out for men in track suits or running shorts.” He indicated a pile of walkie-talkie sets on the side table. “Now everyone grab a radio, and make sure it works.”
While the team surged around the table, sorting out the communications equipment, Frost drew Susan to one side. “I know it’s a ramshackle operation, love, but I think it might work. The important thing is you must take no chances. Anything the slightest bit suspicious, let us know even if it means warning our rapist off. I’d rather abort the whole operation than have anything happen to you.”
She smiled. “I think I can trust you, sir.”
“You’re mad if you do,” said Frost. “I wouldn’t trust me a bloody inch. Let’s fit you up with your radio.”
Susan’s transmitter-receiver was concealed in her shoulder bag, the aerial wire running under the strap. A small hearing-aid-type earpiece enabled her to receive messages, and a tiny microphone disguised as a CND badge and pinned to her wind-breaker would transmit information.
She was sent outside into the corridor to test the equipment, the men all holding their receivers close to their ears with the volume turned down low. They didn’t want the sound of police messages to scare their man off. A long pause with nothing coming through. They all checked their receivers and adjusted the fine tuning. Still nothing. Frost opened the door and yelled to ask if Susan had started transmitting yet.
“Can’t you hear me?” she called from the far end of the corridor. She fiddled with the CND badge, and suddenly there was a loud click and a rustling sound from all the receivers as Susan’s voice rang out loud and clear, “Testing, testing, testing…”
Frost radioed back and she confirmed that the receiver was working.
“Hadn’t we better change her radio?” asked Webster, worried that the initial failure might be repeated at a less convenient moment.
“That’s the only one I could find,” said Frost. He sent Sue out again for another test, and this time it worked perfectly. Webster still wasn’t happy. This entire operation was a botch-up, cobbled together at the last moment. It was too risky. Too much depended on luck, which usually stayed away when it was wanted most.
Frost looked up at the wall clock. Eighteen minutes to eleven. “Time to tea ve he called.
Collier and Burton travelled in the Cortina, Webster driving and boiling over because he always ended up the chauffeur. Why couldn’t one of the others drive for a change?
Kenny went on ahead in the patrol car, its lights flashing, the siren warbling. Sue would be travelling with Jordan and Simms in the station’s unmarked van, which would follow on later to give Frost’s team a chance to get established in their concealed positions. Everyone felt excited, laughing and cracking jokes. No-one, apart from Webster, seemed to be taking it seriously.
As the Cortina pulled out of the car park, Burton turned his head and looked out of the rear window at Susan in her tight jeans and T-shirt, waiting by the van. He gave her a wave, then nudged Collier and leered. “Cor, if the rapist doesn’t oblige, I think I’ll have a go raping her myself. Rumour has it she’s very tasty.”
Webster’s face turned crimson. He slammed on the brakes, jerked his head around, and yelled, “Why don’t you shut your face, you coarse bastard!”
Burton rose from his seat, fists clenched, his lip curling back like a snarling mongrel. “Why don’t you try and make me, you hairy sod.”
Frost stuck his arm between the two men and pushed them apart. “Pack it in, you two. You’re like a pair of bloody kids.”
They drove on in uneasy silence. From time to time Burton would whisper something to Collier and the two of them would snigger;
Webster’s knuckles, as he gripped the steering wheel, would get whiter and whiter.
Frost smoked, ignoring it all. His mind was going over his plan again and again, searching for weaknesses and finding plenty. The car slowed down. He looked through the window to see the orange sodium lights of the ring road. He nodded for Webster to stop and let off Burton and Collier, who would approach the stakeout area from this direction, while he and Webster would drive on and approach it by another route. They didn’t want the rapist to see a gang of men all walking up the same side path.
‘ Control your bloody temper, son,” said Frost when they were alone in the car. “You’ll end up hitting someone.”
Yes, you for a start, thought Webster, coasting the Cortina into a lay-by and tucking it tight against a hedge. He made one last appeal to the inspector. “Call this damn thing off before it’s too late. It’s never going to work.”
“I think it will, son,” said Frost, un clicking his safety belt.
“Then you’re a bigger bloody fool than I took you for,” said Webster, throwing caution to the winds. “You haven’t got the start of a decent plan, and you haven’t got anything like enough men, and there’s no backup in case things go wrong. Susan could be beaten up, attacked, raped, and we wouldn’t be anywhere near her. It’s the height of criminal stupidity.”
It was Frost’s turn to lose his cool. He thrust his face very close to Webster’s. “Listen to me, you mouthy sod. Susan Harvey isn’t just your bit of crumpet on the side. She also happens to be a bloody good police officer. She knows the score. We all do. And of course there are risks. The public expects us to take risks that’s why they chuck petrol bombs at us and kick us in the face at football matches. If by taking risks Susan can help us catch the bastard who’s been raping seventeen-year-old kids, then I reckon it’s all worthwhile, even if it puts in jeopardy your chances of knocking her off in bed tonight. So shut your bleeding mouth, son, because your constant whining is getting on my bloody nerves.”
Frost flung open the car door and stamped out, leaving the constable fuming. Webster fought to regain control, then locked the passenger door and climbed out after the inspector. Perhaps Frost was right. Perhaps he was being overly protective about Susan. But that didn’t make this threadbare decoy operation any the safer.
A gentle wind was ruffling the tops of the trees, which seemed to twitch and shrug off its advances. But it was a cold wind. Frost looked up at the sky. Black, the moon obscured by clouds. And the woods were dark and heavy with menace.
Frost shivered, but not from the cold. He suddenly had a feeling that things were going to go wrong. Webster was right. He hadn’t enough men, the planning was half-baked, and it was dangerous. If Webster hadn’t been so smart-arsed about it, Frost might have listened to him, but that scowling, sneering face and waggling beard just increased his stubbornness.
It was darker than Frost had expected. Not too bad when they stuck to the main path, where some of the glow from the sodium lamps filtered through, but as soon as they branched off and plunged deeper into the woods, where trees and shrubs pressed in on each side of them, they had to slow down and almost feel their way through. They needed a torch but daren’t risk drawing attention to themselves at this stage.
A torch! Frost clicked his radio on. “Frost to van. Is sexy Sue there?”
“Sexy Sue here,” came the reply, her voice sounding childlike and breathless through the loudspeaker, almost like the young Marilyn Monroe’s.
“Take a torch with you, Sue. You’ll be able to find your way about better, and if our chum is lurking it will help draw him to you.”
Pleased with himself for having thought of this, he now felt better disposed toward Webster, who was sulkily stamping alongside him. “We’re going to get him tonight, son. I know it.”
“I hope so,” grunted Webster without conviction. He didn’t share Frost’s enthusiasm for the torch ploy. With Susan flashing the torch, the rapist could keep his distance. He would be able to see her without being seen by her.
“I think this is where we turn off,” whispered Frost, his eyes screwed up as he tried to penetrate the darkness. “This is where the seventeen-year-old was attacked last night.” Frost, then Webster, squeezed through the gap in the bushes to reach their pre-selected stakeout stations between two subsidiary paths. First Frost settled down in his position, leaning up against the rough bark of some sort of tree, leaving Webster to flounder on to his own allotted station. He was crashing through the undergrowth like a wounded rhino, and Frost gritted his teeth until the sounds finally stopped as Webster found his position and settled down. “Let’s hope the bastard’s deaf,” Frost muttered to himself. He then checked that everyone was in his assigned position.
“Collier to Base. In position. Over.”
“Burton to Base. In position. Over.”
“Webster. In position. Over.”
