‘Did you really have to do that?’ she scolded, slamming the Cortina’s door. ‘It’s not even nine in the morning. You’ll have people complaining.’
‘Well, it’ll give Bill Wells something to do apart from check out the racing fixtures.’ He smiled.
‘God almighty!’ she exclaimed. ‘Look at the state of you! I thought you were going home last night?’
‘I got waylaid with Martin Wakely. Those cell beds aren’t as comfy as you’d think. We might have prison reformers on our case if we’re not careful.’ He scratched his neck irritably. ‘There are things living in those mattresses, I’m sure.’
‘Oh, Jack,’ she complained, ‘and you smell to high heaven. No, I’m not going anywhere with you like this. You’re a disgrace. What time does the girl’s train come in?’
‘Ten.’
‘Come on,’ she said, opening the car door. ‘We’ve got half an hour to hose you down and make you less of a fright.’
Everett heard the doorbell. He knew it was the police. He just
knew
it was them. It was too late to run. He should have done it last night. He had an overnight bag packed with a change of clothes, a passport and £1,000 in cash. He could hear Fiona at the door.
‘Darling!’ The call came up the stairs. He braced himself and
made
his way on to the landing. ‘The sergeant here says they have the boys who attacked you …’
Everett acknowledged the two plainclothes policemen. Shit, he thought, what does that mean? But in place of panic the thought that occurred to him was: nothing; it meant nothing. Now, when he really had his back against the wall, he suddenly felt very calm. He’d say the kids were lying, he hadn’t been carrying jewellery, and who would the police believe, him or a bunch of little thugs? So long as they had no other way to pin the burglaries on him he’d be in the clear. And it may have been a blunder to put the VCRs in the dead sweep’s van, inextricably linking the two series of crimes, but the police would never believe he could be guilty of murder.
‘Yes, a result,’ said the white officer who’d picked him up in the street after the mugging. ‘We’d be very grateful if you’d accompany us to the station to identify them.’
‘Now? But I have to open the office.’
‘Sorry if it’s inconvenient, sir. I’m sure you understand how important it is.’
Fiona smiled encouragingly. He did love her an awful lot. He assured her he’d be back soon enough and grudgingly slipped on a pair of loafers.
Outside he paused. ‘Hey, wait a sec,’ he said, realizing the black officer had stayed behind. ‘Where’s the other chap?’
‘Detective Sergeant Waters has a couple of routine questions for your wife.’ Simms smiled reassuringly, walking down the path to his unmarked car. Alongside it was a panda car, two uniformed officers standing on the pavement.
‘Questions about what?’ Everett demanded as an officer opened the Allegro’s rear door.
‘We understand that your wife recently procured the services of a chimney sweep,’ Simms said, ushering him into the panda car. ‘Nothing to worry about, only routine.’
* * *
‘That’s our girl,’ Frost said, as the ten o’clock arrival’s passengers swarmed out into the station forecourt. He was feeling refreshed and reinvigorated following the forty-five minutes he’d spent at Sue Clarke’s flat.
‘Which one?’ Clarke said. There was quite a throng, it being the first fast train out of London on a Saturday.
‘The small blonde one. You can tell by her bearing. She’s got “head girl” written all over her.’
Clarke spotted a striking platinum blonde, petite but striding purposefully towards the taxi rank.
‘In which lifetime would you have come across a head girl from a girls’ boarding school?’
‘It’s the detective in me, darlin’,’ he grinned.
‘Well, if you’re sure … but you can’t just pick her up; what about her mother, or stepfather?’
‘This one is sixteen,’ Frost said, opening the car door, ‘and is expecting us. Simms spoke to her on the phone, remember? She’s happy to talk to us alone. She didn’t want her family involved.’
Clarke followed Frost out of the car. He was back in his grubby mac, the weather having turned again – though at least he’d had a bath and shaved, she’d made sure of that, knowing how fastidious teenage girls could be. She didn’t want him scaring her off.
They approached the diminutive girl. ‘Miss Parke?’ said Frost.
