‘I’ll tell you which way,’ said Osmond as they piled into the car, ‘and no funny business. I’ve got my gun right here. One false move and the chief inspector here’ll get it.’
MacGregor magnanimously put the temptation right behind him but Dover, who was sharing the back seat with Osmond, was highly indignant.
‘’Strewth,’ he protested, ‘you’re supposed to threaten to shoot the bloody girl first!’
MacGregor was beginning to get bored with all this playacting. ‘Why on earth should I try anything?’ he asked. ‘We’re both on the same side, aren’t we? Frankly, I think your whole attitude is rather silly.’
Osmond squirmed. ‘You can’t be too careful.’
‘Rubbish!’ said MacGregor.
‘It’s all right for you,’ retorted Osmond. ‘I’m the one who’s going to finish up dead if anything goes wrong.’
‘And you seriously think that Detective Chief Inspector Dover and I are going to put your life in jeopardy?’
‘There’s the girl,’ muttered Osmond sulkily. ‘She’s blown my cover once.’
MacGregor was unsympathetic. ‘If you hadn’t lost your head,’ he pointed out, ‘you could have dealt with that problem without all this fuss. All that’s happened now is that you’ve given her a full-scale mystery to get her teeth into.’
‘My boss’ll fix her,’ said Osmond grimly. ‘And maybe I did go a bit over the top when she came barging in, but I’ve been under a hell of a lot of strain recently. We’re not made of iron, you know.’
This plea for understanding didn’t soften MacGregor’s heart. He reckoned that any young copper who hadn’t gone through his baptism of fire as Dover’s assistant didn’t know the half of it. Let ’em try trailing around with Scotland Yard’s most unwanted man and see how they liked it! Good grief, MacGregor could tell stories that would bring tears to the eyes of the most case-hardened coppers. Stories of degradation, humiliation, frustration, consternation, embarrassment. . .
Gradually, and in spite of everybody’s individual preoccupations, the atmosphere in the police car grew lighter. MacGregor grumbled himself into a better mood and Elvira was really enjoying just sitting there and looking out of the window without having all those pedals and gears and switches and things to worry about. Dover, of course, was as contented as a pig in muck. He’d polished off the remnants of his lunch and was now about to treat himself to a well-earned nap. Sagging back like a half-filled sack of King Edwards, he gave a belch of pure contentment and closed his eyes.
After a few miles, Osmond leaned forward and spoke softly so as not to disturb Dover. ‘How did you come to identify Knapper so quickly?’ he asked. ‘I mean, one minute the papers are full of a badly disfigured, unidentified body and the next bloody minute there you lot are, waving your truncheons and kicking old Pettitt’s door in.’ He chuckled. ‘God, you put the wind up him, all right! He’ll be wetting his pants for weeks! Mrs Hall, now, – well, she’s a different kettle of fish. Takes more than a couple of rough-necked coppers to ruffle her feathers.’
MacGregor glanced severely at Osmond’s image in the rear mirror. ‘We didn’t even try,’ he said stiffly. ‘We’re only making preliminary enquiries. There’s no point in leaning on anybody at this stage.’
Osmond snorted sceptically. ‘Now pull the other one!’ he invited. ‘I’m not one of the mugs out there, you know. You don’t have to tell me what happens when a bunch of cops go round asking a few routine questions. Bloody murder! And you toffs from the Murder Squad are no better than anybody else. You go around putting the fear of God into folks for kicks like the rest of us.’
MacGregor maintained a prim silence.
‘Anyhow,’ – Osmond seemed unaware that his observations might have caused offence – ‘you still haven’t told me how you got onto it being Knapper so quick.’
MacGregor couldn’t see that the revelation of a few minor details about the identification of a murder victim could do much harm. It might even do some good by constituting a favour which one day would have to be repaid. ‘We were lucky,’ he admitted. ‘It seems that shortly before he died Knapper managed to swallow one of those little plastic, blue bead things they use instead of cash at the Rankin’s Holiday Ranches.’
Osmond nodded. ‘The Funny Money? I remember. God, the chap who thought up that racket deserves a medal! And a ten-year stretch on the Moor! Blimey, I reckon we were paying at least double for a pint of beer. Still . . .’ He remembered that it was the tax-payer who was picking up the bill and stopped feeling quite so aggrieved. ‘So, old Knapper managed to swallow a bead, did he? Well, well, he must have had more gumption than I gave him credit for. And more imagination. But,’ – he frowned thoughtfully at the back of MacGregor’s head – ‘there must have been millions of people with access to those beads at one time or another. You can’t have had time to process everybody.’
‘Actually, there aren’t as many as you might think,’ said MacGregor, continuing to drive along smoothly and steadily. ‘The Funny Money patterns are changed every season and each Holiday Ranch has its own individual set.’
Osmond nodded. ‘To stop counterfeiting? Yes, I did wonder myself if it might be worth trying to make your own.’
‘In those circumstances it didn’t take us long to narrow things down to Bowerville-by-the-sea. Even then, we might have had quite a job on our hands if it hadn’t been for the venison.’
‘Oh, that venison! I’d forgotten that. Saturday lunch, wasn’t it? I suppose it’s not something they dish up very often.’
‘Only for that one particular meal, as it happens. Fortunately for us. Once we’d got that far, it wasn’t too difficult to home in on this Dockwra Society.’
‘And that led you straight to our charismatic leader, Mr Pettitt, and he pointed the
