by Joyce Porter
MacGregor waited until the plumbing’s death throes gurgled into an anguished silence. ‘The caller insists that he will only speak to you, sir. He’s still hanging on.’
Dover gloomily accepted the proffered receiver and handed his sergeant a short length of chain with a rubber ball on the end. ‘Fix this back on for us!’ he said. ‘It just came off in my hand.’
MacGregor could find nothing to say and stalked off to the bathroom in a dignified silence. Dover pulled his overcoat tighter across the rolling acres of his paunch and addressed himself to his unknown caller.
‘Wadderyewant?’
A man’s voice replied. ‘Is that Detective Chief Inspector Dover?’
No policeman worth his salt ever answers a question except by another question. Even policemen not worth their salt tend to adopt this infuriating habit.
‘Who wants to know?’
‘Never you mind!’
An impasse in bloody-mindedness appeared to have been reached and both contestants, breathing heavily, waited for the other to crack first. Dover won.
‘You’re the jack in charge of the Gary Marsh murder, aren’t you?’
‘Why do you ask?’
There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line. ‘I might have some information for you.’
‘What did you say?’ Dover temporarily shifted the receiver a few inches away from his head and explored the wax in his ear with the tip of his little finger.
The unseen caller counted silently up to ten. ‘I said, I might have some information for you!’
Dover frowned. ‘What about?’
‘About the murder of Gary Marsh, for God’s sake!’
‘Oh.’ Dover’s frown deepened. ‘Well, what is it?’
‘Ah,’ – the disembodied voice sounded fractionally happier, as though its owner thought they were getting somewhere at last – ‘now, that’s what we have to discuss, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ Dover was already looking around for MacGregor. Well, ’strewth, he’d got better things to do with his time than stand around catching his death exchanging bon mots with gibbering lunatics.
The voice became gently chiding. ‘Come on, Mr Dover, you know better than that!’
‘Do I?’ Dover sounded genuinely puzzled.
‘I’ll need a quid pro quo, won’t I?’ asked the voice insinuatingly.
Dover propped himself up against the wall, lost.
‘Are you still there, Mr Dover?’
Dover grunted, unwilling to commit himself to a definite answer at this stage in the game.
‘Now, listen, if I give you valuable information about Marsh’s death, I’ll want paying for it, won’t I?’
Dover’s as yet unshaven jaw dropped. This cheeky bugger was actually asking him for money! A quid, no less! Some people believed in setting their sights good and high.
The voice went thoughtlessly on. ‘You get nothing for nothing in this world, Mr Dover.’
Dover was so affected by the simple truth of this assertion that he let slip a non-question. ‘You can say that again, mate!’
‘I’m glad you see it my way,’ said the voice smoothly. ‘ I reckon you and me’ll be able to come to some mutually acceptable arrangement. Shall we say half-past six tonight at The White Feathers? Saloon bar, of course.’
‘Oh!’ Dover suddenly began to see things in a different light. ‘The White Feathers? Where’s that?’
‘In Claverhouse. Top of the High Street. You can’t miss it.’
Dover had never missed a pub or a free booze-up in his life. His rosebud mouth contorted into a smile. ‘Half-past six, you said?’
‘Come alone!’ instructed the unknown benefactor.
‘Of course!’ chuckled Dover, whose middle name was not generosity. ‘ Just a sec – how will I know you?’ He didn’t fancy the prospect of accosting a series of strangers in a public house. It was so easy to have one’s motives misconstrued.
‘Not to worry,’ came the voice reassuringly, ‘I shall know you!’
Dover listened to the dialling tone for quite a long time before replacing the receiver. Oh, well, the day was turning out better than he would have ever dared to hope.
‘Anything of importance, sir?’ MacGregor had managed to replace the chain in the bathroom so that at least it looked all right.
‘Just a chap with some information for me,’ said Dover cagily, leading the way back to the bedroom. ‘A tout.’
‘Er – a snout, actually, sir.’
‘That’s what I said!’ snapped Dover who didn’t go much on having his jargon corrected by an underling. ‘I’ve got to meet him tonight. Alone. But you’ll have to drive me there.’
