by Joyce Porter
Dover, at least, entered Sir Egbert’s palatial office with the highest hopes. After the insalubrious environment of the Muncaster municipal rubbish dump almost anything would, of course, be an improvement, but it wasn’t every day that rock-bottom brass like Dover was permitted to penetrate into the luxurious heartland of Big Business. The chief inspector had timed his arrival at the Park Lane offices with exquisite care: a trifle too late for morning coffee, of course, but exactly right for pre-lunch drinks.
It was therefore extremely gratifying for Dover to see that Sir Egbert was already priming the old digestive processes with a large scotch. Such, indeed, was Dover’s elation that he covered the fifty yards or so of ankle-clinging carpet which led to the tycoon’s desk without more than a faint whisper of protest.
MacGregor, on the other hand, was taking an intelligent interest in his sur-oundings. Although too young to remember the real thing, he had seen ‘The Great Dictator’ a couple of times on telly and fancied he knew what he was up against. Sir Egbert looked slightly more like Benito Mussolini than Charlie Chaplin, but he was clearly one of those financial giants, whose inferiority complexes even come king-sized.
Having reached the end of the long march, Dover and MacGregor lowered themselves into a couple of leather armchairs, the subservient height of which had been meticulously calculated by a whole clutch of psychologists.
‘Drink?’
Dover accepted with alacrity, both ignorant of and indifferent to the fact that this was merely a ploy designed by experts to put him under an inhibiting sense of obligation to his host. MacGregor primly refused to be bought so cheaply.
Sir Egbert opened his case by denying, quite categorically, that there was any connection whatsoever between Rankin’s Holiday Ranches and the little blue bead which had been removed from the dead man’s stomach.
MacGregor pointed out that certain basic facts would be easy enough to verify.
‘H’all right, h’all right!’ said Sir Egbert, abandoning his determination to fight this thing every inch of the way. ‘So it looks like one of h’ours. That don’t prove a blind thing.’
MacGregor, who’d never experienced any difficulty with his aspirates, became a touch patronising. Good heavens, Sir Egbert was nothing but a Philistine. What had he got apart from money? ‘Oh, come along now, sir,’ he twitted him gently. ‘If it looks like one of your Holiday Ranch tokens, it must be one, mustn’t it? Nobody’s likely to be going around imitating them, are they?’
‘That shows you know bugger-all about it!’ retorted Sir Egbert. He knew – none better – all about sergeants and where they came in the pecking order. It was a pity that this snooty little bastard didn’t. ‘H’imitate ’em is just what folks do. All the bleeding time. Forgers?’ He picked the blue bead up off his desk – ormolu and the size of a tennis court. ‘If we didn’t ’ave this Funny Money stuff manufactured to the ’ighest possible standards and run security checks like the Bank of England, we’d ’ave the world and his wife and ’is kids skinning the life out of us.’
‘But these tokens can only be used in your holiday camps.’
‘’Oliday Ranches!’ corrected Sir Egbert irritably. ‘So what makes you think our clientele are different? They’d all take me to the cleaners if I didn’t spend a fortune making it too difficult for ’em. We change the design and the colour and the size every year. And we give each ’Oliday Ranch its own individual set. The expense! We issue a complete new range of Funny Money every Easter, and by September there’s ’alf-a-dozen crooked bastards flooding the market with their ’ome-made stuff. Anybody who can get his hands on a bit of plastic the right colour’ll have a go. H’it makes you wonder if there’s anybody honest left in the world.’
MacGregor singled out the one bit of this rigmarole which was of interest to him. ‘Do you mean,’ he said, narrowing his eyes in a way that would have had Dover rolling in the aisles if he’d noticed, ‘that you can pin point when and where this blue bead was in use as Funny Money?’
‘Ah!’ said Sir Egbert, relaxing now that they’d reached the wheeler-dealer stage. ‘It’ll cost you.’
‘Cost us?’
‘You play ball with me and I’ll play ball with you,’ said Sir Egbert, not realising that he was nodding at a blind horse that wouldn’t drink.
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean, sir.’
Sir Egbert s smile wavered as he was forced to spell things out. ‘No publicity,’ he explained. ‘Stomachs, corpses, pile of rubbish – that’s not the image we want our ’Oliday Ranches to project. You know what stupid bastards people are. Give ’em a story like that and they’ll think we choked the poor sod to death. And then they’ll decide to give Rankin’s ’Oliday Ranches a miss this year. Believe me, I’ve seen it all before. If we don’t make like Caesar’s wife, it starts showing up in the books.’
