by Joyce Porter
‘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 well. ‘You’ve been reading too many of those stupid thrillers.’
‘It’s got all the hallmarks of a professional job, though, don’t you think, sir?’ MacGregor was actually more concerned with clarifying his own ideas than soliciting Dover’s. ‘Cutting that barbed-wire fence so neatly, stripping the body and removing the teeth, burying it in a rubbish dump . . . As Inspector Telford pointed out, with a modicum of luck we’d have never found out about the murder at all. Even now the odds are well against us being able to identify the victim. The whole business has a certan smoothness and coolness about it that’s just not typical of your ordinary, run-of-the-mill murder.’
If there was one thing Dover didn’t waste time on, it was arguments that he looked like losing. Skilfully he directed the discussion into less contentious channels. He held up the tumbler from his bedside table in a meaty, accusing paw. ‘Have you nicked my teeth?’ he demanded hotly.
It was at moments like this that Sergeant MacGregor was grateful that his dear mother couldn’t see him. It would have broken her heart. ‘I think you’ve already got them in, sir,’ he said quietly, stifling a well-nigh overpowering impulse to ram the aforementioned dentures right down the abominable old fool’s abominable throat.
Dover acknowledged the solution to his problem with an exploratory munch and an ill-natured grunt. ‘A professional killer,’ he pointed out, ‘would have made one-hundred-percent bloody certain that we never found the body. He’d have used more men on the job, for a start.’
‘But we don’t know how many men, sir, were . . .’
‘Course we do! One! That’s why the body wasn’t taken a damned sight further into the rubbish tip and that’s why it wasn’t buried at least five or six feet down in a proper grave. The sloppy way it was done is proof positive it was a one-man job. He was too scared or too hurried or too bloody exhausted to make absolutely sure.’
Naturally MacGregor would rather have died than admit it, but it did strike him that there might be a tiny, mustard-seed size of sense in what Dover was saying. Not that he was prepared to abandon his own theory entirely. He still thought that there were definite indications that the dead body of the unknown man had been disposed of by somebody who was far from being either an amateur or a mug. Still, it was far too early to start theorising. What they needed at this stage was plenty of good, hard facts.
The telephone by Dover’s bed rang and MacGregor hurried across to answer it while Dover put the finishing touches to his toilet.
‘We’ll be with you in five minutes!’ MacGregor promised, the excitement of the news he’d just heard making him reckless. He put the phone down and turned to Dover who was moodily scraping at what looked like a lump of antique scrambled egg on his waistcoat. ‘That was Inspector Telford, sir! There’s been a new development! He’s waiting for us at the Operations Room.’
Two
It was always a mistake to try and rush Dover, a fact MacGregor remembered a little too late. Dover had two speeds – dead slow and reverse – and so, instead of five, it was thirty-five minutes before they made it to the Operations Room.
Dr Hone-Hitchcock, the eminent pathologist who had performed the post mortem, was not best pleased. Assuming that the detective in charge of the investigation would be anxious to have the results without delay, Dr Hone-Hitchcock had come round to deliver the gist of his report in person, confident that he would find Scotland Yard’s Finest already hard at work by half past eight in the morning.
‘God damn it!’ he exploded to Inspector Telford, holding his watch up to his ear to make sure it was still going, i can’t hang around here all day! Where the hell is he?’
Inspector Telford had been wondering about that, too. They’ve probably got held up in the traffic, sir,’ he said soothingly.
‘What traffic?’ demanded Dr Hone-Hitchcock who had a very fiery temperament for a pathologist. ‘Muncaster’s rush-hour consists of six bicycles and a pram – and it was over three hours ago.’
‘Perhaps Mr Dover is pursuing some line of his own, sir, and it’s taking him a bit longer than they anticipated.’
‘Balls!’ retorted Dr Hone-Hitchcock with lamentable crudeness. ‘He was still in bed when you rang through, wasn’t he?’
‘Well, maybe he’s . . .’
