Dead Easy for Dover

by Joyce Porter

  To his eternal shame, MacGregor nipped. On his way back he called in at the public bar for a shot of Dutch courage and two pints of best bitter when he found Inspector Walters already there, carefully setting out three glasses of brandy on a small tray.

  ‘Hello, sergeant!’ he said in companionable greeting. ‘I was just on my way to have a word with you and your governor.’ He nodded his head at the glasses of brandy. ‘I thought I’d push the boat out a bit, just to celebrate your first full day’s work.’

  MacGregor smiled feebly and, abandoning his own order for drinks, bought a couple of packets of cigarettes instead. They were, of course, Dover’s favourite brand only in the sense that any brand paid for by somebody else was Dover’s favourite.

  ‘There’s been a development,’ said Inspector Walters as he pocketed his change. He indicated the folder he had tucked under his arm. ‘I don’t know if it’ll lead to anything, but it’s the first bit of bloody movement we’ve had in this case. I thought I’d better bring it round because your governor doesn’t seem much of a one for going by the book, does he? Why, as far as I can tell, he’s not so much as put his nose inside our Murder Headquarters since he got here.’

  ‘Chief Inspector Dover has a very individual style of working,’ agreed MacGregor, sticking conscientiously to the literal truth. ‘Shall I take the tray for you, sir?’ He would dearly have loved to ask Inspector Walters what the new development was, but the comparatively crowded bar was not the place for such confidences.

  Inspector Walters failed to match MacGregor in tact and general delicacy of feeling. He went ahead to open the door which led out to the dining room and paused with his hand on the handle. ‘I say,’ he bawled back across the room, ‘is it true that the young Bones kid had a piss in your governor’s bowler hat?’

  MacGregor scorned to answer so impertinent a question.

  Dover had already eaten his second helping of pudding and was half-way through MacGregor’s on the indisputable grounds that it would otherwise grow cold and go to waste. He was pleased to see the brandy, though less ecstatic about the arrival of Inspector Walters.

  ‘A new development?’ he whined. ‘’Strewth, couldn’t it have waited till morning? I’m only flesh and blood, you know. I can’t keep going twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I’m not made of iron. You should see the state of my bowels. I don’t know whether it’s overwork or the water in this dump or what, but. . .’

  ‘I was just telling Inspector Walters that we’ve already made considerable progress, sir,’ said MacGregor, who knew that not everybody could take Dover’s intestinal complications in their stride.

  Dover scowled. ‘I’m confidently expecting to make an arrest at any minute,’ he announced. It was a phrase he’d picked up from those very old films on the telly.

  Inspector Walters evinced some surprise. ‘But you don’t even know who the dead girl is yet, do you, sir?’

  ‘That doesn’t stop me from spotting the blooming murderer!’ retorted Dover crossly. ‘And have you checked up yet to see whether any of the people living in The Grove’s got a criminal record?’

  Inspector Walters was taken aback. ‘You didn’t ask me to, sir.’

  Dover shrugged his shoulders. ‘Thought you’d do it automatically,’ he said, chalking this one up to himself.

  Inspector Walters gulped and avoided MacGregor’s eye. He was a man of some professional pride who didn’t care to be found wanting. ‘I’ll get on to it right away, sir,’ he promised.

  ‘Suit yourself!’ Dover sat back and allowed MacGregor to ply him with a cigarette. Having re-established the pecking order, the Chief Inspector felt he could afford to relax. ‘So, what’s this new stuff you’re supposed to have come up with?’ he asked.

  Inspector Walters opened his folder. ‘The forensic people from the lab came across it, sir. I don’t know whether you could really call it a clue to the girl’s identity, but it’s the nearest we’ve had so far.’

  9

  ‘Of course,’ said Inspector Walters, painfully conscious that his revelation had been something of an anti-climax, ‘we’ve still got the option of putting the girl’s photo on the telly. We’ll get every crank in the country ringing up but . . .’

  ‘It’s a bloody paper bag!’ said Dover, indignantly and accusingly.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Inspector Walters was beginning to wish he’d let one of his underlings bring the damned thing round and collect the glory. ‘The forensic people have had quite a time with it, as you can see. It’s disintegrated pretty badly. That’s why they’ve put it between these two sheets of transparent plastic, sir, so that it doesn’t crumble away any more. Still, you can read the writing on it quite clearly, can’t you?’

