Mrs Pargeter's Package (12 page)

CHAPTER 26

The office was in Hackney and so drab that it looked like something out of a Fifties British B-feature. The adenoidal girl who let Mrs Pargeter into her anteroom would not have looked out of place in the same movie. Lank, dull hair, droopy cardigan, shapeless kilt in some tartan Mrs Pargeter did not recognise. Certainly not an obvious one like the Black Watch or Hunting Stuart. Moping Mactavish, perhaps?

'If you'd just wait a moment,' said the girl, as if through a nasal drip, 'I'll tell Mr Fisher-Metcalf you're here.'

Mrs Pargeter sat on a cracked mock-leather chair and gazed on a dispiriting vista of faded green box-files. Whatever inroads the new technology might have made elsewhere, it hadn't penetrated this little corner of post-war Britain. The telephone on the desk was a black Bakelite one, and the old manual typewriter, stuffed with a sheaf of paper and carbons, looked like a close relative of an eighteenth-century threshing machine. Only the dangling overhead light with its parchment shade confirmed that the place even had electricity laid on.

Over everything lay a thick blurring of dust. The room smelled of dust. And of something else, less pleasant, as though a cracked drain had been seeping quietly into the foundations for a couple of centuries.

The girl drooped back into the room with an apologetic sniff. 'If you'd like to come through . . .'

Mrs Pargeter, glad that the purple and yellow flowers of her silk dress were bringing a splash of colour into this murk of greens and beiges, went through into Mr Fisher-Metcalf's office.

Its owner would easily have qualified for a part in the same film as his secretary. Shiny pin-striped suit, white shirt, a tie patterned with dots so tiny that the effect was uniform black. His bald head was inadequately disguised with a meagre combing of salt-and-pepper hair. His face drooped with defeat, apology and a degree of guilt.

'Good morning,' he said. 'Mrs Pargeter, isn't it? Won't you take a seat?' The anaemic secretary still lingered in the doorway. 'Perhaps you'd like a cup of coffee . . . ?'

The smell of the anteroom had put Mrs Pargeter off the idea of anything prepared out there, so she refused the offer. The secretary vanished with a farewell sniff.

'Now, Mrs Pargeter, what can I do for you?'

The apology in his tone expressed a whole lifetime of failure. Clearly Mr Fisher-Metcalf had never quite been up to any of the challenges life had offered him. He had just scraped through exams at school, then just scraped through his legal exams, fortunate to be entering a self-perpetuating profession.

Though Mrs Pargeter knew some excellent solicitors – indeed, she owed the fact that she and the late Mr Pargeter had not been prevented from spending more of their married life together to the good offices of the famous Arnold Justiman – she did not have a very high opinion of the profession. She knew it to be one in which talent was not of paramount importance. The British legal system – created, of course, by solicitors – guarantees undemanding and lucrative employment for life to anyone who can be crammed up to qualify.

So she didn't really think she was going to have too much trouble dealing with Mr Fisher-Metcalf.

'I want to talk about your late client, Mr Chris Dover.'

A cloud of professional affront crossed the solicitor's face. Tm afraid it is not proper for me to discuss the affairs of my clients, whether living or dead.'

'Ah,' said Mrs Pargeter. No point in delaying the offensive. Time was of the essence to her investigation. 'And would that still be the case if I were to tell you that I know all about Harry Thackeray?'

'I don't know what you're talking about.' It was bluster. He was already defeated, as easily pushed over as a cardboard cutout.

'What I'm talking about is the case four years back when Harry Thackeray was accused of organising a protection racket in Canning Town. I know you were involved.'

'Of course I was involved. I was acting for Mr Thackeray in my professional capacity.'

'I was talking about what you did in a less professional capacity.'

'Oh?'

'Funny what happened there, wasn't it? Looked like the prosecution had a cast-iron case against Harry Thackeray. All those publicans, restaurant owners, shopkeepers, all prepared to testify that they had been menaced, threatened, beaten up in some cases – do you remember that poor Bengali with the two broken arms? And then, suddenly, night before the case, they all spontaneously decided that their recollections were a bit hazy and that they didn't want to testify, after all.'

'People have the right to change their minds.'

'Oh, sure. Yes. One of the greatest human rights, that. Funny they should all change their minds at the same time, though, wasn't it?'

'Coincidences do happen.'

'Yes,' Mrs Pargeter agreed. 'Like the coincidence that all of those witnesses had visits the day before the case from rather big men with baseball bats – men who, it seems, didn't even appear to know the rules of baseball.'

He still clung on to the last shreds of his bluff. 'I don't know why you're telling me all this, Mrs Pargeter.'

'I'm just reminding you that you organised those visits by the men with baseball bats.'

'You don't have any proof of that.'

