'Half a mo.' She gently laid the boy down in the cot and pulled the bedclothes over him, careful to avoid touching the injured arm with its strip of pink plaster. There were tiny flecks of blood on the sheet. 'Lily was in the other room watching- telly when she heard little Tommy crying. When she tried to get to him, she couldn't get the door open.'
'The bastard had jammed that chair under the door handle,' said the man, pointing to the chair the mother was sitting on. Liz made a mental note to ensure it was fingerprinted, and nodded for the woman to continue.
'The kiddy was screaming and she could hear someone moving about. She thought it was burglars. Anyway, she came running in to us and George went straight back with her and managed to kick the door open.'
'Let me tell it now,' said the man. 'I kicked the door open. That window was wide open with the wind roaring in. I nipped across and looked out, but there was no sign of him. The kid was crying fit to bust, so she picked him up and then she spotted the blood and next she was yelling and screaming louder than the bleeding kid. I got my wife to phone the police and the doctor. The rest you know.'
Liz walked over to the window and looked out on to a small back garden. There was a gate in the rear fence leading to a lane. Easy to get in and out without being spotted. The window had been crudely levered open, exactly the same as the other three stabbings. 'Do you know if she's noticed anyone watching the house, or following her?'
'We're not on speaking terms,' said Armitage. 'We wouldn't be in here tonight if it wasn't an emergency. I was one of the people her old man nicked a car radio from, so we're not coming in for tea and biscuits and a chat, are we?'
Liz snapped her notebook shut. She would have to come back again tomorrow when the mother had calmed down. 'Well, thank you very much. Try not to touch anything. There'll be a fingerprint man here in the morning.'
Mrs. Armitage walked with her to the front door. 'Do you think you'll catch him?'
'We'll get him,' said Liz. She wished she shared her spoken optimism. A maniac who had a thing about seeing blood on children. They had no description, no fingerprints they didn't even know if it was a man or a woman, and all of the known sex offenders she had painstakingly questioned had cast-iron alibis. 'We'll get him all right.' The front door slammed shut behind her, but she could still hear the mother wailing.
In the car she switched her radio back on and they told her about the dead boy. She fished out the map and tried to find how to get to Patriot Street.
'She had her damn radio off!' said Wells incredulously. 'What does the silly cow think we give her a radio for — just to keep in her bloody handbag?' The phone rang. 'Yes?' he snapped.
It was Mullett and he sounded just the tiniest bit drunk. 'My wife tells me you've been trying to reach me, sergeant.'
Wells clapped his hand over the mouthpiece and yelled for Lambert to call back the area car. Then he told Mullett about the murdered boy.
Mike Packer stamped his feet and flapped his arms. It was damn cold. He wished he could go back on his beat and walk around to keep warm, but he had been delegated to stand with a cupboard and record details of everyone who approached the body. So far he had recorded himself, PCs Simms and Jordan, DC Burton and the two Scene of Crime officers in their white overalls who had screened off the area, plus, of course, the police surgeon who was in and out in a flash, simply confirming the boy was dead and the circumstances were bloody suspicious. Across the road Jordan and Simms, in the warmth of the area car, were waiting to be told what to do. No sign yet of the pathologist, nor Detective Inspector Allen who should be in charge.
An old Ford Escort wheezed round the corner and shuddered to a halt. Simms nudged Jordan who climbed out of the area car, ready to send the newcomer away. But the man getting out of the car, maroon scarf streaming in the wind, was Detective Inspector Jack Frost. What was he doing here? He should be on holiday.
Burton, kneeling by the body, heard the car draw up and swore softly. Control had told him that Detective Sergeant Liz Maud was on her way over, so this must be her. The pompous little cow would soon start taking charge, lording it over everyone and barking out her orders. But that raucous laugh that came slicing across the gloom had him hurrying out. There was only one person with a laugh like that.
