Dover and the Claret Tappers

by Joyce Porter

  The disastrous decline of social standards since the halcyon days of his youth was a theme guaranteed to pluck at Dover’s heart-strings. He positively beamed at Archie Gallagher. A kindred soul at last! In an excess of generosity Dover turned to MacGregor. ‘Get your fags out, laddie!’ he ordered imperiously. ‘And hand ’em round! Do you smoke, Mr Gallagher?’

  ‘Yes, but’ – Archie Gallagher saw the colour of MacGregor’s packet – ‘not those, I’m afraid.’ He extracted a slim box of fifty from the breast pocket of his prison battle-dress. ‘Here, try one of mine!’

  Dover accepted an expensive, hand-rolled, emperor-sized cigarette with great pleasure and almost indecent haste.

  When he had provided a light all round, Archie Gallagher slipped his solid gold lighter back in his pocket. ‘Yes,’ he said, resuming the conversation where they had left off, ‘bigamy is far from being the soft option some people fancy it is. And rich women are unbelievably mean, you know, and suspicious. Still,’ – he smiled apologetically – ‘I mustn’t bore you with my troubles.’

  Dover was not to be outdone in graciousness, not with cigarettes like Archie Gallagher’s around. ‘You’re not boring us, old man! Is he, MacGregor?’

  MacGregor managed a bit of a smile. ‘How long have you been in prison, Gallagher?’

  ‘This time? Eleven months, three days and about six hours.’

  ‘So you’ve got the best part of seven years still to do?’

  ‘Mr Justice Longbotham, in a most eloquent and moving speech, expressed the opinion that he owed it to society to make an example of me. He called me a heartless monster preying upon innocent women and regretted that he couldn’t give me an even stiffer sentence. However, seven years is rather an exaggeration, sergeant. I expect to get quite a handsome remission for good behaviour.’

  ‘With a box of fifty hand-made cigarettes in your pocket?’ enquired MacGregor incredulously. ‘I’ll bet you’ve got a finger in every fiddle and racket there is going. You’re damned lucky not to have lost your remission already!’

  Archie Gallagher smiled. ‘One counts on a modicum of luck,’ he pointed out gently.

  MacGregor tapped his teeth with the end of his pencil. I might be able to do something for you, Gallagher, he said.

  ‘Like guarantee me my remission?’ Archie Gallagher’s smile was mocking.

  ‘Or there’s parole. A word in the right place from us . . .’

  ‘And what, sergeant, do I have to do to earn a place in your good books?’

  Dover got it in first. ‘How about handing your fags round again?’

  Archie Gallagher was a generous man. ‘Here,’ he said, handing the box over, ‘take the lot! I can get plenty more.’

  ‘Oh, ta!’ said Dover, wondering if there was any chance of getting the gold lighter as a little souvenir of their meeting.

  MacGregor attempted to get the interview back under his control. ‘You play ball with us,’ he told Gallagher, ‘and we’ll play ball with you!’

  ‘But I’ve already told you, I don’t know anything.

  MacGregor watched Gallagher carefully. ‘You’ve never heard of the Claret Tappers?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘They’re the bastards who kidnapped me in order to get you out of the nick,’ grumbled Dover, lest anybody should forget that he’d got a grievance.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve never heard of them?’

  ‘Quite sure, sergeant! Believe me, I’d help you if I could.’

  ‘Have you any suggestions, though?’ appealed MacGregor. ‘Doesn’t any of this mean anything to you?’

  Archie Gallagher shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, it sounds terribly far fetched but, honestly, the only thing I can think of is that your Claret Tappers might possibly be Wykehamists.’

  ‘Wykehamists?’ The consternation on MacGregor’s face might have been amusing if it hadn’t been so obviously heartfelt. The sergeant had been educated at a very minor public school but he wasn’t in this league. He gazed in awe at the urbane bigamist and cleared his throat. ‘Were you at Winchester?’ he asked in an envious croak.

  Archie Gallagher chuckled. ‘No,’ he admitted without a trace of shame. ‘But I always say I was. I always think a good educational background impresses people, don’t you?’

  Five

  DOVER RAISED A FACE CRIMSON WITH EXERTION AND dripping with foam. ‘Ah, that’s better!’ he asserted happily and set his pint tankard down with a thump on the old, formica-top table.

