throat and flinging windows open in the middle of flaming winter-'
'Yes,' cut in Frost. Talk of smoking opened a nasty wound. It was in this very interview room that Weaver had asked him not to smoke. 'You were probably the last person, apart from the killer, to see Helen alive, Mr Scrivener. Mr Adams tells us she had an upsetting telephone call just before she left. Any idea what it was about?'
'Yes,' said Scrivener. 'It was that flaming pervert Sam. If ever I got my hands on him I'd string him up by his flaming privates.' She told you about the call?'
'She was in tears. These bastards think it's a joke to get you upset. If I get the call I always hang up on the sod. Mervyn doesn't like that, he says this could be the one time it's genuine, but I know a slimy faking bastard when I hear one.'
'You're losing me,' Frost told him. 'He phones, usually late at night when we're at our lowest ebb. Says he can't go on living, that he's going to chuck himself under a train — we should be so bloody lucky!'
'Why?' asked Frost.
'It's all a flaming act. He calls again, says he's on the railway bridge and is about to jump. You can hear the train getting nearer and nearer. Whoever he phones is yelling, 'Don't jump — let's talk.' Then there's a scream, the train roars past, then silence. The first time it happened Mervyn went berserk. He called the police and they traced the call to a public call box on a railway bridge. The phone was swinging from its cord, but no mangled body, no sign of the bastard. He's back home having a good laugh. He's done it to other Samaritans as well. Week before last he was on the phone to me. I said, 'Jump, you bastard, jump' and got a right ear-wigging from Mervyn.'
'And this was Helen's caller?'
'Yes.' Scrivener lit up another cigarette from the stub of the old. 'Does this help you at all?'
'I don't think so.' Frost sighed smoke. Another dead end. 'And that was the last you saw of her?'
'Yes — except when she came back to phone for a taxi.'
Frost's head jerked up. 'She came back?'
'Yes — couldn't get her car to start so she called a cab. She didn't have any cash on her for the fare, neither did I, so I borrowed five quid from the petty cash box.'
Frost's brain went on overdrive. This knocked all his previous assumptions to smithereens.
'Mervyn never told us she came back.'
'He didn't know. He was brewing up tea in the kitchen. He would have made such a stink about us borrowing from the petty cash, so I never told him.'
'She called a cab?'
'They said it would be along in five minutes, so she went down in the street to wait.'
'Do you know what cab firm?'
'Denton Minicabs.'
Frost scribbled this down on the back of his cigarette packet. 'She went down in the street and waited?'
'Yes. I kept an eye on her through the window. The cab was there in a couple of minutes. She got in and off it went.'
Frost stood up, almost shaking with excitement. A cab! She was picked up by a cab! This altered everything. 'You've been a great help, Mr Scrivener.' He called PC Collier in to take a statement and dashed back to the murder incident room. 'We've got a new lead.' He filled them in on Scrivener's statement. 'We could be on the wrong track looking for someone posing as a punter. Our killer could be a cab driver. Go out and chat up the toms again. Find out if any of them have had nasty experiences with cabbies. Inspector Maud and I will cover Denton Minicabs.' He nodded at Taffy Morgan whose hand was raised to attract his attention. 'Yes, you can do a wee, Taffy, but wash your hands afterwards.'
Morgan grinned. 'I've had a phone call from my contact in the council, guv. We could have a lead on Nelly Aldridge.'
'Wow!' exclaimed Frost. 'And who the hell is Nelly Aldridge?'
'The lady with the nipples in that old photograph,' explained Morgan. 'The one with the missing son.'
The skeleton in the garden. He hadn't time to sod about with that. 'Make my day, Taffy… tell me she's dead.'
'Sorry, guv. It looks as if she's still alive and living in Denton.'
'If a lady wasn't present,' said Frost, nodding at Liz, I'd say, 'Shit!' All right, follow it through. The rest of you, chat up toms.'
Max Golding, the fat and balding proprietor of Denton Minicabs, barely gave them a glance as they came in. He wore a dirty grey cardigan over a red and black lumberjack shirt and was chewing savagely on a soggy, unlit cheroot as he took orders from customers through his headset phone and relayed them over the radio system by means of a large, 1930s-looking chromium-plated microphone. 'A pickup outside Marks and Sparks to the railway station. Who can take… Right.' He gave Frost and Liz a half-hearted enquiring glance before returning to the phone to take another call. Frost poked his warrant card under the man's nose, but he seemed unimpressed and began to take yet another call, yelling with annoyance as Frost dragged the headset from his ears. 'Hey!'
'Get someone else to take over,' snapped Frost. 'This is a murder inquiry.'
'And this is market day. We're too flaming busy for murder inquiries. Come back later-'
'Just do it,' hissed Frost.
Golding twisted round in his chair and yelled 'Mavis!'
A fat, pudding-faced woman, a cigarette in mouth, stuck her head through a hatch. 'I'm making the tea.'
'Leave it and take over. The fuzz are here.'
She waddled in and took over the headset from him. Golding jerked a thumb at the two detectives and led them through a door which had a piece of cardboard pinned to it with the word 'Office'.
Inside was almost a clone of Frost's office. An untidy desk spilling papers everywhere, a half-eaten cheese roll in the filing tray and squashed, soggy cheroot stubs in unwashed tea mugs.
Golding swept junk from two chairs and invited them to sit as he plonked down behind the desk, leaving the door wide open so he could keep an eye on the fat woman. 'So what's this about?' he asked, striking a match on the desk top and puffing away at his cheroot.
'We're interested in one of your pick-ups early Saturday morning.'
Golding burrowed through the mess on his desk and pulled out a wad of papers held by a bulldog clip. 'What do you want to know?'
'A pick-up around one in the morning outside the Samaritans' office in Marlow Street.'
A stubby nicotined finger travelled down the page. 'Got it.' He looked up. 'So?'
'You remember the call?'
'Yes.' He leant back in his chair. 'A woman, said her car had broken down and asked for a cab with a woman driver.'
'You sent a woman driver?'
'No. We've got women drivers, but they won't work after ten o'clock at night, it's too flaming dangerous. I told her I'd send one of our most reliable men.' His voice tailed off as he tried to hear what the fat woman was saying on the phone in the other room.
'And…?' prompted Frost.
'I passed on the…' He suddenly leapt from his chair and dashed out to the woman. 'Don't send Jacko to Mrs Silverman, you silly cow. He's the one who ran over her pet dog when he collected it from the vet's after its expensive operation. She threatened to tear his balls out if she ever saw him again.' He stamped back to his desk. 'Pardon my French, love' he apologized to Liz. He lowered his voice. 'I have to watch her all the time. She left her husband two months ago… for another woman!'
'I wish I had his luck,' said Frost, stretching out a foot to kick the door shut. 'Let's concentrate on the topic in hand, shall we — unless you'd like to finish this down at the station.'
Golding spread his hands in resignation. 'All right, all right, sod up my business. Why should I care?'
'Who did you give the job to?'
'Tommy Jackson… one of my most trusted drivers. I told the lady he'd be there in five minutes.'
'That was quick,' said Liz.
'It was going to be nearer a quarter of an hour, but I always say five minutes. If you tell them the truth they go somewhere else.'
A little bell tinkled at the back of Frost's brain. 'Jackson. Don't I know that name?'
