Mrs. Pargeter's Principle

by Simon Brett

Who would have thought that a certain macho Hollywood action star always wore a lady’s silk camisole next to his skin? Or that a former Home Secretary was addicted to a popular brand of cough syrup? Or, indeed, that a best-selling novelist had taken up tightrope-walking between skyscrapers simply because it was easier than writing? And that a well-known Cardinal had a tattoo of Marilyn Monroe on his lower back, so contrived that his two buttocks represented her breasts?

  This was all such fun, so it was with reluctance that Mrs Pargeter finally dragged the conversation back to the purpose of her making contact. ‘It’s a long shot,’ she said, ‘but I’m trying to track down a journalist, and I was thinking – well, that’s Ellie Fenchurch’s world.’

  ‘Certainly is. I reckon I know – or know about – everyone in the field. All the new kids on the block – and a lot of the tired old hacks.’

  ‘I think the one I’m after would very definitely be in the second category by now.’

  ‘So who is he?’

  ‘Used to work on an expats’ newspaper in the Congo some twenty years ago.’

  Ellie Fenchurch let out a low whistle. ‘You didn’t tell me it was going to be that degree of difficulty. I reckon I know the personnel around Fleet Street pretty well – not, of course, that it is Fleet Street any more, but everyone still calls it that. My contacts in the Congo some twenty years ago are somewhat more limited.’

  ‘Well, it would be wonderful if you could do a bit of detective work for me. And I think if you do manage to track him down, there could be rather a juicy scoop for you involved.’

  Ellie Fenchurch’s journalistic antennae were instantly alert. ‘Give me the guy’s name – that would be a start.’

  ‘Conrad Skeet.’

  Ellie looked at her in blank amazement. ‘Well, this is your lucky day, Mrs P.’

  ‘You mean you do know him?’

  ‘Yes, I do. But I hate to think what the statistical chances of that happening—’

  ‘Serendipity,’ said Mrs Pargeter with an expression that was almost complacent. ‘I’ve had a relatively bad run of luck recently – you know, on the investigation front. I deserve to have the dice falling my way for a change. So tell me about Conrad Skeet. Have you done one of your celebrity interviews with him?’

  Ellie dismissed the idea with a puff of breath. ‘No, no. He’s far from a celebrity, but as a journalist he is interesting.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he does very little work – and seems to have done very little work for a long time – but he lives in a lifestyle that … well, a lifestyle that I certainly envy.’

  ‘So what’s the explanation for it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Which is why I find him intriguing.’

  ‘Is it just a rich wife, Ellie? It often is.’

  ‘Conrad’s unmarried.’

  ‘Family money?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I mean, how well do you know him? Have you asked him where his money comes from?’

  ‘No, but I know people who have.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He clams up when he’s asked about it. Very secretive.’

  ‘Hm. And do you know where I might find him?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a near neighbour of mine at the Barbican. That’s how we met. He owns a penthouse there.’

  ‘Does he? Could you give me a number for him?’

  Some instinct seemed to have told Gaston that their champagne glasses were empty, so he appeared to refill them. Ellie’s touch on his arm this time showed that they were very definitely an item. But an item on her terms.

  Good for you, Ellie, thought Mrs Pargeter.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘I think the important thing about being a journalist is that one works by principle. Unless you’re employed as a feature or leader writer, you’re not there to push your opinions down your readers’ throats. You are there to record what actually happens. And you do that with all the honesty of which you are capable. You don’t kowtow to the prejudices of any editor or newspaper owner. You tell the truth. And that’s the standard to which I have always aspired as a journalist. If I am not allowed to work on those terms, then I’d rather be out of work.’

  As he uttered this fine speech, Conrad Skeet looked out over the unrivalled view of London commanded by his penthouse flat at the top of one of the three tall Barbican towers. It was one of the most sought-after addresses in the City of London, built on ground that had been devastated by Second World War bombing.

