Mrs. Pargeter's Plot

by Simon Brett

  Computers and telephones had been smashed, a wall-safe pulled bodily from its setting, light fittings ripped from the ceiling, and the furniture reduced to matchwood. Only two chairs had survived the onslaught, and on these, strapped with nylon cords, their mouths shut off by carpet tape, sat the hotel manager and one of his receptionists.

  Mrs Pargeter rushed across to free the prisoners. Ladies first. With an apologetic shrug for the inevitable pain, she ripped the tape off the girl’s mouth, then attacked the ropes that held her.

  ‘What happened?’ she demanded, but the girl was hysterical and could not form an answer. ‘Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll just get Mr Clinton free, and we’ll find you a nice hot, sweet cup of tea,’ Mrs Pargeter said soothingly.

  The girl nodded through her tears, as Mrs Pargeter performed the same rough surgery on the tape across the manager’s mouth.

  Hedgeclipper was a lot more vocal than his underling. ‘He took Erasmus!’ he screamed in fury. ‘The bastard took Erasmus!’

  ‘Don’t fret. I’m sure the monkey won’t come to any harm,’ Mrs Pargeter reassured meaninglessly. ‘Now you just hold still while I get these knots undone.’

  By the time the manager was free, the receptionist had recovered sufficiently to make a practical suggestion. ‘Shall I go and phone the police?’ she asked through the final spasm of her sobs.

  Mrs Pargeter looked sharply across to check Hedgeclipper Clinton’s reaction. Her own attitude to the police was one of great respect and admiration, but she knew there were certain occasions when it was simply not worth adding to their already excessive workload.

  Hedgeclipper’s reaction revealed that this was one of those occasions. ‘No,’ he said judiciously. ‘I think we might be better advised to keep this quiet. We do have to think of our guests. The presence in the hotel of a crowd of noisy policemen would be bound to disturb the more sensitive amongst them.’

  The girl looked dubious. ‘But, I mean, when someone’s caused this amount of damage to the place, surely the proper thing to do is—’

  ‘Oh, this isn’t really much damage. No, absolutely no problem at all,’ said her boss breezily. ‘I’ll get this little lot cleared up in no time.’

  ‘Even so,’ the receptionist continued pugnaciously, ‘it’s not just the assault on property – there’s also the assault on us.’

  ‘He didn’t hurt us much – just tied us up, that’s all.’

  But she wasn’t going to be fobbed off by that kind of reassurance. The receptionist was a girl of her time, aware of her rights as a woman, and of the political ramifications of any form of violence against her sex. ‘You may not mind being assaulted and tied up like that – I regard it as an actionable assault against my freedom as an individual – and as a woman.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Hedgeclipper pleaded.

  But the girl was not to be so easily diverted. She turned for support to Mrs Pargeter. ‘Surely you must agree that we should call the police?’

  If, however, she’d been looking for female solidarity, she’d chosen the wrong ally. Mrs Pargeter had quite detailed views of her own on the subject of women’s rights, but she was first and foremost a pragmatist. If Hedgeclipper Clinton was signalling that the police should not be involved, then she was sure he was doing so for very good reasons.

  ‘No, no, I agree it would only upset the other guests,’ she said airily.

  The receptionist looked shocked to hear such political flabbiness from a member of the sisterhood.

  ‘Maybe,’ Mrs Pargeter continued, looking across at Hedgeclipper, ‘if the young lady were offered some compensation for the appalling distress that has been caused her, she might see the situation rather differently . . .?’

  He caught on instantly. ‘That’s a good idea,’ he said, moving quickly across to where the safe lay on the floor, and twiddling the knobs to open it.

  ‘If you think you can fob me off with money to stop me complaining about an assault on my dignity as a woman . . .’ the receptionist began.

  But when she saw how much money her boss was offering for her silence, she allowed her words to trickle away. Reaching across to take the two folded fifties, she concurred that it probably didn’t make sense to upset the guests.

  ‘No, I think you’re absolutely right,’ said Hedgeclipper. ‘So glad you see it my way.’

