Dover Two

by Joyce Porter

  ‘Quite,’ said Dover, finishing off the last of MacGregor’s chips and wiping his face and hands with his handkerchief. ‘And then what did you do?’

  ‘Well, I thought it over for a minute or two, you know, wondering like, and then I went outside and had a look down the street.’

  ‘Which way?’

  ‘Well, both ways, really, though I thought the shots had come from up the vicarage direction. Well, everything seemed quiet and there was nobody about and I was just going to come back inside again when I saw Mr Bonnington come rushing out of his front door. I could see his dog collar quite clearly because, of course, he’d left his hall light on. Well, I thought there must be something up because he left the door open and usually he’s a great one for keeping everything locked up because we’ve got some wild young devils round here that’d pinch a hymn book if they couldn’t find anything else. Well, I see him rushing off round the corner so I hung on for a minute to see if anything else was going to happen. In a bit he comes rushing back and tears inside the vicarage again. Never seen him move so fast all the time he’s been here. Doesn’t shut the door this time either, so I says to meself, you hang on a bit longer, Alf, I says, because sure as eggs is eggs he’s going to come out again. Well, sure enough, two or three minutes later out he comes again, looking all hot and bothered, and off he nips round the corner again. Well, I was getting a bit cold, standing about outside with no coat on, so I came back inside.’

  ‘You didn’t go and see what had happened?’ asked Dover.

  Mr Dibb shook his head. ‘Weren’t none of my business. I’ve never been one for pushing my nose into other people’s affairs. Live and let live, that’s my motto. If there had been a shooting or something like that, it was nothing to do with me and I wasn’t going to get mixed up in it. Later on, of course, I saw the ambulance drive off and there was police cars all over the place, so I knew something had happened. Besides, I couldn’t just leave the shop wide open with nobody here and money in the, till and everything. I’ve got my business to think of, you know.’

  ‘When did you find out what had happened?’

  ‘Well, some of my customers later on had heard about it. They said some girl or other had been killed but nobody knew who it was at first. ‘ Course, it turned out later that she hadn’t been killed at all, but even so, as I said to the wife, there might have been some bleeding maniac hanging around and supposing he’d taken a pot-shot at me, eh? Where would I have been then? There wouldn’t have been no public subscription opened for my wife and family, not in this town there wouldn’t.’

  ‘Now, just a minute,’ Dover broke in. ‘After these shots were fired, did you see or hear anybody coming from the vicarage direction this way, past your shop?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, because nobody did.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ snorted Dover crossly. ‘Somebody shot Isobel Slatcher and they must have cleared off before Mr Bonnington arrived.’

  ‘Oh, I grant you that,’ said Mr Dibb generously. ‘But they must have gone the other way – past the church to Corporation Road. They certainly didn’t come past here.’

  ‘They might have slipped by on the other side of the road, perhaps, without your noticing them?’

  ‘They might,’ conceded Mr Dibb with sarcastic condescension, ‘if I’d just been getting on with my work in here same as usual. But I wasn’t, was I? Soon as I heard those shots I was on the qui vive, see? I was half expecting somebody to come by. Everything was dead quiet and I’d got the door open. Even the other side of the street’s not a hundred miles away, is it? Nobody came down this way, you can take my word for that. I couldn’t have missed ’em, and then it was only a few seconds before I went outside to have a look-see meself.’

  He looked offended and started chipping potatoes vigorously in a sort of guillotine. ‘You can take it from me straight,’ he insisted, rapidly immolating one potato after another, ‘ nobody went past this way! And, apart from the Vicar, I didn’t see a living soul until the police and the ambulance arrived.’

  And on this point Mr Dibb refused to be budged. He insisted that Dover and MacGregor test for themselves that it was impossible for anyone to slip by the shop while someone behind the counter was staring out of the window. MacGregor was sent out into the rain to enact the part of the fugitive assassin while Dover took Mr Dibb’s place behind the counter. After five minutes in which MacGregor walked, ran, and even crawled on his hands and knees past the fish and chip shop, Dover acknowledged defeat. With Mr Dibb alerted by the sound of the shots, nobody could have got by him, even before he actually went and stood outside.

