‘You got a warrant?’ she screamed.
‘Would I come in without one?’ asked Frost in a hurt voice, patting the forged car expenses in his inside pocket as he marched up the passage and into the kitchen.
‘Yes, you bloody would,’ she yelled, charging after him.
Frost drew a chair up to the formica-topped table and plonked himself down. He jerked his head for Gilmore to have a quick look round for a lurking Wally.
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ she yelled as Gilmore clattered up the stairs.
‘He wants to use the toilet,’ Frost explained. ‘He had curry for breakfast and it’s given him the runs.’
Ear-rings and breasts quivering, Belle glowered. She flopped down in the chair opposite him. Frost gave her a friendly smile. ‘You’re looking well, Belle.’
‘You’re not,’ she snapped. ‘You’re looking old and scruffy.’ She waved away the offered cigarette. ‘I don’t smoke.’ Then her face softened. ‘Sorry to hear about your wife.’
‘Thanks,’ muttered Frost. An awkward silence. She’d thrown him off balance. He lit up and waited for Gilmore’s return.
A kettle on the gas-ring rattled its lid and whistled. Belle heaved herself up and turned off the gas.
‘Two sugars in mine,’ said Frost.
‘You’ve got the cheek of the bloody devil,’ she snapped, banging three mugs on the table and hurling a tea- bag in each. Gilmore came in, shaking his head. Wally wasn’t in the house. ‘What did I tell you? I haven’t seen him for days.’ smirked Belle, filling the mugs from the kettle and slopping in milk ‘Help yourselves to sugar.’ She slid the mugs over.
‘So where is he, Belle?’ said Frost, spooning out the dripping tea-bag and depositing it on the table.
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know.’ She leant back to reach an opened box of Marks and Spencer’s Continental chocolates from the dresser and wrenched off the lid. A chocolate truffle disappeared into her mouth and was washed down by a swig of tea.
‘When did you last see him?’ persisted Frost.
Her face contorted as she gave her impression of thinking deeply. ‘Last Friday. He goes away a lot on business. I hardly ever see him. He only comes back for you know what and that only lasts five minutes on a good day.’
Frost nodded sympathetically. ‘We’ve got him down in our files as a quick in and out merchant, Belle.’ His finger worried away at his scar. ‘He doesn’t take his van when he goes away, then?’
‘His van?’
‘The blue one outside.’
‘Oh that,’ sniffed Belle. ‘No. It’s broken down.’ As she spoke, the front door slammed. Her head jerked round. She looked worried. Quick footsteps along the passage. At a sign from Frost, Gilmore was up out of his chair, standing by the door, ready to grab the newcomer.
‘Mum, have you… Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were with clients.’ It was a young girl.
Belle forced a smile. ‘It’s the police, Diedree… I was just telling them we hadn’t seen your dad since Friday.’
Deidree Manson, fifteen years old, in a leather jacket and a short skirt, was a scaled-down replica of her plump mother, even down to small, curtain-ring ear pendants, but with sandy-coloured hair which had not yet made the acquaintance of the bleach bottle. She stared blankly at her mother. ‘Dad? Oh yes… of course. We haven’t seen him for days.’
Frost flicked ash into his tea mug. ‘Clients? Are you back on the game, Belle?’
‘Thank you very much!’ mouthed Belle to her daughter. To Frost she said airily, ‘I oblige the odd gentleman. Just for pin money.’
‘Yes. Some of your clients are bleeding odd,’ said Frost, pushing his mug away. ‘I hope you disinfect your crockery.’ He swung round to Deidree. ‘No school today?’
‘Half-term,’ she replied laconically, helping herself to a strawberry cream.
‘What school do you go to?’
‘Denton Modern.’
The same school as Paula Bartlett. Frost asked Deidree if she knew her.
Her tongue snaked out to catch a straying dribble of chocolate juice. ‘She was in my class. Bit of a drip. Nose always stuck in a book. Had no interest in boys or sex or pop music or anything.’
‘What about the teacher, Mr Bell?’ asked Frost casually. ‘What sort of a bloke is he?’
Deidree chomped and shrugged. ‘Boring. I think Paula had a crush on him. Two drips together.’
A brisk rat-tat-tat at the door made Belle frown and consult her wrist-watch. She beckoned Deidree over for an enigmatic message. ‘If it’s “you-know-who” for “you-know-what”, tell him it’s inconvenient at the moment. Can he call back later?’
Frost watched Deidree’s plump little bottom wriggle through the door and wondered how long it would be before she was invited to join the family business. ‘We’re going to have to search the place, Belle. Wally’s been naughty.’ He stood and signalled for Gilmore to follow.
Belle leapt up to block their path. ‘I want to see your warrant, first.’
He pulled his car expenses from his inside pocket and flashed them under her nose. ‘Satisfied?’ Before she had a chance to examine them, they were back in his pocket.
‘All right,’ she nodded reluctantly. ‘But don’t make a mess — and don’t pinch anything.’
A door in the hall led to the lounge. ‘We’ll start in here, son.’ They were about to enter when there was a sudden angry burst of protestations from the disappointed client at the front door. ‘If he won’t go away,’ called Frost, ‘tell him I’ll cut off his “you know what” and stuff it up his “he knows where”.’ Silence. The front door slammed.
It was a smallish room jam-packed with Belle’s pin-money purchases of new furniture and dominated by an enormous 28-inch twin-speakered colour TV and a stereo video both housed in a mahogany-veneered, Queen Anne style cabinet. Frost nudged Gilmore and pointed. On top of the cabinet lay a familiar-looking box holding a video cassette. The box was white with a typed label which read: Till The Blood Runs — Canings amp; Whippings. The same title as one of the porno graphic videos removed from the newsagent’s. ‘Belle!’ he yelled.
‘I know nothing about it,’ said Belle as she waddled in. ‘Something Wally brought home.’ She looked at the label. ‘Canings and Whippings? A bit too strong meat for my clients — it would give the poor old sods a heart attack. If you want to know about dirty videos, ask our Deidree. Some bloke wanted her to make one.’
The young girl was called in. ‘Pornographic videos,’ said Frost. ‘Your mother says you were approached. Tell me about it.’
Deidree leant against the door frame and eased some toffee away from her back teeth with her finger. ‘Nothing much to tell. We were coming out of a disco one night when this bloke came across from a posh car and asked me if I wanted to earn myself fifty quid posing in the nude with him for a video. I told him to stuff his video camera right up his arse.’
‘I’ve always brought her up to be a decent girl,’ said Belle proudly.
‘What did he look like?’ asked Frost. ‘Would you know him again?’
‘Old — about forty. Dressed to the nines — shirt and tie and all that stuff: Darkish hair. I might recognize him again, but I’m not sure.’
Frost dismissed them both with a flick of his hand. He couldn’t waste time on this — porno videos were very low on his list of priorities. A quick search of the lounge revealed nothing. ‘Right, son. Up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire.’
He sat on Belle’s soft-mattressed double bed with its plump purple eiderdown and watched Gilmore opening and shutting drawers. A packet of Hamlet cigars lay on the dressing table. Frost shook it hopefully. It rattled. There was one left. He lit it, stretched out on the bed and contentedly puffed smoke across to the detective sergeant.
‘Excuse me,’ said Gilmore huffily, annoyed that Frost wasn’t helping. He leant over to tug open the drawer of the bedside cabinet. Packets of contraceptives… small aerosol cans. He seized one of the cans and showed it to the inspector. ‘Look at this!’
Frost sat up and blinked at the label. ‘Nipple Hardening Spray! I don’t believe it.’ He examined the can from all angles. ‘This could make a man’s thumb obsolete.’
