Frost banged down the phone. If Forensic couldn't help, he'd have to try to wring a confession out of Weaver. He rang Wells. 'Found that solicitor yet?'
'Give us a chance, Jack. It's only a couple of minutes since we last spoke.'
As he put the phone down, the outside line rang. The pathologist's secretary. 'Mr Drysdale could do the autopsy on the girl now, Inspector, if you could get over here.'
'On my way,' said Frost.
Frost stood well back from the pool of light that splashed down on to the autopsy table. He didn't want to see what Drysdale was doing to the poor kid, he just wanted to know the result, hoping the pathologist would find something that would link the crime positively to Weaver. Every now and then Drysdale would move back so the man from Forensic could take photographs.
'Extensive tearing and bruising around the vaginal area,' Drysdale intoned flatly. He lifted one of the child's arms and examined the wrist. 'Traces of adhesive… probably from sticky tape of some kind.'
Frost nodded. That was one of the first things he had spotted. The wrists would have been bound together to stop the kid struggling during the assault. He felt a surge of despair. This bloody mortuary was becoming a second home — so many nasty murder cases, so many days and nights watching Drysdale methodically cutting and slicing.
'Fading bruises on the arms, legs and buttocks,' continued Drysdale. 'Made at least a week before death.'
'Yes,' Frost told him. 'When the poor cow wasn't being raped, the mother's boyfriend used to hit her.' Drysdale grunted. That sort of background was of no interest to him. 'More signs of adhesive around the mouth… Hello!' Frost's head snapped up. Drysdale was teasing something from the child's mouth, something sodden and grey, which he dropped into a kidney bowl, then prodded with the tweezers. 'Bathroom tissue of some kind. Looks as if he used a ball of it as a gag.'
Frost joined him to examine the mess in the stainless steel bowl. 'Toilet paper! He used toilet paper!' He tugged out his mobile phone and, watched by a frowning Drysdale, got through to Control. 'Send someone over to Weaver's house right away. I want the toilet roll from his bog bagged and sent over to Forensic… and search the place for condoms. If they find any, let me know right away.' He turned back to Drysdale who was again teasing away at the mouth, extracting more tissue. 'Get it all out, doc — every piece. Try not to tear it.'
Drysdale glowered. 'I don't need you to tell me how to do my job, Inspector.' He dumped another sodden wad into the kidney bowl. 'She could have choked on this.'
'Did she?' asked Frost.
'No. She died of manual strangulation.'
'She was a feisty little kid, doc. She'd have put up one hell of a fight. Could she have scratched him? Anything under her nails?'
In answer Drysdale lifted a waxen arm and pointed to the fingers. The nails were bitten down to the quick. 'She couldn't have scratched him if she wanted to.'
'I bet the poor little cow wanted to,' said Frost bitterly. Nothing at all yet to link Weaver to the crime. 'I need something, doc, I really do.' He turned his head away as Drysdale's scalpel slashed across the tiny stomach.
'She ate two boiled sweets about half an hour before she died.' The pathologist held up a small glass jar in which little bits of green floated. 'Lime drops, or something.'
'He admits to giving her sweets,' Frost told him.
'Nevertheless, it might be an entirely different brand. Someone else might have abducted her after she left your suspect's house.'
'She left his house in a bloody bin liner,' said Frost. 'I'm not out to prove the bastard innocent. I want proof of his guilt.'
'Dead some forty-eight to sixty hours,' said Drysdale.
'Last seen alive two days ago, doc.'
'Nearer forty-eight hours, then. Ample evidence of sexual penetration, but no trace of semen, suggesting a condom was used or ejaculation did not take place.'
Frost switched off. He didn't want to hear this part. Poor little cow, mouth stuffed with toilet tissue to stifle her pleading screams, hands taped behind her back so she couldn't fight off dear old Uncle Charlie who had given her the nice green sweets. He tore himself away from his thoughts and found himself staring at the pale face. 'She was a pretty little kid,' he said.
Drysdale looked up from his cutting and gave the face a quick glance. 'Yes. I suppose she was…'
As soon as the autopsy was over, Frost hurried out to his car and radioed through to the station to fine out if Weaver's solicitor had been traced yet. 'He's on his way, Inspector. Be about an hour.'
'And Morgan?'
'Hasn't turned up yet. By the way, toilet paper from Weaver's house has been sent over to Forensic. No sign of any condoms.'
'Right.' He clicked off. An hour to kill. He didn't feel like going back to the station with Mullett lurking about so he detoured to the Forensic lab to find out if they had any joy matching up the toilet paper.
'It will be another twenty-four hours,' protested Harding, who was overseeing the work of one of his white- coated assistants.
'I haven't got twenty-four hours. I want to know now.' He knew he was being unreasonable.
Harding showed him the toilet roll taken from Weaver's bathroom. 'All we can say at the moment is that this, and the substance taken from the girl's mouth, appear to be of the same type and colour and from the same manufacturer.'
Frost sighed with relief. 'Well, that's something. I'd be up the flaming creek if they were different.'
'The trouble is, Inspector, this is one of the top-selling brands… millions are sold every week. You've probably got the same type in your bathroom.'
Frost shook his head. 'I use Mullett's memos… they give me more satisfaction.'
A technician, who was squinting down a microscope in the far corner, beckoned Harding over. They held a murmured conversation and, from the look on Harding's face when he returned, Frost knew he wasn't going to like this.
I'm afraid the probability is that the samples are from two entirely different rolls.'
'It doesn't take twenty-four hours when it's bad bleeding news, does it?' moaned Frost bitterly. 'How can you be so sure?'
'We were trying a long shot. If the sheets in the girl's mouth had been torn from the roll in Weaver's bathroom, there was a faint chance we could match up the perforations. We'd have to be damn lucky, of course.'
'And he'd have to be bloody constipated. She went missing two days ago.'
'I said it was a long shot. Anyway, no joy. The paper in the girl's mouth came from a brand new roll.'
'How the hell do you know that?'
'The manufacturers always seal down the end of the roll to stop it flapping open.' He held up a new roll. 'You can see the ridge on this one here.'
Frost nodded gloomily. 'Everything you wanted to know about bog paper, but were afraid to ask. And the roll from Weaver's house?'
'At least three-quarters used. Either Weaver got through a hell of a lot of toilet paper in a very short time, or he had a brand new roll handy and he used that. Find the brand new roll and there's a good chance we can match the perforations.'
Out with the mobile to call Control. 'Get another team over to Weaver's place. Go through drawers, cupboards, cases, the lot. We've looking for another toilet roll. If they have no luck, forage his rubbish bins. Use as many men as you like, but find it.' Back to Harding. 'Anything else?'
'Nothing that helps. We can prove she was in Weaver's house, but he's admitted that already, so it doesn't help much.'
He sat and smoked and fidgeted, watching Harding's slow, methodical examination of the clothing. He couldn't stand people being methodical, it was so Alien to his own method of working. Sod it. He couldn't sit around doing nothing. He pinched out the cigarette that was annoying Harding and decided he would look in on Weaver's place to see how the search for the elusive toilet roll was progressing.
