MacGregor remained unconvinced but he knew better than to linger overlong on any one aspect, it being no distance at all to the end of Dover’s tether. He contented himself with making an important looking note in his notebook and went on with his questions.
‘Car tracks?’ Inspector Telford shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that. We had a good search round where the barbed wire fencing was cut, but we didn’t find anything. No footprints or tire marks or bits of cloth that’d got snagged there. Mind you, we’re only guessing anyhow that that’s where the body was brought onto the dump.’
MacGregor permitted himself a little sigh. It was going to be one of those cases. Come to think of it, most of Chief Inspector Dover’s were. ‘Have we any idea yet how long the chap’s been dead?’
‘The doctor thought probably a long time. Weeks rather than days, he said. Months, maybe.’
‘Years?’
‘I don’t think so.’
MacGregor closed his notebook. ‘Well, I suppose we’ll have a better idea after the P.M. There doesn’t seem much we can do until then. You’ve been in touch with Missing Persons, have you? Just in case there’s somebody who fits.’
‘Yes, we’ve got all the routine checks in hand.’ Inspector Telford leaned back in his chair and stretched himself. ‘Mind you, I don’t think they’ll lead to much. If we’re going to be able to identify the body as easily as that, why go to the trouble of disfiguring him?’
‘The damage to the head and face could have been accidental.’
‘And pigs might fly!’
‘It could have been revenge.’
‘Look, sergeant, the body was stripped of all its clothing. Even the teeth were removed. That chap had a complete set of dentures, top and bottom. Now, why take them out unless you want to stop us tracing him?’
‘Fingerprints!’
There was a moment’s panic and confusion before Inspector Telford realised that this was Dover now joining in the discussion. He’d been sitting there so long – slumped, silent and stuffed to the gills with cake – that everybody had forgotten about him.
‘Er – fingerprints, sir? Er – fingerprints on what, exactly?’
‘On the bloody corpse!’ snarled Dover, who didn’t suffer fools gladly.
Inspector Telford felt himself going red. ‘Round the neck, you mean, sir? Well, I don’t think there’s much chance of us getting. . .’
‘Not round the neck, you loony!’ rumbled Dover with mounting irritation. ‘On his hands!’
‘On his hands, sir?’
‘You are checking ’em, aren’t you?’ demanded Dover.
‘The corpse’s fingerprints? Oh, yes, of course, sir.’
‘Thank God for small mercies!’ observed Dover with that charm of manner which made so many people long to take a blunt instrument to him. He picked up his bowler hat from a nearby chair and screwed it back lovingly on his head. ‘I’ll want to see the report the minute it comes in but don’t disturb me. I’ve got a bit of quiet thinking to do. About the case!’ he added savagely as he fancied he caught a look flickering across his sergeant’s face. ‘Now, what’s this hotel you’re supposed to have booked us into?’
‘The Muncaster Arms, sir,’ said Inspector Telford, trying to put an unworthy suspicion out of his mind. ‘Er – there is just one small thing before you go, sir.’
‘What?’
‘We understand there’s a go-slow on in the Fingerprint Bureau, sir. Something about the over-time rates. It’s causing long delays. It may be weeks before we get a report on the dead man’s fingerprints.’
‘’Strewth!’ exploded Dover who always got very angry when he heard about other people downing tools and getting away with it. ‘Some people want a bloody bomb putting under ’em!’ He pulled himself to his feet and the caravan lurched unhappily as seventeen and a quarter stone of badly packaged fat slopped around in its interior. ‘Oh, well, let me know when something breaks.’ Dover was not unaware that some clouds have silver linings and he was more than willing to stay sitting on his backside and twiddling his thumbs for just as long as it took. And longer.’
The manager of the Muncaster Arms, an unpretentious hostelry, had been well briefed by the local police. The pressures of a full-scale murder investigation being what they are, it was extremely unlikely that the two high-powered detectives from London would do more than use their rooms for a quick shave and a change of shirt. The manager was quite looking forward to all the excitement and it came as something of a disappointment to be confronted by a fat, bad-tempered slob in a filthy overcoat and a disgusting bowler hat demanding a DO NOT DISTURB notice for his door.
The manger of the Muncaster Arms never felt quite the same about policemen after that.
Dover remained in his bedroom for the rest of the day, emerging only every hour to belabour the sanitary arrangements and for one trip downstairs to the dining room where he partook of a hearty dinner. The following morning, however, revealed a much more animated scene. The chief inspector, refreshed (if not thoroughly bored) by some fifteen hours sleep, was almost up and raring to go.
‘Does no harm to show your face once in a while,’ he informed his long-suffering sergeant who was privileged to be in attendance at the levée. ‘Keeps the idle beggars on their toes!’
‘The local chaps seem very conscientious, sir,’ said MacGregor, intent upon not looking at Dover standing there clad in nothing but a yellowing vest, one of the casualties of the War on Want. ‘Actually, I’ve been rather impressed by the way they’ve handled things.’
‘Fancy!’ grunted Dover, dragging on a pair of voluminous matching underpants. ‘Only trouble is, laddie, your opinions aren’t worth the bloody paper they’re written on.’ He dragged his paunch in and managed to get the safety-pin fastened.
MacGregor turned the other cheek. ‘Do you think we’re up against one of those gangland killings, sir?’
‘Don’t talk so bloody wet!’ Dover had never in his life failed to wallop the other cheek as
