Dover and the Claret Tappers

They should have given him life! If I had my way,’ he added, turning his coat collar up and trying to burrow down inside it, ‘I’d blow ’em up with their own bloody bombs.’
‘We don’t know that he’d anything to do with bombs, actually, sir.’
Dover didn’t care for being contradicted but, thinking he’d found a way to stop MacGregor disturbing him, he let it go and sank even deeper into his greatcoat. Read me out what’s-his-name’s file, laddie!’ he commanded. ‘All of it, from cover to cover.’
MacGregor saw through this ruse easily enough. Dover had, after all, used it countless times before. Well, it wasn’t going to work on this occasion. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but we haven’t got a hie on him.’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s a go-slow in the Criminal Record Office, sir. They’re working to rule or something. Anyhow, whatever it is, it’s taking about a week to get a hie out of them. It’s only because I happen to have a friend working there that I was able to get what bit of information I have about Gallagher. At least we know what prison he’s in.’
‘Gallagher?’ said Dover, looking anxious. ‘That’s an Irish name, isn’t it?’
‘It could be, sir,’ agreed MacGregor.
Of recent years Dover had taken to seeing Greens rather than Reds under the bed and tended to get a trifle hysterical at any mention of the Emerald Isle. ‘I should have known that lot were behind it!’ he moaned.
‘But none of your kidnappers were Irish, were they, sir? They didn’t speak with Irish accents, did they?’
‘They could have disguised them, couldn’t they, you blockhead?’ Dover glanced nervously round the railway carriage. The trouble was that everybody under twenty-five looked like a bloody anarchist these days. ‘How long before we get there?’
‘Oh, an hour or more, sir. There’ll be a car waiting for us at. . .’
‘You keep your eyes skinned, then! I’m just going to have a bit of a quiet think.’ Dover wriggled about to get comfortable. ‘Don’t you go dozing off, mind!’
‘I won’t, sir,’ said MacGregor who had learnt to know when he was beaten. ‘Er – will you want a cup of coffee if they come round with it?’
‘Might as well,’ said Dover. ‘And get me a couple of sandwiches, too. Just to keep me going till lunch-time.’
* * *
The Deputy Governor kindly laid on a late lunch for them and was even rather pleased to see Dover scoff down everything edible in sight. ‘I do like to see a man with a healthy appetite,’ he said with an approving chuckle.
Dover mopped up the last crumbs of his ginger pudding and spooned half the contents of the sugar bowl into his coffee. He belched happily, undid the top button of his trousers and awarded his rosette. ‘Not bad for prison grub.’
The Deputy Governor was modestly gratified. ‘We’ve got a very good cook at the moment.’
MacGregor looked up. ‘A prisoner, sir?’
‘Oh, yes. A trusty, of course. A very decent chap. He’s doing life for poisoning his mother-in-law but he’s never given us a moment’s anxiety.’
Dover was looking round expectantly. ‘Somebody going to pass the fags round, eh?’
‘Fags? Oh.’ – the Deputy Governor’s hospitable face tell – ‘I’m afraid I don’t smoke.’
‘Well, nobody’s perfect,’ said Dover generously and turned to MacGregor.
Her Majesty’s Prison Service didn’t run to brandy, either, and Dover’s instant and obvious displeasure cast a cloud over what had otherwise been a most delightful lunch.
MacGregor tried to cover things up by engaging the Deputy Governor in small talk. ‘Er – what sort of a man is this chap Gallagher, sir?’
‘Gallagher?’ The Deputy Governor tore his eyes away from Dover’s sullen face and made an effort to gather his thoughts. ‘Oh, a very decent chap, you know. No trouble. I think you’ll find him quite cooperative.’
‘He’d better be!’ Dover chipped in menacingly. He flourished a clenched and podgy fist. ‘I’ve got the cure right here if he isn’t!’
There being limits to how much even near saints like the Deputy Governor can stomach, Dover and MacGregor found themselves being shown out almost before they knew what was happening. I hey were conducted down long, apparently endless corridors with much locking and unlocking of heavy clanging doors. At the door of the room in which they were going to interview Archibald Gallagher, the Deputy Governor took a frosty-faced leave of them. ‘Just ring for the prison officer when you’ve finished,’ he asked, brushing aside MacGregor’s attempts to thank him for his hospitality. ‘He’ll see you out.’
‘Lah-di-dah poof!’ muttered Dover, pushing his way into the interview room and flopping down on the nearest chair. ‘’Strewth, me feet aren’t half giving me the old jip!’
MacGregor shouldered the burden of the interview so that Dover was left free to scrutinise the victim’s demeanour or have a quiet kip as the fancy took him. ‘You are Archibald Gallagher?’
The man lounging easily on the other side of the table wasn’t most people’s idea of a long-term convict and he fell a long way short of Dover’s mental picture of a black-hearted, bloody-handed terrorist. With courteous charm he corrected MacGregor. ‘Archibald St John Roderick Gallagher, actually.’ He smiled. ‘But you can call me Archie.’
MacGregor didn’t care for being patronised by an old lag, however aristocratic his bearing or posh his accent. ‘We’re police officers,’ he said, very po-faced.
Archibald St John Roderick Gallagher’s smile widened. ‘I would never have guessed!’
‘I am Detective Sergeant MacGregor and this is . . .’
‘And this is Detective Chief Inspector Dover of the Murder Squad at New Scotland Yard!’ Archie Gallagher’s smile now ripened into a positive beam and, half rising to his feet, he reached across the table, seized Dover’s hand and shook it warmly. ‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance, sir! And may I congratulate you on your safe delivery from the clutches of those villains!’
Dover’s jaw dropped and even MacGregor looked more than a little put out.
‘You know Chief Inspector Dover?’
‘Doesn’t everybody, sergeant? The story of his kidnapping was carried as the lead in all the