Mrs. Pargeter's Plot

by Simon Brett

  There must have been some kamikaze training in the marmoset’s background. Mrs Pargeter would have sworn she saw glee in his eye as the monkey slowly changed the angle of the candlestick to bring its flame closer to the leak.

  It was time for desperate measures. Mrs Pargeter let out a sudden shriek, a high-pitched imitation of a monkey’s cry. Maybe she had captured the admonitory note of Erasmus’s mother when angry; maybe the marmoset was simply distracted by the sound. For whatever reason, he turned suddenly towards her.

  Mrs Pargeter leapt forward and blew the candle out.

  ‘You know,’ she said to Hedgeclipper, as they climbed wearily out of the cellar after he had restored the electrical supply, ‘I think we may have to go out and get Fossilface O’Donahue before he does anything else.’

  ‘Yes,’ the hotel manager agreed. ‘If we can find him.’ He turned his head round to the marmoset by his ear. ‘You know, Erasmus,’ he said in playful reproof, ‘sometimes you’re a rather naughty little monkey.’

  Which, in Mrs Pargeter’s view, was something of an understatement.

  Chapter Twenty

  The photographic studio, in a discreet Mayfair town house, had a slightly dated feel to it. The artfully scattered chaos gave the impression that its owner had never really recovered from seeing Blow Up back in the sixties (which in fact he hadn’t).

  Nor was this idea dispelled by the appearance and manner of the studio’s presiding genius. Clickety Clark looked like a gnarled relic of the Summer of Love. He was in his late fifties, a fact accentuated rather than disguised by his youthful dress. The battered Levis, the denim shirt strained over prominent belly and the leather blouson had a perversely ageing effect, compounded by the ponytail into which his thinning grey hair was straggled back.

  And Clickety Clark’s professional style suggested that he’d watched too many documentaries about the early David Bailey (which in fact he had). He moved continuously round the room in a gait midway between a dart and a lumber, constantly framing images in the little viewfinder he carried on a leather thong around his neck. And all the time, in a deliberately roughened street-credible voice, he kept mumbling instructions to his assistant, Abbie.

  She was a pretty dark-haired girl in her early twenties. Clickety Clark’s manner to her suggested she was a necessary and appropriate accessory to his image as photographic genius. Her manner to him was tolerant and obedient, but the wry light in her eye made it clear she had no illusions at all about her employer. Abbie was the kind of girl who could recognize bullshit when she saw it, and on her first meeting with Clickety Clark had had no difficulty in identifying cartloads of the stuff.

  The subject of the morning’s shoot, Mrs Pargeter – or to give the name by which she had introduced herself, Lady Entwistle – was seated on a manorial oaken throne against tastefully draped red velvet curtains. At a table by her side was a vase of bright peonies. Mrs Pargeter knew that the vivid fabrics she had so carefully selected that morning clashed hideously with this background, but she made no demur. It was in character for Lady Entwistle not to notice – or more probably to approve – such a wince-inducing concatenation of colours.

  Clickety Clark crouched rather unsteadily on the floor and peered up through a camera lens at his subject. ‘Don’t worry, Lady Entwistle,’ he said in his phoney laid-back accent. ‘I can really make you look wonderful.’

  Lady Entwistle smiled graciously. ‘Oh. Very nice. Thank you so much, Mr Clark.’

  He lifted a magnanimous hand towards her. ‘Please . . . call me Clix.’

  Mrs Pargeter saw Abbie’s shapely brows rise heavenwards at this, and had to restrain herself from making eye contact with the girl. While to do so would be very in character for Mrs Pargeter, Lady Entwistle was definitely a person who lacked the capacity for irony.

  So she just said, ‘Thank you . . . Clix then.’

  The genius snapped a finger. ‘More light on the drapes, Abbie.’ Obedient, quick and skilful, the girl made good the deficiency. ‘This portrait going to be a present for your husband then, is it, Lady Entwistle?’ ‘Clix’ asked. Another snap of the fingers. ‘Higher up, Abbie.’

  His sitter assumed a face of pious mourning. ‘Ah, no. Regrettably, Sir Godfrey is no longer with me.’ In reply to Clickety Clark’s quizzical look, she amplified this, lest Sir Godfrey might mistakenly be thought to have been bimboed away. ‘He has gone to a better place.’

