‘It’s character building!’ asserted the Assistant Commissioner who was a hard man. ‘The sooner these kids learn that life isn’t a bowl of cherries, the better. Now, anything else?’
‘No, I don’t think so, sir.’ Commander Brockhurst collected the plastic-covered letter from the desk where he’d returned it. ‘You’ll be able to identify the typewriter at any rate.’
‘Oh, we’ve done that already, sir. It’s a Parnassus TR 8 and it’s taken a fair old battering in its time. We’ll know it all right – when we find it.’
‘What about the typist?’
‘A two-finger job, sir. Fairly nippy but not trained.’
One of the six telephones on the Assistant Commissioner (Crime)’s desk rang imperiously. The Assistant Commissioner lunged for the receiver, motioning Commander Brockhurst to stay where he was. ‘The Big White Chief!’ he hissed.
The telephone conversation which ensued was lengthy but one-sided. The Assistant Commissioner’s part – and it was definitely not type-casting – was restricted to a string of obsequious ‘yes-sirs’ and ‘no-sirs’. Commander Brockhurst passed the time trying to guess what was being said at the other end of the crackling wire.
There was a final ‘yes-sir-very-good-sir-at-once-sir’ and a ragged Assistant Commissioner dropped the receiver back in its cradle. ‘Bloody hell!’ he gasped.
‘Trouble, sir?’
‘With a capital T, Tom. Somebody’s tipped the bloody press off. The Commissioner’s up there, blowing his top off. Besieged in his office – or so he says – by a horde of hungry newspaper men.’
Commander Brockhurst rose to his feet again. ‘It was only a matter of time, sir. The whole world’s going to know what’s happened when you make your broadcast this evening. Besides, the publicity may help us. After all, somebody may have seen something.’
The Assistant Commissioner (Crime) stood up, too, and retrieved his boiled sweetie from the ashtray. ‘It’s not really the fact that somebody’s let the cat out of the bag that’s got him wetting his pants. The Home Secretary’s been on the blower. He wants us both round to the Home Office for a conference. It seems that Dover’s kidnapping has become a political issue.’
‘In that case,’ said Commander Brockhurst with a grimace, ‘Mrs Dover might as well start ordering her widow’s weeds now. Old Wilf’s chances of coming out of this with a whole skin were pretty dim right from the beginning, but if the bloody politicians are going to start meddling he hasn’t got a snowball’s.’
The Assistant Commissioner (Crime) crunched his boiled sweet. ‘It’s an ill wind,’ he remarked as he went to get his overcoat off the stand. ‘You’d better stand by at eight o’clock tonight, Tom, to give me a briefing before I go on the air. There may be some last-minute development I should know about.’
‘Right you are, sir!’ Commander Brockhurst opened the door and the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) swept through it with all the panache of a man on his way to higher things.
* * *
At exactly nine o’clock the merry jingle which heralds the news on BBC television rang out in countless sitting-rooms. The countless viewers reacted to the arrival of their daily dose of gloom and misery in several ways. Some leapt as though shot from their fireside chairs and rushed off’ to make a cup of tea or pay a visit to the toilet. Others bestirred themselves only to the extent of stretching out an arm and switching smartly to the other channel. The rest – the optimists, the masochists and the fast asleep – sat it out and so had the thrill of hearing that some as yet unidentified terrorist group had kidnapped a detective chief inspector from New Scotland Yard. A photograph of Dover that was well-nigh actionable Hashed up on the screen and a middle-aged housewife in South Shields summed up the majority verdict: ‘Cripes, if he looks like that, they’re welcome to him!’
The newscaster chattered on. He was looking quite excited as he prepared to play his small part in a piece of television history.
‘In a letter setting out their demands,’ he said, ‘the kidnappers gave instructions on the method to be used for getting in touch with them. A senior police officer was to appear on the Nine O’Clock News and publicly accept their terms. The BBC is pleased to offer the hospitality of its studios to the Assistant Commissioner for Crime at New Scotland Yard!’
The scene changed and the watching world was treated to the spectacle of a very spruced up Assistant Commissioner leering happily down the cleavage of the young lady who had been specially selected to interview him. The young lady picked up her cue and turned smoothly to smile at the camera.
‘Assistant Commissioner, you and your colleagues at New Scotland Yard must have been very shocked and distressed when you realised that Detective Chief Inspector Dover had been kidnapped by a gang of urban guerillas?’
The Assistant Commissioner tore his eyes away and, in something of a panic, tried to remember his lines. Damn and blast the little harpy, why couldn’t she have warned him they were going on the air! ‘Er – yes,’ he spluttered. ‘Quite.’
‘As a member of Scotland Yard’s famous Murder Squad, Chief Inspector Dover must have made many enemies amongst the criminal classes. Do you think that this could be an attempt to pay off an old score?’
‘Er – no,’ said the Assistant Commissioner, adding quickly while he’d the chance to get a word in, ‘though we are naturally leaving no avenue unexplored and no – er – theory uninvestigated.’
The young lady interviewer nodded her head mechanically. She was there to ask questions, not listen to a bunch of boring old answers. ‘So, in spite of the fact that the kidnappers are demanding a ransom of one hundred thousand pounds for the safe return of Chief Inspector Dover, the authorities are working on the assumption that there is a political motive behind the crime?’
‘Er – yes.’ The Assistant Commissioner (Crime) was not best pleased at having a