  The journalist was probably pushing seventy and dressed in the smart blazer-and-cravat style of an earlier generation. He must have been a good-looking man earlier in his life, but was now rather fraying around the edges.

  ‘And is that why,’ asked Mrs Pargeter, ‘you’ve done so relatively little work as a journalist over the years? Because you refused to do work that compromised your principles?’

  ‘That is exactly what has happened, Mrs Pargeter. It’s a pleasure to meet someone who has such an acute understanding of my position.’

  Mrs Pargeter looked up from the cup of tea he had brought her and took in the contents of the room where they sat. There were paintings on the wall that had the air of being by people she should have heard of. The whole place breathed opulence.

  ‘Mrs Pargeter,’ said Conrad Skeet, and there was an edge of urgency in his voice. ‘When you spoke to me on the phone, you said you were interested in the time when I was working in the Congo.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you want some information from me about that time?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what I’m after.’

  ‘Might it possibly concern the man who became Sir Normington Winthrop?’

  ‘I can return the compliment, Mr Skeet. You, too, have an acute understanding.’

  ‘Thank you.’ But there was still the urgency – or perhaps more than urgency, perhaps even fear – in his voice as he went on, ‘I do know who you are, incidentally.’

  ‘Who I am?’ Mrs Pargeter feigned surprise. ‘Oh, I’m nobody, really. Just a widow.’

  ‘But I know who you are the widow of.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve done some research, Mrs Pargeter. I am a journalist, after all. And since you phoned me I have found out quite a lot about your late husband.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I know, for instance, the connection between him and the man called Anthony Hardcastle.’

  ‘Oh? Did you meet Mr Hardcastle in the Congo?’

  ‘I did. I also met Normington Winthrop.’

  Mrs Pargeter tried desperately to hide her excitement. Finally, she was in the same room as someone who could tie the loose threads of the case together.

  ‘As you know,’ the journalist went on, ‘Normington Winthrop – or Sir Normington Winthrop as he had by then become – died only a few weeks ago.’

  ‘I did know that. I was at the funeral.’

  ‘Ah. So was I. But there was no reason why we should meet there.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mrs Pargeter … not to put too fine a point on it … Sir Normington’s death has put me in an unfortunate position.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. The fact is … I was in the employ of Sir Normington Winthrop.’

  ‘For your journalistic services?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘For maintaining your journalistic principles?’

  ‘You could say that too.’

  Suddenly, Mrs Pargeter saw the whole picture. ‘So what you’re saying is that from the time of Anthony Hardcastle’s death, Sir Normington has been paying you to keep quiet about what you know of the circumstances of that death?’

  ‘Yes, that is what I am saying … though you do make it sound a bit mercenary.’

  Well, what the hell is it if it’s not mercenary? Mrs Pargeter did not give expression to this furious thought. Instead she said, ‘But now he’s dead, Mr Skeet, you find yourself without a paymaster?’

>   ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So you’re now looking for another paymaster?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Or paymistress. Which is why you agreed to see me, why you rang me back after my initial call, once you had checked out my background … once you had ensured that I had enough money to keep you in the style to which over the years you have so easily become accustomed.’

  ‘You have it in one, Mrs Pargeter.’

  She opened her handbag. Inside, as well as Gizmo Gilbert’s ‘Zipper Zapper’, which she had forgotten about, and other sorts of the usual feminine impedimenta, she had a cheque book. She knew that fewer and fewer people were using cheque books these days, but she found it very useful when paying small necessary sums to her husband’s former associates (from real or invented bank accounts). Also, it was always very easy, if required, to stop a cheque.

  She opened the book and flashed a pen at him. ‘So how much are we talking?’

  ‘In recent years, Sir Normington paid me ten thousand pounds a month.’

  A hundred and twenty thou a year for keeping quiet about … what? Mrs Pargeter no longer had any doubt that Normington Winthrop had committed murder.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘how about the same deal for you keeping quiet about it for me?’

