Mrs. Pargeter's Point of Honour (14 page)

It had always been Mrs Pargeter's view that business and pleasure could – and indeed should – be mixed. If a meeting could be accompanied by a little refreshment, so much the better. If it could be accompanied by a lavish dinner, expertly devised by the award-winning chef of Greene's Hotel, better still.

So it was that that evening found her sitting at her favourite table in the restaurant, in the company of Hedgeclipper Clinton and the magnificent Hamish Ramon Henriques. No one would ever have known, from her graceful manner, that Mrs Pargeter had, only a few hours before, consumed a whole bottle of champagne.

She had reported her conversation with Inspector Wilkinson to the travel agent, though her narrative had been constantly interrupted by recollections and ribaldry from Hedgeclipper. HRH knew all about the Inspector and was appropriately amused by their accounts. ‘I don't think the stick exists anywhere in the world that that guy isn't capable of getting the wrong end of.'

‘Well, at the end of our conversation he certainly seemed convinced that I had nothing to do with my late husband.'

‘That's absolutely typical. True to form, eh, Hedgeclipper?'

‘You bet. Faced with the widow of one of the biggest criminal masterminds in the history of—'

‘I
beg
your pardon?' asked Mrs Pargeter icily.

‘Ah, well, I, er . . . Sorry,' the hotel manager floundered.

HRH interceded fluently, ‘I think Mr Clinton was just endorsing my view that Inspector Wilkinson will always be guaranteed to get the wrong end of the stick. Isn't that right?'

‘Yes. Yes. Exactly.'

The chilling glare of the violet-blue eyes remained on Hedgeclipper's face for a second longer, before Mrs Pargeter relaxed, sat back and took another sip of champagne. But there was a trace of anxiety in her voice when she asked, ‘Are you sure you're right, though? You don't think it's possible that Inspector Wilkinson was playing an elaborate double bluff?'

‘Rest assured, my dear Mrs Pargeter,' said HRH, ‘you need have no worries on that score. Craggy Wilkinson is incapable of a double bluff. He's only just capable of a single bluff.'

‘And even then, not an elaborate one,' added Hedgeclipper Clinton.

‘Oh, good, I'm glad to hear it.'

Hamish Ramon Henriques provided even more reassurance. ‘Don't worry about a thing. Jukebox Jarvis'll keep an eye on what's happening on the police computer. If Wilkinson has any genuine suspicions, we'll know about them before the other people in his office do.'

‘Thanks. That's really nice to know.'

Mrs Pargeter sat back in her chair, the iciness of a few moments before completely forgotten. She munched contentedly on her starter, a fantasy of quails' eggs and langoustines, and watched as the travel agent produced a sheaf of neatly typed and stapled pages. It was very comforting, she found, to know she was working with professionals.

‘I've been through Palings Price's list,' said HRH, ‘of all the stuff he reckons was in Chastaigne Varleigh, and sorted out personnel to do the actual returning of all the paintings.'

‘May I have a look?' asked Hedgeclipper.

‘Of course.'

The hotel manager ran a practised eye down the lines of text, as Mrs Pargeter said, ‘Well, I just hope it hasn't raised any problems for you, HRH . . .'

‘None at all,' he replied, all urbanity. ‘When a philanthropist like your husband passes on, he leaves many people who are only too happy to take on some small task to express their gratitude to him.'

Mrs Pargeter allowed the recurrent compliment a little misty-eyed nod.

Hedgeclipper Clinton tapped the sheet in front of him. ‘I didn't know old Vanishing Vernon was still around, HRH.'

‘Certainly.' He turned to Mrs Pargeter. ‘I should explain that we're referring to one of your late husband's most trusted aides.'

‘Oh.' She smiled vaguely. The name meant nothing to her. Throughout their marriage she had ensured that the names of most of her husband's associates meant nothing to her (which was why it was so easy to maintain an expression of genuine innocence in the face of enquiries from people like Inspector Wilkinson). ‘And why,' she asked, ‘was he called Vanishing Vernon? Bit of a Houdini, was he? Could make himself disappear?'

Hedgeclipper Clinton chuckled. ‘No, it wasn't himself he made disappear – it was other people.'

‘Oh.'

