Hard Frost (31 page)

   "Burton to Inspector Frost. I've found him. Back on the Bath Road, heading north. I'm following."

   "Exactly where on the Bath Road?" yelled Frost into the handset as he swung the car around, shooting up a shower of rainwater.

   "Just passing Sandown Road."

   "Right - Frost to all mobiles. I want two of you to get ahead of him. Charlie Baker you get to the motorway turn-off, and when he approaches, you take over from Burton. Charlie Abel - tail them both. If it looks as if he's spotted Charlie Baker, then you take over." He began to whistle cheerfully. Action - this was more like it.

   "Subject turning north into Forest Row," reported Burton.

   Frost nodded resignedly. It looked as if Cordwell was heading for Denton Woods where it would be bloody difficult to keep track of him once he left the car. It now needed lots more men than he had available. And yet again that evening he bitterly cursed Tommy Dunn for dropping him in it like this.

   "He's slowing . . . he's slowing," reported Burton. "He's stopped."

   "Where?" yelled Frost. "Just in case we might want to know."

   "Sorry. By the public call box, corner of Forest View. He's getting out of the car, making for the call box. He's waiting and checking his watch. The phone's ringing .. . he's answered it. Now he's hung up and he's dashing back to the Nissan."

   "It must be the final instructions for the drop," said Frost. "Don't lose him . . . we'll be with you soon."

Burton braked. He was getting too close. A short way back he had lost sight of the Nissan and had jammed down on the accelerator only to have to slam on the brakes to avoid shooting up its backside. Luckily Cordwell had other things on his mind and did not seem to notice.

   The road wriggled into another sharp bend and again the rear lights of Cordwell's car slipped out of sight. Burton accelerated as much as he dared. The weather conditions were making the road surface treacherous. As he negotiated the bend, he cursed. The Nissan had stopped. Had Cordwell seen him? Was he, perhaps, checking to see if he was being followed? Burton drove straight past, avoiding turning his head as he passed, but at the very next bend, he slowed and bumped the car up on to the grass verge. Quickly, he stuffed the radio into the pocket of his raincoat, slung the night glasses round his neck and stepped out into torrential rain.

   Running back towards the oak tree, he reported to Frost. "He's stopped."

   "Where?" asked Frost.

   "The big oak alongside Forest Common."

   "What's he doing now?"

   Burton didn't know. He couldn't see a flaming thing. He couldn't even see the car. Cordwell had switched off the lights and the rain was making visibility very limited. "Wait," he panted, dropping the radio back in his pocket and getting out the night glasses.

   He located the oak tree, then moved down to the car. It was empty. He panned the common. Bushes, trees ... He'd lost him . . . he'd damn well lost him. He began swinging the glasses wildly from left to right, hoping to pick up something. What was that? Something white. He held the glasses steady on Cordwell in his white mac. Thank goodness it was a white raincoat otherwise he might never have spotted him. He adjusted the focus. Cordwell was carrying something. The money bag.

   He became aware of squawkings from his pocket. The radio. Frost pleading for some news. He fished it out and reported breathlessly, "Have subject in sight. Will report back." He raised the night glasses again. Damn. Bushes, trees, but no sign of Cordwell. He panned quickly from left to right. Nothing. Where the hell was he? He almost shook with relief when he again picked up a blur of white. Cordwell emerging from a line of bushes and bramble. He was coming back . . . Returning to his car. Had he made the drop? At first Burton wasn't sure. Cordwell was at the wrong angle, but when he turned towards the oak, Burton could see that the supermarket chief no longer had the travel bag.

   He pulled out the radio and brought the anxious Frost up to date. "He's made the drop."

   A sigh. of relief from Frost. "Good boy. What's he doing now?"

   The night glasses followed him. "He's going back to his car."

   The sound of the Nissan's engine could just be heard over the drumming of the rain. "He's reversing. He's heading back to Denton."

Frost ducked his head as approaching headlights flared in the windscreen and Cordwell roared past them on his way back. He radioed Charlie Baker, the area car, to wait by Sandown Road and, as soon as Cordwell passed, to follow him at a discreet distance. "If he goes anywhere but straight home, I want to know." The kidnapper was such a wily bastard, all that had happened could have been a feint; the money could still be with Cordwell to be dumped elsewhere.

