A Touch Of Frost (39 page)

She gave it barely a glance before shaking her head.

Still holding it up to her, Frost said, “I think you do, Mrs. Dawson. His name is David Shelby, he’s a policeman, married with two young kids. He was shot dead yesterday.”

“Oh!” She took the glossy, then pretended to recognize it for the first time. “Of course. Yes, I read about it in the paper.” She offered Frost the photograph back, but he didn’t take it.

“Then you know why we are here, Mrs. Dawson?”

Her hands fluttered vaguely. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” Webster wandered over to the rack of guns with their polished stocks and mat black barrels. If weapons of death could look beautiful, then these looked beautiful. From a casual glance there was no way of telling if any of the shotguns had been fired recently, and, in any case, none of these guns would be returned to the rack without being thoroughly cleaned.

Frost took the black-and-white photograph from the woman’s hand and replaced it with the Polaroid. The colour drained from her face. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because we are investigating a murder, Mrs. Dawson. Debbie saw the man drawing the bedroom curtains, but it wasn’t Karen’s bedroom—it was the room next door . . . your bedroom. You were in bed with Dave Shelby when Karen came home unexpectedly, weren’t you? She burst in on you, saw you together. That’s why she ran out of the house?”

She gave the photograph back to the inspector, then slowly walked over to the bar and poured herself a stiff vodka. She offered the bottle to Frost, who refused. With one elbow on the bar counter she emptied half the glass, then set it down. “All right. So I was in bed with your policeman. But I didn’t know he was married, and I didn’t know he had children.”

“Would it have made any difference if you had known?” Webster asked her.

She frowned, considering this, then shook her head almost imperceptibly. “No. I don’t think it would. I can’t help it: I need men. I met Dave in a pub—I forget which one. I was feeling lonely.” She looked up, her head slowly travelling around the barn of a lounge. “This house is so big, so empty. Neither Karen nor Max needs me anymore. Dave used to come in the afternoon when he was on the middle shift. He was good-looking and a lot of fun. Kinky though. He liked taking these photographs. He promised to burn them. I wouldn’t have let him take them if he hadn’t promised that.”

“When did he take this photograph?” Frost asked.

“That afternoon. Just before Karen came bursting in on us. We had the shock of our lives when that happened.” She shuddered at the recollection. “Dave said he wouldn’t be coming again after that, but I would have talked him round. And when I read in the paper that he had been killed . . .” She finished her drink and poured another.

“When did your husband find out?” asked Frost casually.

She stared at him, eyes wide open in horror, shaking her head from side to side. “My husband? God, surely he doesn’t know. He’d kill me, Inspector. You can’t imagine how violent he is.”

“I think we can,” said Frost. “We think he is so violent that when Karen told him what she saw, he took one of his expensive shotguns, went out to find Shelby, and blasted his face off. Would you like me to show you a photograph of how your lover looked after that, Mrs. Dawson?”

The glass rattled on the bar top as she set it down. She backed away from him. “Max doesn’t know about me and Dave. If he did he would have killed me first and Dave second.”

Frost pulled the scarf from his pocket and buttoned up his mac. “Well, let’s hope he’s got an alibi for yesterday.”

She clutched his sleeve. “You’re not going to tell him? For God’s sake, you’re not going to tell him about me and Dave?” She paused. “Wait a minute. What time yesterday?”

“From five o’clock onward.”

She thought, then she smiled. “That’s easy. He was shooting for his club—The Denton Small Arms Shooting Association. There was some challenge match with another club. Max was there until long gone nine.”

“What guns did he take with him?” asked Webster.

“An automatic pistol and a shotgun.”

“We’ll check with his club,” Frost told her. “If his alibi holds, we won’t bother you or him further. We’ll see ourselves out.”

As they opened the front door a young, very good-looking man was standing on the step. He carried what appeared to be an overnight case in his hand.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon,” he said. “I appear to have come to the wrong house.”

“I don’t think so,” replied Frost. “She’s waiting for you inside. Have you brought your camera?”

For reasons he didn’t explain, Frost wanted to check the alibi on his own, leaving Webster to wait impatiently outside the exclusive Denton Small Arms Club. After fifteen minutes, the inspector emerged, shoulders slumped as he slouched down the stone steps to the car.

“Well?” asked Webster, when Frost had slid into the passenger seat.