‘Yes,’ she replied in a clipped, confident tone. Beneath the blonde hair was a delicate-featured, slightly pouting face of the sort that got middle-aged men into trouble.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Frost, and this is Detective Constable Clarke. Detective Simms spoke to you last night about helping us with our enquiries. Would you mind accompanying us to the station?’
‘The station? Do you mean a
police
station? Yes, I would mind. How ghastly.’ She looked horrified.
‘But Detective Simms …’
‘I know what I jolly well said to Detective Simms, Sergeant.’
Nicola Parke, the youngest and shortest of the three, had a convincing air of superiority. Clarke knew this to be Frost’s weakness; in the face of a dominant woman he was prone to crumble. Maybe that’s where she was going wrong. It was pointless writing heartfelt letters.
‘I said I would gladly talk to you, but not at Forest View and certainly not at “the station”,’ Parke said, annoyed.
‘Oh,’ Frost said, almost meekly. Hell, Jack, pull it together, thought Clarke. ‘Well, perhaps if you’d like to sit in the back of the car here, we can make a start.’ Frost chivalrously opened the door.
‘There is no way on earth I’m getting in there! It’s revolting!’ Nicola wrinkled her small, sharp nose in disgust. ‘There are things growing on the seats. Yuk!’
‘I agree with you there,’ Clarke said. ‘Look, there’s a café over the road.’ She pointed to the transport café opposite the station. ‘Let’s grab a coffee.’
Nicola’s story was that, having been closeted away all week at her father’s house in Reading revising for O levels, she’d not been in contact with any of her friends and hadn’t known a thing about Tom Hardy’s death until Simms’s phone call yesterday. The story had been on national news but Nicola maintained that if she wasn’t revising she was horse-riding or in the stables.
Frost found it hard to believe. Her mother had called her only the once, on Tuesday, to notify her of her cousin Samantha’s death. The girl had pushed to return home, but her mother had refused; she’d insisted there was no benefit to be had from her presence in Denton, and she should remain with her father revising. Parke corroborated the other girls’ stories about the party on Friday night.
‘Both girls lied about travelling with, or indeed knowing, Samantha Ellis,’
Frost
stated. ‘Why do you think they’d do that?’
The girl thought for a second, stirring her milkshake with a straw. ‘Because they think Sam committed suicide that night? Because they were frightened? That’s what I would say. Wouldn’t you?’ As if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
‘They knew we knew they were on the same train coming back,’ Clarke said.
‘Well, what did they have to say?’
‘They claimed they were drunk,’ Frost replied, remembering that both girls made a point of making the police aware of this fact.
Parke snorted with derision. ‘So that they conveniently couldn’t remember anything about the journey home?’
Frost lit another cigarette. The girl’s confidence was starting to grate. He suspected the bravado was cover; she would have an Achilles heel and he’d find it.
‘Tell me,’ he asked, ‘do you
really
think Samantha committed suicide? I mean, you knew her …’ The café door went, and two lorry drivers came in laughing loudly. Frost missed Parke’s response.
‘I’m sorry?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t catch that.’
‘I don’t know, Detective. I really don’t. We weren’t that close.’
‘Don’t you think it’s odd, though, that both Samantha and her boyfriend are dead within the space of a week?’
‘Odd? Is it
odd
. It’s unfortunate, but the circumstances of the deaths, as far as I’m aware, appear unrelated.’ She feigned a smile, displaying bright, pristine teeth.
Frost didn’t smile back. Instead he said, ‘So none of your friends tried to call you with the news of these two tragic deaths?’
‘They couldn’t – they don’t have that number.’
‘We can check with British Telecom, you know,’ Clarke said.
‘Check away,’ Parke said dismissively, slurping on her milkshake in a manner at odds with her precocious demeanour.
‘You don’t seem that shocked or surprised, or even upset,’ Clarke added. ‘One of your closest friends, your cousin no less, and her boyfriend are dead.’
Parke let the straw fall from her mouth. ‘Do not presume to tell me how I feel, Miss Clarke.’
‘It’s Detective Clarke, if you please, Miss Parke.’
