Within a few minutes the Chief Constable was back again. It had all been settled. Nobody at Scotland Yard, where Dover had few friends, had raised a finger to save him. His leave was cancelled and he was placed, body and soul, at the disposal of the Chief Constable.
‘They’re sending your sergeant down by the next train,’ he informed Dover curtly. ‘MacDonald, is it? Some damned foreign name like that. Can’t see why they don’t stop in their own blasted country.’
‘But they can’t,’ said Dover, grasping at what few straws were left to him. ‘He’s off touring on the Continent.’
‘Managed to catch him at the airport just before he left. It’s only about seventy miles from here. He’ll be along by lunchtime. I’ve told the sergeant to book the pair of you into a local hotel. Now, I’ve got to phone my wife and break the tragic news to her. I’ll see you in the Inspector’s office in fifteen minutes and we’ll get down to planning what lines your investigation should take.’
‘And what would you like me to do, sir?’
The Chief Constable regarded his Inspector coldly. ‘ I should like you, Tasker, to drop down dead, but I suppose that’s asking too much even from a benign Providence. You can carry on with your normal duties, if any, and just keep out of my way for the next couple of years.’
Mrs Dover’s offer to stay in Wallerton and succour her husband in his hour of need was rejected with the contempt it deserved.
‘You can go on to Filbury or you can go home or you can stuff yourself!’ stormed Dover. ‘I don’t give a damn!’
‘But you’ll get your leave later, Wilf. They’ve only postponed it.’
Dover’s answering snort all but dislocated his dentures.
Mrs Dover departed in tears for a solitary holiday at Filbury. The Chief Constable blew his top as his wife went off into hysterics at the other end of the telephone line. The station sergeant occupied himself with trying to look busy and the Inspector hovered around uncertainly and trembled as he thought of the wrath to come.
Dover, an old and experienced hand in these matters, undid the top button of his trousers, removed his boots, propped his feet up on the radiator and went to sleep.
He was aroused some considerable time later by the arrival of Charles Edward MacGregor, detective sergeant and Dover’s long standing accomplice in crime. MacGregor, whose holiday had been ruined too, was sulking, but one more miserable face in Wallerton Police Station was hardly noticeable.
Dover greeted him with his usual warmth. ‘Got here at last, have you? What did you do – walk?’
MacGregor gritted his teeth.
The Chief Constable had been forced to nip back home to calm his wife down so he was not in the best of moods when Dover and MacGregor eventually trooped in for their briefing. It was short and to the point. From what Dover could gather, and he wasn’t straining himself to concentrate, the Chief Constable wanted two things done and done quickly. First, he wanted to know why his nephew, the late Constable Cochran, had committed suicide and, second, he wanted the responsibility for this tragic act to be pinned fairly and squarely where it belonged – on the shoulders of the Inspector in charge of Wallerton Police Station.
‘That fool Tasker’s at the back of all this,’ he asserted, thumping his fist on the desk, ‘and, by God, he’s going to pay for it! He’s had it in for young Peter ever since I sent the lad down here. Had the infernal nerve to accuse me of showing favouritism to my own nephew. How do you like that, eh? I gave it to him straight from the shoulder. “ I’m posting Constable Cochran to your division,” I said, “because your division is the one that needs a bright, go-ahead chap most. It’s the sloppiest division in the whole ruddy force, but we’re going to alter that, with or without your co-operation.” Tasker being Tasker, of course, he’s been nursing a grudge ever since. Can’t take criticism, you know, a bad fault that. Well, he’s got his revenge. He couldn’t get at me but he could get at Peter. And he has! All right, he’s going to pay for it, and pay dearly. You’ll report direct to me. Chief Inspector, in person. I don’t want anything over the telephone. Those damned operators at Headquarters listen in to every word and before you know where you are it’s all round the county. Now then, any questions? No? Right! Well, I’m off now. I shall expect to be hearing from you, and soon.’
In spite of the need for urgency and the oft reiterated exhortations to get a move on, Dover proceeded imperturbably at his own pace. He and MacGregor repaired to their hotel, one of the two in Wallerton which were licensed, and had a leisurely and ample lunch. During coffee Dover thought up a number of useless and time-consuming errands which were designed to keep MacGregor on the trot until dinner time and so leave the Chief Inspector free to retire to bed for the afternoon. The investigation proper would, he announced to his unimpressed sergeant, begin on the morrow, when he had had time to work out their plan of action.
‘Think,’ he said, already yawning, ‘that’s what you’ve got to do in our job, MacGregor. Think. Use the old brain. Why, I’ve solved more problems just by thinking ’em out in the peace and quiet of my own room than you’ve had hot dinners.’
MacGregor composed his handsome features into a polite if slightly incredulous smile, gave the Chief Inspector his packet of cigarettes and took his leave.
The next morning Dover came downstairs to breakfast almost prepared to knuckle down to some work. Since the previous afternoon he had had fifteen hours sleep broken only by dinner
