before Cordwell rang back to ask about the promised arrest of the kidnapper.
'Mr. Mullett!'
Mullett's brow creased with annoyance as Wells hurried after him. 'Sir Richard Cordwell on the phone. Wants to know if we've made the arrest.'
'Tell him I've left,' said Mullett, pushing open the doors to the car-park. 'Tell him you can't contact me.'
Wells stood by Frost, staring at the undignified sight of the Divisional Commander, overcoat flapping, running to his car. 'Then he wants to speak to you, Jack.'
'Tell him I'm with Mr. Mullett,' said Frost.
Now that there was no need to lie in the open on wet grass, the rain had eased off. He didn't drive straight home. For some reason he detoured and took the road by the golf course, finding himself coasting down Cresswell Street where he stopped outside the house and switched off the engine. The murder house, dark and silent like the other houses in the street, but a different dark, a different silence. A creaking sound. The front gate swinging in the wind, the way it was swinging when Mark Grover came home in the early hours of the morning. Frost climbed out of the car to click it shut, then decided to take a quick look around.
His footsteps crunched up the path. The evening paper was poking from the letter box. No-one had stopped it. It signalled that the house was empty, an open invitation to burglars. He pushed it through and heard it plop on the door mat. On impulse he took the key from his pocket and let himself in. Still the lingering smell of Johnson's baby powder. Still that terrible silence. Not a rustle, not a creak. He dug down deep in his mac pocket for a torch and let the beam creep along the passage. He hesitated outside the nursery blue door, but didn't want to go in that empty bedroom with its row of sad-faced dolls.
On to the kitchen. All the mugs and plates the police had used had now been washed up and the place looked neat and tidy. Crossing to the back door, he undid the bolts and stepped outside to the garden. The original sheet of plywood covering the broken glass panel had been removed by Forensic for tests on the traces of blood and skin tissue. A new square of ply had been nailed securely in place. Was he standing where Snell had stood, where Snell had poked his hand through and let himself in? The same Snell he could have arrested, but had let off with a caution because he was too damn lazy and wanted someone else to do all the paper work.
He stepped back into the kitchen and bolted the door. An involuntary shiver shook his body, so strong was the aura of tragedy that pervaded the whole house. What the hell was he doing here? He pocketed the torch and hurried back to his car where Cassidy, oozing smugness, was calling on the radio, anxious to impart his news.
'Thought you'd like to know, inspector. Forensic have done a quick test. Every indication that the blood and skin on the plywood panel definitely came from Snell. They also found small splinters of plywood on his wrist. So we've got our killer.'
'Terrific!' said Frost, trying to sound pleased.
'I've phoned Mr. Mullett. He's over the moon, although he feels it's a great pity Snell wasn't arrested yesterday. He says he would like to have a word with you about it tomorrow.'
'I can't wait,' said Frost. He clicked off and chucked the radio down on the passenger seat alongside him. Three kids and their mother. Would they still be alive if he had locked Snell up? He had never felt more guilt-ridden, more inadequate and more bloody useless as a policeman than he did right now. He reached into the glove compartment for the bottle of duty frees Shirley had given him.
He shouldn't have drunk the whisky. He tried to work out how long it had been since he had had anything substantial to eat, but gave it up. It was too far back. Too much spirit on an empty stomach. He yawned, but fought off sleep although the urge to close his eyes, just for a few minutes, was almost irresistible. He would drive home and go straight to bed. It required a lot of concentration to start up the engine. Very, very carefully he eased the car from the kerb and turned back towards the town. It was so hot inside the car. He loosened his scarf as he turned on to the ring road.
At first he drove slowly, but gradually, so gradually he was hardly aware of it, the car gathered speed. Huddles of trees and houses swished past and then he was racing down the main road to the town.
