DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

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