  MacGregor, ensconced opposite in the other antique plastic settle, responded with a feeble smile. ‘Cheers, sir!’ he said, sipping his glass of unadulterated tonic water without enthusiasm and finding scant comfort in the knowledge that one of the partnership at least would have a clear head for the afternoon.

  ‘Best beer for five miles around!’ claimed Dover. It wasn’t true. The only reason the chief inspector patronised this rather dirty and inconvenient pub was that it was the sole establishment within reasonable range of Scotland Yard that wasn’t haunted by hordes of thirsty policemen. Dover lived in the constant fear that one day he would be called upon to stand his round and so he took what precautions he could.

  ‘A cigarette, sir?’

  Dover accepted, but only under duress. ‘I can’t think why you don’t buy yourself some decent fags,’ he grumbled.

  ‘These are all I can afford, sir.’

  ‘That Gallagher chap must have made a packet out of bigamy,’ said Dover enviously. ‘Talk about money for bloody jam!’

  ‘It sounded more like the dickens of a lot of hard work, the way he told it, sir. And the risks! Why, he’d got six women at the end, all coming from more or less the same social stratum and all thinking they were married to him. No wonder it all came unstuck. I’d love to have been at Badminton, though, when Numbers Two and hive spotted him arming a prospective Number Seven around.’ MacGregor took another mouthful of tonic. ‘Serves him right for picking all his women from the horsey set.’

  Dover dried off his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘Horses? I thought you played badminton with a bat and one of those shuttlecock things.’

  MacGregor had neither the strength nor the inclination to start teaching Dover the facts of sporting life and he changed the subject slightly, hoping that old bird-brain wouldn’t notice. ‘Did you believe Archie Gallagher, sir? About not being mixed up in any way with the Claret Tappers?’

  ‘He seemed genuine enough,’ said Dover, who’d developed quite a soft spot for the bigamist. ‘Sounded as though he was telling the truth.’

  ‘He is a professional liar, of course, sir. He makes his living by deceiving people.’

  ‘Only a pack of silly women.’

  MacGregor wasn’t so sure. ‘I imagine that yarn about being educated at Winchester must have fooled a number of men, too, sir. Or else why would he imagine that the Claret Tappers might be a bunch of old Wykehamists?’

  Dover was even less au fait with the old school tie ethic than he was with sport. ‘Well, he’s not a terrorist, that’s for sure.’

  MacGregor sighed. ‘No, I’m inclined to agree with you there, sir.’

  ‘Ho, ta very much!’

  MacGregor ground his teeth, but silently. ‘Maybe we’ll have more luck this afternoon with the other one.’

  Dover stopped rattling his empty glass on the table. ‘What other one?’

  ‘The other prisoner, sir. The Claret Tappers demanded the release of two prisoners . . . if you remember ,’

  ‘So where’ve we got to go this afternoon?’ whined Dover, beginning to panic at the mere prospect of work. ‘Bloody north of Scotland?’

  ‘Only to Holloway, sir.’ MacGregor was relieved to be the bearer of good news for a change. ‘And we can go by taxi. Commander Brockhurst said he would authorise it, just this once.’

  ‘I saw old Brockhurst this morning,’ said Dover gloomily. ‘We travelled up in the same lift.’

  ‘Really, sir?’ Commander Brockhurst must be slowing up
, thought MacGregor. He usually took good care not to let Dover get within spitting distance.

  ‘He spoke to me,’ said Dover.

  MacGregor reckoned senile decay must be setting in. ‘Er – what did he say, sir?’

  Dover sagged like a partially deflated barrage balloon. ‘Only “Good morning”. I was just going to tell him exactly what I thought about the way my kidnapping was handled when we reached his floor and he got out.’

  Never a dull moment, thought MacGregor.

  ‘The whole thing’s been a cock-up from the beginning, if you ask me,’ said Dover. ‘And now look what’s happening! First I have to go rushing off to bloody Devon and now it’s bloody Holloway. Is nobody else going to do anything? ’Strewth, they ought to be deploying every copper in the country to help nab these villains, not leaving it all to me. I mean, there’s a limit to what one man can do – however bloody willing.’

