PC Lambert, who had been chaining off the entrances to the service station to stop motorists driving in, reported that the post holding the Fina emblem had been damaged, probably hit by the getaway car. Harding hurried out to check, returning happily to announce there was plenty of dark blue paint scraped from the getaway car to keep him happy. 'Find the car and we can match the paint,' he said. Again Liz radioed the station.
'What is it now?' barked Wells, his voice raised against a background of shouts and crashes.
'All units to look out for a dark blue car with a damaged nearside wing, wanted in connection with an armed robbery,' she told him. 'Approach with caution… driver believed to be armed with a shotgun.' She had to repeat herself as Wells couldn't hear over the background. 'Those drunks still there?' she asked.
'Yes, they flaming well are!' snapped Wells, banging down the phone.
The ambulance men taking the wounded man to hospital were also taking the woman cashier who was still in a state of shock. As Liz watched the ambulance leave, she spotted the surveillance camera on the forecourt. Excitedly, she pointed it out to Lambert. 'Get the videotape.'
Lambert shook his head. 'Sorry Inspector, we've already checked. The recorder's up the spout. The tape's all snarled up inside and the cashier forgot to report it.'
'Very convenient for the robber,' muttered Liz significantly. She made a mental note to get Morgan to check on the cashier's background as soon as she got back to the station. Suddenly the aisle of shelves blurred in and out of focus and seemed to lurch to one side and there was a roaring in her ears, making her grab at Lambert for support.
'Are you all right?' asked Lambert with concern.
'Of course I'm all right,' she snapped, making an effort to pull herself together; 'Just a bit sick, that's all… something I ate.'
She coasted her car into the station car-park, keeping well clear of the coach into which a rabble of noisy drunks were being herded. As they spotted her they let out a torrent of wolf whistles, accompanied by crude gestures. Ignoring them she pushed her way through to her office, clutching her handbag tightly. She hoped to find Morgan in Frost's office as she wanted him to check on the cashier, but it was empty. Frost was in the lobby talking to Bill Wells who acknowledged her with a scowl. 'Any idea where DC Morgan is?'
'He's out getting a punter's wallet back from a torn,' Frost told her. 'He should be back soon.'
The explosive roar of the coach engine bursting into life and urgent shouts and yells from the car-park sent them charging down the corridor. Then came the teeth-setting sound of metal grinding against metal. They reached the rear entrance just in time to see the coach, its jeering passengers giving them the 'V sign, weaving an erratic path to the exit, chased ineffectively by Collier, Simms and Jordan.
Wells' jaw dropped. 'They've driven off in the bloody coach,' he shrilled, staring accusingly at Frost whose idea it was in the first place.
Frost glared back at him. 'Didn't you think to check who had the flaming key?' They glowered at each other.
Giving up the chase and sucking air into spent lungs, Jordan and Simms made their way to the area car. 'We'll soon head them off, Sarge.'
'No, you bloody won't,' bellowed Wells. 'Let the next Division have the pleasure of catching the sods. Chase them until they reach our boundary, then get a puncture and radio that you've lost them.' He was grinning broadly at this happy outcome when the grin froze solid on his face. 'Look!' he croaked, pointing a wavering finger at Mullett's blue Rover, the Divisional Commander's pride and joy. It was now clear what the sound of metal grinding against metal had been. The rear wing was crumpled and the rear passenger door punched in. His mouth opened and closed. He could barely get the words out. 'Look what they've done to his motor!'
Frost looked and winced. 'Perhaps he won't notice.'
'Won't notice?' shrieked Wells. 'There's over a thousand quid's worth of damage there — of course he'll bloody notice!!'
Even before they reached the lobby they could hear the internal phone shrilling angrily. Wells stared at it. 'It's bloody Mullett. What shall I tell him?'
'Go on the offensive,' suggested Frost. 'Ask him why he hasn't made you to up inspector.'
Even at one o'clock on a cold winter's morning there were still people furtively scuttling along the back streets. A drunk clutching a lager can suddenly lurched in front of the car without warning and Morgan had to pound the horn and swerve violently to avoid hitting him. To express his gratitude the drunk jerked two fingers at the car, hurled the lager can at it and let off a stream of oaths before lumbering off into the dark. 'You should have run the bastard down,' grunted Hughes, who clearly had no fellow feeling for other drunks. Nearing their destination, they passed through the red light area where one lone prostitute, shivering in an artificial fur coat, forced a welcoming smile and moved forward hopefully as the car approached, slumping back against the wall as it drove past.
'She's a bit long in the tooth,' commented Morgan.
'Looks like the Queen bleeding Mum,' said Hughes, now staring ahead. 'It's down there!' He directed Morgan down a side street lined with parked cars. 'That's the place!' He indicated a three-storied building with a multitude of bell pushes alongside a front door which was swinging ajar. A couple of lights shone weakly from upstairs windows. Morgan parked behind a dark brown car which had its tyres slashed and the windscreen and side windows shattered. 'Nice neighbourhood,' he muttered. Hughes leapt out and bounded into the house. Morgan followed cautiously and slowly. If there was trouble, let Hughes have it. Some of these toms had long sharp fingernails and very short tempers.
He trotted behind Hughes, up uncarpeted stairs to the first landing where three doors faced them, each bearing a card affixed with a drawing pin showing the name of the occupant. Hughes stopped outside the end door. The card read 'Lolita'. As he pounded it with his fist, it swung open. He charged in. The woman lying on the bed didn't look up. 'Where's my wallet, you cow!' She didn't move. He went over and shook her, then let out a cry and stared in horror and disgust at his hands. They were red and sticky with blood. 'Flaming hell.' He backed away from the bed, wiping his hands down the front of his jacket. 'Flaming hell!'
Morgan elbowed him out of the way. She was lying on her back, on top of the bedclothes, eyes wide open. A trickle of blood from her mouth had dribbled down to her chin. All she wore was a white bra and white panties, the panties heavily stained with blood which had oozed from a deep gash in her stomach. She didn't look very old… in her mid-twenties at the most. Very gently, Morgan felt for a pulse in her neck. No sign of life, but the flesh was still warm. She hadn't been dead very long.
As he fumbled for his radio to call the station there was the slamming of the door and a clatter of running footsteps behind him. He spun round and dashed to the top of the stairs. Hughes had gone.
3
There were too many people packed into too small a space. The single bar electric fire screwed on the wall, the dials of its prepayment meter spinning madly, belted out its one kilowatt of heat making the room a sweat- smelling oven.
'Turn that bloody thing off before we all cook,' ordered Frost. He opened the window, but the blast of cold night air that was sucked in immediately turned the room into a fridge. He slammed it shut and looked again at the still figure off the bed.
Dr McKenzie, the police surgeon, overtired and overworked, had paid his flying visit on his way to a terminally ill patient and had officially pronounced her dead, probably within the hour. Confirming death was all he was paid to do — let Drysdale, the snotty-nosed Home Office pathologist, who was paid ten times as much for far less work, determine the cause of death. There was little love lost between Dr McKenzie and Drysdale.
It was a tiny cubicle of a room. The original rooms had been subdivided with plasterboard partitions to pack in as many short-stay tenants as possible. There was just room for the bare essentials: a single divan, a plastic- coated chipboard bedside cabinet supporting a phone, also with a prepayment meter, and a narrow simulated pine wardrobe.
Morgan, whose shamefaced, mumbled apologies had been cut short by Frost, had been sent off with a couple of uniforms to look for the runaway Hughes.
And as if there weren't enough people in the tiny room, Liz flaming Maud had put in an appearance. Frost
