Get the old boy's name from the town hall and find out if he was still in the land of the living after he was supposed to have sold the place…'
It was chicken casserole for lunch at the canteen, but Frost didn't fancy it. He grabbed himself a sausage sandwich and was half-way into it when he suddenly remembered he was supposed to be attending the post- mortem of Sarah Hicks. Dropping the remains of the sandwich in his pocket, he dashed down to the car and was still wiping crumbs from his mouth as he charged into the autopsy room to be greeted by a scowling Drysdale. 'Just made it, doc,' he panted. 'I thought I was going to be late.'
'You are late,' snapped Drysdale. 'I said two o'clock.'
'Oh,' said Frost. 'I could have sworn you said twelve minutes past.' He shuffled on a green gown. 'If you could speed it up, doc, I've got lots to do.' He hoisted himself up on a stool and watched as the pathologist took a scalpel and scratched a preliminary red line down the stomach. Suddenly it hit him. Only a few hours ago he had been talking to the poor cow. Only a few days ago he had sat on this same stool while Drysdale performed the autopsy on little Vicky Smart. Someone was killing toms, someone was killing little girls, and he was supposed to be leading the hunt for the killers, but was getting absolutely nowhere. All his brilliant theories had proved false, all his dead cert leads had fizzled out. He no longer had any faith in his rogue cab driver theory, expecting it to blow up in his face like all the others. The responsibility was too bloody great. He was out of his depth. The pillow case flaming burglar was more his mark and he was getting nowhere with that case either.
'Are you still with us, Inspector?'
He snapped out of his mournful reverie. Drysdale was talking to him. 'Sorry, doc. What was that?'
'I said the condition her arteries were in, she could have suffered a heart attack at any time.'
Frost nodded gloomily. It didn't make him feel any better.
Four o'clock in the afternoon, dark as night outside and the pub was already crowded. The autopsy had depressed him and the awareness of his own inadequacy hung heavily over him. He couldn't face going back to the station without a drink inside him.
As he pushed his way through to the bar a familiar raucous laugh made him stop and turn. Leaning across the bar, chatting up the bespectacled barmaid, was Taffy Morgan clutching a beer glass. His back was to Frost, but some sixth sense told him he was being observed. Morgan turned and started guiltily. 'You looking for me, guv?'
As good an excuse as any. 'Yes,' lied Frost, 'I've been looking everywhere.'
'Sorry, guv. I was so busy getting the gen on that old farmer, I didn't have time for any lunch, so I popped in here for a quick sandwich.'
'Yes,' grunted Frost, 'I saw you drinking it. You can buy me one now, a pint!' He sipped the beer as the DC filled him in.
'I've tracked down that old boy's family, guv,' he began. 'It looks as if I was wrong about her killing him. The old girl bought the place from him for Ј3,500 in 1957 — paid cash apparently. The old boy died in his bed three years later. They showed me the death certificate.'
'Cash?' queried Frost. 'That was big money in those days — something over thirty thousand quid today.' He scratched his chin thoughtfully. 'In arrears with her rent, then suddenly comes up with that sort of money?'
'Tell you what I was thinking, guv,' offered Morgan. 'Suppose she had her son insured and killed him for the insurance money?'
'Insurance companies don't pay out without a death certificate and you don't get one if you dump the body in someone else's back garden.' He worried at his scar. 'We haven't time to sod about with ancient history, but we can't leave it like this. A body's planted in the garden next to her and her son goes missing. Then she suddenly comes into three and a half thousand quid. I hate to say it, but sometime or other we'll have to go back to Shangri- la, or whatever she calls the bloody place.' He downed the drink and wiped his mouth. 'But some other time, not now. Let's get back to the station.'
As they left, Morgan turned to wave to the dark-haired, bespectacled barmaid. 'What do you reckon to her, guv?'
Frost gave her an approving look. 'I wouldn't kick her out of bed on a cold night.'
'You know what turns me on, guv?'
'Every bloody thing turns you on,' said Frost, feeling a lot more cheerful now. Morgan always had this effect on him.
'What turns me on is the thought of making love to a girl who wears glasses. She strips to the buff, but keeps her glasses on.'
Then you can breathe on the lens and she can't see how small your dick is,' said Frost.
He was about to dart through the lobby when he saw the grim, angular figure of Doreen Beatty in earnest conversation with Bill Wells. Frost froze and waited in the corridor until she left, then hurried across.
'What did old mother Beatty want?'
'She wanted you,' replied Wells. 'Reckons a man's been stalking her all around the town.' He glanced at the description he had noted down. 'Dirty, shifty-eyed, loose-mouthed and oozing lust.'
'Sounds like Mullett,' grunted Frost, pushing through the swing doors. 'He always fancied a bit of rough.'
He went through his usual ritual of riffling through the papers in his in-tray. The only item of interest was a copy crime report from Lexton Division concerning three robberies from private houses where pillows were found in the middle of the beds and the pillow cases missing. The pillow case burglar was working further afield. Frost hoped Lexton would have more luck than he did. If they caught the man it would automatically knock his outstanding crime figures down to a respectable level. There was also a request from Belton Division asking that the case of Big Bertha be added to the Denton Division list of unsolved crimes as the killing undoubtedly took place in Denton District, the body being simply dumped in Belton. A good argument, but it wouldn't help Frost's crime figures, so he buried it deep under all the other papers. He looked up as Detective Sergeant Arthur Hanlon came in.
'How did the post-mortem go?' asked Hanlon, dragging a chair over to the inspector.
'Told us nothing we didn't know already, Arthur,' grunted Frost. 'The poor cow died from a heart attack probably brought on from the terror of knowing what the bastard intended to do to her. There was something bloody weird there, though.'
'What was that?' asked Hanlon.
'It was when Drysdale scooped out her stomach contents.'
Hanlon pulled a face. He knew he wasn't going to enjoy hearing this.
'She'd been dead over twelve hours and yet in her stomach was this undigested sandwich.' He dug in his pocket and pulled out the remains of his sausage sandwich which he held up, parted the bread and looked inside. 'A sausage sandwich.' As Hanlon gaped in horror, Frost popped it in his mouth and gulped it down. 'Doesn't taste bad considering…'
Hanlon went green and shuddered, but Frost couldn't keep a straight face any longer and broke into a broad grin. 'You bastard!' Hanlon shrieked as Frost nearly fell off his chair laughing. 'You're having me on. I won't tell you what we found out from the cab firms now.'
Wiping tears from his eyes, Frost passed his cigarette packet over. 'If I couldn't find something to laugh at about that damn autopsy room, Arthur, I'd go stark, staring bonkers. The poor bitch lying there like so much meat and Drysdale slicing her open.' He flicked his lighter. 'Tell daddy about the cab firms.'
'We could be on to something, Jack. We've checked them all and on every night a torn went missing, one of them answered a call, but no-one was waiting for them when they arrived.
Frost punched his palm with his fist. 'I knew it! He's listing in on a all band radio and if it's a call from a women on her own, he gets there first. We're going to nail the bastard.'
'How?' asked Hanlon
'We use decoys, Arthur. Lots of lovely, juicy nubile policewomen as decoys.' Sod all the gloom. He was now feeling on top of the world.
19
'Decoys?' repeated Mullett, scrubbing away at the lens of his glasses to give himself time to think. 'I don't