Frost took a quick look round the scene. Everything seemed to be in order. The street was cordoned off and a tent-like structure erected around the shop doorway. A small generator installed by the SOCmen chugged away, providing the emergency lighting, and everyone seemed to be doing what they ought to. He nodded happily to himself. DC Burton was competent enough to handle all the fiddling details.
'Right,' he said, after lighting up one of Mullett's cigarettes for Burton, 'I'd better know what we've got, just in case some nosy bastard asks.'
'Dead boy, aged about seven,' said Burton, leading him to the body. 'Believed to be Bobby Kirby, reported missing from home. Mother separated from husband. She and her boyfriend nipped out to the pub for a couple of hours leaving Bobby watching telly. When they got back around ten o'clock, Bobby wasn't there.'
The body was still in the plastic sack and wouldn't be removed until the pathologist, a stickler for insisting on things being left exactly as found, had examined it. Frost knelt down and looked at the white face, the brown plastic masking tape round the eyes and mouth still in place. He shook his head sadly. 'Poor little sod. Have the parents been told?'
'Not yet,' Burton told him. 'We're waiting for Mr. Allen.'
'Rather him than me,' said Frost. He peered more closely, his face tight with compassion. 'What dirty bastard did this to you, sonny?' He examined the tape binding the mouth, and the dribble of vomit. He sniffed. That smell. What the hell was it? He knew it from somewhere
… Of course, the hospital. It was always lingering around the ward when he went to visit his wife, when he sat by the bed for hours on end to watch her slowly dying. He worried away, trying to identify it, but gave up. It wasn't his case, so it wasn't his problem. 'Cause of death?'
'The police doctor thinks he might have choked to death on his own vomit.'
'How long dead?'
'Wouldn't commit himself. He said ask the pathologist.'
'Helpful bloody bastard.' Frost straightened up and squinted at his watch. 'Where the hell is Allen?'
'He and Mr. Mullett are on their way over now, sir,' Burton told him.
'Mullett? Don't let him see your fag, son… he might recognize it as a long-lost friend.' Frost took one last look at the body. 'I'm only the token inspector, so just carry on until Smart-arse gets here.' He found a dustbin to sit on while he waited.
Detective Sergeant Liz Maud skidded round the corner. She knew she was driving too fast, but she was in a state of high excitement. A murder case! Her first. And Inspector Allen unavailable. Now was the time to make her mark.
As she parked tight into the kerb behind a police car, she glanced across the road and frowned. The area was supposed to be cordoned off, but there, sitting on a dustbin, hunched up against the wind, was an old tramp dragging on a cigarette. How had the fools let him get so close? Heads would roll for this. She flung open the door of her car and sprang out. 'Hey you!' The man, who was in the process of flinging his cigarette end into the gutter, looked up briefly, then, ignoring her, rose to walk towards the canvas enclosure where the body was. She frowned in disbelief as the two fools in the police car in front of her just sat and watched.
Liz raced across the road, fumbling in her shoulder bag for her warrant card. 'You in the mac hold it!' She shoved her warrant card in his face.
Frost barely gave it a glance. 'No thanks, love I've already got one.' Then he was yelling at two uniformed men who were starting to shift the sacks of rubbish out of the way. 'Leave them be! I want them checked for prints and examined.' He turned to Liz and introduced himself. 'Detective Inspector Frost. You must be new?'
She managed to keep her voice calm, but inwardly she was boiling. Her one big chance and this idiot had to come back from holiday early. 'Detective Sergeant Liz Maud. I was transferred from Fenley Division last week.'
Frost eyed her. In her late twenties, a bit on the thin side, her dark hair scragged back emphasizing her sharp features. But she wouldn't be a bad looker if she took a bit of trouble and wore something different from that drab grey and black striped skirt and jacket.
'All right if I have a look at the body, inspector?'
Frost spread his hands. 'Be my guest, love. I'm only keeping it warm until Allen turns up.'
She winced at the 'love' but tried not to show her annoyance. Before she could move, a sleek black car
