Dead Easy for Dover

me to do about the newspapers and the television?’
For once Dover had the answer worked out. ‘I’ll hold a press conference,’ he said grandly, already seeing his name in headlines and his face on the box. Pomeroy Chemicals Limited would like that!’Strewth, if he played his cards right, it might mean another couple of thou a year at least.
Inspector Walters squirmed uneasily. k Well, I don’t think we’ve quite got enough for a conference at the moment, sir,’ he said, eyeing Dover much as a nervous matador eyes the bull. ‘The boy from the Chapminster Gazette is sort of covering it for everybody at the moment. Mind you, as soon as there are any spectacular developments the big bugs from London’ll be down quick as a flash, but they’re not actually here at the moment.’
Dover turned nasty. ‘Then why ask me what to bloody well do about them, you moron?’
‘Actually, it was more about the girl’s picture, really, sir.’ Inspector Walters knew he was grovelling and was furious with himself but, somehow, he couldn’t seem to help it. ‘I was wondering if we should distribute copies now for publication in the media or wait till later – in case our own enquiries turned up something. I mean, you know what it’s like if we publish a picture and ask people if they’ve seen the person concerned. We get swamped with replies, most of which are a complete and utter waste of time.’
‘I think we’ll hang on for a bit,’ said MacGregor as Dover, apparently bored out of his mind with such trivial details, stared bleakly and silently out of the window. ‘It’s early days yet and there’s no point in making more trouble for ourselves than we need.’
‘No,’ agreed Inspector Walters, privately thinking that they’d already got more than their fair share of trouble sitting right there in the back seat with them.

4
In happier and more carefree days it was at this point that Dover, drained and exhausted by the effort of having done half-a-morning’s work, would have knocked off for lunch. But the prospect of a highly paid sinecure with Pomeroy Chemicals Limited was proving a hard taskmaster and Dover determined to press relentlessly on. He would, he announced to a suitably astounded MacGregor, conduct one more interview before withdrawing for a well-earned pint, two helpings of Lancashire hotpot and a quiet kip.
‘In that case, we’d better tackle the Goughs, sir,’ said MacGregor, consulting his list of people who lived in The Grove. ‘I understand Mrs Esmond Gough has a preaching engagement this afternoon.’
‘Mrs Esmond Gough?’ Dover wasn’t good at names but this one rang a faint bell.
‘That’s right, sir. She’s the woman who wants to be a bishop.’ MacGregor tucked his notebook away and reached for the door handle. ‘I expect you’ve seen her on the telly. She’s always coming on these chat shows and what-have-you. She’s running this terrific campaign for having women priests and they say she’s dead set on being the first woman bishop in England.’
‘Oh, that nutter!’ snorted Dover disparagingly. As a card-carrying male chauvinist pig, his views on the position of women were crudely predictable and certainly didn’t include having ’em up there in the bloody pulpit spouting morality at him. ‘What she wants is a good belt round the ears. And, if she was my wife, she’d get it! Silly cow!’
MacGregor doubted very much if the man had yet been born who was capable of taking on the formidable Mrs Esmond Gough. She was an athletically built woman in her early forties who had a good brain and the single-mindedness of a steamroller. If it came to a straightforward contest between her and Dover, she’d win hands down every time. On the other hand, it was not Dover’s style to get himself involved in straightforward contests and MacGregor felt that old depression creeping over him as he got out of the car. He’d seen Dover pinning murders onto people he didn’t like too often not to be worried about it. In view of the old fool’s feelings about women who earned more money and got more attention than he did, MacGregor felt that Mrs Esmond Gough would be well advised to watch her step. He turned to help Dover get out and found some consolation in the thought that even so rabid a proponent of sex equality as Mrs Esmond Gough could hardly be the father of the dead girl’s child.
Mr Esmond Gough could, though.
MacGregor was rather surprised to find that there was a Mr Esmond Gough although, now he came to think of it, he had heard Mrs Esmond Gough wax lyrical on the joys of married love on several occasions. Actually, Mr Esmond Gough was a retired brigadier-general, and it was he who answered the door and welcomed the two detectives. He conducted them into a large sitting room which was apparently doubling as campaign headquarters. There were pamphlets and posters everywhere, a duplicating machine, a couple of typewriters and several huge piles of envelopes which the Brigadier had been labouring to address.
‘Mrs Esmond Gough will join us in a minute, gentlemen,' he said as he cleared a heap of collecting boxes and files off a couple of chairs. ‘She’s on the phone to Sweden. We get a lot of support, both moral and financial, from Sweden. They’re so much more enlightened about things over there.’ As a matter of fact the Brigadier was far from being a fanatic about women’s rights in general or female priests in particular, but he loyally gave his wife one hundred per cent support in her endless campaigns. Not only did this make for marital harmony, but the contributions Mrs Esmond Gough received enabled the Brigadier to enjoy a higher standard of living than his own unaided army pension would have permitted. The Brigadier had something of a taste for the good things in life. He also appreciated his wife’s frequent absences from the domestic hearth as