Mrs Pargeter 03; Mrs Pargeter’s Package

∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Package ∧

Fourteen

“So far as I can gather,” said Mrs Pargeter, “Joyce didn’t know anyone out here. She wanted to go to Greece because she’d never been there with Chris, so it wouldn’t raise painful memories. Having made that decision, she just trotted down to her local travel agent and asked what was available. They recommended this package, and that’s how we ended up in Agios Nikitas.”

Larry Lambeth tapped his teeth pensively. “You’re sure she didn’t say anything which now, like with hindsight, might make you think she had got some connection out here?”

Mrs Pargeter shook her head. “I’m positive she didn’t say anything. The only detail that could suggest a connection is the strange way she reacted when she saw Sergeant Karaskakis. And when she saw the girl, Theodosia. I suppose she might have met one of them before in England.”

“It’s just possible that Sergeant Karaskakis has been abroad, but I’m sure Theodosia never has. Very unlikely ever to have left Corfu, particularly with her not being able to speak and that.”

“Hm.” Musing, Mrs Pargeter looked out from the terrace of Larry Lambeth’s villa towards the sea. The Mediterranean night had just fallen with its customary suddenness, and the lights of Albania once again twinkled mysteriously over the water.

The villa was set in a hillside olive grove, about three miles from the coast. It was an older building than the mushroom developments of Agios Nikitas, with floors of comfortingly worn stone. The terrace was peaceful under its awning of woven bamboo, and the night air seemed to have released the perfume of the surrounding trees. Every now and then a distant donkey let out an affronted bray.

After opening Joyce’s package, Mrs Pargeter had enjoyed an overdue shower and then rung Larry Lambeth from the hotel. He had instantly invited her out to the villa. Over retsina and brandy she had brought him up to date with Joyce’s death and the events which had followed it.

Then they had sat down to a dinner of herb-scented lamb stew, served by a very pretty dark woman with a shy smile. Whether this woman had a role in Larry’s life beyond that of cook was hard to guess. Though the direction of her smile occasionally hinted intimacy, she was not invited to join them at the table and he certainly seemed to treat her like a servant. But then, from what Mrs Pargeter had seen in the twenty-four hours she had been on the island, that was how most Corfiot men treated their womenfolk.

It always made her slightly cross to see a woman undervalued. Though Mrs Pargeter was no feminist, and had no wish to challenge for the traditional territories of male dominance, she was a great believer in equality within relationships. But then, of course, she had been rather spoiled by her life with the late Mr Pargeter.

“No, I think,” she continued, “that the reason behind Joyce’s death lies in the past. In her life in England, not out here.”

“You don’t think it could have been just, like, a robbery that gone wrong? You know, some local lad breaks into the Villa Eleni, looking for cash, cameras, jewellery, that kind of stuff – Joyce wakes up – he tops her…?”

“If you’re doing that, why bother to make it look like suicide?”

“That’s a point.”

“And, anyway, is there that much burglary out here?”

“Very little actually. Very little of the ordinary sort, anyway. Fact is, most people out here’ve got some connection with the tourist business. They know thieving and that’s only going to put the punters off, so they make sure it doesn’t happen.”

Something in his tone had alerted Mrs Pargeter. “You say ‘very little burglary of the ordinary sort’, Larry…?”

“Yeah, well…” He gave a little, modest smile. “Well, yeah… Like I said, I got a bit of a business going on my own account.”

“Yes?”

“Fact is…” He still looked sheepishly proud of himself. “Fact is, as you know, when I worked for Mr P. –”

“My husband never spoke to me about the details of his work.” The temperature of Mrs Pargeter’s voice had dropped by a sudden ten degrees.

“No, but, like, I was always good on the old documents. Need some papers nicked, need them fixed, arranged, emended, like… Larry Lambeth’s the bloke you want – that’s what Mr P. always said.”

Mrs Pargeter was more concerned about another of her husband’s dicta. “What you are ignorant of, Melita my love, you cannot stand up in court and talk about. I am very proud to be the husband of a woman who has never broken the law or been the possessor of any information about anyone else who might have broken the law.” The late Mr Pargeter had often said that to her.

She smiled at Larry Lambeth in innocent puzzlement. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“OK, well, look, like coming up to date… Fact is, when I come out here, I got quite a stash. Bought the villa, no problem, still had plenty of drax left to keep me in the style to what I had accustomed myself. But – I’m not the first to do it and I know I won’t be the last – I didn’t take inflation into account, did I?”

“Ah.”

“So, anyway, after a few years, the old mazooma’s getting a bit tight, and I start thinking to myself, like, maybe I better get something else going. Well, I don’t want to go, like, back into the old full-time racket, do I?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Mrs Pargeter with a sweet-little-old-lady smile.