‘Well, that sounds fine, sir. Just fine.’ MacGregor was careful to hide his astonishment. It is an oft quoted axiom in police circles that a detective is only as good as his informants, which may help to explain the doldrums in which Dover’s career had wallowed for so long. To the best of MacGregor’s knowledge, Dover had never so much as seen an informer before, much less been contacted by one. Obviously the age of miracles was not yet over. ‘Let’s hope he’ll be of some use to us, sir!’
Dover grunted and dropped his overcoat on the floor.
MacGregor stared at him in dismay. ‘You’re not going back to bed, sir?’
The springs squeaked and sagged. ‘Blimey, I don’t have to meet him till half-past six!’
‘But …’
Dover dragged the bedclothes up under his chin. ‘This afternoon, laddie,’ he promised sleepily. ‘We’ll take a little trip out somewhere this afternoon … if it isn’t raining.’ He screwed his head deeper into the pillows. ‘Don’t slam the door!’
By the time, however, that MacGregor came back with his lunch, Dover had reached the sad conclusion that further sojourn in Lady Priscilla’s spare bed would undoubtedly lead to permanent damage. The weather was still too inclement for any expedition in the open air to be feasible so Dover fell to wondering if there wasn’t someone into whose life he could bring a little misery without exerting himself too much. There was always MacGregor, of course, but he could give MacGregor hell any old day of the week. No, what Dover fancied was a new victim, a fresh …
‘Here!’ He snapped his fingers with a panache that would have looked better coming from one of Lord Crouch’s more cavalier ancestors. ‘The landlord of that stinking little flea-pit of yours!’
‘Mr Buckley, sir?’ MacGregor put the locust-cleared luncheon tray down on the window seat.
‘I want to see him. Right away. And sling my drawers over!’
MacGregor got hold of Dover’s darned and yellowing long johns between a shrinking finger and thumb. ‘The landlord of The Bull Reborn, sir?’
Dover was struggling out of his pyjama jacket to reveal an even yellower and more heavily darned vest. ‘He knows more than he’s saying.’
‘Does he, sir?’
Dover dropped his pyjama trousers and MacGregor, whose mother had never wanted him to join the police, closed his eyes. ‘Told you so, didn’t I?’ puffed Dover for whom getting dressed was a strenuous business. ‘You’ve got a memory like a bloody sieve, you have!’
MacGregor didn’t stand around arguing. Better to face an irate publican in the middle of his afternoon rest than remain a shuddering spectator at Dover’s levé.
When, however, the landlord of The Bull Reborn was eventually ushered into Dover’s presence, he was far more apprehensive than angry. He had already convinced himself that Dover was one hell of a tricky customer and the way the chief inspector was mouthing and gawping at him now did nothing to make him revise his opinion. The landlord was not to know that Dover couldn’t remember for the life of him what he was supposed to be bullying this scurvy wretch about.
The landlord was not asked to sit down.
‘All right!’ snarled Dover in desperation. ‘Spit it out!’ Reclining like an obscene caricature of Madame Recamier on an old chaise longue, he raised one meaty fist to scratch
his head.
The landlord cringed back. Well, the things you read in the newspapers!
Dover grinned devilishly. ‘And get a move on!’ he advised.
The landlord grovelled. ‘It was just a friendly argument.’
‘Not the story I heard,’ lied Dover blandly. ‘Still, we might as well hear your version.’
The landlord licked his parched lips and watched hopelessly as MacGregor got his notebook out. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘it was Sunday lunch-time. The day Marsh was killed. In the bar. Marsh came in with Arthur Tiffin. They’d been to church. They started talking about Marsh’s future prospects. He was going to marry Charmian Tiffin, you know.’
‘I know everything,’ said Dover modestly. ‘ So don’t you try being funny with me or I’ll have your guts for gaiters!’
The landlord paled and resumed his sorry tale. ‘Well, I was serving behind the bar and we were pretty quiet so I couldn’t help overhearing what they were sort of saying. After a bit, I heard ’em mention this blasted motel business. Well, I just saw red.’
‘Why?’ asked MacGregor as Dover seemed to be fully occupied with picking his nose.
