Dover and the Claret Tappers Read online

  They were walking along the platform, looking in the carriage windows.

  ‘The train looks as though it’s going to be rather full, sir.’

  ‘Dartmoor!’ scoffed Dover, already beginning to lag behind. ‘It’s a waste of time. That convict won’t tell us a blind thing. You know it and I know it and . . . Oh, ’strewth, let’s get in here!’

  ‘I’m afraid all the seats are booked, sir,’ said MacGregor, turning to lug Dover up the step. ‘We seem to have picked a rather popular train.’

  ‘Booked?’ Dover pushed his way into the carriage and surveyed the forest of tickets hanging down from the backs of the seats. ‘We’ll soon fix that!’ He selected a couple of likely looking window seats and, leaning across, quickly ripped the reservation tickets off them. ‘Here,’ he commanded, pushing the tickets into MacGregor’s nerveless hand, ‘shove these in your pocket!’

  ‘But, sir, we can’t. . .’

  Dover was already inserting his seventeen and a quarter stone behind the little table. ‘And, if anybody starts asking awkward questions, show ’em your warrant card and threaten to run ‘em in if they don’t belt up!’

  There was trouble, of course, and MacGregor had to deal with it while Dover buried his head in his newspapers. There were complaints, appeals to MacGregor’s sense of decency and finer feelings. The guard was fetched. Names and addresses were demanded and taken. In the end it didn’t add up to much and that nice couple who were going to celebrate their golden wedding in Torquay still had to stand nearly all the way to Exeter.

  Dover dropped the last newspaper to join the others in an untidy and disintegrating heap on the floor. He was very disappointed and, if he’d had a classical education, the adage sic transit gloria mundi might have come to mind What on Wednesday had been: ‘POLICEMAN! TRAGIC PAWN IN POLITICAL KIDNAPPING!’ and on Thursday had been: ‘WILF DOVER! SACRIFICIAL VICTIM IN TERROR SNATCH!’ had now, on Friday morning, become half a column in the centre pages headed ‘Lucky Jack Released Unharmed’.

  ‘They haven’t even put a picture of me in today,’ whined Dover. ‘That’s all the thanks you get for laying down your life for your country!’

  ‘Sir?’

  Dover took violent exception to the quizzical way MacGregor raised his eyebrows. ‘You just want to watch it, laddie!’ he snarled. ‘I was the one with his neck on the chopping block and don’t you forget it! Nobody asked me if! minded being led like a lamb to the slaughter. You just wait till the next poor bugger has to face sudden death and see what he bloody well feels about it!’

  MacGregor fancied he’d caught the faint whiff of a clue. ‘You think the Claret Tappers will try again, sir?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? ‘Strewth, they still want the money and they still want their murderous chums out of the nick, don’t they? I keep telling you, we’re dealing with a bunch of blood-thirsty desperadoes and you’d do well to remember it.’

  MacGregor leaned across the table as some of the most beautiful country in England raced unseen past the windows. ‘Did you overhear them talking about doing a second kidnapping, sir?’

  ‘You never stop, do you?’ asked Dover wearily. ‘I’ve told you a million times – I never heard ’em talking about anything. Why don’t you wash your ears out?’

  MacGregor sank back. Oh well, he might have guessed. He could see that Dover’s eyelids were beginning to droop but there was no time to waste. The two hairy young men in walking boots who were occupying the seats next to the detectives had departed to the restaurant car but they would be back before long and their presence would put paid to any discussion of the case. Dover was just going to have to wait for his forty winks.

  ‘I’ve been wondering, sir, if we might work on the assumption that the Claret Tappers are a London-based gang. Just a tentative hypothesis, you understand.’

  Dover merely stared.

  ‘I’ve been trying,’ said MacGregor earnestly, ‘to kind of think myself into the minds of the kidnappers.’

  Dover’s lips barely moved. ‘God flipping help us!’ MacGregor pressed on. After all, the last thing he expected from his chief inspector was appreciation. ‘I can’t help feeling that the whole kidnapping was based in London, if you follow me. You were snatched in London, the ransom letter was posted in London, they used a typical London taxi for transport and you were released in London. Now, as I figure it, all this must imply that we’re looking for people who live in London or at least know the metropolis pretty well.’