  ‘A mature, adult response,’ Mrs Pargeter agreed, as the girl moved across to the door.

  With her hand on the handle, she turned back curiously. ‘Funny he didn’t take the safe, isn’t it . . .? Or try to break into it . . .? Or steal something other than the monkey . . .?’

  Another fifty hastily thrust into her hand melted away her inquisitiveness. With the shrug of someone who knows which side her bread’s buttered, the girl left the room, the events of the previous hour expunged permanently from her memory.

  ‘So what was it, Hedgeclipper?’ asked Mrs Pargeter when they were alone. ‘Or should I say who was it?’

  His face turned grim as he replied, ‘It was Fossilface O’Donahue.’

  Chapter Eight

  Mrs Pargeter left Hedgeclipper Clinton on the phone, trying to get a lead on Fossilface O’Donahue’s possible whereabouts, and went up to her suite. She needed to call Truffler Mason.

  Her first surprise on entering the sitting room was that the monkey was there again. Exactly as he had been a couple of days previously. Erasmus was on the floor, with his chain once again anchored to the leg of the dresser. Once again he had managed to leave his marks – scratches and other, less salubrious, souvenirs – around his small circle of territory.

  As soon as she came into the room, he rose up on his hind legs and strained towards her, chattering frantically. His behaviour would no doubt have been appealing to Hedgeclipper Clinton – or perhaps to any other marmoset-lover. It wasn’t to Mrs Pargeter. Why is it that animals instantly recognize the human beings who find them most repellent, and immediately focus all their attention on those poor unfortunates? Some animal behaviourists claim the response arises from an atavistic conciliatory instinct; Mrs Pargeter reckoned it was sheer bloodymindedness.

  Still, she was in no mood to be distracted. The welcome news for Hedgeclipper, that his precious Erasmus was safe, would have to wait until after she had spoken to Truffler. She opened her bedroom door.

  It was then that she had her second surprise. And it was an even less appealing one than the rediscovery of the monkey.

  As she opened the door, Mrs Pargeter found its frame filled with the huge bulk of a man in a grey suit. He was built like a harbour wall and, incongruously, wore a clown mask over his face. It was plastic with a red nose, huge melon-slice mouth, exclamation-mark eyes, and ginger ropy hair radiating out from its dome.

  Mrs Pargeter didn’t often scream, but she did this time. It wasn’t fear, she tried to tell herself, just shock.

  ‘Mrs Pargeter.’ The monster’s voice was deep, without intonation, and very scary.

  What was worse, she realized with a little gulp of horror, he knew who she was.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the voice went on. ‘I’ll take the mask off.’

  If this action had been designed to allay her fears, it could not have been less effective. The face which the removed mask revealed she had only seen once, in a magazine photograph, but she had no problem in recognizing who it belonged to.

  Fossilface O’Donahue.

  Mrs Pargeter screamed again.

  Chapter Nine

  She backed away, her eyes locked on to the reaction-less pebbles caught in the crags of his features. Fossilface O’Donahue waved the clown mask towards her. ‘Don’t you think this is funny, Mrs Pargeter?’

  His voice was deep, and he spoke as if the words were too big and cumbersome for his mouth.

  She managed to find enough voice to reply, ‘No, not at all funny, actually.’

  ‘And what about the monkey? Don’t you find that funny either?’

  Mrs Pargeter shook her head. Fo
ssilface O’Donahue looked downcast. ‘Well, that’s a pity, isn’t it? Pity I’m not giving you a jolly laugh, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she concurred, trying out of the corner of her eye to judge how far she was from the door and what her chances of escape were. They didn’t appear to be good. The man was huge. His arms looked long enough to reach out and snatch her from the other side of the room.

  Another of the Greene’s Hotel Regency telephones stood on a small table, tantalizingly close. But even if she could reach it, there was no chance the thug would give her time to dial for help.

  He moved one ponderous, threatening step towards her. ‘We’ve never met before, have we, Mrs Pargeter?’

  ‘No.’ Her confidence and resilience were beginning to trickle back. ‘Never had that pleasure.’

