by Simon Brett
“Not at Greene’s, no. Because the ‘average guest’ here is an American with more money than sense, and they’re ‘just thrilled’ by what they regard as another heart-warming example of ‘lovable British eccentricity’.”
“Ah. With you.” A silence. “Was that what you were actually ringing about, Mrs Pargeter?”
“Well, erm… in a way,” she replied evasively, and moved into further delaying tactics. “Maybe Fossilface has given up on his campaign of ‘restitooshun’?”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said Truffler darkly. “I’ve a feeling our charitable loose cannon’s still out there, priming his powder for yet another hideously inappropriate gesture.”
“Oh dear.”
“You heard what he did to Keyhole Crabbe, did you?”
“Yes.”
“Bloody nasty, that could have been, if the screws in Bedford had found the stuff… Keyhole’s always been so careful about his reputation. I mean, if word got around that he was the kind of geezer who leaves his professional equipment lying around in the nick… well, his image’d be well and truly scuppered.”
“You’re right.”
“No, I think we should still be very much on the lookout for Fossilface’s next attempt to demonstrate his sense of humour.”
“Yes, ‘cause, of course, although he did Hedgeclipper over and tied him up, he still hasn’t made his act of ‘restitooshun’ there, has he?”
“No. And he hasn’t paid his dues to Gary yet either. Or to Concrete Jacket. Or to me,” Truffler concluded gloomily. “Don’t forget I’m on his list too.”
“What kind of ‘restitooshun’ do you reckon he’s going to make to you? How did he do the dirty on you in the past? Because if you knew what kind of thing he was likely to come up with, you could be on your guard, couldn’t you?”
“Huh. You make it sound easier than it actually is, Mrs Pargeter. A man could go mad trying to piece together the bizarre way a mind like Fossilface O’Donahue’s works.”
“But you must know what wrong he did you… what offence he’s likely to try and make ‘restitooshun’ for?”
“All right. Fossilface got at my records – burnt a whole lot of them.”
“What kind of records?”
“I’d got some dirt on him and some of his mates. Pretty inflammatory stuff.”
Mrs Pargeter couldn’t resist the joke. “Probably that was why he found it so easy to burn.”
But Truffler was too resentfully deep in memories to respond to her humour. “Irreplaceable, that material was. I’d built it up over years… just like your husband told me to. ‘Never hurts to have a bit of information on people you’re working with,” he always said to me. “You never know when it’s going to come in handy’.”
“What for?” asked Mrs Pargeter innocently.
“Well, when you’re dealing with villains, it’s good to have something against them. So you can put the screws on, come heavy with the blackmail or…” he seemed to sense disapproval creeping into the unseen eyes and quickly changed direction, “… or pass the information on to the police like a good citizen.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Oh well, good luck, Truffler. Maybe by now Fossilface O’Donahue will have learnt how a sense of humour works, and make you some form of ‘restitooshun’ that’s actually appropriate.”
“Yes,” Truffler growled. “And maybe Lord Lucan’ll be the next prime minister.”
There was a silence. Mrs Pargeter knew she could no longer put off the real purpose of her call.
“Truffler, it’s all right,” she found herself saying a few minutes later, soothing the predictable outburst detonated by the announcement of her plan.
“Well, I don’t like it,” Truffler grumbled. “You’re taking an unnecessary risk.”
“I know what I’m doing. There’s no way he could have a clue who I really am, anyway. The appointment’s made in the name of Lady Entwistle.”
He didn’t sound mollified. “It’s still a risk. Clickety Clark’s a nasty piece of goods, and if he’s got Blunt working with him too –”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Hm.” Still not convinced. “So… what’s Lady Entwistle like?”
“Well, I was just deciding that. She’s a widow, definitely, and her husband left her very well provided for.”
“Typecasting?” Truffler suggested.
Mrs Pargeter was affronted by the idea. “Oh no. Lady Entwistle’s got more money than sense. Keeps complaining she doesn’t know what to do with the stuff.”
