sergeant didn’t look the bearer of good news. ‘Just heard from the Forensic team, Jack. They’ve been all over the cottage and found nothing.’
Frost slumped against the wall. ‘There’s got to be something.’
‘It’s been over two months since she was there,’ said Wells. ‘Forensic are bringing in more men to go over the entire place again, but they’re not optimistic. Are you getting anything from Greenway?’
‘Only the bleeding run-around.’
Mullett’s office door opened. He saw Frost and hurried towards him. ‘What joy?’ he asked eagerly.
‘No joy, all bloody misery,’ replied Frost. ‘Unless Forensic can come up with something quick, the best I can charge Greenway with is dangerous driving.’
Mullett’s smile flickered and spluttered out. ‘I hope this is not going to be another of your foul-ups, Frost. I’ve really stuck my neck out with the Chief Constable on this one.’ He spun on his heel and marched back to his office.
‘Let’s hope the bastard chops it off for you,’ muttered Frost to the empty passage.
Back to the Interview Room where Greenway was making great play of nursing his injured hand. ‘I’m in agony. I want medical treatment and I want to go home. You’ve got nothing to hold me on.’
‘Lock the bastard up and get him a doctor,’ said Frost. He felt tired and miserable and even more incompetent than usual.
His office was a hostile dung-heap of bulging files, snarling memos, and complicated-looking returns. Rain splattered against the window and drummed on the roof. He stared out to the rain-swept car-park, and was puzzled be cause he couldn’t see his Cortina, then remembered it had been towed away for repairs after Greenway smashed into it. Gilmore poked his head round the door. He had his hat and coat on in the hope he could nip back home for an hour or so. He’d been on duty solidly since six and a busy night was still looming ahead. ‘Greenway wants to know what’s happening about his dog.’
‘A dog-handler’s on his way to pick it up and take it to kennels,’ Frost told him. ‘You off home then?’
‘Yes… only for an hour… if it’s all right with you.’ Gilmore’s tone implied that it had better be all right.
‘Drop me off on the way, would you, son. I haven’t got wheels.’
Gilmore readily agreed. It was only when he turned the car into the Market Square to take the short cut to the inspector’s house that Frost broke the news that he wanted to be dropped off at Greenway’s cottage. It was miles off Gilmore’s route, but all right, he’d dump Frost off and then get the hell out of there. Frost could find his own way back.
Lights were spilling from every room of the cottage. From the backyard the dog kept up its monotonous yapping. The Forensic team were busy. Hardly any surface was free of fingerprint powder, small vacuum cleaners whirled gulping up dust, hairs and fibres for analysis, men crawled over the car pet with tweezers. Tony Harding, in charge of the team, looked up wearily as Frost entered. Gilmore hovered impatiently behind, scowling at the inspector who had said he would be a couple of minutes at the most and wanted a lift back.
‘Still no joy,’ said Harding, ‘but we haven’t finished yet.’ Frost received the news gloomily. ‘Keep looking. Any clue — no matter how small. A pair of schoolgirl’s knickers, a confession, a half-eaten chicken and mushroom pie.’ He scuffed the carpet with his foot ‘At the moment, all we’ve got is the paint samples on the newspaper.’
‘Ah,’ said Harding, sounding shamefaced. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’ He took the inspector by the arm and led him to one side. ‘The paint sample evidence might not be as conclusive as we first thought. It might not have come from this letter-box.’
A cold shiver of apprehension trickled down Frost’s back. ‘What do you mean? You did a spectrograph analysis. You told me it was conclusive.’
‘Yes… well… it was… up to a point…’
Frost’s shoulders slumped. ‘Get to the bad bloody news. I don’t want the death of a thousand cuts.’
‘We did a spectrograph analysis of the paint sample from the newspaper. There were traces of three layers of paint, the bottom layer brown, the middle a grey undercoat, the top layer black. The spectrograph analysis of the sample taken from Greenway’s letter-box showed three identical paint layers, same colours, same chemical composition.’
