‘About men?’ asked MacGregor.
‘About everybody,’ said Doris, lowering her eyelids seductively. ‘Kept saying things like she was fed up with always being a door mat and that it was about time somebody else footed the bill for a change.’
Dover waited a moment in case Doris was going to elaborate on this statement. She wasn’t. ‘What did she mean?’
‘Search me.’
‘You didn’t ask?’
‘What for? I’ve got my own troubles, haven’t I?’
MacGregor consulted his notebook for inspiration. ‘Do you know anything about her boyfriends? Was there anybody special?’
‘I dunno. She used to hang around with some of them lads from the big RAF camp down the road. I reckon that’s why she hung on here for so long. Well, it’s not everywhere that’s got a supply of boys like that on tap, is it?’Course, they’re only Erks, but even so.’ Doris tossed her head and rearranged her hair on her shoulders. ‘You won’t catch me hanging round a dump like this when I leave home,’ she said. ‘I’ll be off to London. Or New York. Or somewhere.’
‘Why did she ask for the day off on the Saturday, the day before she got the sack?’
‘Search me.’ Doris was beginning to get bored. Had the conversation centred round her she might have displayed more animation. But—about a mere fellow worker and a dead one at that? Dullsville!
It was Dover who succeeded in getting her to adopt a more helpful attitude. Nubile young women had long since ceased to have any effect upon his blood pressure and this enabled him to take a less indulgent line. He addressed MacGregor across Doris. ‘Let’s take her down to the nick,’ he said. ‘Her memory might improve after a few hours shut up all alone in a rat-infested police cell.’
‘Ooh, you wouldn’t dare!’ squealed Doris.
Dover leered. ‘Wouldn’t I?’
‘Well, I’m doing my best, honest.’ Doris pouted prettily and edged nearer to MacGregor.
‘They can send you to prison for it.’
Doris, wide-eyed, stared at Dover. ‘For what?’
‘For withholding information from the police in the execution of their bloody duty,’ explained Dover, managing to make it sound like a hanging job.
‘Aw, come off it!’ Doris giggled as she remembered that you didn’t have to bother about Authority or policemen or anything, really, in these enlightened days.
‘You’ll see!’ promised Dover menacingly.
Doris relaxed completely and produced the clincher. ‘My dad’s a shop steward!’ she announced gleefully. ‘You try pushing me around, copper, and you’ll have a general strike on your hands!’
Dover scowled but, in view of his imminent entry into the world of industry via Pomeroy Chemicals Limited, he decided not to take any risks. The last thing he wanted at that particular moment in time was to find himself in the middle of some sordid trade union dispute. He contented himself with shoving his cup across for a refill and allowed the business of incarcerating the fair Doris in a dungeon to drop.
MacGregor poured the oil. ‘It’s just that we were counting on you being able to help us,’ he told Doris with a sad little smile. ‘Pearl was a friend of yours, you know, and somebody .did kill her. Can’t you think of anything that might help us?’
Doris played with the sugar bowl. ‘Well, there was that telephone call,’ she said grudgingly.
MacGregor tried not to pounce. ‘She got a telephone call?’
‘No, dumbie, she made one! Here, don’t go telling old Ermengilda, will you? She’d go spare if she knew we was using her phone for private calls.’
MacGregor promised, being more concerned with murder than ethics. ‘When did she make this call?’
‘Oh, the Monday or the Tuesday before she cleared off. Or it might have been the Wednesday. One day’s much the same as another in this lousy dump.’
‘And who did she make it to?’
Doris looked surprised. ‘Well, I don’t know, do I? I was outside the office keeping guard in case old Ermengilda come sneaking back, wasn’t I? All I know is she wanted a Birmingham number.’
‘A Birmingham number?’ MacGregor’s noble brow crinkled up as he tried to make head or tail of this new piece of information.
‘’Sright.’ Doris was busy examining her finger-nails. ‘We couldn’t find that little book with the dialling codes in it, could we? So she had to ring ’em up and ask what it was. That’s how I come to know it was Birmingham she wanted.’
‘But you don’t know the number?’
‘’Course I don’t, stupid!’ Doris was no longer finding MacGregor very attractive. He was quite good looking, of course, but – oh, Dragsville! ‘Once she got the code, she dialled the number, didn’t she? What was I supposed to do? Count the clicks?’
MacGregor glanced hopefully at Dover on the off chance that he might be preparing to lash out again. Pity. MacGregor would have quite liked to see Doris get a thumping.
‘And,’ concluded Doris, pushing her chair back and standing up, ‘I didn’t hear what Pearl said because I was outside the room with the door closed. Added to which, I wasn’t blooming well interested. Can I go now? Miss Ermengilda’s been looking daggers at me for ages and I don’t want to get into her bad books just along of you lot, do I?’
MacGregor slipped in a final question as Miss Ermengilda bore down on them. ‘Do you know of anybody who’d be likely to want to murder Pearl Wallace?’
Doris hadn’t the least. Nor had Miss Ermengilda, to whom MacGregor posed the same query.
Miss Ermengilda managed the distressing business of grossly over-charging her customers with considerable aplomb and then enquired if the case was likely to generate any publicity.
‘It might,’ said MacGregor, counting his change unbelievingly for the second time. ‘There’s not been much so far, but the media may start taking an interest now that we’ve got a name for
