MacGregor smiled very nicely and, without being at all rude about it, began to close the taxi door. ‘We just need her help in some enquiries we’re making.’
Miss Montmorency continued to look a little puzzled but she pulled herself together as she saw that her prey was on the point of departing. After all, she’d spent a lot of time and gone to a lot of trouble for them. ‘I say,’ – she jammed herself between the closing door and the body of the taxi and waved a book of raffle tickets in the air – ‘would you like to help an Indo-Chinese orphan?’
‘No!’ said Dover.
Nine
THEY GOT BACK TO SCOTLAND YARD AT ABOUT half-past three, which left Dover with nice time for a cup of tea and a short nap before he had to leave to catch his train home. Commander Brockhurst had temporarily suspended his campaign to make Dover do a full day’s work as even he recognised that there were limits beyond which you shouldn’t hound a man who had so nearly sacrificed his all on the altar of expediency and public policy.
MacGregor hesitated. The old fool wasn’t going to like this. He wasn’t going to like it at all. . .
Dover’s eyes opened wide. ‘What bloody house?’ he demanded thickly.
‘Well, hopefully, the one in which you were held prisoner by the Claret Tappers, sir.’
Dover blinked sullenly. ‘Who says?’
‘Well, nobody actually says so, sir,’ admitted MacGregor, seeing only too well where this was leading. ‘Nobody knows for sure yet. It’s just that they do seem to have turned up a fairly likely prospect.’
‘And I’m being expected to go and have a bloody squint at it?’
MacGregor inclined his head.
Dover settled back in his chair. In his younger days he had been in the habit of propping his feet up on his desk but with advancing age and obesity such gymnastics were now beyond him. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said through a yawn.
‘We could be there in twenty minutes, sir,’ said MacGregor. ‘I’ve managed to get a police car from the pool and . . .’
‘Tomorrow,’ repeated Dover. ‘More haste, less speed.’ He seemed to feel that this statement was a little inadequate. ‘’Strewth, it’s not going to run away, is it? Tell you what,’ – he made the offer with all the magnanimity of a sovereign bestowing a knighthood – ‘you pick me up at my place tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock or a bit later. Then we’ll go straight to this house. Right? So tell ’em we’ll have the police car tomorrow instead of today. Savvy?’
‘I don’t know if I can get a car tomorrow, sir,’ MacGregor pointed out miserably, though Dover knew as much as he did about the difficulties in obtaining transport.
‘All the more reason for shoving off now and trying!’ snapped Dover. ‘And take this with you!’ He poked Miss Montmorency’s blue suede coat. ‘This is an office, not a bloody old clothes shop.’
MacGregor departed to make what apologies and pull what strings he could and at half-past ten the following morning he installed a somewhat subdued Chief Inspector Dover in the back of the police car.
‘Know anything about women, sergeant?’
MacGregor was a bachelor – a shirking of responsibility that Dover usually found very hard to forgive. ‘Not very much, I’m afraid, sir.’
Dover shook his head uncomprehendingly. ‘You’d think she’d be glad to have me back!’ he complained, but didn’t enlarge upon the subject. Instead he stared morosely out of the window. ‘Where are we going?’
‘North London, sir.’ MacGregor was armed with the exact address and even the map reference, but they were not required.
‘Wake me when we get there,’ said Dover.
‘There’ was a good residential area and MacGregor began to have his doubts as they drove through road after tree-lined road of well-kept houses. It didn’t look at all like the kind of district in which a gang of sleazy kidnappers would have their lair.
‘Flamborough Close you said, sarge?’ The driver halfturned and raised his voice to cut through Dover’s snores.
‘That’s right,’ said MacGregor, leaning forward to peer through the windscreen. ‘It should be a turning off this road. Ah, there it is! On the right!’
The police car swung sedately into a tree-lined cul-de-sac and made its way gently past one garden-surrounded house after another. The residences were, architecturally speaking, nothing much to write home about but they were all well cared for.
‘Number Forty-six,’ said MacGregor. ‘“Osborne”. Ah, that’ll be it! The one with all the cars in front.’
The nearer one got along the road towards ‘Osborne’, the more middle-class, middle-aged women seemed to be out, inspecting their front gardens. They were well wrapped up against the cold and the impartial observer might have wondered what on earth they were doing at such a horticulturally deprived season of the year.
‘Osborne’, admittedly, stuck out amongst the other houses like a sore thumb, but it must have had this distinction for some long time. Blistering paintwork, broken windows, gates hanging askew’ on their hinges, a herbaceous border run amuck – these blemishes don’t occur overnight. The tattered posters stuck up in the window’s were of a more recent date, though. Crudely lettered and obviously home-made jobs, they urged passers-by to house the homeless and join the revolutionary organization dedicated to providing Free Accommodation for All.
MacGregor, a detective of some years’ standing, reached the conclusion that it was the cluster of uniformed policemen and official looking cars that had turned ‘Osborne’ from eye-sore to cynosure. He toyed with the idea of regaling Dover with this bon mot but, on more mature reflection, decided not to bother and gave the old fool a dig in the ribs instead.
Dover was barely given the time to shake the dust of the sandman out of his eyes before the door of the police car was torn open and Inspector Horton – all teeth, peaked cap and shiny silver buttons – clambered in. Dover shrank
