Outside, in the car, he radioed through to Liz Maud to tell her that the dead boy wasn't Bobby Kirby and that the search for him should continue. 'If we don't find him tonight, get Bill Wells to organize a search team for the morning. We'll have to pull men in off their rest days — tell him to clear it with Mullett.'
'Right,' she said.
'Circulate all forces with a description of the dead kid. Ask if anyone has reported him missing.'
'Right.'
'Anything you can't manage, let me know.'
'There's nothing I can't manage,' she snapped. 'Over and out.'
'What do you reckon to Ms Maud?' asked Burton, as he tried to get the engine of Frost's car to cough into life.
'Maud can come into my garden any time she likes,' said Frost. 'Hooray!' This because the engine suddenly belched and fired and they were away. 'Put your foot down, son. I can't wait to see what this Chinese slag girlfriend looks like. Oriental nookie turns me on.'
'Oriental women are old and wizened at thirteen,' said Burton.
'Then let's hope she's only eleven,' said Frost.
The house looked promising. Gone midnight, but lights were on downstairs. Burton thumbed the door bell and after a short while a woman's voice called, 'Yes?'
'Police,' said Burton. The door opened on a chain and he pushed his warrant card through the gap. 'I wonder if we can have a word?'
The door opened. She was a stunner. A Chinese girl in her late teens, a doll's face and shiny black hair flowing loosely down her back. She had just showered and she glowed, squeaky clean and wholesome, in a white to welling bathrobe. She smelled of Johnson's baby powder. Her name was Koo Chen, a nurse at Denton Hospital, and she was getting ready for night duty. 'How can I help you?'
Bloody easily, thought Frost, but he let Burton do the talking. 'Is Bobby here?' Burton asked as she led them through to a tiny kitchen, everything spotless and gleaming.
'Bobby?' A flicker of concern darkened her face. 'Bobby is with his mother.'
'Could we speak to his father Mr. Harry Kirby?'
'He asleep. But I fetch.'
Harry Kirby was thickset with tight fair curly hair. Some six feet tall, he towered over the tiny nurse who looked up to him with obvious pride. Straight from bed, he had pulled on a pair of jeans and a grey sweater. 'What's this about Bobby?'
'Is he here, Mr. Kirby?' said Burton.
'Here? Why should he be here?' He glared at Frost. 'What's happened?'
'He's gone missing, Mr. Kirby,' said Frost.
Kirby listened, mouth agape with incredulity, anger reddening his face as Frost told him what had happened.
'That cow left my seven-year-old son alone in the house while she and that dickhead went to the pub?' He looked down at the nurse. 'Shoes!' he commanded. Her eyes widened in alarm. 'Where you go?' 'Round to see that cow and her ponce of a boyfriend and smash their faces in.' She thrust out her chin. 'No you stay here.' 'He's not your son he's mine. Get those shoes!' 'Hold it,' said Frost wearily, his head aching from all the squabbling. 'No-one's going anywhere. We're going to search the house.'
Kirby stared open-mouthed at Frost. 'You think he's here? You think I'm hiding my own son in my girlfriend's house? Where is he behind the attic wall like Anne flaming Frank?'
'He's missing,' explained Frost patiently. 'We don't know where he is. He might have sneaked in without you knowing. So, for everyone's peace of mind, we're going to do a search.' The father went to follow them, but Frost jabbed a finger directing him back to the kitchen. 'Stay here, please.'
Burton checked the ground floor while Frost went up the stairs. First he checked the bathroom. Nowhere a child could hide, or be hidden. Just a wash-basin and a shower. A tin of Johnson's baby powder stood on the window ledge and the nurse's tiny damp footprints showed on the carpet tiles. Next to it was the spare bedroom, not much more than a box room with a single bed and a small, white-painted chest of drawers. Opposite this was the nurse's bedroom, clean, neat and small like the nurse herself. It was just big enough to hold a double bed, jammed tight against the wall to save space, and a dressing-table. In the corner a built-in cupboard. Frost pulled the door open. Men's and women's clothes swinging hangers, a stack of ironing on the shelf and two empty suitcases. He knelt and looked under the bed. Something yellow and wispy was on the floor. A very short, skimpy nightdress with a heady perfume that was not Johnson's baby powder. The thought of slipping into that double bed with the soft, compliant little nurse made Frost almost forget what he was there for and he jerked round guiltily as Burton came into the room.
'Nothing downstairs,' reported Burton.
'Nor up here,' said Frost, 'apart from this!' He held up the nightdress. 'The naughty nurse's nightie… Cor, I bet her little bottom pokes out from under that like a couple of honeydew melons.'
Burton grinned. The joy of working with Frost was that he never let the circumstances of the case he was working on get him down.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Kirby was pulling on a thick duffle coat, anxiously watched by the nurse.
'I come with you,' she announced. She had a slight lisp which Frost was finding disconcertingly stimulating.
'No,' snapped Kirby. 'You get on to the hospital. You could well have two more patients in Emergency, by the time I've finished with them.'
'Go to bed and save your bloody energy,' said Frost. 'If we don't find Bobby tonight, we'll be organizing a search party first thing in the morning and we're going to need all the help we can get, which means you and Dickhead.'
As they stepped out into the street they could hear the car radio pleading for them to answer. 'Can you get over to the mortuary, inspector. The pathologist wants to see you urgently.'
The mortuary, a sombre-looking Victorian single-storey building, was situated in the grounds of Denton Hospital. Burton parked alongside the Rolls-Royce, which gleamed and sneered at Frost's mud-stained Ford. 'Looks like a bloody hearse,' sniffed Frost. There were other cars, a dark blue Audi which Frost recognized as belonging to Evans, the Scene of Crime officer, and the Vauxhall belonging to Harding from Forensic.
Most of the autopsy room was in darkness, but strong lights glared down at one of the tables where a gowned Drysdale, a green waterproof apron round his waist, beckoned the inspector over. Behind Drysdale, notebook in hand, was his ever faithful secretary. Drysdale preferred to dictate his notes rather than use cassette recorders which had let him down on more than one occasion. Evans, also' wearing a green mortuary overall, hovered in the background with his camera. Alongside Evans, similarly gowned, was Harding from Forensic.
The tiny corpse of the boy seemed lost on the large autopsy table.
'I want you to see this,' said Drysdale. He bent over and carefully lifted the boy's right hand, the hand that had been covered by the white plastic bag.
Frost stared and his mouth sagged open. Behind him, Burton gasped. Where the boy's little finger should have been was now a bloodied stump. The finger had been hacked off just above the knuckle. Very gently, he took the cold, waxen hand from Drysdale to study it closer.
'A clean cut,' said Drysdale, almost with a note of admiration at the craftsmanship. 'I imagine a sharp blade was rested on the finger, then hit with something heavy. A single blow was sufficient. The wound was then doused with disinfectant, wrapped in cotton wool and strapped with sticking plaster. The bag was put on, I imagine, in case any blood leaked out.'
'Was it done before, or after, death?'
'Definitely before.'
'Poor little bastard! 'said Frost.
'I doubt if he knew anything about it. I imagine that was why he was chloroformed.'
'Would it have required some degree of surgical skill to sever the finger?' said Burton, peering over Frost's shoulder.
'No,' said Drysdale. 'Just a high degree of callousness.'
'So a nurse could have done it?' suggested Frost.
