It was fortunate that MacGregor could recognise hot air when he saw it, otherwise the shock of hearing the chief inspector using four-letter words like ‘work’ and ‘duty’ in a non-pejorative sense might have sent him driving the car into the nearest ditch. As it was, he contented himself with issuing the warning he was sure Dover was longing to hear. ‘I’m afraid we must take Sven seriously, sir. After all, he has all the power of Special Branch behind him.’
‘Bloody Swede!’ snarled Dover in what should have been one last token explosion of defiance. But, instead of letting things fizzle gently out in the normal way, Dover lowered his voice. ‘Actually, laddie, I’ve been thinking.’
MacGregor’s heart sank. ‘Have you, sir?’
Dover glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Elvira’s ears weren’t flapping. He saw that she was still too cocooned in her own troubles to be bothered eavesdropping on a couple of rotten male chauvinists. ‘Punchard!’ hissed Dover, revealing his secret weapon with a snicker of triumph.
‘Punchard, sir?’ repeated MacGregor. ‘Our Punchard?’
‘Who else?’ Dover heaved himself closer to MacGregor and the gear lever disappeared totally from view. Commander Punchard was head of the Murder Squad and Dover’s immediate boss. It was not a name, therefore, to be shouted from the housetops. ‘Punchard,’ hissed Dover, ‘and’ – his lips approached right up to MacGregor’s ear – ‘Croft-Fisher!’
‘Croft-Fisher, sir?’ Even at this moment of extreme tension and high drama, MacGregor couldn’t help marvelling how odd it was that Dover could always remember names when he wanted to. ‘Commander Croft-Fisher, sir? The head of Special Branch?’
‘They loathe each other’s guts!’ crooned Dover ecstatically. ‘Have done for years. Croft-Fisher tried to shoot Punchard once.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that’s quite true, actually, sir.’
‘’Course it’s bloody true!’ snarled Dover. ‘You calling me a liar? I met a chap who knew somebody who was there when it happened. It was right after Punchard got Croft-Fisher’s blueeyed boy put away for five years for taking bribes. ’Strewth, you’ll be telling me next that wasn’t a frame-up.’
‘Well, actually, sir . . .’
‘I know the copper who did it!’ yelped Dover. ‘He’s a bloody chief inspector now. He faked the lot – photographs, tape recordings, bank statements, everything. And planted the marked money in the chap’s sofa. You know Punchard – nothing if not thorough.’
MacGregor could see little profit in arguing about these hardy annuals of Scotland Yard mythology. Commander Punchard was a tough, ambitious man and, if he hadn’t in reality committed all the crimes of which rumour accused him, it probably wasn’t for the want of trying. It was much more important to find out what Dover had in mind – though MacGregor had a horrible sinking feeling that he already knew. ‘How do Commander Punchard and Commander Croft-Fisher come into the picture, sir?’
Dover chuckled. ‘If you want to go spitting in Special Branch’s eye, Punchard’s your man,’ he said. ‘Back you up to the bloody hilt. Through thick and thin. Shoulder to shoulder,’ declared Dover, letting his wishful thinking run riot. ‘I’m going to see him first thing tomorrow morning.’
‘Oh, do you think that’s wise, sir?’ MacGregor wasn’t certain his hands were shaking but he dropped his speed down to twenty miles an hour just in case. Memories of past encounters between Commander Punchard and Dover came flooding in. The wounding aspersions which had been cast, in a bellow penetrating to the furthermost recesses of Scotland Yard, on Dover’s work-rate, honesty, intelligence and parentage. The hysterical threats of actual bodily harm if either dyspepsia or constipation cropped up in the discussion again. The aweinspiring spectacle of Commander Punchard, tears of frustration streaming down his face, kicking his desk to pieces while Dover went mulishly on trying to squeeze another week’s sick leave out of him.
Ah, those were the days.
Not that there’d been anything like that recently. Commander Punchard’s doctor had seen to that. Worried about rising blood pressure, apoplexy and cardiac arrest, he had sensibly put Dover in the forbidden-fruit category. Nowadays Commander Punchard kept Dover at a distance, communicating with him only through intermediaries and ensuring that he was assigned to cases as far away as possible from London. Commander Punchard, MacGregor suspected, was not going to be best pleased to see Dover’s pasty face and moth-eaten moustache looming up over his mid-morning coffee.
‘Only thing to do,’ grunted Dover, answering MacGregor’s question of three paragraphs back. ‘Like I said, with Punchard backing us, Special Branch can stuff it. He won’t stand for that bunch of parlour pinks telling us how to do our job.’
‘Even Commander Punchard might find himself inhibited by the Official Secrets Act, sir.’
‘Garn!’ snorted Dover, revealing a hitherto unsuspected veneration for his boss. ‘Old Punchie doesn’t give that’ – Dover achieved a flabby snap of his fingers – ‘for all your red tape rubbish!’
Once he realised that nothing was going to stop the chief inspector (except if he forgot or simply over-slept), MacGregor felt obliged to see that protocol was observed. ‘Very well, sir,’ he said with quiet resignation, ‘I’ll ring up and make an appointment for you.’
Dover came down from Cloud Nine with a bump. It was three years since he’d actually met the commander face to face and there was clearly no future in giving the pig-headed old bastard prior warning, ‘I’ll just drop in on the off chance,’ said Dover airily. ‘No need to make a bloody meal of it. Besides,’ he went on crossly as he saw that MacGregor was about to object, ‘Special Branch may have a tap on his phones or something. We’ve got to box this one careful, you know, or we’ll be right up the bloody creek without a leg to stand on.’
What really happened when Dover finally bulldozed his way into the