  She felt sure Conrad Skeet couldn’t be following the logic through. If Sir Normington Winthrop was dead, then why would she possibly have a motive to keep his former crime covered up? But the glint of greed in the journalist’s eye told her he wasn’t thinking beyond the immediate cash.

  ‘I’ll pay you for three months,’ Mrs Pargeter said airily as she wrote out a cheque for thirty thousand pounds. ‘Then I’ll set up a regular direct debit.’ She handed the cheque across. ‘So now, Mr Skeet, I think you’d better tell me what happened in the Congo all those years ago.’

  He took the cheque, folded it and placed it in the inside pocket of his blazer. Then, with considerable pride in his voice, he began his narrative.

  ‘It was a pretty rough place back then. Still is from all accounts. But twenty years ago there were all kinds of local disputes – some going back to ancient tribal conflicts, some about mineral rights, some just because people liked the idea of blowing other people’s heads off. But to do that, of course, they needed weapons. And though a lot of the grunt work was done by locals, the bosses of the gun-running businesses were mostly white – from South Africa, from the States, from England, from everywhere.

  ‘Normington Winthrop was one of the top dogs in that field. He was from South Africa originally – Jo’burg, I think – but he set up base in Kindu and pretty soon controlled all the weapons supply around there. The locals respected him. He was a fair man – well, as fair as anyone could be in that kind of business – and when he made a deal he stuck to the terms they agreed.

  ‘And his deals were never in cash, always in gold. There was plenty of unofficial or illegal mining going on round there, so it was like a handy currency. Normington doesn’t trust the local banks – which is a very shrewd calculation, as they’re all corrupt as hell – so he keeps his gold in a chest in his home, which is guarded twenty-four/seven. He does a lot of his deals at the house, and when he doesn’t he takes the gold with him in a leather knapsack.

  ‘So he was kind of set up for life. He had his delivery lines in place for sourcing the weapons, he knew which local officials might need their palms greased and he ran a very tight ship. He was married, too, to a local woman. All was fine until suddenly this guy Tony Hardcastle turns up.’

  ‘I believe,’ said Mrs Pargeter, ‘when he worked with my husband he was called Hair-Trigger Hardcastle.’

  ‘Called that out in the Congo too. Anyway, this Hardcastle character is very determined to challenge Normington Winthrop’s monopoly on the local gun-running scene, but he plays it quite cool. Makes it seem like he’s suggesting them pooling their resources. He has access to some supplies of weapons that Normington doesn’t, so it looks like he really is bringing something to the table. And they form a kind of uneasy partnership. Neither really trusts the other, but they jog along and, using both their sources of weapons, the business does become more profitable.

  ‘Then, suddenly, they disappear. First sign something’s wrong is there’s a raid on Normington Winthrop’s house in Kindu. Guards all shot dead, and – no great surprise – the chest of gold isn’t there any more. Nor’s his wife. God knows what happened to her. And Winthrop and Hardcastle also seem to have vanished off the face of the earth. Then, a few months later, the body of a white man is found in the jungle.’

  ‘As reported by you in that press cutting I saw,’ said Mrs Pargeter.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Hair-Trigger Hardcastle shot dead,’ she went on, ‘with the implication that Normington Winthrop topped him. And within a year of that Winthrop’s appeared in London, where he starts to build a legitimate career.’

  Conrad Skeet nodded in admiration. ‘You have done your homework, Mrs Pargeter. And, of course, the word you’ve just used – “legitimate” – is a relative term. At the beginning of his career in England, Normington Winthrop is still using the contacts he had built up while he was involved in illegal gun-running. But he’s not selling the goods to local guerrillas any more. Gradually, he gets himself closer and closer to government contacts. In a relatively short time he’s acting as a salesman for the United Kingdom’s arms trade.’

  ‘And he funded the start of his legitimate career with the gold that he’d accumulated in the Congo?’

  ‘Yes, he must have smuggled it out of the country somehow – not a difficult task for someone with the contacts he had.’

  Mrs Pargeter nodded as she pieced things together. ‘Then he starts to worm his way up into London society. He meets Lady Helena Whatever-her-maiden-name-was, and marrying her gets him even further away from his criminal roots.’

