Mrs. Pargeter's Principle

by Simon Brett

  But Mrs Pargeter had a soft heart and, before she and Gary left in the Bentley, the cat was duly installed on her mantelpiece.

  And as they drove to pick up Truffler Mason, she wondered how to convey to her cleaning lady the message that an inadvertent sweep of the duster, which brought the china cat down to smash on the marble hearthstone, would not be greeted as entirely bad news.

  The suburban terraced house looked unostentatious, respectable, even dull, as Gary’s Bentley drew up outside. ‘Shall I wait in the car?’ Gary asked.

  ‘No,’ said Truffler. ‘You should come and meet Erin. She’s a great kid.’

  Gary looked for permission to Mrs Pargeter, who said, ‘Yes, the more the merrier.’

  The girl who opened the door to them was dressed in black, almost punk-like but with a style of her own. Her hair was asymmetrically cut and coloured purple. Her ears had more perforations than a tea bag, and from each hole hung a small silver ring.

  Truffler Mason was clearly very impressed by her. His manner as he made the introductions was proudly avuncular, almost proprietorial.

  Mrs Pargeter said appropriate things about Jukebox Jarvis’s death.

  ‘Yes, I was sorry to see him go,’ said Erin. ‘But he was in so much pain towards the end … Well, it was probably for the best. Now do come through and let me get you some tea or coffee.’

  It was clear as she led them through to the office that not just the management but also the style of Jukebox Jarvis’s operation had changed considerably. Truffler and Gary both remembered the spaghetti junction chaos of cables in which he worked, the eviscerated boxes of computer parts, the piles of CDs, the profusion of printers.

  But now Erin Jarvis was in charge all of that had vanished. The room had been painted in pale grey and charcoal. The shelves were minimally decorated with small ceramic vases, each one exquisitely different and selected with enormous care. A sleek-looking Italian coffee-making machine stood out among the ceramics. There were flowers in evidence and easy chairs covered in dark-grey fabric. A black leather swivel chair faced a glass-topped table which served as a desk. On it sat a solitary laptop. A wireless printer on a shelf was the only other evidence that this was a working environment.

  Reading their reactions to the room from their faces, Erin said to Truffler and Gary, ‘It’s the technology that’s changed, you see. Dad hoarded stuff, a lot of it still in old cardboard files. Then, his hardware wasn’t really state of the art, so he did need lots of different computers for different tasks. Now I can do the whole lot from the one.’

  Erin sat them down and took their coffee orders. While the machine hissed and gurgled, Mrs Pargeter asked, ‘Have you got the whole archive on that one laptop?’

  Erin nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve got it backed up elsewhere – you know, on memory sticks and the cloud and so on – but it’s all accessible from there.’

  ‘Amazing. But how do you know where to find stuff? If the archive covers the whole of my husband’s business career, a lot of it must go back to before you were born.’

  ‘It does. But my dad took me through it all, you see.’

  ‘How’d you mean?’

  ‘Well, when it was pretty clear he was going to die – he had cancer which was spreading like mad – he said it’d be a waste of his life’s work if the Mr Pargeter archive wasn’t saved. Because it was all there, but in such a disorganized way that Dad was the only person who could navigate his way around it. Well, I’d got a degree in IT studies – Dad had seen to it I had a good education – so it seemed only natural that I should work with him, digitalizing everything and getting it into a kind of order where it was more accessible. We spent his last six months doing that. And the day after we’d finished, Dad died. I think he’d been kind of holding himself together till we got it done.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Pargeter gently.

  ‘No, don’t be. It was the best six months of my life. It gave me a chance to get really close to Dad … in a way I never had before. I wouldn’t have missed a day of it.’

  The girl looked proud and confident. Mrs Pargeter couldn’t help comparing her to Samantha Pinkerton. Sammy’s grief about her father’s death was still raw, but Erin Jarvis had reached an accommodation with the reality of it, a kind of peace.

  The thought prompted her next question: ‘So you’d be able to look up anyone who worked with my husband?’

