The yawn was catching. The second kidnapper all but dislocated his jaw. ‘My heart bleeds for you, kiddo!’ he grunted. ‘Still, we’ve got more important things on our plate than your effing life and hard times. What I say is – if we’re going to dump Dover, let’s dump him quick!’
‘Haven’t I been telling you that for bloody hours?’ The first kidnapper picked up one of the beer cans and shook it hopefully. It was empty. ‘The thing is – how?’
‘What about the scheme we was saving for when the ransom had been paid?’
The first kidnapper stared thoughtfully at the third. ‘I suppose so. Anybody got a better idea?’
Nobody had.
The first kidnapper sighed and stretched himself. He stood up. ‘Come on, then! Let’s do it now and get it over with. Then we can go to bed. I’m bloody shagged.’
Number Two pulled himself to his feet. He dragged his pullover up and extracted a gun from the waist-belt of his jeans. ‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ he said as he followed the others from the room. ‘Next time I’m going to get myself a real shooter! I feel a right twit, toting a bleeding kid’s toy around.’
* * *
It was eight-thirty on Thursday morning. Victoria Street was crowded but Detective Sergeant MacGregor picked his way through the hurrying office workers and shop assistants with a light heart and a nimble foot. My, my – but life was good!. For the first time for many a long and dreary year Sergeant MacGregor was actually looking forward to the day’s work, though he was finding it hard to visualise what things would be like without Dover’s peevish, obtuse and sullen personality dominating the scene.
Oh, well, who cared about the details? It would be simply marvellous, that was for sure. MacGregor swung his black leather gents’ handbag happily from his wrist. It was the first day he’d ever dared bring it to the Yard but he felt the occasion of Dover’s thrice-blessed dissolution merited something more than that by way of celebration. MacGregor mulled the problem over as he floated on Cloud Nine down Broadway and up the steps of New Scotland Yard. It was only when he was in the lift that the ideal solution struck him. He’d buy himself a new hat! A hand-made, custom-built, curly-brimmed bowler to wear at Dover’s funeral!
MacGregor was still sniggering happily over the felicity of his plan when he reported half an hour later to Commander Brockhurst’s office.
‘You wanted to see me, sir?’
Commander Brockhurst glanced at MacGregor’s happy, smiling face and sighed. ‘You’d better sit down, sergeant.’
‘Thank you, sir!’ It was going to take a sledge-hammer to wipe the grin off MacGregor’s face.
Regretfully, the commander wielded it. ‘They’ve found Chief Inspector Dover,’ he said. ‘Done up in a plastic sack and dumped round the back of the Old Bailey with the rest of the rubbish. It was the dustbin men who found him.’
MacGregor was surprised. ‘Gosh, sir,’ he said, ‘these Claret Tappers don’t hang about, do they? It’s less than twelve hours since the Assistant Commissioner made his announcement on the television and here they’ve gone and killed poor old . . .’
‘Sergeant,’ interrupted Commander Brockhurst, firmly but compassionately, ‘Chief Inspector Dover isn’t dead.’
There was an anguished pause.
‘Isn’t dead, sir?’ queried MacGregor from a throat that had suddenly gone dry.
‘Far from it,’ said the commander who had already received a formal complaint from the dustbin men’s trade union representative about some of Dover’s remarks to his rescuers. ‘There doesn’t appear to be a scratch on him.’
MacGregor made the supreme effort. ‘Good,’ he murmured.
‘We’ve sent him to hospital for observation, though, just in case. They’ll probably keep him in till tomorrow.’
‘Till tomorrow,’ repeated MacGregor, trying to extract what comfort he could from that.
Commander Brockhurst, feeling that the worst was now over, shuffled some papers briskly on his desk. ‘Still, you’d better get over and see him right away. I want these kidnappers caught, sergeant, and no messing about. It’s bad for our image, having senior detectives snatched oh the streets of London. I’m putting Chief Inspector Dover, himself, in charge of the investigation, of course.’ For a brief second Commander Brockhurst let his official manner slip. His eyes twinkled. ‘At least the old devil won’t suffer from lack of motivation this time!’
Three
THE FROSTY GLARE THAT MACGREGOR GOT FROM THE GIRL on the reception desk told him that Dover had already left his mark (and it was probably an indelible one) on St Basil’s Hospital. Feeling pretty depressed, the sergeant made his way as slowly as he dared along the echoing corridors and up the chilly, uncarpeted stairs. All too soon he reached his objective and pushed open the door of the private room in which, not surprisingly, Dover had been put. Even in the Health Service, some consideration is shown for the welfare and comfort of the sick.
‘’Strewth,’ growled Dover in lieu of greeting, ‘you’ve taken your blooming time, haven’t you?’
‘They wouldn’t let me in before, sir,’ explained MacGregor. ‘They said you hadn’t got to be disturbed.’ It was a black lie of course but those who associate with Dover soon get used to bartering their immortal souls for a quiet life. MacGregor pulled up a chair to the bedside. ‘You’re looking frightfully lit, sir!’ This was true. Arrayed in a clean pair of hospital pyjamas and having been forcibly bathed by a nursing sister who campaigned for compulsory vasectomies for all males over the age of sixteen, Dover did indeed look strikingly more delectable than usual. Medical science hadn’t had time to do anything for such fundamentals as pernicious dandruff, chronic embonpoint and acute dyspepsia but
