Mrs. Pargeter's Pound of Flesh

by Simon Brett

  The face that turned in gratitude to hers was bisected by a thick strip of sticking plaster. Mrs Pargeter reached tentatively towards the corner and Ankle-Deep Arkwright’s eyes encouraged her to rip it off.

  This she did, in one quick, agonizing movement.

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ he groaned. ‘Thank God. I never thought I was going to get out of here.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You can do the handcuffs, can’t you, Truffler?’

  The big man nodded and leaned forward, feeling in his pocket for another set of picklocks. He passed the torch to Mrs Pargeter, who needed no telling where to point it.

  ‘Hm, bracelets like these are always tricky,’ he said, as he riffled through the fan of tiny wires. ‘Don’t worry, though, Ank. Soon be free.’

  ‘Be as quick as you can. Won’t be long before they’re back.’

  ‘That’s the baby,’ Truffler murmured in relief as he felt a wire engage in the handcuffs lock.

  But just as he clicked it home, they all heard a loud clang from the doorway and turned to face a sudden blaze of powerful light.

  Though the torch was focused on them, light spilled out behind, and, distorted against the low, uneven walls of the cellar, they could see, grotesquely amplified, the shadow outline of the man who carried it.

  Stan the Stapler.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  They stood frozen like rabbits in the headlights of an oncoming Land-Rover. As her eyes accommodated the glare, Mrs Pargeter saw that in his other hand Stan the Stapler held a snub-nosed automatic pistol.

  She was astonished at the speed with which Truffler Mason moved. Projecting himself suddenly forward, he curled over into a ball, somersaulted, and scissored his legs around Stan the Stapler’s as his body straightened out. The torch went flying from Stan’s hand and Truffler reached up to seize the wrist that held the gun.

  A brief struggle ensued, before the weapon was wrenched free and sent scuttering away into the passage. Then Stan the Stapler was lifted high, immobilized from behind by the lock Truffler had on his arms. The thug gurgled in a grotesque parody of terrified speech.

  ‘Well done, Truffler!’ Mrs Pargeter congratulated in an excited whisper. ‘Brilliant!’

  But Ankle-Deep Arkwright didn’t seem to agree. ‘Let him go, you fool. He’s on our side.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stan’s been helping me. They were going to let me starve down here. He’s the one who’s been bringing me food.’

  Truffler wasn’t convinced. He didn’t release his hold. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Pargeter chipped in, ‘what do you mean? Stan hasn’t behaved in a very friendly way to me. There’s a long history there, anyway, between him and Mr Pargeter. Going right back to what happened in Streatham.’

  Stan the Stapler’s gurgles redoubled at the mention of the word, but Ankle-Deep Arkwright protested, ‘No, people got him all wrong over Streatham. Because Stan can’t talk, he never got the chance to explain what really happened. Yes, he thought Julian Embridge was OK – a lot of us did, Jack the Knife and all – and by the time we realized he was a bad ’un, your husband’d already been sent down. Led to a lot of misunderstandings for a lot of people, that did.’

  ‘Then why was Stan the Stapler so surly with me from the moment I arrived here?’

  ‘Because, Mrs P., he was afraid of you. He thought you thought the worst of him – he thought you believed all that stuff about him helping Julian Embridge shop your old man. He was embarrassed, like, that’s all.’

  ‘But if he’s on your side, Ank, why on earth didn’t he just set you free?’

  ‘Because he’s afraid of what they’d do to him. Anyway, even if we got away, we wouldn’t get far. They’d either deal with us themselves or shop us to the police. We’ve both got records as long as a gorilla’s arm, enough to get us put away for a two-figure stretch if anyone grassed.’

  ‘But, for goodness’ sake, who are they?’ Mrs Pargeter pleaded.

  The answer to her question came immediately, though not in the form she would have chosen. It was supplied visually, as two men burst in through the doorway. One brandished a baseball bat, the other an automatic weapon as snub-nosed as Stan the Stapler’s but even more bulky.

  The baseball bat crashed down on the back of Truffler’s skull. He collapsed like a handless glove-puppet, releasing Stan, who turned, pale with fear, to face the assailants, then backed away with his hands up to join Mrs Pargeter and Ankle-Deep Arkwright.