  ‘Several other lines of enquiry are being pursued, sir.’

  Dover sniffed sceptically. ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Well, a nationwide search is being made for that taxi, sir, and they’re following up every report from the general public that might lead to the identification of the house in which you were detained. People are being extraordinarily helpful, sir.’

  Dover dismissed all these public-spirited citizens with a rude gesture. ‘Nut cases!’

  ‘And of course, Special Branch are busy trying to pick up the trail of these Claret Tappers, sir. If they are a gang of terrorists, somebody somewhere must know something about them. And then . . .’

  ‘All right, all right!’ snarled Dover. ‘There’s no need to make a bloody meal of it!’ His face brightened suddenly. ‘And, talking of meals, how about bringing me back a few sandwiches and a couple of pies when you get me another beer?’ His glass was pushed across the table. ‘Not cheese. Cheese makes me bilious.’

  MacGregor drained his own glass and stood up. In his more despairing moments he calculated that half his pay went to the upkeep of Dover’s inner man. ‘Would you like a bowl of soup to start with, sir?’

  The trouble with sarcasm was that Dover never saw it. ‘Might as well,’ he said. ‘Hey, hold your horses!’ His anguished yelp stopped MacGregor in his tracks. ‘Holloway? That’s a women’s prison!’

  MacGregor nodded. ‘That’s right, sir. The second prisoner is a woman. Lesley Whittacker. Your Claret Tappers had her down as Les Whittacker and it took the C.R.O. a bit to identify her. She’s doing two years for shop-lifting.’

  * * *

  More echoing corridors and clanging doors. This time, though, it was a woman prison officer who marched Dover and MacGregor along like a couple of defaulters.

  The wardress may have looked as though she’d played Rugby League in her youth for England but, beneath that rugged exterior, there beat a heart of gold. She unlocked the door of the punishment cell which was to be used for the interview. Before she opened it she issued a word of warning. ‘You’ll have to watch her!’

  MacGregor smiled. ‘There are two of us,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Just as well, sergeant, because she’d make mincemeat of a young lad like you if she got you on your own. I’ll be right outside if you need me but – take my advice – don’t turn your back on her!’ She Hung the door open and stood aside to let the two detectives enter. As Dover lumbered past she caught him by the sleeve. ‘Pardon me for mentioning it, dear, but have you ever thought of going on a diet?’

  If she’d stripped off and done a belly dance, Dover’s eyes couldn’t have popped rounder than they did.

  The woman prison officer shook her head over Dover’s paunch. ‘You do so remind me of my lather,’ she whispered sadly. ‘He was stones and stones overweight, too.’

  ‘But he went on a bloody diet, I suppose?’ Dover was sick of being told about these paragons who stopped smoking or eating or what-have-you at the drop of a bleeding hat.

  The woman prison officer’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘Oh, no, dear! He died. Went out like a light. And the trouble we had getting that coffin round the bend in the stairs, you wouldn’t believe. It took all the paint off’ the banisters. So, do try and take some of that excess fat off’, dear, if only for the sake of those you leave behind!’

  Dover was not in the best of moods when he finally elbowed his way into the interview room. That damned female screw! She wanted punching up the hooter! He was so cross that it took him quite a few seconds before he began to register his surroundings. Then he realised that he was in a rather dark, small room with bare walls and a barred window set up high out of reach. The furnishings consisted of three wooden chairs grouped companionably round a small wooden table.

  On one of the chairs a young woman was lounging. She looked as though she was about to fulfil America’s manifest destiny by following the covered wagons towards the setting sun. The enveloping shawl and the ankle-length dress were, of course, part of the new dispensation by which women prisoners were allowed to wear their own gear while inside. Dover, it need hardly be said, disapproved. In his book anybody stupid enough to get themselves nicked deserved an unrelieved regime of sackcloth, broad arrows and bread and water.

  Miss Lesley Whittacker propelled her wodge of chewing gum from her right cheek to her Left. ‘Why do you bogies always go round in two’s?’ she asked.

  MacGregor was too old a hand to get involved in that sort of question and answer session. He concentrated on introducing himself and Dover and on giving Miss Whittacker a brief resume of the reasons for their visit.

  Miss Whittacker was impressed. ‘Fancy,’ she said.

