A car slid alongside her. The door opened. She got in the back.
“Well done,” said Larry Lambeth.
Safely inside the car, she changed her straw hat for the new white cotton one and put on the new sunglasses. Then she unbuttoned the bright dress and slipped it off to reveal a sober, anonymous beige one beneath.
“Quite a relief to have that off,” she sighed. “Hot weather for two dresses.”
Larry Lambeth chuckled.
Mrs Pargeter finally turned her attention to the two padded envelopes. The first one contained a first class airline ticket. Olympic Airways. Five o’clock scheduled flight for that afternoon. Corfu to London Heathrow. Clipped to the ticket was a ‘With Compliments’ slip headed ‘HRH Travel’.
She turned her attention to the second envelope. “So who am I, Larry?” she asked.
“You have a look, Mrs P.”
It was a perfect job. A British passport in the name of ‘Mrs Joan Frimley Wainwright’, a ‘Housewife’ whose place of birth had been ‘Norwich’. The date of birth tallied for Mrs Pargeter, as did the height. And the photograph looked astonishingly like the passport’s new holder.
“Where did you get it from, Larry?”
He shrugged. “Saw her on the beach at Kalami this morning. Right size, right age. Mind you, she was a real old biddy, hadn’t got your style at all, Mrs P.”
Mrs Pargeter’s compassion was aroused. “But won’t she be terribly upset to lose her passport?”
“Happens all the time,” said Larry callously. “She’ll survive.”
Mrs Pargeter gave another look to what really did seem to be a picture of herself. “How on earth did you fix the photograph, Larry? And how on earth did you do it so quickly?”
He grinned proudly. “Fact is, we all have our professional secrets, don’t we, Mrs P.?”
♦
Mrs Pargeter looked around anxiously at Corfu Airport, but there was no sign of the Customs officer who looked so like Sergeant Karaskakis.
There were no problems about checking in luggage, as she only had her flightbag.
There were no problems at Passport Control.
There were no problems with the flight. It left on time.
In fact, there were no problems at all.
But, in spite of that, as she sat in her first class seat, serviced by solicitous stewardesses, Mrs Pargeter was ill at ease.
The passport for Mrs Joan Frimley Wainwright in her handbag felt as if it was on fire. Soon the flames would burst out and everyone would have their attention drawn to the forgery.
Mrs Pargeter felt dreadful.
It was the first time in her life, you see, that she had ever broken the law.
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Package ∧
Twenty-Four
It was a huge relief to be safely through Passport Control at Heathrow.
And an even huger relief to have someone there to meet her.
“Good afternoon, Mrs Pargeter. I am Hamish Ramon Henriques.”
He took her hand and bowed down to kiss it. He was in his sixties, very tall and very British in dress. In spite of the mild June weather, he wore one of those three-piece tweed suits that look as if they have been marinated in family history. He had brown shoes built like rowing-boats and some sort of regimental tie. His accent epitomised the impeccable vagueness of the British upper classes.
But his face contradicted all these impressions. The skin was coffee with a dash of milk, and eyes like black olives crowded either side of the fine prow of his nose. All his features seemed lengthened, pulled down, as in a painting by El Greco. Centrally-parted white hair swept down over his ears and a long carefully-nurtured white moustache drooped over his full lips. He looked like an illustration of Don Quixote.
But he was no mere tilter at windmills. With exemplary efficiency, he whisked Mrs Pargeter through the terminal crowds and out to a limousine which waited, unmolested by traffic authorities, in the Strictly-No-Parking area directly outside the exit. The chauffeur needed no instructions but swept effortlessly through the traffic on to the M4.
“I have booked you into the Savoy,” said Hamish Ramon Henriques. “I gather you are always happy to stay there.”
“Yes. That’ll be very nice indeed, thank you.”
“I have spoken to Truffler Mason. He will meet you in the bar at six o’clock.”
“Oh, that is kind. Let’s hope he has got something to report.”
“In my experience, he is always very reliable. I have never known Truffler Mason not to come up with information in an investigation.”
“Well, that’s comforting. You’ve worked with him a lot, have you?”
Hamish Ramon Henriques made an expansive gesture. “My dear Mrs Pargeter, I have worked with everyone. Particularly of course with your late husband.” He looked soulful. “The business lost a great deal when he died, you know.”
“Yes,” Mrs Pargeter agreed pensively.
“No, he was a man with standards. Nowadays some of the people I have to work for…” – Hamish Ramon Henriques gave a very Latin shrug – “they are utterly immoral. They have no sense of right and wrong.”
Mrs Pargeter fervently endorsed this opinion. “I know, it’s dreadful, isn’t it?”
“With your late husband, one always knew where one stood. His operations were always efficient and so it was a pleasure to contribute one’s own efficiency to them.”
“And, er,” Mrs Pargeter asked cautiously, “you have always been involved in the transport side of things, have you?”
“Yes. I started in a very modest way back in the Fifties. Procuring and renting out getaway cars.”
“Oh yes?”
“But then the business expanded into other areas of transport. Obviously a lot of run-of-the-mill travel arrangements to predictable destinations… the Costa del Sol, certain South American countries… for people who needed to be out of England for a while. In fact, I once organised a trip of that kind for you and your late husband.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. To Crete. Do you remember it?”
“Certainly. We had a wonderful time. I didn’t know you arranged that.”
Hamish Ramon Henriques nodded with diffident pride. “It was my privilege. Quite tricky at the time, actually. They were looking out for him at the airports.”
“Really?” It did explain something, though. “Is that why he went on the plane dressed as a bishop?”
“Yes. The late Mr Pargeter was the Bishop of Tristan da Cunha, travelling to an Interdenominational Ecumenical Conference in Heraklion.”
“Good heavens.”
“That’s what it said on the passport. Didn’t you see it?”
Mrs Pargeter smiled apologetically. “No, he always looked after the passports. By the way,” she added, “who did I go as?”
Hamish Ramon Henriques looked bewildered. “Well, obviously – the wife of the Bishop of Tristan da Cunha. Who did you think you would have gone as?”
She giggled. “I don’t know. Thought I might have been an actress.”
Hamish Ramon Henriques didn’t see the joke. “No, no, that wouldn’t have done at all. Very important in my area of the travel business that one avoids immorality. It doesn’t do to draw attention to oneself.”
“No, no, of course not,” said Mrs Pargeter, suitably chastened. “And the company’s still going well, is it?”
“I’ll say. Everyone’s travelling more these days, so of course there’s a knock-on effect at my end of the business.”
“Good.”
“No, all going extremely well. I keep having to take on more staff. And of course I can charge rather more than the average travel agent for… you know, those little extras.”
“Little extras like what?”