'Sod your bloody job. The kid's in intensive care. You could have done something to help him.'
'The man in the other car came running over. I left it to him.'
Frost's head snapped up. 'What other car?'
'An old banger — a blue Vauxhall Astra. It was parked up on the verge. When I hit the boy the Astra driver dashed over to him. There was nothing I could do to help so I phoned for an ambulance on my mobile.'
'Yes,' snapped Frost, 'a great humanitarian gesture. Remind me to nominate you for the Nobel Prize.' He dropped the crust from his sandwich into the mug of tea and pushed it away. 'Describe the man.'
'Middle-aged — forty-five to fifty. Darkish hair, going bald.'
'Clean-shaven?'
'Yes, I think so. It all-'
'I know — it all happened so fast,' said Frost, finishing the sentence for him. 'Build?'
'Average.'
'Clothes?'
'A suit. A dark suit, I think.'
'A suit!' exclaimed Frost. 'Well, that saves us looking for a man in a dress.'
'If I could tell you more, I would,' snarled Morris. 'It's in my own interest that you find him. He'll confirm I wasn't speeding and the kid didn't give me a chance.'
'Then you'd better hope we do find him,' said Frost, 'because at the moment I don't rate your chances at all.' His cigarette end joined the sandwich crust in the mug of cold tea. He stood up and nodded at Collier. 'The constable will take your statement.'
Bill Wells was hovering outside the interview room, waiting for him. 'Initial report from Forensic, Jack. Glass from the headlamp definitely matches up with the glass found at the scene.'
'They always confirm what you know already,' grunted Frost. 'He's admitted knocking the kid down.'
'And Traffic reckon the skid marks where he braked indicate he wasn't doing more than thirty mph at the most.'
'Knickers!' said Frost. 'I was hoping to throw the book at the bastard.'
His phone was ringing when he got back to the office. WPC June Purdy from the hospital. 'The boy died ten minutes ago, Inspector.'
He threw his head back and swore at the ceiling. 'Shit! Do the parents know?'
'They were with him when he died.'
He felt ashamed that his relief that he would not have to break the news to the parents almost outweighed his sadness at an eleven-year-old boy's death. 'Are they still there?'
'Yes.'
'I know it's difficult, love, but ask them if they know anyone who drives a blue Vauxhall Astra; a man in his late forties, going bald — someone who might give their son a lift. Phone me back right away.'
'Was he the hit and run driver?'
'No. He's a possible witness. We've got the hit and run man but it doesn't appear as if the kid gave him much of a chance. Baldy might be the bloke who drove the boy to the woods and I've got a nasty feeling about the bastard. You don't take an eleven-year-old to Denton Woods in the middle of the night to pick mushrooms.'
She phoned back in five minutes. The parents knew no-one of that description.
'Too much to hope it would be that easy,' sighed Frost. 'Get back here, love, and bring the boy's clothes so Forensic can tell us sod all about them.'
He sat at a desk in the murder incident room, moodily smoking as he replaced the boy's bloodstained clothing in the evidence bag. A smaller bag held items taken from the boy's pockets. He shook them out on the desk: a comb, eight pence in copper coins, a handkerchief and the torn half of a cinema ticket. Open in front of him was the file on the first missing girl, eight-year-old Vicky Stuart. Looking through its many pages of typescript he had spotted that a couple of witnesses reported seeing a blue car cruising past the school on the afternoon Vicky went missing, but the car hadn't been traced. He drummed his fingers on the desk top. There were millions of flaming blue cars and the fact that the Vauxhall Astra was blue probably didn't mean a damn thing, but he had one of his feelings…
He checked his watch. Ten minutes past midnight. Mullett had only authorized overtime for the search parties until midnight so they should be returning soon. The mist was pressing a greasy kiss against the window. He hoped it would clear by the morning when the search would be resumed.