  Dover’s piggy little eyes narrowed. ‘If the whole caboodle’s based in London,’ he demanded crossly, ‘what the blue blazes are we doing haring off to bloody Devon?’

  The real reason for this tedious journey was the fact that Commander Brockhurst had reverted abruptly to his habitual policy of keeping Dover as far away from New Scotland Yard as was humanly possible. The moment he had heard that Dover was out of hospital and, in the opinion of his doctors, not only fit for duty but in dire need of it, he had started looking around for some way of getting rid of him. A visit to the distant Dartmoor Prison seemed a heaven-sent solution. ‘And there’s no need to hurry back,’ he’d told MacGregor. ‘I’d sooner have the job done properly than done badly in a sweat.’

  Naturally MacGregor had to find a more diplomatic explanation than the crude truth for Dover. ‘We have to see this Archibald Gallagher, sir. He’s one of the men, if you remember, that the Claret Tappers wanted released from prison.’

  ‘He’ll not tell us anything,’ grunted Dover. ‘They never do. They take an oath or something. How much did he get, anyhow?’

  ‘He got sentenced to eight years, sir.’

  Dover’s eyes opened wide. ‘Eight years? Strewth, is that all? They should have given him life! If I had my way,’ he added, turning his coat collar up and trying to burrow down inside it, ‘I’d blow ’em up with their own bloody bombs.’

  ‘We don’t know that he’d anything to do with bombs, actually, sir.’

  Dover didn’t care for being contradicted but, thinking he’d found a way to stop MacGregor disturbing him, he let it go and sank even deeper into his greatcoat. Read me out what’s-his-name’s file, laddie!’ he commanded. ‘All of it, from cover to cover.’

  MacGregor saw through this ruse easily enough. Dover had, after all, used it countless times before. Well, it wasn’t going to work on this occasion. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but we haven’t got a hie on him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’s a go-slow in the Criminal Record Office, sir. They’re working to rule or something. Anyhow, whatever it is, it’s taking about a week to get a hie out of them. It’s only because I happen to have a friend working there that I was able to get what bit of information I have about Gallagher. At least we know what prison he’s in.’

  ‘Gallagher?’ said Dover, looking anxious. ‘That’s an Irish name, isn’t it?’

  ‘It could be, sir,’ agreed MacGregor.

  Of recent years Dover had taken to seeing Greens rather than Reds under the bed and tended to get a trifle hysterical at any mention of the Emerald Isle. ‘I should have known that lot were behind it!’ he moaned.

  ‘But none of your kidnappers were Irish, were they, sir? They didn’t speak with Irish accents, did they?’

  ‘They could have disguised them, couldn’t they, you blockhead?’ Dover glanced nervously round the railway carriage. The trouble was that everybody under twenty-five looked like a bloody anarchist these days. ‘How long before we get there?’

  ‘Oh, an hour or more, sir. There’ll be a car waiting for us at. . .’

  ‘You keep your eyes skinned, then! I’m just going to have a bit of a quiet think.’ Dover wriggled about to get comfortable. ‘Don’t you go dozing off, mind!’

  ‘I won’t, sir,’ said MacGregor who had learnt to know when he was beaten. ‘Er – will you want a cup of coffee if they come round with it?’

  ‘Might as well,’ said Dover. ‘And get me a couple of sandwiches, too. Just to keep me going till
lunch-time.’

  * * *

  The Deputy Governor kindly laid on a late lunch for them and was even rather pleased to see Dover scoff down everything edible in sight. ‘I do like to see a man with a healthy appetite,’ he said with an approving chuckle.

  Dover mopped up the last crumbs of his ginger pudding and spooned half the contents of the sugar bowl into his coffee. He belched happily, undid the top button of his trousers and awarded his rosette. ‘Not bad for prison grub.’

  The Deputy Governor was modestly gratified. ‘We’ve got a very good cook at the moment.’

  MacGregor looked up. ‘A prisoner, sir?’

  ‘Oh, yes. A trusty, of course. A very decent chap. He’s doing life for poisoning his mother-in-law but he’s never given us a moment’s anxiety.’

  Dover was looking round expectantly. ‘Somebody going to pass the fags round, eh?’

  ‘Fags? Oh.’ – the Deputy Governor’s hospitable face tell – ‘I’m afraid I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Well, nobody’s perfect,’ said Dover generously and turned to MacGregor.

