The door of Freda’s Cafe opened and a thin, bald-headed man came in accompanied by a blast of cold, damp air. Several voices invited him to put the wood in the hole.
The man closed the door and returned the homespun banter as he ambled his way up to the counter. ‘Cup of tea and two cheese rolls, George,’ he said.
Dover and MacGregor, sitting near by, could hear every word clearly.
‘Freda not in tonight?’ asked the bald man, sorting through a handful of change.
‘No,’ said George as he pensively watched the tea struggle out of the spout of the tea-pot. ‘Why, was you wanting to see her?’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ admitted the man.
‘She’ll be in at dinner-time tomorrow.’
‘Oh well, I’ll call in on my way back then. I should be through here about mid-day if my ruddy brakes hold out. Tell her I was asking, will you? She’ll know what it’s about.’
George nodded and swept the appropriate coins into the till.
Dover and MacGregor smiled at each other and felt very clever. They now knew when Freda would be in her café and Freda didn’t know that they knew. It was all most satisfactory. For the first time for some days they felt like detectives. With a light step MacGregor nipped out and ascertained that Dame Alice had raised the siege. Her car had gone from outside The Jolly Sailor. Dover beamed, even at MacGregor. Pippa was passing.
* * *
Dover’s good humour lasted right through lunch on the next day which was a Friday. He had slept solidly through the morning with a clear conscience because, as he carefully pointed out to MacGregor, it was useless to pursue any other lines of investigation until they had cleared this baby business out of the way. They couldn’t do this until they had interviewed Freda and the best time for doing that would be round about half past two when the lunch-time rush was over and the café would be fairly empty, if not deserted.
Lunch at The Jolly Sailor was quite a gay affair. Mr Tompkins seemed to have recovered from the initial shock of his wife’s death and chattered almost gaily about the inquest and the funeral arrangements and the short holiday he was going to take when it was all over. Dover had twitted him about his whereabouts on Wednesday afternoon and Mr. Tompkins had blushed a deep red but had taken the clumsy joshing in very good part.
‘Every man’s entitled to his hobby, Mr Dover,’ he had pointed out with some show of embarrassment. It was a remark which had Dover howling with laughter until the tears ran down his flabby cheeks. After taking a second or two to recover from the shock, Mr Tompkins himself produced a shy smirk.
‘I hope I can rely on your discretion,’ he said to Dover.
‘Of course,’ roared Dover, guffawing like a fool. ‘We won’t breathe a word to anyone, will we, MacGregor?’
MacGregor gave one of his stiff little smiles, shook his head and maintained a prim silence. He wished, not for the first time, that he worked with someone who was a little less philistine in his attitudes. After all, what was so flaming funny about a man wanting to learn French?
Freda Comersall didn’t exactly welcome her two new customers with open arms. ‘I was wondering when you were going to get around to interviewing me,’ she said, standing behind her counter like Boudicca in her chariot.
‘Er – two coffees, please,’ said MacGregor, hoping to soften her up a bit by a modest contribution to the café’s profits. ‘And perhaps you’ll have one yourself?’
‘You’re joking, of course,’ said Mrs Comersall, massively unappeased. ‘I may sell the muck but I don’t have to drink it.’
Feeling that they were in for a sticky time, MacGregor carried the coffees over to a near-by table, and he and Dover waited a little apprehensively for Mrs Comersall to join them. After a few minutes she waddled across to them, clutching a glass of some pale green liquid.
‘What’s that?’ said Dover as she sat down.
‘Cabbage water,’ said Mrs Comersall shortly. ‘It purifies the blood.’ She examined Dover’s pasty complexion. ‘Looks as though a pint or two wouldn’t do you any harm. Gives you a good clear-out.’
Mrs Comersall was colossal. She flowed, unimpeded by any kind of foundation-garment, in all directions. Her arms and legs were enormous and she wore a pair of old carpet-slippers on her feet. She had made the short distance from behind her counter to the table with considerable difficulty and much laborious breathing. Like most plump women, though, she had a beautiful skin, but whether she owed this to the consumption of cabbage water Dover neither inquired nor cared. He decided to treat Mrs Comersall as a hostile witness. There was nothing personal in this. He didn’t dislike Mrs Comersall any more than the majority of people he came in contact with, but things had been pretty boring lately and, in his line of business, you had to take your fun where you could find it.
‘So you were expecting a visit from us, were you?’ he began aggressively, laying a trap with such dexterity that a two-year-old child would have spotted the gaping jaws.
Mrs Comersall had at least fifty years’ experience of police methods, and prided herself on having eaten better men than this fat slob for breakfast in her time. ‘I’ve been expecting you for the past week,’ she said indifferently. ‘Apart from the fact George told me you were snooping round here last night.’
‘Oh, so George warns you when the police come round, does he?’ asked Dover, making it all sound as sinister as he could.
‘Part of his duties,’ said Mrs Comersall calmly. ‘I expect him to report anything that’s likely to have an adverse influence on my trade. Like rats running across the tables and dirty old tramps coming for a free night’s kip.’
‘And what were we
