‘What’s this story about a kidnapping, Sadie?’

‘I’ve already told the fat bloke.’

Skinner pushed his way between them. ‘I’ve got all the details, Frost, thank you. The abductor got in through that window some time during the night. He cut himself on the broken glass and knocked all this stuff on the floor as he clambered through. He then went to the child’s room. This way – ’ He moved to the door of the baby’s room, but Frost seemed to have something else on his mind and was showing no inclination to follow. ‘This way,’ repeated Skinner. Was the fool deaf?

‘Oh – all right,’ said Frost vaguely.

In the baby’s room, Skinner indicated the cot. ‘Blood on the pillow, but I don’t think it came from the kiddy. I’m getting SOCO down to check.’ He turned and realised he was talking to himself. Where was the idiot? ‘Frost!’ he bellowed.

‘In here,’ answered Frost from the next room. Skinner rolled his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. The silly sod was in the mother’s bedroom. As Skinner moved to drag him Out, Frost stuck his head round the door and yelled down the passage, ‘Fanny! I want you!’

‘Don’t call me Fanny!’ she snapped.

‘Sorry,’ said Frost. ‘Association of ideas, I suppose.’ He nodded at the bed, which had clothes sprawled all over it. ‘This your bedroom?’

‘Well, it ain’t the bleeding scullery, is it?’

‘All those tatty clothes. It looks like an Oxfam shop’s remnants sale.’

Fed up with the scruff’s time wasting, Skinner again tried to take control. ‘If you can tear your self away, I want you in the other room, Inspector.’ But Frost, completely ignoring him, poked a finger at the woman. ‘I’ve just realised what’s been bugging me, Sadie. Why are you all tarted up?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Half past nine in the morning and you’ve got your glad rags on.’

‘I can wear what I bloody like!’

Frost ambled over to the dishevelled bed and picked up a pair of jeans and a grubby T-shirt. ‘These are what you usually wear in the morning, Sadie.’