‘That’s right.’
‘That’s in the vicinity of where Mr Chantry’s body was found?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you still claim that you didn’t see him?’
‘It was dark, sergeant, and raining quite heavily. Most of the time I was groping and crawling around up to my waist in mud. Mr Lickes was around somewhere and I never saw him, either. Frankly, I was too worried about slipping down the hillside myself to bother about what other people were doing.’
‘But there were other people about?’
‘Yes, but it’s no good asking me who they were. They were just vague figures and I simply didn’t notice. There were people dead and dying all round me, you know. Well,’ – he realized this was a trifle over-dramatic – ‘injured, anyhow.’ Dover was turning a distinctly lack-lustre ear to these exchanges. Since he had failed to nail Colin Hooper with one swift blow below the belt, his interest in furthering the cause of truth and justice waned. All, as far as his jaundiced eye could see, was rapidly turning to gall and wormwood. The tea was drunk, the biscuits eaten and even that bloody fire was dying down. The meagre crumbs of the Hoopers’ hospitality had been consumed and the red Algerian wine was gnawing sourly at the lining of his stomach. It was time to go.
‘Come on!’ he said to MacGregor.
MacGregor discarded the craftily phrased question he had just worked out. ‘But, sir . . .’
‘But, nothing!’ Dover extricated himself with a great deal of puffing and blowing from the depths of the sofa and screwed his bowler hat back on his head. While he waited for the stiffness to go out of his legs, he improved the shining hour by delivering a parting broadside in the direction of Colin Hooper. ‘You’ve had your chance, laddie! If you’d played ball with me, I’d have played ball with you. Next time I come knocking at your door there’ll be a warrant in my hand. For murder!’
Eight
‘Ungrateful bastard!’ grumbled Dover.
MacGregor didn’t need to ask to whom he was referring. In the short walk from the Hooper residence back to the Blenheim Towers they had already had this conversation three times.
‘And you’re no better,' continued Dover. ‘If you’d joined in instead of sitting there like a stuffed dumb-bell, he’d have cracked soon as look at him. Of course,’ he added with a burst of generosity, ‘I blame myself. I should have cut the cackle and bloodied his nose for him. That’s the only language his sort understand. A couple of good thumps round the ears and he’d have sung like the Luton Girls’ Choir.’
‘The wife . . .’ murmured MacGregor, recognizing his cue.
‘I thought we were going to have the brat arriving on the hearthrug as it was. If I’d really started roughing pretty boy up, she’d have gone into labour just to thwart me. Still, I’ll get the bastard yet.’
‘I’m afraid we haven’t got much against him in the way of evidence, sir.’
‘I know that, dolt!’ snapped Dover. ‘If we’d got any bloody evidence, we wouldn’t want a free and voluntary confession, would we? Didn’t they teach you anything at this posh school you’re supposed to have gone to?’
‘Mind you, sir,’ said MacGregor meekly, ‘he does admit to being in the area where Chantry was killed.’
‘So does Lickes.’
‘The way I see it, sir,’ said MacGregor, adjusting his pace to keep down with Dover’s unathletic waddle, ‘Mr Chantry must have been killed pretty soon after he rescued Wing Commander Pile. Apart from young Hooper, nobody admits to seeing him after that and I can’t help thinking somebody would have spotted him if he’d been around. He strikes me as the kind of fellow who would have made his presence felt, even in the middle of an earthquake.’
Dover was wrapped up in his own speculations. ‘Maybe Lickes did it,’ he mumbled as they turned into the hotel drive. ‘Or Pile. He’s got a very shifty look, that fellow.’
‘But has he any motive, sir? He doesn’t appear to stand to gain in any way from Chantry’s death and, by all accounts, they were the very best of friends. And Chantry had just saved his life – or as near as makes no difference.’
‘The potty daughter could have done it.’
‘Without her father knowing, sir?’
‘Well, he’d cover up for her, wouldn’t he?’
‘I doubt if Miss Pile would be anything like strong enough, sir. I’ve been checking through the medical reports again. Considerable physical strength was used and, although Chantry wasn’t by any means a husky sort of chap, I think he’d have been more than a match for Linda Pile. Manual strangulation, sir – that means she’d have had to have done it with her bare hands.’
Dover plodded up the steps to the front door. ‘They have the strength of ten.’
‘So I’ve heard, sir.’ MacGregor followed-his chief inspector into the pitch-dark hall and wished, as he had often wished before, that Dover wouldn’t base all his scientific observations on old wives’ tales. ‘Oops – I beg your pardon, sir!’
‘Why don’t you look where you’re going?’ snarled Dover who had stopped dead in his tracks precisely because he couldn’t. ‘Where’s the light switch?’
Under the cover of darkness MacGregor backed off a foot or two and surreptitiously brushed down his coat. He was inclined to be rather over-fastidious. ‘I’m afraid I’ve no idea, sir.’
‘Trust you!’ Dover peered around. ‘The bloody fools! Somebody might break their neck, groping around in the dark like this. Here,’ – he grabbed hold of MacGregor and pushed him forward – ‘you go first.’
MacGregor fished his cigarette lighter out and in its flickering light the pair of them shuffled their way gingerly across the hall and up the stairs. Dover, as was only to be expected, made the worst of a bad job and their noisy progress was peppered with heartfelt obscenities as he blundered into walls and furniture.
‘Damned