  One of the men switched on the light and the room was flooded with searing whiteness. Mrs Pargeter blinked a couple of times and then, with horror, recognized the two men who had wheeled away Jenny Hargreaves’ body.

  She knew now that they weren’t real ambulance men. She knew also that they had disposed of Jenny’s body in some nameless way. She didn’t feel encouraged about the way they were likely to treat people who got in their way.

  Nor did their first words inspire in her any greater confidence.

  ‘Shall we just shoot them straight away?’ asked the first ambulance man.

  ‘Yes. We’ll have to do it sometime. Let’s get it over with.’

  The one with the gun gestured the three of them to back against the wall, then looked down at the unconscious Truffler Mason.

  ‘Better sort out this one first,’ he growled and brought the snout of his weapon down against Truffler’s unprotected temple.

  ‘Stop!’ Mrs Pargeter prepared to scream, but was amazed to hear the word spoken before she had even drawn breath.

  The sound came from the doorway where, armed with a machine-gun, stood Dr Potter.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The frame of the doorway emphasized the disproportion of Dr Potter’s body. His thin legs looked too long, his thin arms too short, his head somehow shrunken above bony shoulders.

  But, his appearance notwithstanding, there was no doubting his authority. The two bulky ambulance men positively cowered away from him.

  ‘Throw the gun on to the floor,’ he snapped, and the order was instantly obeyed. ‘God, what kind of animals are you, if you imagine shooting people in cold blood is going to achieve anything? There is enough mindless violence in the world already without adding to it.’

  Mrs Pargeter was surprised to hear these sentiments coming from a man to whom she had taken such instant dislike, but they were none the less welcome. She had realized when the gun was at Truffler Mason’s temple how much she loved him – how much indeed she loved all her friends, and how little she wanted to be separated from them, either by their death or her own. At this latest reprieve, the joy of living, the sheer delight of being alive, surged through her.

  First things first, she rushed forward to the recumbent Truffler. He was unconscious, but the evenness of his breathing offered hope of no permanent damage. She looked up at their saviour.

  ‘Dr Potter!’ she cried. ‘Thank you. That was a very close shave.’

  ‘I agree,’ he said without emotion. ‘It’s dreadful to think how much destruction these two ruffians could have caused.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Mrs Pargeter agreed enthusiastically. ‘And, Ank, isn’t it terrific that . . . ?’

  But something she saw in the Brotherton Hall manager’s eye dried up the words on her tongue. She looked quickly at Dr Potter, then back to Ankle-Deep Arkwright.

  He nodded grimly. ‘Dr Potter’s the one who imprisoned me down here. The two goons are paid heavies. They just do as they’re told.’

  ‘But . . .’ Mrs Pargeter looked up in bewilderment.

  The doctor, very coolly and efficiently, explained it to her. ‘Yes. A lot of people just do as they’re told. It’s wonderful what most people can be persuaded to do when you’ve got a bit of dirt on them.’

  Mrs Pargeter, whose investigative methods had frequently borne out the truth of this statement, nodded.

  ‘And I have a lot of dirt on a lot of people,’ Dr Potter continued. ‘A surprising amount of dirt. I had enough on Mr
Arkwright when I returned from Hong Kong to ensure that he would give me the job here, and allow me all of Brotherton Hall’s resources for my work. I had enough on Stan and’ – he gestured contemptuously towards the ambulance men – ‘these two to command their unquestioning obedience. And, if I chose to use it, I’d have enough to get Truffler Mason put away for a very long time.’

  ‘You haven’t got anything on me,’ said Mrs Pargeter defiantly.

  ‘No, but then I don’t need anything on you. You’re just a nuisance, a minor irritation. There’s nothing you can do to help me in my work.’

  ‘And what is that work?’

  The thin face crackled into a thin smile and the mud-coloured eyes produced what in any other eyes would have been a twinkle. ‘I am a research scientist, Mrs Pargeter. Rather a good one, as it happens. The trouble is, the kind of research I do might not be sanctioned in a traditional pharmaceutical company. Such institutions tend to be very old-fashioned – though I can guarantee that, once my current product has reached its final form, all the drug companies will instantly copy it.’