  ‘That’s how it worked, yes.’

  ‘Then you came to London, Mr Skeet, and heard about the highly successful businessman Sir Normington Winthrop – assuming he was knighted by then?’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘And you realized that what you knew about his past could actually be a rather valuable commodity?’

  ‘That’s a very good way of putting it, Mrs Pargeter. So I contacted him.’

  ‘Didn’t you think you were taking a risk? After all, he’d shot Hair-Trigger Hardcastle and presumably the guards at his house. Hair-Trigger’s wife as well, perhaps?’

  ‘Yes, but that was all in the Congo. Murders tend to be more closely investigated in London than they are out there. Paying me off was much less of a risk than killing me would have been. And, though very welcome to yours truly, for him the money was just a fleabite.’

  ‘And now he’s dead, the payments have come to an end?’

  ‘Yes. Well, his accounts were all frozen when he died, but I have made contact with his widow.’

  ‘Helena.’

  ‘Exactly. I had to be a little circumspect in how I described the services for which Sir Normington had paid me. I said I was an “Image Consultant” and it was my task to ensure that press coverage of her husband was always friendly. And I asked whether she would be continuing with the monthly retainer which her husband had agreed to pay me.’

  Mrs Pargeter chuckled. ‘And she told you to get lost.’

  Conrad Skeet looked offended by this, but admitted that, though she hadn’t used those exact words, that had been the gist of Lady Winthrop’s response. Then he gestured to the cheque on the table. ‘Which is why I am so grateful to have found another generous paymistress.’

  Mrs Pargeter nodded and smiled. But her mind was racing. She had a lot to do. First she had to get on to her bank and stop the cheque. Then she’d contact Truffler and Erin, tell them the new information and get them to find out as much corroborating detail as possible. They’d compile a dossier, which would be passed over to Ellie Fenchurch. Though her main job was doing the Sunday interview, she still had a good r
elationship with the editorial staff on her paper’s weekly version. There was nothing they would like better than a massive exposé under her byline of the criminal past of the late Sir Normington Winthrop.

  ‘Well, thank you so much for your time, Mr Skeet,’ said Mrs Pargeter, gathering up her handbag.

  ‘My pleasure. And I have been handsomely paid for it. So handsomely that I think I must let you know the pay-off to the narrative.’

  ‘One pay-off for another pay-off?’

  ‘Beautifully put.’ He got himself back into storytelling mode. ‘A few months after the discovery of the body in the jungle, I was in Jo-burg for a bit of R and R. One morning I was sitting in the sun outside a bar with a nice Castle Lager, when I saw someone I recognized walking past. I put down some money for the beer and followed him at a distance. He hadn’t seen me, so I was quite safe.

  ‘I guess I thought he was probably there doing something with the gold – banking it, exchanging it, because Jo-burg’s such a centre for that trade. But, no, he didn’t go into any of the many banks there were along that stretch of road. He went into a very modern looking office. Once he was out of sight I checked the brass plate on the door. It was a consultancy in plastic surgery.’

  ‘So Normington Winthrop was taking another step in erasing his past?’

  ‘Yes. Except that the person I followed wasn’t Normington Winthrop.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It was Hair-Trigger Hardcastle.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Gary’s Bentley was parked on a double yellow line outside the entrance to the Barbican Theatre. ‘Where to?’ he asked.

  Her mind was so full of new thoughts that she had to untangle them before she could come up with an answer. ‘I need to see Truffler, so his office.’

  ‘I was just in touch with him, Mrs P, and he’s still working with Erin at her place.’

  ‘Then Erin’s place it is.’

  As they drove north and watched the office blocks and City institutions give way to residential housing, Mrs Pargeter said little. She just tried to think of all the possible ramifications of her new stock of knowledge. The only time she spoke was when she phoned her bank to cancel the thirty-thousand-pound cheque she’d just given to Conrad Skeet.