Mrs Pargeter 03; Mrs Pargeter’s Package

∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Package ∧

Twenty

As she put the phone down, Mrs Pargeter saw Maria lingering in the doorway that led to the hotel kitchen. How long the girl had been there, or how much of the telephone conversation she had overheard, was impossible to guess.

But she gave Mrs Pargeter a large, totally unsinister smile and said, “There was a message for you about an hour ago. From someone who wondered if you could meet her at Spiro’s at ten o’clock this evening.”

“Did she give a name?”

“Yes. Strange name. It sounded like… Conchita Dover?”

“Ah,” said Mrs Pargeter.

♦

At first she didn’t think the girl was there. Though Mrs Pargeter hadn’t seen Conchita since she was a child and so didn’t know exactly what to expect, there was no one under Spiro’s striped awning who looked as if she had just arrived on the island, summoned by news of a dreadful tragedy. There were the usual loud groups of English, louder groups of Germans and a few Greeks, the last no doubt holidaying relatives of the management. They had all had a few rounds of drinks, their food orders were starting to arrive and everyone was very relaxed.

Mrs Pargeter looked round again and realised there was only one person it could be. A dark-haired girl, who at first glance she had taken for a local, was sitting alone at a table, chatting to Yianni. Of course, there are certain very distinctive types right through the Mediterranean, Mrs Pargeter reminded herself. It was the Spanish blood of her father’s relatives, filtered through Uruguay, that made Conchita Dover look so at home in Agios Nikitas.

On closer examination, the girl did look a bit too soignee to be a local. The way her thick black hair had been cut indicated an urban sophistication, which was echoed in the expensively casual flow of her designer pyjama suit.

Mrs Pargeter approached her. “It is Conchita, isn’t it?”

Yianni fired off one of his devastating smiles and left them to get on with the business of introduction.

“I’m terribly sorry about what happened to Joyce, Conchita. ‘Sorry’ sounds a wretchedly inadequate word in the circumstances, but you really do have my sympathy.”

“Thank you.” There was a hardness in the girl’s black eyes. “I wonder if she got what she really wanted.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Mother had been threatening suicide for years.”

“What, since your father died, you mean?”

“No, long before that. Practically since I can remember. She always was a dreadful emotional manipulator. Suicide threats used to be her ultimate weapon.”

“Oh?” This was a new insight into Joyce Dover. Once again Mrs Pargeter was reminded how little she had really known her friend.

“Mind you, she’d cried wolf so often, I’d long ago ceased to listen. Overdid it this time, though, didn’t she? Called her own bluff good and proper.”

“Well…”

“Anyway,” said Conchita, picking up her ouzo glass and taking a savage sip, “I’m not going to let it get to me. Mummy tried to control me all the time she was alive and, if she thinks she can continue the process from beyond the grave, she can forget the idea!”

Only the rigidity of her jaw betrayed the effort with which Conchita was holding in her emotions.

“I think using suicide as an emotional lever is utterly pathetic,” she went on. “I very much doubt whether Mummy really meant it to succeed. Probably just intended another ‘cry for help’, but cocked it up. Presumably the idea, as ever, was just to make me feel guilty. Well, if that was the intention, it isn’t going to succeed!”

Mrs Pargeter hadn’t been prepared for this outburst of recrimination and adjusted the way she had proposed to talk to Conchita. She would hold back her suspicions about Joyce’s death for a while. Spiro’s taverna wasn’t the place for revelations of the kind she had to make.

On the other hand, if Joyce did have a history of threatening to kill herself, that could only help what Mrs Pargeter was now convinced was an intention on Sergeant Karaskakis’ part to cover up the murder as suicide.

“Whatever your mother’s reasons for doing it,” she announced uncontroversially, “it’s still very sad. Any premature death, however it’s caused, is sad.”

“Huh,” said Conchita.

Yianni pirouetted back towards their table. “Please, can I get you something, please?” he asked Mrs Pargeter.

She ordered retsina. Conchita asked for another ouzo. The girl watched the waiter’s retreating hips, very much in the way that her mother had done only a few days before. Her thoughts on the subject seemed quite similar, too. “He’s very dishy,” she murmured.