MacGregor, being paid by the long-suffering tax payer, took a somewhat Olympian view of the trials and tribulations of the market place. ‘I’m afraid we have no control over the news media, sir,’ he said. ‘Besides, I thought any publicity was good publicity.’
‘If it was,’ Sir Egbert observed sourly, ‘we’d be marketing a rat poison called Rankin, wouldn’t we?’
Dover belched loudly in his chair. His glass was empty and his eyes were glazed. Both MacGregor and Sir Egbert stared a little anxiously at him. Dover pulled himself together. ‘Well, lesh get on with it!’ he exhorted them crossly.
Sir Egbert decided not to hang about. The whisky he kept specially for his guests was cheap and nasty, but extremely potent. Some people had even experienced temporary blindness after imbibing a mere soup^on over the recommended dose. Sir Egbert got up from his desk and went across to open the huge wall safe he kept concealed behind a rather second rate Giotto.
The various models of Funny Money were preserved in sealed trays of transparent plastic, labelled carefully and meticulously in Sir Egbert’s own fair hand. After all, these coloured beads did represent real money and Sir Egbert liked to think he’d made it from demob suit to Savile Row in two years flat simply by taking good care of the pennies.
The blue bead was soon identified. It was that season’s model.
‘And to which Holiday Ranch, sir?’
Sir Egbert consulted a chart. ‘Bowerville-by-the-sea.’
‘Bowerville-by-the-sea?’ repeated MacGregor as he wrote the name down in his notebook. ‘Where’s that, sir?’
‘Northumberland,’ said Sir Egbert with every confidence. ‘Or Yorkshire. Somewhere up there.’
MacGregor frowned. ‘In either case it’s a long way from Muncaster where the body was found.’
‘Motorways,’ opined Sir Egbert. In his line of business communications were important. ‘From anywhere to anywhere in a matter of minutes.’
‘I suppose the best thing,’ said MacGregor, more or less thinking aloud, ‘would be for us to have a word with the manager. And, indeed, anybody else who was up there at the relevant time.’ He turned to Sir Egbert. ‘I suppose somebody will be able to let us have the names and addresses of all the staff and the holiday-makers, sir? We may need to interview the lot before we’re through.’
Dover, who could still taste that whisky, hadn’t been feeling too bright even before this appalling prospect opened up before him. ‘’Strewth!’ he ejaculated weakly. It was, as things turned out, his most valuable contribution to the discussion.
‘H’easy,’ said Sir Egbert. ‘Course, if you go up to Bowerville- by-the-sea, you’ll find the manager and some of the staff still there. Not the part-timers, of course. They’re only employed for the summer months.’
‘Is the Holiday Ranch still open, sir?’ MacGregor was surprised. ‘At this time of year?’
‘We can’t afford to ‘ave a capital asset standing idle for four months out of twelve,’ explained Sir Egbert with slightly more difficulty than usual. The thought of fluctuating profits did tend to make him over-emotional. ‘Not these days. Then there’s our wo
rkers. They want regular employment.’
‘But do you get holiday-makers in November or February?’ There’s old-age pensioners,’ said Sir Egbert. ‘We offer very competitive terms and most of ‘em don’t suit central ’eating anyhow. Then there’s people taking a winter break, and conferences. That’s where the big money is. A couple of really big conferences that take over an entire Ranch and we’re laughing. We turn the ballrooms into conference ’alls and the gymnasiums into h’exhibition centres and we can provide dozens of smaller, committee-type rooms as well. Nothing’s too much trouble. They’re big spenders, you see. Drink the bar dry every night, if you’re lucky.’
‘Really?’ said MacGregor who was always willing to have his horizons widened.
‘Of course,’ Sir Egbert went on, ‘mostly we deal with smaller groups. You can ’ave as much or as little accommodation as you want, you know. We get ’undreds of ’em. Trade unions and toy soldier collectors and women’s lib and folk dancing and regimental reunions – you name ’em, we’ve ’ad ’em.’ Sir Egbert looked up. He was not the man to miss a golden opportunity. ‘I’ll give you a few of our brochures,’ he said. ‘Maybe some of your police organisations . . . Special terms, naturally.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said MacGregor, absent-mindedly but still polite. ‘Actually, I was wondering if I’d got the picture absolutely straight. This piece of Funny Money which was found in the stomach of the dead man came – and could only have come – from your Holiday Ranch at Bowerville-by-the-sea.’