  ‘What is the product?’

  ‘Ah, Mrs Pargeter, ever ready with the direct question. My product is something on which I have been working for many years. I first developed it for . . . well, I don’t think that’s really relevant at the moment. Suffice it to say that the product is very nearly in its final form. And when it has reached that form, it will make me a very rich man indeed.’

  ‘It’s for slimming, isn’t it? To change a body’s basic metabolism, to turn a naturally fat person into an unnaturally thin person?’

  He nodded acknowledgement of her investigative expertise. ‘Very good, Mrs Pargeter. That is exactly what it is.’

  ‘And when you get it right, you’re going to market it through Sue Fisher’s Mind Over Fatty Matter outlets.’

  ‘I am indeed. When you have the best product in the world, you go for the best distribution system. Sue Fisher is very excited about the drug.’

  ‘Even though it has been tested on student guinea pigs and caused the death of at least one of them?’

  Dr Potter shrugged. ‘The advances of science have never been achieved without casualties, Mrs Pargeter.’

  Suddenly in her head were the words she had overheard on her first night at Brotherton Hall. ‘But there’s nothing you can do about it. They’re going to kill me, and nobody can stop them.’

  The girl had not been talking about people going to kill her – not directly at least. She had been talking about the drugs she had been paid to take, drugs whose deleterious effects were by then too far advanced to be halted.

  Mrs Pargeter looked contemptuously at Dr Potter. ‘You just don’t care, do you? You don’t care about the girl who died.’

  He shrugged again. ‘She took a risk. She knew she was taking a risk. And she was extremely well paid for the risk she took.’

  ‘But what about her parents?’

  ‘She said she had no parents. I was extremely careful only to take on applicants who had no close family.’

  ‘So that if anything went wrong, no one would come looking for them?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘The girl did have parents.’

  ‘If she lied to me, that’s hardly my concern. Come on, she was being well paid for her trouble. How many students get to earn five thousand pounds for four weeks’ work?’

  ‘That five thousand pounds is a fat lot of good to her now.’

  Dr Potter’s face distorted into another smile as he said, ‘I apologize for having to correct you, Mrs Pargeter, but might I suggest that “a thin lot of good” is a more appropriate expression?’

  He laughed drily, demonstrating the huge gulf between his sensibilities and those of normal human beings.

  ‘How much did anyone else know of what you were doing, Dr Potter?’

  ‘Very little. Mr Arkwright didn’t want to know any details. He thought they might distress him . . . which indeed they might well have done. He just did what I asked of him without asking any questions.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ank agreed bitterly, ‘and I feel pretty dreadful about the whole business now that—’

  ‘Be quiet!’ If Dr Potter had been looking for a demonstration of his power over Ankle-Deep Arkwright, nothing could have been more effective than the way those two little words brought instant silence. ‘Of course, there were drawbacks to his complete ignorance. If Mr Arkwright had known more about my experiments, he wouldn’t have investigated the dead girl’s room and so inconveniently supplied you with the name of a real person, Mrs Pargeter.

  ‘Still, couldn’t be helped. Generally speaking – until the last few days when I’ve been forced to keep him out of the way down here, Mr Arkwright has been very biddable. As I said, remarkable how ready people are to do as you wish, when you know enough about their criminal background. Though, as you pointed out, Mrs Pargeter . . . I don’t have any dirt on you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So . . .’ he continued, his voice growing ever silkier with menace, ‘I can’t be confident of buying your silence with my own, can I?’

  ‘No,’ she replied defiantly.

  ‘Which means I may have to effect your silence by some other method . . .’ Muddy eyes gazed thoughtfully at her.

  The ambulance man with the gun volunteered, ‘Blow her away, shall I?’

  Dr Potter winced at this crudeness. ‘No, for heaven’s sake. I don’t want to have to dispose of a body with bullet-holes in it. No, I think some kind of “accident” may be more appropriate . . .’

  ‘Like the one you arranged for Lindy Galton?’ suggested Mrs Pargeter, determined to keep him talking for as long as possible.

