sort of a deep freeze he had.
'If she was killed shortly after she went missing,' continued Drysdale, 'then there would have been much more evidence of decay. I should be able to be more precise when I do the PM. I've a busy schedule, but I can fit it in today — two o'clock this afternoon, Denton Hospital mortuary.'
I'll be there, doc,' said Frost.
No matter how many times Frost said it, Drysdale always winced at the 'doc'. He couldn't stand the man's coarse familiarity. As he left, Harding and the Forensic team, who had been waiting patiently, went inside the canvas shelter.
Frost's mobile phone bleeped. Mullett calling from the station. 'You've found the girl?'
'Yes. Raped and strangled like Jenny.'
'By the same man?'
'I bloody hope so. It's hard enough finding one killer, let alone two.'
'I understand you've arrested this man Plummer. Can I take it you now accept that Weaver was innocent?'
'No. I reckon Weaver and Plummer acted together. Plummer could have hidden Jenny's body while we had Weaver in custody, then sent that letter with the button.'
'Hmm,' grunted Mullett, sounding unconvinced. 'Try and speed things up. The news has leaked out that we're holding a suspect and we're being inundated with phone calls from the press. And something else. I've had an irate Chief Inspector Preston from Belton Division on the phone. You haven't sent over the files on the prostitute killing he asked for.'
'Damn,' said Frost. 'Funny how you forget things when some bastard strings himself up in his cell. I'll see to it as soon as I get back.'
'Make sure you do,' Mullett snapped. 'These things reflect on the Division. Have you told the girl's parents yet?'
'No,' said Frost, fingering the plastic bracelet found on the body. He was going to ask them to identify it as Vicky's. He didn't want them to have to see the body in its present state. 'I've got that treat to come.'
'After weeks of uncertainty, it might even come as relief,' suggested Mullett.
'Yes,' said Frost bitterly. 'We might even have a few laughs about it.' He clicked off the phone and dropped it in his pocket. No point in putting it off any longer. He walked to his car and drove to the parents' house.
It was Vicky's mother who opened the door. She had seen his car pull up outside and couldn't wait to hear the good news that Vicky had been found and was alive and well. Then she stared and clutched her chest. His face told her everything. He looked at her and sadly shook his head. She forced herself to ask 'Vicky?'
Frost nodded.
'Dead?' She was already shaking her head, refusing to believe what he was going to tell her.
He nodded again. He always tried to be detached and not let these things affect him, but this time he found himself struggling to hold back the tears.
She put her arms round him and hugged him tight. 'You poor man,' she crooned, as if soothing a child. 'You tried so hard, you hoped for so much.' And she was comforting him.
In the living-room her husband sat with his arm around her, the tears they had both held back for so long now flowing freely. Over the mantelpiece, in the original of the police poster photograph, their dead daughter smiled down at them.
Frost took the green plastic bracelet from his pocket. 'Is this Vicky's?'
The mother took it, holding it in her open palm. 'Yes,' she nodded. 'It's…' She couldn't bring herself to say her daughter's name. She closed her hand tightly and pressed the bracelet against a tear-stained cheek.
'We need it back,' said Frost, gently. He had to prise open her palm to take it.
'Did she suffer?' asked the husband.
'No,' lied Frost, firmly. 'She didn't suffer.'
'And will you get the man who did it?'
'Yes,' said Frost. 'That I can promise you. We'll get him.'
Drysdale looked at the large clock on the tiled mortuary wall and frowned. Ten past two. He'd specifically told Frost two o'clock and couldn't start the autopsy until the inspector deigned to put in an appearance. There would be an official complaint about this.
A slamming of doors and the sound of raucous laughter. The pathologist's lips tightened. He didn't need to turn round when the mortuary doors opened and closed. 'You've kept me waiting, Inspector.'
'I've been breaking the news to the kid's parents,' said Frost, shuffling on one of the green autopsy gowns he always felt such a fool wearing. 'Not the sort of thing you can cut short.' DC Morgan, who had come in with Frost, had difficulty with his gown and smiled gratefully as Drysdale's secretary helped him find the sleeves.
'If you're ready, at last.' Drysdale pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and surveyed the body like a diner ready for his main course. Hovering at Drysdale's shoulder, the green-gowned SOCO man waited patiently, his camera at the ready. Overhead a large extractor fan whirled lazily, but didn't seem to be doing much to improve the fetid atmosphere.
Frost stared down at the tiled floor and let his mind wander. He'd give his flaming pension for a cigarette. He didn't want to watch the proceedings unless it was absolutely necessary. Morgan seemed to find it impossible to tear his eyes away from Drysdale's blonde secretary. Whenever she met his gaze, she flushed, bent her head and scribbled furiously in her shorthand notebook.
'Ah…!'
Frost looked up. Drysdale, who had been probing the girl's mouth, had extracted a sodden mess of something. 'Toilet tissue… like the other girl..; used as a gag.'
'The bugger was nothing if not consistent,' said Frost as the mess was dropped into a plastic jar held out by SOCO.
'And, like the other girl, she was raped before death but as before, he seems to have used a condom, so no chance of DNA identification.'
The pathologist reached for a scalpel to open up the stomach. Frost turned his head away. This was the part of post-mortems he really hated. Morgan, looking green, had lost interest in the secretary and was sitting in a chair at the back, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief.
'It would help if I had your attention, Inspector,' said Drysdale peevishly. Frost raised his head. The pathologist was dropping something into a sample jar. He held it up so Frost could see. Little lumps of something brown floating in a murky liquid. 'The last thing she ate very shortly before death… I think it is a sweet… a toffee or something.'
Frost nodded grimly. The bastard always gave them a sweet to suck while they were waiting to be raped and murdered.
Drysdale slashed, hacked and weighed as the extractor fan proved more and more ineffective, but nothing of further importance was found. At last he was finished and was washing his hands at the sink as the mortuary attendant did his best to sew the tiny body into something more presentable. 'About time they got some decent soap,' complained Drysdale, scrubbing away at his nails. 'My findings are as before, Inspector. Like the first girl, she was gagged, sexually abused, then manually strangled. The body then appears to have been stored in a sub-zero temperature, probably a domestic deep freeze. Date of death?' He shrugged. 'The unknown storage conditions mean I can only guess. I'd say nine, ten weeks.'
'Which is round about the time she disappeared,' said Frost. He sighed. 'Thanks, doc.' A jerk of his head to Morgan who had recovered enough to be chatting up the secretary. They discarded the green gowns and dropped them in the bin, then hurried out of the building to suck in lungfuls of clean, cold, untainted air before climbing into the car for a smoke.
'Post-mortems are part of the job I hate, guv,' said Morgan.
'It's not as much fun as frisking toms,' agreed Frost, sliding into the passenger seat.
Morgan switched on the ignition. 'That Drysdale's secretary, guv. I've got a thing about long-legged blondes. I wouldn't mind having her.'
'I reckon she's seen enough organs to last her a lifetime,' said Frost.
Back at the station he was barking out orders to the murder squad. 'I want Plummer's house searched. See if there's any porno pictures of kids, or anything at all that would tie him in with Weaver. And do Weaver's place over
