fell through just at the wrong moment. Unless some philanthropist came up with a cash offer, your commission on all the other deals was out the window, wasn’t it? Which was why you decided to be that philanthropist. You bought 17 Doubletrees Lane yourself, didn’t you?’
By now he’d built up enough head of steam to respond. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s called chain- breaking. Quite a common practice among estate agents — and one for which many purchasers have reason to be grateful. The agent temporarily buys the house that’s causing the problem and breaks up the log-jam. It’s not illegal.’
‘It is when you use the money other buyers have paid as deposits to fund the purchase.’
Pink again gave way to puce. ‘That couldn’t happen. The ten per cent deposit paid when an offer’s accepted is lodged with the buyer’s solicitors until-’
‘Are you going to tell me,’ asked Truffler Mason quietly, ‘that you’ve never encountered a bent solicitor…?’
‘I’m sure such people exist,’ Keith Wellstrop blustered. ‘Maybe I have met one without being aware of-’
‘You’ve met one. You meet one every week at the Rotary Club…’
Mrs Pargeter smiled sweetly and consulted her helpful file. ‘A gentleman called Hamish McFee.’
Keith Wellstrop of Wellstrop, Ventleigh amp; Pugh was silent. Pudgy fingers worried at the lapel of his tweed sports jacket.
‘We do of course have documentary evidence for all this,’ said Truffler Mason.
A last spark of resistance flared briefly. ‘But all the deals in the chain went through. None of the vendors or buyers had anything to complain about. Their deposits were all properly paid at the right time.’
‘Yes, but it was a close call, wasn’t it? Fortunate that just before all those purchasers were due to complete, a deposit was paid on another half-million-pound house…’
‘And fortunate that the new client’s solicitor was also Hamish McFee,’ Mrs Pargeter added.
‘One of the advantages of operating in a small town, I would imagine,’ observed Truffler. ‘Everyone uses the same professional people.’
‘And you can all meet up every week and scratch each other’s backs at the Rotary Club,’ Mrs Pargeter concluded.
All sparks of resistance were now dead and cold. ‘What do you want from me?’ asked Keith Wellstrop of Wellstrop, Ventleigh amp; Pugh, a deflated Billy Bunter caught stealing from someone else’s tuck-box.
Truffler pointed to the Private Eye. ‘It’s back to this box number, Mr Wellstrop. Tell us what we want to know about that, and we’ll go away and you’ll never hear from us again.’
‘You mean that? You won’t expose me and Hamish? I mean, it’d be dreadful. We’d be asked to leave the Rotary Club, apart from-’
‘In my view,’ said Truffler with a benign smile, ‘your having to stay in the Rotary Club will be quite sufficient punishment for any crimes you may have committed.’
‘We’re not interested in your small-town fiddles,’ said Mrs Pargeter. ‘We just want to know about this ad. You were the one who put it in Private Eye…?’
The estate agent nodded.
‘And you got all the letters of application…?’
Another nod.
‘Of which I imagine there were quite a few. So you were used as the perfect front — and scapegoat in case things went wrong. And presumably, a lot of people would be keen to have five grand in these inflationary times.’
‘Yes. There were a lot.’
‘And did you have to sift them through to make a shortlist?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I passed them on. I was just a kind of contact point, I didn’t have to do anything.’
‘Oh, well, you’d had lots of practice in that,’ Mrs Pargeter couldn’t resist saying. ‘Then what happened?’
‘I didn’t have much to do with it after the initial bit. The applicants were cut down drastically, a shortlist was made; then half a dozen people were interviewed and a couple were selected and offered contracts for the job…’
‘Which they accepted?’
The estate agent was back to nods now.
‘And do you know if one of the successful candidates was a girl called Jenny Hargreaves?’
There was a hesitation, while he weighed up the possible advantages of his situation. Quickly concluding there weren’t any, Keith Wellstrop of Wellstrop, Ventleigh amp; Pugh nodded.
‘Do you know what the work she was contracted for involved?’
‘No, I don’t. Honest to God, I never asked and I haven’t a clue.’
It sounded convincing. Mrs Pargeter and Truffler exchanged brief looks and nodded agreement.
‘So…’ she said, ‘only one major question remains…’
‘Yes,’ said Truffler.
‘Who was it? Who did you do this little job for?’
The estate agent squirmed awkwardly. ‘Look, I only did it for the money. If there was anything wrong, I wasn’t aware of it.’
‘We asked you who it was,’ said Mrs Pargeter implacably.
‘Yes.’
‘Another fellow Rotarian, was it?’ asked Truffler.
This received a further nod. Then came a hesitation, broken by Mrs Pargeter’s voice, suddenly steely. ‘ Who? ’
‘It was Percy Arkwright.’
‘The Percy Arkwright who runs Brotherton Hall?’
Keith Wellstrop of Wellstrop, Ventleigh amp; Pugh nodded.
‘I never knew his name was Percy.’
Truffler Mason broke the heavy silence in Gary’s limousine as it drove them back to Greene’s Hotel.
‘No,’ said Mrs Pargeter. ‘Nor did I.’
But she sounded distracted. Truffler knew the reason. It always pained her to find out something bad about one of her late husband’s associates. The thought that Ankle-Deep Arkwright had been deceiving her hurt a lot. It brought back the ugly feelings that had followed Mr Pargeter’s betrayal by Julian Embridge.
Truffler offered what he knew to be inadequate comfort. ‘Always going to be a few bad apples…’
‘Yes…’ Mrs Pargeter shook her head in distress. ‘It’s difficult to readjust your thoughts… you know, suddenly to think of someone as bad when you’ve always liked them and…’
‘Hm.’
She gathered herself together with an effort. ‘Still, it must be done. From now on I have to cast Ank in the role of villain…’
“Fraid so.’
‘And whatever wickedness I can think of, realize that he’s capable of it.’
‘Yup.’
There was a silence. ‘Mind you…’ Mrs Pargeter said ruminatively.
‘Hm?’
‘I still find it hard to think of him as a member of the Rotary Club.’
Chapter Thirty
‘Just a little bit off the bum,’ Kim Thurrock pleaded. ‘You really can’t object to that, Melita.’
‘But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your bum,’ Mrs Pargeter countered. ‘I’m not an expert on these matters, but I’d have thought your bum was exactly what the bum of a woman your age should be.’
‘Yes, that’s just it — “a woman of my age”. But I don’t want to be “a woman of my age”. I want to be the
