Dover and the Claret Tappers

his own ideas about MacGregor’s proclivities, shied away like a frightened horse. ‘Hey, watch it!’
But MacGregor was too excited to register yet another slur on his manhood. ‘Sir,’ he said, still hanging onto Dover like grim death, ‘we really should have thought of this before!’
‘Thought of what?’
‘How did the kidnappers know the exact time of your departure from the Yard?’
‘They didn’t.’ If it meant taking the wind out of MacGregor’s sails, Dover could think with surprising speed and logic. ‘They just hovered around waiting till I appeared.
MacGregor considered this and then firmly shook his head. ‘No, that won’t work, sir. Scotland Yard is a pretty sensitive area these days. Even a taxi couldn’t hang around here for three hours without somebody getting suspicious. They’re down on parked vehicles like a ton of bricks.’
‘Who says it was parked?’ asked Dover. ‘They could have just driven round and round. Nobody’d pay any attention to a passing taxi.’
‘But they might have missed you, sir. They could easily have been stuck in a traffic jam out in Victoria Street when you left the Yard. And suppose there’d been other policemen knocking about – would the Claret Tappers have risked abducting you from under the noses of a pack of trained observers? Or suppose you’d been with somebody? Me, for example. They could never have pulled off a stunt like that if I’d been with you.
It took Dover a bit longer to pick holes in this argument. ‘Maybe you were with me!’
MacGregor broke the news gently. ‘I was on my Explosives Course, sir.’
This information was greeted with a really vicious scowl. I mean earlier on, you bloody fool. The Claret Tappers could have been waiting for the right opportunity for weeks for all we know. Maybe Tuesday was simply the first chance they had. There weren’t any coppers around and I hadn’t anybody with me. Anyhow,’ – he sniffed loudly – ‘what was all that about three hours?’
‘Three . . .? Oh, well, just that normally, sir, you leave the Yard at five o’clock. If not earlier. If the kidnappers were counting on you keeping to your usual routine on Tuesday, they would have had to wait, hanging around, for three hours. It doesn’t sound very likely, sir, does it?’
Dover’s bottom lip stuck out. ‘It was old Brockhurst,’ he explained sulkily. ‘While you were away, the rat took to ringing me up just before knocking off’ time. Trying to catch me out, you see, in case I left early.’
It was MacGregor’s turn to start feeling cold. There was a biting gale whistling down the street. “I don’t quite see what you’re getting at, sir.’
‘The kidnappers wouldn’t have had to wait three hours for me to come out of the Yard on Tuesday,’ explained Dover with remarkable patience. ‘They would only have had to wait two because, thanks to old Brockhurst, I had to sit there twiddling my bloody thumbs till six.’
‘Does it really make all that much difference, sir?’ asked MacGregor. ‘The taxi wouldn’t have hung around for two hours any more than for three.’
‘I was just trying to keep the record straight,’ said Dover. ‘And now, if you’ve finished, let’s get to the boozer. It’s cold enough out here to freeze half a dozen brass monkeys!’
Dover had got MacGregor so bemused that the sergeant was actually bringing the drinks over from the bar before he remembered the point he had been trying to make. Ready to kick himself he handed Dover his large rum and peppermint (guaranteed to ward off chills on the stomach) and took the chair next to him.
‘Good health!’ said Dover cheerfully.
MacGregor let his pale ale grow flat untouched. ‘Sir, this question of the Claret Tappers apparently knowing the exact time of your departure from the Yard . . .’
The beam of contentment faded from Dover’s face. ‘Oh, ’strewth, you’re not still harping on that are you?’
‘Sir,’ – MacGregor looked round the empty pub and lowered his voice – ‘the only way the kidnappers could have been ready and waiting for you as you left the Yard was if somebody inside tipped them off.’
Dover’s mouth opened and then shut again. MacGregor was shocked to see how white the old fool had suddenly gone and, with the callousness of comparative youth, was inclined to attribute it to the too rapid consumption of the rum.
‘Are you all right, sir?’
Dover swallowed. ‘Somebody in the Yard tipped ‘em off?’ His voice was hoarse and rather unsteady.
‘I can’t see any other explanation, sir.’
Dover’s blood ran cold. He wanted to make some jokey remark about having been nursing a viper in his bosom, but the words wouldn’t come. In spite of all his whining and grumbling, the reality of his experience was only now beginning to come home to him. The Claret Tappers were for real – a bunch of ruthless criminals who’d been fully prepared to barter his life against a ridiculously large sum of money. They would, if he hadn’t escaped their clutches by some miracle, have killed him. Dover shivered. But the worst was yet to come. He wasn’t just any old, haphazardly chosen victim. On the contrary, he had been carefully selected. Somebody had set him up. Somebody inside Scotland Yard itself had actually planned and plotted to deliver him up to these merciless thugs. What a terrible realisation! ’Strewth, it got you right in the gut and . . .
Dover gulped down the remains of his rum and peppermint. ‘Get us another!’ he croaked and staggered to his feet.
MacGregor looked up at him in some surprise. That well-known podgy pasty face had gone quite green round the edges. ‘Are you going somewhere, sir?’
‘I’m going to the bog!’ replied Dover with what dignity he could muster before making a run for it.
It was twenty minutes before he came waddling back.
‘Feeling better, sir?’
Usually there was nothing that Dover liked better than a rosy little chat about his more intimate bodily functions, but at the moment he had more weighty matters on his mind. He