Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All

by Joyce Porter

  ‘Well, now, Mr Davenport, would you like to tell me what happened?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ the man with the bleeding head broke in. ‘This raving maniac here picked up a damned great lump of wood and hit me with it.’

  ‘Is that true, Mr Davenport, sir?’

  Mr Davenport stared fixedly in front of him. ‘I was provoked,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Provoked, my eye! The trouble with you, Chauncey, is that you just can’t take a joke. No bloody sense of humour, that’s your trouble.’ The wounded man hugged himself resentfully. ‘ Look, Sergeant, I’ll tell you exactly what happened. We were in the changing room together, just the two of us. We were going to go out in my boat and Chauncey – Mr Davenport, here – was going to crew for me. And it’s the last time I shall ask him to do that, I don’t mind telling you. Well, I was just sitting there changing my socks when Chauncey comes out of the john, in his underpants, just like he is now. Well, it happened to strike me that he was beginning to put a bit of weight on so, just jokingly, I said, “ My God, Chauncey,” I said, “ with a bust on you like that you’ll have to start wearing a bra before long!” You see? A harmless, innocent remark like that! The sort of thing men are saying to each other in every bloody changing room in the country. Well, you’d have thought I’d suggested seducing his grandmother! He let out a howl, grabbed up this chunk of wood and clouted me across the boko with it before I’d time to get to my feet. Naturally, I had to protect myself. I managed to get the piece of wood away from him but then I found him coming at me all fists and nails. I don’t mind telling you, I thought I’d got a raving lunatic on my hands. He just went clean off his rocker.’

  The station sergeant was impressed. ‘Is this true, Mr Davenport?’ he asked.

  Chauncey Davenport, now shivering uncontrollably, stared straight ahead. ‘I am making no statement without my solicitor

  Oh, for God’s sake!’ exploded Mr Collingwood in disgust. He began rubbing the goose-pimples on his arms vigorously.

  ‘Are you prepared to prefer charges, Mr Collingwood?’ asked the station sergeant, searching for his pencil.

  ‘Of course I’m not! Chauncey’s an old friend of mine – or was. No, look here, Sergeant, this is a purely personal matter between Mr Davenport and me. There’s no call to have the police poking their noses in. In fact, I shall have a few well chosen words to say to old McTurk for fetching your constable in in the first place. Just let’s forget about it, shall we? Personally, all I want to do is get back and get some clothes on. I’m absolutely frozen.’

  ‘Just as you like, sir,’ said the station sergeant indulgently. ‘ It’s up to you. If you don’t want to prefer charges, that’s your affair. But I do think you ought to see a doctor about that cut, sir. Looks very nasty to me. The police surgeon’s in with the Inspector, I think. I’ll fetch him and get him to look at it for you. You, too, Mr Davenport. You’ve got a few ugly-looking bruises there that could do with a bit of attention, eh? Well just get the doctor to run the rule over you. I won’t be a minute.’

  The effect on Chauncey Davenport of this mild, even kindly suggestion was startling. All the colour drained from his face. He clutched the edge of the counter and stared at the station sergeant with horror-struck eyes.

  ‘Doctor?’ he screamed hoarsely. ‘Doctor? I don’t want a doctor! No doctor’s going to touch me! I don’t want a doctor, I tell you. No doctor! No doctor!’

  Before anybody even got around to thinking of stopping him, Davenport dived for the door. As it swung back behind him they could hear his bare feet pattering on the pavement outside.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Collingwood, breaking the shocked silence, ‘if you ask me, it’s a psychiatrist he wants, not a doctor.’

  The station sergeant nodded his head in bemused agreement. ‘Has he always been like this, sir? You know, flying off the handle at the least bit of a thing?’

  ‘Good God, no! He’d have never got in the Sailing Club if we hadn’t thought he was a pretty sound chap all round. Up to five or six months ago he was the backbone of the place. Bit of a lad where the ladies were concerned – but that’s a weakness we’ve all got, eh. Sergeant?’

