Mrs Pargeter 05; Mrs Pargeter’s Plot

∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧

Fourteen

The offices of Inside Out were housed in Swordfish Wharf, a gleaming new tower block in Docklands. “Not a million miles from Wapping,” Truffler Mason observed, as Gary’s limousine deposited them outside the entrance. “They say that’s the new Fleet Street, don’t they?”

“The only people who say it are people who haven’t been here,” said Mrs Pargeter, looking up with distaste at the glass box that loomed above them. “The only journalists I’ve met recently say nothing will replace the old Fleet Street.”

“Ah, but where did you meet them, Mrs P.?” asked Truffler, as they crossed a foyer, whose copious vegetation was apparently trying to reproduce an air-conditioned rainforest. The steel sculpture of a swordfish rising out of the green looked confused by its alien environment.

“Boozing in pubs round Fleet Street,” she replied. While they waited by the over-designed slate-grey counter for one of the uniformed security men to get off the telephone or stop staring portentously at his monitor screen, Mrs Pargeter indulged in a moment of nostalgia. “No, these days they’re trying to get rid of all the old stereotypes. Proper, heavy-drinking journalists are being replaced by Perrier-swilling suits who never leave their keyboards. Television producers now sit around earnestly thinking of minority interests and sipping nothing stronger than a large espresso. Do you know,” she concluded on a note of awe, “nowadays apparently there are even teetotal publishers?”

Truffler Mason shook his head and grinned. “Still, you’ll never go that way, will you, Mrs P.?”

“I should think not!” she replied indignantly. “I’m not a religious person, but clearly whoever devised this world we live in filled it full of delightful treats – food and drink being high on the list. And not to take advantage of that divine generosity – whatever creed you may happen to believe in – amounts to downright blasphemy, so far as I’m concerned.”

“Too right,” Truffler nodded. “Too right.”

One of the security men had disengaged himself from the telephone. He looked up at them balefully. “Can I help you?” he asked unhelpfully.

“The names are Mason and Pargeter.”

“Oh yes?” His tone was heavy with disbelief.

“We’ve come to see Ricky Van Hoeg,” Truffler continued. “He is expecting us.”

“Really?” This appeared to the security man an even less likely assertion. He punched some numbers vindictively into his telephone. After a brief conversation, he was forced grudgingly to concede that they were expected.

He thrust a clipboard towards them. “Fill in your names, companies represented, whom visiting, time of arrival, estimated time of departure, name of insurance company, telephone contact number for next of kin, and nature of business. Then the computer will issue you with a visiting number which you wear in this plastic badge. Do not remove your visiting badge at any time while you are within the building, and return it to the desk here on departure. Under no circumstances change your visiting badge with anyone else – it is not transferable.”

Mrs Pargeter fixed the security man in the beam of her violet-blue eyes. “I don’t really think we want to bother with any of that,” she murmured sweetly.

The security man shrugged. “Oh, well, please yourself,” he said, and, as they crossed to the lifts, he turned back to watch his security monitor, which was showing a mid-morning cookery programme. He made notes on a pad of the ingredients for mangetouts au gratin à la proveneale.

♦

The lift doors opened and an infinitely tall, infinitely thin woman emerged. She had the contours of a stick insect, and was dressed in designer clothes that would be the envy of stick insects all over the world. She looked fabulous.

“Mrs Pargeter!” she exclaimed in hearty Cockney, and swept the shorter, fatter woman up into her arms.

“Ellie!” Ellie Fenchurch was the country’s most vitriolic celebrity interviewer. Her Sunday newspaper column made compulsory reading for anyone who enjoyed seeing the great and good humiliated (and that, of course, included just about everyone). Talentless and graceless minor royals, devious cabinet ministers, testosterone-choked sports heroes, oversexed rock stars, unfaithful newsreaders, and supermodels whose braincell count didn’t reach double figures – they had all had cause to smart from the interviewing technique of Ellie Fenchurch. Which made all the more remarkable the huge and continuing queue of celebrities desperate to be given the same treatment.

As they disengaged from the hug, Mrs Pargeter said, “You know Truffler, don’t you?”

“Course I do.” Ellie was exactly the same height as the detective. She enthusiastically kissed the air to either side of his cheeks.

“What you doing here then?” asked Mrs Pargeter.

“My office is here, isn’t it?”

“Is it? I thought you worked for one of the Sundays.”

“I do. And that’s based here.”

“Oh, I see, so there’re legitimate papers here, and all, are there?”

Ellie’s brow wrinkled. “What do you mean – legitimate?”

Truffler clarified the situation. “We’re coming to see Ricky Van Hoeg at Inside Out. I think Mrs Pargeter may have somehow got the impression that it isn’t a legitimate publication.”

“What, you mean it is?” asked Mrs Pargeter innocently.

“Course it is. Everything here comes under the Swordfish umbrella,” said Ellie.

“But I thought it was called the Lag Mag for prisoners and –”

“It is. That doesn’t mean it’s not legit, though. There’s a market out there. Swordfish Communications are very shrewd operators. They’ll publish a magazine about anything, so long as they can make money out of it. Isn’t that right, Truffler?”

He nodded. “You bet. They do Knicker-Nickers’ World… and Morris Dancers’ Monthly…”

“The Ferret-Fanciers’ Gazette…”

“Which Depilatory?…”

“Matchstick Modelling Today…”

“The Cribbage Quarterly…”

“Oh yes,” Ellie Fenchurch concluded. “Swordfish magazines’ll explore any niche market there is. You see, the thing about ferret-fanciers or matchstick-modellers is: there may not be that many of them, but, by God, they’re loyal. Circulation guaranteed to stay steady. All the same articles get recycled – with slight editorial adjustments – every three or four months, production costs are pared down to the bone, but, in spite of all that, the punters just keep on buying.”

Mrs Pargeter looked bewildered. “I thought Swordfish was about the big newspaper titles – the daily and the Sunday one. That’s what they’re known for, surely?”

Ellie Fenchurch shook her head. “Don’t you believe it. Those’re the public profile, yes, but they both make a big loss. Swordfish’s profit comes from the advertising it sells for local papers and the specialist markets. I mean, if you’re trying to sell protective underpants for people who want to do ferret-down-trouser tricks in pubs, there’s not many places you can advertise, is there? Got to be The Ferret-Fanciers’ Gazette, hasn’t it?”

“I suppose so.” Mrs Pargeter smiled. “What’re you up to at the moment, Ellie?”

“Right this minute, I’m just off to do a character assassination on an Australian soap opera star.”

“Oh, nice.”

“Well, I’ll enjoy it. But that won’t take long. Once he knows I know about his very close interest in sheep, I think the interview could come to an abrupt end. How’s about lunch? You not going to be with Ricky all day, are you?”

“Hour, maybe,” said Truffler.

Ellie Fenchurch looked at her watch. “Great. See you both at the Savoy Grill half past one. We’ll all get thoroughly rat-arsed.”

“But, Ellie,” said Mrs Pargeter ingenuously, “I didn’t think journalists drank these days.”

“No, of course they don’t.” Ellie Fenchurch let out a snort of laughter. “And, what’s more, politicians don’t take backhanders!”