Dover and the Claret Tappers

by Joyce Porter

  ‘He’d need a bit of padding,’ said Superintendent Trevelyan, prepared at this stage to give almost any idea a fair hearing.

  MacGregor’s gorge had risen at the prospect of donning those unspeakable garments. Dear God – not all the perfumes of Arabia would sweeten him after that! ‘You forget that the Claret Tappers have already seen you, sir,’ he pointed out quickly. ‘My impersonation wouldn’t survive two seconds at close quarters.’

  ‘Chicken!’ sneered Dover.

  Superintendent Trevelyan made up his mind. ‘You’ll have to drive the car to the foot of Fish Down, sergeant,’ he said. ‘You can drop Chief Inspector Dover with the ransom money and then drive off.’

  ‘And leave me stranded there?’ howled Dover.

  ‘You’ll both have two-way radios,’ explained the superintendent patiently. ‘It’ll be the easiest thing in the world to call him back if you want him. No!’ He held up his hand with real authority. ‘I know it’s not perfect but it’ll have to do. We haven’t got time to work out anything better. Now, are you ready, Dover? Good! We’ve got your car waiting outside. It’s tilled right up with petrol, by the way, in case you’ve got to go driving half-way over the country. The ransom money’s already in the car and . . . Where the hell are you off to now?’

  Dover was going to the gents’. ‘Shan’t be a tick!’ he said.

  When, only a short time later, he found himself standing at the bottom of Fish Down watching MacGregor disappearing down the long rain-swept road, he was extremely glad he’d taken the opportunity when he’d had it. With the wind whistling round and only a couple of stunted bushes for cover, it’d be no bloody joke out here trying to . . .

  His pocket radio crackled. ‘Well?’ asked a distant voice. ‘Well, what?’ riposted Dover after a lengthy pause while he found the right buttons and switches.

  ‘Have you found a message or anything?’

  Dover sighed heavily as befits one who is being driven beyond the bounds of endurance and went to have a look round. He eventually found a red, plastic bag sticking out from under a stone. With some difficulty he undid it, extracted the sheet of paper it contained and began laboriously to read the typewritten instructions. His subsequent scream of horror almost reached the ears of his colleagues without benefit of radio.

  Jesus Christ!’

  There was more delay before he got through again on the fiddly little wireless thing they’d given him. What with frustration and simple panic, he was almost sobbing when he finally got through.

  ‘Don’t shout!’ advised the distant MacGregor, wondering if one of the Claret Tappers really had jumped out and shot the old fool. ‘We can’t make out what you’re saying.’

  Dover turned his back on the howling gale and reduced his voice to an anguished scream. ‘They say I’ve got to take this bloody money up to the top of this bloody mountain!’ MacGregor and Superintendent Trevelyan had joined up and were sitting together in a warm and comfortable police car a couple of miles away. Superintendent Trevelyan took over the microphone. ‘Well, that’s all right, old chap,’ he said soothingly, ‘just go ahead and do what they say!’

  ‘Go ahead?’ bellowed Dover. ‘Have you gone out of your mind? It’s three bloody miles straight up, for God’s sake! And these bags with the money – they weigh a bloody ton, you moron!’

  Superintendent Trevelyan tried sweet reason. He tried some good-humoured banter. He appealed to Dover’s liner feelings and spoke rather movingly about the poor kidnapped baby. Then came veiled threats which were quickly supplanted by naked threats. Finally, Superintendent Trevelyan took a deep breath and issued a direct order.

  It was all to no avail. Dover continued to whine that the physical effort demanded by the kidnappers was totally beyond him.

  In the end Superintendent Trevelyan laid it on the line. ‘Listen, Dover,’ he snarled, crushing his two-way radio in his fist, ‘and get this into that thick skull of yours! Either you carry that money up the green road to the top of Fish Down as per instructions or you stay out there until your bloody bones rot! ‘The choice is yours, mate! A bit of a climb up a bit of a hill or death from exposure!’

  ‘I’ll sue you!’ spluttered Dover. ‘I’m a sick man! My . . .’

  ‘You may be interested to hear the latest weather forecast,’ the implacable voice went on. ‘A cold front preceded by a belt of heavy rain is moving slowly across the area. There’s a likelihood of snow over high ground.’