   Looming ahead of them, creaking in the wind, was the large oak tree where Cordwell had parked. Frost slowed down, squinting through the windscreen for Burton's car. He spotted it just round the next bend and bumped up on the grass verge to park behind it. He and Cassidy climbed out and peered into rain and darkness. No sign of Burton. "Where are you, son?" Frost whispered into his radio. Burton blinked his torch a few times and they homed in on his signal.

   It was an uncomfortable walk in the dark over bumpy and puddle-ridden ground fighting against the wind and the rain, and it was making Cassidy's stomach hurt like hell. Was this why Frost had asked him along to show up his damn weakness? If so, and he winced as a flame of pain rippled across his stomach, if so, Frost was going to be disappointed.

   Burton was crouched behind the trunk of a stunted tree. Not much of a place to hide, but better than nothing. He pointed to a dark mass ahead and handed Frost the night glasses. "The money is behind there somewhere."

   Frost shook off the rain and raised them to his eyes. "I can't see a bleeding thing."

   Cassidy took the glasses. "Those bushes?" he exclaimed. "They're seventy yards away. Can't we get any closer?"

   "It's all open ground," said Burton. "We'd be seen."

   "So where's the money?"

   "Round the back somewhere," Burton told him.

   "Somewhere? Can't you be more precise?"

   "I saw him go behind with the money and come back without it."

   "So it could be any of those flaming bushes and we're on the wrong side seventy yards away."

   Burton indicated the sprawling terrain. "There's nowhere on the other side to hide. We'd be seen miles away."

   "What about those bushes there?" Cassidy pointed.

   Frost gave them a glance, then shook his head. There was too much open ground between them. "This is as good a place as any."

   The call light on the receiver flashed. Burton turned the volume down and listened. Charlie Baker reporting in. Cordwell had made one stop on the way back - at a phone box. As he approached it, it rang. He spoke briefly, then drove straight home.

   "The kidnapper wanting confirmation the drop had been made," said Frost. "He must have phoned from a call box. Where's the nearest one from here?"

   "The one in Forest Row," said Burton.

   "If that was the one he used, he should be here in less than ten minutes," said Frost to Burton. "Get back to your car and wait and be ready to tail him after he collects the money."

   "He might not have used that one," objected Cassidy. "He might have a mobile phone. For all we know he could be standing in those trees over there, watching."

   "If he had a mobile phone and was standing in those trees," said Frost, 'he'd have seen Cordwell drop the money and wouldn't have needed to make the phone call." He nodded Burton on his way.

   Burton hurried off while Frost panned the area through the night glasses to see if he could spot anyone watching them. A radio call from Burton. He was back in his car awaiting further instructions.

   Frost consulted his wrist-watch. Nine forty-six. His clothes were sodden and rain was beating down on them. Too wet to smoke and nothing to do but to wait.

   They waited.

Chapter 12

Cassidy wriggled and tried to make himself comfortable on the soaking wet grass. "How long do you think we'll have to wait?"

   "Not too long," muttered Frost, scanning the far ground through the night glasses. "There's too much money just lying around. He won't want to risk anyone else finding it."

   "Car coming," reported Burton over the radio.

   They held their breath and waited. But it sped past. And so did the next.

   A lull in the traffic and Frost went back to his surveillance of the bleak-looking area. It was tricky using the night glasses and he hadn't got the hang of them. Every now and then his view would be completely obscured as a large bush or tree trunk took up the entire field of vision. He swung back to the bushes where the money was hidden.

   A clap of thunder and the heavens opened, rain drumming on the ground so they had to shout to hear each other. Cassidy wiped stinging rain from his eyes and brushed back dripping wet hair. "Bloody weather," he snarled.

   "It's perfect," said Frost. "No-one but kidnappers and prats of policemen would be out in this. Whoever turns up has got to be our man." Again he raised the glasses and focused on some trees eighty yards or so away. Just before the downpour, he thought he had seen something move. The stair rods of rain were making it difficult to see anything and he was just convincing himself he was mistaken when . . . Yes, there it was. He nudged Cassidy. "I spy, with my little eye, something that looks like a motor."