She would not have pursued the matter further, but HRH felt some gloss was required. ‘Though, I should hasten to point out, Mrs Pargeter, Vanishing Vernon never used any violence.'

‘Well,' Hedgeclipper conceded, ‘not more than was absolutely necessary.'

‘No. He just tended to . . . drive inconvenient people away in his car.'

Mrs Pargeter smiled easily. ‘That sounds quite civilized.'

‘Yes,' HRH agreed, slightly less easily.

‘Mind you,' said Hedgeclipper, ‘he did drive them away in the boot rather than the back seat.'

‘But I must again stress, Mrs Pargeter – without violence. Inconvenient people would just tend to . . . wake up feeling very sleepy . . . isn't that right, Hedgeclipper?'

‘Yes . . . Sleepy – and 300 miles from where they last remembered being.'

‘Ah.' Again Mrs Pargeter felt disinclined to enquire further.

The hotel manager shook his head in fond recollection. ‘Anyway, I'm surprised to hear old Vanishing's still around. Not in the business any more, is he, HRH?'

Affront at this suggestion trembled the travel agent's splendid growth of whiskers. ‘Good heavens, no. His current activities are one-hundred per cent legitimate.'

‘So what does he do now then?' asked Mrs Pargeter with an ingenuous smile.

‘He organizes car boot sales.'

Outside a very suburban semi in North London the next morning was parked an oldish VW camper van, its back windows nearly obscured by the quantities of holiday paraphernalia packed inside. In the passenger seat sat VVO. He looked at his scruffiest, the archetype of the misunderstood genius. The cliché beret sat defiantly on his head.

He watched as his wife Deirdre, neat in crisp fondant-green shirt and shorts, locked the front door and clacked on white high heels down the garden path. She got in the driver's side of the camper van, started the engine and looked fondly across at her husband.

VVO grinned back in sheepish excitement. ‘I can't believe I'm really being allowed to do this, Deirdre – go off on my own hazardous mission.'

She patted his thigh. ‘Well, you are, Reg Winthrop. Mrs Pargeter trusts you, so don't you dare screw up.'

‘I won't, love. Because I've never been put to the test, nobody knows just how cool I can be in a crisis.'

‘Hmm . . .' Deirdre looked her husband up and down, appraisingly. ‘And remember what HRH said – don't do anything that's going to draw attention to yourself.'

‘No,' he agreed, evading her glance. But when he looked back, her eye was still beadily fixed on his beret. After only a nanosecond of hesitation, he removed it. ‘Right you are, love.'

Deirdre Winthrop, secure in the complete control she had over her husband, put the camper van in gear, and they set off towards Dover.

Caught up in their mutual excitement, they did not notice that an unobtrusive car started up soon after them and stayed, only two or three vehicles behind, all the way to the South Coast. And, even if they had noticed it, because they'd never met him, they wouldn't have known that it was being driven by Sergeant Hughes.

The trilling of the bedside telephone insinuated itself into Mrs Pargeter's morning dream of some sylvan picnic with her late husband. Slowly she opened her eyes, greeting this day, like every other, with enormous confidence and the knowledge that things were bound to go well for her. She felt serenely rested. The lavish dinner of the night before – and the full bottle of champagne before it – had left her with nothing so vulgar as a hangover, merely a delicious sense of having been pampered, and having deserved it.

She looked across to the photograph on the bedside table. The suited image of her late husband smiled gravely back at her. ‘Morning, love,' she said, as she did every morning. ‘I was only talking about you yesterday. Saying what an admirer of the British legal system you were. And what a punctilious old fuddy-duddy you were when it came to moral issues.'

Next she consulted her watch. Nearly half past nine. Very satisfactory.

The telephone trilled on. She reached across and answered it. ‘Hello?'

‘It's me,' a familiar voice intoned.

‘Truffler, how good to hear you.'

‘Just ringing to say we've found out where the paintings are.'

‘Brilliant. I knew you would. Going to have any problems getting them out?'

Truffler Mason, mobile phone pressed to his cheek, looked across at the red Transit van. There was no question he'd found the right one. The number plate tallied with what had appeared on Jukebox Jarvis's computer screen. It was Rod D'Acosta's vehicle all right.

