Dead End

The Heal family is appalled to see the man whose lorry killed three of their members some years earlier is driving a bus. Because the lorry's mechanism was faulty he was acquitted of dangerous driving but the Heals are not happy and Andy Heal goes to the bus depot for a confrontation. Later the driver and his conductress are abducted from their bus. The conductress is diabetic and needs her insulin shots and, after a television appeal, she is dumped, alive, in town, not far from an alley where a clown is found dead. He recently entertained at a children's party where one of the mothers has a pathological phobia of clowns, and believes she attacked him without knowing. However, it turns out that he was also a thief, robbing the houses he visited and his killer may have been somebody else. In solving the death and finding the bus driver Frost's work is not helped by having to work with a female sergeant who had once reported him for being unprofessional. —don @ minifie-1