Mrs. Pargeter's Plot (7 page)

‘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. ‘Yes, 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?'

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 . . .'

‘Oh?'

‘Which made me think about everything what'd happened in my life, like, hitherfrom . . . you know, like, up to that point in time . . .'

‘Right.'

‘I had, like, a convergence.'

‘Did you?'

‘Yes. Just like St Paul on the road to Domestos.'

‘Ah.'

‘One evening I was sitting eating my supper when this geezer, who was one of the real hard men in the nick – ‘Chainsaw Cheveley' he was called – don't know if you know him . . .?'

‘No,' Mrs Pargeter admitted.

‘You got any sense, you'll keep it that way. Well, on this occasion I'd rubbed old Chainsaw Cheveley up the wrong way, and he grabbed hold of a jug of custard and he upturned it over my head . . . You ever had a jug of custard upturned over your head, Mrs Pargeter?'

‘No. No. I haven't, actually.'

‘Well, it's not pleasant, let me tell you, not pleasant. For a start, it was dead hot. I mean, most of the nosh you get in the nick is, like, lukewarm at best, but – just my luck – this custard was really steaming. And it poured down all over my eyes, so I couldn't see nothing. And I thought, Chainsaw Cheveley is not long for this life. I mean, nobody does that kind of thing to Fossilface O'Donahue and gets away with it. I reckoned I'd pick up one of the chairs – they was metal, tubular jobs – and bash the living daylights out of him. Probably mean another charge and a longer sentence, but I didn't care. You know, when my rag's up, I don't think about things like that, never have done.

‘So I reached my hands up to wipe the custard out my eyes and . . . then it happened.'

‘What happened?' asked Mrs Pargeter.

‘It was like there was this yellowish, golden kind of light glowing round everything I saw.'

‘Ah. Are you sure it wasn't just the custard?'

‘No, no, it was different from that. It was like more sort of . . . what's the word? Urethral?'

‘Ethereal?' Mrs Pargeter suggested.

‘Yes, that's probably it. Anyway, everything, like, glowed golden and, through the custard, I seemed to hear this voice . . .' He paused, distracted by the memory.

‘Who was it?' she prompted. ‘Chainsaw Cheveley?'

‘Nah, nah, it was, like . . .' He looked a little sheepish. ‘I know this sounds daft . . . but I reckon it was an angel.'

‘An angel?'

‘Yeah.'

‘What did the voice say?'

‘It said: “Fossilface O'Donahue, you done wrong. You been a bad person. You've hurt people. You've never had no sense of humour about nothing. You gotta make restitooshun.”'

‘“Restitooshun”?'

‘Restitooshun,' he confirmed gravely.

‘And you say this was an angel?'

‘I reckon it was. I mean, I couldn't, like, see anyone, but I reckon it was an angel, yes.'

‘You don't think it could have been just Chainsaw Cheveley having you on?'

He shook his head decidedly. ‘No way. Chainsaw Cheveley's never been heard to utter a sentence of more'n two words. He couldn't have spouted all that lot, no way.'

‘Ah. So what did you do?'

‘Well, immediately, I shook Chainsaw Cheveley by the hand, and I said, “Thank you, mate, from the bottom of my heart.”'

‘And what did he do?'

‘He hit me with his spare fist. He thought I was only shaking his hand to make a move on him, you see.'

‘So what did you do then?'

‘I turned the other cheek.'

‘Really?'

‘Yeah. And so then he punched me on that one, and all.'

‘And you still didn't hit him back?'

‘No way. From that moment I was, like, a changed man. You know, they say the leopard can't change his stripes, but that's exactly what I done. From that moment I decided I would devote the rest of my life to making restitooshun to those what I done wrong to.'

‘How long ago did this experience happen?'

‘Well, about three years, but I couldn't do nothing about it while I was still in the nick, like. I mean, I could make myself be nice to my fellow inmates, but I couldn't sort out none of the blokes outside. Mind you, I could make plans for what restitooshun I'd make once I was a free man again. I thought of all the people what I done wrong to.'

‘Oh yes?'

‘There's a lot of them. Your husband, like I said . . . Truffler Mason . . . Concrete Jacket . . . That Gary, the getaway driver . . . Keyhole Crabbe . . . do you know him?' Mrs Pargeter nodded, and Fossilface continued piously, ‘They was all going to need some restitooshun. And Hedgeclipper Clinton, and all.'

‘So was tying Hedgeclipper and his receptionist up part of the “restitooshun”?'

‘Well, no, I haven't got on to
his
restitooshun yet. I'm still working on yours – or rather your husband's . . . if you know what I mean.'

She didn't, but she felt this wasn't the moment to ask for an explanation. ‘So what else have you been doing for the last three years?'

‘I been working on changing my personality,' he replied.

‘Oh yes. How did you set about doing that?'

He smiled proudly. ‘I went to see the chaplain. Never had any of that God stuff when I was a nipper, so I got him to take me through the whole business, right from the start . . . you know, the Garden of Eton, the whole number, right up to the Crucifaction and the Reservation . . . And I got him to give me books to read.'

‘What – like the Bible?'

‘Well, yes, a few like that, but more of them was joke books.'

‘Joke books?'