‘No, sir.’
‘Well, belt up then! If I had a decent sergeant I could rely on him backing me up, but I know better than to trust a namby-pamby, little Lord Fauntleroy, white-haired, mother’s pet like you. You squeamish types, you get right up my nose, you really do! And I suppose you’ve been mucking around as usual all afternoon and got precisely nowhere?’
‘Only negative evidence, I’m afraid, sir,’ admitted MacGregor, greatly relieved that the conversation had taken a different turn. ‘The Perkings had a joint bank account with a balance of just under thirty pounds. I’ve been to all the insurance agents in the town and they’re checking with their head offices but certainly none of the local branches has got any record of any life assurance at all on Mrs Perking. They’re pretty certain that they would have been informed if Perking had tried to insure her elsewhere for any substantial sum. And I’ve checked round the neighbours again, sir, and if Cynthia Perking was having an affair with anybody he must have been the invisible man. So that rules those two motives out, sir.’
‘Oh well,’ said Dover, examining his tongue with great concentration in the dressing-table mirror, ‘I’m not going to bust a gut over it. I’ll have the truth straight from the horse’s mouth tonight.’ He chuckled. ‘Even if I have to knock a few teeth out to get it!’
As things turned out Dover’s patience was exhausted long before the witching hour of two a.m. By eleven o’clock he announced that he was blowed if a rotten little squirt like John Perking was going to keep him out of his bed any longer and sent MacGregor to phone for a taxi.
By half past eleven a sadistically smirking station sergeant had turfed Daniel Wibbley’s unwanted son-in-law out of his bunk and conducted him to the more isolated of the two interviewing rooms. Out in the entrance hall Dover removed his overcoat and handed it to MacGregor.
‘You wait here, laddie, and just see you remember what I told you. Nobody’s to open that door until I ring the bell.’ The station sergeant led the way down the corridors. ‘You won’t be disturbing anybody down here, sir,’ he told Dover with a knowing wink, ‘no matter how loud you talk.’
‘You’ve got the room arranged like I said?’
‘That’s right, sir. Just the one chair, nothing else. My, but this takes me back a bit, sir. The first sergeant I ever worked under—golly, he was a proper terror, he was! Got more free and voluntary confessions than the rest of the force put together. Fists like york hams, he had. He finished up as a night watchman at Wibbley’s’, he added soberly, ‘after he got himself chucked out. Little Dan—that was this Mr Wibbley’s father, sir—he was a great one for giving a chap a second chance. That way he didn’t have to pay ’em standard wages, if you see what I mean. Well now, here we are, sir. I’ll lock you in and the bell’s just above the light switch by the door. I don’t suppose you’ll be long, will you, sir?’
‘What’, asked Dover with a snigger, ‘do you think?’
John Perking had been waiting in the interview room for a good hour. It was icy cold and, in his shirtsleeves and stockinged feet, he was beginning to shiver. He was frightened, too. He had tried all his life to escape Canal Bank Street but it still haunted him in his dreams. The dirt. The poverty. The pub at the corner. Men and women alike screaming drunk on Saturday nights. The fights. The police. The bruises and the bandaged heads humorously compared in the light of the morning after. ‘See that shiner, mate? It weren’t you, mate, don’t you flatter yourself! That bloody ginger-headed flattie give me that when I spewed out all over his bloody boots.’
‘You should bloody worry, Jack! Come round t’corner and I’ll show you what the lousy bastards did to me. They’ve had it in for me for weeks and I got a right going over. Five of ’em in a cell. Boots, bloody truncheons, the lot!’
Yes, all right, Perking told himself angrily as he rubbed his arms, that was Canal Bank Street. A running battle between the police and the yobbos who lived there. What else could you expect? But the new estate —Birdsfoot-Trefoil Close — that was different, surely? Respectable, law-abiding people who smiled and said good morning when they saw a copper. No policeman would dare lay a hand on them. And, damn it all, he still was Mr Wibbley’s son-in-law, wasn’t he? They’d have to use kid gloves when they handled him. They just wouldn’t dare do anything else.
He leaned up against the white-washed wall and wiped the palms of his hands on his trousers.
His heart missed a beat. Footsteps outside. The sound of the door being unlocked. Opened. The big fat detective from London.
‘Now look here,’ said Perking, trying to keep his voice from soaring into a terrified soprano, ‘I’d like to know what’s going on.’
Dover eased his bowler hat back on his head and regarded his victim with interest. Miserable little runt. Scared pink, too. This shouldn’t take long.
‘I don’t know why I’ve been dragged out of my bed in the middle of the night but you’d better get it clear right now that I’m not going to answer any questions. I know my rights. I don’t have to say anything if I don’t want to.’
Dover took a couple of leisurely menacing steps into the room. ‘Oh, so you know your rights, do you? That’s interesting. I didn’t realize that we were dealing with an old lag. What were you up for last time, Perking?’
‘I wasn’t
