DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

threw something over her face, and started to strangle her. When she came to, there was Terry staring down at her.”
    “But that could have been when Terry came back to look for her,” said Frost thoughtfully. “And if it was Terry, then he’s infringed the “Hooded Terror’s” copyright the cloth over the face, the strangling . . .”
    “A copycat crime,” said Webster, determined that Frost should be wrong, “He read about it in the papers and copied it.”
    The phone rang. Webster answered it.The hospital. Swabs taken from Wendy Raynor were on their way to Forensic.
    Frost opened the door and yelled to Bill Wells, “Has the doctor seen Terry Duggan yet?”
    “He’s with him now,” the sergeant yelled back.
    “We’ll soon know,” said Frost, once again swivelling from side to side. “The thing is, she never actually saw him.” Then he grinned. “Did I ever tell you that old wartime joke about the girl munitions worker who was raped in the blackout?”
    Jokes! thought Webster. A seventeen-year-old’s been raped and he makes jokes.
    “The police asked the girl who did it, and she said she couldn’t say because it happened in the blackout. “But I can tell you this,” she said, “the rapist was definitely one of our foremen.” “How can you be so sure?” asked the fuzz. She said, “Because he kept his bowler hat on all the time and I had to do all of the work.” He guffawed with laughter as he reached the punchline. Webster maintained a stony silence, but Susan was convulsed and almost choked over her coffee.
    A tap on the door, and the duty doctor, a plump little Welshman, came in.
    “You’ve just missed a good joke,” said Frost, wiping his eyes. “The girl who was raped in the blackout ‘
    “And the foreman did it,” said the doctor, dumping his bag on Frost’s desk. “You tell me that every time there’s a rape.” He knocked some papers off a chair and sat down. “I’ve examined this young man, Duggan. There are fingernail scratches down his face and wrists, which I’m sure you’ve already noticed. I’ve taken a blood sample, which is on its way to your forensic laboratory, together with his clothes. And he has had sex within the last couple of hours.”
    “Which is more than I’ve had,” said Frost. He pinched his nose. “Well, young Webster, it’s beginning to look as if you might be right. I suppose we’d better see what he’s got to say for himself.”

    Terry Duggan, wearing only a police-issue red-and-grey blanket and a loaned pair of gym shoes some four sizes too big, leaped up angrily as Frost and Webster entered the interview room.
    “What’s the bloody game?” he demanded. “I’ve been stripped, my clothes have been taken away, I haven’t been allowed to leave, and no-one will answer my questions.” He paused for breath. “And another thing, that bleeding doctor did more than examine my scratches. He got bloody intimate.”
    “He gets carried away,” said Frost. He opened a folder and drew out a typed sheet. “Is this the statement you have just made to the police officer?”
    Terry squinted at it. “Yes.”
    “And you’re sticking by it?”
    The youth jutted out his chin defiantly. “Of course I am.”
    “Then I must ask you to sign it.” Frost borrowed a ball-point pen from Webster and passed it to Duggan, who scrawled his name at the foot of the document. Frost and Webster added their signatures as witnesses.
    Frost tucked the statement back in the folder, then shook his head reproachfully. “You’re a silly sod, you know?”
    “Why?” asked the youth, staring him out.
    “You’re in serious trouble, my son, and you make it worse by telling us a pack of lies.”
    Terry clutched the blanket closer to his body. “What do you mean, about me being in serious trouble?”
    Frost motioned for Webster to break the news.
    “Wendy tells us it was you who raped her. Sonny Jim.”
    Duggan looked first at Webster, then at Frost. They both stared back coldly. He tried to laugh, but it wasn’t very convincing. “Rape? Me? Do me a favour. I’ve never had to fight for it in my life. If they don’t give it willingly, then I don’t bloody want it.”
    “You fought for it in the car,” said Frost.
    Duggan shrugged. “They always put on a show of reluctance at first - they don’t want you to know that they’re as eager for it as you are. But as soon as Wendy started marking me with her nails, I packed it in.”
    ". . . and you drove