  ‘Didn’t he go missing from home, sir? I seem to remember his wife coming in here and reporting it. He turned up again, right as rain, after about a week if my memory serves me. Amnesia, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Mr Collingwood was moving uncomfortably from one bare foot to the other. ‘ Couldn’t remember where he’d been or what he’d been doing. Or so he said. Me, I’ve got my own theories. I reckon our Chauncey had been indulging in an extended prowl on the tiles. Anyhow, he’s never been the same since. He’s gone all brooding and quiet, except when he suddenly blows his top like he did this morning.’ Mr Collingwood sneezed. ‘ Oh, dear! And I haven’t even got a handkerchief. Look, Sergeant, I think I’d better be getting back to the Club before the Ladies’ League spot me and have me run in for indecent exposure. Do you think you could be a good chap and phone for a taxi for me? Tell him to come round the back, eh?’

  The station sergeant was only too willing to oblige and chatted pleasantly about this and that with Mr Collingwood until the taxi arrived. Dover fumed apoplectically. All his attempts to break into the conversation floundered on the rock-like refusal of the station sergeant to acknowledge his presence. Dover was reduced to telling his wife that it was all her fault.

  At least Mr Collingwood departed, the young constable returned to his beat and the station sergeant had time to spare.

  He eyed Dover sourly. ‘Oh, you’re still here, are you? Now then, what was it? A road traffic accident?’

  ‘No,’ snarled Dover, ‘it wasn’t! We saw a man committing suicide on Cully Point and we thought, mistakenly no doubt, that you would like to know about it.’

  The station sergeant scratched his head dubiously. ‘ You sure you’ve not been drinking?’

  Mrs Dover intervened with diplomatic speed. ‘ Oh, no, Sergeant, it’s quite true. We were driving up along the top of Cully Point and I saw this man climbing up over the rails. Before I could stop the car or anything I saw him jump off, down into the sea. Oh dear, it was horrible!’

  The station sergeant scratched his head again. ‘ Well, what did he look like? Can you give me a description?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I can’t. I’m almost certain it was a man – a young man, I think – but it was pouring with rain at the time and I only caught a glimpse of him.’

  ‘You’ve no idea how he was dressed? I’m sorry to keep pressing you, madam, but if he went over Cully Point at high tide, well, there’s not much likelihood that we’ll ever recover the body. They get carried right out to sea, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ said Mrs Dover comfortably. ‘I used to stay with my Aunt George here in Wallerton when I was a girl. It’s years ago now, of course, but I haven’t forgotten the stories they used to tell about Cully Point. We always used to call her Aunt George. She was married to my Uncle George, you see, and …’

  ‘Right!’ Dover broke in rudely. ‘That’s that, then! We’ve reported the suicide to you and there’s nothing more we can tell you. Come on!’ He jerked his head at his wife.

  ‘But just a minute, Wilf,’ she protested. ‘We haven’t told him about the bicycle or about the hat.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Dover, grabbing his wife by the arm and pulling her in the direction of the door. ‘Come on, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Here, just a minute, Grandpa!’ The station sergeant caught hold of Mrs Dover’s other arm and started tugging her back. ‘Round here I’m the one who decides what’s important and what isn’t, thank you very much. Now then, what’s all this about a bicycle?’

  ‘There was a bicycle propped up against the fence.’

  ‘Belonging to the chap who committed suicide?’

  ‘How the hell do I know? It certainly hadn’t been standing there long because the saddle was barely wet.’

  ‘That was
very observant of you,’ said the station sergeant with unflattering surprise.

  ‘Oh, well,’ chirped Mrs Dover happily, ‘my husband is a Detective Chief Inspector at New Scotland Yard, you … ouch!’ Mrs Dover clutched her ankle. ‘Ooh, Wilfred, that hurt!’

  Not half as much as it would have done, though, if her husband hadn’t fractionally misjudged his kick.

  Chapter Two

  The station sergeant’s demeanour underwent a rapid change. This great, fat, untidy yobbo didn’t look like a detective chief inspector from New Scotland Yard but recruiting had been bad for donkey’s years and you never knew. A smarmy and oft repeated ‘sir’ discreetly replaced the jocular ‘Grandpa’. The Chief Inspector and his lady wife, who was now hobbling slightly, were ushered into the Interview Room and offered chairs. Cups of strong nourishing tea were brought from the canteen. Everybody bowed and scraped and touched their forelocks.

  ‘Though, mind you,’ hissed the station sergeant to the Inspector who had been summoned to do his share of the boot licking, ‘if that old bounder is having us on, I’ll throw the book at him. You can get I don’t know how many years for impersonating a police officer and I dare swear he’s got a bit of form behind him, too.’