Not another car in sight. Ahead of him he could see, in diminishing dots of colour, all the approaching traffic lights pin pricking into the distance like a string of tiny fairy lamps. He wound down the window and let the cold slap of the slip stream cool his head. That whisky was a mistake, a bloody mistake. He was feeling lightheaded. He fought off the urge to drive straight round to Mullett's house, throw stones at his bedroom window and demand, 'If you've anything to say to me, bloody say know.'
At the junction of Bath Road the traffic lights had changed to red, but he took a chance. As the car floated across the junction the vibrating clang of a sudden hammer blow made him jerk forward, snapping against the restraint of the seat belt. Then a splintering and a shattering of glass and the furious blasting of a horn. He slammed on his brakes and stared through the windscreen in dismay. He had shunted a dirty great expensive- looking motor that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
He climbed out of his car, leaning against it for support. The other driver, an indignant woman in her late fifties wearing a full-length mink coat, came striding over to confront him. The coat looked as expensive as her car, a Bentley, all gleaming paintwork and stainless steel. It couldn't have been more than a few months old, but now the front wing was crumpled and the headlight smashed.
She looked ready to scratch his eyes out before getting down to more savage violence. 'You stupid, silly bastard. What's your flaming game? Are you blind or something — didn't you see the bleeding traffic lights?'
The woman and the Bentley blurred out of focus, suddenly clicking back sharp and clear, with every detail of the damage screaming at him. The cold air and the shock of what he had done served to sober him up. 'I'm sorry, love,' he mumbled. 'All my fault.'
'You bet it's all your fault. You could have killed me!'
Her nose quivered. She leant forward and sniffed. 'You're drunk! You're bloody drunk! No wonder you drove straight past the red light. I'm calling the police.' She fished a mobile phone from inside the Bentley. 'Bastards like you ought to be locked up.'
His dejection was complete. As if he wasn't in enough trouble! His medal wasn't going to get him out of this little lot. Mullett would have a field day. But why was the woman studying him, staring at his face? He stared back. Something about her pressed a buzzer, but not loudly enough.
She poked an accusing finger at him. 'I know you, don't I? You're a cop. A bloody cop!' She snapped her fingers as a name came up. 'Frost… Sergeant Jack Frost.'
'You'll never believe this, madam,' he said, leaning heavily against his car as his legs didn't seem to want to support him, 'but it's now Detective Inspector Jack Frost.' He focused his eyes on her. A faint ripple of recollection. 'Do I know you?'
'You ought to, you old sod, the number of times you've run me in for soliciting.'
'Soliciting?' It was difficult to say the word without slurring. He closed his eyes. A mental picture of a thinner, much younger version of the woman, this time wearing a cheap, imitation leopard skin coat. He opened his eyes as the filing index of his mind obliged with a name. 'Kitty Kitty Reynolds. And you haven't changed a bit. Are you still on the game?'
She grinned. 'A different branch of the business. I'm in management now. I run a little specialized house — four girls. I won't tell you where, though.'
'I don't want to know, love,' said Frost, holding up his hand. 'I can't even cope with the cases I've got.' He took a squint at the Bentley and walked as steadily as he could over to it. Now he could see it properly the damage looked even worse. 'I seem to have put a tiny dent in your motor.' He wet a finger and rubbed it over the wing as if that would put it right.
'A tiny dent, you drunken pig? There's nearly a thousand quid's worth of damage there.' She gave a conspiratorial grin. 'But have it on me. I'll tell the insurance company the other motor didn't stop and I couldn't get its number.'
The wind wasn't so cold. The night wasn't so dark. His guardian angel had come back from holiday just in time. 'You're a saint, Kitty, a bloody saint.'
She grinned again. 'I owe you a few favours, Jack — that blind eye you turned when I could have got into serious trouble.'
Frost tried to recall the circumstances, but couldn't. There had been so many blind eyes. 'Don't remember it, Kitty, but whatever I did, it was a pleasure.' He gave her a wave. 'I'd better get off back home before the filth start sniffing around.' He tried to walk back to his own car, but found his legs weren't interested in taking his orders and
