Detective Murphy listened to chief (8)
I believe the answer is:
dictator
'chief' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'detective murphy listened to' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'detective' could be 'di' (Detective Inspector abbreviation) and 'di' is found in the answer.
'to' is within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dictator that I've seen before include "Stalin was one, and Mussolini" , "one who brooks no opposition" , "Arbitrary ruler" , "Top dog like Hitler, Stalin and Franco" , "Chaplin film showed a great one" .)