The paper had been roughly secured with a couple of strips of Sellotape. Mrs Pargeter broke these and reached into the cardboard sleeve to pull out its contents.
She didn’t know precisely what she had been expecting, but certainly not what she found.
The package contained a bottle of ouzo.
A decorative bottle of ouzo, fashioned in the shape of a Greek column. The kind of souvenir that is available at every airport shop and supermarket in Greece.
Now, Mrs Pargeter could just about imagine that someone with a drinking problem might suffer from a paranoid fear of running out and carry emergency supplies… But why ouzo?
And why take ouzo bought in England into Corfu, where it’s available at a fraction of the price?
That really was coals to Newcastle, thought Mrs Pargeter.
∨ 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?”