  Dover, in a paroxysm of rage, took the only course open to a man of his stomach and spirit. He chucked his radio away as far as he could and had the deep satisfaction of seeing it smash into a thousand pieces on the roadway. Much cheered by this display of petulance, he determined to stick it out and defiantly raised two gloved fingers to the lot of ‘em!

  Four and a half minutes of lashing rain, freezing gales and not a bloody car in sight changed his tune for him. With a heart-felt curse, he grabbed hold of his two mail-bags and staggered off up the hill, his feet stumbling over the stones and slipping desperately in the thick mud.

  ‘What the hell d’you mean, you don’t know what he’s doing?’

  Everybody was having their difficulties. Superintendent Trevelyan and MacGregor, snug in their police car, couldn’t see anything of what was going on at Fish Down. For information about that they had to rely on the man Superintendent Trevelyan had stationed with binoculars on the top of Caper Hill.

  ‘Oh, I’ve got it now, sir!’ The distant voice sounded happier. ‘Chief Inspector Dover’s carrying the bags one at a time.’

  Superintendent Trevelyan was feeling the strain. ‘How d’you mean?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Carrying the bags one at a time?’

  The distant voice sounded hurt. ‘Well, what I say, sir. Mr Dover’s dropping one bag on the ground and carrying the other one fifty yards or so, dropping it to the ground and then going back for the other.’

  Superintendent Trevelyan turned to and on MacGregor. ‘It’ll take him a month of Sundays to get to the top!’

  MacGregor, knowing Dover better, thought that this was, if anything, an underestimation. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it, I’m afraid, sir. If that was his radio your chap saw him throw away . . .’

  ‘I’ll make him pay for that radio!’ Superintendent Trevelyan promised himself and everybody else within earshot. ‘Down to the last penny! By God I will!’ He clicked the switch of his own radio again. ‘Where’s the stup . . . Where’s the chief inspector got to now?’

  The man on the top of Caper Hill sighed. ‘Well, he’s about where he was when you asked before, actually, sir. He’s been taking a bit of a breather.’

  But even all bad things come to an end sometime and Dover eventually., and somewhat to his surprise, reached the summit, disappearing as he did so out of the sight of the policeman watching from the other hill. When he had got his breath back he looked around for signs of the Claret Tappers and eventually found another brightly coloured plastic envelope anchored under a stone. Being Dover, he very nearly let the enclosed missive blow away in the wind but he caught it, only slightly torn, just in time. The tears which sprang to his eves when he’d finished reading the message were not due solely to the icy blast which was slicing its way across the summit of Fish Down, bloody hell, was there no decency left in this bleeding world? Dover let the kidnappers’ instructions blow away to God knows where, and looked morosely about him for the next link in this accursed chain.

  There it was!

  Two malevolent eyes squinted suspiciously at him from under an untidy tuft of black, greasy hair. Powerful jaws ruminated maliciously as Dover extended a would-be conciliator}’ hand and, uncertainly, clicked his teeth.

  The next link in the chain curled a green and slimy lip, and eyed the two mail-bags with misgiving.

  ‘For the love of God, what’s that damned fool doing now?’ The watching policeman lowered his binoculars and flicked the transmitter switch. ‘Chief Inspector Dover is still out of my line of vision, sir,’
he reported impassively. Tie took cover a couple of minutes ago behind an outcrop of rock. No doubt he’ll appear again when he’s done whatever it is he’s doing.’ MacGregor sensed rather than saw the exasperated twitch of Superintendent Trevelyan’s eyebrows. ‘Mr Dover’s bladder isn’t all it might be, sir,’ he explained in a suitably hushed voice. ‘He sometimes has – er – difficulties.’

  Superintendent Trevelyan had a heart of stone. ‘Bladder?’ he echoed fiercely. ‘I’ll bladder him all right if he mucks this up!’

  The radio receiver crackled again and the watching policeman could be heard clearing his throat. ‘Sir,’ he said at last, well aware that he was on a hiding to nothing, ‘there seems to be a – well – a sort of – er – animal, sir.’