The landlord was only too happy to air his grievances in a time and place that wouldn’t give his bar trade the kiss of death. ‘Oh, that bloody motel! What’s it going to do to my business at The Bull, that’s what I want to know? I don’t care what stunts his lordship lays on here at Beltour, it’s not going to generate enough trade for two catering establishments. I mean,’ – he laughed uncertainly – ‘it takes a murder to fill all our rooms up out of season now!’
This attempted touch of light relief didn’t go down particularly well.
The landlord wiped his brow. ‘Well, I couldn’t forbear expressing my views to Mr Marsh. “You’ll put me out of business,” I told him. “You’re cutting my throat!” He tried to pass it off. Said it was early days yet and Lord Crouch hadn’t even got planning permission and they ’praps couldn’t get a drinks licence anyhow. “Lord Crouch not get a drinks licence from our local bench?” I asked. “ That’ll be the day, by God it will!” Well, you can see my point of view, can’t you? I wouldn’t mind so much if Lord Crouch didn’t pride himself on looking after us old soldiers. I mean, what’s Gary Marsh ever done for his Queen and Country? I did my two years without a word of complaint – and in his lordship’s own regiment. I’m an old South Shires Fusilier and you’d think that’d count for something, wouldn’t you?’
‘What happened next?’ asked MacGregor.
‘Eh? Oh, well – to cut a long story short – Marsh and me had a few more words about it and we both got a bit hot under the collar. Arthur Tiffin tried to calm us down and in the end Marsh sort of washed his hands of the whole affair. Said it hadn’t anything to do with him. Well, that set me off again. I mean, I wasn’t going to stand for that. “Nothing to do with you?” I said. “Everybody knows you’re the one who’s at the back of it. His lordship would never have thought of the idea if you hadn’t suggested it to him first. Don’t you tell me it’s nothing to do with you, you sneaking little rat!”’
Dover could take just so much of this sort of thing, and no more. ‘Get to the bloody point, can’t you?’
The landlord looked hurt. ‘But that is the point! Me and Marsh just had a friendly bit of an up-and-a-downer over this motel project.’
An expression of acute disgust oozed across Dover’s face. ‘And that’s all?’
The landlord was stung to justify himself. ‘ I did threaten to break young Marsh’s bloody neck for him,’ he stoutly.
‘Big deal!’ Dover was plainly preparing to wash his hands of the whole business. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t happen to go around arresting people merely for shooting their stupid mouths off.’
Such sweet reasonableness not only took the wind out of the landlord’s sails, but it floored Dover’s long suffering assistant as well. MacGregor could recall numerous embarrassing occasions when his chief inspector hadn’t had anything as substantial as idle threats to go on.
‘I’ve no alibi,’ the landlord pointed out helpfully. ‘ We don’t open till seven on Sundays so I’d have had ample time to get back from Bluebell Wood, get myself cleaned down and open up.’
‘Get yourself cleaned down?’ MacGregor was clutching at straws but he had to try and make some progress somewhere. ‘How did you know that the murderer was likely to be covered in mud?’
‘Oh, come off it, sergeant!’ the landlord chaffed in a rather patronizing way. ‘Anybody round here knows it’s ankle deep in mud round the Donkey Bridge at the best of times, never mind when we’ve had all this rain. Your murderer, whoever he is, would have been caked in muck up to his armpits, no matter how careful he was.’
MacGregor concentrated on not looking as though the only feeble shot in his locker had not just misfired. ‘What happened after you threatened to break Marsh’s neck for him?’
The landlord was getting almost as bored as Dover. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘ Nothing happened. It all calmed down. Another customer came in and I had to go and serve him. Arthur Tiffin took Marsh off to one of the tables and they finished their drinks there.’
‘You didn’t speak to Marsh again?’
‘No. I’d said my piece. And, anyhow, I’ll believe this motel scheme when I see it. Marsh had had enough, too. Every time I had to go near him and Tiffin, they kept their heads stuck close together and pretended they hadn’t seen me. Even when I was as close to ’em as I am to you, they never so much as glanced at me.’
‘Did you hear what they were talking about?’ asked MacGregor, industriously spinning out the interview to a respectable length.