“Sounds a perfect mark for an unscrupulous conman…”
“Exactly. That’s the aim of the exercise. Lady Entwistle is a real sitting duck. Much younger than her late husband, needless to say. Oh no, she was a bimbo before the word was invented. And she’s dead common.” A smile crept over Mrs Pargeter’s generous features as she came up with the perfect background detail. “Yes,” she said, “her husband got knighted in Harold Wilson’s Resignation Honours List, that’s it.”
Truffler chuckled. “Well, you just be careful. Bloke you’re up against may have a veneer of civilization, but deep down he’s a real nasty mean villain.”
“Don’t worry,” said Mrs Pargeter. “I’ve dealt with a good few of them in my time.”
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Nineteen
The foyer of Greene’s Hotel was a miracle of understated elegance. An eighteenth-century French chandelier spread beneficent light over antique oak furniture and delicate glassware. As Mrs Pargeter came out of the lift into this paradigm of grace, Hedgeclipper Clinton was emerging from his office with a piece of paper and a puzzled expression. On his shoulder, Erasmus chattered excitedly. “Now what on earth can this mean?” said the manager, almost to himself.
“Problem?” asked Mrs Pargeter.
“Well, I don’t really know. I’ve just received this rather bizarre fax…”
He held the sheet across to her. There was no originating address or fax number, but across the top was a logo of a circular smiley face. Beneath this were the words: INSTAQUIP – THE PERFECT JOKE FOR EVERY OCCASION.
“Oh dear,” said Mrs Pargeter, thinking back to her recent conversation with Truffler Mason. “Oh dear.”
“What’s up?”
“Well, I’m not sure, but… just let me read it.”
With foreboding, her eyes reverted to the page. “How many lightbulbs does it take to change a man?” she read.
Her mind framed yet another ‘Oh dear’ as she discovered the answer. “It depends whether the power’s on or not.”
There seemed little doubt about the fax’s provenance. The telltale signs were all there – a joke, or rather the structure of a joke, clearly the work of someone to whom jokes did not come instinctively. In fact, it read like an early effort of a student whose first language was not humour.
“Hedgeclipper,” Mrs Pargeter said gently, “you remember Fossilface O’Donahue?”
The memory was so strong that the manager didn’t even notice her use of his forbidden nickname. “I’m hardly likely to forget him in a hurry, am I? You don’t on the whole forget people who burst into your office, overpower you and tie you up, do you?”
“No. I gather you and he worked together some time back… when you both were involved in business dealings with my husband?”
“I wouldn’t say we ‘worked together’. We saw each other from time to time, but our relationship was not close. In fact, we hated the sight of each other. That bastard Fossilface bloody nearly got me killed, you know.”
“Really? How was that?”
“The fact is, Mrs Pargeter, that back in those days I had a nickname. Hedgeclipper. I think you’re probably aware of it.” Mrs Pargeter graciously inclined her head. “Yes, well, the fact is that I had that nickname for a reason. When I was working for your late husband, I often used to use hedgeclippers to… erm…” He seemed to be having difficulty in finishing his sentence.
Mrs Parg
eter helped him out. “To prune hedges and that kind of thing?”
“And that kind of thing, yes,” he agreed, though in a manner that suggested his point had not been entirely clarified.
“I remember,” Mrs Pargeter went on, “you once came out and did all the front privet at our big house in Chigwell, didn’t you?”
“Yes, when I was lying low after that job in Tooting Bee and –”
“When you were having a well-earned rest,” Mrs Pargeter corrected him smoothly.
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Hedgeclipper Clinton grimaced, once again having difficulty in coming up with the right formula of words. “Erm, well, what happened was… on one occasion I was about to set out on a job for your husband, which was going to involve my using the hedgeclippers in… er, a less horticultural context. The fact is, Mrs Pargeter, that though your husband had a lifelong abhorrence of violence…”
“Oh certainly,” the wide-eyed widow confirmed. “He was the gentlest of men. Would never knowingly have hurt a fly.”
“No, exactly. Not knowingly. And he always had remarkable control over precisely what he did and didn’t know, I found.”
“Yes.”
