‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you, while you’re in Creedon go and check with the local boys to see that they really have covered all the railway stations and hospitals and things. You know what I mean. And if they haven’t done it properly, make ’em do it again! They’re quite capable of overlooking a sixteen-stone body, I’ll be bound.’
It was only when MacGregor had already gone beyond recall that Dover realized that he had left himself without transport. Luckily the village possessed a one-man taxi service and thanks to the landlord’s good offices (they were brother Elks) the one-man agreed to place himself and his taxi at the chief inspector’s disposal for the rest of the day. Dover spent several long and fruitless hours with the elderly, childless and petless tenants in the Irlam Old Hall flats. He emerged a convinced supporter of compulsory euthanasia for the over-seventies, but this was his sole achievement.
It was a fine sunny day and he walked slowly down the drive towards the main gates, wondering what the dickens he was going to do next. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he all but fell over Sir John Counter, who was being wheeled out in his bath chair for an airing by his daughter. Her expression was almost as sulky and discontented as Dover’s own.
‘Well, Mr Policeman,’ Sir John greeted him, with a mocking grin, ‘have you found the girl yet?’
Dover treated the senile old fool to a blistering look.
‘Not yet, sir,’ he said with a peculiar intonation which implied, he hoped, that in fact they had but, for reasons best known to themselves, were not yet prepared to divulge this bit of news to the general public.
‘Making heavy weather of it, aren’t you?’ demanded Sir John. ‘Been looking for the best part of a week, haven’t you?’
‘Three and a half days, sir,’ Dover corrected him through clenched teeth.
‘Humph,’ came the reply, ‘shouldn’t have though it would have taken you three and a half minutes!’ He gave a high-pitched snigger’
‘Why, even these chaps on the telly don’t take longer than half an hour. And’ – he shook a bony finger at Dover – ‘and their cases are much more complicated. Shouldn’t have thought it would have been much of a job to find a wench as fat as Juliet.’
Dover was saved the trouble of a rejoinder by the approach of Colonel Bing and Miss McLintock apparently engaged in exercising the poodle, Peregrine.
‘Look out!’ exclaimed Sir John in a deliberately penetrating whisper. ‘Here come the local Lesbians! ’
‘Father, really! They’ll hear you!’ Eve Counter frowned reproachfully at the old man.
‘Humph. Do ’em good!’ snorted Sir John. ‘And, Bingo,’ he bellowed to the colonel, ‘if that damned dog of your pees on my offside wheel again, so help me, I’ll fetch a gun out next time and let him have both barrels in the guts! I’m warning you, now!’
Colonel Bing laughed heartily. It never entered her head that Sir John might not just be having his little joke.
‘Good morning, Sir John,’ she shouted cheerfully. ‘How are you keeping?’
Sir John stared at her. ‘What’s she say?’ he asked his daughter.
‘She says, “How are you keeping”, father.’
‘Well, tell the nosy old devil it’s no business of hers who I’m keeping. My private life’s my own affair!’
Colonel Bing beamed admiringly and turned to Dover. ‘He’s a witty old bounder, isn’t he?’ she boomed. ‘Doesn’t matter what you say to him, he’s always got a snappy answer’ Gets me, how he thinks of them. And how’s your case going, Inspector, found that girl yet?’
‘Not yet!’ snapped Dover, keeping a wary eye on Peregrine, who was sniffing around him in an ominous manner.
‘Oh,’ said Colonel Bing, evidently disappointed, ‘it’s taking a long time, isn’t it?’
‘I’m reading a book,’ said Miss McLintock, ‘about a man who disappeared. He was in M.I.5 and they haven’t found out yet what happened to him. Of course,’ she added with a kindly smile, ‘I’ve only got up to page twenty-five, so it’s a bit early yet, isn’t it?’
Dover just looked at her.
Colonel Bing roared into action again. ‘Well, Sir John,’ she screamed down his ear, ‘glad to see you out enjoying the sunshine. Do you a world of good! Eve, why don’t you bring him over to tea with us one day? And, by the way,’ she added bossily as Eve muttered some polite rejoinder and began to push the bath chair down the drive, ‘I’m glad to see you’ve oiled those damned wheels at last. Can’t bear things squeaking when all they want is a drop of oil!’
‘The wheels?’ Eve Counter looked blank.
‘Yes, on the bath chair. I told you about them a fortnight ago at least. They must have been able to hear you coming in Creedon. I’ve never heard such a row.’
Eve looked down vaguely at the wheels. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘they squeaked, didn’t they?’
‘They don’t now,’ said Colonel Bing, bending down to have a look, ‘You’ve oiled ’em, good girl!’
Eve shrugged her shoulders. ‘I didn’t,’ she muttered.
‘Well, somebody has,’ insisted Colonel Bing. ‘Look, there’s oil dripping all over the place.’
‘Oh, perhaps Bondy did. I suppose he noticed it, too.’
The two groups split up and Dover found himself walking down the drive with Sir John and his daughter. The wheel chair was heavy and awkward to push on the rough surface. Dover let Eve Counter struggle on alone. It never occurred to him to do anything else.
Half-way down the drive they met Mrs Chubb-Smith who was just popping in to see her son and daughter-in-law. Maxine was expertly backing a sleek white Jaguar out of the garage.
‘I’ve got a luncheon engagement, Kitty darling!’ she shouted. ‘Can you feed the brute? He’s inside sulking because he wasn’t invited, too.’
She didn’t bother to wait for a reply, but shot off down the drive with an impressive scattering of stones and dust. Mrs