  ‘Oh. Oh dear.’

  Enjoying her fabrication perhaps a little too much, Mrs Pargeter could not resist embroidering further. ‘He lost his life tragically in a yachting accident off Mustique, where we were staying with some rather eminent friends . . . whose names I’d perhaps better not mention. The wind changed suddenly and the boom of the yacht caught him on the temple. It was touch-and-go for seven weeks.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘But eventually it turned out to be go.’

  ‘How sad.’ Clickety Clark waved dismissively to his assistant. ‘Spilling at the top a bit, Abbie.’

  ‘This was a few years back,’ Lady Entwistle went on. ‘I have managed, after a considerable struggle, to come to terms with my grief.’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  ‘And, fortunately, Clix,’ the lady confided, warming to her theme, ‘Sir Godfrey did leave me extremely well provided for.’

  This information definitely registered with Clickety Clark, but all he said was, ‘Well, that’s nice, isn’t it? Pull that curtain across to the right now, Abbie – want a bit more spread. Husband left you a nice house and all that, did he, Lady Entwistle?’ he asked casually.

  ‘Very nice indeed. All of the houses are. As it happens, though, the main residence is a little old-fashioned for my personal taste, so I’m having a new home built that’s more suitable – more me if you know what I mean . . .’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Trouble is, the building work is currently in a state of suspension, no progress at all.’

  ‘Why’s that then, Lady Entwistle? Contractor gone bankrupt? That’s the usual reason these days.’

  ‘Oh no. If only the situation were that simple. No, you’re hardly going to believe this, Clix – but the builder who’s doing the job has just been arrested for murder.’

  ‘Good heavens.’

  ‘Gentleman called Mr Jacket . . .’

  The name struck home, but Clickety Clark tried to hide his involuntary reaction in sudden movement. Splaying his hands wide, he snapped, ‘More than that, Abbie! Spread the drapes out more!’

  Mrs Pargeter was determined not to leave the subject there. ‘Maybe you’ve seen about his arrest in the papers?’ she hazarded.

  But Clickety Clark was quickly back in control of himself. ‘Maybe. Yes, rings a distant bell,’ he said, before moving the subject deftly on. ‘The way I operate with portraits, Lady Entwistle, is I take a lot of exposures, and then you and I go through the contacts and we decide which one we’re going to work on.’

  ‘Work on?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He smiled with a confidence verging on smugness. ‘As a photographer, you see, my skills tend to be in the, er, post-production phase.’

  ‘Oh?’

  For a moment he looked suspicious. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t know. You said the Marchioness of Didsbury recommended me to you.’

  Mrs Pargeter had hastily to remind herself of her background lies. ‘Oh yes, of course. She did mention your special skills, yes.’

  ‘Turn the flowers a bit to the left, Abbie,’ the genius said with an imperious flick of his hand, and then turned back to his sitter. ‘Lady Entwistle, you must’ve seen the portrait I did of the Marchioness. Knocked a good fifteen years off of her. Not a wrinkle in sight. Ironed out those bags under her eyes like they’d never been there. And I can do the same for you, no problem.’

  She couldn’t get out of her natural character quickly enough to stop the instinctive reaction. ‘Actually, I’m quite attached to some of my wrinkles.’

  Clickety Clark
chuckled. ‘Well, you point out the ones you like, and I’ll get rid of all the others, eh?’ Lady Entwistle vouchsafed his pleasantry a smile, so he continued, ‘I don’t come as expensive as plastic surgery, you know.’

  ‘No. You don’t exactly come cheap, though, do you . . . Clix?’

  He opened his hands out in a gesture of helplessness. ‘If I came cheap, my clients wouldn’t think they was getting their money’s worth. The sort of clients I deal with, that is.’

  ‘Of course they wouldn’t,’ said Lady Entwistle reassuringly.

  ‘Still . . .’ the genius smiled a wolfish smile, ‘. . . doesn’t sound as if the financial side would be a problem to you, Lady Entwistle.’

  She let out a tinkling laugh. ‘Oh no. Good heavens, no.’ Then her brow furrowed. ‘It’s sometimes quite difficult, though, in these dreadful times, to know what to do with one’s money . . .’