“I mean, on this occasion I’m talking about, I was going out with my Hedgeclippers to… well, not to beat about the bush –”
“To prune the bush, perhaps?” Mrs Pargeter suggested meekly.
“Not that either, in fact. No, I was to be there, with my hedgeclippers, to, as it were, prune the aspirations of our opponents. They were a somewhat ungentlemanly band of jewel thieves, and I was to be present at the encounter… to make them see things your late husband’s way… and – though of course I didn’t make a habit of such behaviour – I was even prepared to use violence if it became necessary…”
“Though I’m sure that was one part of the arrangement my husband didn’t know about.”
“No, I have no doubt he was very careful not to know about that part of the arrangement. Anyway, from the point of view of our side, my presence was very important. Our opponents were known to be armed with baseball bats, and there’s nothing so dispiriting to the malicious wielder of a baseball bat than to have it cut off at the handle by a judiciously manoeuvred set of hedgeclippers.”
“Yes.” Mrs Pargeter was thoughtful for a moment. “They must have been very powerful hedgeclippers you were using. I mean, cutting through the handle of a baseball bat is rather different from snipping off an unruly twig of privet.”
“That is certainly true, Mrs Pargeter. Erm, perhaps what we have here is a problem of nomenclature. I was nicknamed ‘Hedgeclipper’ because I did start my career by using exclusively hedgeclippers. The fact is that, by the stage in my career that we’re talking about, I had enlarged my repertoire of equipment. And though I still refer to the instrument as ‘hedgeclippers’, by then what I was actually using was… a chainsaw.”
“Oh.”
“A rather powerful, large, petrol-driven chainsaw…”
“Ah.”
“And it was my chainsaw that Fossilface O’Donahue sabotaged.”
“Oh dear. How did he do it?”
“Unbeknownst to me, he had emptied the petrol tank. With the unfortunate result that, when the tone of our meeting started to sour and, seeing eight men armed with baseball bats advancing on me, I pulled the ripcord to start my hedgeclippers…”
“… or chainsaw…”
“Or chainsaw, yes… nothing happened. Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say what did happen was not what I had planned to happen… or indeed wished to happen.” He winced with recollected pain. “Not one of the happiest days of my life, Mrs Pargeter.”
“No, I can believe it. So,” she continued, piecing the scenario together, “the wrong that Fossilface O’Donahue did you concerns fuel, or power?”
“Yes,” Hedgeclipper Clinton concurred.
At which moment, the chandelier went out, and the distant hum of office machinery suddenly stopped.
♦
Hedgeclipper Clinton, Erasmus still gibbering on his shoulder, held the antique candlestick aloft as he led Mrs Pargeter down into the hotel’s cellar. He had been in favour of just calling one of his maintenance staff to investigate the power failure, but she had insisted that they do it themselves. She was wary of the processes of Fossilface O’Donahue’s ‘restitooshun’.
The cellar covered the entire floor area of the hotel, and was divided into sections by upright concrete pillars. Only the nearest of these could be seen, however, because the space in between had been filled high with what, in the uncertain flickering of the candle’s light, appeared to be metal blocks.
“What the hell are those?” Hedgeclipper Clinton murmured, moving closer to inspect them.
Mrs Pargeter had already got the answer from the smell rising from a spillage on the floor before Hedgeclipper’s candle illuminated the confirmatory sign on the side of one of the cans: PETROLEUM SPIRIT.
The cellar was full of cans of petrol. In front of the ranks of them were two gleaming new emergency generators. On one was stuck a note, headed by the same smiley-face logo that had been on the fax.
The message read: NOW YOU’LL NEVER BE POWERLESS AGAIN – AS THE BISHOP SAID TO THE ACTOR.
Incomprehensible as ever. Yes, there was no doubt they were once again up against Fossilface O’Donahue’s slowly developing sense of humour.
Hedgeclipper Clinton chuckled. “Well, going to be a long time before I have to queue up at the petrol pumps again. It looks as if I haven’t come out of this ‘restitooshun’ business so badly.”