  All the good humour which a stomach full of fish and chips had brought to Chief Inspector Dover was dissipated as if by magic. He shouted and bawled at Mr Dibb and browbeat him quite unmercifully, but the only self-confessed exponent of rationalism in Curdley stuck resolutely to his guns. No one had gone past his fish and chip shop and he would face martyrdom rather than admit the slightest possibility that they could.

  ‘Nobody went by here,’ he insisted. ‘I’ll take my Solemn Declaration on that!’

  ‘Obstinate old fooll’ snarled Dover as he and MacGregor made their way back to where they had left the police car. ‘ Blithering idiot!’ he snapped as MacGregor held the door open for him.

  The police driver, who’d been sitting waiting for nearly three hours wondering where his superiors were, hastily stubbed out his cigarette and started the engine.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ yelped Dover furiously. ‘I’ll tell you when we’re ready to go. Turn that bloody thing off!’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the driver meekly.

  MacGregor surreptitiously opened a window, but the smell of fish and chips remained overwhelming. The police driver couldn’t fail to notice it, and draw his own conclusions.

  ‘Give us another fag, MacGregor,’ said Dover grumpily, ‘ and let’s try and sort this thing out. Right, now three people heard the shots: Rex Purseglove on the corner of Corporation Road and Church Lane, the Vicar in his study and this gibbering lunatic, Dibb, in his blasted fish and chip shop. The Vicar gets to the girl first. He doesn’t see anybody hanging about Rex Purseglove comes along Church Lane from Corporation Road and he doesn’t see anybody. Dibb swears that nobody came down Church Lane past his shop. Whoever shot Isobel Slatcher couldn’t have climbed that wall by the railway – even if he had a ladder or something, one of the three would have been sure to see him. He couldn’t have taken cover in the vicarage garden or in the church or in the church hall because all the doors were locked and there’s no other way in. The vicarage wall’s too high to climb and he’d have had quite a job to climb into the graveyard because that wall’s getting on for six foot high, and he’d be too near to Rex Purseglove in any case. So what are we left with? Isobel Slatcher was shot by the Invisible Man!’

  ‘One of them might be lying, sir.’

  ‘Of course one of ’em’s lying, you damned fool! Any idiot could have worked that out I The point is, which one?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said MacGregor.

  ‘All right, Sergeant,’ said Dover generously, ‘which one do you think’s lying?’

  MacGregor sighed gently, pretty certain that whatever he said would be wrong. ‘ How about Mr Bonnington, the Vicar, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Mr Bonnington, the Vicar?’ Dover’s voice rose to a near scream of astounded refusal to believe the evidence of his own ears. ‘For God’s sake, MacGregor, try and use what little intelligence you’ve been given! What’s Bonnington got to lie about, for Christ’s sake?’

  The police driver sat, straight backed, staring through his rain-swept windscreen, and listened avidly to every word.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said MacGregor defensively, ‘he was on the scene of both the crimes, wasn’t he? We’ve only got his word for what happened when Isobel Slatcher was shot. He could have killed her himself, couldn’t he? And then he was one of the men in the church hall when that Pie Gang lad lost his gun. He
could have picked it up as well as anyone else.’

  Dover sneered a terrible sneer. ‘My God,’ he remarked pleasantly, ‘don’t you ever listen to anything that’s said? In the first place, Dibb at the fish and chip shop saw the Vicar leave the vicarage after the shots were fired, didn’t he? He saw him leaving quite clearly. So that puts Bonnington out!’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ muttered MacGregor.

  ‘And what’s this about him being on the scene of the second crime? Was he in the hospital?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Nurse Horncastle mentioned that he goes round the wards every Friday morning, so at least he was in the hospital’

  ‘As it happens it wouldn’t even matter if he’d been right in Isobel Slatcher’s room. Whoever killed Isobel Slatcher killed her because he believed that newspaper story. He’d attacked her once and all but killed her. There was no point in risking a second attempt unless he thought she was going to recover. Now Bonnington knew that there was no hope of recovery at all. If he was the one who attacked her in February – which he wasn’t – he, of all people, would know that there was no use risking his neck to keep her mouth shut. He knew she’d never get better.’