  He was instantly alert. ‘Oh yes?’

  Lady Entwistle made a gesture of hopelessness. ‘Well, a lot of the traditional investment areas – you know, Lloyds, Barings, that kind of thing – have become so unreliable, it’s hard to know where to turn.’

  ‘You find that, do you, Lady Entwistle . . .?’ asked Clickety Clark with a little too much diffidence.

  Mrs Pargeter pressed on blithely. ‘Yes. Goodness, I’d be delighted to hear of some different kind of investment opportunity.’

  ‘Really?’ The photographer was thoughtful for a moment, then cast a critical look at his sitter’s backdrop. He shook his head. ‘Something still not right with this set-up. Abbie, could you bring up that big plantstand from the basement? Yeah, and bring us an aspidistra to put on it.’

  The girl nodded and set off on her mission. The minute she was out of the room, Clickety Clark moved closer to Mrs Pargeter’s throne. ‘Lady Entwistle, when you said you was looking for a different kind of investment opportunity . . .’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Clickety Clark ushered his sitter fulsomely out on to the pavement of the discreet Mayfair square. As he did so, Gary’s limousine, which had been cruising round the block to avoid a shoal of predatory traffic wardens, slid smoothly up towards them.

  ‘Don’t worry, Lady Entwistle,’ the photographer oozed, ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve got a set of contacts I’m happy with. Then we can go through them and decide where my magic can be worked to best effect, eh?’

  ‘Well, I’m not after too much magic, Clix,’ she giggled coyly. ‘Don’t want to run the risk of people not being able to recognize it’s me.’

  ‘No danger of that at all. It’ll definitely be you, but a you that looks as good as you possibly can. And everyone who comes to your house will be able to see a photograph of someone looking their absolute best.’

  ‘What, you mean – and compare it unfavourably with the original?’

  ‘No, no.’ The photographer came in quickly to soothe her, but stopped when he caught the twinkle in her eye.

  ‘Only joking, Clix.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. Right.’

  ‘Well, I’ll wait to hear from you.’ Mrs Pargeter stepped towards the limousine. Clickety Clark moved forward to open the back door for her.

  ‘Yes, Lady Entwistle, fine.’ He moved his head closer to hers as she was about to get inside. ‘And, with regard to the other matter . . . the, er, “investment opportunity”, I’ll have to make a few enquiries, but hopefully, by the time we meet up to look at the contacts, I’ll be able to fill you in a bit more on that.’

  ‘You couldn’t fill me in a little bit more now, could you?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Just tell me what sort of area of investment we’re talking about?’

  The photographer shook his head. ‘At the appropriate time,’ he said with a wink.

  Mrs Pargeter resigned herself to not getting more information at that stage. She wasn’t too upset. Her Lady Entwistle act had definitely engaged Clickety Clark’s interest in her as a potential investor. He was hooked.

  She got into the limousine and he closed the door after her. ‘Right you are,’ she said imperiously.

  The uniformed chauffeur put the vehicle into gear. ‘Very good, milady,’ said Gary, who, needless to say, was in on the deception.

  Lady Entwistle gave the photographer a regal wave as the limousine slid forward. Her last view of Clickety Clark was of a lined face almost bisected by a sycophantic smile.

  The minute she was out of sight, however, the smile dropped sharply from his lips and a hard shrewd light came into his eye. Mrs Pargeter was too far away to see him nod to the driver of a parked blue Jaguar on the other side of the road.

  The man’s dark glasses turned up from the paper he was pretending to read, and he caught the photographer’s eye. Clickety Clark gave a little jerk of his head towards the departing limousine. The driver nodded and started the engine. His car began to follow Gary’s.

  Mrs Pargeter was unsuspicious of surveillance, so she did not look round to see who was driving the Jaguar a few cars behind. She probably wouldn’t have recognized the man in his dark glasses, anyway.

  Had he taken them off, though, she might have been able to identify a face she had seen twice – once in a photograph on Truffler Mason’s desk, and once on the screen of Ricky Van Hoeg’s computer.