The landlord began to button up his coat. ‘Oh, something about Henniford and Tuppeny Hill Camp. I only remember because those were my old stamping grounds. Tuppeny Hill Camp was the regimental depot of the South Shires and Henniford was where we lads used to go for a bit of night life. I suppose Arthur Tiffin was telling Marsh about the good old days when he was cutting a dash in a smart khaki uniform with a feather in his cap.’
MacGregor was reluctant to let the landlord go but in the end he had to. Dover’s feelings were only too predictable.
‘Jesus!’ he sneered. ‘ You don’t half give ’em a grilling when you’re roused! Talk about putting ’em through it! For one minute there I thought you were going to clout him one with your handbag!’
MacGregor bit his lip. It was the rank unfairness of it all that choked him. You sat there, waiting until Dover had got himself into such a muddle that the old fool didn’t know which day of the week it was and then, when you stepped in and tried to bring a bit of order into the proceedings, you got highly unoriginal abuse for your pains. MacGregor fell to wondering, as he frequently did, whether another appeal for clemency would do any good. Even the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) must have withers that could be wrung. It wasn’t as though MacGregor was contemplating asking for anything out of this world – like promotion. He knew only too well that his long association with Dover the Dead-Beat had put paid to any ambitions in that direction. Useless by association! No – all MacGregor wanted was a change. Anything would do, just as long as it was as far away as possible from the unspeakable old slob. ‘One has to keep trying, sir,’ he said huffily.
‘Not when we get down to second-hand accounts of old soldier’s beery reminiscences, we don’t!’ retorted Dover. ‘If there’s one thing I can live without, laddie, it’s Arthur Tiffin’s army memoirs!’
Chapter Twelve
MacGregor got Dover to The White Feathers at twenty-five past six on the dot. They sat side by side in the car park and stared out into the darkness. It was drizzling again and Dover seemed strangely on edge.
‘I’ll wait here for you, shall I, sir?’
Dover gnawed his bottom lip. ‘Suppose so.’
‘I’ll come in with you, if you want, sir.’
‘I can do without you sticking your nose in and buggering everything up!’ The reply was a gem typical o
f Dover’s conversational style but the chief inspector’s heart wasn’t really in it. He glanced round the car park nervously. ‘You don’t think it’s a trap, do you?’
‘A trap, sir?’
Dover fancied he detected a note of over-healthy scepticism in his sergeant’s voice. ‘Well, it bloody well could be!’ he retorted hotly. ‘Somebody murdered Marsh and it’s common knowledge that I’m investigating the case. It wouldn’t,’ he added, breaking out in a cold sweat at the thought, ‘ be the first time a killer’s tried to nobble me.’
MacGregor was reassuring. He felt he could well afford to be. ‘Not in a saloon bar, sir. They’d have tried to lure you to some remote spot if they were intending to get rid of you.’
‘Hm.’ Dover still sounded unhappy. He sighed. ‘Well, you just hang on here and keep your eyes skinned.’ Reluctantly he opened the car door. ‘And, if I’m not out in half an hour, come and get me!’
MacGregor watched Dover’s seventeen and a quarter stones waddle slowly and painfully across the car park. Stupid old devil! As if any murderer in his right mind would try to rub him out! Dover was the best guarantee the criminal fraternity could possibly have that they would get away with it.
But MacGregor, in spite of having read no less than two books on popular psychology, had got it wrong. Dover was worried all right, but he wasn’t really worried about his personal safety. Wild horses wouldn’t have got him within a hundred miles of The White Feathers if he had been. No, the fear of assassination was merely a rationalization of a deeper and more fundamental terror. The truth was that Dover was constitutionally allergic to entering a public house all on his own. Usually he took every precaution to have somebody with him, somebody who could handle the delicate business of actually stepping up to the bar and ordering the drinks. But, now … for one craven moment Dover almost packed it in and scuttled back to the sanctuary of the car. Horrible visions rose before his eyes. Suppose this fellow he was engaged to meet was late? Or didn’t come at all? Would Dover be expected to purchase alcoholic beverages for a whole half hour while he waited?