  ‘Should be able to. Who did you have in mind?’

  ‘Well, I’ve recently met the daughter of a bloke called Passport Pinkerton, and she’d really like to find out about his early career.’

  ‘I think I could manage that.’ Erin keyed in a note on the tablet on her desk.

  ‘I’ll give you her number, then maybe you can ring her when you’ve got some stuff together …?’

  ‘No problem.’

  Mrs Pargeter scribbled down the name and mobile number and passed it across. ‘Going back to your archive, Erin,’ she said. ‘Presumably, you didn’t get paid for doing any of this?’

  ‘No, it was a labour of love. Literally. Love for my dad.’

  ‘Maybe so, but it’s still a very valuable piece of work. Valuable for me, to know that all my husband’s archives are in such excellent shape. I will see to it that you are paid for your efforts.’

  ‘You really don’t need to, Mrs Pargeter. I do have other sources of income.’

  ‘Really? May I ask what they are?’

  ‘Research, records, information. People employ me when they need to find out things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’ asked Mrs Pargeter a little tentatively. She hoped Erin Jarvis wasn’t going to turn out to have criminal connections.

  ‘Just data, really. Facts.’

  Truffler Mason came in at this point. ‘Erin provides a very useful service, of which I have already taken advantage. She’s like a walking Google. Whatever you ask for, she’ll be back with the answer within five minutes – or less. For instance, case I was working on, I needed to find out about adoption laws – at what age a kid can demand to know who her birth parents are. Erin was back with the answer, almost before I’d finished asking the question.’

  ‘Oh, this does sound a very useful service, Erin.’ Mrs Pargeter beamed at the girl. ‘I’m sure I’ll be in touch with some queries very soon indeed.’

  ‘Great.’ Erin picked up a card from the table and handed it across. ‘All my contacts.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’

  The coffee was now ready, and Erin distributed it in stylish black cups. Then she sat down. ‘Truffler mentioned on the phone this morning there was something to do with your husband’s archive you might want me to check out …’

  ‘Well, if you’ve got the time, yes there is. And not just the query about Passport Pinkerton. That was really an afterthought. The more important thing from my point of view is that we were recently at the funeral of Sir Normington Winthrop. Only reason I went there was because I’d found his name in an address book my husband left me – which contains details of all the people he ever worked with. I mean, I suppose it’s possible that there was more than one Normington Winthrop and we went to the wrong funeral, but it’s an unusual name.’

  ‘Well,’ said Erin, ‘I can check out if there are any other Normington Winthrops.’

  ‘How can you …?’

  But the girl was already too involved to reply. Her fingers flittered across the keyboard, playing it like a piano virtuoso. In less than thirty seconds, she stopped and announced, ‘There was a Major Normington-Winthrop who was killed in the Boer War, but that was his surname and he was hyphenated.’

  ‘Was he? Poor bloke,’ murmured Gary, and received a frosty reproof for levity from Mrs Pargeter’s violet eyes.

  ‘Then there was a Normington Stanley Winthrop whose funeral took place in Ketchum, Idaho in 1894. And there’s a firm of estate agents in Edmonton called Normington, Patel & Winthrop.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Apart from a village in Do
rset called Norton Windrop, no.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much, Erin. I think we can definitely say that there is some connection between my husband and the man whose funeral we attended.’

  ‘Seems likely, yes.’

  ‘Still odd, though,’ said Truffler, ‘that neither Gary nor I have heard the name.’

  ‘Perhaps not so odd. I get the impression that Normington Winthrop was with my husband right at the start of his operations, so you probably joined up after he’d left.’

  ‘Yes, but why did he leave?’ A new portentousness came into Truffler’s voice. ‘Your husband was such a good employer that nobody left … unless they left under a cloud.’

  ‘You’re right. Perhaps there is some history there … of Normington Winthrop trying to do the dirty on my husband. Would that possibly be recorded somewhere, Erin? I don’t know if your records go back that far.’

