'How is he, Mr Frost?' asked Green at last.
'He's dead,' said Frost bluntly.
'Dead? Oh God.' He buried his face in his crooked arm, his shoulders shaking. 'I never did anything.'
'That's right,' nodded Frost. 'You did sod all — you just left him to die in the middle of the road.' He shuddered. The cold and damp and squalidness of the miserable little room were getting to him. 'Take him down to the station. This place is giving me the creeps.'
9
'I swear on a stack of bibles I never touched him, Mr Frost… He suddenly ran out of the car — for no reason.'
Frost dribbled smoke from his nose and looked contemptuously at Bernie Green who cowered in the chair opposite him, a blanket over his pyjamas. 'Don't lie to me, Bernie,' snapped Frost. 'I'm not in the mood. I'm tired, I've had a lousy day and I don't give a sod whether I keep my job in the force or not, so I might ask this nice constable to step outside for a moment while you accidentally smash your face against all four of these walls.'
Howe gave a warning cough to remind Frost the interview was being taped.
But Frost's outburst had the required effect. Bernie's tongue flickered over dry lips. 'I was going to do something — I never do things against their will. I offered him money if he'd let me do something. That's when he ran out. I swear I never laid a finger on him.' He pointed to his case file on the table. 'You check my file… I always ask them first… I always get their consent.'
Frost flipped through the file, fingering its pages by their edges as if they were too dirty to touch. 'Yes, but most of the poor little mites were below the age of consent, Bernie.' He showed him a page. 'This little girl of six, for example. I don't suppose she had any idea what you wanted in exchange for the bag of jelly babies.'
'I was punished for that, Mr Frost… that's all over and done with. But the boy tonight was eleven. All he had to say was no and I wouldn't have touched him. I'd have driven him home. He had no need to go running out of the car like that.'
'He was shit scared, Bernie. You take him to the woods in the middle of the night, you demand sexual bloody favours from a kid. He must have been terrified.'
Green stared down at the floor. 'I'm sorry. I just can't help myself sometimes…'
'And what about the two little girls from Denton Junior? Couldn't you help yourself with them either?'
The man raised his head and frowned. 'What two little girls?'
Frost flicked two photographs across the table. 'Vicky Stuart and Jenny Brewer.'
Green stared open-mouthed, then shrank back. 'Oh no, you're not pinning them on me.'
'Where are they, Bernie?'
'I don't know. I want a lawyer.'
'You'll want an armed bodyguard if we set you free and let the boy's father know where you live.'
Again Howe gave a warning cough. A confession obtained as the result of threats would be thrown out of court. Frost ignored him. He knew he was skating on the thinnest of ice, but finding the girl alive was more important to him than a conviction. 'For the last time, where are they, Bernie?'
Green leapt to his feet, the blanket falling to the floor. 'I don't know anything about them,' he shouted.
Frost waved him back to the chair. 'I'm not deaf, Bernie, you can lie to me quietly if you want to.' He gave his benign smile. 'Are they still alive?'
'I don't know anything about them.'
'Did you take them to the woods in your car, like the boy? Are they buried in the woods?'
'I don't know.'
'Your car was seen outside the school, Bernie.' To be fair, a car the same colour as yours, he thought, but who's being fair? 'Where did you take them?'
'I didn't take them anywhere.'
'Did you take them back to your luxurious apartment, Bernie, to that smelly little basement flat? We can check, you know. We can go over every inch of the place.'
A look of relief flickered across Green's face. 'You can do what you like… you won't find anything.'
'And every inch of your car. If we find so much as a flake of skin, a hair even, from either of those two girls…'
Bernie jerked back as if he had been struck. 'A hair?'
'That's all we need for DNA tests, Bernie.' He smiled sweetly. 'Not a problem, is it?'
Green buried his face in his hands. 'Hold on, Inspector… give me time to think…'
Frost blew smoke up to the ceiling, then nodded happily at Howe. The confession was coming.
After a few seconds Green sat up and pushed the photograph of Vicky Stuart away. 'I know nothing about her, Mr Frost, but this one…' He tapped the photograph of Jenny Brewer. 'I know something about her.'
Frost turned Vicky's photo face down. 'Then tell us about Jenny.'
'I want to do a deal. I'm out on parole on condition I don't go near schools or approach kids. If I do, I have to go back and serve out my sentence. I don't want to go back to prison, Mr Frost.'
'You're already going back to nick for sodding about with the boy,' said Frost, 'so you've got damn all to lose. Tell us what you know and I promise you I'll do what I can.' Which will be sod all, he told himself.
Green pointed to the photograph. 'I might have given her a lift.'
Frost's eyebrows soared. 'Might? What do you mean, might?'
'All right. I did give her a lift so it's possible you might find one of her hairs in my car but it won't mean anything. I just gave her a lift, that's all it was, a lift…'
'And when was this?'
'Couple of days ago… the day she went missing. I was sort of driving past the school just as the kids were coming out and I sees this little girl in red trotting along, all on her own. It was peeing with rain and she had no mac so I asked if she wanted a lift. She said would I take her to Argylle Street.'
'Argylle Street?'
'Yes, a few blocks away from the school. I drove her there. She told me she was going to have her photograph taken. I said, 'I've got some nice pictures at home, would you like to see them?' She said no and got out and ran across the road to this house. I watched her ring the bell, a bloke answered and she went in.'
'What was the house number?'
'I don't know, but it was the one on the corner.'
'You actually saw her go inside?'
'Yes. I waited ten minutes or so in case she came out, but she didn't, so I drove back home.'
'You knew the kid had gone missing, you knew we were looking for her, so why didn't you come forward with this earlier?'
'How could I?' implored Green. 'I wasn't supposed to approach kids. I'd have gone straight back in the nick.'
Frost stood up. 'Right, Bernie. As you've got your pyjamas on, you can retire to a nice warm cell and have a kip. We'll check your story out and God help you if you've been lying.'
He had done it so many times before, he could almost do it in his sleep: walk to the front door, jab the bell push, pound the door with the flat of the hand and yell, 'Open up — police!', then turn and stare down the street, not consciously seeing, but taking everything in. Argylle Street. Another street choked with parked cars, plus two double parked police cars. His radio paged him. 'I'm in position, Inspector.' Collier had been sent to the rear of the house to block any escape route.
Again Frost thumbed the bell push, letting it ring and ring and ring.
At last an upstairs light came on. A sash window was raised and a head poked out. 'Who is it?'
'Police,' yelled Frost. 'Open up.'
'Police? Oh my God!' The window slammed shut. Frost waited, shivering as the damp night mist bit through his clothes. Sounds of doors slamming and lights coming on in various parts of the house, but the front door remained closed. 'He's taking his flaming time.' He was about to radio through to Collier to warn him to be prepared
