A buzz of excited conversation.
'Secondly,' continued Liz, 'I checked the pick-up records for the nights the victims were last seen. The firms don't always record destinations, only the pickup points, but the night Big Bertha went missing, Denton Minicabs had a call from Downham Street, which is in the red light area, to Fenton Street, which is where Bertha shared a flat. Jackson was the driver, but, surprise, surprise, he told his firm there was no one there when he arrived.'
'We've got enough to charge him,' said Sergeant Hanlon.
'But not enough to get a conviction, Arthur.' The phone rang. Burton answered it. 'Forensic, Inspector. About the cab.'
Frost took the phone without much enthusiasm. Forensic hadn't been much help in the past. 'Right, give me the good news. You've found matching bloodstains, a pair of knee-length knickers and a signed confession?'
'No, Inspector,' said Harding patiently, 'but we did find a used condom so we can do DNA checks to see who used it and on whom. We also found fibres from that fur coat you were on about and traces of a considerable amount of dried blood on the carpeting which we are currently matching against the blood of the victims. Apart from that, little of interest.'
Frost squeezed the phone hard and stared up at the ceiling. 'Say that again.'
Harding said it again.
Frost beamed. 'The next time anyone says you're a lot of useless bastards, tell them I don't entirely agree.' He put the phone down and spun round. 'We've got him,' he said.
Jackson's scowl had deepened when he was brought back into the interview room. He snatched at the cigarette Frost offered.
'So you smoke cigarettes?' Frost commented, clicking his lighter.
'What else can you do with cigarettes,' snarled the cab driver, 'stick them up your arse? It's not a crime, is it?'
'Depends where you stub them out,' said Frost. He pulled out a wad of photographs of the murdered women and dealt them out, one by one. 'Recognize any of these?'
Jackson bent over to study them. 'I know most of them. They've used my cab quite a few times. They're prostitutes.'
'Dead prostitutes,' Frost told him. 'And by a strange coincidence, they all went missing on the nights you were on cab duty.'
'Hardly surprising, considering I only work nights.'
Frost flicked across the photograph of Big Bertha taken on the autopsy slab. 'Toms who phone for cabs on the nights you are on duty end up looking like that!'
Jackson screwed up his face and quickly turned his head away. 'That's sick. Just because they ride in my cab, it don't mean I murdered them. If they rode on a bus would you arrest the flaming bus driver?'
'If he was in the habit of beating up his passengers, I might, and if I found forensic evidence inside his bus, I damn well would.'
'Well, you found nothing inside my cab.'
'I'm afraid we did, Tom.' Frost tapped a finger on the photograph of Sarah. 'She was wearing a tatty fur coat the night she was murdered. We found fibres from it inside your cab.'
'I didn't say she'd never been in my cab. I just said I didn't pick her up the night she went missing,' smirked Jackson.
'At 2.36 last Thursday, this lady,' and Frost held up the photograph of Big Bertha, 'phoned for a cab to collect her from Downham Street. Max Golding gave the pick-up to you, but you claimed she wasn't there when you arrived, just as you claim Helen Stokes wasn't there when you arrived, and like Helen Stokes, the next time we saw her, she looked like this.' He waggled the autopsy photograph.
Jackson pushed the photograph away. 'If she wasn't there, she wasn't bloody there.' He clicked his fingers. 'I remember now. Yes, I radioed Max that the customer wasn't there so he gave me another pick-up just round the corner.'
'Another pick-up? I don't suppose you remember what it was?'
'No,' snarled Jackson. 'When you're murdering prostitutes all the time, you don't remember trifling little details like that. Max booked it, he'll know.'
Frost nodded for Liz to go and get the details from the minicab firm. 'Would you have any objection to giving up samples for DNA testing?'
'Why?'
'The killer raped the toms, using a condom. found a used one in your cab.'
Jackson folded his arms and smirked. 'Take all the samples you like, Inspector. My bodily fluids are at your disposal.'
You're too flaming sure of yourself, thought Frost. 'So how do you suggest the condom got there?'
A pitying look from the cab driver. 'Don't you know anything about the late night cab trade, Inspector? If the tom hasn't a place to take the punter to, and the punter hasn't got a motor, how do you think they consummate their passion? They call a cab and have it away on the back seat, that's how. Some mornings, after a busy night, I'm cleaning out used condoms by the shovelful. But if you want to do a DNA test, be my guest.'
Frost groaned inwardly. His pile of hard evidence was shrinking fast. But there was still the blood to be tested… A tap at the door and Liz beckoned him outside.
'The call from Big Bertha,' she told him, 'came in at 2.36. At 2.50 Jackson radioed back to base to say there was no-one there. Luckily, Golding had another customer for him, a man in Felford Road who had cut his hand on a corned beef tin and wanted to be driven to the casualty department at Denton Hospital to have it stitched up. I went through to the hospital and got the man's name and telephone number. I phoned him. He says the minicab arrived about five minutes after he made the call and took him straight to the hospital.'
Then there was no way he could have picked Bertha up and parked her somewhere before he took the other pick-up?'
'None at all. And there's more bad news. The man said he was bleeding like a stuck pig all over the back seat of the cab.'
'Shit!' said Frost.
'I can go?' asked Jackson in mock incredulity. 'Can't you think of anything else you can charge me with? What about that skeleton you dug up in that garden? Perhaps he rode in my cab.'
Frost ignored the sarcasm and tried not to show it was hitting home. He had nothing on Jackson and knew that the blood in the cab would turn out to be from the man who had the fight with the corned beef tin. 'Don't leave Denton. We may want to talk to you again.'
Shoulders slumped, he made his way back to the murder incident room but was waylaid by Mullett and led into the old log cabin.
'Have you charged him?'
'No… not enough evidence,' mumbled Frost, giving Mullett the details.
'This isn't good enough, Frost,' barked Mullett. 'You're arresting people left, right and centre, trying to make them fit the crime then having to let them go through lack of evidence. This has already led to one tragedy.' He shook his head reproachfully. 'I want a result, Frost. I want a result, quickly.'
'You should have said so before,' grunted Frost. 'I'd have tried harder.'
Mullett reddened. 'Don't give me your smart answers, Frost-' He was cut short by the phone.
'I told you to hold all my calls. Oh… I see.' He held the receiver out to the inspector. 'For you. A man on the phone in answer to my television appeal. He says he was with that Sarah woman last night.'
Another time-waster, thought Frost. These media appeals brought all the cranks and weirdo's crawling out of the woodwork. He shouldered the phone to his ear as he poked a cigarette in his mouth. Mullett quickly skidded the heavy glass ashtray over before the carpet was smothered in ash.
The call came from a public phone box. Frost could hear traffic roaring past in the background. 'Are you the detective handling that prostitute killing?'
'Yes,' said Frost, trying to sound interested.
'I think I'm the man you want to talk to. I was with her last night.'
'Oh yes?' said Frost, stifling a yawn.
