DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

jerked her head up defiantly. “I’m not lying. Roger arrived here yesterday evening. He stayed with me until eight this morning. We did not go out. We couldn’t have gone anywhere even if we wanted to. Roger didn’t have any money. He was broke.”
    “Broke? Come off it, love. He’s rolling in it.”
    “He had some debts to pay off - to Harry Baskin, as it happens. If you don’t believe me, you can ask him. Which is why we had to stay in . . . all bloody night. Are you satisfied?
    There’s only one way you could satisfy me, love, thought Frost, and that involves showing me your mole. His eyes held hers. She tried to meet his gaze, but her head dropped. I know you are lying, he thought, but I just can’t prove it. He expelled a sigh. “All right, miss. We’d like you drop in at the station sometime today to give us a written statement. It shouldn’t take long.”
    He straightened his aching back and buttoned up his mac. A loose button was hanging by a single thread. He would have to find someone to sew it on for him before he lost it. Julie King didn’t look the sort of girl who knew what a needle and thread were for.

    “If you want my opinion, she’s lying,” announced Webster when they were back in the car.
    “Probably,” said Frost, who had just found the note in his pocket that he had scribbled earlier, ‘but there’s something else that worries me, something that makes me wonder if the girl might, perhaps, be telling the truth. It’s that bloody licence plate. It was too damn convenient, our finding it. It’s like a crook leaving his name and address, or a rapist leaving a photograph of his dick.”
    “The plate fell off when the Jag crashed into the dustbins,” said Webster, who saw nothing illogical about that.
    “How many licence plates have you known to fall off?” asked Frost, reaching for the handset so he could call the station.
    Johnny Johnson was delighted to hear from him. “Mr. Frost! We’ve been trying to reach you. Mr. Mullett wants to see you. Something about the crime statistics.”
    “Sorry,” said Frost, ‘can’t hear you. This is a very bad line.”
    “I can hear you perfectly,” the sergeant told him.
    “Good. Then tell me something. I asked for someone to check the spot where we picked up that licence plate to see if they could find the plastic screws. Any joy?”
    “No, Jack. Charlie Bravo did a thorough search of the area. Couldn’t find anything. Now, about Mr. Mullett . . .”
    “Still can’t hear you,” said Frost quickly. “Over and out.” He switched off the radio in case the station tried to call back, then rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “If the licence plate fell off, the screws holding it to the car would have had to come off just before it dropped. So where are they?”
    “No idea,” shrugged Webster.
    “Secondly,” Frost continued, ‘we’ve got to suppose that both screws came out simultaneously.”
    “Why?”
    “If only one screw fell out, the other would hold it, causing the plate to pivot down. It would have dragged along while the Jag was still going at top speed. But the plate was undamaged.”
    “It wouldn’t necessarily drop down,” said Webster. “The remaining screw could have been holding it so tightly it stayed in position.”
    “If it was holding it as tightly as that, son, there’s no way it could have unscrewed itself to let the licence plate drop off. No, that licence plate was deliberately removed, carried in the car, then chucked out near the accident so the dumb fuzz could find it.”
    Webster looked at Frost pityingly. “I imagine the last thing Roger Miller would have wanted to do was leave his licence plate behind.”
    “If he was driving, I agree. But supposing it was someone else who wanted to get him into trouble?”
    The detective constable could only shake his head in despair. This was getting beyond him.
    Frost settled back in his seat. “Try this out for size, as the bishop said to the actress. The girl told us that Miller bets with Harry Baskin and that he’s short of money. Let’s suppose he’s run up a dirty great gambling debt and he can’t pay like I’ve told you, Harry has his own roguish little ways of speeding up slow payers - he sets their car alight, or cuts their cat’s head off. Suppose Harry decides to put the screws on Roger by getting one of his minions to nick the Jag, drive it around at speed, knocking a few dustbins over in the process, and drop off the licence plate