“Dawson arrived there before five and didn’t leave until well after ten,” said Frost gloomily, “so there’s no way he could have done it . . . more’s the bloody pity.”

Webster raised his eyebrows. “Why do you say that?”

“Because if it’s not him, then it’s got to be someone else, hasn’t it?” muttered Frost, slouching lower into his seat.

They drove in silence until they reached the station, where Frost was dropped off. He had suddenly realized that he hadn’t obtained the Divisional Commander’s authority for the night’s decoy operation.

He trotted into Mullett’s secretary’s office to find the grey-haired Miss Smith crouched over her electronic daisy-wheel typewriter, bashing out a report at high speed.

“Yes, Inspector?” she asked, her eyes not moving from her notebook.

“I’d like to see Hornrim Harry.”

“If you mean the Divisional Commander,” she sniffed, “he’s had to go over to County Headquarters. Perhaps I can do something for you?”

“That’s damn generous of you, Ida,” grinned Frost. “Your place or mine?” Still guffawing at his cheap wit, he wandered away, leaving Miss Smith hot-cheeked and fuming.

He ambled over to Sergeant Johnny Johnson at the front desk. “How many men can you spare me for tonight, Johnny?” he asked.

“None,” replied the sergeant, ruling a line to finish an entry. “What did you want them for?”

“Operation Mousetrap. A decoy operation to nab our rapist.”

Johnson nodded. Vaguely he recalled the details, but as far as he knew it hadn’t been officially approved. “Have you spoken to Mr. Mullett about it?”

Frost offered his cigarettes. “I’ve just come from his office,” he said truthfully.

Johnson accepted a light, then consulted the shift rota. “How long would you want them for?”

“As long as it takes, Johnny. Two or three hours, perhaps. If he hasn’t taken the bait by one o’clock, say, I’ll call it off for the night.”

“Tell you what,” said Johnson. “Providing I can call them back if there’s an emergency, I can let you have four men and a patrol car.”

Frost grimaced. This was totally inadequate. Allen’s plan called for a minimum of fifteen men. “Bloody hell, Johnny. It’s Denton Woods I’m trying to cover, not a flaming window box.”

The station sergeant shrugged and returned to the Incident Book. “You can’t have what I haven’t got. Take it or leave it.”

There could be no question about Frost’s answer. No way could the plan possibly succeed with such a pathetically inadequate force. It would be disastrous.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

Webster had just sat himself down in the armchair in his room and closed his eyes for a couple of minutes before shooting off in the Cortina to Sue’s place to spend almost an hour with her before they would have to leave for Operation Mousetrap. But he must have drifted into a deep sleep.

He and Susan, together with Dave Shelby and Mrs. Dawson, were all enjoying a naked, sweaty, lusty foursome in that bed with the padded leather headboard when the door burst open. In the doorway, twitching with fury, was Max Dawson with the shotgun. As Dawson pulled the trigger, Webster suddenly jerked awake and the blast changed into the jangle of the phone.

It was Sue. Angry. Demanding to know where the hell he was. He looked at his watch. Damn and bloody blast! Ten minutes to ten and the briefing meeting at 10.15 sharp.

He splashed cold water over his face and leaped down the stairs to the car. By anticipating a couple of traffic light changes he was outside her flat, honking the horn, at three minutes to ten. She scurried across to the car, not looking at him. She looked marvelous. She had scrubbed her face clean of make-up and her skin glowed. Her hair was pulled back in a simple style, and she wore faded jeans and a white nylon zip-up windbreaker over a red-and-white-striped T-shirt. Look virginal and innocent, Frost had told her. She looked so virginal and innocent, Webster was all ready to drag her straight back to the flat, into the bed, and to hell with Denton, Frost and Operation-bloody-Mousetrap.

She sat tight-lipped beside him in the car, her face set, her eyes smouldering.

“Sorry, Sue,” he said meekly. “I fell asleep in the chair. I was so damn tired.” He clouted the horn with the palm of his hand as some idiot on a pedal bike swerved directly into their path.

Sue fidgeted with the shoulder strap of her handbag. “It doesn’t matter,” she said sniffily, staring straight ahead.

“Look, I said I’m bloody sorry . . .”

“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated.

