She nodded. 'I suppose so.'
He found a pencil stub and turned over one of Mullett's memos so he could write on the back. 'Tell me about your cases.'
Station Sergeant Bill Wells took an instant dislike to the man the minute he barged through the doors. But then he felt this way with most members of the public who came crashing in with their petty grievances, expecting instant attention. This one, a lout in his late twenties with close-cropped hair and a scowling face, was snapping his fingers for Wells to attend to him. 'Yes?' grunted Wells. He wasn't going to waste a 'sir' on this rubbish.
'My car's been stolen.'
'Stolen car?' Wells tugged a form from a stack and pushed it across. 'Fill in the details.'
'You fill in your own flaming forms. I know who's stolen it and I want her arrested.' He pushed the form back.
'And who do you think has stolen it?' asked Wells.
'I don't think, I flaming know It's my girlfriend… my ex-flaming-girlfriend now. She's run off and pinched my motor.'
'You're saying she took it without your permission?'
The man rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. 'That's what stealing means, doesn't it? Would I be wasting my time with flaming wooden tops if I had given her permission?'
Wells gritted his teeth to keep his temper. Let's hope she's driven the flaming thing over a cliff, he said to himself. The man took a cigarette from a packet and stuck it in his mouth. Wells waited until he had it well lit before pointing to the 'No Smoking' sign. 'If you don't mind,' he said, hoping Frost wouldn't spoil it by slouching in with a cigarette going full blast. Scowling, the man ground the cigarette under foot. Wells smiled sweetly. 'Give me the details — as briefly as possible. We're very busy.'
'We both work nights. I usually drive her to work and pick her up in the morning. I didn't go to work yesterday as I went up to London to see the big match.'
Wells jabbed a finger. 'I remember you now. You were here last night with those other yobbos in the coach. Was it you throwing up in the bloody corner?'
'No, it wasn't me throwing up and yes, I was here. Anyway, as I wouldn't be able to drive her, I told her to phone her work and say she was sick or something.'
'Why couldn't she drive herself?'
'Because she hasn't passed her driving test. If she had an accident or anything, the insurers wouldn't pay out. When I got back in this morning, no sign of her and more important, no sign of my car.'
'So what did you do?'
'What the hell could I do? I went to bed. I woke up about four this afternoon; still no sign of her. I waited until ten o'clock when she should be at the hospital and phoned them.'
'The hospital?' queried Wells.
'She's a nurse, does the night shift at Denton General — at least, that's what she told me. When I phoned them today they said they'd never heard of her.'
Wells rubbed a hand over his face. This was getting beyond him. 'Never heard of her? Was she an agency nurse?'
'I don't know — what difference would that make?'
'Some of these part-time agency nurses give false names to avoid having to pay income tax. She might have used a different name.'
'According to Denton General, the only nurses working nights in her ward were two West Indians and a nun…' He tugged a photograph from his pocket and stuck it under Wells' nose. 'Does she look like a bleeding nun?'
Wells squinted at a photograph of an attractive girl in a very low-cut dress, leaning forward to show yards of cleavage. The cleavage was so attractive, it took him a while to look at her face. He stared. 'Just give me a moment, sir.' He used the phone in Control, out of earshot of the man, and buzzed Inspector Frost. 'You'd better get out here right away, Jack.' He looked again at the photograph. She definitely wasn't a nun… she was the murdered tom.
Frost tapped a cigarette on the packet and lit up. He was leaning against the wall of the interview room, watching the man closely as Liz interviewed him.
'What the hell's going on?' asked the man. 'The wooden top outside says you're all terribly busy, now I get two detective inspectors falling all over me about a stolen car.'
Liz made an attempt at a reassuring smile. 'Just a couple of questions.' She glanced at the form on the table. 'You are Victor John Lewis, 2a Fleming Street, Demon?'
'Bang on, darling. I haven't changed my bleeding name and address since I filled that form in five minutes ago.'
Liz pointed to the photograph. 'And this is Mary Jane Adams, your girlfriend?'
'Yes.'
'You live together?'
'Yes.'
'How long have you been together?'
'Six months. What the hell has this to do with getting my car back?'
'Bear with us. Where do you work?'
'At the all-night petrol station in Felton.'
'When did you see Mary last?'
'Just after five o'clock yesterday afternoon when I left to pick up the coach.'
'When you woke up this afternoon and she wasn't back, weren't you worried?'
'Of course I was worried — she'd walked out on me before, but this time she took my bloody motor. When you find her, I want the cow charged.'
Liz shot a glance at Frost in case he wanted to ask some more questions before they told him about the girl. Frost moved into the chair next to Liz. 'I'm afraid we've got some bad news for you, Mr Lewis.'
The mortuary attendant parked his chewing gum on the underside of the table, put on his doleful expression and led them through to the refrigerated section. He pulled open the long drawer, twitched back the sheet and stood respectfully in the background. The face, washed clean of make-up, looked like that of a young schoolgirl. Lewis stared, then his face screwed up in pain as he turned away. He nodded to Frost. 'Yes… that's Mary.'
Lewis was knuckling tears from his eyes on the way back, but apart from a few' sympathetic grunts, Frost said nothing, his mind on other things. He wasn't being callous. He had driven grieving relatives back from the morgue so many times, it was almost a routine. He couldn't get involved in their grief, otherwise he would be grieving every bloody day and his job would become unbearable.
Back at the station Frost sat Lewis in the main interview room with a mug of strong tea while he nipped out to gather up the reports Morgan had been making for him. He picked through them. 'Another job for you, Taffy boy. Lewis says he used to drop her off and pick her up from outside the hospital at the end of her shift. If she was plying her trade in Clayton Street, how did she get there? It's too far to walk. Check with the local cab firms.'
'What for, guv?' asked Morgan.
'Lewis could be lying. He might have known she was on the game and dropped her off outside the flat at Clayton Street. If he dropped her off outside the hospital and then she called a cab that would suggest he had no idea she was a tom which would sod up my theory.'
He collected Liz on his way back to the interview room. 'Could Lewis be the bloke you heard on the phone last night?'
She shook her head. 'No. He's nothing like him.' She frowned. 'You don't suspect Lewis, do you?'
Frost shrugged. 'I've got to suspect someone, and he's all we've got at the moment.'
Lewis sat hunched at the table, sucking at a cigarette, the mug of tea cold, scummy and untouched. He raised his head as Frost and Liz came in. 'A prostitute! I still can't believe it.'
'I know,' said Frost, sounding truly sorry. 'And to make things worse we've got to ask you some searching questions.'
Lewis sniffed back a tear and nodded. 'Ask what you like. As long as it helps you catch the bastard who did it.'