  ‘But he could have found the Pie Gang’s gun, sir.’

  ‘Ah yes, but he wasn’t the only one in the church hall that night, was he?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Well, have you got any more bright ideas, Sergeant?’

  ‘Well, sir, if it wasn’t Mr Bonnington who’s been lying, I suppose it must be Mr Alfred Dibb.’

  ‘Dibb? What the hell has Dibb got to lie about?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir’ – MacGregor shook his head helplessly – ‘ but since we’ve cleared Rex Purseglove he’s the only one left, isn’t he?’

  ‘And who says we’ve cleared Rex Purseglove?’ demanded Dover truculently.

  ‘Why, you did, sir. He’s got an alibi for the second attack in the hospital and so, naturally, if he didn’t do that one he didn’t do the other one either.’

  ‘I think,’ said Dover slowly, ‘that he is responsible for both attacks. That hospital alibi with Nurse Horncastle or whatever-her-name-is is a put-up job. There’s a flaw in it somewhere you must have missed.’

  ‘But, sir …’

  ‘Just keep your trap shut and listen to me for a few minutes! Take this shooting business in February. Neither Mr Bonnington nor Dibb saw anyone about at all down their end of Church Lane. That means that whoever shot Isobel Slatcher must have gone off in the other direction, unless you’re assuming some collusion between the two of them which is just damned ridiculous. Now, at the Corporation Road end of Church Lane was Rex Purseglove even he admits that. He must have shot her, rushed back to the corner, waited a minute or two and then gone back again all innocent like. He’s got a damned strong motive, he’s admitted that he believed that newspaper article and he was on the spot in the hospital when she was finally killed. What more do you want?’

  ‘But what about the gun, sir? He couldn’t have found that. He wasn’t even there in the church hall that night.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Dover triumphantly, ‘ he wasn’t, but his father was! Look at it this way. Young Rex has got himself involved with Isobel Slatcher. His mother and father think the world of the little rat – they’d do anything to help him. Suppose in the shindig at the church hall his old man finds that gun. It’d be like a gift from heaven! If they can’t get Isobel and Violet to see sense, somebody’s got to do something drastic or young Rex is well and truly up the spout! What better weapon than a gun like that – especially when nobody knows you’ve got it! It’s a cinch, I tell you! This case fits Rex Purseglove like a, er … like a glove. Motive, opportunity and the weapon!’

  MacGregor shrugged his shoulders – not too obviously. You could drive a coach and horses through the holes in this analysis, but once Dover got an idea fixed in his mind it would take more than the arguments of a mere detective sergeant to get it out again. And, in any case, it so rarely happened that the chief inspector ever had any ideas at all that it would be dangerous, and even unkind, to deprive him of this one.

  ‘What’s the next step then, sir?’

  Dover frowned. He’d had a long day but, convinced that he had the solution of Isobel Slatcher’s death within his beefy grasp, he very much wanted to get the whole thing tied up as soon as possible. In some obscure way he felt that a speedy conclusion would be a slap in the eye for Superintendent Roderick. Spurred on by sheer green jealousy he decided to do a bit more work before calling it a day.

  ‘Let’s see if we can get a bit more on Rex Purseglove’s movements round here just before Isobel was shot. He went to see Violet with his mother, didn’t he? And then he came away to try and tackle Isobel by himself. Didn’t he mention calling in some café or other to waste a bit of time?’

  MacGregor dragged out his notebook and hunted through it in the feeble light provided in the roof of the car.

  ‘Yes, here we are, sir! He went to a place called Los Toros in Corporation Road.’

  ‘Right!’ said Dover. ‘We’ll try there first. Get a move on, driver!’

  The driver did. The car shot away from the kerb with a powerful roar. Dover was flung back in his seat as they leapt forward and then was flung forward as the driver slammed through an impressive change into second gear. Before Dover had time to draw breath the car had swung left on two screaming tyres into Corporation Road and he and MacGregor were struggling helplessly against the centrifugal force. There was another forward and backward thrust as the driver changed into third geat and then, before anyone could collect his wits, a heavy police boot descended on the brake. The car stopped dead.

