this mess. You get us out of it.' He strode to the door, then spun round, pointing a finger at the inspector. 'I want a result on this, Frost. I want a watertight case against Finch and the boy returned safe and sound. The boy's safety is paramount. I don't care how you do it… but stick to the rules.'
'Thanks for sod all,' muttered Frost. He stood up and stretched wearily. He'd have to have another word with Finch… try a bit of subtlety like threatening to tear his dick off.
His path was again blocked by Cassidy.
'Whatever it is, it can wait,' said Frost.
'It can't wait,' said Cassidy, 'and it won't take more than a second of your valuable time.' He unfolded a small sheet of paper and waved it at Frost. 'Something you might recognize.'
Frost bent forward to read it. A car registration number. His stomach tightened. He knew what it was.
'This,' said Cassidy, waving it in front of Frost's face, 'is the registration number of the car that killed my daughter. The BMW, the car you said didn't exist. The car where Tommy Dunn was seen talking to the driver.'
'How did you get it?' asked Frost.
'Never mind how I got it. You were given this registration number at the time. You conveniently lost it.' He pushed his face right up to Frost. 'How much did the drunken sod of a driver pay you and Tommy to keep him out of it, you bastard?'
Frost said nothing.
'I'm going to trace the driver and I'm having the case reopened,' said Cassidy, his face a mask of disgust. 'See if your damn medal can get you out of this!'
'Hold it, Cassidy!' Heads jerked round. Arthur Hanlon, who had been sitting quietly by the radio, was coming over. Normally placid, his face was as flushed and angry as Cassidy's. 'You don't know the facts.'
'Facts?' echoed Cassidy. 'Frost lied his bloody head off and a drunken pig of a motorist was let free. Those are the facts.'
'If he lied,' said Hanlon, pushing between Cassidy and Frost, 'then he did4t for you, you bastard.'
'For me? What are you bloody talking about?'
'How well did you know your daughter?'
'How well? I was her father, for Christ's sake!'
Frost tugged atJHanlon's sleeve. 'Leave it, Arthur.' But he was shaken off.
'You were her father,' said Hanlon, 'but how often did you see her? You were career mad. The job came first, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day sod your family, you hardly ever went home. You didn't know what she was getting up to.'
'Getting up to? She was fourteen bloody years old. What the hell could she get up to?' shouted Cassidy.
'What are you daring to say about my daughter?'
'Your daughter was on drugs. Your lovely, pure, fourteen-year-old daughter was on hard drugs.'
Cassidy's knuckles whitened as he clenched his fists tight. 'You're lying!'
'And to support her habit,' continued Hanlon doggedly, 'your fourteen-year-old daughter turned to prostitution.'
'You take that back, you bastard.' Cassidy had grabbed the front of Hanlon's jacket.
For a short man, Hanlon showed unusual strength. He pulled Cassidy's hand away. 'What do you think she was doing at the Coconut Grove that night? She was stoned to the eyeballs and plying for trade to pay for her next fix. Tommy Dunn saw her and hustled her out. He put her into his car and was about to drive off when she opened the door and flung herself out, right into the path of an oncoming car. The driver had had a few drinks, but there was no way he could have avoided her.'
Cassidy stared straight ahead as if he wasn't listening, but the muscle on the side of his face was twitching uncontrollably.
'She was killed instantly. Nothing could bring her back, but Jack Frost wanted to spare your feelings. He didn't want the facts to come out in court, so he let the driver go. Then he got the doctor at the hospital to do a very cursory post-mortem, ignoring the drugs abuse, the sexual activity, the disease. He wanted you to have the pure fourteen-year-old daughter you had always boasted about, so he lied and he covered up.'
Cassidy stared blankly and shook his head as if it would shake away everything he had heard. He turned to Frost. 'He's lying, isn't he?' Then back to Hanlon. 'You're lying! The old pals act. Everyone cover up for everyone else… just like Mullett and his mates lied when Chief Inspector Formby wrapped his car round that lamp post.'
He walked to the door. 'Sod you all!' he yelled, almost in tears. A flutter of paper as he tore up the registration number and hurled it to the floor. 'Sod you all!'
The door swung shut behind him.
'I wish you hadn't done that, Arthur,' said Frost. 'But thanks, anyway.' He poked a cigarette in his mouth and tried to think. What was he going to do before Cassidy sounded off? Oh yes. Have another word with Finch.
Liz looked tired and washed out so he sent her home. 'Burton will drive you,' he said. Burton seemed pleased at this. He kicked the door of the interview room shut. Just him and Finch.
'No deal,' he said tersely.
Finch shrugged. 'A pity, but I gave you a chance.'
Frost scraped a chair across the brown linoleum and sat down. 'I might be able to get the court to go lenient with you. The first boy's death wasn't intended and you co-operated in letting us recover Bobby. You could be out in five years.'
'According to my consultant, I haven't got five years,' said Finch. 'Any prison term, no matter how short, would be a life sentence, so you've got no carrots to offer me.'
'Tell us where he is,' said Frost.
'Only the kidnapper would know that,' replied Finch.
Frost stood up. 'I'll make you a promise,' he said. 'Whether we find that boy alive, or dead, or never, I'm going to nail you. I hope your consultant is right, because you are going to die in prison,'
He called for a uniformed constable to take Finch back to the cell. Fine bleeding words, he told himself, but how the hell am I going to do it?
Frost helped himself to a mug of tea from Bill Wells's thermos flask, then paid for it by having to listen to the sergeant's moans about the way Mullett kept blocking his chances of promotion and kept putting him down for duty on Christmas Day. He was only half listening. The kid was out there somewhere in the cold, torrential rain, and teams of men were looking for him. He was toying with the idea of driving over there to help, if only to be doing something constructive, but knew he'd just be getting in the way. He looked up as Burton returned from driving Liz back to her digs.
'Get your leg over, son?' he asked.
Burton grinned. 'Never had the nerve to ask her.'
'Did you hear about the bus conductress who married a bus driver?' asked Frost. 'On their wedding night she stripped off and said, 'Room for one on top.' When he'd finished he said, 'But you didn't tell me there was room for five standing inside.' He cackled the loudest at his own joke, then stopped abruptly. It didn't seem right to be laughing while that poor little sod… He wryly recalled the empty threat he had made to Finch. Well, there was no way he was going to find the kid, drinking tea and telling dirty jokes. He swilled down the dregs and banged down the mug. 'Come on, son,' he said to Burton. 'Let's go for a drive.'
He sometimes thought better in the car so he lay back in his seat, smoking, eyes half closed, letting Burton drive through the stair rods of rain. The little buzzer in his brain started to sound off again. The house. There was something that had puzzled him when they went into the house in Wrights Lane. But what the hell was it?
'What happened when we banged on the door to get in there, son?' he asked Burton.
Burton couldn't help. 'You sent me and Jordan round the back.'
Frost leant back and gazed up at the roof of the car for inspiration, but none came. 'Drive me to her digs,' he told Burton. 'I want to talk to Liz.'
'She'll be in bed,' said Burton.
'Then she can get out of it again,' said Frost. 'I've got to talk to her.'
He banged on the door and kept his thumb jammed in the bell push. At last a light came on in an upstairs window, then the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. Bolts slid back and there was Liz, an unfastened dressing-gown over her nightdress, a police truncheon swinging menacingly in her hand.
'Bloody hell!' gawped Frost. This was a transformed Liz. Her hair, usually screwed back tightly, was now
