A Touch Of Frost (40 page)

But Webster would not back down. “The extra distance could make all the difference. She could be unconscious and raped by the time we finally get to her.”

“Sue isn’t helpless,” replied Frost. “She’s been trained in unarmed combat and karate. She could have broken his John Thomas in six places by the time we got there. Everyone happy up to now?”

All heads turned to Webster, daring him to complain further. He folded his arms and stared straight ahead, his face a solid scowl of displeasure.

“One last point. I’ve got a theory that our rapist will be in the disguise of a jogger, so look out for men in track suits or running shorts.” He indicated a pile of walkie-talkie sets on the side table. “Now everyone grab a radio, and make sure it works.”

While the team surged around the table, sorting out the communications equipment, Frost drew Susan to one side. “I know it’s a ramshackle operation, love, but I think it might work. The important thing is you must take no chances. Anything the slightest bit suspicious, let us know even if it means warning our rapist off. I’d rather abort the whole operation than have anything happen to you.”

She smiled. “I think I can trust you, sir.”

“You’re mad if you do,” said Frost. “I wouldn’t trust me a bloody inch. Let’s fit you up with your radio.”

Susan’s transmitter-receiver was concealed in her shoulder bag, the aerial wire running under the strap. A small hearing-aid-type earpiece enabled her to receive messages, and a tiny microphone disguised as a CND badge and pinned to her windbreaker would transmit information.

She was sent outside into the corridor to test the equipment, the men all holding their receivers close to their ears with the volume turned down low. They didn’t want the sound of police messages to scare their man off. A long pause with nothing coming through. They all checked their receivers and adjusted the fine tuning. Still nothing. Frost opened the door and yelled to ask if Susan had started transmitting yet.

“Can’t you hear me?” she called from the far end of the corridor. She fiddled with the CND badge, and suddenly there was a loud click and a rustling sound from all the receivers as Susan’s voice rang out loud and clear, “Testing, testing, testing . . .”

Frost radioed back and she confirmed that the receiver was working.

“Hadn’t we better change her radio?” asked Webster, worried that the initial failure might be repeated at a less convenient moment.

“That’s the only one I could find,” said Frost. He sent Sue out again for another test, and this time it worked perfectly. Webster still wasn’t happy. This entire operation was a botch-up, cobbled together at the last moment. It was too risky. Too much depended on luck, which usually stayed away when it was wanted most.

Frost looked up at the wall clock. Eighteen minutes to eleven. “Time to leave.” he called.

Collier and Burton travelled in the Cortina, Webster driving and boiling over because he always ended up the chauffeur. Why couldn’t one of the others drive for a change?

Kenny went on ahead in the patrol car, its lights flashing, the siren warbling. Sue would be travelling with Jordan and Simms in the station’s unmarked van, which would follow on later to give Frost’s team a chance to get established in their concealed positions. Everyone felt excited, laughing and cracking jokes. No-one, apart from Webster, seemed to be taking it seriously.

As the Cortina pulled out of the car park, Burton turned his head and looked out of the rear window at Susan in her tight jeans and T-shirt, waiting by the van. He gave her a wave, then nudged Collier and leered. “Cor, if the rapist doesn’t oblige, I think I’ll have a go raping her myself. Rumour has it she’s very tasty.”

Webster’s face turned crimson. He slammed on the brakes, jerked his head around, and yelled, “Why don’t you shut your face, you coarse bastard!”

Burton rose from his seat, fists clenched, his lip curling back like a snarling mongrel. “Why don’t you try and make me, you hairy sod.”

Frost stuck his arm between the two men and pushed them apart. “Pack it in, you two. You’re like a pair of bloody kids.”

They drove on in uneasy silence. From time to time Burton would whisper something to Collier and the two of them would snigger; Webster’s knuckles, as he gripped the steering wheel, would get whiter and whiter.

Frost smoked, ignoring it all. His mind was going over his plan again and again, searching for weaknesses and finding plenty. The car slowed down. He looked through the window to see the orange sodium lights of the ring road. He nodded for Webster to stop and let off Burton and Collier, who would approach the stakeout area from this direction, while he and Webster would drive on and approach it by another route. They didn’t want the rapist to see a gang of men all walking up the same side path.

