“True. Yes, so anything you can find out on his death too. I don’t know how long it’ll take you, but –”
“Give me Joyce Dover’s address and I’ll call you tomorrow night. About nine. Where shall I get you – Larry’s?”
“Erm, I’m not sure. Might be better at the hotel.”
“Which hotel’s that?”
“Hotel Nausica. Agios Nikitas. I’m afraid I haven’t got the number on me.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”
“Sorry to put you to the trouble.”
“Mrs Pargeter, compared to some of the things I’ve had to find out in my time, dealing with International Directory Enquiries is a doddle.”
“Yes, I suppose so. I’ll give you Joyce’s address. And she has a daughter called Conchita. I’ll give you hers too.” He took down the information. “Truffler, I really am grateful to you.”
“It’s nothing. Like I say, after the way your husband looked after me, anything you need, lady, you only have to say.”
“Oh.” Once again the reminder of the late Mr Pargeter’s solicitude brought a moistness to his widow’s eye. “Well, bless you. And everything’s going well for you, Truffler, is it?”
“Absolutely fine,” said Truffler Mason, in the voice of a man over whose head the hangman has just placed a bag.
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Package ∧
Sixteen
“And anything I can do?” asked Larry, as he drove her gently over the broken rocks of the track down to Agios Nikitas.
“Well, there’s lots of local stuff I need to know about. Sergeant Karaskakis, for instance, anything you can find out about him…”
“Sure.”
“I mean, presumably he’s related to people round here?”
“Oh yes. Karaskakis is very much a local name. Lots of them in Agralias. He’s probably some sort of cousin of Spiro and Theodosia and Georgio and that lot. Most people round here are.”
“Right.” Mrs Pargeter was thoughtful. “There’s certainly something sinister about him, but whether he’s criminal or not I don’t know. His insistence that Joyce committed suicide could be just because he’s not very bright and has gone for the obvious… Or it could be because he doesn’t want all the fuss of a murder enquiry – you know, anything for a quiet life.”
“Or that he thinks a murder enquiry wouldn’t do the tourist trade a lot of good, so it’s better hushed up.”
“Yes, hadn’t thought of that one, Larry. Alternatively, he could be part of a conspiracy to cover up the murder and pass it off as suicide. He might even have killed her himself. There is some connection between them. I still can’t forget the way Joyce reacted when she first saw him.”
“No, that was spooky, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Well, any information you can find out about him…”
“Leave it with me. Anything else?”
“Let me think… Ooh – Ginnie…”
“What about her?”
“Just that she’s one of the few people out here who has direct links with England. I’m not sure that she quite counts as a suspect… Or perhaps she should be… I don’t know. She’s not very keen on you, incidentally, Larry.”
“It’s mutual.”
“What’s she got against you?”
“Just that… well, none of them have got much time for me out here.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m an outsider who’s moved in.”
“But you’re not as much an outsider as the English tourists. You are Greek, after all.”
He laughed. “Yes, but the tourists only come for the odd fortnight – I’m a fixture. Fact is, just being Greek is not enough, anyway. It depends whereabouts in Greece you come from. In Agralias they’re suspicious of people from the next village. All over the island you got feuds and vendettas that have been going on for yonks. Anyone who hasn’t lived here all his life is automatically suspicious. Oh no, so far as Agios Nikitas is concerned, I’m definitely an outsider.”
“But I don’t see why that should concern Ginnie. She’s not a local either, is she?”
“She lives with one, though.”
“Does she?” asked Mrs Pargeter in surprise.
“Sure. Why do you think a nicely-brought-up English rose suddenly sets up home in Corfu?”
“I assumed it was just because she had a job out here. Pretty nice place for a girl to spend her summers, I’d have thought.”
“For a young girl, maybe. Ginnie’s a bit long in the tooth for the carefree sun-and-sea existence.”
“Yes, I suppose she is.”
“Not that it’s all that carefree an existence, anyway. Listening to endless English tourists whingeing about the fact that their drains are blocked or the minimarket doesn’t stock the right brand of baked beans.”
“See what you mean. So who does Ginnie live with? Not Spiro surely?”
“No, no. Spiro hasn’t got a woman. She lives with Georgio.”
“The balding bloke who’s always in the taverna?”
“Right. Lazy bum. Spends his life giving Ginnie grief and knocking back Spiro’s ouzo. Never seen him pay a single drachma for it either. But then of course he’s another cousin, isn’t he?”
This new piece of information explained quite a lot. Like the way Georgio had been tearing Ginnie off a strip in the taverna the night Joyce died. Possibly even why Ginnie’s face had been bruised.
The cross-currents and interconnections between the people of Agios Nikitas got more complicated by the minute.
♦
The evening was beautiful and Mrs Pargeter felt too overstimulated to go straight to bed, so she sat under the awning of the Hotel Nausica to drink a last half-litre of retsina.
She felt a degree of satisfaction. At least, through the good offices of Truffler Mason and Larry Lambeth, her own investigation into Joyce’s death was under way.
It was the progress of the official investigation that worried her. The encounter with Sergeant Karaskakis had firmly suggested that the death would be tidied up as quickly as possible, regardless of the true facts of the case. And increasingly she felt that if such a whitewash were attempted, the entire population of Agios Nikitas would close ranks in a conspiracy of silence to protect the cover-up.
She hadn’t got a lot to go on really, until her investigators reported back. All the details that had convinced her Joyce’s death was murder were up at the Villa Eleni, and Mrs Pargeter had a nasty feeling that most of them would already have been removed.
No, unless the villa were subjected to a proper forensic examination, all the evidence she had became merely circumstantial.
Except for the ouzo bottle.
She looked across to a group of German tourists who were noisily drinking ouzo. She watched as a waiter brought new glasses. She watched as the drinkers diluted the clear spirit and watched as the liquid clouded.
Mrs Pargeter gulped down the remains of her glass, left the two-thirds that remained in the retsina bottle, and rushed up to her bedroom.
Her hands trembled with excitement as she unsnapped the seal on the bottle so tastelessly disguised as a Grecian column.
A preliminary sniff confirmed her suspicion. No aniseed tang. The contents were completely odourless.
She poured some into a glass, and filled another glass from the washbasin tap. Gently she trickled water in to dilute the contents.
The liquid remained transparent. She poured in more water to make sure, but still there was not the slightest evidence of clouding.
Whatever Joyce Dover had brought to Corfu in that bottle, it wasn’t ouzo.
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Package ∧
Seventeen
Mrs Pargeter thought she was dreaming. The sound of aeroplanes filled her dream. World War Two aeroplanes. They hummed in the distance, throbbed as they drew closer, screamed as they came overhead, then screeched away into the distance. A few minutes later the pattern would be repeated; another aeroplane would roar past. She felt she should be standing on the bridge of a ship next to a duffel-coated Kenneth More.