Mrs. Pargeter's Point of Honour (3 page)

She had worked so often with Truffler Mason that she had almost forgotten he'd had a life before he became a private investigator. But she was gratefully aware of his unrivalled knowledge of criminal behaviour, his proficiency at obtaining information from people, and his encyclopaedic list of contacts when less sophisticated manpower was required. The fact that in learning these skills he had not followed the traditional career path of a detective was something to which Mrs Pargeter never gave a moment's thought.

When Truffler's tall presence came to greet her at the door of his outer office – a space only marginally less dusty than the inner sanctum – she commented on the absence of his secretary Bronwen.

‘Ah, yes, she's off for a while,' Truffler Mason intoned, in his customary voice, a deeply tragic rumble which made Eeyore sound as bouncy as Little Noddy.

‘Not ill, I hope?'

‘No, no, she's got married.'

‘Again?' Mrs Pargeter asked doubtfully. She knew that Bronwen's marital history was a catalogue of unsatisfactory skirmishes and pitched battles, that in fact it shared many features with the Hundred Years War.

‘Again,' Truffler concurred gloomily. ‘Oh yes, I've heard all about it for months. Love's young dream this time. They were meant for each other. They're blissfully happy. This time it's for ever.'

‘So are you going to have to hire someone else?'

He shook his huge head. ‘No, give it a couple of weeks . . . she'll be back.'

From long, but unjudgemental, knowledge of the hygiene standards that obtained in his office, Mrs Pargeter refused Truffler Mason's offer of a cup of coffee, but made no attempt to wipe the dust from the seat towards which he ushered her. He coiled his long body down into his own chair the other side of the desk, and listened intently while she brought him up to date with her visit to Chastaigne Varleigh.

‘Mrs Chastaigne is dying, you see, Truffler,' said Mrs Pargeter.

‘I'm sorry,' he responded automatically, in a voice more doom-laden than ever.

‘No need to be. She's very philosophical about it. Knows that the best bit of her life was while Bennie was alive. Knows that she's had the great privilege of living in comfort surrounded by beautiful things . . .'

He nodded. Though Truffler Mason had never actually been to Chastaigne Varleigh, he'd heard on a secret grapevine of its amazing hidden art collection. ‘So what does she want from us, Mrs P?'

She grimaced. ‘It's the beautiful things, Truffler . . .'

‘What, all that stuff Bennie Logan nicked for her?'

Mrs Pargeter nodded. ‘Right. The paintings. She wants them returned.'

‘Returned?'

‘Restored to their rightful owners. Every last one of them.'

Truffler Mason let out a low whistle and shook his head in disbelief. ‘Blimey O'Reilly,' he muttered.

‘You know, a good copper,' said Inspector Wilkinson, ‘is a copper who makes his mark.'

‘Really?' On his third day of sitting in an unmarked smoke-filled car with the DI, Sergeant Hughes was beginning to vary his responses. No longer was he content with just the subservient ‘yes'; now increasingly he used words that ended with question marks, implying a degree of scepticism, even the blasphemous possibility that he was not accepting everything the Inspector said as gospel truth.

Initially, Hughes had given his boss the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that ponderous manner and apparent stupidity masked a brain of rare brilliance. Maybe the unprepossessing exterior was a smokescreen for a genius of detection.

After two days spent in the man's company, the Sergeant had ruled out both these possibilities. With Inspector Wilkinson, he came to the conclusion, what you saw was what you got. The only smokescreen he was capable of putting up came from his cigarettes.

‘Yes,' said Wilkinson.

Maybe it was this transient moment of role reversal that emboldened Hughes to ask a direct question. ‘And would you say you have made your mark, sir?'

‘Oh, I think people remember me. Yes, though I say it myself, I think Detective Inspector Craig Wilkinson is a name that has a certain resonance in the Met.'

‘And for what reason does it resonate?' Boredom was driving the Sergeant's questions ever closer to the limits of acceptability.

This one, however, prompted another slow finger-tap to the inspectorial nose. ‘Bit hush-hush. Mostly for the kind of undercover operations that, by their very nature, can't have too much publicity. But which are deeply appreciated by those few authority figures who're in the know.'