‘He could have picked it up in the street,’ said Sir Egbert, still anxious not to have his organisaton too closely involved. ‘Or somebody could ’ave give it to him. There’s no proof he was ever anywhere near Bowerville.’
‘Oh, there are numerous possibilities, I agree, sir, but for the moment I think we’ve got to proceed on the theory that the unknown dead man has some connection with your Holiday Ranch at Bowerville-by-the-sea. He must have been trying to tell us something when he swallowed that blue bead.’
‘You think he was a holiday-maker there?’
That seems the likeliest explanation.’
Sir Egbert sank back in his chair with a faint whistle. ‘It’ll run into thousands,’ he prophesied. ‘Thousands and thousands. Most of ’em only stay one week, and Bowerville-by-the-sea can take three ’undred. You’ll be at it till Doomsday.’
Dover twitched unhappily but MacGregor, the bloom of youthful enthusiasm still upon his cheek, refused to be daunted. ‘Oh, it won’t be as bad as all that, sir. We can eliminate all the women for a start, and there’ll be all the men who are obviously in the wrong age group. That should cut the numbers down quite considerably. We’re used to jobs of this type, sir. I think we have quite a reasonable chance of identifying our dead man, and then we can start going after his murderer.’ MacGregor stood up. ‘Thank you for sparing us so much of your time, sir.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Sir Egbert, watching with interest as MacGregor began to assist Dover out of his armchair. Sir Egbert hadn’t been able to make Dover out at all. Could such a dopey-looking lump really be a high-powered detective? God knows, Sir Egbert wasn’t fussy about the quality of the hired help – he’d learned not to be over the years – but even he’d think twice about giving this one a job sorting out the pig swill.
MacGregor had got Dover almost to the door before Sir Egbert mentioned that there was a favour he wanted to ask. He’d been having second thoughts about this business of the publicity. ‘The blue bead is still my property, I believe, sergeant.’
‘That’s a debatable point, sir. If somebody bought it off you . . .’
‘I think you’ll find that, technically, we lease the things rather than sell ’em.’
‘In any case, we shall have to hang on to it for the time being,’ said MacGregor, contriving to prop Dover up against the wall while he got the door open. ‘It’s vital evidence.’
‘You’ll let me ’ave it back in the end, though?’
MacGregor thought that this could probably be arranged. When the door had finally closed behind his visitors, Sir Egbert let his face relax into a hopeful grin. A glass case? A velvet cushion, perhaps? Uniformed guards and a fifty-pence entrance fee? Yes, properly handled, that little blue bead could put Bowerville-by-the-sea and its Holiday Ranch right on the map! But why stop at Bowerville? It could boost the takings of every single Rankin’s Holiday Ranch in the country. Which of his rivals could boast such a treasure? Rankin’s would be the only blooming chain in the business that’d got a piece of its Funny Money found inside the stomach of a murdered man!
Sir Egbert turned his eyes piously in the general direction of that Great Travel Agent in the sky. Dear God, make it one of those really nasty, sordid, sexy murders . . . please!
Meanwhile there were still things needing to be done down here in this vale of tears. Sir Egbert, diamond cuff links flashing, dived for his intercom button again.
Four
Thus alerted by his head office, the manager and herd boss of Rankin’s Bowerville-by-the-sea Holiday Ranch had ample time to take the usual precautions. A few account books were hidden, a few faces warned to stay out of sight, a few skeletons popped back into their cupboards. It was the routine stuff. After all, if it wasn’t Customs and Excise poking around, it was somebody from Health and Social Security or a factory inspector or a busybody about the VAT. Establishment snoopers never sleep and this new lot were exceptional only in that they were travelling by train and not in their own chauffeur-driven limousine.
When Dover and MacGregor finally emerged from the gritty embrace of British Rail they found a mini-bus from the Ranch waiting for them. MacGregor, blessed with ideas above his station, would have preferred transport which was not plastered with vulgar and garish advertisements, but naturally Dover didn’t give a damn. His feet were killing him and, as long as he didn’t have to walk, he was easy.