  ‘No.’ He nodded slowly. ‘I tend to keep myself to myself, as a rule. Though of course I did have quite a lot of dealings with your late husband . . .’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘It has to be said . . .’ he continued slowly, ‘that Mr Pargeter and me did not always see eye to eye about everything . . .’

  ‘Yes, I’d gathered that too.’

  He advanced another step. Mrs Pargeter wilted in the face of his overpowering presence, but managed to hold her ground.

  ‘No, Mr Pargeter and I did have our disagreements. He didn’t always like the way I conducted business.’

  Mrs Pargeter couldn’t stop a defiant response coming out. ‘My husband always did have very high standards.’

  Fossilface O’Donahue gave another ruminative nod. Somehow the slowness of his approach, the evenness of his tone, made him seem more rather than less menacing. When the violence came, Mrs Pargeter feared, it would be sudden and entirely devastating.

  ‘Yes, I suppose that would be the way he saw it.’ The man sighed. ‘I’ve just come out after a twelve-year stretch, you know, Mrs Pargeter.’

  ‘Really? And where was that?’ she asked affably.

  ‘Parkhurst the bulk of it. Then they give me the last year in a Cat. C nick. Erlestoke. You know it?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it. Never actually been there.’ There was something incongruous about this cocktail party chit-chat.

  ‘Been to Parkhurst?’

  ‘Never been there either, as it happens.’

  ‘No. Rough nick, Parkhurst. No place for a lady . . .’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Or indeed for a very sensitive sort of man. I’m not a very sensitive sort of man. Never have been.’

  ‘No, I rather got that impression.’

  ‘Though,’ he said, with a sudden surge of volume, ‘there are some things that I’m very sensitive about.’

  ‘I’m sure there are. I think that’s true of most of us,’ Mrs Pargeter babbled.

  ‘For instance, I’m very sensitive about criticism . . .’

  ‘None of us like being criticized.’

  ‘And I’m also very sensitive about justice.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s good news. We’re very fortunate that the British legal system is one of the best in—’

  ‘I’m not talking about the British legal system, I’m talking about justice! Tit for tat, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, know what I mean?’

  ‘Oh yes, I certainly do.’ Mrs Pargeter’s mind was racing. What were the chances of Hedgeclipper Clinton suddenly coming upstairs to check that she was all right? Pretty minimal, she reckoned. The last thought that would occur to him was that his assailant was still inside Greene’s Hotel. No, he’d still be ringing round his other associates, trying to see if any of them had got a lead on the whereabouts of the newly released Fossilface O’Donahue.

  She wondered if it was worth trying another scream. Didn’t seem much point, really. The first two had prompted no reaction from the other guests. And there was always the danger that a scream for help might further enrage her adversary, and make him speed up his schedule of violence. No, all she could do was wait – without much optimism – to see what happened.

  ‘There was some people, you know,’ the thug went on, ‘who reckon it was down to your husband that I got caught last time out and had to go to the slammer.’

  ‘Really? Well, people do get the wildest ideas, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes. You see, generally speaking, your husband was very good about seeing to it the blokes what worked for him was well protected . . .’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You know, so’s they wouldn’t get nicked.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘System fell down with me, though.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I just done this bank job, reckoned there’d be a getaway car to whisk me off, but there wasn’t one. Two Pandas full of the filth instead.’

  ‘That was unfortunate.’

  ‘Good choice of word. Yes, it was unfortunate, Mrs Pargeter, very unfortunate.’ He rolled the word round on his tongue, as if he was hearing it for the first time.

  ‘And was there any reason why my husband let you down, Foss . . .’ She decided that perhaps he wasn’t as familiar with – or keen on – his nickname as others of his acquaintances might be. ‘. . . Mr O’Donahue?’

  ‘There was a reason – or at least something he’d see as a reason. He’d been very particular before this job that there wasn’t to be no violence. None at all, he said, it wasn’t necessary. But I know my own business, and I know you can make some things happen a lot quicker when you’re carrying a baseball bat than when you aren’t.’

