Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All

offices but the one on the other side is occupied. They have their bedrooms at the back, though, and they say they didn’t hear anything.’
‘So you drew a blank?’
‘Well, not quite. There’s an elderly lady who lives in a top flat down at the end of the street. She says she saw a green van drive along at about half past four that morning and stop outside Hamilton’s house. According to her, she saw two men get out of the van, which was facing towards her by the way, and go round the back. She couldn’t see what they were doing and after a couple of minutes they got back in the van and drove off. It wasn’t much help. She couldn’t give us much detail. We followed it up but we didn’t get anywhere.’
‘But it wasn’t murder?’
‘No. Everybody thought it was at first, of course. Headquarters descended on us like a pack of ravaging wolves. We haven’t had what you might call a real juicy murder case in the county for years and the Chief Constable went after it like a terrier after a rat. We had everybody in on it. He called men in from the other end of the county, everybody was on overtime and all leave was cancelled. You’d have thought the Third World War had broken out. Well, then we got the path. report and that deflated things a bit. Seems he’d got a clot on the brain or something and it had burst or whatever they do. Could have happened any old time, the doctor said. Well, the C.I.D. poked around for a few days but their heart wasn’t in it and gradually everything quietened down. It wasn’t even a nine days’ wonder in the end.’
MacGregor closed his notebook. ‘Well, it certainly does seem a bit of a mystery, doesn’t it? He died from natural causes, you say, but the body was stripped and mutilated. Very odd.’
There was a great heaving and puffing from the bed. Dover’s face, rather pink from his exertions, emerged. ‘What the blazes,’ he demanded bleakly, ‘has all this to do with young what’s-his-name chucking himself into the ruddy sea?’
‘Well, sir,’ explained the station sergeant, none too confidently, ‘when all the hoo-hah died down over Hamilton and everybody went off on to other jobs like they always do, the Chief Constable sort of turned young Cochran loose on it. He was a sort of friend of Hamilton, you see, and the Chief Constable thought he might be able to get a fresh lead on the business. He didn’t reckon it would do Cochran any harm, either, him being ear-marked for C.I.D., as you might say. It’d give him some practical experience and, of course, it’d be a real feather in his cap if he solved it.’
‘My God!’ snarled Dover, sitting up in bed and showing every sign of actually getting out of it. ‘Do you mean that an ordinary uniformed copper who’s hardly broken his bloody boots in gets handed a murder case like this on a bloody plate?’
‘Well, it wasn’t exactly a murder case, sir,’ the station sergeant pointed out.
‘Don’t quibble!’ roared Dover, swinging his legs out of bed and revealing long woolly underpants. ‘And shove my trousers over! No wonder we never solve any crimes these days. You country bumpkins, you want to get your fingers out! I’ve never heard anything like it. I’m not surprised you’ve got policemen jumping off cliffs every five minutes.’
While he delivered himself of this tirade Dover proceeded to get himself dressed. There was the usual tussle to fasten the top trouser button and the usual effort to reach his shoe laces. When all his clothes were finally tossed on he peered at his face in the dressing-table mirror and dabbed at his hair a couple of times with a disgusting-looking hair brush.
‘Action!’ said Dover. ‘That’s what you want down here. Action! And drive! And a bit of common sense,’ he added scathingly. ‘Chief Constables’ nephews, my Aunt Fanny! It’s a good thing the public doesn’t know how their money’s being spent, by God it is! Well, come on, MacGregor, you great fool! Don’t just sit there!’
MacGregor scrambled to his feet. ‘ Where are we going, sir?’
‘Where are we going, sir?’ mocked Dover, adding a lisp for good measure. ‘In your case, laddie, I often wonder.’
‘Will you want me, sir?’ asked the station sergeant, completely taken aback by this sudden flurry of activity.
‘Not unless you’re going to pay for your own dinner,’ growled Dover.

Chapter Five
MacGregor and the station sergeant looked at each other. The station sergeant mopped his brow.
‘I thought he was up and off to clear the whole business up here and now,’ he said shakily.
‘Not him.’
‘More of what you might call a thinker, is he?’ asked the station sergeant, still gazing in stupefaction at the open door through which Dover had departed.
With commendable loyalty MacGregor refrained from making any comment.
‘Oh, well,’ sighed the station sergeant, ‘it takes all sorts, doesn’t it?’ He looked glumly at his suitcase. ‘What shall I do with that lot?’
‘You’d better leave it here. He’ll want to have a look at it, when he’s had his dinner.’
MacGregor had some difficulty with his Chief Inspector when he finally joined him in the dining-room. Dover was in an evil temper. For the most part his spleen was directed against the unfortunate station sergeant whom he now referred to as that ‘fat sponger’.
‘Me buying a dinner for a sergeant!’ he grumbled. ‘That’ll be the day!’
‘I don’t think, sir, …’
‘Well, I do, laddie! I’ve had enough experience of hangers-on like him to spot ’em when I see them. Touch you for any damned thing, they will – cigarettes, beer, the lot. You want to watch him, laddie, or he’ll take a softy like you for a real ride.’
When he had exhausted the iniquities of the station sergeant Dover turned to women. He was not likely to forget who was the source of all his present troubles.
‘Lolling on the beach in