‘I see,’ said Frost, wondering if there was more to it than that, if Susan was deliberately avoiding being alone with her stepfather.
‘I heard her going up and down the stairs this morning, but now I think of it, I never heard the slam of the front door. She always slammed it when she went out. Today she must have gone back upstairs to her bedroom. I came down a little after 7.30, washed, dressed and went to work.’
‘And you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?’
‘No. There was nothing to suggest she hadn’t gone to work.’
‘You didn’t look in her bedroom before you left?’ asked Frost, looking for somewhere to flick his ash.
‘I had no reason… but in any case, she hated people going into her room when she was out. So I went to work and my wife went to work and Susan was upstairs dying.’ Again he broke down.
‘So what made you go into her bedroom at four o’clock this afternoon?’ asked Frost.
‘I’d finished early and was home just before four. I phoned Susan at Sainsbury’s to remind her about the groceries we needed and they told me she hadn’t been in to work all that day. I suddenly remembered I hadn’t heard that front door slam. I went upstairs and looked in her bedroom.’ He knuckled the tears from his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ He was apologizing for crying. Frost gave a sympathetic nod and made a mental note to check with Duffy’s firm about him finishing early.
‘Have you any idea why Susan should want to take her own life?’
‘There was no reason — no reason at all.’
‘Was she worried about anything?’
‘She seemed a bit edgy over the last couple of days. We thought something had gone wrong at school… a row with a friend or something… nothing serious.’
‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
‘Stacks of them — no-one steady.’
‘She must have had some reason for killing herself,’ Frost insisted. ‘Family trouble, perhaps? Girls don’t always get on with their stepfathers.’
‘We got on fine,’ insisted Duffy. ‘She was happy at home… doing well at school… everything was right for her.’
‘If everything was right,’ said Frost, ‘she’d still be alive.’ He stared at Duffy until the man had to turn his head away. ‘We couldn’t find her suicide note.’
The knuckles of Duffy’s hands whitened as he gripped hard the arms of the chair to try to stop his body from shaking. ‘There wasn’t one.’
‘My colleague here is pretty certain there was.’
‘If there had been a note, I’d have found it.’
‘Of course,’ said Frost, treating Duffy to an enigmatic smile. ‘Of course you would.’ He studied the glowing end of his cigarette, then casually asked, ‘Was she pregnant?’
‘Pregnant? Girls don’t kill themselves these days just because they’re pregnant.’
‘It depends who the father is,’ snapped Gilmore. Duffy’s head came up slowly, angry patches burning his cheeks. He sprang to his feet, fists balled. ‘What are you suggesting? What filth are you bloody suggesting?’
Frost stepped between them and pushed Duffy back into the chair. ‘We’re suggesting nothing, Mr Duffy. The post-mortem will tell us if she was pregnant, in which case we might want to talk to you again.’
‘I’d like to talk to Susan’s mother,’ said Gilmore. ‘No!’ Duffy leapt from the chair and stood by the door to bar their way.
‘It’s all right, sir,’ said Frost. ‘It won’t be necessary.’ He jerked a thumb at Gilmore. ‘Let’s go, Sergeant.’
Gilmore glared at Frost. Right, you sod. Mullett wants the dirt on you, I’ll find it for him. With a curt nod at Duffy, he followed the inspector out. The sobbing from the kitchen was much softer, weaker. The mother had cried herself to exhaustion.
Outside in the car they watched as a hearse pulled up to collect the body for the post-mortem. Two undertakers in shiny black raincoats slid out the coffin.
‘Well?’ asked Gilmore, impatiently. ‘What do we do about it?’
‘We do nothing,’ said Frost. Before Gilmore could protest, he explained. ‘Look, son, just on a hunch and without any evidence, you expect me to believe that Duffy’s been having it away with his unwilling, fifteen-year-old, schoolgirl stepdaughter.’
‘Yes,’ replied Gilmore, biting off each word, ‘that’s exactly what I expect you to believe.’
Frost took a long drag at his cigarette. ‘If it’s any consolation, son, I agree with you all the way. I reckon he put Suzy up the spout and that’s why she killed herself and that’s why stepdaddy destroyed the suicide note. But we could never prove it. She never made a complaint and now she’s dead.’ He wound down the car window and jettisoned his cigarette end into the gutter. ‘There’s sod all we can do about it.’
‘You want proof?’ said Gilmore, his hand on the car door handle. ‘I’ll get you proof. Let me go and talk to the mother. She must have noticed something.’
‘No!’ Frost grabbed Gilmore’s hand and pulled it away from the handle. ‘You do not breathe a word of this to the mother. Don’t you think the poor cow’s suffered enough? Let it drop, son. That’s the end of it.’
Gilmore stared at the rain. ‘So the bastard gets away with it?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Frost. ‘The bastard gets away with it.’ He started the engine.
The undertakers were sliding the coffin into the back of the hearse.
The light in the upstairs bedroom window went out.
The rain bucketed down.
Monday evening shift
The internal phone grunted and gave its peevish ring. Automatically Wells picked it up and said, ‘No, sir, Inspector Frost hasn’t come in yet… Yes, sir, the minute I see him.’ He banged the phone down and stamped his feet to try and restore his circulation. It was freezing cold in the lobby. The central heating had broken down and wouldn’t be repaired until the following day at the earliest. How he envied all those lucky devils who were down with the flu and were tucked up in their nice warm beds and didn’t have to put up with Mullett bleating every five minutes. He consulted the wall clock. Twenty to ten. Only ten lousy minutes of the shift gone. Still, it was only half a shift. Sergeant Johnnie Johnson was to relieve him at two. So only another four freezing hours of this.
A roar of poncey aftershave as the new chap, Detective-newly-promoted-to-bloody-Sergeant Gilmore marched up to the desk. ‘Where’s Inspector Frost?’
‘No idea,’ beamed Wells, delighted to be so unhelpful. Gilmore scowled at the clock. Frost was ten minutes late already. ‘How do I get a cup of tea?’
‘You make it yourself. The canteen’s closed. The night staff are all down with flu.’
Gilmore scowled again. Detective sergeants didn’t make the tea. He would find DC Burton and get him to do it. As he turned to go he bumped into a woman wearing a red raincoat with the hood up over her head. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, stepping out of her way.
‘Yes, madam?’ asked Wells; Then he recognized her and his voice softened. ‘What can we do for you, Mrs Bartlett?’
‘I’ve got to see Inspector Allen. It’s very urgent. I’ve news about Paula…’
Gilmore stopped dead. Paula? Paula Bartlett? Of course, the girl on the poster, the missing school kid. ‘Perhaps I can help, madam. I’m Detective Sergeant Gilmore. I’m handling the case in Mr Allen’s absence.’
She looked up at him, eyes blinking behind heavy glasses, a dumpy woman in her early forties. Her usually pale face was flushed with excitement. ‘Wonderful news. Paula’s alive. I know where she is.’
‘Mrs Bartlett…’ began Wells guardedly, but Gilmore took her by the arm and drew her away to one of the benches. ‘Where is she, Mrs Bartlett?’
‘In a big house, overlooking the woods.’
His hand shaking with excitement, Gilmore scribbled this down.
‘Where did you get this information from?’ called Wells from the desk.
Gilmore scowled. He was handling this. He didn’t want any interference from the sergeant.
