“Oh no. If only the situation were that simple. No, you’re hardly going to believe this, Clix – but the builder who’s doing the job has just been arrested for murder.”
“Good heavens.”
“Gentleman called Mr Jacket…”
The name struck home, but Clickety Clark tried to hide his involuntary reaction in sudden movement. Splaying his hands wide, he snapped, “More than that, Abbie! Spread the drapes out more!”
Mrs Pargeter was determined not to leave the subject there. “Maybe you’ve seen about his arrest in the papers?” she hazarded.
But Clickety Clark was quickly back in control of himself. “Maybe. Yes, rings a distant bell,” he said, before moving the subject deftly on. “The way I operate with portraits, Lady Entwistle, is I take a lot of exposures, and then you and I go through the contacts and we decide which one we’re going to work on.”
“Work on?”
“Oh yes.” He smiled with a confidence verging on smugness. “As a photographer, you see, my skills tend to be in the, er, post-production phase.”
“Oh?”
For a moment he looked suspicious. “I’m surprised you didn’t know. You said the Marchioness of Didsbury recommended me to you.”
Mrs Pargeter had hastily to remind herself of her background lies. “Oh yes, of course. She did mention your special skills, yes.”
“Turn the flowers a bit to the left, Abbie,” the genius said with an imperious flick of his hand, and then turned back to his sitter. “Lady Entwistle, you must’ve seen the portrait I did of the Marchioness. Knocked a good fifteen years off of her. Not a wrinkle in sight. Ironed out those bags under her eyes like they’d never been there. And I can do the same for you, no problem.”
She couldn’t get out of her natural character quickly enough to stop the instinctive reaction. “Actually, I’m quite attached to some of my wrinkles.”
Clickety Clark chuckled. “Well, you point out the ones you like, and I’ll get rid of all the others, eh?” Lady Entwistle vouchsafed his pleasantry a smile, so he continued, “I don’t come as expensive as plastic surgery, you know.”
“No. You don’t exactly come cheap, though, do you… Clix?”
He opened his hands out in a gesture of helplessness. “If I came cheap, my clients wouldn’t think they was getting their money’s worth. The sort of clients I deal with, that is.”
“Of course they wouldn’t,” said Lady Entwistle reassuringly.
“Still…” the genius smiled a wolfish smile, “… doesn’t sound as if the financial side would be a problem to you, Lady Entwistle.”
She let out a tinkling laugh. “Oh no. Good heavens, no.” Then her brow furrowed. “It’s sometimes quite difficult, though, in these dreadful times, to know what to do with one’s money…”
He was instantly alert. “Oh yes?”
Lady Entwistle made a gesture of hopelessness. “Well, a lot of the traditional investment areas – you know, Lloyds, Barings, that kind of thing – have become so unreliable, it’s hard to know where to turn.”
“You find that, do you, Lady Entwistle…?” asked Clickety Clark with a little too much diffidence.
Mrs Pargeter pressed on blithely. “Yes. Goodness, I’d be delighted to hear of some different kind of investment opportunity.”
“Really?” The photographer was thoughtful for a moment, then cast a critical look at his sitter’s backdrop. He shook his head. “Something still not right with this set-up. Abbie, could you bring up that big plantstand from the basement? Yeah, and bring us an aspidistra to put on it.”
The girl nodded and set off on her mission. The minute she was out of the room, Clickety Clark moved closer to Mrs Pargeter’s throne. “Lady Entwistle, when you said you was looking for a different kind of investment opportunity…”
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Twenty-One
Clickety Clark ushered his sitter fulsomely out on to the pavement of the discreet Mayfair square. As he did so, Gary’s limousine, which had been cruising round the block to avoid a shoal of predatory traffic wardens, slid smoothly up towards them.
“Don’t worry, Lady Entwistle,” the photographer oozed, “I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve got a set of contacts I’m happy with. Then we can go through them and decide where my magic can be worked to best effect, eh?”
“Well, I’m not after too much magic, Clix,” she giggled coyly. “Don’t want to run the risk of people not being able to recognize it’s me.”
“No danger of that at all. It’ll definitely be you, but a you that looks as good as you possibly can. And everyone who comes to your house will be able to see a photograph of someone looking their absolute best.”
“What, you mean – and compare it unfavourably with the original?”
“No, no.” The photographer came in quickly to soothe her, but stopped when he caught the twinkle in her eye.
“Only joking, Clix.”
“Ah. Yes. Right.”
“Well, I’ll wait to hear from you.” Mrs Pargeter stepped towards the limousine. Clickety Clark moved forward to open the back door for her.
“Yes, Lady Entwistle, fine.” He moved his head closer to hers as she was about to get inside. “And, with regard to the other matter… the, er, ‘investment opportunity’, I’ll have to make a few enquiries, but hopefully, by the time We meet up to look at the contacts, I’ll be able to fill you in a bit more on that.”
“You couldn’t fill me in a little bit more now, could you?” she asked hopefully. “Just tell me what sort of area of investment we’re talking about?”
The photographer shook his head. “At the appropriate time,” he said with a wink.
Mrs Pargeter resigned herself to not getting more information at that stage. She wasn’t too upset. Her Lady Entwistle act had definitely engaged Clickety Clark’s interest in her as a potential investor. He was hooked.
She got into the limousine and he closed the door after her. “Right you are,” she said imperiously.
The uniformed chauffeur put the vehicle into gear. “Very good, milady,” said Gary, who, needless to say, was in on the deception.
Lady Entwistle gave the photographer a regal wave as the limousine slid forward. Her last view of Clickety Clark was of a lined face almost bisected by a sycophantic smile.
The minute she was out of sight, however, the smile dropped sharply from his lips and a hard shrewd light came into his eye. Mrs Pargeter was too far away to see him nod to the driver of a parked blue Jaguar on the other side of the road.
The man’s dark glasses turned up from the paper he was pretending to read, and he caught the photographer’s eye. Clickety Clark gave a little jerk of his head towards the departing limousine. The driver nodded and started the engine. His car began to follow Gary’s.
Mrs Pargeter was unsuspicious of surveillance, so she did not look round to see who was driving the Jaguar a few cars behind. She probably wouldn’t have recognized the man in his dark glasses, anyway.
Had he taken them off, though, she might have been able to identify a face she had seen twice – once in a photograph on Truffler Mason’s desk, and once on the screen of Ricky Van Hoeg’s computer.
The man was Blunt.
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Twenty-Two
Truffler Mason’s car was like an extension of his clothes. Indeed, if any automobile manufacturer had tried to design a vehicle which breathed the image of tired sports jacket, crumpled beige trousers and black Gas Board Inspector shoes, they would undoubtedly have come up with a dented brown Maxi. As a symbol of the post-war decline of the British motor industry, the car had about it an air of failure, which exactly matched Truffler’s own aura of defeatism.