  They were standing outside the Interview Room, smoothing their hair down, checking that all their tunic buttons were fastened and polishing up their boot toes on the back of their trousers.

  ‘If you think he’s an imposter, what the devil did you send for me for?’ whispered the Inspector crossly.

  ‘Well, either way, sir, it’s a bit too big for me to handle, me being only a sergeant and you being an inspector.’

  This obscure reference to an old and festering sore over promotion made the Inspector sigh. Sometimes it made you wonder if the extra money was worth it.

  Inside the Interview Room the Dovers were sorting out their differences.

  ‘Now see what you’ve done!’ thundered Dover while his wife elaborately rubbed her ankle. ‘We’ll be lucky if we get to Filbury by the middle of next week.’

  ‘You’d no call to kick me like that, Wilf.’

  ‘It’s nothing to what I’ll do to you when I get you out of here,’ threatened her husband. He meant it, too. ‘Now, this time, just leave the talking to me, will you?’

  Mrs Dover contented herself with hugging her injured leg and nursing her resentment. She had a shrewd idea about how to get her revenge and five minutes later, when all the introductions and pleasantries were over, she got it.

  ‘You know, Inspector,’ she began with a smile, ‘I’ve been thinking.’ She ignored the warning snort from her husband. ‘When Wilf and I were looking over Cully Point, we thought we saw something in the water.’

  ‘You speak for yourself,’ snarled Dover.

  ‘I think it was a cap, Inspector, a peaked cap.’

  ‘Oh, really, Mrs Dover? How extremely interesting.’

  ‘Yes, and then that bicycle. Do you know. Inspector, I think that bicycle looked somehow familiar.’

  ‘Oh God!’ groaned Dover.

  The Inspector raised his eyebrows politely.

  ‘It was just like the one my husband used to ride when we were first married.’ simpered Mrs Dover.

  ‘Do you mean …?’

  Mrs Dover nodded. ‘A policeman’s bicycle! One of those old fashioned, sit-up-and-beg ones. No chromium plating, you know, and rather heavy. And that peaked cap we saw in the water – it could have been a policeman’s uniformed cap. In fact, I’m sure it was.’

  ‘’Strewth!’ murmured Dover.

  ‘And,’ continued Mrs Dover, smirking triumphantly at her husband, ‘the man I saw climbing over the fence – he could have been wearing a blue uniform, now I come to think of it.’

  ‘You don’t want to take any notice of her,’ blustered Dover. ‘She’s as blind as a bat. Suffers from hallucinations, too,’ he added frantically.

  But the Inspector and the station sergeant weren’t listening to him. They were exchanging rather puzzled glances.

  ‘Ridiculous!’ said Dover, his heart sinking. ‘I’ve never heard such poppycock in my life.’

  ‘Cochran,’ said the station sergeant unwillingly.

  ‘Oh God!’ said the Inspector. ‘Surely not?’

  ‘I told you how queer he was behaving this morning, sir. And he did go off on his bicycle, because I saw him. Lord, there’ll be the very devil to pay if he’s gone and croaked himself.’

  ‘Well, hell’s teeth,’ objected the Inspector, ‘it’s not our fault!’

  ‘You try telling the Chief Constable that, sir. Apple of his eye, that’s what young Cochran was,’ the station sergeant pointed out with gloomy relish. ‘ Thought the sun shone out of that boy, he did. I can’t say I envy you, sir, having to tell him what’s happened. He’ll play blue murder. His own nephew committing suicide.’

  The Inspector thought quickly. ‘Oh, no,’ he said firmly. ‘You phone up the Chief Constable and tell him what’s happened, or what we’re afraid might have happened. And be diplomatic about it. I’m going up to Cully Point to have a look at that bicycle.’

  ‘Good,’ said Dover, lumbering to his feet. ‘ Well, that’s settled that. We’ll leave you to get on with it.’

  ‘Oh, no, you won’t!’ retorted the Inspector and the station sergeant in unison.

  ‘I’m on holiday,’ whined Dover.