“Control your bloody temper, son,” said Frost when they were alone in the car. “You’ll end up hitting someone.”

Yes, you for a start, thought Webster, coasting the Cortina into a lay-by and tucking it tight against a hedge. He made one last appeal to the inspector. “Call this damn thing off before it’s too late. It’s never going to work.”

“I think it will, son,” said Frost, unclicking his safety belt.

“Then you’re a bigger bloody fool than I took you for,” said Webster, throwing caution to the winds. “You haven’t got the start of a decent plan, and you haven’t got anything like enough men, and there’s no backup in case things go wrong. Susan could be beaten up, attacked, raped, and we wouldn’t be anywhere near her. It’s the height of criminal stupidity.”

It was Frost’s turn to lose his cool. He thrust his face very close to Webster’s. “Listen to me, you mouthy sod. Susan Harvey isn’t just your bit of crumpet on the side. She also happens to be a bloody good police officer. She knows the score. We all do. And of course there are risks. The public expects us to take risks—that’s why they chuck petrol bombs at us and kick us in the face at football matches. If by taking risks Susan can help us catch the bastard who’s been raping seventeen-year-old kids, then I reckon it’s all worthwhile, even if it puts in jeopardy your chances of knocking her off in bed tonight. So shut your bleeding mouth, son, because your constant whining is getting on my bloody nerves.”

Frost flung open the car door and stamped out, leaving the constable fuming. Webster fought to regain control, then locked the passenger door and climbed out after the inspector. Perhaps Frost was right. Perhaps he was being overly protective about Susan. But that didn’t make this threadbare decoy operation any the safer.

A gentle wind was ruffling the tops of the trees, which seemed to twitch and shrug off its advances. But it was a cold wind. Frost looked up at the sky. Black, the moon obscured by clouds. And the woods were dark and heavy with menace.

Frost shivered, but not from the cold. He suddenly had a feeling that things were going to go wrong. Webster was right. He hadn’t enough men, the planning was half-baked, and it was dangerous. If Webster hadn’t been so smart-arsed about it, Frost might have listened to him, but that scowling, sneering face and waggling beard just increased his stubbornness.

It was darker than Frost had expected. Not too bad when they stuck to the main path, where some of the glow from the sodium lamps filtered through, but as soon as they branched off and plunged deeper into the woods, where trees and shrubs pressed in on each side of them, they had to slow down and almost feel their way through. They needed a torch but daren’t risk drawing attention to themselves at this stage.

A torch! Frost clicked his radio on. “Frost to van. Is sexy Sue there?”

“Sexy Sue here,” came the reply, her voice sounding childlike and breathless through the loudspeaker, almost like the young Marilyn Monroe’s.

“Take a torch with you, Sue. You’ll be able to find your way about better, and if our chum is lurking it will help draw him to you.”

Pleased with himself for having thought of this, he now felt better disposed toward Webster, who was sulkily stamping alongside him. “We’re going to get him tonight, son. I know it.”

“I hope so,” grunted Webster without conviction. He didn’t share Frost’s enthusiasm for the torch ploy. With Susan flashing the torch, the rapist could keep his distance. He would be able to see her without being seen by her.

“I think this is where we turn off,” whispered Frost, his eyes screwed up as he tried to penetrate the darkness. “This is where the seventeen-year-old was attacked last night.” Frost, then Webster, squeezed through the gap in the bushes to reach their pre-selected stakeout stations between two subsidiary paths. First Frost settled down in his position, leaning up against the rough bark of some sort of tree, leaving Webster to flounder on to his own allotted station. He was crashing through the undergrowth like a wounded rhino, and Frost gritted his teeth until the sounds finally stopped as Webster found his position and settled down. “Let’s hope the bastard’s deaf,” Frost muttered to himself. He then checked that everyone was in his assigned position.

“Collier to Base. In position. Over.”

“Burton to Base. In position. Over.”

“Webster. In position. Over.”

Then, suddenly. “Burton to base. Someone’s coming along the path. Too dark to see yet.”

A pause. Burton’s breathing over the speaker. Then, “I can see him. A man—middle-aged, receding hair. He’s got a dog with him.”

