Finch. Tell us where he is and we will drop all charges, give you a pension for life and all the Cup Final tickets you want.
He pulled back a sodden cuff to consult his watch. One o'clock in the morning. He could hear Cassidy shouting, redirecting one of the teams back to an area they had already searched. He thought of Finch in his nice, dry cell, snug and warm, and probably working out how much he could sue the police for harassment and wrongful arrest.
'Frost!'
A shudder quivered through him. Just what he wanted to make his misery complete. Mullett, immaculately turned out in his tailored raincoat which, in some mysterious way, seemed to repel the rain. He forced a smile. 'Hello, super.'
Mullett gaped at the floodlights, the frogmen, the teams of off-duty men, and tried to work out the cost. He transferred his glare to the drenched, drowned rat figure of Frost. 'Who authorized this?'
'I tried to get you,' said Frost, 'I rang your house no-one answered.'
'I haven't been more than six feet away from the phone all night,' snapped Mullett.
'I must have got a wrong number, then,' said Frost. 'It rang and rang… and I knew you would have authorized it.'
'So Finch told you where the boy was?'
'Not exactly, sir.' He told Mullett about the petrol receipt.
Mullett stared at him in open-mouthed incredulity. 'And on the basis of that flimsy piece of so-called evidence you have committed us to an overtime bill far in excess of our resources, even after I had specifically told you…' His lips tightened. 'You deliberately didn't phone me, Frost, because you knew I would say no.'
You clever bastard, thought Frost. That's exactly why I didn't phone you.
'Inspector! Over here.'
A welcome diversion. Arthur Hanlon, Jordan by his side, was bending over something fished out of the river. He was waving. 'Excuse me, super.' He brushed past Mullett and hurried down.
Another dustbin sack. Hanlon had cut the white plastic tie. He tipped out the contents. A pair of fisherman's waders, plus a muddy stone to ensure the bag sunk. Frost lifted them up and examined the heavy rubber soles. No sign of any wear they could have been brand-new.
Cassidy, determined not to be left out, came running over. 'What have we got?' Frost showed him. Cassidy shrugged. 'So what does it mean?'
'Why would anyone want to chuck away a pair of brand-new waders?' asked Hanlon.
'A fisherman could have dropped them in by accident,' suggested Cassidy.
'With a flaming brick inside to make sure it sunk?' snorted Frost. 'Besides, fishermen don't come here. Any fish that survived through the chemicals being shunted in the river would be purple and shine in the dark.' He shook his head. 'I'll lay odds Finch dumped these.'
'Why?'
'Because he didn't want us to know he'd been paddling in the bleeding river.' He was getting excited now. 'He's found a place to hide the boy, but had to get in the river to reach it.'
'Another possibility is that he waded in the river to dump the body in the deepest part,' said Cassidy.
'My brain can only deal with one possibility at a time,' said Frost. He looked over to the far bank. 'Could anyone wade across to that bank?' he asked Jordan.
Jordan shook his head. 'Far too deep.'
'Then we concentrate on this side.' He looked down at the cold swirl, steeled himself then stepped into the river which came well above his knees. He didn't believe in asking people to do things he wouldn't do himself. 'We need to search the bank from the river,' he told Hanlon. 'Get all the volunteers you can. Tell them they'll have to get their feet wet… their dicks too if it gets any deeper.' The water was icy and the current threatened to knock him off his feet, but, unsteadily, he pressed on, pushing aside the overhang of vegetation from the bank which was now bobbing in the raised water level. Behind came a splash as Jordan joined him. Cassidy stayed on the bank, keeping pace with them.
At one point Frost got his foot stuck deep in the mud and in pulling it free lost his shoe, but no time to retrieve it, only to curse softly and limp on.
He nearly missed it. It was at the point where the river curved and the current was at its strongest and nearly kicked his feet from under him. He clutched at a clump of reeds to stop himself falling. And there it was, no longer hidden. An opening in the bank. Water was lapping almost half-way up a brown, glazed pipe, some eighteen inches in diameter. 'Jordan!'
Jordan splashed- over to him. 'It's part of an old drainage system to run off rain water from some of these fields at back of us. They're blocked off now.' He pulled back the overhang of long, dank grass so Frost could look inside.
'Torch!' called Frost. Cassidy, from the bank, handed one down.
The beam ricocheted off something drably white. Passing the torch back to Cassidy, Frost squeezed his arm through and touched it. Cloth of some kind. Woollen cloth. He managed to get a grip on it and tugged. At first it didn't want to move, then it slid forward. The weight was right. His heart pounded. He now had it out and raised it out of the water. It was a child, cocooned in a sodden blanket which was bound round with cord. Brown plastic tape sealed the mouth and eyes. The flesh was cold. As cold as the river water. 'I've got him,' he yelled and could hear excited voices and people running towards him.
'Give him to me.' Cassidy, bending over, held out his arms for the bundle. Frost passed it up.
Helped by Burton, Frost managed to clamber up on the bank, and was still on his hands and knees, shivering with cold, as Cassidy was cutting the cord and stripping off the sodden blanket. Under it the child was naked. Cassidy shrugged off his greatcoat and swaddled the boy. Then he carefully peeled off the plastic tape. The eyes were tightly closed. He could detect no sign of breathing.
He's dead, thought Frost, hugging himself for warmth. The poor little sod is dead.
Liz pushed through the huddle and bent her ear to the child's mouth. Her eyes narrowed as she listened. 'He's breathing,' she announced. 'Just about, but he's breathing.'
'Ambulance,' yelled Mullett. 'Get an ambulance.'
Frost took charge. 'No!' He grabbed Cassidy. 'It will be quicker to get him straight to the hospital. Take him in an area car. Radio ahead and let them know you are coming.'
Cassidy nodded and, clutching the child tight to his chest, pushed through to the area car. Electronic flash guns crackled as Sandy's man took photographs.
Mullett was beaming. He couldn't wait to get back to phone the Chief Constable. 'A most satisfactory ending,' he told Frost.
'Thanks, super.' The wind on his wet clothes was chilling him to the bone. 'Pass me the blanket… I'll get it over to Forensic'
Mullett bent and picked it up. He frowned. He was looking at something caught up in the folds. 'Seems to be a receipt of some kind.'
'Show me,' said Frost excitedly. Soaking wet, but still readable, it was a till receipt for the purchase of petrol. Hatter's Garage. That day's date and paid for by credit card. Finch's credit card.
He looked up at Mullett and smiled. 'You clever old sod,' he said. 'We've got him. Thanks to you, we've got him.'
A doubtful smile flickered on and off Mullett's lips. He wasn't quite sure what it was he had done.
'The evidence we wanted,' explained Frost, slipping the receipt between the pages of his notebook to dry it. 'We can now tie Finch to the kid.' He looked round for Liz and beckoned her over. 'Ever charged a man with murder and kidnapping?'
She shook her head.
'Then here's your chance. Get that bastard Finch banged up.'
'Aren't you going to do it?' asked Mullett.
'I'm soaking wet,' answered Frost. 'I'm going home to change.' At the car he yelled his thanks to the search team. 'Booze-up in the incident room in an hour. I'll bring some bottles, but don't let that stop any of you from bringing your own!'
Clutching tightly to his chest bottles which clinked and threatened to slip from his grasp, he backed through