“No, right. Well, fact is, I definitely don’t want nothing full-time, but I think to myself, like, I got these talents with the old documents and that – why don’t I use them? And then I remember that the one thing that’s always had a good international resale value – whatever the economic climate – is the old British passport.”

“What, so you mean you forge passports?” Mrs Pargeter’s voice was suitable cowed by the shock of the idea.

“Not forge the whole lot, no – that’s like a big job. No, I just, like, get the passports and then I doctor them.”

“When you say you… get the passports…?”

“Well, this is why it’s magic being out here, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Look, Mrs P., lots of English punters come out here, don’t they?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, first couple of days they’re very good about things… put their cash in money-belts, take their passports and valuables with them at all times, close all the shutters, lock up the old villa every time they go out…”

“Yes.”

“But after that first couple of days, the old Corfiot bit gets to them.”

“The old Corfiot bit?”

“Sure, they relax, don’t they?”

“Ah.”

“Place is famous for it. As a matter of fact…” Larry Lambeth looked rather sedate for a moment. “You heard of Mr Gladstone?”

“Mr Gladstone? Which Mr Gladstone?”

“The one what was Prime Minister.”

“Oh yes. Of course I’ve heard of him,” said Mrs Pargeter through her surprise.

“Well, he was out here for a while, you know, and he said he had ‘never witnessed such complete and contented idleness as at Corfu’.” Larry Lambeth enunciated the quotation with a gravity befitting its provenance.

“Really? I didn’t know that.” Mrs Pargeter was impressed. “You’re very well-read, Larry.”

“Yeah. Sure.” He looked a bit sheepish. “Actually, I only read that in a holiday brochure.”

“Never mind. It’s still very interesting.”

“Right. Anyway, so what I’m saying is… once the holidaymakers start to relax, start leaving the old villa windows open and that… well, it’s dead easy for anyone who wants to go in and nick the odd passport, isn’t it?”

“And that’s what you do? That’s the business you’ve built up?”

Larry Lambeth looked suitably pleased with himself. “Yeah, right. Found a decent little gap in the market there. Ticking over quite nicely, thanks.”

“So you just steal any passports you happen to come across?”

He was affronted. “No, come on, give me a bit of credit. It’s not a random business, highly sophisticated operation, mine. Anyway, if I took too many, it’d start to look suspicious. No, mostly I’m working on commissions.”

“Commissions?”

“Sure. Someone says to me something like – I need a passport for a man in his sixties, five foot eight, fourteen stone, balding, white hair. So then I go along the beaches till I see someone who more or less looks like that, find out where they’re staying, nick the passport.”

“But surely it gets reported as missing and then if anyone else tries to use it they get arrested?”

“Oh yeah, of course you have to make the odd adjustment to the document… change the number, the name, fiddle with the photo, that kind of stuff. But in my experience” – he gave the side of his nose a professional tap – “… the less you have to change the better.”

“So who do you get your commissions from?”

“Varies a lot. Most of my business, though, comes through Hamish Ramon Henriques.”

“Who?”

“Come on, you must know Hamish Ramon Henriques. Mr P. was working with him all the time.”

The frost returned to Mrs Pargeter’s voice. “As I said, I knew very little abut my late husband’s work.”

“Oh yeah. Right. Well, Hamish Ramon Henriques is, like, a travel agent. Rather specialist travel agent, I do have to say. But, anyway, I get a nice lot of commissions through him. He gives me the details of what he’s looking for… I find it, do the necessary doctoring… send it back to him. Nice, neat business, sweet as a nut. Incidentally” – he leant towards Mrs Pargeter in a confidential manner – “… if you ever find yourself wanting a false passport, you have only to say the word.”

“That’s extremely kind of you,” said Mrs Pargeter primly, “but I think it very unlikely that that situation will ever arise.”

“Mrs P., as the cyclist said before he drove into the bus – you never know what’s round the next corner.”

“No, that’s very true. You don’t.”

Larry Lambeth suddenly barked out some instructions in Greek and the pretty woman appeared with a basket of peaches and black cherries. She got no word of thanks as she put it down on the table, but once again the way she looked at Larry, her smile half-amused and half-insolent, suggested a closeness between them. Her task completed, she receded discreetly into the villa.

Larry bit into a peach and caught its trickling juice with his tongue. “Anyway, sorry, got a bit side-tracked there. What we really should be doing, like, is finding out who done in your mate Joyce.”

“Yes.”

“And you reckon the reason behind it’s something back in England?”

“I think it must be. At least there are certainly things I’d like to find out from England. Some information about Joyce’s husband, for a start.”

“Well, pretty obvious what you got to do then, isn’t it, Mrs P.?”

“What?”

Larry Lambeth looked at his watch. “They’re two hours back in England, so, yes, I’d say this was the perfect time to ring Truffler Mason, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Mrs Pargeter. “I think it well could be.”