Dover and the Claret Tappers Read online

  ‘Certain foolhardy members of our little community here attempted to remonstrate with these invading anarchists. Their complaints were met with obscene gestures and verbal personal abuse. I shall not dwell on the manifold nuisances to which this gang of supposedly homeless people subjected us. Suffice it to say that one young lout spent most of his time firing missiles from a catapult at such of our domestic pets as ventured to approach within range of his elastic. The young woman’s behaviour was even more reprehensible. She appeared to be prancing round inside the house in a totally naked condition though, to be perfectly fair, the posters in the windows did to some extent block the view and made it difficult to ascertain the exact degree of her undress.’ A thin dribble of saliva slid down the side of Major Gutty’s chin and he seemed to be breathing more heavily. Still, he was a gentleman of the old school and soon regained sufficient control over his emotions to carry on with his story.

  ‘One can but imagine the nameless orgies of sex and drugs that took place in “Osborne”. Sometimes the house throbbed with noise. Sometimes it was ominously quiet.

  ‘Efforts were made, of course, to contact the Bakers, but it appears that they are abroad somewhere and cannot be reached. The house agents, to whom they had entrusted their property, appeared to be quite helpless – not to say spineless – in the face of this rampant vandalism. They did send one callow pup – an office boy, no doubt – to appraise the situation but he was drenched with a bucket of what one hopes was water before he had even managed to ring the front door bell. He beat an ignominious retreat and was not followed by any successor.

  ‘This disgraceful and scandalous affair lasted until Thursday of this week. Our children were terrorised, our men folk reviled and our womenfolk insulted. Petty crime in the neighbourhood increased a hundredfold and we all suffered as our bottles of milk and daily newspapers were regularly purloined. Representations were made to the police – without avail.’

  ‘Ah!’ Inspector Horton’s deep voice fell as a pleasant change on the ears of Major Gutty’s bemused listeners. He leant across and tapped the old chap on the knee. ‘I did explain that!’ he shouted, mouthing the words elaborately. ‘You’d no proof you see, that the squatters were responsible for the thefts. And, without proof, the police simply can’t take any . . .’ He broke off as he realised that the major wasn’t getting the message. ‘He’s as deaf as a post,’ he told Dover.

  Dover paused in his examination of the contents of Major Gutty’s medicine bottles. So far he hadn’t found anything stronger than a rather pungent embrocation, but he lived in hope. Even a drop of surgical spirit would be better than nothing. ‘He wants bloody shooting,’ he growled, glaring balelully across the bedroom. ‘Long-winded old git!’

  Major Gutty was blessedly unaware of these unkind remarks. He recovered his breath and got his dentures settled again. ‘Petitions were organised by some local residents and copies were sent to our member of parliament and the town councillor in whose ward we are situated. You will not be surprised to hear that we had no response to either appeal.’

  ‘Can’t somebody switch him off?’ asked Dover.

  ‘Then, suddenly, they were gone!’ Major Gutty waved a bony hand in the air. ‘Flamborough Close woke up on the morning of last Thursday to find that it had been miraculously delivered of its plague. They had done a moonlight flit. I rue, there had been a fair amount of disturbance and noise during the night – car doors banging and vehicles being driven about – but nothing more than usual. Still, ours not to reason why, eh? The occupation was over. The forces of evil had been withdrawn. There were to be no more smells, no more provocatively naked girls flaunting . . .’

  There was a welcome break as Major Gutty all but came apart at the seams as he was seized with a violent fit of coughing. Dover viewed the approaching disintegration with admirable calm, but Inspector Horton and MacGregor were made of milder steel.

  ‘Christ!’ said Inspector Horton anxiously. ‘Do you think we should give him a thump in the back?’

  ‘Good God, no! Do you want to kill him straight off?’ MacGregor had once done a first-aid course and he tried to remember if a dark blue face was a danger sign. ‘I think we’d better call his daughter.’

