Dover Beats the Band Page 15

  ‘If they did, sir, they’ve put a very neat spoke in our wheel. The Steel Band are going to admit to everything except murder. And with the whole bunch of them telling the same story, we’re going to be up against a brick wall.’

  ‘Garn,’ said Dover without too much conviction. ‘Special Branch wouldn’t shop us like that. I mean, why should they? What’s in it for them?’

  ‘It could be one way of ensuring that Osmond remains the Steel Band’s little white-haired boy, sir,’ mused MacGregor, trying to pick his way through the confusion. ‘You can see how he’d play it. He’d pretend that we’d found out about the involvement of the Steel Band in the Holiday Ranch meeting, and even that we knew there’d been a trial. By warning them, he’s given them a chance to concoct a new story. And that’s why Weemys has turned up. It’s his job to see that they all stick to the authorised version and to make sure that we don’t manage to worm any more of the real truth out of them.’ MacGregor shook his head in despair. ‘The question is – would Special Branch really go to these lengths just to bolster up Osmond’s image as the perfect Storm Trooper?’

  Dover fished out another cigarette and lit it in a shower of sparks from the stub of the first. ‘The leak doesn’t have to have come from Special Branch.’

  ‘But there’s nobody else, sir.’

  ‘There’s Punchard,’ said Dover, trying to yawn without taking the cigarette out of his mouth first.

  ‘Commander Punchard, sir?’ MacGregor bent down to prevent too big a hole being burnt in the car carpet. ‘I don’t think he’s very likely to be trying to do the Special Branch a good turn, do you?’ He pushed the cigarette back between Dover’s stubby fingers. ‘You said yourself that there’s no love lost between him and Commander Croft-Fisher.’

  ‘He wouldn’t give Croft-Fisher the dirt from under his fingernails,’ agreed Dover sleepily. ‘But who said it’d be Special Branch he was trying to help?’

  MacGregor pulled back as far as he could so as to get a proper look at Dover. Surely the old fool wasn’t suggesting . . ? And with that damned police driver drinking in every word! ‘Sir, you don’t think Mr Punchard might be . . .’

  Dover grinned evilly through another yawn. ‘A member of the Steel Band himself, laddie? Why the hell not?’

  MacGregor got his handkerchief out and dabbed helplessly at his lips. Why not, indeed?

  Fifteen

  Thanks to a touch of Dover’s old trouble, which involved a lengthy halt at a public convenience, the police car came in a bad second to Mr Weemys’s taxi and the lawyer was already comfortably ensconced in Mr Braithwaite’s office by the time our two detectives were shown in.

  Except for the more luxurious surroundings, the proceedings were irritatingly similar to those in Mike Ruscoe’s miserable hovel. Under Mr Weemys’s discreet and deferential guidance, Freddie Braithwaite – as he’d been known all those years ago in the Navy – admitted just so much. Yes, indeed, old chap, that smelly little Yid had been found guilty of betraying the Steel Band’s most cherished ideals and traditions, and he had been duly expelled from the movement. Good riddance to bad rubbish – what? But – murdered? Good God, no!

  ‘Personally,’ said Freddie Braithwaite with an unpleasant chuckle, ‘I wouldn’t have risked getting my hands infected by touching the miserable runt – and I don’t think any of my associates would, either. Besides, mindless violence is simply not the Steel Band’s way of doing things. Definitely not our style. On the contrary, it’s precisely the sort of thing we’re continually campaigning against. You’ve only got to look at our literature to see that. Remind me to give you a few of our pamphlets before you leave.’

  MacGregor looked up from his notebook. The room in which they were sitting – Mr Braithwaite’s office – was warm and comfortably furnished. Mr Braithwaite was an architect and, as he was careful to let fall early on, a local government councillor with friends in all the right places. His allegiance to the Steel Band was evident but unstressed. There was a signed photograph of Sir Bartholomew Grice looking statesmanlike, and a small reproduction of the movement’s badge in solid silver which was doing duty as a paperweight. Nothing that couldn’t have been removed easily, should it prove necessary.

  ‘Are you suggesting, sir,’ asked MacGregor, ‘that Mr Knapper’s death so soon after his mock-trial was just a coincidence?’

  ‘Mr Braithwaite,’ Mr Weemys chipped in quickly, ‘doesn’t have to suggest anything, sergeant. Speculation about the circumstances of Knapper’s murder is a matter purely for the

  police.’

