Hard Frost (36 page)

   "Dunn? My crooked security man? The guy who's been emptying out my spirit warehouse? Is this where you got your information from?"

   "We never reveal our sources," said Frost. He stood up. "I'll see you at the press conference."

   Cordwell's eyes narrowed. "The press conference?"

   "I want to suggest a few headlines for them," said Frost. "How about "Supermarket Chiefs Swindle Costs Child His Life"? It would take more than a penny off a tin of beans to make the public forget that . . . Then, of course, the press will want to know about possible criminal charges, like being in possession of forged banknotes, withholding information from the police." He looked at his watch. "Better not keep them waiting."

   Cordwell stabbed the paperknife into the desk top and left it quivering. "You're a bastard, Frost."

   "It takes one to know one," smiled Frost.

   "I presume I can buy my way out?" He brought out his cheque book and tapped it suggestively with a gold-cased fountain pen.

   "A lot cheaper than you deserve," said Frost. "Forget the press conference and drop the charges against Tommy Dunn."

   "Dunn's an ex-copper, isn't he? You bastards certainly look after your own."

   "No-one else looks after us," explained Frost. "Lastly, I want full details of the duff notes . . . denominations, numbers, the lot . . . and I want them now. And warn your staff to be on extra alert for the forgeries. If our luck's in, he might try to start passing them." He slid the antique phone across the desk. "Do it now, please."

   Cordwell picked up the phone. A tap at the door and his secretary looked in, cringing as she received the full force of his laser-beam scowl. "Sorry to disturb you Sir Richard, but the press conference is in two minutes."

   "Get out of here, you cow. Tell them it's cancelled," yelled Cordwell.

As he breezed through the lobby, he was beckoned over by Johnnie Johnson. "What have you done to Mr. Mullett, Jack? He's been in a foul mood ever since you phoned him."

   "It's relief coupled with joy," explained Frost. "He was heart-broken because he thought he was going to lose me and now he's over the moon because he isn't." He pulled the list of forged notes from his pocket. "Have this photo stated then taken round by hand to all banks, stores, garages, discount warehouses, public toilets, the lot. Get them to pay particular attention to anyone paying cash for large purchases, even in genuine notes. If anyone passes any of the duds we want to know right away."

   Johnson took the list and, in return, passed over a thick wad of computer print-outs. "And this is for you, Jack. Details of all registered owners of Ford Escorts in Denton and the surrounding area."

   Frost flicked over the pages. It went on and on and on . . . There were hundreds of names and addresses. "What silly sod asked for this?"

   "You did, Jack. You're looking for the Ford Escort you saw just before the ransom money was taken."

   Frost stuck the print-out under his arm. "I must have been bloody mad. Still, I won't be short of toilet paper this week - it'll make a change from Mullett's memos."

   Liz, her coat buttoned, was waiting for him in the office. "Ready when you are, inspector," she said.

   "Ready for what?" asked Frost. "If it's sex, then shut the door I'm sorry I kept you waiting."

   She didn't even flicker a grin. The return she had so meticulously prepared had been snatched from her without a word of thanks by Cassidy and she had heard Mullett praising him for such a good job. "You said we were going to Primrose Cottage - where Lemmy Hoxton was supposed to have pulled his last job."

   He hesitated. It was Cassidy's case, but Cassidy would have enough on his hands with Sidney Snell. He looked at the computer print-out and wondered if he should get people checking. But they didn't have the manpower and the list was too bloody long. "Primrose Cottage? Right, let's do it now."

Primrose Cottage, standing on its own at the end of a long winding lane, was a detached two-storey building erected in the sixties, but tar ted up to look as if it dated from the seventeen hundreds. The doors were oak, stained black to give the appearance of age, the tiny bow windows were chintz-curtained and the walls were painted a fading buttercup colour. A white wooden gate opened on to a path to the front porch. Frost ducked to miss the hanging flower basket and rapped at the well-polished brass knocker.

   "Who is it?" called a woman's voice, raised over the sound of a dog yapping.

   "Police, Miss Fleming," answered Frost. "Nothing to worry about just - checking."

