‘We shall also have to re-interview the ones we’ve already seen, sir.’
The expectation of such unremitting toil began to leach the starch out of Dover’s iron resolve. ‘What for?’ he asked pathetically.
‘We didn’t know anything about this kangaroo court when we saw them the first time, sir. We thought we were dealing with a group of stamp collectors.’
‘Not me!’ boasted Dover, swinging effortlessly into his matchwinning mood. ‘I never fell for that. I had my suspicions right from the bloody start. I kept telling you what a clumsy bastard that toe doctor was, didn’t I? He damned near crippled me. Well, it stands to reason nobody fumbling around in great thick glasses like him could possibly manage with all those fiddly bits of paper. Same thing for that goat woman. She’d be more at home with a pickaxe instead of a pair of tweezers.’
‘How about handling a length of rope, sir?’
Dover caught on quickly. ‘Too right, laddie! She could have knocked Knapper off as soon as look at him. And so could that sadistic little rat of a toe doctor. He’d a grip like bloody steel. And what about that Special Branch lad? He’d got shoulders on him like a battleship – and he’s tough with it. ’Strewth, all three of ’em are more than capable physically of doing the murder or of humping the dead body around afterwards.’
‘I don’t doubt but that we shall find the next three suspects equally well endowed, sir.’
‘How do you make that out?’
They were hand-picked for the job, weren’t they, sir? Whoever selected them knew what they were going to have to do. Naturally, they went for people who could be relied upon to bring in a guilty verdict and be capable of carrying out the sentence afterwards. There was no room for even one milksop in that group. They all had to be capable of murder.’
Dover puffed his cheeks out doubtfully. ‘Are you including young Who’s-your-father in that lot?’
MacGregor was well versed in the way Dover’s – for want of a better word – mind worked. ‘Osmond, sir? Why not?’
Dover sniggered. ‘’Strewth, I’d like to see their faces if we nicked Osmond, eh? They’d have a bloody fit. It might be worth it, just for a laugh. Old Punchard’d be over the moon.’
‘Yes, 1 expect he would, sir.’ MacGregor had more than a touch of prig about him and sometimes it showed. He just didn’t see anything funny about arresting an innocent man for murder, even if he was a member of Special Branch. ‘Well, shall we be making a move, sir?’
Customers were beginning to come into the cafe for an early lunch and the aromatic smell of beefburgers, tomato sauce and chips made Dover even more reluctant than usual to get up and go. ‘Where to?’
To see Mr Michael Ruscoe, sir. He’s expecting us this afternoon. I took the liberty of giving him a ring and arranging a time while you were in the toilet.’
A look of deep disgust spread over Dover’s unprepossessing features, it’s just not safe for a chap to turn his back on you for a bloody instant, is it, laddie?’ he asked with studied ambiguity.
Fourteen
A mere thirty-six hours after Dover had set out with such a cheerful heart and light step, however, he came slinking back to London with his tail between his legs. It was, of course, pretty much the story of his life.
At first things had gone well. The train was on time and there was even a buffet car on board which enabled Dover to keep body and soul together for the whole seventy minutes of the journey. When they reached their destination, the promised police car was duly waiting in charge of a driver who may have lacked Elvira’s nubile charms but who did, on the other hand, know his right from his left. He conveyed his passengers to Mike Ruscoe’s address quickly and safely.
It was probably when Dover clawed his way out of the back seat that life began to turn sour. God knows, Dover knew better than to expect murder suspects to live in palaces, but this was going too far.
‘I think it’s a sort of garage, actually, sir,’ said MacGregor, indicating a battered sign which claimed that the specialities of Mike Ruscoe’s body shop were re-spraying and panel beating.
‘It’s a scrapyard!’ insisted Dover as he picked his way through rusting metal and old car seats. ‘Any fool can see that!’
The interview was apparently to take place in a tiny wooden the far corner of his workshop. The accommodation was cramped, but there would have been a sufficiency of room if Dover had not spread himself around so lavishly and if it had not been for the presence of an unexpected fourth party at the meeting.
Dover disliked Mr Ruscoe at sight. He hated all these aggressively body-conscious men who made a fetish of physical fitness and kept rippling their muscles under skimpy tee-shirts. Yes, Dover hated Mr Ruscoe, but it was the intrusive Weemys who really got up his nose.
Mr Weemys was a solicitor, retained by the Steel Band to protect Mike Ruscoe’s interests.
Dover could have spat. Indeed, he would have done if he’d been able to draw a deep enough breath in the restricting confines of that smelly little office. Given half a chance he could have run rings round Ruscoe. Not by using his favourite aids to interrogation, of course. Dover preferred to save his fists for expectant mothers, small children and old-age pensioners. Only a moron would contemplate giving Mike Ruscoe a punch up the throat, but it was obvious that the hairy brute was as thick as a couple of planks. Dover could have outwitted him, easy as falling off a log. Given a fair crack of the whip.
But that was just what Mr Weemys was there to prevent. It was soon apparent that the solicitor was one of these pernickety
