DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

started as he addressed her, catching her glass just in time to stop it from falling over. Then she tried to light a cigarette from a statuette of a visored knight in armour that doubled as a table lighter, but she had difficulty in steering the flame to the end of her cigarette. At last the cigarette was alight, but still she kept the statuette in her hand, fidgeting with it, clicking the flame on and off, on and off. ‘Yes, Inspector?’
    She was understandably nervous, and of course worried . . . but there was something else . . . something almost furtive about her. The same furtiveness Frost had seen in the face of Dave Shelby. Later, he would remember how he had linked her with Shelby - and all for the wrong reasons.
    ‘What time did you leave the house to go out, Mrs Dawson?’
    ‘This evening you mean?’
    ‘Of course he doesn’t bloody-well mean this evening,’ snarled her husband, snatching the lighter from her hand and putting it on the oak mantelpiece above the fireplace, well out of her reach. ‘He means when you went out to get your bloody hair shampooed and set.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry. The appointment was at two. I left the house shortly after one.’
    With a quick glance to make sure Webster was recording these details, Frost then asked, ‘And what time did you get back home?’
    ‘Five o’clock, perhaps a little later.’
    ‘Three hours for a shampoo and set?’ queried the inspector. ‘I didn’t think it took that long.’
    ‘It only took an hour, but afterward I walked around the town, looking at the shops, then I went in Aster’s Department Store and had afternoon tea.’
    ‘When you returned home, was there anything that didn’t seem quite right . . . any feeling that someone had been in the house while you were out?’
    She considered this for a moment, then firmly shook her head. ‘No, nothing.’
    Frost smiled his thanks, then switched his attention to the husband. ‘You suggest your daughter has been kidnapped, sir. I take it there’s been no contact from anyone claiming to be holding her, no phone calls or ransom demands?’
    ‘There’s been no approach . . . yet. But it will follow, I have no doubt about that. I’m a rich man, a bloody rich man. My daughter is missing, a man was hiding in here, waiting for her. You don’t have to be a genius to see she’s been kidnapped.’
    Frost leaned back in the chair and stared up at the high ceiling with its indistinguishable-from-real oak beams and its crystal chandelier. He worried at his scar and chewed the facts over. He wasn’t sold on Dawson’s kidnap theory. If the kid had been kidnapped, surely her abductors would have immediately warned her parents not to contact the police. And here it was, some ten hours or more after the event, and they still hadn’t made their approach. No, ‘he couldn’t buy the kidnap scenario.
    Webster watched the old fool drifting off into his reverie, trying to find inspiration from the ceiling. Look at him, he thought. He hasn’t a clue about what to do next. Well, if the inspector didn’t know what to do, Webster certainly did. Abruptly he snapped his notebook shut and stood up.
    ‘Right, Mr Dawson. Debbie saw a man in your daughter’s room, so we’ll start by taking a look up there.’
    The inspector’s face went tight, but after a couple of seconds he relaxed and forced a smile. Pushing himself from the armchair’s cream-and-brown embrace, he said mildly, ‘Upstairs is it, Mrs Dawson?’
    Clare drained her glass and rose unsteadily to her feet. ‘I’ll show you.’
    They followed her up a wide, deeply carpeted staircase to the first floor. Her tight-fitting evening dress did more than hug her figure. It intimately explored it, and they were treated to a glorious display of wriggling buttock cleft which Webster might have missed had not Frost nudged him and pointed.
    A short wade through the knee-deep carpet of the landing to a dove-grey padded door, which she opened. She clicked on the light, then moved back slightly for them to squeeze past. It was a tight squeeze and she didn’t seem to want to make it any easier. ‘This is Karen’s room.’
    ‘Thanks very much, Mrs Dawson,’ said Frost, taking her arm and steering her out, of the room. ‘We’ll give you a shout if we want anything.’ The door had barely closed behind her before he added coarsely, ‘Though it’s pretty obvious what you want, darling.’
    Webster scowled but didn’t respond. He was becoming