Mrs Pargeter 05; Mrs Pargeter’s Plot

∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧

Eight

Mrs Pargeter left Hedgeclipper Clinton on the phone, trying to get a lead on Fossilface O’Donahue’s possible whereabouts, and went up to her suite. She needed to call Truffler Mason.

Her first surprise on entering the sitting room was that the monkey was there again. Exactly as he had been a couple of days previously. Erasmus was on the floor, with his chain once again anchored to the leg of the dresser. Once again he had managed to leave his marks – scratches and other, less salubrious, souvenirs – around his small circle of territory.

As soon as she came into the room, he rose up on his hind legs and strained towards her, chattering frantically. His behaviour would no doubt have been appealing to Hedgeclipper Clinton – or perhaps to any other marmoset-lover. It wasn’t to Mrs Pargeter. Why is it that animals instantly recognize the human beings who find them most repellent, and immediately focus all their attention on those poor unfortunates? Some animal behaviourists claim the response arises from an atavistic conciliatory instinct; Mrs Pargeter reckoned it was sheer bloody-mindedness.

Still, she was in no mood to be distracted. The welcome news for Hedgeclipper, that his precious Erasmus was safe, would have to wait until after she had spoken to Truffler. She opened her bedroom door.

It was then that she had her second surprise. And it was an even less appealing one than the rediscovery of the monkey.

As she opened the door, Mrs Pargeter found its frame filled with the huge bulk of a man in a grey suit. He was built like a harbour wall and, incongruously, wore a clown mask over his face. It was plastic with a red nose, huge melon-slice mouth, exclamation-mark eyes, and ginger ropy hair radiating out from its dome.

Mrs Pargeter didn’t often scream, but she did this time. It wasn’t fear, she tried to tell herself, just shock.

“Mrs Pargeter.” The monster’s voice was deep, without intonation, and very scary.

What was worse, she realized with a little gulp of horror, he knew who she was.

“Don’t worry,” the voice went on. “I’ll take the mask off.”

If this action had been designed to allay her fears, it could not have been less effective. The face which the removed mask revealed she had only seen once, in a magazine photograph, but she had no problem in recognizing who it belonged to.

Fossilface O’Donahue.

Mrs Pargeter screamed again.