A tramping of tired feet announced the return of the first of the search parties as they headed up the stairs to the canteen. He gave them a few moments to get settled, then followed them up. They all looked tired and dejected. No need to ask if they had found the girl. He made his way over to a table where Detective Sergeant Arthur Hanlon sat with five off-duty police officers, all cold and miserable, gratefully warming frozen hands round mugs of scalding tea. 'Where's Taffy Morgan?' Frost asked, dragging a chair over to join them.
'He's where I'm soon going to be,' replied Hanlon, 'fast asleep in a nice warm bed.'
Frost gave a knowing smile. 'You do tell fibs, Arthur. You're not going to bed for hours yet. I've got another job for all of you.' A mass groan. He grinned and pushed his cigarettes around. 'I know — I'm a rotten bastard and I could be wasting everybody's time, but there's the slimmest of chances this might lead us to the girl.' He turned his head as Jordan and Simms, finishing their meal break, walked past. 'The boy died,' he told them.
Jordan shook his head sadly. 'Poor little sod.' He buttoned up his greatcoat. Another cold six hours before their shift ended.
'Is that the hit and run?' asked Hanlon.
'Yes,' nodded Frost. 'Only the driver didn't run very far — we've got him. He reckons the kid came flying out of a parked blue Vauxhall Astra straight into his path. He's a nasty, slimy bastard, but I'm ashamed to say I believe him, which is why you've got to do a bit more work.'
They looked at each other, wondering where this was leading. He expelled a mouthful of smoke and watched it whirl lazily up to the ceiling. 'We've got a kid, in a blue Astra, with a strange man in the middle of the bloody woods at night. Why? And why did the kid come flying out of the car like a bat out of hell?'
'You're suggesting the bloke was a child molester?' asked Hanlon.
'This is how I see it, Arthur. The bloke offers to drive the kid home, but instead takes him to the woods. Just as he starts his stuff, the kid manages to scramble out, but runs straight into the other car.'
'What has this got to do with the girl?' asked Howe, one of the off-duty PCs.
'Probably sod all,' conceded Frost, 'but the day Vicky Stuart went missing, two of the witnesses mentioned a blue car cruising past the school as the kids came out. The Astra was blue.'
'And you think it's the same man?' exclaimed Hanlon. 'Just because it's a blue car? It's a bloody long shot, Jack.'
'Maybe, Arthur, but it's all we've got… before this we had sod all.' He produced the cinema ticket. 'This was in the kid's jacket pocket — a ticket for tonight's performance of the Disney. It's an adult's ticket. Does I that suggest anything?'
A sea of blank looks.
'The boy would have got in at the child's rate, so this isn't his ticket. Try this out for size. He's hanging about outside the cinema when some nice kind balding gentleman says, 'Going to see the film, sonny?' 'I haven't got any money, kind balding gent,' replies the boy, so the man offers to pay for him. In they go. The bloke buys one adult ticket and one child's ticket. Comes the interval. The kid hadn't been home for his tea, so he's hungry. 'Go and buy a hot dog,' says the nice man in the dirty mac. The hot dogs are in the foyer and you've got to have your ticket to get back in again, so the man gives him a ticket… the wrong one as it happens, but that doesn't matter.'
They looked at each other and grudgingly nodded. 'It fits, Jack,' said Hanlon, 'but you're making a lot of assumptions.'
Frost pulled a wad of photographs of the dead boy from his pocket and handed them around. 'Then see if we can get some hard evidence. One of you go to the cinema — they're doing an all-night horror programme, so they'll still be open. Does anyone remember this kid coming in with a man in his forties, balding dark hair, dark suit. The programme finished at 8.25, but they didn't get to the woods until around ten. My guess is that the nice man took the kid out for a meal. So some of you surf the fast food joints. I want another couple of you to sift through computer; records of middle-aged child molesters, baldies preferred, but many of them might not have started going bald when we arrested them. Drag them out of bed, find out where they were tonight and see what car they
