Dover and the Claret Tappers

be running this mad-house being daft enough to send a Murder Squad boy round just to look into a bit of lousy thieving.’
‘Thieving?’ asked MacGregor, failing to make the mental jumps necessary to follow Mrs Fish’s conversational style.
‘That bunch of light-fingered crooks out there, dear,1 explained Mrs Fish with a contemptuous nod in the direction of the canteen. ‘Cheese rolls up their sleeves and Madeira slabs stuffed in their pockets. They’d have whipped all the counter fittings out by now if they hadn’t all been screwed down.’
MacGregor was bewildered. ‘You don’t mean the policemen?’
‘I certainly do mean the policemen!’ Mrs Fish was airing an old grievance. ‘I challenged one of them only the other day. A mere lad, he was, hardly even begun shaving. “Don’t tell me that bulge is your personal radio,” I said, “because I know better!” Looked me straight in the eye, he did, lovie, and . . .
Mere politeness required MacGregor to listen to all the subsequent exchange of repartee, from which Mrs Fish naturally emerged as victor. A ready wit didn’t, apparently, solve the canteen’s financial problems.
‘We’re losing thousands a week,’ said Mrs Fish placidly, paving more attention to the selection of her next chocolate biscuit than to her profit margins. ‘I keep writing to that Commissioner chap of yours but for all the good it does, I might as well save my breath.’ She flashed MacGregor a salacious smile. ‘Still, let’s not you and me waste our time talking about a mob of lousy coppers who’d nick the pennies off a dead man’s eyes.’
MacGregor sensed that this was probably going to be his last chance of getting a word in edgeways. ‘I wonder it you could give me a list of the canteen staff you had on duty last Tuesday evening. I’m particularly interested in girls who were on the premises from before five o’clock, say, until after eight. You are open then, aren’t you?’
‘We never close,’ said Mrs Fish, getting what mileage she could out of that old joke. ‘Is this about that kidnapping business, dear? Chief Inspector Rover, wasn’t it?’
‘Dover,’ said MacGregor. ‘We think he may have been fingered by someone inside the Yard. That’s in the strictest confidence,’ he added quickly.
“And you think it might be one of my canteen workers?’ MacGregor knew how sensitive people could be. ‘That’s only one of several possibilities,’ he said tactfully. ‘I shall be checking on the clerical staff and the telephonists and even the policewomen. Any young woman who was in the Yard on Tuesday evening is a possible suspect.’
Mrs Fish rummaged around in a capacious handbag until she found her massive gold powder compact and matching lipstick. ‘Save your energy, lovie,’ she advised, peering at her face in the mirror. ‘It’s Mary Jones you want. I knew’ – she spoke rather indistinctly as she painted a careful crimson band round her mouth – ‘that little bitch was a wrong ’un as soon as I laid eyes on her. Well, I ask you – volunteering for the late afternoon shift? No young girl in her right senses’d do that.’ She paused and examined her maquillage before glancing across at MacGregor. ‘That’s from two to ten, you know. Ruins your whole evening.’
Taking care not to make a full-scale Palladium spectacular out of it, MacGregor got out his notebook and pencil. Strictly speaking he should at this point have broken off his tête-à-tête with the formidable Mrs Fish and gone to fetch Dover, but it was such a relief to be without the old fool that MacGregor simply hadn’t the heart to do his duty. He squared his conscience by telling himself that Dover didn’t like being bothered with details and he’d be just as happy snoozing out there in the canteen as he would being dragged into Mrs Fish’s sanctum to listen to what might easily turn out to be a wild goose chase. MacGregor could always give him a simple and easily digested resume afterwards if anything worthwhile emerged.
MacGregor gave Mrs Fish his full attention. ‘You’re basing your accusation on something a little more tangible than a willingness to work unsociable hours, I hope?’
Mrs Fish slowly raised eyelashes ponderous with mascara. She was an experienced woman of the world and had – God knows! – rubbed shoulders with enough members of the Metropolitan Police to be perfectly au fait with all their nasty little habits. Like putting words into your mouth. ‘I was not aware,’ she said cautiously, ‘as how I had accused anybody of anything.’ It was a sentence strewn with pitfalls for those with uncertain aspirates and Mrs Fish was relieved to have negotiated it safely.
MacGregor wasn’t bothering about where anybody was sticking their aitches. He realised that he had antagonised Mrs Fish so he dropped his original approach like a hot brick. ‘Tell me about Mary Jones,’ he begged in a wheedling kind of voice.
‘Not much to tell you, lovie,’ was Mrs Fish’s still coolish response. She sighed rather heavily and got up to cross the room to where a tiling cabinet stood. She took her time about it and MacGregor was obliged to restrain his impatience.
‘She’s been working for me for just over a week,’ Mrs Fish announced grudgingly, snatching off her diamanté-framed spectacles as soon as she’d finished reading. ‘I interviewed her a week last Monday and she started work the next day.’
MacGregor frowned. ‘That’s a bit quick, isn’t it? I mean, what about references? ‘And don’t these girls have some sort of security check?’
Mrs Fish glowered back. ‘I can see you’ve never tried to run a police canteen, lovie!’ she said tartly. ‘Girls aren’t lining up to wait hand and foot on you lot, you know. I have to get my staff where and when I can. When a likely looking counter-hand turns up, I can’t afford to hang around for weeks waiting for all this blooming paperwork to be completed. You can’t expect the girl to wait, either.’
‘But the rules and regulations, Mrs Fish?’
Mrs Fish was sorely