‘Yes,’ nodded Frost. ‘That’s the point in the story where I started believing Forensic weren’t the big, useless twats I’d always thought them to be.’
Harding’s faint smile accepted the rebuke. ‘The test was fine as far as it went, but we should have tested other letter-boxes on the girl’s delivery route. This I’ve now done.’
‘And?’ asked Frost, ready to wince, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.
‘Quite a few letter-boxes came up with identical spectrograph readings.’
‘But how the hell…?’
‘Most of the properties on the girl’s route are owned by the Denton Development Corporation. Every four years their maintenance department repaint exteriors… standard colours, standard specification. What I hadn’t appreciated was that Greenway’s cottage is also owned by the Development Corporation. They bought the land some twenty-five years ago for a new housing estate, but haven’t yet found the money.’
‘So it’s received the same coats of identical paint every four years as all the other houses?’
Harding nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. And that means that the girl could have pushed the newspaper through any of those letter-boxes by mistake, then tugged it out again. It doesn’t have to be this cottage.’
‘Thank you very much,’ muttered Frost bitterly, knowing that Mullett would blame him for this. ‘So unless you can find evidence that the girl has actually been inside here, we’ve got sod all to hold Greenway on?’
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ agreed Harding.
Frost wandered across to the window and looked out on to the puddled, muddy back yard where a black shape prowled up and down like a caged wolf. At the end of the garden a sorry-looking shed crouched under pouring rain. ‘You done the shed yet?’
‘Not with the Hound of the Baskervilles out there,’ replied Harding. ‘We’re waiting for the dog-handler.’
As if answering his cue, the dog-handler’s van drew up outside and a short stocky man wearing a padded jacket and thick leather gloves came in, swinging a muzzle and a leash. “What sort of dog is it?’
‘A bloody man-eater,’ said Frost, leading him to the back door.
The dog-handler opened the door a fraction, squinted through the crack, then closed it firmly as the door bulged inwards when the dog hurled himself at it. He didn’t look very happy. ‘I hate Dobermanns. They’re vicious sods.’ He zipped up the padded jacket and pulled the gloves up over his wrists, then nodded. ‘Right. Here goes.’
‘Geronimo!’ said Frost, opening the door just wide enough for the handler to squeeze through. He then shut it quickly and listened to the noises off — several minutes of ill-tempered barking and a lot of swearing.
‘OK. I’ve got it!’
The bedraggled dog, muzzled and shaking with rage, snarled as it was pulled through by the leash. It charged at Gilmore then shook rain all over him as it was dragged off.
Frost beckoned to Gilmore who, frozen-faced, waited with ill-concealed impatience. ‘Let’s take a quick look in the shed, son.’
Shoulders hunched, they splashed to the end of the yard. The rusty padlock which secured the shed door yielded to the first key from Frost’s bunch.
The torch beam danced over rubbish. The shed was stacked roof-high with junk. The dirt-encrusted frame of a deck-chair rested against a rusting lawn-mower. Twisting, crumbling remains of old chicken wire strangled sodden strips of mouldering carpeting, rotting fence posts and jagged-edged sheets of warped plywood. The torch beam bounced from item to item. Junk. Stacks of half-empty paint tins, torn bags spewing damp fertilizer. Useless, hoarded rubbish. Frost tugged at the deck-chair, but this caused paint tins to topple and he had to jump back quickly.
‘Satisfied?’ asked Gilmore, smugly.
Frost’s shoulders drooped. ‘Yes, I’m satisfied, son. A quick poke around the house, then we’ll go.’
He really thought he had found something in the kitchen. On the work top, thawing from the freezer and ready to be popped into the microwave, was Greenway’s planned evening meal. A box of microwave crinkle-cut chips and a chicken and mushroom pie. ‘Stomach contents,’ exclaimed Frost delightedly. He yelled for Harding, who listened and shook his head.
‘They don’t help us, Mr Frost.’ He picked up one of the packets. ‘Both common brands… the market leaders.
