cupboard under the stairs.'
'Yes,' agreed Frost, 'but these people had to be sure.
They had to do it bloody quickly otherwise Carol would have made her phone call. There's only one way out of here along that four mile lane. The police would have been waiting for them. How did the gang know that the phone in Carol's bedroom was cordless?'
'I've had this house up for sale for the past four months,' said Stanfield. 'We've had estate agents in and out measuring up, we've had prospective buyers and every nosy sod imaginable poking and touching everything with their grubby fingers… any of them could have been casing the place.'
'We'll need names,' said Liz.
'Then get them from the estate agents, darling. They didn't leave flaming visiting cards, just sticky bloody finger marks on the wallpaper.'
'When did your friends offer you the tickets for the show?' asked Frost.
'The day before yesterday. He had to go to Paris on business. Why?'
'I'm wondering how the crooks knew Carol would have been alone in the house last night.'
'They could have been watching the place and picked their moment. We do go out at night from time to time.'
Frost pulled a face. He didn't think much of this explanation. Before he could ask another question, Jordan was beckoning from the doorway. 'Sorry to disturb you, inspector, but it is urgent.'
Frost stood up. 'What was the value of the jewellery they nicked?'
'I haven't added it up around 50,000,' said the woman.
'But you are insured?'
'It's not the money, is it it's the sentimental value.'
'Of course,' said Frost.
Stanfield sprang to his feet. 'And just what are you insinuating?'
Frost switched on his look of injured innocence.
'Nothing, Mr. Stanfield. Nothing at all. Now, if you'll excuse me…'
He followed Jordan into the hall, closing the door behind him. 'What is it, son?'
It was a radio message from Control. A woman had just phoned in reporting her eight-year-old son had been missing since the previous afternoon. Her description matched the dead boy.
Frost swore softly. 'I suppose no-one's given the poor cow any hint that he's dead?'
'No, sir,' said Jordan.
'We'll go in your car,' said Frost. 'Sergeant Maud can stay and finish up here.' He went back into the lounge and quietly explained the position to Liz. 'Got to go,' he told Stanfield. 'Something important has come up.'
Stanfield stared incredulously. 'Something more important than this?'
'Yes,' sighed Frost. 'Something more important than this.'
Jordan negotiated the car round the twists and turns of the narrow lane with much more care and skill than Liz had done. Frost was sitting alongside him, smoking, lost in his thoughts. If the dead boy was her son, how was he going to break it to her? Eight years old… God… He had radioed for Burton to meet him outside the house. He would have preferred to have a woman police officer with him, but they were all out helping with the search for Bobby Kirby. Still, breaking news like this was a job he had done many times before. Too many bloody times.
Jordan dragged him back from his brooding thoughts. 'What do you reckon is behind this abduction, inspector?'
Frost took the cigarette from his mouth and dribbled smoke down his nose. 'I'm not even sure there was an abduction, son.'
Jordan frowned. 'What do you mean?'
'I've come across Stanfield before. He runs this second-hand car business. About four years ago the Customs and Excise were suspicious that he was working some VAT fiddle. The day before they were due to examine his books' there was a mysterious and very convenient arson attack on his office. All his receipts and records were destroyed.'
'And you believe he started the fire himself?'
'I bloody know he did, son, but I couldn't prove it.' He wound down the window and chucked the cigarette end out. 'If you want my utterly biased opinion, last night's escapade was an insurance fiddle… hide the furs and jewels and claim the insurance.'
'But if it was an insurance fiddle,' protested Jordan, 'the girl would have to be in on it as well.'
'Ten out of ten,' said Frost.
Jordan spun the wheel and the track wriggled before turning into Hanger Lane. 'This is where we found the girl… standing in the middle of the road, starkers.'
'You're only saying that to make me jealous,' said Frost. A thought hit him. 'Stop the car!'
The car coasted to a halt and Jordan watched as Frost poked and prodded amongst the undergrowth of the grass verge, then disappeared from view as he squeezed through a gap in a hedge. Rustling sounds, then a whoop of delight and Frost emerged carrying something grey. He climbed back into the car. 'What do you reckon to this, son?'
'A blanket,' said Jordan. 'From a single bed.'
'Exactly.'
Jordan stared at it blankly. He hadn't the faintest idea what the inspector was on about.
'Listen,' explained Frost. 'You're a fifteen-year-old girl, all throbbing thighs and tits. You've been dumped in the road by your father to flag down a car. You're starkers and it's freezing and Dawn's icy fingers are toying with your privates. So what do you do? You take a blanket with you to keep yourself warm. When you hear a car, you chuck the blanket behind a hedge, step in the middle of the road and waggle your dugs. If the car doesn't stop, you retrieve the blanket and wait for the next one.'
'It's possible,' said Jordan, begrudgingly.
'Sniff it,' said Frost.
Jordan lifted the blanket delicately to his nose. 'Perfume?'
'And what's the betting that if you sniffed Simms's greatcoat where it was wrapped round her naked, hot, rampant little body, you'd smell the same perfume?'
'But the gang could have taken the blanket from her bed and wrapped it round her.'
'So why wasn't it still wrapped round her naked little figure when she was flagging cars down?' He sighed. 'But that little mystery must wait, son. We're putting off the pleasure of telling a mother her son has been murdered.' He tossed the blanket on to the back seat and smoked silently until they reached the address given to them by Control.
Kenton Street consisted of large, three-storeyed houses, converted into flats. Burton_was waiting outside number 3a. Frost steeled himself and reached for another cigarette. A few quick delaying drags before he would have to confront the mother. But like Bobby's mother the night before, the woman had seen the police car draw up and was already on the doorstep. Frost gave a deep groan and poked the cigarette back in the packet. 'They can't wait for bloody bad news, can they?' He nodded at Burton. 'Come on, son. Let me do the talking.'
Joy Anderson, a plump, bouncy little brunette in her twenties, anxiously watched them approach, trying to read some sign of hope from their expressions. 'Have you found him?'
'Give us a chance love,' said Frost. 'We've only just got your message.'
They followed her up the stairs to a largish room which overlooked the street. It was basically furnished like a hotel room, with few signs of personal belongings. Two large suitcases stood beside the two-seater beige moquette settee. I
Frost parked himself in a chair by the window. 'How long has Dean been missing?'
She sat opposite him, staring out of the window as she answered, leaning forward hopefully every time someone turned the corner, slumping back when it wasn't her son. 'About half-past two yesterday afternoon.'
'But you didn't report him missing until this morning,' said Burton.
She took one of Frost's cigarettes. He lit up for both of them. 'It's all my bloody fault. I thought he was in bed.' She held the cigarette up vertically and watched the smoke wind up to the ceiling.
Frost didn't prompt her. He let her take her time.
'I've got this job at the Coconut Grove. It's a casino near Denton Woods.'