   The door opened slightly on a length of stout chain and the proffered warrant cards were studied. Then, reluctantly, she let them in. Millie Fleming was in her early forties, slightly plump, dark brown hair, and wearing a pink woollen cardigan over a floral dress. The dog was a small spaniel which hid under a chair the minute they walked in. "Not a very good house dog, I'm afraid," she smiled, 'but we hope his barking might frighten any burglars away." They were in the living-room with its dark oak and chintzy furniture.

   Frost patted the dog, which looked at him with big brown eyes filled with apology for its cowardice and licked his hand. "Seems friendly enough," he said. "How old is he?"

   "About four months. We haven't had him long."

   "You're pretty remote up here," said Frost. "You need a dog. Is it just you and your sister?"

   "Yes. How can I help you, inspector?"

   "Won't take up too much of your time. Did you have a visit from a man from the Water Board - or someone who said he was from the Water Board?"

   "A long time ago," she said. "About five years when we first moved in here. He turned on the water for us."

   "This would have been a bit more recent than that about three months ago - early August?"

   She shook her head. "I don't think so."

   "He might have called when your sister was here," suggested Frost. "Is she in?"

   "No. She works at the hospital she's a nurse. She should be back soon, though." She turned to Liz. "Can you tell me what this is about?"

   "We had complaints of a man preying on women like yourself," said Liz. "He claimed to be from the Water Board. Got the woman to turn on the kitchen taps while he stole jewellery and money from the bedroom."

   "Oh dear," tutted Miss Fleming. "How awful! If anyone comes here saying they are from the Water Board, I'll phone the police right away."

   Frost fished in his pocket for the photograph of Lemmy Hoxton. "This might refresh your memory. Has this man ever called here?"

   She took it to the window and studied it carefully, returning it with a shake of her head. "I'm pretty certain I haven't seen him before. Can I ask why this is considered so important that an inspector and a sergeant have called on me?"

   "He was found dead," said Frost.

   She clutched her dress. "Dead?"

   "We're trying to trace his movements. We believe he intended to call here on the day he died."

   "To rob us? Well, he didn't, I'm relieved to say."

    A car drew up outside, then the sound of a key turning in the front door. The dog emerged from under the chair and raced out of the room, barking joyously. Millie Fleming stood up. "That will be my sister. Perhaps she might remember him."

   She left them and went to the passage. A brief murmur of conversation, then she returned, followed by a dark-haired, vivacious-looking woman in her mid-thirties wearing a nurse's uniform. Her hair gleamed and her face had a well-scrubbed look. She wore black tights which, as Frost was pleased to observe, showed off terrific legs.

   The two women sat side by side on the settee opposite him. "This is my sister, Julie," said Millie.

   The nurse smiled, showing perfect teeth. I'd.love to have them nibbling round my ear-hole, thought Frost. "Millie says it's something about a man calling here?" she asked.

   Frost quickly filled her in and showed her the photograph, but her response was the same as her sister's. "I'm pretty good at faces, but I can't recall seeing this man before."

   "Is it possible he called, but you were both out?" asked Frost. "The afternoon of Friday, 6th August. Any way of checking if you were here?"

   The nurse moved a stray wisp of hair from over her eyes. Frost was finding her disturbingly sexy and he wriggled uncomfortably in his chair. "Depending on what shift I was on, I would either be at the hospital or in bed asleep." She consulted a diary from her pocket. "Nights that week. I'd have been at home."

   "And I'd probably be doing some gardening," said her sister. "I certainly didn't go out."

   Frost exchanged shrugs with Liz. It didn't look as if Lemmy made it to Primrose Cottage that day.

   They took their leave. "I didn't half fancy that little nurse," said Frost, settling himself in the car. "She can give me a blanket bath any time she likes."

   Liz gave a knowing smile as she jerked the car into gear. "I don't think she would be very interested in you, inspector."

   "Oh?" said Frost, deflated.

   "I think she might be more interested in me."

   "Eh?" It took a few minutes for the penny to drop, but he wasn't prepared to accept the insinuation. "Oh, come off it. How can you tell?"

   "Women have a way of knowing."

   He pictured the nurse again in his mind, then firmly shook his head. No way! He looked out of the window as they took a bend. "Stop the car!"