  But Major Gutty had had a long lifetime of surviving crises and, before MacGregor could make a move to summon help, he coughed himself back into this Vale of Tears and resumed his seemingly endless narrative as though it had never been interrupted. ‘A volunteer force of Flamborough Close residents was speedily organised to clear the worst of the rubbish out of the garden and the house was locked up again. Gradually our lives returned to normal. It was only then,’ said Major Gutty rather nastily, ‘that the constabulary finally appeared on the scene and informed us that the outrages which we had been trying for days to ignore were precisely the ones we should have been studying with the utmost care and attention. “Osborne” had not only been a den of thieves but the hideaway of kidnappers as well.’

  This time the works really had run down and Major Gutty sank back in his chair with a faint puff of a sigh. After all, he’d just completed a performance that would have exhausted a younger man. Inspector Horton prepared to lead the procession on tip-toe out of the room, but Dover, popping another of the major’s throat pastilles into his mouth, stopped him.

  ‘Ask him how many squatters there were!’ Dover saw the inspector’s reluctance. ‘Go on, man!’ he urged impatiently. ‘Wake the old beggar up and ask him so’s we can get the hell out of this dump!’

  It took the united efforts of Inspector Horton and MacGregor to rouse Major Gutty and, when they’d bawled Dover’s question several times down his ear, they were rewarded by a glint of understanding in the old warrior’s eye.

  ‘How many?’ he asked. ‘I would estimate at least twenty, my dear sir. At least twenty. That’s including the members of the’ – he paused to lick dry lips – ‘weaker sex, of course.’

  Ten

  ‘CLEVER?’ ASKED DOVER WITH AN ALMIGHTY sneer. ‘What was clever about it, for God’s sake?’

  Inspector Horton wished he’d kept his opinions to himself and his mouth shut. ‘Well, the kidnappers hiding their victim in a sort of hippie commune, sir, right in the middle of suburbia. I mean, who would ever have thought of looking tor them there?’

  ‘Not you, for sure,’ said Dover.

  ‘It was quite effective, though, sir,’ said MacGregor who knew what Inspector Horton must be feeling. ‘None of the neighbours would have noticed one additional body in that mob. And there’d be no extra bottles of milk or unusually large grocery orders to make people suspicious. On the other hand, sir,’ – he saw from the scowl on Dover’s lace that a gesture of loyalty towards the old firm wouldn’t come amiss – ‘you’re quite right. They were taking a considerable risk. Suppose the police had raided the place?’

  Inspector Horton rang the front door bell again. ‘That was very unlikely,’ he said. ‘Squatting’s a civil matter. You know that there’s precious little the police can do about it.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Well,’ – Inspector Horton tried to see through the coloured glass in the door – ‘we might have done ’em for drugs, I suppose. But you know what it’s like these days. Large-scale pushing of the stuff and we’d drop on ’em like a ton of bricks, but a few kids smoking reefers ..’. Well, we can’t do everything, can we?’ He rang the door bell for the third time. ‘Damn the woman! I told her we’d be coming round about this time.’ Dover leaned up against the side of the porch. ‘I hope you noticed how many of them there were in the gang. Twenty that old josser said, and he’d probably under-calculated.’ Dover seemed rather pleased that the Claret Tappers were so numerous. ‘And they had to dope me!’ he pointed out proudly. ‘I’m telling you – it took more than a couple of crummy villains to snatch me! There was some massive, high-powered organisation at the back of them, you can bet your boots on that! And now’ – he returned to earth with a bump – ‘am I going to be kept standing
out here all bloody day?’

  Just in time the front door opened to reveal young Mrs Youings standing there. The disagreeable expression on her patrician face was partly natural and partly the result of overhearing Dover’s last remark. ‘Frightfully sorry to have kept you waiting,’ she drawled, making the apology as perfunctory as possible. ‘I was just loading the kiln.’

  ‘You’re a potter, are you, madam?’ asked MacGregor when the introductions had been made and the policemen were being allowed across the threshold.

  ‘Only in a strictly amateur way,’ said Mrs Youings who thought policemen should only speak when they were spoken to. ‘Won’t you go right through into the lounge?’

  Dover was already there, and sitting down.

