Have the police party gone to the ship? (7)
I believe the answer is:
possess
'have' is the definition.
(I know that possess is a more specific form of the action have)
'police party gone to the ship?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'police' could be 'posse' (posse is a kind of police) and 'posse' is found within the answer.
'ship?' could be 'ss' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain) and 'ss' is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'the' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for possess that I've seen before include "Have - control" , "Have as one's own" , "Own, keep" , "influence" , "Consume" .)