‘Oh yes?' Hughes's sceptical intonation was now a million miles from the unquestioning yeses of his first day. ‘Would you be refering to the painstaking stalking and capture of criminal masterminds, sir, that sort of thing?'

‘That sort of thing,' Inspector Wilkinson confirmed with a knowing nod of the head. ‘That sort of thing, yes, young Hughes. Of course, I'd like to tell you more, but we're treading around the kind of delicate area in which one can't be too careful.'

‘And is what we're engaged in at the moment another operation that involves the painstaking stalking and will lead to the eventual capture of another criminal mastermind, sir?'

‘Shrewd guess, Hughes, shrewd guess. You are not a million miles from the truth there.'

‘I still think it'd help if you told me a bit of detail about the case we're actually investigating at the . . .'

But a slow, admonitory finger had risen to Wilkinson's lips and once again the Sergeant's words trickled away into frustrated silence.

‘No, no,' said the Inspector. ‘A case has to be conducted at the appropriate pace, and information has to be fed out sparingly. A few careless words in the pub, a bit of incautious pillow talk . . . those are the kind of things that can ruin months – even years – of punctilious build-up.'

‘Yes,' Sergeant Hughes agreed listlessly, his moment of assertiveness past.

Complacently, Inspector Wilkinson stroked his moustache. It was a sad moustache. An old moustache. A moustache dating from the days when a pencil line along Clark Gable's upper lip was deemed to be sexy. And even for people who liked that kind of thing, the Inspector's moustache was disfigured by being grey – except for a small patch, slightly right of centre, which was yellow from his habit of smoking untipped cigarettes right down to the end.

‘No, you'll find that a good copper,' he went on, ‘a good copper is aware at all times of the level of security required in a given situation and the degree of information dissemination necessary to—'

‘Excuse me, sir. Don't you think that could be the person we're looking for? She looks as if she's going to get into the car.'

The Inspector followed Hughes's pointing finger to see a plump, white-haired woman in a bright red coat stepping daintily across the pavement between the betting-shop entrance and a limousine parked on the double yellow lines directly outside.

‘Well spotted, Hughes.' Wilkinson opened his car door.

‘Shall I come with you, sir?'

‘No, thank you.'

‘But I'm the one who found out where we'd find the limousine. I got on to the police computer and—'

‘Computers, huh.' Inspector Wilkinson let out a patronizing chuckle. ‘Your generation thinks computers can give all the answers. But, you know, they'll never replace the instincts of a good copper.'

‘Oh, can't I come with you?' Hughes pleaded pathetically.

‘No, no. Subtle approach is what's required at this moment. Don't want to raise any suspicions.'

‘About
what
?' asked the Sergeant in a wail of frustration. But the car door had already closed behind his uncommunicative boss.

Mrs Pargeter was settling into the comfortable upholstery of the limousine's back seat when she heard a tap on the window. She pressed a button and the pane slid silently down. Facing her she found the craggy face of a man in his fifties. He had a thin moustache and a cigarette drooped from the corner of his mouth. ‘Good morning, officer. Can I help you?'

‘Officer? Do you know me? Have we met before?'

‘No, but I can tell you're a policeman.'

‘Oh. Well, you're right. I am. Plain clothes.'

Mrs Pargeter smiled sweetly. ‘I pieced that together too. From your lack of uniform.'

‘Right.' Wilkinson reached for his inside pocket. ‘Would you like to see some identification?'

‘I don't really think I need to. I can tell you're the genuine article.'

‘Oh.' He looked a little nonplussed and withdrew his hand.

‘So . . . how can I help you?'

‘Well, it's a matter in relation to this car, madam,' the Inspector improvised, not very convincingly. ‘We've had a report of a car of this make with this registration number having been seen in the vicinity of an area where a recent crime took place and we are following that up . . .'

A look of shock came into Mrs Pargeter's innocent violet-blue eyes. ‘You're not suggesting that I might have been involved in something criminal, are you, Inspector?'

‘No, no, I— Here, how did you know I'm an inspector? I didn't tell you that, did I?'

‘No, you didn't, but it's self-evident.'