Mrs Pargeter agreed.

“Be quite nice,” Conchita mused, “to indulge in a purely physical relationship with someone like that. Someone who’s just beautiful, someone who doesn’t speak the language, who can only communicate with his body. I’m sick to death of men who can talk!”

“Ah?”

“The only reason men are able to talk, it seems to me, is so that they can bore you to tears with lies and recrimination and self-justification. God, men are so pathetic – don’t you find that?”

Though this description certainly did not conform with Mrs Pargeter’s experience of the male sex, she didn’t want to stop Conchita’s flow, so she contented herself with a non-committal “Certainly a point of view.”

“There are supposed to be these men around who are caring and concerned and altruistic and thoughtful and don’t spend all their time trying to screw you up, and all I can say is – I’ve never come across any of them. All the ones I meet are complete shits.”

“What about your father?” asked Mrs Pargeter diffidently. “Did he fit into that category?”

Conchita Dover softened instantly. “Ah, my father was something special. He was a very caring man.”

Mrs Pargeter had heard similar views over the years from many only daughters, girls who were more than a little in love with their fathers, and whose fathers, without raising the dramatic spectre of incest, did nothing to discourage such flattering attentions. It seemed more than likely that Conchita Dover’s dissatisfaction with men as a sex arose from the inability of those she had met to measure up to the idolised Chris.

The strong element of sexual jealousy in her next words confirmed this impression. “He was wasted on Mummy, of course. Kowtowed to her, put up with her moods, did everything she wanted, worshipped her. And she just took him for granted. When he died, I really couldn’t believe how God had got it so wrong. She was the one who should have died, not him.”

“If that’s what you feel,” Mrs Pargeter interposed gently, “you could say that God’s adjusted the balance now. Your mother’s dead, too.”

This statement of fact seemed to shock Conchita out of her cynicism. “Yes,” she said, “yes,” and lapsed into silence.

“I was never lucky enough to meet your father…”

“No.”

“I don’t even know what he looked like…” This didn’t produce any reaction, so Mrs Pargeter added another prompt. “Do you have a photograph of him by any chance?”

“No. No, Daddy would never have his photograph taken.” So Truffler’s surmise had been correct. “Because of the scarring on his face.”

“Oh? I didn’t know about that.”

“His face was quite badly scarred. He’d lost a good few layers of skin. It made his features look all sort of smoothed out…”

“Do you know how it happened?”

“He never said, but I think it was when he was in Uruguay. Apparently he had political disagreements with the government out there, which was why he left. I think the scarring was probably the result of torture.”

“But he never actually said that?”

“No. He never talked about Uruguay at all. Whenever anyone asked him about his early life, he’d just change the subject, or say some things were better forgotten.”

“I see.” Mrs Pargeter took a sip of retsina. “Have you had any contact with the authorities out here… you know, about when they’re likely to release your mother’s body?”

“The initial contact came through the British Consulate… that’s how I first heard about… her death. They said certain formalities would have to be gone through… I suppose the local equivalent of an inquest… but they didn’t seem to think it would take more than a few days.”

“Presumably they were only passing on what the Greek authorities had told them?”

“Presumably. They seemed a bit… sort of embarrassed about it. But then my mother liked embarrassing people,” Conchita added vindictively.

“Death’s always embarrassing.”

“Yes. “SUICIDE IN HOLIDAY PARADISE” – not the kind of headline that the tour operators are really going to welcome, is it?”

“No.” Still Mrs Pargeter held back her knowledge of the true circumstances of Joyce Dover’s death.

“Anyway, it was suggested that I should get out here as soon as possible. There’ll be papers to sign and that kind of thing before the body can be flown back.”

“Of course. So, what… you wait till someone contacts you…?”

“Mm. Some local police representative, I think. There was a message to say he would meet me here this evening.” Conchita scrabbled in her handbag. “I’ve got the name somewhere here. It was…”

“Sergeant Karaskakis?” Mrs Pargeter supplied.

“Yes,” said Conchita. “That’s right.”