  Her Majesty’s Prison Service didn’t run to brandy, either, and Dover’s instant and obvious displeasure cast a cloud over what had otherwise been a most delightful lunch.

  MacGregor tried to cover things up by engaging the Deputy Governor in small talk. ‘Er – what sort of a man is this chap Gallagher, sir?’

  ‘Gallagher?’ The Deputy Governor tore his eyes away from Dover’s sullen face and made an effort to gather his thoughts. ‘Oh, a very decent chap, you know. No trouble. I think you’ll find him quite cooperative.’

  ‘He’d better be!’ Dover chipped in menacingly. He flourished a clenched and podgy fist. ‘I’ve got the cure right here if he isn’t!’

  There being limits to how much even near saints like the Deputy Governor can stomach, Dover and MacGregor found themselves being shown out almost before they knew what was happening. I hey were conducted down long, apparently endless corridors with much locking and unlocking of heavy clanging doors. At the door of the room in which they were going to interview Archibald Gallagher, the Deputy Governor took a frosty-faced leave of them. ‘Just ring for the prison officer when you’ve finished,’ he asked, brushing aside MacGregor’s attempts to thank him for his hospitality. ‘He’ll see you out.’

  ‘Lah-di-dah poof!’ muttered Dover, pushing his way into the interview room and flopping down on the nearest chair. ‘’Strewth, me feet aren’t half giving me the old jip!’

  MacGregor shouldered the burden of the interview so that Dover was left free to scrutinise the victim’s demeanour or have a quiet kip as the fancy took him. ‘You are Archibald Gallagher?’

  The man lounging easily on the other side of the table wasn’t most people’s idea of a long-term convict and he fell a long way short of Dover’s mental picture of a black-hearted, bloody-handed terrorist. With courteous charm he corrected MacGregor. ‘Archibald St John Roderick Gallagher, actually.’ He smiled. ‘But you can call me Archie.’

  MacGregor didn’t care for being patronised by an old lag, however aristocratic his bearing or posh his accent. ‘We’re police officers,’ he said, very po-faced.

  Archibald St John Roderick Gallagher’s smile widened. ‘I would never have guessed!’

  ‘I am Detective Sergeant MacGregor and this is . . .’

  ‘And this is Detective Chief Inspector Dover of the Murder Squad at New Scotland Yard!’ Archie Gallagher’s smile now ripened into a positive beam and, half rising to his feet, he reached across the table, seized Dover’s hand and shook it warmly. ‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance, sir! And may I congratulate you on your safe delivery from the clutches of those villains!’

  Dover’s jaw dropped and even MacGregor looked more than a little put out.

  ‘You know Chief Inspector Dover?’

  ‘Doesn’t everybody, sergeant? The story of his kidnapping was carried as the lead in all the media, you know. Here in the nick it caused quite a deal of discussion. Some of my colleagues, I’m afraid, were slightly less than concerned about Mr Dover’s fate.’

  ‘I’ve put too many of ’em inside, that’s why!’ boasted Dover, recovering his aplomb. ‘The underworld has no cause to love me.’

  ‘Er – quite.’ Archie Gallagher caught MacGregor’s eye and winked.

  MacGregor was not amused. It was one thing for Dover’s fellow coppers to have a quiet snigger at the old fool behind his back but quite another to have a lousy convict trying to make a laughing stock out of him. ‘In that case, Gallagher,’ he said tartly, ‘you’ll understand why we’re here.’

  ‘Why should I, my dear fellow?’

  ‘Oh, come off it!’

  ‘No, really!’

  MacGregor’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t mess me about, chummy!’

  ‘Scout’s honour, sergeant!’ Archie Gallagher’s sense of humour was showing again. ‘I’ve been racking my brains ever since they told me a couple of bogies were coming all the way from the Smoke especially to see me.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘I did think you might be bringing me the Queen’s Pardon or something, but I can see it isn’t that.’

  MacGregor let him have it straight. ‘We have reason to believe that you are connected with the Claret Tappers, the gang who kidnapped Chief Inspector Dover.’

  ‘Me? Mixed up with a gang of kidnappers?’ Archie Gallagher’s laugh was highly infectious but there wasn’t a flicker on MacGregor’s face as he stared at the elegant convict. ‘Is this your idea of a joke, sergeant?’

