Mrs Pargeter 06; Mrs Pargeter’s Point of Honour

∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Point of Honour ∧

Thirty-Eight

The ambulance was now bowling cheerfully through the open Surrey countryside. Its siren and lights had been switched off, and Mrs Pargeter was leading her male voice choir in singing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’.

They’d just got to

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

when she noticed a crudely painted roadside sign: CAR BOOT SALE – ONE MILE.

“Nearly there,” cried Mrs Pargeter. “Ooh, I must just make a phone call.” She reached for the phone and dialled the number that Inspector Wilkinson had given her. She didn’t identify herself, but gave him a few terse words of information.

She ended the call, beamed cheerily and picked up again with the hymn.

God made them, high or lowly,

And ordered their estate.

In his car as it sped through the lanes of Surrey the heavy called Phil seemed to have caught the anxiety of the heavy called Ray from the car behind. “You don’t think Mr Pargeter really is back alive again, do you, Rod?”

“Of course he bloody isn’t! He died years back. I sent a couple of my men to his funeral to make sure he was good and buried.”

“But you don’t know what was in the coffin, do you?”

“For Christ’s sake! Mr Pargeter is dead! Dead, dead, dead! No one will ever see him in the flesh again – all right?”

“All right,” the heavy called Phil conceded grudgingly. Then, after a silence, he asked, “Rod… you don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

“Of course I don’t bloody believe in bloody ghosts! Now will you drive this bloody car a bit bloody faster!”

♦

The car boot sale was being held in a grassy field which abutted ploughed land beyond. Either side of a wide aisle a large number of cars was parked facing outward. A tatty mixture of goods were displayed on picnic tables in front of their open boots and hatchbacks. Large numbers of potential purchasers ambled up and down the aisle, convinced they were going to find bargains.

As the ambulance turned off the road into the field, Mrs Pargeter suffered an uncharacteristic moment of self-doubt. “I hope Vanishing Vernon’s done his stuff,” she murmured to Gary.

“He will have, don’t you worry.”

“Yes, yes, of course he will.” Reassured, she looked into the back of the van. “How’re you getting on, Truffler?”

With a mournful flourish, the private investigator stuck a printed label on to a neatly wrapped rectangular package. “Fine, Mrs Pargeter,” he replied. “That’s the last one. All the paintings labelled up, marked with where they got to go back to.”

“Terrific. Veronica Chastaigne will be pleased.”

♦

A mile behind, the car carrying Rod D’Acosta passed the sign to the car boot sale. “We’ll get them now!” he hissed viciously.

“Yes…” The heavy called Phil didn’t sound as convinced as his boss. “Are you sure there aren’t such things as ghosts, Rod…?”

♦

“Do you recognize that car ahead?” asked Sergeant Hughes.

“Yes,” the heavy called Sid replied. “That’s Rod’s all right. It’s the one he used for the getaway from the Peckham Rye bank job.”

Hughes wished he wasn’t driving, so that he could make more notes on this valuable flood of information.

“The car’s going exactly where my informant said it would,” Inspector Wilkinson observed smugly. That call on his mobile couldn’t have been better timed. Of course it had been pure luck that the Inspector had received information about Rod D’Acosta’s movements at such a relevant moment, but he wasn’t going to let Hughes know that.

Oh no. Wilkinson had made it appear that the call was part of some masterplan held been working on for weeks. Sergeant Hughes had been well impressed.

That’ll show the cocky little oik, thought Wilkinson. Complacently, he stroked the line of his growing moustache.

♦

Ushered along by the stick-like figure of Vanishing Vernon, almost like the man with the red flag who had to precede early motor cars, the ambulance moved serenely down the long aisle of open car boots. Car boot shoppers turned to look curiously as, from the back doors, Truffler Mason handed out labelled rectangular packages to HRH, Hedgeclipper Clinton and Kevin the doorman. These were then passed on to the owners of the parked cars.

As each owner received his or her picture, they checked its destination on the label and put it in their car boot, which was then firmly closed. No attempt was made to remove the picnic tables loaded with bric-a-brac, as, to the considerable confusion of the shoppers, the owners got into their cars and began to drive away out of the field.

But, before the first of them reached the exit to the main road, Rod D’Acosta’s two cars came hurtling in at great speed. Car boot shoppers scattered in panic as the vehicles thundered side by side down the wide aisle in pursuit of the ambulance.

Truffler Mason, who had just handed out the last package, saw the approaching cars, slammed the doors of the ambulance shut, and called out, “All done!”

“Go for it, Gary!” shouted Mrs Pargeter, with a note of sheer devilment in her voice.

The chauffeur put his foot down, pointing the ambulance straight at the open gate which led to the ploughed fields beyond. The mud was thick and sticky from recent rain, but the supercharged engine’s power took over and the vehicle surged across the ridges, riding high and untrammelled on its special tyres.

Rod D’Acosta’s two cars started the pursuit, but didn’t get far in the treacly mud of the ploughed field. Just inside the gate, the cars’ wheels started to spin and their bodies to slew dangerously sideways.

The two vehicles cannoned into each other with a sickening clang. There was a crunching of glass and the impact made both of their boots fly open.

Urged on by Vanishing Vernon, the car boot shoppers surged forward to see what new treasures were on offer. As Rod D’Acosta and his dazed acolytes staggered out of their ruined cars, they found themselves faced by a crowd of bargain-hunters, keen to know how much they were asking for the knuckledusters, bowie knives and Armalite rifles in their boots.

It was at that moment that the car containing Inspector Wilkinson, Sergeant Hughes and the heavy called Sid arrived.