  The man was Blunt.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Truffler Mason’s car was like an extension of his clothes. Indeed, if any automobile manufacturer had tried to design a vehicle which breathed the image of tired sports jacket, crumpled beige trousers and black Gas Board Inspector shoes, they would undoubtedly have come up with a dented brown Maxi. As a symbol of the post-war decline of the British motor industry, the car had about it an air of failure, which exactly matched Truffler’s own aura of defeatism.

  In fact, of course, the detective was considerably more positive and cheerful than he appeared. At that detail the comparison between man and car ceased. The Maxi did not possess a secret, more attractive, persona.

  It was four o’clock in the morning. The Maxi was parked in a dark lay-by on a country road a few miles out of Bedford. The meagre moonlight outlined two figures in the front. Truffler sat in the driving seat. Beside him was Keyhole Crabbe. Both held plastic cups. Truffler’s contained coffee; Keyhole was just replenishing his with whisky. He proffered the half-bottle towards the detective.

  ‘Sure you won’t?’

  Truffler shook his large head decisively. ‘No, no. Driving. Wouldn’t do any good for me to get stopped – particularly with you on board.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wouldn’t do you a lot of good either, come to that. What with you being kind of “absent without leave”, as it were.’

  ‘True.’

  The detective took a thoughtful sip of coffee before continuing his debriefing. ‘So you reckon there’s a lot of them in the same position?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘Certainly four in my nick. I’ve been asking around. And, by coincidence – or possibly not by coincidence – they’re all blokes who’ve got a stash hidden away somewhere.’

  ‘And all blokes who’ve been offered some “investment opportunity” while they’re inside?’

  ‘Right. And in each case it was Blunt who made the offer.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Truffler nodded ruminatively. ‘He’s on a permanent tour of Her Majesty’s prisons, old Blunt, isn’t he? Short stretches here, there and everywhere.’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘But I really can’t cast him in the part of the geezer who thought up the scam – if it is a scam. He hasn’t got the braincells for that kind of work. He’s just muscle. Got to be someone else behind him.’

  ‘Right. ‘Course, the other thing all these blokes I’ve talked to in the nick have in common is that in each case their wife or girlfriend or whoever’s managed to raise fifty grand for their stake.’

  ‘But none of them’ll tell you what the money’s for?’

  ‘No. I’ve tried all my favourite methods of winkling it out – usually v
ery effective they are too – but this time no dice. It’s all very secret . . . like they was almost embarrassed about it.’

  Truffler grimaced ruefully. ‘The perfect con.’

  ‘Howdja mean?’

  ‘One of the many wise things the late Mr Pargeter told me was that the best cons’re always the ones where the people who’ve got conned are too ashamed to own up to what they done.’ Keyhole Crabbe nodded agreement to this truism, as Truffler Mason went on, ‘Anything else your four got in common?’

  The prisoner thought about his answer for a moment. ‘Just that they’re all in for longish stretches. None be out for another three years, anyway.’

  Truffler rubbed his chin. The rasp of bristles was unnaturally loud in the silent car. ‘I wonder . . .’

  A new recollection came to Keyhole. ‘One other thing too . . .’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Couple of them mentioned that their old ladies’ve been abroad while they been inside.’

  Truffler was instantly alert. ‘What, off with boyfriends you reckon? Doing naughties? Having it off with randy geezers who’re lining themselves up for broken legs – or worse – when the husbands get out?’

  Keyhole Crabbe quickly dampened such tabloid speculation. ‘No, no. Nothing like that. No Roger the Lodgers involved. The husbands knew all about these trips, seemed pleased about them even.’

  ‘But surely . . .’

  The prisoner opened his hands wide in apology. ‘All I got, Truffler. Not another dickie bird. Sorry. I’ll go on probing, of course, but, like I say, they keep clamming up on me.’

  ‘Hm.’ Truffler knew his informant too well to push for more. If Keyhole Crabbe said that was all he’d got, then that was all he’d got. ‘Well, can’t thank you enough. Mrs Pargeter’ll be really grateful to you.’

  ‘Least I could do for her,’ Keyhole shrugged.

  ‘I’ll follow up through my contacts in a few other nicks,’ said Truffler. ‘See if it’s happening anywhere else.’ He turned the key in the ignition, and the Maxi shuddered into asthmatic, apathetic life. ‘Right then, Keyhole . . . better get you back inside, eh?’