  Dover took hold of the talc and paper sandwich again and screwed his eyes up. The paper bag was a white one, some eight inches square, and it had obviously been folded up half a dozen times. It was a special bag, individually printed for the establishment concerned. ‘Ermengilda’s Kitchen’, Dover read aloud in a voice of total disbelief. ‘Gifte Shoppe & Cafe. Souvenirs. Homemade gateaux a Speciality. Barford-in-the-Meadow.’ He handed the sandwich to MacGregor and addressed himself to Inspector Walters. ‘And what the hell am I supposed to do with that?’

  Inspector Walters was so unnerved by this display of unashamed hostility that the obvious answer to Dover’s question never so much as crossed his mind. ‘I thought – we thought – it might narrow the search down, sir,’ he bleated. ‘Starting from Barford-in-the-Meadow, you see, and then widening out in ever increasing circles.’

  ‘I’ll give you ever increasing circles!’ threatened Dover.

  It was left to MacGregor to find some more constructive line of enquiry. ‘Where precisely did they find this paper bag?’

  Inspector Walters responded with touching gratitude. The relief of hearing a human voice! ‘It was in her shoe, sergeant.’

  ‘Her shoe?’

  ‘Yes, she’d got a hole in the sole of her left shoe and this paper bag had been folded up and placed in the shoe, evidently in an attempt to keep the wet out. All her clothing was cheap, rubbishy stuff. Tatty. Her shoes were the same. I doubt if they would have stood up to re-soling, even supposing she’d got the money to pay for it. The lab people have been going through all her clothing with a fine tooth-comb in an effort to track down where she hailed from. It was all chain-store stuff. The sort you can buy in any one of a couple of hundred towns. It was pure chance, really, that one of the team thought of having a look at the soles of her shoes. They were looking more for particles of coal dust or sand or cement or something. The shoes had dried out a bit by then and he realized that there’d been this amateurish attempt to repair them. And that’s how they found the paper bag.’

  Inspector Walter’s account tailed off lamely as Dover produced, without benefit of decently concealing hand, one of his enormous, jaw-cracking yawns. It was an awesome spectacle and, in its time, had put better men than Inspector Walters off their stride.

  ‘And you think we might be able to trace the girl back through this?’ MacGregor was merely ruminating aloud. The day had not yet dawned when he would seek advice from a provincial copper, however worthy.

  Inspector Walters nodded. ‘It’s the only clue we’ve got.’

  MacGregor was well aware of that. ‘Barford-in-the-Meadow is quite a little tourist centre,’ he pointed out. ‘And a half-way stop for the long distance coaches. I can’t see anybody at Ermengilda’s Kitchen remembering a casual customer.’

  ‘If she was a bloody customer at all,’ contributed Dover, running a stubby finger round the inside of his glass and then licking off the very last traces of brandy. ‘She could have picked that bag up in the street somewhere.’

  ‘That’s true, sir,’ agreed MacGregor. He wouldn’t have picked a paper bag up in the street himself, but he appreciated that not everyone would be so particular. ‘And from what little we know about the girl, it does seem rather unlikely that she would be mak
ing purchases in a place like Ermengilda’s Kitchen.’ He tapped the plastic sandwich with an authoritative finger. ‘These tourist-trap places are generally on the expensive side.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make it more likely that they would remember her, if she had been a customer?’ asked Inspector Walters, and got two very bleak scowls for his pains.

  Meanwhile, Dover, too, had been thinking. He was getting very bored with Frenchy Botham and a nice little run out into the country wouldn’t come at all amiss. Especially one at the taxpayer’s expense. They could have lunch at Barford-in-the-Meadow, ask a few questions and be back at The Laughing Dog in plenty of time for supper. A few hours’ delay in reaching a final solution wouldn’t worry Pomeroy Chemicals Limited all that much, and they’d be highly unlikely ever to find out the reason why. Dover felt almost happy and, since he was clearly going to put himself out on Inspector Walters’s behalf, he considered he was fully justified in inviting that lucky man to stand another round of drinks. ‘One,’ he said with a winning leer, ‘for the road, eh?’