  Superintendent Trevelyan appeared to be trying to tie his swagger stick into a knot. ‘Have you been drinking, laddie?’ The watching policeman had no time to protest his innocence. ‘It is an animal, sir!’ he gabbled excitedly. ‘I can see it quite clearly now. A little Shetland pony. And it’s got those mail-bags on its back, sir! The mail-bags with the ransom money in them. It’s trotting off down the side of the hill now, sir!’

  ‘Northwards?’ MacGregor struggled with the large-scale Ordnance Survey map although he already appreciated the implications of the watching policeman’s report. ‘Oh, God – that’s right away from the roads. Look, there aren’t even cart tracks for miles in this direction. We haven’t got it covered. We’re not going to be able to follow!’

  ‘Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!’ Superintendent Trevelyan leaned forward as though the appearance of extreme urgency could in itself produce results. He clicked on his radio. ‘Where is the blasted pony now?’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ – the watching policeman’s disappointed tones came across loud and clear – ‘it’s already gone out of my sight. It was moving pretty fast, sir, in spite of those mail-bags.’ Superintendent Trevelyan pulled the map out of MacGregor’s hands though he knew the surrounding countryside like the back of his hand. One irate glance was enough to confirm all his worst fears. That bloody pony, with half a million bloody quid on its back, could go for miles and miles and finish up anywhere. But the superintendent was not the man to cry over spilt milk. Firmly banishing the vision of those empty, rolling acres from his mind, he concentrated on the one aspect of the problem which really counted. ‘Somebody,’ he announced grimly in a way that left no doubt but that he was excluding himself from the calculation, ‘is going to answer with his head for this bloody balls-up!’

  At the acrimonious de-briefing session which was held some couple of hours later, it became clear that Dover was the one being groomed for the role of sacrificial victim. Everybody, concerned was gathered in the saloon bar of The Bishop’s Crozier for the dismal purpose of mulling over what bad gone wrong. The air was thick with smoke and recriminations as the hot potatoes of this particular disaster were tossed recklessly from hand to hand. Gradually? however, the pattern of Superintendent Trevelyan’s bandwaggon began to emerge and his immediate underlings lost no time in jumping thankfully aboard. After all, dog traditionally does not eat dog, and men of the same police force do have a certain loyalty to each other. Much better to shove all the blame onto these toffee-nosed buggers from Scotland Yard. Well – let’s be fair – it was probably all their bleeding fault, anyhow.

  ‘Just a bloody minute 1’ Up to this point in the proceedings Dover had been worrying mostly about his feet, his stomach and his bowels. Now he suddenly became preoccupied with his skin. Holy flaming cats – these thick-headed, straw-chewing yokels were trying to frame him! ‘All I was supposed to do was to hand that ransom money over to the Claret Tappers and that’s all I did. It’s not my fault that your damned stupid arrangements blew up in your silly faces.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have thrown that radio away!’ countered the superintendent, who was nothing if not consistent.

  ‘And you shouldn’t have underestimated the Claret Tappers!’ retorted Dover. ‘A kid of two’d know they wouldn’t stick to the main roads just so’s you could keep an eye on ‘em.’ He raised his voice on the grounds that the best means of defence is often shouting. ‘They’re not a bunch of country bumpkins, you know!’

  Superintendent Trevelyan, on the other hand, belonged more to the constant dripping school. ‘If you hadn’t tossed that valuable radio away? you could have tipped us off and we’d have had time to organise something. It’s entirely thanks to your bungling that the Claret Tappers slipped clean through our fingers – and I shall be putting that in my report to my Chief Constable.’ He broke off as the door into the bar opened and a rather oily young man came sidling into the room. ‘Well,’ demanded Superintendent Trevelyan as the newcomer paused obsequiously in front of him, ‘has the Prime Minister’s grandson been returned?’

  The face of the oily young man fell. The news he was bearing was interesting and important, but not as interesting and important as that. Blimey, some people wanted it with jam on! ‘There’s no news about the Sleight baby, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve found the Shetland pony, though.’

  Dover was not the man to let a chunk of bathos like that fall unnoticed. ‘Oh, big deal!’ he guffawed, thumping MacGregor in the ribs to encourage him to appreciate the joke.