  ‘Sherry?’ asked Mrs Youings distantly.

  Dover was the only one to accept – and that was solely because he saw no prospect of getting anything stronger.

  Mrs Youings was not anxious to prolong the visit and got down to her evidence with admirable speed. She, too, had a good view of ‘Osborne’ from her windows and had observed the squatters’ occupation with a keen eye and mounting rage She, too, had some hurtful comments to make about police inactivity and waited with scant courtesy while Inspector Horton trotted out his little speech. ‘Yes, inspector, I know all about that!’ she snapped. ‘I happen to have an uncle who is a chief constable down in the West Country and I took the precaution of checking the legal position with him. While he agreed that mere squatting was not a legal offence, he did think that the local police might have found ways of encouraging the intruders to move on. However, that’s all water under the bridge now. Is there anything else you want to know?’

  Everybody waited while MacGregor, who was taking his usual copious notes, turned back the pages of his notebook. ‘You’re sure it was Tuesday evening that you saw these three squatters dragging a fourth man from the old taxi into the house?’

  ‘I would hardly have said so otherwise, would I? As I told you, I thought the fourth man was drunk or under the influence of drugs or something. I didn’t pay all that much notice because we had a dinner party that night and I was just drawing the curtains in the dining room. That’s why I am absolutely certain as to the day and the time. It was about twenty-past eight.’

  MacGregor thought for a minute. The time was about right if the kidnappers had driven straight from Scotland and to Flamborough Close. The traffic would be fairly light at that hour in the evening.

  Dover’s stomach rumbled loudly and, since he had managed to collect everybody’s attention, he decided to put a question on his own behalf. ‘That old fellow next door, he said, ‘reckoned there were some twenty squatters altogether. You, on the other hand . . .’

  ‘Four!’ said young Mrs Youings, getting up to rearrange one of her hand-thrown pots on a small, highly polished table. ‘Three youths and a girl. I don’t think the girl ever stayed overnight, but I can’t be sure about that, of course. She usually seemed to be around during the middle of the morning or the early part of the afternoon.’

  ‘But Major What’s-his-name . . .’

  Mrs Youings pursed her lips. ‘Kindly don’t quote Major Gutty’s senile maunderings to me! Just because he’s as old as the hills it doesn’t mean that he’s automatically endowed with the wisdom of the ages. In fact, if you want my opinion, the sooner Major Gutty’s put in a bottle and presented to the Royal College of Surgeons, the better!’

  ‘The discrepancy is rather large, Mrs Youings,’ said MacGregor. ‘Between four and twenty, I mean.’

  ‘They kept changing their clothes,’ explained Mrs Youings impatiently. ‘And they wore wigs. That’s why unobservant people like old Gutty thought there were hundreds of them, but there weren’t. I always,’ she added with a patronising smile, ‘watch people’s feet. They are an unmistakable indication of character.’

  After that, there didn’t seem much point in the three policemen hanging around any longer and they took their leave. Mrs Youings hurried off to get her fresh-air spray and give the lounge a good squirting.

  ‘Lunch!’ said Dover when they were out on the pavement. ‘Where’s the nearest boozer?’

  Inspector Horton’s face fell. He scurried across to Dover’s side. ‘But we’ve got two more witnesses to see, sir,’ he protested.

  ‘They’ll keep,’ said Dover callously. ‘In fact, if they’re as bloody useless as the last two have been, it’ll do no bloody harm if I never see ’em.’

  ‘One’s a child, sir,’ said Inspector Horton, hoping to touch Dover’s heart.

  ‘You must be joking!’

  ‘His parents have kept him away from school specially this morning because I said you’d be sure to want to see him. He lives right here, sir.’ Inspector Horton was a quick learner and even MacGregor was impressed with the way he had learned to cope with Dover.

  Dover stared gloomily at the garden gate which was being held invitingly open for him. Where you’d been offered one glass of sherry, he reasoned, you might be offered another. Graciously he allowed himself to be persuaded and waddled hopefully up yet another garden path. ‘And God help you it this one’s as big a bloody wash-out as those other two!’ he growled, just in case Inspector Horton thought he had won himself an easy victory.