   They were at a turn-off where a rut-ridden lane meandered down to a small farm. This was the spot where Duggie Cooper claimed he parked the van when Lemmy went cycling off into the sunset to Primrose Cottage. Frost peered down the lane, then looked back the way they had come. "If Duggie is telling the truth, Lemmy would have to come back this way. There's nowhere else for him to go." He scratched his chin. "The two women say he never arrived and Duggie says he never came back, so who is lying?" He signalled for her to drive on. "I think we had better talk to Duggie again."

Duggie was adamant. "I'm telling you, Mr. Frost, he pedalled up to the cottage on the bike and he never came back while I was there. Why should I lie?" 

   Before Frost could come up with his reasons, there was an urgent tap at the door of the interview room. An excited DC Burton beckoned him over.

   "Some of that funny money's turned up."

   "Already?" asked Frost. This was bloody marvelous. He thought they might have to wait days.

   "The bank phoned. They've just had over £6000 paid in, over a thousand of it in forged notes."

   "Who paid it in?"

   "Someone called Philip Mayhew, 47 Haig Avenue, Denton. I've checked with records. Nothing known about him."

   "Then let's make the sod's acquaintance," said Frost, twisting his head back into the room and yelling, "Interview suspended."

It was a semi-detached house, newly pebble-dashed. Two cars, a Jaguar and a Ford Sierra, were parked in the road outside and there was a Range Rover in a driveway leading to closed garage doors.

   "A lot of motors for one house," commented Frost as they cruised slowly past, surveying the situation. The curtains to one of the upstairs rooms were drawn. He wondered if the boy was up there. They drove round the block. There seemed to be no rear exit from the property, except by clambering over about six garden fences to reach the side road. In one of the gardens a large, rippling-muscled rottweiler paced up and down, looking ready to tear any intruders to shreds. Little chance anyone would risk that, but to be on the safe side Frost posted a couple of men in the side road. His mind raced over all the things that might go wrong, but there were too many of them to worry about. They stopped outside the front of the house. "All right. Let's go, go, go."

   Followed by Liz, Burton and two uniformed officers, he trotted up the path and hammered on the knocker. The door was no sooner opened when he slammed it back and the others raced inside.

   "Police!" yelled Frost as the man, a brawny individual in his mid-forties, sporting a beard, and brandishing a baseball bat, tried to push the door shut, shouting for someone inside the house to call the police.

   He swung the bat at Frost, but Liz, leaping on him from the back, managed to grab his arm and twist it. "Drop it!" The bat clattered to the floor.

   "Police," repeated Frost, showing the man his warrant card. "And we've got a warrant to search these premises."

   "You've got the wrong house," bawled the man.

   "Are you Philip Kenneth Mayhew? Then we've got the right house. Let's go inside."

   He pushed Mayhew through the first door leading off the hall which took them into a spacious lounge with an enormous five-speaker, cinema-sound television set that made the one Duggie had bought on Lemmy's card look like a portable. Suddenly, a woman in a tight-fitting black dress charged in, swinging an iron bar. Her long fingernails were painted silver. She looked as if she would happily use them to scratch Frost's eyes out. "I've called the police, you bastards," she screamed.

   "We are the police," said Frost.

   She lowered the iron bar, but kept it swinging in her hand, warily. This scruff looked nothing like a policeman. She was only half convinced when she studied his warrant card. "What's this all about?"

   "That's what I want to know," said the man. "They claim to have a warrant."

   "We have got a warrant," said Frost.

   He gave it to Mayhew who skimmed through it and passed it over to the woman. "Call our solicitor," he said.

   "You paid a large sum of money into the bank today," said Frost.

   "No, I didn't. I haven't left the bloody house all day." He jammed a cigarette into his mouth and lit it with a table lighter in the shape of a vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost.

   "I'm telling you that you paid £6495 into Bennington's Bank in the High Street at 10.54 a.m. today," insisted Frost.

   "And I'm telling you I did not," spat the man.

   "If you must know, I paid it in," shouted the woman. "Why don't you get your bloody facts straight? No wonder innocent people get sent to prison." The sound of thuds and bangs from upstairs suddenly intensified and sent her head jerking up. "What are those buggers doing?" She went to charge out, only to be stopped by Liz. "Let me go, you cow."