  ‘So you did use violence?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked aggrieved. ‘Not much. I mean, nobody got killed or nothing like that. I should think all three of them was out of hospital within six weeks . . . well, three months, anyway.’

  ‘And you reckon that’s why my husband cancelled your getaway car?’

  He nodded.

  ‘But you don’t think he actually tipped off the police, though, do you? I mean, I’m sure he’d never do anything like that.’

  Fossilface O’Donahue was shocked. There were limits to the bad he could believe, even of his enemies. ‘Oh no, he never done that. No, I think the appearance of the Pandas at that moment was just bad luck. Some twerp living round there must’ve heard the alarm go, and called the old Bill.’

  ‘I should think that’s what happened, yes.’

  He nodded yet again and moved another step towards her. Mrs Pargeter felt the force of his closeness like the repellent pole of a magnet, but just managed not to back away.

  ‘Thing is, you get a lot of time to think when you’re in the nick . . .’

  ‘I bet you do, yes. Not a lot else to do, is there?’

  ‘Think about justice . . . think about scores being settled . . . think about who’s responsible for things what’ve happened . . . think about ways of evening up the odds a bit . . . think about making them what’s guilty pay for what they done wrong . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Pargeter gulped.

  ‘And while I was in the nick, I thought a lot about me and your husband . . .’

  ‘Oh, did you?’

  ‘. . . and the rights and wrongs of what happened between us . . .’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘So when I come out, I was dead keen to get to see the old man again.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Imagine how disappointed I was to discover that, while I been inside, he gone and snuffed it.’

  ‘Yes, well, I was pretty disappointed too,’ Mrs Pargeter admitted.

  ‘But then I thought: well, if he’s not around, best thing would be for me to settle any outstanding business there might be . . . with his widow.’

  She could not control a little, involuntary gasp.

  ‘Which is why I’m here.’

  ‘All right then.’ She spread her arms wide in a gesture of surrender. ‘Do whatever you’ve got to do – but do it quickly. Let’s get it over with, eh?’

  ‘Too right,’ said Fossilface O’Donahue. He stood craggy and huge in front of her. ‘Y
es, I’ll do what I come here to do.’ He was silent for a moment. Mrs Pargeter closed her eyes and tensed herself for the first blow. ‘I got to ask you something first . . .’

  She half-opened one violet-blue eye. ‘Yes. What is it?’

  He cleared his throat. The sound, so close, was like a post-earthquake landslide. Then he spoke.

  ‘Mrs Pargeter . . . can you find it in your heart to forgive me?’

  Chapter Ten

  Mrs Pargeter always found that a bottle of champagne eased most potentially sticky situations, and the rest of her conversation with Fossilface O’Donahue was not likely to be the most relaxed social encounter she had ever experienced, so she made the relevant call to Room Service. She asked her guest to wait in the bedroom while the waiter delivered the bottle; she didn’t want Hedgeclipper Clinton to know that Fossilface was in the hotel until she had found out a little more about the thug’s intentions.

  His plea for forgiveness had sounded genuine enough, but she still wasn’t quite sure. There was something about his manner that seemed to breathe psychopathology.

  They sat down with an unconvincing air of cosiness either side of a highly polished table. On the floor across the room, Erasmus, exhausted by his attempts to escape, had fallen asleep.

  Fossilface drained his first glass of champagne as if he was participating in a speed trial, and Mrs Pargeter politely topped him up again. ‘Now tell me all about it,’ she said comfortably.

  ‘Well . . . the fact is . . .’ he rumbled. ‘I done wrong.’

  ‘Yes, but after all that time in prison, surely you can feel that you’ve paid your debt to society and that you’re ready to start a new life?’

  ‘That is certainly true, Mrs Pargeter, that is certainly true. But the fact is, I still done wrong to various individuals what haven’t been paid back yet.’

  ‘Paid back?’ she echoed, slightly alarmed.

  ‘Yes. Paid back in full for what I done them out of over the years.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘You see, when I was in prison, Mrs Pargeter, I had, like, a mystical experience . . .’