He spun the wheel, turning the car into a dimly lit side road, and jammed on the brakes. He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her, forcing her mouth open, finding her tongue. When they parted, they were both gasping for air like stranded fish. He offered her the radio handset. “Call Frost and tell him you’re not coming. You’ve changed your mind. If he’s running the show the whole thing’s going to be a bloody farce anyway.”

She pushed the handset away. “I always keep my promises.”

He started up the car, then rejoined the traffic flow in the main road. “When Operation Mousetrap finishes, can I spend the rest of the night at your place?”

Her lips curved into a well-scrubbed, virginal, simple, roaringly erotic smile. “That’s a promise,” she said.

Webster put his full weight on the accelerator and left the rest of the traffic standing. He wouldn’t be sleeping alone tonight.

Unless, of course, there was another of Frost’s monumental sod-ups.

They were only five minutes late reaching the briefing room. A burst of raucous laughter billowed out as they opened the door. Frost, sitting on the table up on the dais, had just reached the punchline of some crude joke and was chortling away louder than any of his audience. It was a very small audience. Five men, four of them in casual clothes. At first Webster had difficulty recognizing them, they looked so different out of uniform. The one with the drooping moustache and that moon-faced one, both wearing polar neck sweaters, weren’t they Jordan and Simms, the crew of Charlie Alpha? The young kid in the zip-up leather jacket was, of course, Collier, happy to be away from Police Sergeant Bill Wells for a night. Next to Collier, also in a leather jacket was PC Burton, twenty-five, a tough-looking thug with closely cropped hair, and a very good man to have on your side in a fight. The fifth man, PC Kenny, was the only member of the team wearing uniform.

As Susan entered in her rapist-bait outfit, there were yells of delight and a salvo of wolf whistles. Webster glowered his disapproval. This was a serious business, not a pub outing. He snatched a glance at his watch. Twenty-one minutes past ten. So where were all the others? He was expecting between fifteen and twenty at least.

“This is all there is,” Frost told him.

All? Four hundred acres of woods, miles of paths and a total of seven men. It was ludicrous, farcical, irresponsible, dangerous. “Sue’s not going ahead with it,” he told Frost.

Frost’s face fell. “Aren’t you, Sue?”

She slashed a look at Webster. “Of course I am, sir.”

“That’s all right then,” said Frost, looking relieved. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and ripped out an ear-piercing whistle as an appeal for silence. “Round the map,” he called. They crowded around the wall map.

“This mass of green,” began Frost, “is Denton Woods. There’s no way we can cover it properly, so we concentrate on the area where he made his two previous assaults and we bank on Sue’s sex appeal being strong enough to make him come to us, hot and panting, with more than just his tongue hanging out. Now, we know he’s a cautious bastard. He sniffs out the area in advance. If he sees cops, he stays away, which is probably why Mr. Allen’s previous decoy operations failed. So we are going to try a double decoy. We’ve got PC Kenny here in uniform. Kenny will be driving his patrol car with his blue light flashing, doing the rounds of the woods, covering the entire outer perimeter. I’m hoping that our rapist will be deceived into thinking that what he sees is all there is and that as long as he keeps out of Kenny’s way, he’s going to be safe. In the meantime, long before Sue begins her little nocturnal walk, the rest of us will insinuate ourselves into our positions in this tight little area here.” He tapped the map. “All right up to now?”

Webster’s hand shot up. “Supposing he follows Sue but decides to, attack her long before she leads him anywhere near to where we are?”

“Good question, son, but as long as Sue sticks to the main paths she’ll be all right. He never attacks anyone on the main path.”

Webster snorted in derision. “What do you mean ‘never’? Just because the two previous assaults were off the main track, that in no way establishes a pattern.”

“You don’t rape women on the main path,” insisted Frost. “It’s too public. Besides, his usual ploy is to wait in the bushes and grab at his victims as they walk past. The main paths are too wide. If Sue sticks to the middle, I reckon she’ll be safe.”

“You reckon?” sneered Webster. “And supposing your reckoning is wrong? It’s not you who’d get raped . . . it’s Sue.”

Frost shook the ash from his cigarette. “I know that, son,” he said mildly. “But there’s a risk to everything. All we can do is minimize that risk. But if Sue wants to back out?” He raised an eyebrow at the woman detective, who shook her head. “In any case, Sue will be in radio contact with us all the time. If she’s attacked on any of the main paths, we will still be able to get to her, although it will take that little bit longer.”