skills made him really push the boat out.
They started with Pate de Lievre aux Pruneaux, followed by an unfussy but perfect Lobster Thermidor, and rounded the meal off with Millefeuille de Poire. Two bottles of Pouilly-Fuisse eased along the main courses, and a rather fine Beaume de Venise animated the dessert.
Mrs Pargeter’s guest, professionally blase from lavish daily entertaining by public relations companies desperate for her attentions, was impressed.
Ellie Fenchurch had changed considerably from the time that the late Mr Pargeter had plucked her from a journalism course at a provincial polytechnic. Then she had been a gangly teenager, all sharp angles and awkward questions. Now her sharp angles were accentuated by breathtakingly expensive designer clothes, and for asking awkward questions she was paid a six-figure salary by one of the national Sunday newspapers.
Her weekly full-page interview was a monument to bitchiness. Her victims were flayed and exposed in all their rawness to the reading public. Their achievements were diminished, their private lives vilified, their mannerisms ridiculed, and their most deeply held beliefs presented as affectations. No one had come through unscathed from the blowtorch of Ellie Fenchurch’s interview technique.
And an unending stream of international celebrities queued up to experience the humiliation.
‘No problem,’ she had said when Mrs Pargeter had rung up and suggested meeting. ‘I’m meant to be interviewing Warren Beatty over lunch, but I’m sure he’ll be over here again in the next decade or so — don’t you worry about it.’
‘Oh, but surely-?’ Mrs Pargeter had remonstrated. ‘I mean, it doesn’t have to be today it-’
‘Of course it has to be today,’ Ellie snapped back. ‘When I think of how much your late husband did for me…’
‘Well, if you’re sure… I’ll see at least you get a decent lunch out of it.’
‘Mrs Pargeter, I’d help you for a Quarterpounder and Small Fries,’ said the woman who made it a point of honour always to send the wine back at the Connaught.
Ellie Fenchurch knew Brotherton Hall well. She’d never availed herself of the health spa’s services, but she could quote precisely which treatments various major celebrities had undergone there — along with their weight loss or gain to the last fraction of an ounce.
In the same way she could enumerate the cosmetic operations of the famous — who’d had a hair transplant, who’d had a nose-job, who’d had liposuction, who’d had silicone implants, even (and this name surprised Mrs Pargeter) who’d had a penisaugmentation implant.
Ellie’s list of celebrity addictions, adulteries and sexual perversions was equally comprehensive.
It was for gleeful revelations such as these that every Sunday thousands of readers tossed aside the agglomeration of sections and supplements which surrounded it to home in first on her column.
But no one would have believed that the steel-clawed termagant of the Sundays was the same woman who sat, docile in the Allergy Room’ of Brotherton Hall, floating in a haze of Beaume-de-Venise-tinted nostalgia.
‘Oh, when I think how much he did for me… He really taught me everything I know about the press. And he was so gentle, such a wonderful teacher. No, if anyone ever asked for the definition of a good man, they’d have to look no further than your husband.’
Mrs Pargeter indulged in a moment of moist-eyed agreement.
‘And he was such an innovator,’ Ellie enthused on. ‘I think he was probably the first person fully to realize the importance of public relations in his particular line of business. And he did it with such subtlety. I mean there have been imitators — of course, every mould-breaking pioneer’s going to have imitators — but none of them had the finesse of your husband. The manipulation of the press by someone like… say, Robert Maxwell, just looks crude by comparison. No, the late Mr Pargeter was the guv’nor.’
His widow, still moist-eyed, nodded.
‘And I was just so lucky to be the beneficiary of all that wisdom. He took me from nothing and he gave me everything. He showed me how to get the stories that mattered, the kind of exposure that counted. I mean, the things he managed to get in the gossip columns… some of the stuff was just breathtaking.’
Another sentimental nod from Mrs Pargeter.
‘I think his triumph was the Princess of Wales. Oh, a real coup that was. I mean, to get William Hickey to print a story about a certain young man being seen dancing at Annabel’s with “herself’ — at the very time when the young man in question was… what shall we say… very differently occupied in Milton Keynes… Oh, and knowing that the Palace is never going to issue a denial or anything like that. That was just the best, the most public alibi I’ve ever come across. Brilliant.’
‘But you were the one who actually fed the story to William Hickey, weren’t you?’ said Mrs Pargeter, modestly spreading her late husband’s glory.
‘Yes. But the concept was his. Magic. Wonderful. No, by my definition, that was sheer genius.’
‘Well, thank you very much.’
There was a silence, a moment of respect for the late Mr Pargeter’s departed genius.
Ellie Fenchurch broke it. ‘Anyway, Mrs Pargeter, what can I do for you? You name it — anything. You have only to say and it’s done.’
‘Well…’ Mrs Pargeter took another sip of the Beaume de Venise as she gathered her thoughts. ‘There is a celebrity whom I need to have investigated…’
Ellie’s eyes sparkled. ‘Great. You’ve got the right person for any of that kind of stuff.’
‘Yes. That’s what I thought. The fact is, I need to find out some fairly private things about this celebrity…’
‘Keep talking. This is meat and drink to me.’
‘Things this celebrity will probably be unwilling to divulge.. ’
‘You’re talking to the person who made a certain Cabinet Minister admit to his nappy-wearing habit, Mrs Pargeter.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course I am. Well, I just wondered… whether you’d be willing to help me in my investigation…?’
‘The answer’s been yes from the moment I first met your husband. Who is it I’m after?’ the journalist asked eagerly.
‘Sue Fisher.’
‘Oh yes. Yes…’
And a new light came into Ellie Fenchurch’s eye. It was the light that comes into a fox’s eye in the moment between grabbing a chicken’s neck and breaking it.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Stan Bristow…’ said Mrs Pargeter as the limousine sped towards the south coast on the Friday morning.
‘Who?’ asked Gary.
‘Stan the Stapler.’
‘Oh, him — right.’
‘Did you come across him much when he was working with my husband?’
‘Sure. He was always around in the early days. Mr Fixit he was — done the lot. Not the brightest — couldn’t talk, you probably know that — but a useful type to have on your side.’
‘Yes. There’s something odd about him, though…’
‘How’s that then? You come across him again, have you, Mrs Pargeter?’
‘He’s working at Brotherton Hall.’
‘Oh. Good old Ank. There’s loyalty. Keeping it in the family, eh?’
‘Hm.’
‘What do you mean about him being odd, though, Mrs Pargeter?’
‘Well, I’ve come across a good few of my late husband’s associates over the years — some I’ve specifically contacted, some I’ve just met by chance — and they’ve all had one thing in common. As soon as they’ve
