Read Online A Touch Of Frost by R. D. Wingfield - Free Book Online Page B

Karen? It is important, sir.”
    “Karen’s brush is orange.” He pushed Webster out of the way and rummaged impatiently through the cabinet. “It should be here somewhere.” He yelled for his wife to come up. “Karen’s toothbrush—” he snapped as she entered the bathroom, “where is it?” He moved so she could get to the cabinet.
    Standing on tiptoe, she peered inside, moving things out of the way. “It should be here,” she said.
    “I didn’t ask where it should be,” Dawson told her sarcastically, “I asked where it was. Apparently, it’s important.”
    “It isn’t here,” Clare said eventually. “None of Karen’s stuff is here—her toilet bag, flannel, toothpaste . . .”
    Webster leaned against the wall and folded his arms. Annoyingly, it looked as if Frost’s theory was correct. The girl had run away.
    “If Karen took her toilet things with her,” Frost told the parents, “it does rather suggest she went of her own free will.”
    Dawson’s face reddened to match the Italian tiles. “Are you suggesting Karen has run away from home? You’re an idiot, man. A bloody idiot. You don’t know my daughter. She loved her home. She wouldn’t do such a thing.”
    “Lots of teenagers do it, Mr Dawson,” said Webster. “Not necessarily because of anything to do with home. There could be trouble at school . . .  or an upset with a boy friend.”
    Dawson regarded the detective constable as if he were an imbecile. “A boyfriend? My Karen? She’s only fifteen, for God’s sake, a mere child! And what about that man Debbie saw? What is he supposed to be, a mirage . . .  a teenage sex fantasy?”
    “I’m not convinced she saw anyone, sir,” Frost said. “She had doubts herself.” He buttoned up his mac to show he was ready to leave.
    “So you intend doing nothing?”
    “Not a lot we can do,” said Frost. “We’ll issue her description, circulate her photograph, ask everyone to keep an eye open for her. I don’t think she’ll be away for long.”
    They heard a phone ringing. Dawson snapped his fingers for his wife to answer, but when Frost suggested the caller might be Karen, he dashed out to answer it himself.
    Frost sat down on the toilet seat and lit up his thirty-eighth cigarette of the day. He gave the woman a friendly smile. “Anything you want to tell us while your husband isn’t here, Mrs Dawson?”
    Her face went white, then she pretended to be puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    Frost shrugged. “Then it’s my mistake, Mrs Dawson.” He stood up as her husband returned. “It’s for you, Inspector—Denton Police Station. You can use the phone in Karen’s room.”
    The caller was Bill Wells. To Frost’s delight, he could hear the noise of the party in the background. There was still a chance he would make it.
    “Hello Jack,” Wells intoned in his usual gloomy voice, “Can you talk freely?”
    “Yes,” confirmed Frost.
    ‘What’s the score with Karen Dawson?”
    “Zero. Her old man thinks she’s been kidnapped, but my bet is she’s done a bunk.”
    “Don’t be too sure she’s all right, Jack. We might have found her.”
    Frost caught his breath. Suddenly he felt cold and apprehensive. “ Might? ”
    “We’ve had an anonymous phone call. A man. He says there’s a girl’s body in Denton Woods. I think you’d better take a look.”
    Dawson poked his head round the door. “Anything wrong, Inspector?”
    “No,” said Frost. “Just something we’ve got to look into. I might be back to you later on, sir. If there’s any news, that is.”

 
Tuesday Night Shift (4)
     
    Upstairs, the party was throbbing away louder than ever and showing no signs of breaking up. Wells heard stamping, shrieking, roars of laughter, and the sound of glass smashing. A load of bloody hooligans, he thought as he tried to hear what the caller was saying. “I’m sorry, sir, bit of a disturbance outside. Would you mind repeating that?”
    The man sounded out of