  Inspector Walters gathered up the empties.

  Dover vouchsafed a final suggestion. ‘How about making’em doubles this time?’

  If there were any justice in the world, Dover’s day trip to Barford-in-the-Meadow would have been accomplished in either a thick fog or a blinding snowstorm. The day broke, however, bright and sunny and, although it was some hours before Dover got out of bed, the weather continued to be really rather superb. He and MacGregor had a most enjoyable drive in the police car which, in accordance with Dover’s instructions, progressed slowly so that they could enjoy the burgeoning beauties of the English countryside.

  All in all, it made a very nice break – a pleasant little interlude in the hard, unrelenting and exhausting grind of a murder investigation. They stopped for coffee and biscuits at The Caltraps in Lesser Wibbley, beer and crisps at The William & Mary in Horwill, and reached Barford-in-the-Meadow in time for an early lunch.

  At three o’clock, when the bar closed, MacGregor managed to get Dover out of The Ploughboy’s Arms and staggering once more along the path of duty. Having sensibly found out the location of Ermengilda’s Kitchen while Dover was regaling the drinking public in the Snug with tales of his derring do, MacGregor was able to steer their steps past all the Ingle-nooks, the Copper Warming Pans and Delicatessens, and the Olde Patisserie Stores with which Barford-in-the-Meadow swarmed.

  Ermengilda’s Kitchen (Gifte Shoppe & Cafe) was an aggressive pastiche of what a middle-European set designer for an American film might have thought an eighteenth-century English coffeehouse looked like. It was so quaint that it hurt. The windows were archly bowed and one in five of the little panes of glass was carefully distorted. The Kitchen was entered through an old-fashioned glass door which rang an old-fashioned bell – thus giving notice of the approach of yet another well-heeled sucker. It might have been better if the warning about the step had been printed in something more legible than olde English black letter, but MacGregor picked himself up in a jiffy and no great harm was done.

  Miss Ermengilda herself came hurrying across as soon as she realized she wasn’t going to be sued for damages. She was wearing buckled shoes, white stockings, a dirndl skirt, an embroidered blouse and a mob cap. ‘Oh, dear, are you all right?’

  MacGregor said that he was and tried to fend Miss Ermengilda off. In spite of the wholesome impression she gave of lavender bags and three-legged milking stools, her hands seemed to be everywhere.

  ‘Wouldn’t you care to sit down for just a moment or two? We have a chair over here . . .’

  She was too late, of course. The chair in question was already buckling under the seventeen and a quarter stones of solid fat of You-know-who.

  ‘Oh!’ squeaked Miss Ermengilda who prided herself on being patronized by such a very nice type of clientele.

  Dover’s wits were too scattered to allow much in the way of finesse. ‘We’re from the police,’ he said, waving an arm which nearly swept every jar of Old-fashioned Humbugs right off the counter. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Dover and this is Detective Sergeant What’s-his-name.’Strewth, show her your warrant card, laddie, before she starts shouting rape!’

  Several of the customers who had been happily ‘just looking’ began to leave.

  ‘Is there perhaps somewhere we could have a few words in private, madam?’ asked MacGregor, rightly judging that Miss Ermengilda was not best pleased at seeing her living slink out of the door.

  Miss Ermengilda gazed round. Having the police on the premises had quite taken her breath away. ‘Well, I suppose we could go . . .’

  ‘How about over there?’ Dover launched himself off his chair by the counter and made it right across to the other end of the shop in an untidy scramble. As usual his instinct was infallible and he flopped down at one of the little cafe tables with a grunt of pure relief. His feet, after all that walking, were just about killing him. Indeed, had he been a little less squiffy, he would probably have taken his boots off to ease them.

  After only a momentary hesitation to reconstitute the display of corn dollies which Dover’s uncertain passage had casually demolished, Miss Ermengilda joined him. MacGregor brought up the rear.

  ‘Doris!’ Miss Ermengilda summoned a bored-looking teenager who was sketchily arrayed as a Victorian tweenie. ‘Go and serve in the shop until I’m free, dear! And try and push that dried mimosa, there’s a good girl! I can’t face having it hanging around for another year.’ Miss Ermengilda waited until Doris had gone on her way in a flurry of indifference. ‘Now – er – gentlemen, what can I do for you?’