Jordan’s voice. “There was a bloke with a dog lurking about last night.”

Frost couldn’t imagine a rapist bringing a dog along with him but wasn’t going to take chances. “Which direction is he heading?”

“He’s gone on to the north path,” reported Burton. “I think he’s heading for the main road.”

“Let’s give him a chance to go, then,” said Frost. He struck a match against the bark of the tree and cupped the flare with his hands as he lit up and settled himself down to wait.

The smell of cigarette smoke wafted across to Webster, who was crouching in wet grass, peering through bramble bushes to the narrow, overgrown path. “I don’t think it’s safe to smoke,” he whispered into his radio.

“You’re a bastard, Webster, but you’re absolutely right,” replied Frost, pinching out the Rothman’s King Size and returning it to the packet. He changed position from one foot to the other. It was boring and tiring just standing still in the dark, keeping dead quiet and waiting. The forest creaked, groaned, and murmured. The wind scuffled leaves, making them sound like stealthy, shuffling footsteps. Twigs snapped for no reason.

Frost found he was lusting for a cigarette. He would have sold his soul for just one puff. He took the packet from his pocket and sniffed the heady tobacco smell, which only made his longing worse. Waiting was hell. He looked at his watch. 11.12. The hands didn’t seem to be moving. Then Jordan called from the van, “Van to Base.”

“Frost. Over.”

“Bait ready to enter woods. Over.”

“Has the bloke with the dog emerged yet?”

“Two minutes ago, sir.”

“Then bloody tell me,” snapped Frost. “I’m not a mind reader. Give us a sound check, Sue.”

“Mary had a little lamb,” whispered Susan into her lapel badge.

“Loud and clear,” confirmed Frost. He did a final check on all the radios, then gave the signal for the girl. Time: 11.15; very dark, the moon hidden by clouds. Ideal conditions for a rape.

From the van, Simms was able to watch Susan through night glasses right to the point where the main, path veered around to the right. Then she was completely out of sight to the two men in the van.

She walked slowly, trying to appear unconcerned. From time to time she flashed the torch on the path as Frost had suggested. Once she was positive there was someone right behind her, almost touching her. She could hear his footsteps, feel his breath ruffling the hair on the back of her neck. She swung around. The path was empty.

The earpiece emitted occasional bursts of static. “Walking down the main north-south path,” she said very quietly into her lapel badge. “So far, so good.”

“Say again?” queried the earpiece. “We lost you then.”

“So far, so good,” she repeated.

“Roger,” acknowledged the earpiece.

It should have been reassuring to hear a friendly voice, but she was beginning to realize how astronauts must feel, thousands of miles up in space. They could talk to Houston. Houston could talk to them. But if anything went wrong, no matter how many voices were in contact, you were up there on your own. And she felt very much on her own. There was no-one else on the main path. Her feet scuffed through fallen leaves as she walked. At least the crackle of dry leaves should give her warning if anyone tried to sneak up behind her. She flashed her torch down on the path as she walked, beginning to feel more confident. But this was the easy bit. The rapist wouldn’t make his move until she left the comparative security of this main pathway. And she would have to leave it very soon.

“Frost to bait. All OK?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“We keep losing you. To stop us peeing ourselves with worry, Sue, report in a position check every five minutes unless you’re raped beforehand, of course.”

“Acknowledged.” She clicked off the transmit switch. She was now at the safest point of her route, the section where the path hugged the ring road and was warmly splashed with yellow from the sodium lamps. Then the path veered toward the centre of the woods, where the black mass of trees and bushes squeezed out the light and muffled the reassuring sounds of traffic and people.

She was now off the main path, following a smaller side route. Bushes on each side clutched and pulled. Halfway down, she stopped. This wasn’t the route Frost had mapped out for her. She had turned off too soon. She was walking away from the stakeout, not toward it.

She turned. And there was a man, crouching.

She backed away, one hand on the transmit button, the other bringing up the torch. Under the beam of the torch the crouching man changed into a small straggling bush. She started to breathe again and slowly made her way to the main path.

From a long way off, a diesel train bleated as it dragged itself away from Denton Station, a lonely, mournful sound that made her feel more isolated than ever. She quickened her pace. Then stopped.