‘I haven’t slept a wink since that fellow Simms rang,’ said Nicola, although Frost detected not a smudge of tiredness under the clear blue eyes. ‘You can ask my father if you don’t believe me,’ she added, as if reading his mind.
‘Tell me, Miss Parke, how did the School of the Five Bells come about?’ Frost asked, abruptly.
‘I founded it,’ she said proudly.
‘That’s not strictly true, though, seeing as it already existed twenty years ago. If anything, you rekindled it.’
‘My, you are the detective!’ Parke said, impressed. ‘Yes, it did exist. So you’ll probably know that my mother was involved.’
‘How so?’ Clarke asked.
‘If you know that much, then you’ll know my mother was a founder member of the original Five Bells.’
‘Then
you’ll
know why the, for want of a better word, “secret society” was formed?’ Frost said sharply.
The girl put her forefinger to her lips, and her eyes flitted from left to right anxiously.
‘Let me answer that for you,’ Frost said, finishing his coffee and lighting another cigarette. ‘Revenge. Revenge on boys.’
‘You have me, Sergeant,’ the girl said suddenly, waving off the cigarette smoke. ‘It’s our mission to castrate every boy who’s goosed a girl at the bus stop …’
‘Please don’t play games with us,’ Clarke snapped. ‘Two people are dead, and you – as the head of a secret society hellbent on revenge – are seriously implicated.’
‘I am perfectly serious.’ Nicola Parke flashed Clarke a look, but then switched to Frost. ‘We live in a sexist, misogynistic age. Or perhaps not in the police force, Detective Clarke?’
Frost could see that Clarke was unsure how to answer.
‘Or perhaps I’m wrong, eh? Present company excepted?’ Nicola Parke glanced at Frost caustically. ‘We don’t all have to be unwashed lesbians chaining ourselves to the fences of US military bases to register our disapproval of the deep-seated inequalities in society. I hope you, Miss Clarke, would agree that there’s a place for solidarity between women.’
Frost was at a loss as to how a girl of sixteen with no experience of the real world could form such forthright views; besides, where was the harm in having your bottom pinched at a bus stop? He couldn’t see it himself, but what got the youth of today worked up was anyone’s guess.
‘I don’t know, Miss Parke, my mind is on my job,’ Clarke said sharply.
‘Very noble sentiments, I’m sure, but let’s not start burning our bras just yet,’ Frost interrupted. ‘What does your stepfather think of all this? He doesn’t strike me as the sort of bloke who has much time for this … this sort of thing.’
‘My stepfather? What has my stepfather got to do with it?’ Frost noticed a dramatic change in Parke’s expression. Was it fear?
He continued softly, ‘Put it this way, Mr Hartley-Jones was not best pleased when the police marched in yesterday suspecting that a fifteen-year-old boy had been murdered in a ritualistic fashion in his front room.’ A wave of shock washed across the face of the girl. Frost added, ‘After being burgled on Saturday night, and having his cat garrotted, it’s not been his week at all.’
‘May I have one of those?’ Nicola Parke indicated the Rothmans lying on the table. Frost nodded his assent.
‘Miss Parke,’ Clarke said, ‘how much do you know about Tom Hardy’s death?’
‘Only that he died … was killed, I mean’ – the girl took a puff – ‘in what you just described as a “ritualistic” fashion, although I have no idea what that means.’
‘It means,’ Clarke began, ‘that the boy was laid out in the manner of a sacrifice, his body eviscerated. His heart has yet to be recovered.’
Nicola Parke covered her mouth in anguish. If Frost didn’t know better, he’d have thought Sue Clarke relished telling the girl the gory details. Nicola Parke was very obviously distressed at this revelation.
‘So you see, Miss Parke,’ Frost said, ‘why we’re treating the School of the Five Bells as something more serious than a suffragette youth movement. And that you and your friends’ festive antics in Denton Woods could be viewed in a very different light. It’s how it appears to the rest of the world. Understand?’
‘Indeed.’ The girl nodded solemnly. ‘All is not as it seems. My goodness, I’d best be going.’ Parke looked at her watch. ‘They’ll be expecting me …’