  ‘I don’t care what you’re on,’ snapped the Inspector, tossing respect for rank and seniority to the winds. ‘You’re not budging an inch until the Chief Constable gets here which, if I know anything about him, will be in under twenty minutes. Sergeant, put a constable outside this door and give him instructions that neither of them is to leave. Now, come on!’

  The two local men hurriedly left the room, turning a deaf and callous ear to Dover’s objections. For the next half hour Mrs Dover patiently endured the endless stream of abuse which her husband, beside himself at the indignity of being incarcerated in a common police station, poured on her head. In the end even Dover himself began to get bored.

  Not that the violent erruption of the Chief Constable into the Interview Room provided much relief. He was in a filthy temper and didn’t mind who knew it. Things began to happen with bewildering speed. Mrs Dover, who by now was nearly as sick of the whole affair as her husband, retired unobtrusively into a corner and began thinking about how she would redecorate the lounge should Uncle Percy not succeed in throwing off that nasty chill he’d caught playing bowls last week.

  Meanwhile the stronger sex was getting down to it. The bicycle had been recovered from the top of Cully Point and definitely identified as the one on which young Cochran had left Wallerton Police Station that morning. Maps were produced. Times and distances were worked out, due allowance being made for the fact that nobody, not even a world champion, could cycle up to Cully Point in under thirty-five minutes.

  ‘Of course,’ observed the station sergeant fatuously, ‘it’s much quicker coming down.’

  The Chief Constable flung him a withering glance before barking a stream of questions at Dover. What time was it – to the split second – that the suicide was observed climbing over the fence? Why didn’t he know? Surely a trained and experienced detective would note that sort of thing automatically, wouldn’t he? Why hadn’t Dover thought to look at his watch? Wouldn’t the wettest of wet Police Cadets have thought at least of doing that?

  ‘Aw, get knotted!’ muttered Dover under his breath.

  ‘What did you say, man?’ roared the Chief Constable who was slightly deaf and very sensitive about it. ‘If you’ve anything to say, say it out loud. I can’t stomach people who mumble.’

  The Inspector completed his calculations. ‘I’m afraid there doesn’t seem to be much doubt about it, sir,’ he reported miserably. ‘The times seem to fit as near as I can judge. Of course, Cochran may have lent the bike to somebody else, but that doesn’t seem very probable, does it, sir?’

  ‘Nothing about the entire affair seems ve
ry probable to me, Inspector,’ growled the Chief Constable nastily.

  ‘What about fingerprints on the bicycle?’ asked Dover, feeling he ought to make some contribution.

  ‘We’re checking them now,’ said the Inspector, ‘but with all this rain …’

  ‘I don’t know how I’m going to break the news to his aunt,’ said the Chief Constable grimly. ‘It’ll take some explaining, won’t it? A smart young lad with every promise of a brilliant future ahead of him, with everything in the world to live for, suddenly taking his own life? It’ll take some explaining, that will.’

  ‘We’ll make a full investigation, sir. I can promise you that,’ the Inspector assured him earnestly. ‘We’ll …’

  ‘I’m not overlooking the fact that my nephew killed himself after a mere six weeks under your command,’ observed the Chief Constable with heavy significance. ‘Any investigation you carry out is likely to be a bit biased, isn’t it? You never liked the lad. I’ve known that all along. He’d twice your education and three times your brains – not that that’s saying much. You were jealous of him, any fool could see that. Because he was a better policeman after twelve months on the force than you’ll ever be if you last till you’re ninety. Which is highly unlikely. Oh yes, there’s going to be an investigation all right, but I’m damned if you or any of your lousy subordinates are going to do it! Sergeant, get me Scotland Yard on the phone and be damned quick about it!’

  The station sergeant scurried out of the room and the Chief Constable stalked purposefully after him.

  Dover and the Inspector stared at each other.

  ‘He isn’t?’ moaned Dover.

  ‘He is, you know, sir,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘But I’m on leave!’

  ‘You try telling him that, sir. The mood he’s in, I reckon he’d get James Bond himself if he wanted him. I knew something like this would happen when he sent his blasted nephew here in the first place. Rotten, sneaking little devil, he was! Trust him to drop us all in it!’

  Dover spared a furious glance for his wife. ‘Do you hear that?’ he bellowed. ‘It’s all your blasted fault, you and that damned car! If we’d gone to Filbury by train like we’ve always done, none of this would ever have happened!’