The memory was so strong that the manager didn’t even notice her use of his forbidden nickname. “I’m hardly likely to forget him in a hurry, am I? You don’t on the whole forget people who burst into your office, overpower you and tie you up, do you?”
“No. I gather you and he worked together some time back… when you both were involved in business dealings with my husband?”
“I wouldn’t say we ‘worked together’. We saw each other from time to time, but our relationship was not close. In fact, we hated the sight of each other. That bastard Fossilface bloody nearly got me killed, you know.”
“Really? How was that?”
“The fact is, Mrs Pargeter, that back in those days I had a nickname. Hedgeclipper. I think you’re probably aware of it.” Mrs Pargeter graciously inclined her head. “Yes, well, the fact is that I had that nickname for a reason. When I was working for your late husband, I often used to use hedgeclippers to… erm…” He seemed to be having difficulty in finishing his sentence.
Mrs Pargeter helped him out. “To prune hedges and that kind of thing?”
“And that kind of thing, yes,” he agreed, though in a manner that suggested his point had not been entirely clarified.
“I remember,” Mrs Pargeter went on, “you once came out and did all the front privet at our big house in Chigwell, didn’t you?”
“Yes, when I was lying low after that job in Tooting Bee and –”
“When you were having a well-earned rest,” Mrs Pargeter corrected him smoothly.
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Hedgeclipper Clinton grimaced, once again having difficulty in coming up with the right formula of words. “Erm, well, what happened was… on one occasion I was about to set out on a job for your husband, which was going to involve my using the hedgeclippers in… er, a less horticultural context. The fact is, Mrs Pargeter, that though your husband had a lifelong abhorrence of violence…”
“Oh certainly,” the wide-eyed widow confirmed. “He was the gentlest of men. Would never knowingly have hurt a fly.”
“No, exactly. Not knowingly. And he always had remarkable control over precisely what he did and didn’t know, I found.”
“Yes.”
“I mean, on this occasion I’m talking about, I was going out with my Hedgeclippers to… well, not to beat about the bush –”
“To prune the bush, perhaps?” Mrs Pargeter suggested meekly.
“Not that either, in fact. No, I was to be there, with my hedgeclippers, to, as it were, prune the aspirations of our opponents. They were a somewhat ungentlemanly band of jewel thieves, and I was to be present at the encounter… to make them see things your late husband’s way… and – though of course I didn’t make a habit of such behaviour – I was even prepared to use violence if it became necessary…”
“Though I’m sure that was one part of the arrangement my husband didn’t know about.”
“No, I have no doubt he was very careful not to know about that part of the arrangement. Anyway, from the point of view of our side, my presence was very important. Our opponents were known to be armed with baseball bats, and there’s nothing so dispiriting to the malicious wielder of a baseball bat than to have it cut off at the handle by a judiciously manoeuvred set of hedgeclippers.”
“Yes.” Mrs Pargeter was thoughtful for a moment. “They must have been very powerful hedgeclippers you were using. I mean, cutting through the handle of a baseball bat is rather different from snipping off an unruly twig of privet.”
“That is certainly true, Mrs Pargeter. Erm, perhaps what we have here is a problem of nomenclature. I was nicknamed ‘Hedgeclipper’ because I did start my career by using exclusively hedgeclippers. The fact is that, by the stage in my career that we’re talking about, I had enlarged my repertoire of equipment. And though I still refer to the instrument as ‘hedgeclippers’, by then what I was actually using was… a chainsaw.”
“Oh.”
“A rather powerful, large, petrol-driven chainsaw…”
“Ah.”
“And it was my chainsaw that Fossilface O’Donahue sabotaged.”
“Oh dear. How did he do it?”
“Unbeknownst to me, he had emptied the petrol tank. With the unfortunate result that, when the tone of our meeting started to sour and, seeing eight men armed with baseball bats advancing on me, I pulled the ripcord to start my hedgeclippers…”
“… or chainsaw…”
“Or chainsaw, yes… nothing happened. Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say what did happen was not what I had planned to happen… or indeed wished to happen.” He winced with recollected pain. “Not one of the happiest days of my life, Mrs Pargeter.”
“No, I can believe it. So,” she continued, piecing the scenario together, “the wrong that Fossilface O’Donahue did you concerns fuel, or power?”
“Yes,” Hedgeclipper Clinton concurred.
At which moment, the chandelier went out, and the distant hum of office machinery suddenly stopped.
♦
Hedgeclipper Clinton, Erasmus still gibbering on his shoulder, held the antique candlestick aloft as he led Mrs Pargeter down into the hotel’s cellar. He had been in favour of just calling one of his maintenance staff to investigate the power failure, but she had insisted that they do it themselves. She was wary of the processes of Fossilface O’Donahue’s ‘restitooshun’.
The cellar covered the entire floor area of the hotel, and was divided into sections by upright concrete pillars. Only the nearest of these could be seen, however, because the space in between had been filled high with what, in the uncertain flickering of the candle’s light, appeared to be metal blocks.
“What the hell are those?” Hedgeclipper Clinton murmured, moving closer to inspect them.
Mrs Pargeter had already got the answer from the smell rising from a spillage on the floor before Hedgeclipper’s candle illuminated the confirmatory sign on the side of one of the cans: PETROLEUM SPIRIT.
The cellar was full of cans of petrol. In front of the ranks of them were two gleaming new emergency generators. On one was stuck a note, headed by the same smiley-face logo that had been on the fax.
The message read: NOW YOU’LL NEVER BE POWERLESS AGAIN – AS THE BISHOP SAID TO THE ACTOR.
Incomprehensible as ever. Yes, there was no doubt they were once again up against Fossilface O’Donahue’s slowly developing sense of humour.
Hedgeclipper Clinton chuckled. “Well, going to be a long time before I have to queue up at the petrol pumps again. It looks as if I haven’t come out of this ‘restitooshun’ business so badly.”
“Don’t be too sure, Hedge –”
But Mrs Pargeter didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence. At that moment, Erasmus, bored by not being the centre of attention, had grabbed the lighted candle from his owner’s hand and leapt down on to the cellar floor.
He waved the candlestick around frenziedly. Its light was reflected in the rainbow spill of petrol as the flame swirled ever closer.
♦
“Come on, Erasmus…” Hedgeclipper Clinton cooed. “Come on…”
The hotel manager was down on his knees, inching closer to the marmoset. His pinstriped trousers were already sodden with petrol. The pool of fuel on the floor was spreading; one of the containers must have been holed.
Mrs Pargeter looked anxiously at the wall of petrol cans. Neither she nor Hedgeclipper had voiced it, but it didn’t take a lot of imagination to work out what would happen if the petrol ignited. Goodbye, Mrs Pargeter. Goodbye, Hedgeclipper Clinton.
And, come to that, goodbye Greene’s Hotel, along with any residents who had the misfortune to be inside at that particular moment.
Goodbye, Erasmus, too – though Mrs Pargeter reckoned that was one bereavement she could bear with equanimity, even enthusiasm. Not, of course, that she’d be in much of a position to enjoy the benefit of his departure.