  But Mr Braithwaite was wearing his generous hat. ‘Oh, I don’t mind chancing my arm, Weemys,’ he said confidently. ‘And, yes, sergeant, I do happen to think that Knapper’s demise was a pure coincidence. As far as our disciplinary hearing is concerned, the murder was simply post hoc and not propter hoc, if you follow me.’

  Fortunately MacGregor had received a classical education at his very minor public school, and Dover wasn’t listening anyhow. The chief inspector, while still trusting that all those bottles on the side table weren’t just for show, was giving most of his attention to the tricky task of extracting another of the cigarettes from MacGregor’s packet and looking around gormlessly for a light.

  MacGregor, conscious of the expensive carpeting and the real leather arm-chairs, started looking around for an ashtray.

  Mr Braithwaite produced one – cut glass and the size of a soup plate – and then stared unhappily at the battered cigarette now dangling damply from Dover’s bottom lip. Insignificant though it was, it somehow seemed to lower the tone of the whole room. In desperation, Mr Braithwaite picked up the cigar box and offered it to Dover. ‘Perhaps you’d care to try one of these, old chap? I don’t indulge myself but I’m told they’re pretty first class.’

  Dover’s pallid features broke into the artless smile of an infant glutton who has been told there are two Christmases this year. He reached out with both hands. ‘And I’ll take one for the wife!’ he joshed.

  MacGregor, relaxing only when he saw that the cigar cutter was too big for even Dover to think of pocketing, went on with his questions. He eventually managed to think up one or two new ones and began asking Mr Braithwaite about the make, registration number and colour of his car, and also whether he had any connections with Muncaster.

  While Mr Braithwaite didn’t seem at all bothered by these questions, his new-found friend, Chief Inspector Dover, was most indignant.

  ‘Waddervewant to know for?’ he demanded crossly, removing the big cigar from his mouth so that he could get the words out.

  ‘I intend circulating a description of all the cars involved, sir,’ explained MacGregor, hoping to blur over the fact that he’d only just thought of it, ‘in case one of them might happen to have been spotted in the vicinity of the Muncaster Municipal Rubbish Dump.’

  Dover leered reassuringly at Freddie Braithwaite. ‘Not a chance in a million!’ he said with a wink. ‘Nobody’s going to remember anything like that after all this time.’

  ‘And I’m enquiring about prior knowledge of Muncaster, sir,’ MacGregor went on, trying to convince himself that all he would get from seizing Dover by the throat would be impetigo in the hands, ‘because it’s obvious that whoever deposited Mr Knapper’s body in the dump must have known it was there.’

  ‘Fooey!’ sneered Dover. ‘It could have been sheer bloody chance.’ He never did have much patience with all these modern, scientific methods of investigation.

  ‘It could, sir,’ agreed MacGregor coldly, ‘but the Muncaster rubbish tip is off the beaten track, and I doubt if anybody would just come across it by accident.’

  ‘All you have to do is just follow your nose!’ tittered Dover who really did love his little joke. ‘You could smell that place five miles off!’

  MacGregor counted silently up to ten and turned back to Mr Braithwaite. ‘Had you ever met any of the other people who took part in this trial before, sir?’

  ‘No, of c
ourse not! We were all total strangers to each other. It’s always arranged like that.’

  ‘Always, sir?’

  Mr Weemys cleared his throat warningly, but Mr Braithwaite was eager to prove that there was nothing to hide. ‘Whenever one of these minor problems crops up, sergeant, our movement does everything in its power to ensure that the accused person gets a fair crack of the whip. Inter ‘alia, we try to avoid any suspicion of collusion amongst the members of the court. That’s why we assemble a complete cross-section – a mixture of sex, age, background, position and function within the Steel Band. In that way, no one element gets any undue weighting. I trust, sergeant,’ – Freddie Braithwaitc’s smile was very confident – ‘that that answers your question.’

  ‘Well, it damned well answers mine!’ said Dover, fed up with sitting there listening to MacGregor brow-beating an innocent man. It was this sort of going on that gave the police such a bad name! Dover pulled himself to his feet and thus brought the interview to an end which was as unsatisfactory as the rest of it had been.