‘I don’t know,’ he confided to MacGregor as they bowled along by the side of a sullen, steel-gray sea, ‘how much longer I’m going to be able to carry on.’
MacGregor had heard all this a thousand times before. ‘Really, sir?’
‘I’m not at all well, you know,’ said Dover, aiming for a pathetic note. ‘It’s my stomach. It’s playing me up something cruel. Well, you saw that for yourself. In and out of that toilet like a bloody jack-in-the-box.’
MacGregor had not forgotten. Nor, he suspected, had the other passengers in their compartment who had been privileged to share in Dover’s running commentary on his troubles. ‘Perhaps it was all those railway pies you had, sir. Or the sausage rolls. They did look rather greasy.’
‘I reckon I’ve caught a chill,’ said Dover miserably.
‘Pastry can be rather indigestible at times, sir.’
‘Indigestible?’ snarled Dover. ‘I’m not talking about a bit of belly-ache or a touch of the wind, laddie!’ He flinched slightly as a sudden flurry of sleet rattled the windows of the minibus. ‘It’s the bloody trots I’ve got, and don’t you forget it.’
‘No, sir.’
‘I’ll tell you something else too,’ said Dover on the principle that a trouble shared is a trouble halved. ‘If we don’t get to wherever it is we’re going pretty damn quick, we’ll be in trouble. Get it?’
MacGregor got it all right. He stared out at the bleak, mist-enshrouded sea-scape and tried to think pf something to distract Dover’s mind. ‘It’s decent of the Holiday Ranch to offer us accommodation for the night, isn’t it, sir? I hadn’t appreciated how far away from everywhere it is. Quite isolated, really.’
‘Bloody concentration camp!’ muttered Dover morosely. ‘Waste of time, too. That blue bead thing isn’t going to lead us anywhere. Stands to reason.’
‘It’s the only clue we have, sir.’
A fat lot Dover cared. ‘Somebody’ll turn up sooner or later and report him missing,’ he said. ‘Until then,’ – he brightened up at the prospect – ‘there’s nothing we can do except sit back and bloody
wait.’
‘There we are, gents!’ The driver of the minibus gesticulated ahead into the gloom and the spray. ‘There’s Rankin’s!’
MacGregor, who had exceptionally keen eyesight, could just make out a miserable collection of huts huddled together on the very edge of the beach. Once they must have been brightly painted but now their colours had faded to a dispirited pastel. Here and there the smooth surface of a concrete roadway gleamed through the driving rain.
It was another five minutes before Dover and MacGregor reached their destination and debussed in front of a larger than average hut. It’s walls were covered in notices – clear, stark and aggressive, NO PARKING, they said, and PRIVATE, RANCH STAFF ONLY, they snarled, NO ADMITTANCE, STRICTLY OUTOF BOUNDS. ALL PASSES TO BE SHOWN. ADMINISTRATION BUILDING.
‘Through there, gents!’ The minibus driver helpfully indicated a door labelled KEEP OUT! THIS MEANS YOU!!
Dover and MacGregor, any reluctance to intrude where they might not be welcome being overcome by the way the wind was sand-blasting the skin off their faces, went inside. They found themselves in a small corridor along which, thanks to a cunning arrangement of steel filing cabinets, they were obliged to progress in single file. Captain Maguire had been manager for six years, and nobody lasts that long by taking chances. If he’d thought he could get away with it, he’d have installed man-traps, too, and hung buckets of boiling oil from the ceiling.
‘Ha, ha!’ Captain Maguire hailed them when they’d finally penetrated his defences. ‘I’ve been expecting you!’ He dropped his life-preserver back in the desk drawer. ‘Take a pew! And shut up, Attila!’ The snarling Doberman Pinscher eased back fractionally on the heavy chain which held him riveted to the wall. ‘Now, then,’ – Captain Maguire swung back to his visitors – ‘how do you take it?’
‘Hr – take it, sir?’ MacGregor was more concerned with getting Dover settled in a chair which looked as though it might stand his weight. ‘Take what?’
‘The usquebaugh, old son!’ said Captain Maguire, vexed at having to explain the facts of life to a grown man. ‘The poteen! The fire-water! The cup that inebriates!’ He flourished a large bottle.
