Hard Frost (53 page)

   "The women's clothes as well as the men's?"

   "We went through them all," said Liz. "Nothing there that shouldn't be there."

   "Unless his dick was hanging out and he tucked it away before coming to the door, I reckon he hid something." He looked again at the clothes on the rack. "Let's go through these. Take everything out of the pockets and check the lining."

   The pile of odds and ends from the pockets mounted. Old receipts, bus tickets, scribbled shopping lists . . . "What's this?" Frost had found something in the inside pocket of a woman's grey and white woollen coat. A black plastic credit card holder.

   "Her credit cards," said Burton. "I checked them earlier."

   Frost was about to add it to the heap when an impulse made him look inside. He smiled grimly at Burton. "You didn't check it thoroughly enough, my son." He showed him the credit cards inside. They were all in the name of H. A. Finch.

   Burton stared, shamefaced. "I don't know how I missed that."

   "It doesn't matter, son," said Frost. "If you had found it earlier we wouldn't have attached any importance to it." He went through it. "So why was Finch so anxious to hide this?" Tucked in the end pocket were two Visa receipts. The first was for Finch's shopping the previous day at the supermarket. But the other bore today's date . . . Hatter's Garage, River Road, Denton . . . Petrol £12.74.

   He phoned the garage. "Can you tell me what time this receipt was issued?"

   "Some time this evening," said the garage man. "Latish."

   "Can't you be more precise . . . it's important."

   "If you can give me the registration number, I might be able to pinpoint it precisely. We've got a security video camera running all the time . . . too many people driving off without paying."

   Burton was sent off to get the number. Frost relayed it.

   "Just a minute." The sound of the phone being put down . . . noises off while the man dealt with a customer, then the clicking of controls as the video was wound back Hello . . . Is it a Renault?"

   "Yes."

   "Ten twenty-three this evening."

   "Thanks," said Frost. "Don't erase that tape. We're on our way now to pick it up."

   It took just over twenty minutes to reach the garage, where they sat in the manager's office as the garage man loaded up the tape. "We get all sorts of things recorded on these," he said chattily. "Caught a bloke doing a number two behind the Derv pump last week. Want to see it?"

   "No thanks," said Frost. "It might be me."

   "There you go!" The man found the approximate place and pressed the play button. Black and white images of single shots jerked across the screen like old silent films. The man pressed the pause button and there, quivering on the screen, was Finch using the pump. Frost rose from his chair and almost pressed his nose on the screen as he studied the car. If he was hoping to see the missing boy grinning out of a window, he was disappointed. The running time was shown on the corner of each frame. Finch arrived at ten twenty-three and left at ten twenty-seven. They commandeered the tape.

   "So what does it all mean?" asked Liz when they were back in the car.

   "He hid the receipt," said Frost, 'which means he didn't want us to know he'd bought petrol here. Why not? Because he had Bobby Kirby in the boot. Finch was taking him to where he was going to hide him."

   "And where was that?" asked Liz.

   "Definitely not in the woods," replied Frost. "There's plenty of filling stations he would have passed going there. Hatter's Garage is in the opposite direction."

   "He could have gone on to the woods afterwards," said Burton.

   "So why go to great lengths to hide the petrol receipt? No, son. All those poor sods falling over each other searching the woods and running up our overtime bill have been wasting their time. The kid isn't there."

   "Then where is he?" asked Liz.

   Frost sighed. "All we can do is guess. The road past the filling station leads straight down to the river."

   Liz paled. "You believe he's dumped the boy in the river?"

   "Alive or dead, I reckon that's where he is." He told Burton to drive down there while he fished his radio out of the glove compartment. "Frost to Control . . . over."

   "We've been trying to get hold of you, inspector," said Lambert. "Message from Mr. Mullett. He wants to see you in his office right away."

   "Message for Mr. Mullett," said Frost. "Tell him to get stuffed. This is urgent. Contact the search team in the woods. Tell them to stop immediately and get over to the top of River Road bloody quickly. I'll meet them there. And try and rustle up a couple of frogmen. We could be fishing for a body."

   "Right," said Lambert. "Mr. Cassidy wants a word."