  ‘Dear me, no,’ he replied fastidiously. ‘I don’t like repeating myself. Anyway, even the notoriously dim British police force might get suspicious if a second corpse were to succumb to the embrace of the Dead Sea Mud. But I think it should be an “accident”, none the less . . .’

  He mused for a moment, then looked at her with glee as a thought struck him. ‘Of course, you are somewhat overweight, aren’t you, Mrs Pargeter . . . ?’

  ‘It’s never worried me.’

  ‘No, but no one’s to know that. No one like a coroner, say. You wouldn’t be the first’ – he chose his word carefully – ‘mature woman to have died from over-exercising.’

  ‘I don’t take any exercise. I never have. You can’t make me exercise.’

  ‘Oh, but the beauty of the situation is that I can, Mrs Pargeter. I can.’

  ‘But why should I be found in Brotherton Hall, anyway? I’m not booked in here or—’

  ‘Mr Arkwright is extremely proficient at falsifying registration records,’ oozed Dr Potter, ‘as I believe you’ve already discovered.’

  This was too much for Ank. ‘No! I’m not going to be party to anything that hurts Mrs Pargeter! All right, I’ve done some stuff for you I wish I hadn’t, but—’

  He got no further. At a signal from Dr Potter, the ambulance man with the baseball bat swung it upwards to connect with the point of Ankle-Deep Arkwright’s jaw. His body sprawled backwards to slump against the wall.

  Stan the Stapler made a move forward, but he was caught in the hollow at the back of his neck by the butt of the other ambulance man’s automatic. He too crumpled to the ground.

  ‘You stay with them,’ the doctor curtly ordered the one with the gun. ‘You bring her,’ he told the other.

  Stowing his baseball bat under one arm, the ambulance man locked the other round Mrs Pargeter. She tried to struggle, but could do nothing against his superior strength.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘The gym,’ Dr Potter replied.

  She realized just before they got there what he had in mind. Nothing so crude as hanging her from ropes or crushing her with weights. No, it would be the passive exerciser, the one that Kim had tried to lure her on to.

  She could do nothing. She was not strong enough to break free and there seemed little point in s
creaming or arguing. She knew Dr Potter would be impervious to argument, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing how terrified she really was.

  So she submitted while towels were wrapped round her wrists and ankles to prevent marking by the ropes with which she was bound on to the passive exerciser’s lounger-like surface.

  ‘The first bit,’ Dr Potter told her solicitously, ‘you will not find unpleasant . . . quite relaxing, actually. After about half an hour your limbs’ll start to ache and you’ll begin to sweat. From then on the pull on your muscles will get harder and harder, and the strain on your heart will get greater and greater . . .

  ‘I’ll be very surprised if you’re still alive by four o’clock. We’ll come back at six to remove the ropes . . . but don’t comfort yourself with the idea that if you’re still alive then you will have survived. This isn’t a trial by ordeal, Mrs Pargeter, it’s just a convenient way of killing you. So, in the unlikely event that you are still breathing at six o’clock . . . we’ll finish you off.’

  The two men backed away and Dr Potter, a satisfied smile on his parchment-like face, threw a switch on the passive exerciser’s mounting. As he had promised, the first movements felt reassuring, soothing, even relaxing.

  And what a comfort it must be to you, Mrs Pargeter,’ was his parting shot, ‘to know that you will die having lost an enormous amount of weight.’

  Dr Potter let out an abrupt laugh; then he and the ambulance man left the gym.

  Mrs Pargeter felt her unresistant body fold and unfold to the relentless rhythm of the exerciser. The sensation was still almost obscenely pleasant, but she knew that it would not long remain so.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  She was extremely annoyed. Not at the prospect of dying. That, Mrs Pargeter knew, had been an option from the moment of her birth, and life with the late Mr Pargeter, though wonderfully fulfilling, had kept the possibility of sudden death ever to the forefront of her mind.

  No, it was the manner of her proposed dying that offended her. For Mrs Pargeter to end her days on an exercise machine was just so out of character. Of course, no one who knew her would ever imagine that she had got on to the thing voluntarily, but there might be people less familiar with her who thought the death was for real, who imagined that she, like many others of her age, had expired in an ill-judged attempt to recapture her lost youth. It was that thought she couldn’t tolerate.