  ‘They seem to cover everything,’ the girl replied with a grin. ‘I get the impression that your husband kept very copious notes of his enterprises right from the beginning. Then he employed my dad to keep the records, and passed over all the early stuff to him.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But, Mrs Pargeter, what makes you think that Normington Winthrop was involved so early on in your husband’s work?’

  ‘Two things. One: as well as Truffler and Gary here, I’ve asked a few more of their associates, and none of them ever met him, though one or two seemed vaguely to remember the name. The second thing is the way Normington Winthrop is written down in the listings.’ She extracted the little black book from her bag to illustrate the point. ‘Look …’ She flicked through the pages. ‘My husband listed the names according to their individual expertise – “Missing Persons Investigators” and so on – and they’re entered when they joined his organisation. So here you see “Normington Winthrop” is the first one entered in the “Armourers” category. Before “Half-inch” Warburton and “Winkler” Whittington and all the others. What’s more, my husband always used a Parker Pen with an italic nib and Quink Royal Blue ink.’

  ‘Lovely writing he had,’ murmured Gary, looking at the book.

  ‘Yes, he prided himself on his writing.’

  ‘Can I just have a butcher’s at that,’ asked Truffler.

  Mrs Pargeter passed the book across. He put on a pair of thick glasses and brought the page very near to his face. ‘Funny, it’s a bit messy, that. The way he’s written “Normington Winthrop”.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the paper looks a bit rough and the ink’s run a bit, like it was smudged.’

  ‘That’s probably just because it’s been there such a long time,’ said Mrs Pargeter. ‘Further proof that Normington Winthrop was one of the first people my husband recruited.’

  ‘Yes.’ Truffler Mason let out a low whistle of appreciation. ‘I think I should give up this private detective lark, Mrs P. You’re better at it than I am.’

  ‘Very sweet of you to say so, Truffler, but what I did wasn’t very difficult.’

  ‘No, maybe not.’

  ‘So what you want me to do,’ said Erin, keen to be busy, ‘is to find out whatever there is in the archive about Normington Winthrop?’

  ‘Exactly. And how long do you reckon it’ll take you, love? Couple of days?’

  ‘Couple of minutes more like. Now, before I get started, is everyone all right for coffee?’

  Everyone was all right for coffee, and as Erin focused on her laptop Gary asked, ‘All right if we talk? Or will we spoil your concentration?’

  ‘Nothing spoils my concentration,’ said Erin.

  ‘I was just thinking back, Truffler,’ said Gary, ‘to that job you and me done with Mr P in Stoke Newington.’

  The private investigator let out a lugubrious chuckle. ‘Stoke Newington – cor, that was a job and a half, wasn’t it? ’Cause your getaway car seized up totally, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, it went on unleaded, and some pranny had only filled it up with diesel, hadn’t they?’

  ‘Did you ever find out who did it?’

  ‘No, and lucky for him. If I had found him, he wouldn’t have sat down for a week.’

  Truffler Mason chuckled again. ‘What a nightmare! ’Cause there I was holding the sack from the building society, knowing their alarms’d be ringing like there’s no tomorrow, and—’

  ‘Well, be fair. I sorted it out, didn’t I? I hijacked another vehicle.’

  ‘Yes, but did it have to be a bloody milk float?’

  That got both the men laughing uproariously. When they’d recovered, both looked at Mrs Pargeter. There was an unwonted frostiness in her violet eyes.

  ‘Well, it was funny at the time,’ said Gary limply. ‘I guess you had to be there.’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Mrs Pargeter, ‘what on earth you’re talking about.’

  Further uncomfortable conversation was prevented by Erin suddenly saying, ‘This is really odd.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘There is absolutely no record anywhere in the archive of Normington Winthrop. Not even his name.’

  ‘Maybe wires got crossed somewhere?’ suggested Gary. ‘Maybe he never did work for Mr P.’

  ‘If that were the case,’ said Mrs Pargeter firmly, ‘his name wouldn’t be in the little black book.’ She looked across at Erin. ‘Is there any possibility that the archive could have been tampered with?’