  ‘We have been given to believe,’ MacGregor continued smoothly, ‘that you may be able to assist us in our enquiries.’

  Miss Whittacker addressed herself to Dover. ‘Ooh, doesn’t he talk posh?’ she asked admiringly. ‘Not a bit like all the effing old pigs I’ve had to deal with.’

  Dover responded with an admonition whose vocabulary, tone and accent were calculated to make Miss Whittacker feel much more at home.

  ‘You old sod!’ she chuckled. ‘Actually, he hasn’t asked me no bleeding questions yet, has he?’

  ‘What do you know about the Claret Tappers?’ demanded MacGregor.

  ‘Not a sodding thing, duckie!’

  ‘That’s the name of the gang that kidnapped Chief Inspector Dover, here.’

  ‘I’ve still never heard of ’em, but you can give ’em my heartiest congratulations when you catch up with ’em.’

  MacGregor’s voice hardened. ‘Don’t give me all that crap, girl! You’re one of ’em, aren’t you?’

  ‘Me?’ asked Miss Whittacker wearily. ‘Come off it, Blue-eyes! Why should I go around kidnapping fat old policemen, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘How about a hundred thousand pounds in ransom money?’ snapped MacGregor.

  Miss Whittacker merely laughed. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing! Look, copper, I’ve been shut up in this cat house for twelve bleeding months, haven’t I? You tell me how I can be a part of a snatch for a hundred thousand nicker while I’m doing porridge and I’ll oblige. Like an effing shot!’

  Dover scowled at the girl. ‘You’ve been in Holloway for the past year?’

  ‘More or less.’

  Dover’s scowl deepened. ‘And what the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means, pig,’ spat Miss Whittacker, ‘that they kept me hanging about for a couple of bleeding weeks in Bristol, didn’t they?’

  Dover had no scruples about hitting women, indeed on the whole he preferred it. There was less danger of retaliation. Before he’d got his clenched fist raised more than a couple of inches, though, MacGregor came galloping to the rescue with a penetrating and diversionary question.

  ‘Why should the Claret Tappers stipulate that you should be released from prison?’

  Lesley Whittacker shrugged her shoulders. Underneath all the draperies and a lot of rather amateurishly applied make-up there was quite a pretty girl. MacGregor was just beginning
to notice. ‘Search me,’ she said.

  MacGregor cleared his throat. ‘Look, Lesley,’ he said, switching to a more friendly approach, ‘I know you really couldn’t care less whether anybody kidnaps Mr Dover or not. I mean, no policeman’s exactly your best friend, is he?’

  ‘The lousy pigs!’ said Miss Whittacker viciously. She snatched her chewing-gum out of her mouth and slapped it angrily on the underside of the table. ‘I were fixed at Bristol, you know. First that bloody store detective swearing black was white so’s she’d get her effing promotion and then that bleeding copper lying in his teeth. And they wouldn’t let me telephone my solicitor, either. Talk about a put-up job! I ask you – what would I want with eight transistors and five stop watches, for God’s sake?’

  MacGregor could see that Dover was growing restless. ‘Yes, rotten luck,’ he said. ‘But to get back to these Claret Tappers. We must catch them, you see, because they might try again and next time they might take somebody who wasn’t a policeman.’

  Miss Whittacker went slightly cross-eyed as she attempted to work this out but analytical thought was not her strong point. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well,’ said MacGregor, sensing that he was on a hiding to nothing, ‘well, I’m – er – sure you wouldn’t want to see an innocent person hurt, would you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ said Miss Whittacker with massive indifference. ‘I was innocent and look where it’s landed me.’

  ‘You got a boy friend, miss?’

  Much to MacGregor’s fury, Lesley Whittacker seemed to recognise her master’s voice. Although she kept a wary eye on Dover, she answered his question promptly. “I got dozens.’

  “Politics?’

  ‘I’m a Conservative. They’re the ones with the yachts, you know, and the villas in the South of France and going shooting at Ascot and . . .’

  Dover, having got the whole problem well and truly licked, sat back. ‘So, there’s your answer!’ he informed MacGregor.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘’Strewth, do I have to spell every bloody thing out for you? Look, it’s perfectly obvious what’s happened.’