The Assistant Commissioner forced his eyes open and rubbed the back of his neck vigorously. ‘Fascinating! he said and glared down the table at Dover who, with the Spotted Dick still damp on his lapels, was busy cadging a fag off his next-door neighbour. ‘Another connection with the – er – West Country, of course.’
‘That’s right, sir! We checked with the shopkeeper who sold the coat but she was unable to remember anything helpful. Still, it’s the West Country connection that counts – as you so cleverly saw, sir. It’s really the clincher in my opinion. It proves that that’s the part of the world we ought to be looking for the Claret Tappers in. And,’ concluded MacGregor triumphantly, ‘Salisbury and Fish Down aren’t a thousand miles from Bath, are they?’
‘About forty, actually,’ said Superintendent Trevelyan, who was not alone in having difficulty keeping his eyes open.
‘Well,’ asked the Assistant Commissioner, ‘what are you waiting for?’
‘Sir?’
The Assistant Commissioner dropped the third spoonful of sugar into his coffee, ‘If the solution to the kidnapping lies in Bristol or wherever, what the hell are you doing sitting here? This business is supposed to be getting the very top priority, sergeant. It’s the Prime Minister’s grandson who’s been snatched, not some crummy nobody we’ve never heard of.’ The Assistant Commissioner tasted his coffee and grimaced. It was cold and bitter. ‘Well, get moving, sergeant!’ he roared.
MacGregor all but ruptured himself scrambling to his feet. ‘I’m on my way, sir!’
The Assistant Commissioner (Crime) bawled a final instruction: ‘And take Dover with you!’
Sixteen
IT WAS THREE DAYS BEFORE MACGREGOR CAUGHT up with Dover – not that he’d been trying all that hard. The touching reunion took place in their poky office at Scotland Yard. MacGregor just opened the door and . . .
‘Where the bloody hell do you think you’ve been?’ MacGregor realised that he’d come home at last. He closed the door behind him. ‘I’m terribly sorry, sir,’ he began.
‘Sorry?’ Dover was going to need a great deal more in the way of reparations than that. ‘You miserable little rat!’
‘It was hardly my fault, sir,’ protested MacGregor. ‘I managed to make the superintendent wait all of ten minutes, but after that I just couldn’t hold him.’
‘Blackleg!’ roared Dover. ‘You knew where I was!’
This was true and MacGregor didn’t attempt to deny it. The fact was that in the middle of the mass stampede to fulfil the Assistant Commissioner’s orders and get to Bristol, Dover had thrown a tiny spanner in the works by announcing that he would have to pay a short visit before undertaking the journey. Ignoring the protests that this statement aroused, he had ambled off to the downstairs gents’ – and as far as anybody knew had remained there.
‘When I came out,’ Dover grumbled on as he watched MacGregor squeeze into the chair behind his desk, ‘you’d all gone.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I assumed that you’d follow us.’
‘I did!’ snarled Dover. ‘All over the bloody country. Every time I arrived anywhere, you bloody lot had moved on somewhere else.’
MacGregor permitted himself the faintest shrug of his shoulders. ‘Once we got the first clue, sir, we had to get a move on. The child’s life could have been in deadly danger.’
‘Never mind that it was my bloody case,’ said Dover with an aggrieved sniff. ‘Never mind that I was the one who bloody solved it Ho, no, when it comes to collecting the glory, I can be elbowed aside like an old glove and have the cup of triumph dashed from my lips. And all because of an acute attack of diarrhoea.’
‘Oh, sir!’ moaned MacGregor who was finding it hard coming back to this sort of thing after his three days of freedom. He reached for his universal remedy. ‘Would you like a cigarette, sir?’
Dover’s eager hand was already out. ‘Thought you were never going to ask!’ he rumbled. ‘Well, go on, laddie! Tell us what happened!’
‘Happened, sir?’ Even MacGregor couldn’t believe that Dover didn’t know the whole story already. ‘Didn’t you read about it in the newspapers?’
‘What bloody chance have I had to read newspapers?’ demanded Dover reasonably enough. ‘The way I’ve been dashing around . . .’Strewth, I haven’t had my boots off for forty-eight hours and . . .’
MacGregor decided not to waste any more time. ‘Well, sir, with the arrest of the last Claret Tapper this morning, I think we can say that it’s all over. Everything’s pretty well tied up.’
‘Don’t spare me any of the boring details!’ advised Dover unpleasantly. ‘I’ve got to sit here till five o’clock whatever happens.’
‘Superintendent Trevelyan and I went to Bristol, sir.’
‘Taking every bloody police car with you,’ interrupted Dover, ‘as I know to my cost. Would you believe it took those peasants more than two bloody hours to rustle up some transport for me? If I hadn’t pulled my rank on ’em I’d be silting in that lousy pub yet.’
‘Couldn’t you have caught a train, sir? I believe there’s quite a good service from . . .’
Dover stared at his sergeant as though the young ponce had suddenly sprouted two heads. ‘Trains cost money, you moron! What am I supposed to be doing? Subsidising the bloody taxpayers now?’
‘Sorry, sir. I hadn’t thought of that.’ MacGregor swung his chair round and stared out of the window. Perhaps if he didn’t have to look at the old fool. . . ‘Well, when we reached Bristol, sir, we went straight to the Crown Court where the fellow in charge of the records had all the paperwork ready and waiting for us.