  ‘Certainly not since I’ve had it on my computer. You wouldn’t believe the levels of security I’ve got on this thing.’

  ‘And you don’t have any of the original records, do you? You know, the folders and notebooks whose contents you copied and digitized.’

  ‘I have all of them. They’re stored in the next room. There’s so much stuff, I had to get some of those shelves on rollers fitted … you know, like you have in libraries.’

  ‘But if you’ve been through all that material you’d have noticed if anything had been tampered with, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Well, no. Dad did the very early stuff. First idea was, you see, that I should show him how to do it, and then he’d work through all of the material. So he made a start, but then the cancer got worse, with the result that I stepped in and we done the rest together.’

  ‘So there might be evidence of tampering that you’ve never seen?’

  ‘Possible, Mrs Pargeter, yes. I’ll go and check.’

  There was silence in the room until Erin Jarvis returned. Neither Truffler nor Gary wanted to initiate another topic of conversation that might prompt an icy stare from Mrs Pargeter’s violet eyes.

  Erin was quickly back with two notebooks, the pages of which crackled with age. She opened them to show the spaces where rectangles of text had been cut out. As she flicked through the pages, more and more excisions were revealed.

  ‘It looks to me,’ said Mrs Pargeter, ‘as if Normington Winthrop has been airbrushed out of history.’

  SIX

  Though the main aim of the evening was to introduce Sammy’s fiancé to Mrs Pargeter, the two women had agreed to meet in the bar of Greene’s Hotel a little earlier to discuss wedding plans, a subject on which Sammy seemed unable to contain her enthusiasm.

  She arrived on a bubble of excitement, with a sheaf of magazines under her arm. Mrs Pargeter had, of course, ordered a bottle of champagne, which was reclining luxuriously in an ice bucket. She was already halfway down a glass, and a member of the bar staff expertly filled another for her guest.

  Mrs Pargeter raised hers. ‘Thought you should taste the house champagne. Greene’s does a very nice line in wedding receptions.’

  Sammy’s dark eyes widened. ‘What, you mean we could have the do here?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well …’ The girl took in the splendour of her surroundings. ‘It’d cost an absolute fortune.’

  ‘I’ve told you – you don’t have to worry about the cost.’

  ‘No, but …’ Sammy’s eyes did another tour of inspection and
a slight apprehensiveness came into them. ‘I’m not sure I’d ever feel really relaxed in a place like this.’

  ‘No worries. It was just a suggestion. The important thing is that you have exactly the kind of wedding you want.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sammy took a sip of champagne. ‘The fact is, Mrs Pargeter, I’m an Essex girl and …’

  ‘Me too.’ A warm chuckle. ‘Takes one to know one, eh?’

  ‘Yes. And there’s a place near where I live … It’s a wedding venue, you know; they do the whole package … I’ve been to lots of my friends’ weddings there, and I always kind of dreamed that if I ever got married, that’s the place where it’d happen.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Mrs Pargeter. ‘If that’s what you want, that’s what you shall have. What’s the place called?’

  ‘Girdstone Manor.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll book it. Are you still hoping to get married on the twenty-seventh of May?’

  ‘Hoping to, yes. But a place like Girdstone Manor gets booked up months in advance.’

  ‘Well, we can check it out. They might have a cancellation.’

  ‘Ooh, that’d be good.’ Sammy’s eyes sparkled, then she realized what she’d just said. ‘Well, that is, it’d be good for Kelvin and me, but it would mean that some other poor girl’s engagement had been broken off.’

  ‘Sammy, there’s no point in being sentimental about people you don’t know. My husband used to say that to me a lot – and it was a very good indicator of how he ran his business.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘And presumably at Girdstone Manor you can have any kind of ceremony you like?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know if you’ve got any faith or not – whether you want a church wedding?’

  ‘I don’t know whether I’ve got any faith or not – and I’m sure Kelvin doesn’t – but I do want a church wedding.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Mrs Pargeter, who liked to keep some things traditional.