  The sixth and final member of the court which had sat in judgement at Rankin’s Holiday Ranch lived so far up north that Dover and MacGregor were obliged to spend the night in an hotel en route. Presumably the ubiquitous Mr Weemys had done the same because there he was, waiting for them when they arrived at Gordon Valentine’s house on the following morning. Mr Weemys’s manner couldn’t have been more hospitable as he welcomed the late arrivals into the lounge.

  Gordon Valentine was an assistant bank manager and, since nobody wanted the embarrassment of policemen calling at the bank, he had been granted a couple of hours unpaid leave of absence. The bank manager didn’t care for his subordinate’s involvement with the Steel Band – extreme political views of whatever stripe were bad for business – and he certainly didn’t allow him to indulge in his fantasies during office hours. At home, though, and in his own time, it was a different matter. Even for a couple of hours and for a couple of policemen, Gordon Valentine was defiantly dressed up to kill. He was sporting the full gear – the black knee boots and riding breeches, the iron-grey shirt, the glittering badges, the sinister arm band and the truculent facial expression of your seasoned, battle-forged henchman. It was quite a sight.

  Not that Gordon Valentine was really much of a bully boy. A poor physique and thick glasses prevented that. He was also hen-pecked as Dover soon discovered when he attempted to light up his fourth fag of the day.

  Mrs Valentine, it transpired, was allergic to tobacco.

  Of course, being married to a woman who doesn’t allow smoking anywhere in her house, doesn’t make a man guilty of murder. But, in Dover’s book, it helps.

  It was MacGregor who took Valentine through his story. Once again, though, Mr Weemys’s briefing had been thorough and every question received an innocuous and succinct answer. Eventually MacGregor broached the question of the blue beads.

  Valentine’s air of innate superiority remained intact. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I bought a couple of quid’s worth at the bar. More or less had to. It was the only money they would accept in the Holiday Ranch and there were no pubs or shops nearer than Bowerville. Well, nobody wants to go slogging all that way just for a drink, do they?’

  ‘You’re a boozing man, are you?’ demanded Dover with all the disapproval of one who has spent many a morning-after thinking about signing the pledge.

  ‘Not specially,’ said Valentine, wondering idly if Dover always went about half-shaved. ‘I suppose I’m what you might call a social drinker.’

  MacGregor stole an anxious glance at his lord and master. Was the old fool on to something?

  ‘So,’ growled Dover, looking very fierce, ‘you bought a couple of quid’s worth of those blue beads to spend on booze, did you?’

  ‘Well, that and other things.’ Mr Valentine strongly objected to being classified as a toper, especially when there was more than an evens chance that his lady wife was listening behind the sitting-room door.

  ‘What other things? Fags?’

  If this was a trap, Mr Valentine failed signally to fall into it. ‘I told you, I don’t smoke!’ he snapped. ‘I might have wanted to buy some chocolate or something.’

  ‘Chocolate?’ hooted Dover. He leaned forward. ‘You a gambling man?’

  ‘Gambling?’ bleated Mr Valentine, looking in vain for guidance from Mr Weemys.

  Dover looked his victim right in the eye. ‘We found some playing cards in that room you tried What’s-his-name in. Having a hand or two of bridge, were you? Or poker, p’raps?’

  Valentine thought about his answer for a fraction too long. MacGregor wasn’t the only one in the room to remember that, according to Osmond, a pack of playing cards had been used to select the murderer of Knapper. ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Valentine said at last. ‘I didn’t play cards.’

  ‘Did anybody else?’

  Mr Valentine thought carefully about that, too. ‘I really don’t know.’

  Having thus shot his bolt to absolutely no avail, Dover slumped back in his chair and gave himself up to a glassy-eyed contemplation of his boots. MacGregor shouldered the burden of asking the questions once more and eventually brought the confrontation between Mr Valentine and the forces of Law and Order to an end. Nothing as usual had been achieved, unless . . .

  MacGregor was still puzzling over what Dover might have been driving at when, several hours later, their train pulled into its London terminus and he was obliged to rouse Scotland Yard’s finest from his open-mouthed slumbers and get him out onto the platform. Of course, MacGregor could simply have asked Dover if the question about the playing cards had any deep significance, but even detective sergeants have their pride.

