Hard Frost (23 page)

   "Assuming he was involved," said Burton, 'the picture's nowhere near good enough to identify him."

   "There's more than one way of skinning a banana," said Frost. He called the manager back into the office and pointed at the shape on the screen. "I want to know who he is."

   The manager gave a shrug. "I've no idea."

   "Yes you have," said Frost. "Look - he's using his cash card to draw money from your cash machine. You can see the clock - that gives the exact time he took out the money. You've got to have a timed record of all money withdrawn from that machine."

   The manager went to a computer terminal on a small table by his desk and rattled away at the keyboard. "Yes. 9.34. £5 withdrawn." He peered at the screen. "That's strange. At 9.39 it was paid back in again."

   "He was stalling for time," said Frost. "I want his name, address and inside leg size."

   The manager twitched an apologetic smile. "I can't give you information about our customers. You will have to go through the proper channels."

   "Tell me that next time you come whining to me because you've got a parking ticket," said Frost.

   The manager clicked away at a few more keys and the screen display changed. He stood up. "I have to go out for a few minutes. Please do not look at this screen. It contains classified customer information."

   Frost beamed his thanks and was at the computer even as the door was closing behind the manager. His eyebrows rose in surprise. The customer was a girl. Tracey Neal, 6 Dean Court, Denton. She had a balance of £25 in her account. Her date of birth was shown. She was fifteen, the same age as Carol Stanfield. Burton scribbled down the details.

   "Mullett banks here," said Frost, sitting down in the chair by the computer. "I wonder how much he's got in his account. What's the betting he's in the red? Let's see if he's made any cheques out to ladies of ill repute." He pulled the keyboard towards him.

   Burton looked nervously towards the door, expecting the manager to return any minute. "Do you really think you should . . . ?"

   Frost ignored Burton's concern. "Do you reckon we just type in his name?" He pressed a key and the words account name? appeared on the screen. Frost started to peck out M . . . U . . . L . . . when the computer let out a high-pitched buzz, the screen display kept flashing on and off, and a Dalek-like, electronic voice bawled: "Unauthorized input . . . unauthorized input . . ."

   "Flaming hell!" Frost leapt from the keyboard to the vacant visitors' chair on the far side of the room. As the manager came running in, looking angry, Frost gave a puzzled frown towards the computer. "What the hell is up with that?" he asked with all the innocence he could muster.

Liz was sitting at the spare desk when he got back. She looked shaken, but was busying herself with heaps of papers. She accepted the cigarette Frost tossed over to her.

   "How did it go?"

   Her hand was unsteady as she put the cigarette in her mouth, but she tried to sound calm. It had been a harrowing experience. Drysdale was always thorough, even when the cause of death was obvious, and to watch him being thorough three times, and on the bodies of tiny children, was almost too much. Even Cassidy had been affected and had mumbled some excuse about a phone call, leaving her to see it through, and she had managed a smug smile as she watched him leave, but now she felt shattered. "Asphyxiated with a pillow, probably while they were sleeping. They wouldn't have cried out and they wouldn't have known anything about it."

   "Poor little sods." He saw she was having trouble in striking a match, so leant across with his lighter. "What about the stab marks on the boy's arm?"

   "Not very serious and made after death. That's all he could say."

   "Time of death?"

   "Between 11 p.m. and midnight, Drysdale will be able to pin it down closer when he knows the time they had their last meal. I'm seeing the father later on, he should be able to tell us when she usually fed them." Liz shuddered as she thought of the mother preparing their food, cooking it ever so carefully, the last meal they would ever have . . . "They all died within minutes of each other."

   "And still no sign of the mother?"

   "No."

   "Let's hope she's killed herself. It'll save everyone a lot of sodding about."

   Liz winced at Frost's apparent callousness, but she knew what he meant.

   "What about that row people heard? Has anyone owned up to it?"

   She shook her head. "I questioned our witnesses again and they still say they thought it was the wife and husband quarrelling, but as we know, the husband wasn't there."