   A rustle as Cassidy took over the microphone. "What's happening?"

   Frost gave him the details. "I'm getting a team over to search the river area in case he's still alive."

   "I'm on my way," said Cassidy. If there was a chance of a successful outcome to this case with the boy still alive, he wanted to be part of the winning team.

   "Great," said Frost, trying to sound enthusiastic. "The more the merrier."

The river, some twenty feet across at this point, was little more than an open sewer, receiving the effluent from the various factories on the far side who found it cheaper to pay fines than conform to the stringent requirements of the Rivers Authority. Its surface was usually a sluggish mass of discoloured foam and oil-rainbowed scum, but the heavy rain of the past few days had made it overflow the sluice gates and now the flow was galloping past.

   The road ran alongside the river for about a quarter of a mile and it was in this section that Frost intended to concentrate his search. He stood, watching the boiling river, drenched to the skin, while Burton and Liz, heads down, almost blinded by the torrential rain, looked for places where a tiny body might be concealed. He shouted Bobby's name in the forlorn hope the boy might be able to answer him, but all he could hear was the machine gun bullets of rain making snapping noises, almost like the crackling twig sound of a forest fire, as they pock-marked the river.

   Headlights reflected off the water and he turned to see cars approaching. The search parties from the woods. From the first car, Arthur Hanlon, his hair plastered and dripping, squelched over to Frost. He eyed the current tearing past carrying broken branches and floating debris. "Don't like the look of that, Jack,"

   Frost nodded gloomily. "All it needs is bleeding Lilian Gish on an ice floe."

   "You reckon Bobby's somewhere near here?" Hanlon had to shout over the noise of rushing water.

   "Yet another one of my inspired guesses," said Frost. "If he's dead," he hurled a stone into the water, 'he'll be on the bottom, sharing a sack with some bricks."

   He went over with Hanlon to the members of the search party, most of them still sitting inside their cars, not wanting to get any wetter or colder until they had to. All of them looked tired and dispirited, but they climbed out of the cars to huddle round him. "Isn't this better than being stuck inside a stuffy office?" he asked, which produced a few laughs. "All right. I've sodded you about up to now, but this has got to be our best lead yet. I know you're tired and fed up and hate my guts, but the poor little sod we're looking for is seven years old, shit-scared and could die if we don't find him quickly. Search everywhere, even the most unlikely places. If you're not sure, search again. So good luck."

   Hanlon split them into groups and directed them to various search areas while Frost made his way back to the bank. More voices and car door slammings. The mobile lighting unit and the frogmen. Hanlon sent a couple of men over to help them unload their gear and get the lights set up.

   Frost walked up and down the bank, the rain beating down heavily on his bare head and soaking through his shower proof water-blackened mac. The lights had been rigged and shone down on the river making it look like black velvet and bounced off the oilskins most of the men were wearing. False alarms as debris floating past looked just like a tiny body, but when it hit the lighted area turned out to be clumps of vegetation and earth from where the bank had collapsed into the river.

   Jordan, in the small rowing boat with Collier at the oars, was prodding the muddy bottom with a pole. The monotonous, grating creak of the row locks as Collier fought to keep the boat steady against the drag of the current was setting Frost's teeth on edge.

   "Something here, inspector!" Jordan calling from the boat, leaning over the side, dragging something from the water.

   Frost's heart stumbled and skipped a couple of beats as an ominous-looking black plastic dustbin sack was hauled up and brought over to him. Don't let it be the boy, he pleaded silently. Please, don't let it be the boy. His knife slashed it open and it spewed stinking river water all over his feet. A long, low sigh of relief. Rotting household rubbish, dumped a long time ago.

   Frost wiped the rain from his face and eyes and tried to concentrate to see if he got any feeling that the boy was somewhere near . . . that he was alive.

   "Any luck?" called a familiar voice.

   Bleeding Cassidy. He hoped he wasn't going to go on again about his daughter. "We haven't found a dead body yet . . . that's about as lucky as we've got."

   "I had another word with Finch," said Cassidy.

   Did you? thought Frost. He's supposed to be my bloody prisoner, but be my guest . . .