Mercifully Inspector Telford’s inventive powers were saved from further strain by the arrival of a car which drew up beside the caravan. It was the Great Man himself and Inspector Telford went out to welcome him and assist in hoisting him up the caravan steps which were, as Inspector Telford freely admitted, a touch on the precipitous side for a man of Dover’s build.
Dr Hone-Hitchcock had prepared quite a scholarly dissertation on his autoptical findings, but one look at Dover and he jettisoned it. ‘I thought you’d like to have the P.M. results without delay,’ he began when the introductions had been made and they’d got Dover settled in his chair.
Dover responded with his usual charm. ‘No skin off my nose either way,’ he grunted. ‘Just don’t go making a meal of it. The bare bones’ll do me.’ He sniggered delightedly at his own wit.
‘The deceased,’ said Dr Hone-Hitchcock shortly, ‘was a middle-aged man. Flabby, over-weight and generally out of condition, thought there were no signs of any specific disease and no operation scars. I put his age about forty-five. At some time in his youth he broke his left arm, though I doubt if that’s going to be of much help to you. Now, the cause of death. He was strangled from behind with a thin rope which was held tightly round his neck until life was extinct. Just held, not knotted. Time of death? Well, anything from four to eight weeks I’d guess, and he was placed in that hole on the rubbish dump within twenty-four hours of his death. Sorry I can’t be more precise, but you know what it’s like. By the way, there’s no dental evidence. He hadn’t got a tooth in his head. Complete clearance, top and bottom. He wore dentures, of course, but those are missing.’
Dover stirred restlessly. ’Strewth, some people didn’t half like the sound of their own lah-di-dah voices! ‘I thought you were supposed to have found something new?’
‘I’d like first of all,’ said Dr Hone-Hitchcock icily, ‘to clear up the matter of the burns round the head and face.’
‘Oh, big bloody deal!’ muttered Dover, not quite as sotto voce as common politeness would have required.
Dr Hone-Hitchcock’s nostrils flared. He was already promising himself he’d put a formal complaint in about this ill-mannered lout. Dr Hone-Hitchcock was a man of some eminence and his channels of communication went right up to the top. He’d cook this boor’s goose for him, by God he would!
‘ The burns were caused by petrol. Lighter fuel, probably. A bottleful was poured over the head after death and then set alight. The burns were superficial but they did singe and blacken the skin, and most of the hair on the head and face was burnt off.’
There was a pause.
‘Is that it?’ asked Dover with a disparaging sniff.
Dr Hone-Hitchcock clenched his jaw. ‘I did find this,’ he said, in the stomach.’
With a flourish which, even in these unpropitious circumstances, couldn’t help being a trifle theatrical, Dr Hone-Hitchcock placed a little blue object, the size of a smallish lump of sugar, on the table in front of Dover.
&nbs
p; Dover poked at it despondently. ‘What the hell is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
McGregor got down on his hands and knees to retrieve the little blue cube from the floor of the caravan. At least Dover’s clumsiness ensured that the brains of the partnership managed to get a good look at the clue.
‘I don’t think it’s a bead,’ said MacGregor, pretending not to see that Dover wanted it back again. ‘There’s no hole for a string to go through.’
Dr Hone-Hitchcock turned gratefully to what appeared to be, if only in comparision with some, a veritable paragon of a policeman. ‘There is that small protuberance on the one side,’ he pointed out, ‘and the small socket on the other. It looks to me as though, if we had two of them, we could sort of clip one into the other.’
It was Inspector Telford’s turn to muscle in on the act. ‘Poppets!’ he announced triumphantly, taking the little blue artefact out of MacGregor’s hand. ‘Do you remember them?’ They used to be all the rage. They were necklaces of beads that weren’t strung together on a string but were slipped into each other. Woolworth’s used to sell them. I remember my daughter had one. The thing was, you see, that you could fasten and unfasten them anywhere so you could make them into bracelets or have them any length you wanted.’
MacGregor took the bead back again. Trust the uniformed branch to start trying to play the detective!