Unhurried, Mrs Pargeter opened her handbag and pulled out some papers. She put them on Mr Fisher-Metcalf's desk. 'These are the names and addresses of the men who made the visits, and at the bottom you'll find signed statements by two of them as to whose orders they were obeying. These are only photocopies, obviously.'

'Oh.' The cardboard cutout was now flat and unresisting on the floor.

' "Pincer" Cartwright and "Dumptruck" Donnellan.' Mrs Pargeter smiled sweetly. 'What quaint names.'

Good old Truffler, she thought. Never fails to come up with the goods.

The solicitor moistened his lips with a wormlike tongue. 'Are you from the police?'

Mrs Pargeter let out a peal of laughter. 'Good heavens, no. Far from it. Like any normal, law-abiding citizen, I have always tried to have as little to do with the police as possible. No, as I said, all I want to do is get some information about the late Chris Dover. If I get that information, I certainly wouldn't feel any need to go near the police.'

'Ah. Good. Well, Mrs Pargeter, I'm sure I would be able to reconsider my decision about discussing Mr Dover's affairs . . . given the, er, rather unusual circumstances . . .'

'Oh, good.'

'What, er, information do you require?'

'Well, let's start with how long you'd known Chris Dover.'

'A long time. I've acted for him ever since I qualified.'

'And when was that?'

'The early Sixties.'

'Ah. Before he started his own company.'

'Yes.'

'In fact, while his activities were still criminal.'

He was once again all professional formality. 'Mrs Pargeter, that is not a word whose use I can condone in relation to my clients.'

'What word do you prefer then? Illegal? Illicit? Felonious? Crooked?' Mrs Pargeter grinned. 'Do stop me when you hear one whose use you can condone.'

Mr Fisher-Metcalf cleared his throat awkwardly. 'Well, perhaps one could say that Chris Dover was then at a stage when he was still . . . er, finding his way in life.'

'All right. Let's say that. We both know what we mean, after all, don't we?' She paused as a new idea struck her. 'Ooh, I've just had a thought . . . Did Chris Dover pay to put you through law school?'

The solicitor shifted uncomfortably and Mrs Pargeter knew that she had again stumbled on the truth. The late Mr Pargeter had done the same thing – that's what had made her think of it.

In spite of the demands of his many and varied activities, her husband had always found time for charity. He had put two young men and one young woman through law school and philanthropically continued to support them by keeping them continuously in work from the moment they had qualified as solicitors. It was clear that Chris Dover had also seen the two-way benefits to be achieved by training his own tame lawyer.

'Yes, I understand,' said Mrs Pargeter. 'You were with him all the way. You knew all about his business dealings, didn't you?'

'I can assure you,' he began, a little of his bluster reasserting itself, 'that from the time of Mr Dover's setting up his company in 1963, nothing occurred that would not withstand the most detailed scrutiny by any kind of investigating authority you care to mention.'

'No. I'm sure. Though the same couldn't be said of his activities before 1963.'

A sly look came into Mr Fisher-Metcalf's eyes. 'Of that period, I'm afraid, there are no records that could be investigated.'

'No, there wouldn't be, would there? Still, you can talk to me about that period, can't you?'

'I'm not sure that it would be proper for—'

Mrs Pargeter pointed to the papers on his desk. 'Would it be more "proper" for the police to read what "Pincer" Cartwright and "Dumptruck" Donnellan had to say about the Harry Thackeray case?'

He knew she held all the cards. 'What do you want to know?'

'I want to know about Chris Dover's early life.'

'He was brought up in Uruguay.'

'I know that. I want more detail.'

Mr Fisher-Metcalf spread his hands apologetically. 'I'm afraid I don't have any more detail. He never talked about it.'

'Never?'

'Not a single word.'

Mrs Pargeter reckoned that the solicitor was telling the truth. Conchita had said the same thing, after all.

'You said that all records of his early years in London have been destroyed?'

Even with his back against the wall, the solicitor did not abandon his professional tendency towards nit-picking. 'I said in fact that there are no records that could be investigated.'

'Is there a difference?'

'Oh yes,' he replied with the satisfaction of the nitpicker rewarded. 'Oh yes.'

'So you mean that there were records?'

'For those who knew where to look for them, yes.'

Mrs Pargeter had had enough of this coyness. 'You're saying you have got records of Chris Dover's gun-running then?'

He winced at this indecorously specific mention of the crime. 'Well . . . Yes, certain details were noted down, but. . . er, not in a way that many people would be able to understand them.'

'In shorthand, you mean?'

'Not shorthand, no.'

Mrs Pargeter picked up the papers on his desk and reasserted her dominance. 'Listen, you tell me exactly what you mean or this lot goes straight to the police!'

He looked like an Islamic Fundamentalist who had just been made to swallow a large Scotch. 'Oh, very well.'

'So how did Chris Dover keep these records?'