  ‘How about a pot of tea for two and a plate of cakes?’ asked Dover hopefully.

  ‘Later, perhaps.’ Miss Ermengilda was nobody’s fool where business was concerned. She turned now to MacGregor, slightly disappointed that so nice looking a young man should have sunk so low.

  MacGregor produced the paper bag from his brief-case. It was still being preserved between the two sheets of plastic and Miss Ermengilda regarded it dubiously. ‘Did this paper bag come from your shop, madam?’

  ‘I imagine so. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘It’s in connection with some enquiries we’re making,’ said MacGregor and waited patiently while Miss Ermengilda removed the bowl of lump sugar to a neighbouring table where it was out of reach of Dover’s thieving fingers. ‘Can you by any chance remember if you have ever seen this girl before?’

  Miss Ermengilda accepted the proffered photograph. ‘Good gracious,’ she said faintly. ‘Is she . . . is she ..?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid she’s dead, madam,’ said MacGregor. ‘It’s her death, of course, which is the subject of our enquiries.’

  Miss Ermengilda’s throat had gone quite dry. ‘Was she murdered?’ she asked in a shocked voice.

  MacGregor nodded his head.

  ‘Good gracious!’

  ‘Do you recall ever having seen her before?’

  ‘Well, of course I do!’ said Miss Ermengilda rather tartly as she handed the photograph back. ‘It’s Pearl, isn’t it?’

  MacGregor whipped notebook and pencil out with a speed of hand which deceived the eye. ‘Pearl?’ he repeated eagerly. ‘Pearl who?’

  ‘Pearl Wallace, of course. She worked for me until recently. Here in the cafe mostly, but helping out in the shop as and when required. I make a point of that, you know. Flexibility. They must be prepared to do both jobs, otherwise they stand around half the day doing absolutely nothing. These girls will stands of course, until the cows come home.’

  But MacGregor was after hard facts, not Miss Ermengilda’s views on the mobility of adolescent female labour. And, all credit to Miss Ermengilda who was a much tougher cookie than she looked, facts were what he got.

  Pearl Wallace was an eighteen-year-old who had graced Ermengilda’s Kitchen with her presence for the best part of twelve months.

  ‘Where did she live?’

  ‘She was in lodgings. Tubilee Avenu
e. Number Eleven. Mrs O’Malley.’

  ‘She didn’t live at home?’

  ‘No, she’d left home. I presumed that there’d been one of the usual teenage revolts. Pearl wasn’t a very articulate girl, and in any case I make a point of never prying. One’s motives are so liable to be misunderstood.’

  ‘Do you know if she’d got a boyfriend?’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t the least idea. I expect she had. She was quite a pretty girl in a gamin sort of way.’

  MacGregor tapped his teeth with the end of his pencil. They’d struck gold here, all right! At last! And it was all thanks to old Dover, would-you-believe! MacGregor spared a glance for the man responsible for this dramatic break-through. There he was – eyes shut, mouth open, chins sunk on his manly bosom – but still dominating the proceedings. MacGregor tore his eyes away from the sickening spectacle and went back to Miss Ermengilda. ‘Did Pearl Wallace have any family?’

  ‘Oh, I think there were some parents, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Do you know where they live?’

  Miss Ermengilda shook her head. ‘I imagine it’s somewhere near Mottrell. That’s where Pearl went to school. Mottrell Comprehensive. I know that because she gave the Headmaster as her reference when she came here.’

  ‘And you took it up?’

  ‘I certainly did!’ said Miss Ermengilda bitterly. ‘I’ve been let down too often by girls with simply glowing references to waste my time with those who can’t produce any at all.’

  ‘What sort of a worker was Pearl Wallace?’

  Miss Ermengilda inclined her head judiciously. ‘Average,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘By which I mean she did as little work as possible, was completely uninterested in the job, and was not unduly scrupulous in money matters if she thought she could get away with it. On the other hand, she was quite personable and she kept herself clean. I wish I could say as much about all the girls who have been employed here. And now, sergeant’ – Miss Ermengilda fixed MacGregor with a steely eye – ‘I think it’s time you told me a little more about what’s happened.’