’ll be spoiled for bloody choice, won’t you, Charlie Alpha? Just go and look for her and don’t bloody argue!”
“Over and out,” said Charlie Alpha hurriedly.
Ridley stuck the marker for Charlie Alpha in the green-coloured expanse of Denton Woods on his wall map. “They’ll need some help, Sarge. Should we break up the party?”
Wells pinched his nose and gave it some serious thought. It was tempting, very tempting, and it would serve those noisy sods right to be turfed out into the dark and cold to search the woods. But if the call turned out to be a hoax and he had deployed half the force on a fruitless search, all on overtime, he’d never hear the last of it. Mullett would grind on and on about it for weeks. On the other hand, if it was genuine and he ignored it — He groaned. He was in a no-win situation.
To play it safe, he decided to phone Jack Frost. It might be his missing schoolgirl, and if the inspector wanted more men, it was up to him to ask for them. He picked up the phone and dialled the number of the Dawson house. “Denton Police here, sir. Sorry to trouble you, but I wonder if I could have a word with Detective Inspector Frost?”
The traffic lights glowed an angry red in the darkness as Webster ignored them, speeding the car straight across the road junction. “Slow down, son,” Frost murmured. “There’s four hundred acres of forest to search. The odd second isn’t going to make much difference.”
Frost’s request received the same sort of treatment as the traffic lights, and Webster’s foot pressed down on the accelerator. Watching the street lights zip past at seventy-five miles an hour, Frost checked that his seat belt was fastened, then fumbled in his pocket for the photograph of the missing girl and studied it gloomily. I hope this body isn’t Karen Dawson, he told himself. I’d hate to be the one who had to break the news to her father. Break the news! He sat up straight and banged his fist on the dashboard. “Knickers! We were supposed to be breaking the news to Ben Cornish’s old lady. What time is it?”
Webster twisted his hand on the steering wheel so he could see his wristwatch. “Ten past one.”
Frost settled back in the seat, relieved it was too late to do it tonight. “We’ll do it tomorrow, first thing. It’ll be our number-one treat before the post-mortem.” He paused for a second. “Are you any good at breaking bad news, son?”
“No,” said Webster hurriedly. The inspector wasn’t dumping that rotten job on him.
“Pity,” sighed Frost. “I’m bloody hopeless. How do you tell someone their son was found dead, choked in his own vomit, floating in a pool of piddle. There’s no way you can tart up that sort of news.”
They were approaching the dense blackness of the woods. Frost scrubbed the wind-screen with his cuff and squinted through, trying to locate Charlie Alpha. “There it is, son,” he yelled, pointing to the white-and-black Ford Sierra tucked neatly into a lay-by. Webster coasted the Cortina snugly in behind it.
The wind slashed at them as they left the warmth of the car. Frost wound his scarf tighter and buried his hands deeply into his mac pocket as they trudged along a path in search of Jordan and Simms, the Charlie Alpha crew. Webster was the first to spot the dots of torch beams bobbing in the distance.
The path they followed twisted and turned, so it was nearly five minutes before they heard low voices. A sharp turn, and just ahead of them were the two uniformed men, Jordan and Simms, greatcoat collars turned up, huddled against the trunk of an enormous oak tree, dragging at cigarettes. At the approach of the detectives they spun around guiltily, pinched out their cigarettes, and snapped to attention.
“Hard at work, I see,” said Frost.
They grinned sheepishly. “Have you come to give us a hand, then, sir?” asked Jordan, who sported a drooping, Mexican-bandit moustache.
“You mean to say you haven’t found her yet?”
“Found her, sir? Some nutter phones the station and says there’s a body behind a bush, and me and Simms are supposed to search four hundred acres in the dark. It’s bloody ludicrous.”
Frost showed them Karen Dawson’s photograph. “There’s a chance it might be this kid. She’s fifteen years old, missing from home since one o’clock this afternoon.”
They studied it under the light of Simms’s torch. “Why should it be her?” asked the moon-faced Simms. “As
