‘He told you to?’ repeated MacGregor.
‘Years ago. When we were first married. “If anything happens to me, Doreen,” he said, “you destroy everything. Don’t hang about! Burn all my papers and get rid of the rest.” So I did.’
‘What did he say that for?’
‘How do I know?’ Mrs Knapper was beginning to get as fed up with all this doorstep interrogation as Dover was. ‘Probably trying to make himself look all romantic and mysterious. Like a spy or something. He was for ever playing silly buggers like that. I stopped paying him any attention years ago.’
Dover lowered himself gingerly onto the little party wall which separated the Knapper front garden from its neighbour. He’d been pondering on the move for some time and had finally reached the conclusion that, while his poor feet were a present reality, piles were only a future possibility.
MacGregor hurried on. ‘You say your husband went off one weekend? Have you any idea where he was going?’
‘If he said, I wasn’t listening. He was alway buzzing off some place or other.’
‘Did he ever mention Rankin’s Holiday Ranches? Or Bowerville-by-the-sea? Or Muncaster?
As far as the gutter press was concerned, Mrs Knapper was a well-read woman. ‘That stiff they found on the rubbish heap?’ she asked with considerable interest. ‘You think that’s Arthur?’ MacGregor admitted that this possibility had indeed crossed the police mind. He repeated the official description of the body.
Mrs Knapper had no doubts. ‘That’s him!’ she declared roundly. ‘Here, haven’t you got a picture or something?’ MacGregor reluctantly produced his gruesome photograph. ‘Cor strike a light!’ Even Mrs Knapper was taken aback. ‘Blimey,’ she said, ‘they give him a right going over, didn’t they? Still,’ – she recovered her natural optimism and handed the photograph back to MacGregor – ‘it’s him. I’ll take my Bible oath on it.’
‘Had your husband any identifying marks on his body?’
‘Smooth as a baby’s bottom!’ said Mrs Knapper cheerfully. ‘Just like a fat, white slug. Here,’ – her eyes sparkled – ‘there’ll be compensation for this, won’t there? Beside the insurance, I mean. Well, he’s been the victim of criminal violence, he has, and we were man and wife. I’m his bleeding next of kin and everything.’ She ran her tongue over her lips. ‘I wonder if the Citizen’s Advice is still open? Oh, well,’ – she relaxed and propped herself up comfortably against the door jamb – ‘there’s no hurry, is there? First thing tomorrow morning’ll do.’
Approaching footsteps came heavily down the hall and the figure of a man loomed up behind Mrs Knapper’s shoulder. He was a big man with an unshaven chin and a sweaty check shirt sagging seductively open to the navel.
‘What you doing, Doreen?’ he demanded.
Mrs Knapper turned her head to smile at the newcomer with a smug, proprietary smile. ‘Shan’t be just a sec, George,’ she cooed. ‘It’s only the fuzz. You go and get yourself another beer or something, love.’
‘The fuzz? What the hell do they want?’
‘They’ve come about Arthur.’
‘That little sod!’
‘He’s dead, love,’ said Mrs Knapper in the mildest of mild reproof.
‘Not before bleeding time!’ growled George and withdrew from the scene.
Mrs Knapper smiled indulgently after him and, this time, vouchsafed an explanation. ‘He’s my lodger. He’s a lovely man but he can’t bear being kept waiting, if you follow my meaning.’
MacGregor preferred not to. ‘When did you last see your husband?’
‘A couple of months ago, I suppose. I forget.’
‘And you say he often went away from home?’
‘Sometimes.’ Mrs Knapper shrugged her shoulders in eloquent indifference. ‘To tell you the truth, it got so’s I hardly noticed. He’d got his hobbies and I’d’ – she jerked her head ever so slightly in the direction of the absent George – ‘I’d got mine.’
MacGregor watched rather hopelessly as Mrs Knapper took a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and flicked her lighter. It was a spectacle calculated to have Dover running amuck. ‘Why didn’t you report Mr Knapper’s disappearance to the police?’ asked MacGregor as he assiduously gave Dover his own nicotine comforter.
‘How was I to know he’d snuffed it? I thought he’d just taken a powder or something. And what with him being so secretive and everything, I reckoned the last thing he wanted was publicity.’
‘But what about his work?’
‘What about it?’
‘Didn’t anybody come round making enquiries when he didn’t show up?’
‘Piano tuner,’ said Mrs Knapper shortly. ‘Self-employed. One or two of ’em did ring up to ask where the hell he’d got to so I just said he was poorly and he’d be getting in touch.’
Even a cigarette wasn’t going to hold Dover much longer. MacGregor broke into a gabble. ‘Is there anything left that might have Mr Knapper’s fingerprints on it?’
‘So’s you can compare ’em with the corpse’s?’ Mrs Knapper shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I made a clean sweep, you see, while I was at it. Still’ – she flipped her lighted cigarette end, neatly and accurately, into her next-door neighbour’s front garden – ‘you don’t have to bother about things like that. I’ll identify him for you. No trouble.’
There were numerous other questions that MacGregor felt he ought to ask but Dover was already thinking about clambering to his feet. MacGregor accepted the inevitable and politely raised his hat. ‘Very well, madam,’ he said, ‘I’ll make all the necessary arrangements. I’m afraid we shall have to ask you to go up to Muncaster to make the identification and give evidence at the inquest.’
‘Just as long as I get my expenses,’ said Mrs Knapper comfortably.
MacGregor felt that, in the interest of justice, he ought to issue a warning. ‘You do realise that you mustn’t say the dead man is your husband unless you’re absolutely sure? It’s a criminal offence to . . .’
But Mrs Knapper was lending both ears to another raucous bellow from the back of the house. George was getting restless again, ‘I’ll be sure, dear,’ she promised MacGregor with a vague but kindly smile. Although nothing like the man