‘Mind you,’ said Inspector Telford lamely, ‘the things I’m thinking of didn’t really look much like this. They were more sort of pearly and not as big.’
MacGregor took the bead over to the window. ‘There are some letters stamped on it,’ he said. ‘Has anybody got a magnifying glass?’
It was several minutes before one of the policewomen found the Murder Bag which MacGregor had brought down from the Yard. It did contain a magnifying glass which was rather surprising as Dover had tipped most of the equipment out years ago to make room for his pyjamas and a spare pair of socks.
MacGregor squinted importantly through the lens. ‘Yes,’ he announced, ‘three capital letters – R, H, and R – and the numbers two and five. Twenty-five, perhaps.’ He looked round at his audience. ‘What do you make of that?’
The policewoman who’d brought the Murder Bag provided the answer. ‘It’s Funny Money,’ she said nonchalantly.
‘What?’
‘Funny Money?’
‘What are you talking about, girl?’
‘Who the hell asked her to go sticking her bloody nose in?’
In due course things calmed down sufficiently for the policewoman to explain, though she couldn’t for the life of her see why it was necessary. Hadn’t any of these clever dicks ever been to a holiday camp?
‘A holiday camp?’ repeated MacGregor incredulously. ‘What in heaven’s name has this thing got to do with a holiday camp?’
Inspector Telford had no desire to go through all that screaming scene again. ‘I’m sure WPC Kubersky will be only too willing to tell us, sergeant,’ he said snubbingly, ‘given half a chance.’
WPC Kubersky was. ‘It’s just that, when you go to one of these holiday camps, you know, they make you use these beads things instead of money. Like when you want to buy things or pay for extras. Or have a drink.’
MacGregor’s scowl wouldn’t have looked out of place on Dover’s mug. ‘But, why?’
WPC Kubersky’s opinion of Scotland Yard was taking a dive. ‘When they say “all-in”,’ she pointed out patiently, ‘they don’t mean “all-in”, do they? You can’t pay for everything in advance.’
‘No,’ agreed MacGregor, ‘but . . .’
‘There are bound to be extras, you know. Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? Like incidentals.’
MacGregor reminded himself that the dratted girl was probably doing her best. He held up an authoritative hand so that he could get a word in. ‘But why not use real money?’
Such naivety had WPC Kubersky reeling. Holy-Mary-Mother-of-God, they’d be asking her how many beans made five next! ‘There must be dozens of reasons. It stops the staff getting their hands on hard cash you know, and then you can, like, disguise the real price of things. Like saying a bag of crisps costs five beads instead of forty-seven pence or whatever. And, if you want to put all your prices up, you don’t have to, you know, go round changing all the tickets. Like you simply have to alter the rate of exchange. And then,’ – WPC Kubersky might have had her shortcomings but she was wonderfully shrewd when it came to money – ‘like abroad, in places like Italy, they never have any small change, do they? I reckon using these bead things is one way of getting round that problem.’
‘Ah, Italy!’ Inspector Telford clutched hopefully at one straw before it floated past him on the stream of WPC Kubersky’s eloquence. ‘These beads are used in Italian holiday camps, are they?’
‘And Spanish ones,’ said WPC Kubersky who was a much travelled girl. ‘French, too, I shouldn’t wonder. Lots of places.’
‘But, abroad?’
‘Oh, no’ – WPC Kubersky got hold of the blue bead and examined it without the aid of the magnifying glass – ‘in England, too. Like I bet this is English Funny Money. RHR – that could stand for Rankin’s Holiday Ranches, couldn’t it?’
‘And what about the numbers?’ asked Inspector Telford, anxious that this hitherto unsuspected luminary in their midst should be given every chance to shine.
‘That’ll be the value, sir. Phis blue bead is worth twenty-five of whatever.’
‘Pence?’ prompted Inspector Telford hopefully.
WPC Kubersky shook her head. These senior officers – they just hadn’t got it, had they? ‘More like other beads, sir,’ she said. ‘Green like, or red, or yellow. Are you ready for your coffee now, sir?’