  ‘Look,’ said MacGregor in a bored voice, ‘why don’t you just come clean and save my time and yours?’

  Archie Gallagher’s manner changed. ‘Save my time, copper?’ he jeered. Time’s the last thing I’m short of! I’ve got all the time in the world. Another live, goddam years in this stinking cess-pit so don’t you talk to me about time! And besides’ – he got his temper back under control – ‘why should I do you lot any favours? The cops have never done anything for me.’

  Dover bestirred himself to give a little fatherly advice to his sergeant. ‘Slap him around a bit, laddie! Kick him in the kidneys! Shove your fist up his nose!’

  ‘Hey! Watch it!’ Archie Gallagher’s composure slipped a little and, while actually speaking to Dover, he managed to keep a wary eye on MacGregor. ‘He wouldn’t dare!’

  ‘Ho, wouldn’t he? He may look a right little milk-sop but he’s like a raving lion when he’s roused.’ Dover, as usual, was coming it a bit strong. ‘And I’ll swear you attacked him first,’ he added shrewdly.

  ‘Oh, sir!’ wailed MacGregor. He found all this crude, boot-in-the-guts stuff not only distressing but humiliating.

  ‘Well, get a move on then, for God’s sake!’ snarled Dover, throwing himself back petulantly in his chair. ‘’Strewth, I’m blowed if I’d let a blooming urban guerilla make a monkey out of me!’

  There was no time for anybody to appreciate the joke.

  ‘Urban guerilla?’ repeated Archie Gallagher incredulously. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  A tiny worm of suspicion began to gnaw at MacGregor’s mind. ‘You are in here for terrorism, aren’t you?’ he asked ‘Planting bombs or organising riots or something in that line?’

  Even hardened criminals have their pride. ‘I am not!’ roared Archie Gallagher indignantly. ‘How dare you? I’m a multiple bigamist, for God’s sake! I thought everybody knew that. As a matter of fact, I happen to disapprove very strongly of people employing violence to further their political ends.’

  A pregnant silence followed this announcement.

  ‘Well, gentlemen?’

  MacGregor avoided looking at Archie Gallagher ‘When the kidnappers stipulated your release from prison as one of the conditions for freeing Chief Inspector Dover unharmed, we naturally – er – assumed that you were one of them. Or at least that you were in sympathy with their ideas.’

  ‘Well, I’m not! Far from it! Ask anybody!’

  Dover stuck h
is oar in. ‘You’ve got an Irish name!’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘So you’ve probably got Irish sympathies!’ Dover was never one to abandon a pet theory just because it was wrong.

  Archie Gallagher was a gentleman and he broke the news as tactfully as he could. After all, in his profession you never knew when you might need a friendly policeman. ‘Mr Dover, I had an Irish great grandfather. That’s where the name comes from and that is my sole connection with Ireland, North or South. I’ve never even set foot in the place. Indeed, I pride myself that never, in my entire life, have I been further west than Torquay or further north than Cheltenham. You must understand that there’s no scope for a man like me in Ireland.’

  It didn’t take much to get Dover’s mind flying off at a tangent. ‘How d’you mean,’ he asked, ‘no scope?’

  Most people love talking about themselves and Archie Gallagher was no exception. To MacGregor’s dismay, the two men settled down for a cosy chat.

  ‘What outsiders don’t seem to appreciate, my dear chap,’ said Archie Gallagher, speaking with the voice of authority, ‘is that bigamy is a profession, not a hobby. Getting rich women to the altar is deuced hard work, believe you me. Especially these days.’

  ‘Harder now, is it?’ asked Dover with a surprising show of sympathy.

  ‘It’s this permissive society, Mr Dover,’ explained Archie Gallagher, shaking his head sadly. ‘If you knew the difficulty by explaining to these dratted women why you want to marry them. They just can’t understand why the blazes you should want to bother. When I first started, it was wedding bells or nothing, you know, but nowadays . . . I’m talking about society women, of course. I don’t have anything to do with the other sort. Oh, dear me, no! I came unstuck at the Horse Trials at Badminton, you know.’ Archie Gallagher examined his immaculate fingernails with some pride. ‘The arresting officer marched me right past Her Majesty. Ah me,’ – he sighed deeply – ‘it makes you wonder what the world’s coming to.’