  ‘Los Toros, sir,’ announced the driver.

  In a grim silence Dover retrieved his bowler hat from the front seat and got shakily out of the car. The driver politely held the door open for him.

  Dover scowled. ‘I’ll deal with you later!’ he growled through clenched teeth. ‘You … you homicidal maniac!’

  He tottered inside the café and collapsed on a small round stool standing near the wall. A narrow shelf not more than six inches wide was fastened to the wall at a convenient height. Dover regarded it dubiously.

  ‘Shall I get a couple of coffees, sir?’ asked MacGregor. Dover nodded. ‘Yes, and get me a bun or a cake too.’ While MacGregor was collecting the order, Dover, still somewhat dazed, looked round. Los Toros was Curdley’s concession to the coffee-bar trade. It was about the size of a spacious bathroom and possessed one minute table surrounded by three miniature imitation milking stools. Down one side of the room was the little shelf next to which Dover had established himself, and four high stools covered in red plastic. At the far end was a tiny counter mostly occupied by an Espresso coffee machine and a plate of sandwiches covered by a glass dome. On one wall was a fake bullfighting poster and fourteen advertisements for American-style soft drinks.

  “Strewth!’ groaned Dover when MacGregor placed a glass cup and saucer before him. ‘I can’t stand this frothy muck!’ He bit disconsolately into a large Bath bun. ‘Who’s behind the bar? The owner? Get him over here!’

  The proprietor of Los Toros was a fat, greasy-looking little man with side-whiskers and an ample bald patch. As he had no other customers he was quite willing to come out into the open and have a few words with the gentlemen from Scotland Yard. He was not unknown to the local police but felt quite confident that none of the little sidelines he ran was likely to engage the attentions of such top brass as a chief inspector. He smiled engagingly and admitted that his name was Pedro.

  ‘You own this dump, do you?’ asked Dover, who could spot Pedro’s sort a mile away. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘A couple of years, Inspector.’

  ‘Business doesn’t look very brisk,’ observed Dover sourly.

  Pedro hesitated. He had the business man’s natural desire to complain that times were hard and that he barely made enough to keep body and soul together, but he knew the dangers of adm
itting to the police that your legitimate business didn’t pay. The nosy bastards then started rooting round for whatever you were doing that did give you a fair return for your time and trouble.

  Pedro played it safe. ‘Oh, it livens up later on,’ he said smoothly, ‘when the flicks come out.’

  Dover snorted sceptically. ‘Were you here the night that girl was shot round by St Benedict’s?’ he asked.

  ‘Isobel Slatcher? She finally kicked the bucket, didn’t she? Yes, I was here, same as usual. February, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Do you know Rex Purseglove?’

  Pedro looked shrewdly at the chief inspector. ‘Oh, so that’s the way the wind’s blowing, is it? Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. He used to come in here quite a lot at one time. He brought Isobel Slatcher in once or twice.’

  ‘You’ve got a good memory,’ snapped Dover suspiciously.

  ‘Well, it’s not every day one of your customers gets shot, is it? Sort of gives you something to remember ’em by. Besides, Isobel Slatcher wasn’t the usual type of tart I get in here. She was a good ten years older, for one thing. I’m blowed if I can make out what Rex was up to. I mean, when a young fellow goes round with a woman damned near old enough to be his mother, well, you generally know what he’s after. But if that was his idea with La Slatcher, he’d put his money on the wrong horse.’

  ‘Did he come in here the night Isobel Slatcher was shot?’

  ‘Aw, turn it up, Inspector, you damned well know he did.’

  ‘Can you remember what time?’

  The café door opened suddenly and a young girl stood on the threshold. Her skirt was well above her knees and she made as if to teeter forward on high stiletto heels.

  ‘Not now, dear,’ said Pedro quickly, ‘ I’m busy for the moment You come back a bit later, dear.’

  The girl stared blankly at him, her jaws rhythmically masticating a lump of chewing gum.

  ‘Come back in about an hour, there’s a good girl,’ said Pedro, trying hard to establish contact, ‘I might have something for you then, dear.’