The question had been addressed to Inspector Telford, but it was Dover who answered. ‘Yes,’ he said without a moment’s hesitation. ‘And see if you can rustle up a bite to eat, there’s a good girl.’
Luckily MacGregor was capable of keeping his mind on higher things. ‘Rankin’s Holiday Ranches?’ he mused. ‘Well, it’s a start. But what was the bead doing in the dead man’s stomach? It’s too big to have been swallowed accidentally, isn’t it?’ He turned to Dr Hone-Hitchcock. ‘I suppose you didn’t find any other foreign bodies inside him?’
‘No, just this blue bead thing. It was all mixed up with the remains of the last meal he’d eaten. Venison, chips, baked beans and sprouts, followed by rice pudding and all washed down with about half a pint of beer. He’d consumed that lot about six or seven hours before he was killed. Maybe longer.’
‘Venison?’ said MacGregor. ‘That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it? Could this bead thing have been connected with the venison?’
‘How do you mean?’
MacGregor was really scraping the barrel. ‘Well, suppose the young lady’s wrong and it isn’t this Funny Money stuff. It could be part of a cartridge, perhaps, or some sort of plastic tag on a carcase or a joint of meat.’
Dr Hone-Hitchcock looked at his watch and saw that he should have been somewhere else twenty minutes ago. Oh, well, he might as well be hung for a sheep and stay on for a cup of coffee. However, the spectacle of Dover perking up quite disgustingly as the coffee tray approached gave him pause. And when, in response to the stimulus of a plate of sticky cream cakes, Dover’s animation became positively nauseating, Dr Hone-Hitchcock decided to cut his losses. He had been a Home Office pathologist for nigh on thirty years but there were some things even he couldn’t stomach. He looked round for his hat.
Before he left, though, Dr Hone-Hitchcock did spare a moment to put young MacGregor on the right lines. ‘That, sergeant,’ he said, jabbing the blue bead with a magisterial finger, ‘is a clue. In my considered opinion it could not have been swallowed accidentally nor was it consumed for nutritional purposes or because the deceased liked the taste. Ergo – it was ingested for some other reason, and that other reason was to provide a clue. The sort of thing I have in mind is a kidnapping, say. The victim
knows he’s going to be killed and he takes the only means available to him to provide some kind of a pointer to his murderer. It is the only explanation for the presence of that bead in the dead man’s stomach.’
‘You may be right, sir.’
Dr Hone-Hitchcock drew himself up. ‘I am, sergeant,’ he said confidently and took his leave.
Space in the caravan was at a premium and, as soon as the pathologist had gone, another of Inspector Telford’s minions came bustling forward to take his place.
The minion handed MacGregor a sheet of paper. ‘Here’s the address of the Head Office of Rankin’s Holiday Ranches, sarge,’ he announced, modestly confident that this example of local initiative and efficiency would not pass unnoticed. ‘We’ve already given ’em a buzz and warned ’em you’re on your way. ‘Seems,’ he added with the easy camaraderie of one professional to another, ‘as though this blue-bead business might be going to open up a whole new ball game.’
Three
Sir Egbert Rankin was one of those people who preach delegation but who know that, if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself.
When Dover and MacGregor came knocking at his door, figuratively speaking, he insisted upon seeing them himself, though a greatly daring confidential aide had been so bold as to suggest that it wasn’t really necessary for the chairman and managing director of a multi-million corporation to . . . Sir Egbert, however, was adamant. He hadn’t built up Rankin’s Holiday Ranches by the sweat of his brow and the spectacular proceeds of five years as a war time army quartermaster-sergeant to see it all fall apart now.
‘Won’t you at least have one of the company lawyers on hand, sir?’
Sir Egbert shot the cuffs of his silk shirt so that the diamond cuff links came into sight, and speared the button on his intercom.
His secretary flinched in panic at the other end.
‘Them flat-feet still there?’
‘Er – yes, sir.’
Then what the ’ell are you waiting for? Wheel ’em in!’
