Page 103 of 36 Hours
Her email tinged a new message, and she was pleased to see it was from Fred. She minimised the search tab on Steve Ashworth, knowing the boss would expect the number plates to take priority.
‘Aha,’ she said, opening the email up.
The list he’d sent didn’t have make or model, just registration numbers.
She was looking for something that ended TYL.
Her gaze immediately went halfway down the page where those very initials were staring right back at her.
‘Hey, Penn, what did you find out about the litter-picker Peter Harris?’
Penn flicked to his list. ‘He was the one I highlighted for serious assault.’
Stacey felt a stir of excitement. ‘Can you pass me everything you’ve got?’
EIGHTY
12.35P.M.
‘Well, the car’s here,’ Bryant noted as he parked right behind Frost’s Audi TT.
Where else would she have gone after the night she’d had? Kim wondered.
‘I swear, if she’s just catching up on some sleep, I’ll bloody kill her,’ she said as they approached the front door.
Not least because getting some sleep was exactly what they’d all love to be doing, she thought, acknowledging the smidgeon of resentment she had towards the reporter for bailing.
She banged on the door, making no effort to keep it polite. Frost was going to get strips torn off her for this.
No answer.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Kim said, moving along to the single window at the front of the terrace property. She didn’t have time to be messing around like this. If the woman had just answered her phone to her boss, they would never have come here.
She’d been in the house enough times to know the front door led straight into the living room, which led through to a kitchen and small bathroom. The back door opened onto a gated rear yard accessible from a narrow alleyway.
Annoyingly, Frost dressed her windows with net curtain instead of blinds. Being at the bottom of a busy high street, there wasn’t a lot of privacy from pedestrians, vehicles and buses, but the dense white fabric made it all the harder to look through the window.
Kim put her hands either side of her face as she peered in, trying to make out anything beyond the lace.
The first thing she saw was the laptop bag that Frost had brought with her to the station.
She repositioned herself and saw that Frost was sitting on the sofa with her head resting back on some kind of red pillow, sleeping soundly.
‘Oh, she’s getting it,’ Kim said, taking out her phone. ‘Bang that door again and keep at it,’ she instructed, ringing Frost’s number.
She peered back through the window and saw the phone on the sofa beside Frost lighting up.
No movement from Frost.
Okay, she might have put the phone on silent, but there was no way she could ignore the constant banging on the door.
Kim ended the call and looked again.
No hint of movement. None at all.
‘Bryant, I don’t like this,’ she said, moving away.
She sprinted to the end of the short terrace row and across the grass verge that separated the end house from the road.