  ‘What a bloody cock-up!’ moaned Dover as they sat immobile in the middle of the rush-hour traffic with the meter on their taxi munching up the pound notes like a donkey consuming strawberries. ‘Bloody waste of time all round! Old Punchard’ll do his nut. We’re no nearer to finding out who knocked Knapper off that we were when we started.’

  MacGregor forced himself into optimism. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t quite say that, sir. We’ve found out quite a lot . . . really. Considering that we started out with an unidentified dead body on a rubbish dump. We’ve broken through this Dockwra Society business and got through to the Steel Band underneath. We re on the right lines.’

  ‘We still don’t know which one of the buggers actually did it,’ grumbled Dover. ‘I’m all for nabbing the lot of ’em and charging ’em with conspiracy or something. Whichever way you look at it, they’re all accessories.’

  It was a slap-dash sort of solution and it appalled MacGregor. ‘Oh, I doubt if the Director of Public Prosecutions would ever agree to that, sir.’

  ‘In that case we’ve had it. We’ll never thump a confession out of any of that lot. They’ll all be a damned sight more scared of the Steel Band bully boys than of me. It’ll be that young bleeder from Special Branch all over again – “it wasn’t me’’ and “I was too bloody panic-struck to see anything”.’

  ‘You’re probably right, sir,’ sighed MacGregor, averting his eyes from the ever-clicking taxi-meter, if a highly trained copper like Osmond can’t tell who the murderer is . . .’

  ‘There’s none so blind.’

  ‘Well, we shall just have to keep plugging away, shan’t we, sir?’

  ‘Plugging away?’ The prospect of yet more unrewarding toil stirred Dover to protest. ‘Over my dead body! Look, laddie, it is over, done with, finished. And the answer’s a bloody lemon. All we can do now is sit quiet and keep out of old Punchard’s way for a bit.’

  ‘We shall have to interview Mr Pettitt and Mrs Hall again, sir. And Mrs Knapper, too. Now we know about the Steel Band implications we shall have to take them all through their stories again. Even they’ll be expecting us to do that, sir.’

  ‘It’ll be like those three wise monkeys,’ said Dover miserably. ‘Or worse if that lawyer joker’s there.’

  The taxi suddenly
leapt into life and raced all of a hundred yards in a screaming bottom gear before coming to a halt once more.

  ‘It would,’ said Dover when he’d pushed MacGregor off and got himself wedged back in his own corner again, ‘be quicker to walk.’

  MacGregor seized on the suggestion with pathetic naivety. It just shows how distraught he was. ‘Actually, sir,’ he said, pointing out Westminster Abbey as a landmark that even Dover might recognise, ‘we’re only a couple of minutes away from the Yard. We could just nip out here and . . .’

  ‘You know something, laddie?’ Dover asked the question with blistering, if weary, sarcasm. ‘That sense of humour of yours’ll be the bloody death of me.’

  In the end, however, they had to reach Scotland Yard and they slipped as unobtrusively as possible through the glass doors. Dover didn’t feel really safe, though, until they were actually inside the converted broom cupboard which served them as an office. In a building where space was at a premium, Dover had been allocated a room to himself because they wouldn’t have him in the Squad room. BO, as one witty detective put it, has its privileges.

  Dover’s first action after flopping down behind his desk was to reach out and turn up the radiator. Blood heat was reached in that confined space in a matter of seconds, and half a cigarette later you could barely see across the room. Dover sighed happily. Just time for forty winks before going home.

  But, maybe because of the four-hour snooze he’d snatched in the train, sleep eluded him. Naturally he blamed MacGregor.

  ‘Can’t you stop rattling that bloody paper?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. It’s just the pile of stuff that’s come in while we’ve been away. I don’t know if you want to have a look at any of it.’ MacGregor held up a copy of the Police Gazette, but Dover wasn’t tempted.

  He tried to settle down again. ‘Anything on Knapper?’ he asked drowsily.

  There’s the full post mortem report, sir,’ said MacGregor, riffling through several sheets of paper. ‘Nothing much that we didn’t know already, I’m afraid. Oh, and here’s a response at long last from the Central Fingerprint Bureau about Knapper. Goodness, they’ve taken their time, haven’t they? It’s ages since we asked them to make a check. Oh well, it only confirms what we’d already deduced, sir. Knapper had no previous criminal record. Ah, that reminds me,’ – MacGregor reached for a pencil – ‘I’d better get them to run a check on all the rest of that Steel Band bunch.’