  The Arnfields had been hovering behind their curtains and only paused momentarily for politeness sake before opening their front door.

  ‘We saw you leaving Yvonne Youings’s! Mrs Arnfield twittered excitedly. ‘I’m afraid we can’t hope to compete with her beautiful interior decoration but, please, do come in! Gilbert, the sherry decanter, dear, if you please!’

  The Arnfields provided a much better sherry than Mrs Youings did, but then they were so painfully unsure of their judgement that they daren’t risk anything that wasn’t the best. Mrs Arnfield settled coyly on a pouffe at Dover’s feet and kept him well supplied with cheese footballs.

  ‘It must be simply marvellous being a detective,’ she cooed. ‘I’m sure I’d never be clever enough!’

  Dover beamed and then rather spoilt things by belching loudly. ‘Dyspepsia,’ he explained, thumping himself vigorously in the chest. He managed to convey the impression that this trifling indisposition was more or less on a par with a war wound.

  Mrs Arnfield, her eyes moist with sympathy, passed the cheese footballs again. ‘You ought to be taking it easy somewhere,’ she said, ‘after your ordeal. They must have no heart, those people up in Scotland Yard.’

  MacGregor could have been sick on the spot. ‘Could we see the boy?’ he asked, breaking up what might have been a wonderful friendship between Dover and Mrs Arnfield. ’The chief inspector is working to a rather tight schedule.’

  ‘Yes, of course!’ Mr Arnfield glanced at his wife and, receiving her consent, trotted off to the kitchen where Arnfield Junior was being kept under wraps until it was time for him to make his big entrance.

  ‘He’s so excited!’

  If he was, Master Arnfield was managing to conceal it quite brilliantly. A podgy seven-year-old, he was propelled gently into the room by his doting father. In his hand the bribe for good behaviour – a choc-ice – was already melting and he stood, lumpishly staring at Dover with hard shrewd eves. Whether he recognised the awful warning with which he was being confronted, history does not record, but MacGregor found the resemblance quite uncanny. Indeed, if he hadn’t known Dover’s attitude to sex, he might even have been tempted to think that Mrs Arnfield . . .

  ‘Go on, Leofric!’ urged the mini-monster’s mother.

  Leofric licked his choc-ice thoughtfully. ‘I don’t like that fat man,’ he said.

  Mrs Arnfield laughed uproariously. ‘Don’t they say some funny things, the little darlings!’

  Dover placed a heavy hand on the conversation before it rollicked completely out of control. ‘What’s this miserable little bugger supposed to be doing here?’ he demanded furiously.

  Behind Dover’s back, Inspector Horton made frantic signs to Mr Arnfield who respo
nded with a pride which would have been unseemly in Leopold Mozart. ‘Leofric collects car numbers!’

  ‘Amongst other things!’ corrected his wife, who had no intention of standing idly by while her son was sold short. ‘There’s his collection of foreign stamps and he must have got practically every picture that’s ever been published of Bobby Buxton and . . .’

  ‘Suppose you just tell us about the car numbers,’ suggested MacGregor, more sensitive to the danger signals coming from Dover than the others in the room. ‘Young – er – Leofric has got a note of the number of the old taxi outside the squatters’ house, has he?’

  The Arnfields reacted to this blatant theft of their rightful thunder in their several ways but, as was usual in that menage, only Master Leofric’s frustration cut any ice. Bawling and screaming like a stuck pig, the child was shepherded out of the room by his mother while a sour-faced Mr Arnfield sourly revealed all to those heartless brutes who didn’t seem to realise how impressionable some kiddies were.

  Dover was as intent on cutting through Gordian knots as any latter-day and hungry Alexander the Great. He stared in disgust at the large, dog-eared exercise book which had been reverently placed in his lap. ‘What the bloody hell’s this?’ Being a nine-stone weakling, Mr Arnfield could only pray for a heavenly thunderbolt to fight his battles for him. ‘It’s Leofric’s record of motor-car registration numbers,’ he said stiffly.