‘Ah.' He looked puzzled, and maybe even a little flattered. ‘Is it?'

‘Yes. Now what is it you're suspecting me of?'

‘Nothing, madam. No, we're not suspecting you of anything. It's just, as I say, the car was seen in a certain vicinity, where a certain event took place, and we are checking to see if anything was witnessed by the owner of this vehicle.'

‘Ah, well . . .' Mrs Pargeter smiled again. ‘You don't want to be talking to me then. I'm not the owner of this vehicle.'

‘You're not?'

‘No, no, this is a hire car. It's owned by Gary.'

‘Gary?'

She pointed. ‘The chauffeur. The one who's driving.'

‘Ah, right.'

‘Well, not driving at the moment, but sitting in the driver's seat.'

‘I see.' Wilkinson drew back. ‘Sorry to have troubled you, madam.'

‘No trouble at all, Inspector.' Mrs Pargeter favoured him with the beam of her biggest smile yet. ‘I think the Metropolitan Police are a fine body of men, and if there's anything I can ever do to help them, I can assure you I'll do it.'

‘Thank you very much, madam. I wish more members of the public shared that admirable attitude.'

Wilkinson gave Mrs Pargeter a surprisingly long look, then nodded, and she closed the window. The Inspector moved forward and was about to tap on Gary's window when he noticed it was already down.

‘Anything I can do to help you, Inspector?'

‘Yes, I gather you are the owner of this vehicle?'

‘That is correct, yes.'

‘Well, it was seen in the vicinity of an area where a recent crime took place and—'

‘Which area?'

‘Sorry?'

‘In the vicinity of which area was my car seen?'

‘Ah. Right. It was . . . er . . .' Wilkinson had another go at improvisation, ‘round Tulse Hill.'

‘And when was this?'

‘Tuesday.'

‘What time of day?'

‘About 3 a.m.'

‘Sorry, no. I haven't been to lUlse Hill since . . . ooh, I don't know. Certainly not for the last year.'

‘Ah, right. Well, thank you for your help. And at least I have established to whom this vehicle belongs.'

‘I thought,' Mrs Pargeter's cool voice floated in from the back, ‘the police had a computer system to check vehicle ownership.'

‘Well, yes, we do,' said the Inspector, confused. In fact, if he'd read the printout Sergeant Hughes had given him, he would have known that the car was registered to Gary. But the obvious was never Wilkinson's way. ‘On the other hand, er,' he went on, ‘it sometimes pays to double-check.'

‘Why?'

He tapped his nose shrewdly. ‘Computers are not infallible, you know.'

‘So are you saying that sometimes the old traditional methods are best?'

‘Exactly, madam. How very perceptive of you to realize that.' The Inspector by now had his head halfway through Gary's window so that she could get the full benefit of his smile. There was a silence.

Eventually Mrs Pargeter broke it. ‘Was there anything else we can do for you, Inspector?'

He seemed miles away. ‘What? Er, no. Nothing of importance. Thank you, I have all the information I require.'

‘Good.'

He continued to grin, with his head halfinside the car, then suddenly recovered himself. ‘Better be on my way.'

‘So should we. Shouldn't we, Gary?'

‘Certainly should.'

‘But, er . . .' Wilkinson became once again police-manlike and looked sourly down at Gary. ‘Next time watch parking on the double yellow lines, eh?'

‘Yes, of course, Inspector.'

‘Won't do anything about it this time, but don't let me catch you doing it again – right?'

‘Right.'

Still the Inspector didn't move from the side of the car. ‘I think if that really is it,' said Mrs Pargeter, ‘perhaps we'd better be moving on.'

‘Yes. Yes, of course.' Wilkinson stood back. Gary closed his window and eased the limousine away down the road. The Inspector's eyes followed it pensively into the distance.

‘What do you reckon all that was about?' Gary asked Mrs Pargeter once they were under way.

‘Goodness knows.' She chuckled easily. ‘Nothing to worry about, though.'

‘No,' said Gary. ‘No.' Then, after a moment he added, not quite reassured, ‘Why not?'

‘Because,' Mrs Pargeter replied patiently, ‘neither of us has done anything wrong, have we?'

‘No. No, that's true.'