'If there was ever something that he needed to send me, some information that he wanted kept secret, he would hide it on a totally innocuous document.'

'Hide it? In code?'

'Not code, no. What he would do was send me a letter about something totally mundane, an acknowledgement of a letter from me, that kind of thing . . . but the important information would be written on the back.'

Suddenly a whole sequence of logic clicked into place in Mrs Pargeter's mind. 'In invisible ink?' she breathed softly.

'Effectively, yes. Chris knew a certain amount about chemistry, I think he'd experimented with it as a child. And he found out that he could write something in one chemical which was completely invisible until it was washed over with a solution of another chemical.'

Her violet blue eyes sparkled. 'Yes. Yes, of course.'

'The chemical he used for the writing was phenolphthalein,' said Mr Fisher-Metcalf, 'and the solution which had to be washed over it to bring out the information was—'

'Sodium carbonate,' said Mrs Pargeter.

CHAPTER 27

Mr Fisher-Metcalf gaped in surprise, but Mrs Pargeter didn't give him time to respond. Her mind was moving too quickly to be delayed by pedestrian explanations.

'Listen, Chris Dover left a letter for his wife, didn't he? A letter that was to be given to her after his death?'

'Now I'm not sure that—'

'I know he did. Joyce mentioned it to me.'

'Oh.'

'By the way, did you know that Joyce was dead?'

'I had been informed, yes. It's very sad, isn't it?' he said with formality untinged by sincerity.

'What's sad?'

'That someone could be in so reduced a state, have such low self-esteem, actually to get to the point of killing themselves.'

Mrs Pargeter didn't contest this interpretation of the death. She knew she should minimise the number of people with whom she shared her suspicions. It was interesting, though, to see how quickly Sergeant Karaskakis' version of events had become the accepted one, even before it had been officially sanctioned.

'Yes, very sad,' she agreed briskly. 'Did Joyce stand to inherit a lot of money?'

'Well . . .'

Mr Fisher-Metcalf had come over all cautious and solicitorlike again, but Mrs Pargeter wasn't standing for any of that. 'Come on, what was Chris Dover worth?'

'He was an extremely wealthy man.'

'So Joyce was a very wealthy woman and would have been even wealthier after his death?' And yet, Mrs Pargeter mused, she still chose a relatively cheap package tour to Corfu as a holiday.

'Well . . .' Mr Fisher-Metcalf started to equivocate again.

'There wasn't anything funny about the will? She would have got the lot?'

'The bulk of the estate, certainly.'

'And now she's dead, it'll go to Conchita? Joyce left a will, presumably?'

'Yes, everything will all be as straightforward as it can be in a situation where both spouses die within such a short time – which is not of course completely straightforward because the legal requirements—'

Mrs Pargeter was in no mood to be delayed by this sort of stuff. 'But basically Conchita gets the lot?'

'Their daughter will inherit everything, yes.'

'Hm. Back to this letter Chris left for his wife . . .'

The solicitor looked pained. Perhaps he imagined Mrs Pargeter had forgotten raising the subject. If so, he had seriously underestimated his questioner.

'What about the letter, Mrs Pargeter?'

'Do you have a copy?'

'No. Well, that is to say, yes, I do have a copy, but I don't think you'll—'

'Could I see it please?'

'You'll be very disappointed if you—'

'Could I see it please?'

Mrs Pargeter had a knack of raising the impact of her speech without raising its volume. Her intonation on the second 'Could I see it please?' was only marginally different from that on the first, but its force was recognisably greater.

Mr Fisher-Metcalf crumbled instantly in the face of its power. He pressed an old-fashioned bell-push on his desk and the wan secretary trickled in. She was given instructions on where to find the relevant document and went out to trawl through the dusty box-files.

'Tell me,' Mrs Pargeter asked, 'to your knowledge, did Chris Dover ever have any contacts with Greece – Corfu in particular?'

The solicitor shook his head. 'Never went there, I'm sure. Never mentioned any connections either. No . . . Well, except there was one incident which I suppose . . . But no. I'm afraid I have to answer no.'

Before Mrs Pargeter had time to ask more about the one mysterious 'incident', the secretary had seeped back into the room bearing an open box-file. 'I've been right through, but I can't see any—'

'Give it to me.' Her boss stretched out an imperious hand. 'I'll find it. You go.' Before the girl was fully out of the door, he commented to Mrs Pargeter, 'So difficult to get staff with any gumption these days. Girl I had before was really efficient, but . . . she went. And the money some of the kids expect to be paid these days. It's not as if they're properly trained, either . . .'

As he wittered on about the inadequacies of modern youth, he riffled through papers in the file. Then, with satisfaction, he extracted one flimsy sheet and held it out towards the visitor. 'This is the copy, though, as I say, I don't think it'll help you much.'

It was a slightly smudged carbon, which read: