by Joyce Porter
Dover was lighting yet another cigarette. ‘Well, which is it going to be?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘I haven’t all day to hang around here if you have.’
‘I’ll sign your confession,’ whispered Wing Commander Pile.
‘Attaboy!’ Dover compounded this unfortunate exclamation with a cocky thumbs-up sign of triumph at Superintendent Underbarrow. ‘I thought you’d come round to my way of looking at things. Well, never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.’ He snapped his fingers in the air. ‘Pen and paper!’
It took Superintendent Underbarrow some little time to realize that the gesture and the request had been directed at him. He was understandably furious when comprehension finally dawned. Damn it all, it was about time somebody put this London fellow in his place! Superintendent Underbarrow was about to undertake this delicate task when Wing Commander Pile raised his head and interrupted him.
‘I must go downstairs and see that Linda is all right first,' he said in a calmer voice. ‘You needn’t worry. I shan’t try to run away.’
‘Wouldn’t do you much good if you did,' said Dover airily. ‘You’d not get far.’
The wing commander sighed. ‘I won’t be more than a minute,' he promised, ‘and I’ll bring a pen and some paper back with me.’
On an imperious nod from Dover, Superintendent Underbarrow stood aside. Wing Commander Pile managed a faint smile of thanks and then, after a moment’s hesitation, turned back to Dover. ‘It’s really not as bad as it sounds, you know,' he said pathetically. ‘My wife died when Linda was born and I had to look after her. For seventeen years I’ve sacrificed everything for her sake – my career, marriage, everything. I took a job abroad. I didn’t want everybody sneering and looking down their noses at her and I thought abroad . . . East Africa. We kept ourselves to ourselves as far as the other Europeans were concerned. We had native servants, of course. They were very good. They really loved Linda and it didn’t matter to them that she was . . . So nobody bothered us, you see. I’d have stayed out there, of course, but the company I worked for sold out and my health wasn’t . . . I’d forgotten how much people live on top of each other back here at home. Always poking and prying and asking impertinent questions. They won’t let you alone.’ He rubbed his hand wearily across his eyes. ‘I’m not complaining, you understand. I’d do it all again just the same if I had to, but you can’t say I’ve been able to lead a normal life, can you? I thought I was entitled to some – well – compensation. And I wasn’t being entirely selfish. It was better for Linda this way. It was!’ he insisted with a show of defiance. ‘She has physical needs, too. She’s not a child any longer. Who else would have . . .?’ He looked at Dover and then at Superintendent Underbarrow. What he saw made him realize the futility of going on. His shoulders slumped. He opened the door. ‘I won’t be more than a couple of minutes,’ he said.
Thirteen
Superintendent Underbarrow went across and opened the bedroom window. ‘Getting a bit stuffy in here,' he said.
Dover hadn’t noticed and he didn’t care. He stood up, stretched himself and waddled over to the bed. ‘People like him ought to be hanged, drawn and quartered.’
Superintendent Underbarrow gazed unseeingly out of the window. ‘I suppose so.’
‘There’s no bleeding suppose about it!’ Dover sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Disgusting devil!’
‘You still can’t help feeling a bit sorry for him,' said Superintendent Underbarrow, still not turning round.
‘I can!’ snorted Dover, catching the faint hint of criticism. ‘He wants stringing up. He has killed two perfectly innocent people, you know.’
‘He’s still entitled to a fair trial,' said Superintendent Underbarrow, at last voicing what had been worrying him for some time.
Dover reacted angrily. ‘He’s entitled to damn all! And what’s eating you all of a sudden? You knew how I was going to play it.’
‘I didn’t realize it was going to be quite so cruel,' confessed the superintendent miserably.
‘Well, you won’t catch me losing any sleep over it. It was the only way to catch him. We haven’t a shred of proof, you know that.’
‘Our chaps might have turned up something from Mrs Boyle’s murder.’
‘And pigs might fly!’ sniffed Dover. ‘Pile’s nobody’s fool.’
‘You said yourself he’d made mistakes. If we’d spent a bit more time looking we might have . . .’
‘It’s the same difference, isn’t it?’ snapped Dover. ‘We could rupture ourselves and he’d still not get more than a life sentence. Besides,’ – he stretched himself out full length with a grunt of contentment – ‘I’ve no intention of passing my declining years scratching around in this crummy little backwater.’ He settled his head on the pillows. ‘I don’t understand you. You drag me down here to solve your blooming murder case and, when I do, all you can do is bitch about it.’ He crossed his feet and closed his eyes. ‘Some people are never satisfied.’
Superintendent Underbarrow realized that it was no use talking to Dover. They just weren’t on the same wavelength.
Dover yawned.
The superintendent glanced round. ‘He’s taking his time, isn’t he?’
Dover sighed, loudly. These perishing amateurs! Always getting into a flap about something. ‘He’s got a lot to explain, hasn’t he?’
‘Poor girl! I wonder what on earth’s going to happen to her.’
‘They’ll stick her in an institution,’ said Dover with complete indifference. ‘She’ll be all right. Best place for her. There,’ – he propped himself up on one elbow as he caught the sound of footsteps on the stairs – ‘he’s coming. Told you there was nothing to panic about.’
But it was MacGregor who opened the bedroom door after a discreet tap. ‘I’m terribly sorry to bother you, sir, but . . .’ He broke off as he caught sight of Superintendent Underbarrow over by the window. ‘Oh, I’m sorry sir, I didn’t realize . . His voice faded out as he tried to work out what was going on now.
It was left to Superintendent Underbarrow to let the cat out of the bag. He had either forgotten or never really appreciated that Dover and his sergeant were not two hearts beating as one. He was too busy recognizing MacGregor as a substitute dog’s-body. ‘Ah, sergeant,' he said, ‘just pop downstairs and see what’s keeping Wing Commander Pile, will you?’
MacGregor’s ears pricked up. 6 Wing Commander Pile, sir?’
‘That’s right,’ said Superintendent Underbarrow before Dover got a chance to shut him up. ‘The sooner we get this confession of his down on paper, the better.’
MacGregor stared accusingly at Dover. ‘Confession, sir?’ he repeated.
‘That’s right.’ Superintendent Underbarrow looked at the two antagonists and hesitated. ‘Er – you did know he was the murderer, didn’t you?’
‘No, sir,’ said MacGregor, still glaring at Dover, ‘as a matter of fact, I didn’t. The chief inspector must have forgotten to tell me.’
‘Oh.’ Superintendent Underbarrow risked a glance himself at Dover’s flabby face and was not comforted by what he saw there. Had he gone and put his foot in it? He realized that MacGregor was still waiting for him to continue. ‘Well, it’s all over now. Pity you missed it, eh?’
‘Missed what sir?’
Superintendent Underbarrow wished MacGregor would look at him when he addressed him. ‘Well,’ – he tried a carefree sort of laugh which failed miserably – ‘missed the showdown, really. Your chief inspector here just confronted Pile with the facts and he – er – eventually broke down and – er – confessed.’
MacGregor broke off his eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with Dover. ‘And you let him go?’ he asked incredulously.
Superintendent Underbarrow felt himself going pink. ‘Only to get some paper,’ he explained, painfully aware of how feeble it sounded. ‘We hadn’t got any up here, you see. Oh, and he had to have a word with his daughter as well.’
‘My God!’ said MacGregor.
‘Have you both taken leave of your senses? Fancy letting him . . .’He rushed for the door.
‘Hot-headed young bugger!’ commented Dover bitterly as MacGregor hurded down the stairs. ‘Acts first and thinks after. You should have pinned his ears back for him, speaking to you like that.’
Superintendent Underbarrow was beyond reply. He hurried over to the open door and listened anxiously to MacGregor shouting and hammering on the floor below. After a couple of minutes the frantic calls stopped and MacGregor could be heard bellowing for assistance from the police downstairs. Almost immediately there came the steady pounding of regulation boots.
‘I think I’d better go down and see what’s happening,’ said Superintendent Underbarrow as, after a short whispered conference, shoulders began crashing into and splintering the wood of a door. ‘I don’t like the sound of this.’
Dover, still lolling on the bed, watched him go. Funny how some people couldn’t wait to meet trouble halfway. Disconsolately he rearranged his pillows. He’d been rather fancying playing the leading role at Pile’s trial. Ah well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. You can’t win ’em all.
It was ten minutes before MacGregor came up to report. He was so upset that he used quite excessive roughness to shake Dover back to consciousness. Wing Commander Pile had cut his daughter’s throat with a razor blade, and then his own.
