Debbie?”
“Well, I think I did,” whispered the girl. She seemed too shy to look at anyone in the room and kept her head bowed down.
“You think you did?” shouted Dawson angrily. “What do you mean “think”? You told me over the phone you definitely saw him.” He spun around to Mr. Taylor. “Have you been getting her to change her story?”
“Hold hard everyone,” pleaded Frost. “This is getting confusing. I’m a bit on the dim side, I’m afraid, so everything has to be explained very slowly to me. How about starting right from the beginning with not too many long words?” He nodded for Dawson to begin.
“I’m managing director of Dawson Electronics. Tonight was the firm’s annual dinner and dance, which my wife and I attended. As we wouldn’t be back until late, our daughter, Karen, had arranged to go straight from school with Debbie to see a film at the Odeon — Breakdance or some such name they’re both mad on dancing. After the film they were going back to Debbie’s house, where Karen was to stay the night. My wife and I got back home from the function a little after 11.30. I phoned Taylor to see if Karen was all right. He told me they hadn’t seen her. Debbie had turned up outside the Odeon at the appointed time, but no Karen. Debbie waited and waited, but, as Karen hadn’t arrived by the time the programme started, she went in and saw the film on her own.”
“Hold on a minute,” said Frost. “You say Debbie waited for her outside the cinema? I thought the original idea was that they went straight there together from school?”
“Tell the inspector, Debbie,” said Dawson.
“The school closed at lunch time,” said Debbie, her head bowed, talking to the floor. “We were all sent home. The teachers went on strike.”
‘ Did you hear that?” demanded Dawson, quivering with barely suppressed anger. “The teachers went on bloody strike! If they worked for me I’d sack the lot of them. And this isn’t the state-run comprehensive school we’re talking about. This is St. Mary’s.”
Frost nodded. St. Mary’s College for Girls was a very exclusive, extremely expensive private school for the daughters of the filthy rich.
“They kick the kids out, lock up the school, and don’t bother to tell the parents,” ranted Dawson. “If anything has happened to Karen as a result of this, I’ll sue that bloody school for every penny it has.”
As the tirade continued, Frost’s eyes wandered to Mrs. Dawson, who was quietly topping up her glass. She certainly was a seductive piece of stuff. At a guess, she was at least fifteen years younger than her husband, but it was difficult to tell those rich birds knew how to slow down the ageing process. Her low-cut red-and-black evening gown revealed acres of warm, creamy flesh just crying out for exploration. She was, if one were being hypercritical, just a trifle on the plump side, but warm and inviting nevertheless, just like an over-inflated sex doll. She’s wasted on her husband, he thought. I bet he only has sex if it comes up on his agenda. 11.02–11.04, sex with wife, weather permitting. As Frost tore his gaze away, his eyes met Webster’s. He too was taking a sly surveillance. Frost leered and gave the constable a knowing wink. Webster looked away quickly, finding his notebook of consuming interest.
“So the pupils were sent home at lunch time, sir?” Frost prompted.
“Yes. Debbie walked back with Karen as far as the gates to the drive, and they arranged to meet outside the Odeon that evening.”
“What time would this be, Debbie?”
“About a quarter to two,” she told the carpet.
“You would be at work at that time, sir?” Frost suggested to Dawson.
“Of course I damn well was.”
“And where were you, Mrs. Dawson?”
Clare began to reply, but her husband had no intention of yielding the floor and answered for her. “My wife was out at the hairdresser’s. That’s the point. The house was empty, and yet Debbie saw…”
“Debbie can tell us herself,” cut in Frost. He beamed at the young girl. “Tell us what happened, love, and the naughty man with the nasty beard will write it all down.” He had added this for Webster’s benefit as the constable’s notebook looked suspiciously devoid of shorthand.
Debbie spoke so quietly they had to lean forward to take in what she was saying. “I left Karen at the gates at the bottom of the drive. My house is farther on. As I turned and waved to her, I saw
… I thought I saw… someone at the window of Karen’s bedroom. I didn’t pay much attention. I didn’t know the house was supposed to be empty.”
“Was it a man or a woman?” asked the inspector.
She stared hard at the floor. “I can’t be sure but I think it was a man. He was closing the curtains. I only saw him for a second.”
“Closing the curtains? You mean the bedroom curtains were open. The man you saw was pulling them together?”
“Yes. I thought nothing of it at the time. I didn’t know it was supposed to be important.”
Frost rubbed his chin. “Did you see Karen go into the house?”
“No, but I saw her walking up the path toward the house.”
“And she had arranged to meet you outside the Odeon at what time?”
“Half past five.”
“You arrived on time?”
“I was there five minutes early. I waited until six… that’s when the programme started. She didn’t turn up, so I went in on my own.”
“Were you surprised she didn’t turn up?”
Her eyes blinked rapidly behind her glasses. “Yes. She’d been excited about it for weeks we both were and she was looking forward to spending the night at my house.”
“Any idea where she might have gone?”
She shook her head. “No. No idea at all.”
“We’ve phoned all her other friends,” said Dawson. “It’s bloody obvious. She’s been kidnapped. The man was inside the house, waiting for her.”
“Thank you, Debbie,” said Frost, ‘you’ve been a great help. Now, you go off home and back to bed. If you think of anything else, get your dad to phone me.” He dug around in his pocket until he found a dog-eared card, which he handed to Taylor. While Clare was showing father and daughter out, Frost asked for a photograph of Karen.
Max Dawson took a coloured photograph from a mosaic-topped coffee table and handed it to the inspector, who studied it, then passed it over to Webster. A photograph of a schoolgirl, dark, shiny, well-brushed hair, a scrubbed, glowing face with a hint of freckles, a snub nose, and a broad grin. If she was fifteen, then, like Debbie, she looked very young for her age.
“A pretty kid,” smiled Frost. “When was this taken?”
Dawson snapped a finger for Clare to reply. “About six or seven months ago,” she said obediently.
“And how old is she?” inquired Webster, writing the details on the reverse of the photograph.
“She was fifteen last Thursday,” Dawson answered.
“Thank you, sir,” said Frost. “And now a couple of questions for you, Mrs. Dawson.”
She started as he addressed her, catching her glass just in time to stop it from falling over. Then she tried to light a cigarette from a statuette of a visored knight in armour that doubled as a table lighter, but she had difficulty in steering the flame to the end of her cigarette. At last the cigarette was alight, but still she kept the statuette in her hand, fidgeting with it, clicking the flame on and off, on and off. “Yes, Inspector?”
She was understandably nervous, and of course worried… but there was something else… something almost furtive about her. The same furtiveness Frost had seen in the face of Dave Shelby. Later, he would remember how he had linked her with Shelby and all for the wrong reasons.
“What time did you leave the house to go out, Mrs. Dawson?”
“This evening you mean?”
“Of course he doesn’t bloody-well mean this evening,” snarled her husband, snatching the lighter from her hand and putting it on the oak mantelpiece above the fireplace, well out of her reach. “He means when you went out to get your bloody hair shampooed and set.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. The appointment was at two. I left the house shortly after one.”