“Don’t be too sure, Hedge –”
But Mrs Pargeter didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence. At that moment, Erasmus, bored by not being the centre of attention, had grabbed the lighted candle from his owner’s hand and leapt down on to the cellar floor.
He waved the candlestick around frenziedly. Its light was reflected in the rainbow spill of petrol as the flame swirled ever closer.
♦
“Come on, Erasmus…” Hedgeclipper Clinton cooed. “Come on…”
The hotel manager was down on his knees, inching closer to the marmoset. His pinstriped trousers were already sodden with petrol. The pool of fuel on the floor was spreading; one of the containers must have been holed.
Mrs Pargeter looked anxiously at the wall of petrol cans. Neither she nor Hedgeclipper had voiced it, but it didn’t take a lot of imagination to work out what would happen if the petrol ignited. Goodbye, Mrs Pargeter. Goodbye, Hedgeclipper Clinton.
And, come to that, goodbye Greene’s Hotel, along with any residents who had the misfortune to be inside at that particular moment.
Goodbye, Erasmus, too – though Mrs Pargeter reckoned that was one bereavement she could bear with equanimity, even enthusiasm. Not, of course, that she’d be in much of a position to enjoy the benefit of his departure.
The marmoset seemed fully aware of what was at stake, and was enjoying himself hugely. There was no longer any problem about who was the centre of attention. Erasmus waved the candle flame lower and lower as his owner drew closer.
Oh dear, thought Mrs Pargeter, as an unpleasant new recollection invaded her mind. She wasn’t very knowledgeable about science, but even she knew the basic principles of the internal combustion engine. It wasn’t the petrol itself that ignited; it was the vapour. And in an enclosed space that vapour would quickly build up to become extremely flammable. Oh dear.
What a way to go, Mrs Pargeter thought with deep resentment. Killed by the combined efforts of a monkey and a criminal idiot trying to teach himself how to have a sense of humour. No, any death but that. It would be just too humiliating.
As she had the thought, Hedgeclipper Clinton suddenly launched himself forward to make a grab for Erasmus. The marmoset, anticipating his move, leapt up into the air and grabbed the handle of one of the highest cans. Hedgeclipper skidded and fell face down in the oil slick. The candle flame flickered with the movement, but quickly re-establishe
d its steady glow.
Erasmus and Mrs Pargeter both were aware of the sound at the same moment. It was a steady dripping. The feeble candlelight caught the sheen of individual droplets as they fell free from the can next to the one from which Erasmus was swinging.
There must have been some kamikaze training in the marmoset’s background. Mrs Pargeter would have sworn she saw glee in his eye as the monkey slowly changed the angle of the candlestick to bring its flame closer to the leak.
It was time for desperate measures. Mrs Pargeter let out a sudden shriek, a high-pitched imitation of a monkey’s cry. Maybe she had captured the admonitory note of Erasmus’s mother when angry; maybe the marmoset was simply distracted by the sound. For whatever reason, he turned suddenly towards her.
Mrs Pargeter leapt forward and blew the candle out.
♦
“You know,” she said to Hedgeclipper, as they climbed wearily out of the cellar after he had restored the electrical supply, “I think we may have to go out and get Fossilface O’Donahue before he does anything else.”
“Yes,” the hotel manager agreed. “If we can find him.” He turned his head round to the marmoset by his ear. “You know, Erasmus,” he said in playful reproof, “sometimes you’re a rather naughty little monkey.”
Which, in Mrs Pargeter’s view, was something of an understatement.
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Twenty
The photographic studio, in a discreet Mayfair town house, had a slightly dated feel to it. The artfully scattered chaos gave the impression that its owner had never really recovered from seeing Blow Up back in the sixties (which in fact he hadn’t).
Nor was this idea dispelled by the appearance and manner of the studio’s presiding genius. Clickety Clark looked like a gnarled relic of the Summer of Love. He was in his late fifties, a fact accentuated rather than disguised by his youthful dress. The battered Levis, the denim shirt strained over prominent belly and the leather blouson had a perversely ageing effect, compounded by the ponytail into which his thinning grey hair was straggled back.
