Dover Beats the Band

up to the announcement of the verdict at the trial more or less agreed with what Osmond had said. Only the question of whether Knapper had been held in chains and under guard was in dispute. From the verdict on, though, the Ruscoe/Weemys version came down very heavily on the completely innocuous side. Knapper had merely been formally expelled from the Steel Band and, when he left the courtroom, that was the last Mike Ruscoe had seen of him. No, he wasn’t claiming that Knapper had left the holiday camp on that Saturday night. He was merely stating that, as far as he could recall, he personally hadn’t seen the miscreant again. No doubt it was an entirely appropriate sense of shame that had kept Knapper from imposing his company on his erstwhile companions.

Car keys. Where had Mr Ruscoe’s car keys been kept during the weekend at Bowerville-by-the-sea? In his trouser pocket, of course. Or on the bed-side table. Why?

But that was as far as MacGregor dared to go, in spite of Dover’s bland assurances that Commander Punchard was ready and willing to back them all the way. MacGregor was afraid to push any harder in case he started arousing suspicions about where the police had got their information from. Once that happened, it wouldn’t take a ferret like Weemys long to arrive at Osmond. MacGregor was still very reluctant to blow the Special Branch man’s cover but he knew he’d get no more out of Mike Ruscoe unless he took that risk.

Oh, hell!

The decision to bring the proceedings to a close was greeted with universal relief. Dover began waddling back to the police car like a pregnant homing pigeon while Weemys and Ruscoe triumphantly exchanged the Steel Band salute. This consisted in striking the right arm, with the palm rigidly open and facing downwards, across the chest so that the thumb-edge of the hand made contact exactly over the heart. If the description of this simple and sincere gesture sounds complicated, it must be remembered that, where hand and finger signals are concerned, it behoves one to get it absolutely right.

Dover showed unaccustomed vigour in stopping MacGregor joining him in the car. ‘You’ve got some shopping to do, laddie!’ he declared, indicating a complete readiness to slam the door shut whether or not MacGregor removed his fingers.

‘Shopping, sir?’

‘Cigarettes, you fool! And get a couple of packets while you’re at it!’

MacGregor turned meekly away and Dover was just about to close the door completely so as to keep out the cold when he found it was being held open by a hand clothed in a warm, woolly glove. It was Mr Weemys.

‘I wonder,’ said Mr Weemys, baring his teeth in as artificial a smile as Dover’s own, ‘if I may prevail upon you for a lift?’

‘Eh?’

‘You are on your way to see Mr Frederick Braithwaite, aren’t you?’

‘What?’

Many of Mr Weemys’s clients were just as slack-mouthed and inarticulate so he wasn’t as disconcerted by Dover’s pixilated mouthings as he might have been. ‘I don’t drive myself, you see,’ he explained as he bent forward and ducked his head, ‘and it would save me taking a taxi. We’ve all got to do our bit to conserve fossil fuels, haven’t we? So kind!’

‘Push off!’ said Dover as understanding dawned at last. ‘Beat it!’

‘But we’re both going to the same place, Chief Inspector!’ objected Mr Weemys, trying to deflect Dover’s clenched fist away from his nose.

‘Shove off!’ snarled Dover.

MacGregor returned in time to catch the tail end of this unedifying little exchange and for a fleeting moment wondered if Mr Weemys was trying to bribe Dover. Then he decided that Mr Weemys wouldn’t be such a fool and nor would Dover be repelling such an overture with quite such a display of fury.

‘The cheeky beggar was trying to scrounge a lift!’ snorted Dover, scrabbling away at the cellophane wrapping on one of the packets. ‘I sent him off with a flea in his ear!’

‘To Braithwaite’s place, sir?’

‘Or wherever,’ agreed Dover, going quite limp as he dragged the first lungful of smoke down.

‘Doesn’t it strike you as odd, sir, that the Steel Band suddenly seems to know every move we make?’

‘Not especially,’ said Dover.

‘We arrange to see Ruscoe, and Weemys is there waiting for us. We fix an interview with Braithwaite, and Weemys is going there, too. When we get round to Valentine, I suppose Weemys’ll be there as well, holding his hand.’

‘Sure to be,’ said Dover, happily letting a lump of cigarette ash drop down his waistcoat and take its chance with the gravy, dandruff, soft-boiled egg and beer stains that were already there. ‘Natural enough, if you ask me.’

‘But they didn’t bother laying on this sort of protection when we went to interview Pettitt and Mrs Hall, sir.’

‘That’s because we didn’t know they’d anything to do with the Steel Band, did we?’ asked Dover impatiently. ‘Now all that side of it’s out in the open, they’re just taking a few sensible precautions.’

MacGregor shook his head. ‘But how did they know we’re no longer swallowing that stamp-collecting society story, sir?’

‘Search me,’ said Dover glumly.

‘Somebody must have tipped them off, sir.’

‘Well, it wasn’t me, laddie!’

‘Nor me, sir. And it couldn’t have been Pettitt or Mrs Hall because, as far as they were concerned, we knew nothing about the Steel Band connection at all. That only leaves one other possibility.’

Dover sank deep into his overcoat. ‘You’re not suggesting Special Branch spilt the beans, are you?’

‘If they did, sir, they’ve put a very neat spoke in our wheel. The Steel Band are going to admit to everything except murder. And with the whole bunch of them telling the same story, we’re going to be up against a brick wall.’

‘Garn,’ said Dover without too much conviction. ‘Special Branch wouldn’t shop us like that. I mean, why should they? What’s in it for them?’

‘It could be one way of ensuring that Osmond remains the Steel Band’s little white-haired boy, sir,’ mused MacGregor, trying to pick his way through the