The young lady interviewer, greatly daring, ventured a spontaneous query. ‘What other demands?’
The Assistant Commissioner smiled a superior little smile. ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to reveal that at this stage in the proceedings.’ Having been able to spurn a perfectly reasonable request for information he began to feel much better.
‘Is Chief Inspector Dover or his family in a position to pay a ransom of one hundred thousand pounds for his safe return?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘Could police funds of any kind be made available?
The Assistant Commissioner’s eyes all but popped out of his head. ‘What police funds?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the young lady interviewer rather crossly. ‘I’m asking you. I mean, where do the kidnappers think the money’s coming from?’
‘You’d better ask them!’ came the tart, if inevitable, answer.
The young lady interviewer’s brow lowered and she was just about to give back as good as she was getting when she caught the producer’s frantic winding-up signals. God knows, there was more to life than missing policemen and there was that strike of dental surgeons in Gwent to tit in, to say nothing of the usual economic stuff and Bobby Buxton’s world shattering transfer from Liverpool to Everton for a reputed tee of two million. . .
‘I believe you have an announcement that you wish to make to the kidnappers of Detective Chiet Inspector Dover,’ snapped the young lady interviewer, her bosom (to which she owed so much of her success on the box) heaving sulkily as she scowled at the Assistant Commissioner. Dirty old lecher!
‘I have, indeed!’ The Assistant Commissioner, not realising that he was hors de combat in that particular sex war, straightened up as the cameras zoomed in on him. The watching audience got him full faced and naturally assumed that the faint smile playing round his lips was an indication of kindly benevolence. In a way, of course, it was: the Assistant Commissioner reckoned that what he was about to do was the best thing that had happened to the Metropolitan Police since the introduction of the whistle in 1884. Raising his chin, he let Number One camera have it straight in the lens.
‘I am speaking now,’ he began, ‘to those criminals who have been so foolish and misguided as to kidnap Detective Chief Inspector Dover, a valued colleague of mine . . . and a friend.’ The Assistant Commissioner gagged a bit over this but he got it out. M call upon them to release Wilfred Dover, their innocent victim, and return him unharmed and without delay to the bosom of his distressed family. Because, whatever you in your greed may think, crime does not pay – and this particular crime will certainly not pay. The combined might of every police force in this country will see to that and, sooner or later, you will be relentlessly hounded down and brought before the bar of British Justice!’ The Assistant Commissioner had learnt this stirring speech off by heart and didn’t need more than the odd glance at the teleprompter to refresh his memory. ‘Your punishment will be heavy. Don’t make it even more severe by daring to harm one hair of Wilf Dover’s head! For I have to tell you that neither Her Majesty’s government nor the Metropolitan Police is prepared to make any compromise in this matter. The conclusion has been reached, after much anguished heart searching, that to submit to threats of this nature is merely to invite further incidents of moral blackmail. Let me make the position crystal clear and tell you that our decision is final and irrevocable. None of your conditions for the safe release of Chief Inspector Dover from his durance vile will be met. Not one! We will not allow you to broadcast your so-called political manifesto. We will not release any so-called political prisoners from the jails where they are so justly serving heavy prison sentences for their crimes. And, lastly but by no means leastly, we will not pay a ransom of one hundred thousand pounds or any other sum of money, however trivial.’
The Assistant Commissioner, who was beginning to sweat a little under the lights, paused dramatically to let his words sink in. Out of sight of the cameras pandemonium was breaking out. Everybody had been so sure, for some reason, that the Assistant Commissioner had come to capitulate to the demands of the kidnappers that nobody had actually bothered to ask him what he was going to say. The producer had merely implored him, as he implored every spokesman, to ‘try and keep it nice and short, lovie!’ The mimed panic soon resolved itself into a battle of wills between the distraught producer and the nubile young lady interviewer. He wanted her to resume her interrogation of the Assistant Commissioner in the face of this startling new development but she was determined not to appear before the cameras without a list of carefully prepared questions securely affixed to her clip-board. She was a conceited girl but, where her intellectual abilities were concerned, she recognised her limitations. The producer, although he was by no means the sort of man to lay hands lightly on a woman, was preparing to resort to physical coercion when the Assistant Commissioner continued with his oration.
‘So, in conclusion, let me appeal to you most sincerely to abandon this terrible plan. Release Chief Inspector Dover! You will gain nothing, either now or in the future, by continuing to detain him. Forget your brutal threats! Don’t get yourselves into any more trouble than you are in already. Believe me, if you so much as lay a finger on Wilf Dover, you will receive no mercy when we catch up with you – as catch up with you we most surely will. Thank you – and goodnight!’
There was an awkward pause and then the producer, gratefully releasing his hold on the young lady interviewer and biting back his tears,
