Then, suddenly. “Burton to base. Someone’s coming along the path. Too dark to see yet.”
A pause. Burton’s breathing over the speaker. Then, “I can see him. A man middle-aged, receding hair. He’s got a dog with him.”
Jordan’s voice. “There was a bloke with a dog lurking about last night.”
Frost couldn’t imagine a rapist bringing a dog along with him but wasn’t going to take chances. “Which direction is he heading?”
“He’s gone on to the north path,” reported Burton. “I think he’s heading for the main road.”
“Let’s give him a chance to go, then,” said Frost. He struck a match against the bark of the tree and cupped the flare with his hands as he lit up and settled himself down to wait.
The smell of cigarette smoke wafted across to Webster, who was crouching in wet grass, peering through bramble bushes to the narrow, overgrown path. “I don’t think it’s safe to smoke,” he whispered into his radio.
“You’re a bastard, Webster, but you’re absolutely right,” replied Frost, pinching out the Rothman’s King Size and returning it to the packet. He changed position from one foot to the other. It was boring and tiring just standing still in the dark, keeping dead quiet and waiting. The forest creaked, groaned, and murmured. The wind scuffled leaves, making them sound like stealthy, shuffling footsteps. Twigs snapped for no reason.
Frost found he was lusting for a cigarette. He would have sold his soul for just one puff. He took the packet from his pocket and sniffed the heady tobacco smell, which only made his longing worse. Waiting was hell. He looked at his watch. 11.12. The hands didn’t seem to be moving. Then Jordan called from the van, “Van to Base.”
“Frost. Over.”
“Bait ready to enter woods. Over.”
“Has the bloke with the dog emerged yet?”
“Two minutes ago, sir.”
“Then bloody tell me,” snapped Frost. “I’m not a mind reader. Give us a sound check, Sue.”
“Mary had a little lamb,” whispered Susan into her lapel badge.
“Loud and clear,” confirmed Frost. He did a final check on all the radios, then gave the signal for the girl.
Time: 11.15; very dark, the moon hidden by clouds. Ideal conditions for a rape.
From the van, Simms was able to watch Susan through night glasses right to the point where the main, path veered around to the right. Then she was completely out of sight to the two men in the van.
She walked slowly, trying to appear unconcerned. From time to time she flashed the torch on the path as Frost had suggested. Once she was positive there was someone right behind her, almost touching her. She could hear his footsteps, feel his breath ruffling the hair on the back of her neck. She swung around. The path was empty.
The earpiece emitted occasional bursts of static. “Walking down the main north-south path,” she said very quietly into her lapel badge. “So far, so good.”
“Say again?” queried the earpiece. “We lost you then.”
“So far, so good,” she repeated.
“Roger,” acknowledged the earpiece.
It should have been reassuring to hear a friendly voice, but she was beginning to realize how astronauts must feel, thousands of miles up in space. They could talk to Houston. Houston could talk to them. But if anything went wrong, no matter how many voices were in contact, you were up there on your own. And she felt very much on her own. There was no-one else on the main path. Her feet scuffed through fallen leaves as she walked. At least the crackle of dry leaves should give her warning if anyone tried to sneak up behind her. She flashed her torch down on the path as she walked, beginning to feel more confident. But this was the easy bit. The rapist wouldn’t make his move until she left me comparative security of this main pathway. And she would have to leave it very soon.
“Frost to bait. All OK?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“We keep losing you. To stop us peeing ourselves with worry, Sue, report in a position check every five minutes unless you’re raped beforehand, of course.”
“Acknowledged.” She clicked off the transmit switch. She was now at the safest point of her route, the section where the path hugged the ring road and was warmly splashed with yellow from the sodium lamps. Then the path veered toward the centre of the woods, where the black mass of trees and bushes squeezed out the light and muffled the reassuring sounds of traffic and people.
She was now off the main path, following a smaller side route. Bushes on each side clutched and pulled. Halfway down, she stopped. This wasn’t the route Frost had mapped out for her. She had turned off too soon. She was walking away from the stakeout, not toward it.
She turned. And there was a man, crouching.
She backed away, one hand on the transmit button, the other bringing up the torch. Under the beam of the torch the crouching man changed into a small straggling bush. She started to breathe again and slowly made her way to the main path.
From a long way off, a diesel train bleated as it dragged itself away from Denton Station, a lonely, mournful sound that made her feel more isolated than ever. She quickened her pace. Then stopped.
Footsteps. Slow. Shuffling.
Someone was coming up the path toward her!
Her thumb hit the transmit button. “Bait to Base. I can hear someone.”
Frost’s voice, urgent, worried. “Where are you?”
She didn’t know where she was. That damn wrong turning. Frantically she looked all around, trying to locate some landmark that would pinpoint her position. “Not sure,” she whispered. “About a mile away from you one of the turnings off the main path. I’m not sure which.”
The footsteps, slower now, came closer.
Webster’s voice cut across the transmission. “Let me go and find her.”
“You stay bloody put,” snapped Frost, ‘and keep off the air.” His mind raced. It would be quicker if Jordan and Simms in the van sped round by road to her approximate position and got to her that way. The others could follow. He barked out orders to that effect.
Sue gripped the torch for use as a weapon and waited. It would be a couple of minutes at least before Simms and Jordan could get anywhere near. The bushes ahead shook and rustled, and the shuffling, slow and deliberate now, because he knew he had her, was coming closer … closer…
An old man, small and frail, pushing a pedal bike, gave her a nod as he squeezed past and continued on his way.
She spoke into the mike, hoping they wouldn’t notice how much her voice was shaking. “False alarm. An old man with a bike. Panic over.”
Sighs of relief all round. The van was instructed to return to its previous position
She felt ashamed of herself for panicking. What she had to do now was return to where she had turned off and find the correct path, the one that Frost had marked out for her on the map, report her position, and continue from there.
A small, fairly well-defined, side path veered off to her left. She wondered whether to take it. It should bring her back to the correct route. She moved toward it, then hesitated. Frost had stressed that she must keep to the allotted route or they might not be able to find her.
It was while she was hesitating that the man struck.
A noise. From far off. Webster’s head jerked up. Was it a scream? He radioed to Frost.
“Did anyone else hear it?” the inspector asked. All replies were negative. “You’re out-voted, son,” said Frost, wishing he had never included Webster in the operation. The man was too involved with the decoy. He shifted his position from foot to foot and stretched. Every limb was aching from standing still. He was almost ready to defy Webster and have a surreptitious smoke when the radio clicked, and there was the bearded wonder bleating again.
“Shouldn’t Sue have radioed in by now?”
Frost brought his wrist up to his eyes and squinted at his watch. “How long since she last called in?”
“Five minutes,” replied Webster. “Shall I give her a call to see if she’s all right?”
