DI Jack Frost 02 - A Touch of Frost

nothing to tell. I walked through the woods, I got jumped on. But I’ll tell you this. The bastard had better not try it again. I’ll be ready for him.” She reached for her locker and took out a flick knife. “I’ll rip the bastard to pieces! I’ll emasculate him!” She said it with such vehemence that Frost was quite prepared to believe her.
    “Did you see him? Would you know him again? It would be a pity if you cut the wrong man’s dick off.”
    “That’s the trouble: I never saw the sod. He jumped me from behind.”
    “But you must have some idea,” insisted the inspector. “Was he young and well built like me, or old and decrepit like George Bernard Shaw here?”
    Not more bloody beard jokes, fumed Webster, refusing even a token smile. The blackened eyes turned toward him and a long stream of smoke was ejected from the slit in the bandages.
    “He’s nice, isn’t he?” said Paula.
    “If you like them hairy,” said Frost, hiding the banana skin behind the flower vase. “But you’ve got to help us, Paula love. You’re his sixth victim, and we haven’t had one decent description. For all we know he’s a one-legged Chinaman. Now think, love. Any little clue?”
    She bowed her head in thought, then shook it negatively. “Sorry.”
    “Then tell us, in detail, what happened. It might bring something back.”
    “I’m late for my spot at the club. I’m legging it as fast as I can, taking the shortcut through the woods. Suddenly, something black is chucked over my face.”
    “A cloth?” asked Frost.
    “No, plastic of some sort. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. I try to scream but hands go round my throat and start squeezing. I reach up to his face, ready to claw his bleeding eyes out, but he squeezes harder and I’m choking. Then I passed out.”
    “You say you reached for his face?” asked Frost excitedly. “Was he hairy like my colleague, or nice and clean-shaven like me?”
    “He had a mask on - plastic of some kind. All I could feel was plastic. He even had plastic gloves on his hands.” She sunk back on the pillow. “They won’t let me have a mirror. How bad is my face?”
    “It looks like a baboon’s backside,” said Frost, bluntly, ‘but it will heal. Now what about your attacker? Did he have any minor blemishes that might help us identify him, such as a wooden leg, or a plastic dick, or a mechanical appliance?”
    The cigarette was threatening to set fire to the bandages. She took it from her mouth and dropped it into the flower vase. A woman after my own heart, thought Frost.
    She thought for a while. “His trousers,” she said. “There was something about them.”
    “What about them?” asked Frost quickly.
    “I could be wrong. It was as I was passing out. I reached down . . . to grab him, you know. I got the impression his trousers were made of some sort of towelling
    Frost sat up excitedly. This was something new. “Like jogging trousers, or part of a track suit?”
    “Could be,” she said.
    “Anything else?”
    “Sorry,” she said, sounding tired. “I can’t help any more. You wouldn’t have a fag on you by any chance?”
    Frost located her mouth through the slit and pushed a cigarette in. He lit it for her. “You know he didn’t rape you?”
    “Yes. That’s the final bloody insult, that is.” She inhaled deeply and coughed, her head banging on the pillow. “I can’t tell you anything else.”
    “You’ve been a big help,” said Frost, standing up. “If anything comes to mind, here’s my card.” He laid a grimy card next to the one from the girls at The Coconut Grove. “And here’s some fags.” A fresh packet was pressed into her hand. He waved goodbye and was halfway down the ward when he remembered something else he had wanted to ask her. Telling Webster to wait, he ambled back to the bed.
    “Quick,” she said, pulling back the clothes, "get in before Sister comes back.”
    He grinned. “If only I had the time, love, I’d be in there like a ferret up a rabbit hole. Couple of quick questions. You live in the same flats as Julie King, don’t you?”
    “That’s right. Why?”
    “Happen to know if she was in last night?”
    “Yes. She had her posh boyfriend with her - that MP’s stuck-up son. I happened to look out of my window about sixish and saw his car pull up.”
    “What time did you leave for The Coconut Crove?”
    She tapped her chin as she thought. “About ten to eleven.”
    “And was Roger Miller still there when you