   Frost scratched his chin. "The man who never was. Ah well . . . one of life's little mysteries." He switched to the Stanfield case. "I've got a job for you." He told her about the girl hovering about in the bank when Stanfield drew out the money. "Check her out."

   Glad of anything that would take her mind off the memory of those three small bodies on Drysdale's autopsy table, she inserted her papers in a folder and grabbed her handbag. She had to squeeze past Burton who was coming in and who hadn't left her enough room to get through easily.

   "You enjoyed that, didn't you, son?" grunted Frost.

   "Never thought I'd fancy a sergeant," replied Burton, pulling Liz's chair up to Frost's desk and sitting down.

   "Is it still warm from her lovely bottom?"

   "Red hot!" grinned Burton. "Right. The phone booths at the supermarket. I've had them all bugged, as you asked, ready for when the kidnapper makes contact. Every phone call in and out is now being recorded."

   "What about bugging the money case so we can track it?"

   Burton took a padded envelope from his pocket and carefully tipped out a small, grey plastic object, not much bigger than a fifty pence piece, and put it on Frost's desk. "Self-powered . . . range up to two hundred yards."

   Frost prodded it with a nicotine-stained finger. "Doen't look much. You sure it works?"

   "Positive. I tested it on the way over. But how will we get it in the suitcase with the money if Cordwell refuses to co-operate?"

   "Leave that to me, son. One of Savalot's security guards is going to slip it in for me."

   "Which one?" Burton asked.

   "A bloke called Tommy Dunn. He used to be a copper - took early retirement under pressure from Mullett. He'd been taking back-handers."

   "Can you trust him?"

   "No - but he'll do anything for a bottle of whisky. Tommy's done a bit of nosing around. The accounts manager is going to make the ransom money up from today's takings at the store. It will be put into an overnight case ready for Cordwell to collect. Tommy reckons he can slip the homing device under the lining so no-one will notice it." He returned the tiny transmitter to its padded envelope and handed it back to Burton. "Get over to Savalot, and ask for Tommy Dunn . . . Drop it in his pocket and leave."

   As Burton went out the internal phone rang. Bill Wells from the front desk. Mrs. Stanfield was here to identify the furs and jewellery fished out of the canal. "Right," said Frost, but as he spoke, panic set in. His eyes began a swift search of the office. Liz had picked the sodden furs from the floor and had hooked them over the hat-stand, but where was the flaming jewellery? "Hold on a tick, Bill." He put the phone down and started to ransack the place, looking everywhere, even where he was sure he hadn't put it. £40,000 worth of jewellery and he'd left it lying on his desk in full view where anyone could see it and the door open . . . Don't say some bastard has nicked it, he silently pleaded. A sudden thought. The insurance assessor. He must have taken it. A quick phone call. "No, inspector. It was still on your desk in a black plastic bag when I left."

   "Oh yes - of course," said Frost, trying to sound as if he had just spotted it. He lit up a cigarette for inspiration then realized angry noises were coming from his internal phone. Bill Wells was still hanging on. "Tell her to wait, Bill. I'll call back." He banged the phone down and again searched everywhere he had searched before, hoping that, in some magical way, the bag would suddenly appear.

   His internal phone rang again. Mrs. Stanfield was getting impatient. "She'll have to come back later," said Frost. "Tell her the insurance assessor has got to check it first."

   "But I thought - "began Wells.

   "Just tell her!" snapped Frost.

   "OK," said Wells, miffed by Frost's manner. "By the way, Mr. Mullett wants to see you."

   "He wasn't carrying a black plastic bag by any chance?" Frost asked.

   "As a matter of fact, he was."

   Frost put the phone down, relief mingled with irritation. It was his own stupid fault, but if you couldn't leave stuff unattended in a police station, where the hell could you leave it? He was trying to work out his ploy with Mullett when Cassidy stormed in. Flaming heck, thought Frost dolefully. Not more bloody moans.

   Cassidy jerked a thumb at the spare desk. "Where's the girl?"

   "Doing a job for me," said Frost. "Why?"

   "Call from the track inspector at Denton railway station. There's a body on the track. It could be the missing mother."