   "Where?" hissed Cassidy, straining his eyes into the blurred darkness.

   Frost handed him the glasses and pointed. "Behind the trees."

   Cassidy panned carefully. He located the trees and . . . yes. Frost was right. Half hidden . . . a car. He locked on to it, holding his breath and bracing himself to steady the night glasses. A Ford Escort. The glasses gave everything a green tinge, but it was a light colour . . . cream, brown or grey, perhaps. "I see it. Its lights are out."

   "Most of the cars that come down here turn their lights out," grunted Frost. "They only turn them on if the girl can't find her knickers afterwards. Can you see anyone inside?"

   Cassidy stared hard, trying to penetrate the curtain of blurring rain. "No."

   "Let me have a go." Frost took the glasses.

   "Shall we pick him up?"

   "No," said Frost. "Until he collects up the money, we've nothing on him . . . Hello .. He steadied the glasses and started to chuckle.

   "What is it?" hissed Cassidy.

   "You'd better see this."

   Cassidy snatched the glasses, then he snorted with disgust. The car was bouncing up and down on its springs and the windows were well steamed up.

   "Not our kidnapper, I'm afraid," said Frost ruefully. Then he remembered a poem he'd seen on a lavatory wall once and began to recite:

   "You could tell he was a master, In the art of love. First the slight withdrawal, Then the mighty shove."

   Cassidy snorted his disgust. Hadn't Frost got any damn taste? They were trying to catch the killer of a child, for Pete's sake!

   The car gave a sudden lurch. "Flaming heck," said Frost with admiration. "That was a mighty shove all right. I bet that brought the colour to her cheeks."

   "Bloody animals!" snarled Cassidy.

   But Frost was lost in recollection. "I used to come here and behave like a bloody animal . . . Long time ago of course . . ." It was when he was in his teens, young and lusty . . . Who was that dark girl . . . the little goer. What was her name . . . ? And then he remembered. Flaming heck, how could he have forgotten! It was his wife. Long before they were married. She was a little doll in those days . . . bouncy, little figure, jet black hair, snub nose, and she thought the world of him . . . that showed how long ago it was! A time, before all the rows, when everything marvelous was going to happen. When they made plans about getting married, about him joining the police force and rising in the ranks to chief superintendent. It all came back . . . that night . . . that summer night when it was so hot you could have trampled through the grass in the nude at midnight and not feel cold. That was when it happened for the first time . . . when he undressed her and . . . 

   Someone was shaking his arm. "Frost!"

   "Eh?" It wasn't a summer night any more. It was peeing with rain and he was wet and cold. Cassidy was shaking his arm and pointing back to the road. "What did you say?"

   "Another car coming."

   All they could see at first were the headlights shining blearily through the rain. Then the car. A dark blue Austin Metro.

   "He's slowing down," said Cassidy in excitement. "He's stopped . . . the bugger's stopped."

   Frost squinted through the glasses. He could just about make out the figure at the wheel. There didn't appear to be anyone else in the car, which splashed to a stop, almost dead in line with the clump of bushes where the money was hidden.

   "It's him!" hissed Frost. "It's bloody got to be him."

   For some minutes the car just stood there, engine ticking, lights on. Then the lights went out, the engine was switched off and the only sound was the drumming rain.

   "Keep down," hissed Frost, tugging at Cassidy who was raising his head to get a better view.

   They waited. Frost was able to wriggle through the long grass and pick out the registration number through the binoculars. Cassidy whispered it into the radio for Control to check. The reply came back in seconds. The registered owner was a Henry Finch, 2 Lincoln Road, Denton. It hadn't been reported stolen and nothing was known about the owner.

   Frost grabbed the radio. "The kidnapper would be a prat driving his own car. The owner might not realize his motor's gone. Phone Finch and ask where his car is. If he says it's parked in the street outside, then we know this one's been nicked. If there's no answer, send an area car round to his house to nose around. If Finch is the kidnapper the kid might be in the house. Get cracking."