   "Mr. Mullett thought I might be more successful than you."

   "Mr. Mullett isn't questioning my infallibility, I hope?" muttered Frost.

   "Finch is keeping shtum. I told him you were searching the river. He didn't seem at all worried."

   "He's hardly going to say "Oh my God, not the river!" is he? If he looks blank and acts dumb, we can't pin anything on him."

   "But if we find the boy - "

   "There'll still be no proof Finch put him here. The fact he filled up at a garage in the vicinity is hardly bloody conclusive." He pulled off his scarf, which was soaking wet and making him uncomfortable. "I'll be happy if we find the kid alive, even if it means letting Finch go."

   The area was adazzle with all of the floodlights working and the generator throbbed away out of sight somewhere. Oars creaked, rain drummed and one of the floodlights sizzled and flashed intermittently as rain found a faulty connection. Searchers on the bank, in oilskins, bent low as they prodded the long wet grass.

   "Put some bloody beef into it," roared Cassidy, walking over to one of the groups who had been out in the rain and cold all night. Backs stiffened, but no-one said anything. They were too tired.

   "Looking for the boy, Jack?"

   Frost groaned. Sandy Lane from the
Denton Echo
with one of his photographers ready for one of his "Police Fail Again' stories.

   "Hello, Sandy," he grunted. "Been listening in to the police wave bands

   The reporter grinned. "No, Jack. We just happened to be driving past and we spotted all the lights."

   "Oh," sniffed Frost. "I thought there was an innocent explanation. Yes, we're looking for the boy."

   "Any reason why you chose this particular spot?"

   "No. We just happened to see the lights and we thought we'd have a look. Now leave me alone, Sandy, there's a good boy. We're busy."

   The photographer took a couple of pictures of the searchers, then retired to the car with Sandy to wait for the body to be fished up, or the boy to be found alive. The reporter began working out alternative headlines to cover either eventuality.

   The search had moved further down, leaving in its wake a trail of flattened grass and odd heaps of rubbish dredged from the river. Frost threw away the sodden cigarette that dangled from his mouth and tried to light up a fresh one from the damp pack in his pocket. He managed a couple of drags of bitter-tasting smoke before it sizzled and died. The feeling that the kid was here, almost within reach, was strong, but only as strong as the feeling they probably wouldn't find him. He felt like hurling himself in the car, tearing back to the station and doing a deal with Finch. Tell us where he is and we will drop all charges, give you a pension for life and all the Cup Final tickets you want.

   He pulled back a sodden cuff to consult his watch. One o'clock in the morning. He could hear Cassidy shouting, redirecting one of the teams back to an area they had already searched. He thought of Finch in his nice, dry cell, snug and warm, and probably working out how much he could sue the police for harassment and wrongful arrest.

   "Frost!"

   A shudder quivered through him. Just what he wanted to make his misery complete. Mullett, immaculately turned out in his tailored raincoat which, in some mysterious way, seemed to repel the rain. He forced a smile. "Hello, super."

   Mullett gaped at the floodlights, the frogmen, the teams of off-duty men, and tried to work out the cost. He transferred his glare to the drenched, drowned rat figure of Frost. "Who authorized this?"

   "I tried to get you," said Frost, "I rang your house - no-one answered."

   "I haven't been more than six feet away from the phone all night," snapped Mullett.

   "I must have got a wrong number, then," said Frost. "It rang and rang . . . and I knew you would have authorized it."

   "So Finch told you where the boy was?"

   "Not exactly, sir." He told Mullett about the petrol receipt.

   Mullett stared at him in open-mouthed incredulity. "And on the basis of that flimsy piece of so-called evidence you have committed us to an overtime bill far in excess of our resources, even after I had specifically told you . . ." His lips tightened. "You deliberately didn't phone me, Frost, because you knew I would say no."

   You clever bastard, thought Frost. That's exactly why I didn't phone you.

   "Inspector! Over here."

   A welcome diversion. Arthur Hanlon, Jordan by his side, was bending over something fished out of the river. He was waving. "Excuse me, super." He brushed past Mullett and hurried down.