  The oily young man blinked but carried on gallantly. ‘The pony belongs to a Captain Berry, sir, up over at a place called Gallows Firm.’ He indicated the spot on the large wall map which some helpful bastard had hung up over the dart board. ‘It’s about three miles from where Mr Dover released the animal, sir, at the top of Fish Down. Three miles as the crow Hies, of course, sir.’

  ‘And not as the pony trots!’ sniggered Dover, giving his natural wit full rein.

  Superintendent Trevelyan went quite red in the face. ‘Well, get on with it!’ he snarled at the oily young man who was standing with his mouth wide open.

  ‘Eh? Oh, yes – er – yes, of course, sir Well, we’ve only got the report of the local constable so far, sir, but it seems that Captain Berry reckons the pony was taken sometime last night. The captain thought he heard somebody moving around later on in the paddock but he didn’t get up to investigate. He says there’d be no trouble in luring the pony away because it’s a greedy little brute and would go off with Old Nick himself for a couple of carrots. That’s why it shot off home like a bat out of hell as soon as Mr Dover untied it, sir. It wanted its breakfast. Captain Berry says it returned home just before eight this morning, sir, and – and apart from looking a bit bedraggled and cross – it didn’t seem to have come to any harm. It. . .’

  ‘What about the money?’ Superintendent Trevelyan wasn’t much of an animal lover at the best of times.

  I he oily young man blinked again. ‘Oh, there’s no sign of the money, sir,’ he assured the superintendent earnestly. ‘Police Constable Truss – he’s the one we got this report from, sir – he thinks the kidnappers must have waited for the pony at the gate to its paddock. There are some indications that several people may have been standing round about there and there might have been a car, too. The trouble is that with all this rain it’s difficult to be sure about anything much. Presumably, when the pony came trotting home, sir, the kidnappers just grabbed it, removed the sacks containing the ransom money and . . .’

  ‘Get out!’ Superintendent Trevelyan liked to think he was a father to his men – but not this morning.

  ‘Half-way to South America by now!’ observed Dover with quite unseemly cheerfulness.

  ‘If they are, Dover, it’s your bloody fault! If you hadn’t thrown that radio . . .’

  MacGregor was as weary, anxious and disappointed as anybody but he tried to remember that he was a policeman, too. ‘At least this ploy with the Shetland pony does give us a bit of a clue, doesn’t it, sir?’

  Dover and Superintendent Trevelyan temporarily postponed their eyeball-to~eyeball confrontation. ‘A clue?’

  MacGregor was a skilled hand when it came to explaining the painfully obvious to his superiors. He t
apped the wall map. ‘This Gallows Farm is miles from anywhere. How did the kidnappers know that there was a pony there, one they could get hold of and one upon whose homing instincts they could rely?’

  Superintendent Trevelyan chewed the end of his swagger stick. ‘The Claret Tappers are local villains? Is that what you’re getting at?’

  ‘At least they have access to local knowledge, sir. It’s worth following up, don’t you think? There can’t be all that many people who would know about the pony, or the suitability of Fish Down for their scheme, if it comes to that.’

  Unlike Dover, Superintendent Trevelyan was a man of action and, relieved to have something to do at last, began firing off orders like a runaway machine gun. All around, policemen and policewomen jumped to obey. There was a brief respite when the oily young man returned to convey yet another report. The Archbishop of Canterbury had received a telephone message from a man purporting to be a member of the Claret Tapper gang. The six designated child murderers were to be taken to the Isle of Anglesey immediately and set free in the well-known village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwillllantysiliogogoch.

  As the oily young man fought his way to the end of his tidings, one of the young policewomen began to giggle hysterically. It was the chance that her sergeant, a much less nubile young woman, had been waiting for and the sound of the resulting smack echoed round the bar.

  Superintendent Trevelyan seemed to be taking each fresh disaster personally. He raised his swagger stick to heaven. ‘Dear God,’ he moaned, ‘it’s getting more and more like a nightmare every minute! Isn’t there any news of the Prime Minister’s grandchild yet?’

  The oily young man looked annoyed. Good God, if there had been, he’d have said, wouldn’t he? ‘If we’ve got to wait until they’ve released these degenerate psychopaths, sir, it’ll be late this afternoon before we can hope to have any sort of word.’