“Do you need to get a coat?” asked Inspector Wilkinson with formal solicitude.
“No, I’m fine. It’s still very mild for September, isn’t it?”
“Right, if you’d care to accompany us…?” That word again. “It’s only a short drive.”
Sergeant Hughes hurried across to open the hotel’s front door for her, and Mrs Pargeter moved elegantly and proudly across the foyer. As she passed a tense-faced Hedgeclipper Clinton, she gave an almost imperceptible flick of her eyebrow.
The instant the front door closed behind his guest and her police escort, Hedgeclipper was dialling Truffler Mason’s number.
♦
They didn’t speak in the car. Hughes drove, with Wilkinson sitting tensely beside him. In the back Mrs Pargeter gave a not entirely convincing display of nonchalance.
When the car stopped, she couldn’t see a police station. They appeared to be in a street of shops and restaurants. But perhaps there was a hidden entrance to some official Metropolitan premises.
Mrs Pargeter tried to focus her mind on the plight in which she found herself. She knew what she had to do. The important thing was not to implicate anyone else. Mention no other names. She would just have to accept her own punishment, but see that she took no one else down with her.
Inspector Wilkinson said, “Thank you, Hughes,” which the Sergeant reflected was out of character. Maybe his boss was trying to impress their suspect with his good manners. “You can take the rest of the evening off.”
“I really think I should be with you, sir.”
“I said you can take the rest of the evening off.”
Hughes could not argue with the severity of the tone. “All right, sir,” he conceded.
“And give me that dossier you’ve compiled.”
The Sergeant was about to remonstrate, but realized he couldn’t. Inspector Wilkinson was in charge. If his boss ordered him to hand something across – even something as precious as the dossier he had spent so much time building up – then he had to do as he was told.
Silently, he opened his briefcase and handed over the folder.
“Thank you,” said Wilkinson again.
“I hope you’ll be careful with it, sir. It’s the only copy that –”
“Hughes, I have very considerable experience of handling highly sensitive evidence.”
“Yes, sir,” the Sergeant apologized.
“Rather more experience – if I may be forgiven for pointing it out – than you have.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So I can assure you that this document will be absolutely safe in my hands.” Hughes had no alternative but to nod acceptance of this.
Wilkinson got out of the car and opened the back door for Mrs Pargeter. “If you would accompany me, please…”
That word yet again. In trepidation she got out and stood awkwardly on the pavement. It was nearly dark now. Inspector Wilkinson tapped the roof of the car and Sergeant Hughes, invisibly seething, drove off.
There was an uncomfortable silence as they stood, looking at each other. Mrs Pargeter didn’t know where they were meant to be going, and for a moment the Inspector seemed uncertain too. Then he said abruptly, “I thought we could have something to eat while we talked.”
“Fine,” she said, surprised.
Without ceremony, he led the way into a rather shabby little restaurant. Its origins were ultimately Greek, but it was the kind of place whose menu would feature ‘English Dishes’ alongside the range of kebabs. One wall was painted with a grubby Mediterranean seaside scene. Bottles and decorated plates hung on the walls, tangled in with dusty plastic vines and dully glowing Christmas lights.
A restaurant of this kind wasn’t really Mrs Pargeter’s gastronomic style. In spite of the predicament she was in, she couldn’t help thinking of the menu at Greene’s Hotel and the dinner she had been promising herself. She wondered rather gloomily how long it would be before she could next enjoy that kind of pampering.
There was nobody else inside the restaurant, except for a surly man with three days of five o’clock shadow. He acted as waiter, and possibly owner, and probably cook. He seemed to know Inspector Wilkinson, however, and grunted some kind of greeting as he led them across to a table with a printed plastic cover. Its surface felt slightly sticky as Mrs Pargeter eased her bulk into a bench seat against the wall.
The waiter/owner/cook dumped two plastic menus down on the table and shuffled off through a lopsided beaded curtain into the kitchen.
“Do you normally come here to conduct interrogations?” asked Mrs Pargeter, trying to ease the atmosphere that was beginning to loom between them.
“No,” Wilkinson replied shortly. “Only when it’s special.”
“Oh, right.” Mrs Pargeter took in her surroundings, and wondered how many hardened criminals those dingy walls had witnessed cracking under Inspector Wilkinson’s relentless questioning.
Sergeant Hughes’s folder lay unopened on the table in front of him, and he still seemed disinclined to commence the actual grilling. Mrs Pargeter was finding the delay stressful. Now she’d got this far, she wanted to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, but at least it could be quick.
She joined her plump hands together on the sticky plastic in front of her, and looked straight into the Inspector’s eyes. He seemed thrown by this intense scrutiny, and chewed a corner of his moustache. His hands fiddled with a packet of cigarettes, taking one out to light up.
“Right,” said Mrs Pargeter. “What is it you want to say to me?”
“Well… The fact is… I…” For some reason Wilkinson was finding what he had to say difficult. And when he did say it, she could understand exactly why. “The fact is, Mrs Pargeter, I’ve fallen in love with you.”
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Point of Honour ∧
Forty-Two
Mrs Pargeter was so flabbergasted that she couldn’t speak. This unfortunately gave Detective Inspector Craig Wilkinson the opportunity to expand on his passion.
“From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were the woman for me. I can’t pretend my life has been a great success. Professionally, I’ve been unlucky. I should have gone a lot further in the Police Force, but circumstances have been against me. A couple of times I got close to pulling off major coups, but on each occasion something went wrong.
“And in my private life, I haven’t had much to write home about either. I was married, but that fell apart. Difficult profession, being a detective, if you want to keep a marriage going. Since then there have been a few other affairs – relationships, I suppose you could call them, though both words make them sound rather longer-lasting than they were.
“But since I’ve met you, Mrs Pargeter, I know why my previous encounters with women didn’t work. I wasn’t in love, you see. Now I know what love is. It’s confusing, and wonderful, and stressful, and all-consuming. You obsess me. I have to keep seeing you. That’s why I’ve kept popping up in your life with such frequency over the last few weeks. After the first time we met, I pretended it was for professional reasons, but in fact it was just because I needed to see you.”
Had I known that at the time, thought Mrs Pargeter, it could have saved me a considerable amount of anxiety. She opened her mouth to speak, but Craig Wilkinson wasn’t finished yet.