But Truffler was looking at it through the padlocked gates of a car breaker's yard. This was a thickly walled lot, with barbed-wire defences running round the top of the wall. The area was decorated with a large number of signs bearing such deterrent legends as ‘ELECTRONIC ALARMS IN OPERATION' and ‘GUARD DOGS PATROL THESE PREMISES'.

‘Yes,' said Truffler Mason, in reply to Mrs Pargeter's question. ‘Maybe a few problems.'

A queue of lorries shunted slowly through the Customs shed at Dover. Second in line was a venerable VW camper van. In its passenger seat Deirdre Winthrop was a little agitated. Her husband, now the driver, also looked tense. In defiance of Deirdre, he had put his beret back on again.

His wife looked anxiously out of the window. ‘I'm sure we shouldn't have got into this queue, Reg. We should have gone straight on to the ferry. You don't have to stop for Customs these days unless they ask you to. And certainly not on the English side.'

‘Give me the benefit of the doubt, please, dear,' said her husband manfully. ‘I do know what I'm doing.'

‘But I don't think—'

VVO patronized her with a confident smile. ‘Nobody knows just how cool I can be in a crisis.'

‘There'd be no crisis if you hadn't stuck your neck out by . . .' Her words trickled away as she realized that the lorry ahead had trundled off. They were now at the head of the queue. VVO eased the camper van forward till the breezy face of a Customs Officer appeared framed in the driver's side window.

The Customs Officer, full of
entente cordiale
and
bonhomie,
responded to VVO's beret. ‘
Bonjour, monsieur
.'

‘
Actuellement
,' said the artist, ‘
nous sommes
English.'

‘Ah.
Vraiment
?'

‘Yes.
Vraiment
.'

‘Righty-ho.' The Customs Officer grinned. ‘Anything I should know about in this camper then?'

VVO shook his head. ‘Nothing of great importance. A few paintings in the back, that's all.'

People who have been married for a long time can feel the subtext of looks which are invisible to outsiders. VVO felt the heat of Deirdre's invisible fury, and she felt the infuriating flabbiness of his ‘I know what I'm doing' glance.

‘Paintings?' the Customs Officer echoed. ‘Well, maybe I should have a look at those. Depending on what they are, they might need export licences or be liable for duty.'

While Deirdre seethed imperceptibly beside him, the painter got out of the camper. ‘Of course.' He led the Customs Officer round the back and opened the double doors. He lifted the covering rugs to reveal his paintings. ‘There they are.' It was impossible for VVO to keep the pride out of his voice.

The Officer looked at the canvases. Clearly dealing with a lot of French people had not been without effect. He let out one of those peculiarly Gallic laughs which begins with a ‘poof' sound. ‘Oh,' he chuckled, as he turned away from the van, ‘sorry to have troubled you. No, there's certainly nothing to pay on that lot.'

VVO's kneejerk reaction was entirely predictable. ‘What do you mean?' he spluttered.

‘Well,' replied the Customs Officer, still chuckling. ‘You only have to pay duty on things of value.'

From the front seat of the camper, Deirdre Winthrop was craning round, desperately trying to catch her husband's eye and deflect him from the kamikaze course on which she knew him to be embarked.

‘Are you saying these paintings don't have any value?' VVO seethed.

‘That is exactly right.' The Customs Officer let out a self-congratulatory giggle as he came up with a
bon mot
. ‘I mean, I may not know much about art, but I know what I don't like.'

The painter was now beside himself with fury. He had been hit where it really hurt – in his art. ‘How dare you!' he screamed. ‘You philistine! Those paintings are brilliant – they're worth any sum you care to mention!'

‘Oh really?' A colder, more calculating look came into the Customs Officer's eyes. He moved back towards the camper. ‘Well, maybe I'd better have a closer look at them then . . .'

As the Officer leant in towards the paintings, over his bent back Deirdre Winthrop finally caught her husband's eye. The look she beamed at him on this occasion was not a private intramarital one. If looks could kill, hers should have left a large, messy exit-wound somewhere round the back of VVO's head. With bowed shoulders, the artist meekly returned to the driver's seat. A silence that felt even longer than it was elapsed.

Eventually, the Customs Officer closed the doors and took his time walking back to the front of the van. There was a tense silence, then he said, ‘No, no problem with any of that lot.'