   "Let's hope it is," said Frost. "We haven't got time to keep looking for her." Cassidy could handle this on his own.

   The phone rang. This time an angry Mullett demanding the inspector report immediately to his office. Frost put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Hold on - I'm coming with you," he called to Cassidy. Back to the phone. "Sorry, super - urgent call." He hung up quickly.

As they drove down the road running parallel with the railway track all signals were at red. There was a stationary passenger train, its windows studded with heads of angry passengers trying to make out what the hold-up was. Cassidy parked the car on the stone-walled bridge which continued the road over the tunnel and the two detectives slithered down the embankment to the mouth of the tunnel where two railway track inspectors in fluorescent yellow jackets were waiting for them. Cassidy looked nervously at the gleaming rails. "Is the current off?"

   The senior track inspector nodded. "Yes - and it would help if you could be as quick as possible. This is playing havoc with our train schedules."

   Emergency lights were on in the tunnel, but did little to dispel the gloom. A strong wind roared noisily past their ears and they had to shout to be heard. Frost wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck and squinted his eyes against the dust and grit which the wind was hurling through the tunnel like bullets.

   "There!" The railway man stopped and pointed, turning his head away. He had seen it before and that was more than enough. He squeezed against the wall so they could get past him.

   She was some thirty yards into the tunnel, a crumpled heap, one arm lying across the rail and partly severed. As Frost bent to examine her he realized that she had been decapitated and the head was a few feet forward in the middle of the track. So cleanly was it cut, it could almost have been done with a very sharp knife, but was the result of a high speed train going over her. The train would have barely quivered as it sliced its way through. Frost pulled his eyes away from the bloodied stump of the neck and gingerly touched the flesh of her arm. Hard and ice cold. She was lying length ways along the rail and wore a black acrylic jumper and green slacks. He forced himself to look at the head. The eyes were open and staring, the face bruised and battered, light brown hair all over the place and matted with blood. He checked with the photograph in his pocket. No doubt about it. She was Nancy Grover.

   "Could she have been hit by a train as she walked through the tunnel?" asked Cassidy.

   "No way. If a train had hit her while she walked, she'd have been sent flying and would probably have been cut in half as it went over her," replied one of the railway men "My guess is she jumped from the bridge. I can't tell you the number of suicides we've had to bag up from here. It's all flaming copy-cat. One does it, the others read about it in the paper, then they all do it."

   "They used to jump from the top floor of the multi storey car-park," said the other track inspector. "Sod that for a way to die, strawberry jam all over the concrete."

   "This is worse," put in the first railway man "You could end up with your arms and legs cut off by the train and still be alive."

   "So if your bum itched you couldn't bloody scratch it," added Frost. "So come on . . . how would she have ended up half-way down the tunnel?"

   "They go to the bridge, climb on to the wall and wait for a train, then jump down in front of it. Only I reckon this poor woman left her jump too late, fell on top of a carriage and as the train took the bend, she was thrown off and smashed against the tunnel wall. Then she slid down, her head fell over the rail and the wheels sliced it off."

   "Wouldn't the train driver or any of the passengers have heard her crash on the roof?"

   "Not over the noise of the train."

   Frost shuffled forward to take another look at the head. The face looked strained and in torment. "You silly bitch," he whispered. "You've properly sodded this up."

   The senior of the track inspectors was muttering into a mobile phone. He beckoned Frost over. "There's a log jam of trains going right back to four stations. We'd like to get her shifted out of here so we can get things moving."

   "I bet you would," said Frost. He scratched his chin, working out the distance from the tunnel to the woman's home. She couldn't have walked here in less than half an hour. The kids were killed around midnight, which meant she must have done her diving act at half-past midnight at the earliest. "So what train did this to her?"

   "There's one at five past midnight."

   "Too early," said Frost.

   "Then it would have to be the 00.35. That's the last through train until 5.22 this morning."

   A yell from the mouth of the tunnel where a disgruntled passenger, fed up with waiting in a stationary train, had walked along the line to complain. "How much bloody longer? We've been here nearly an hour already."