“Was that the one you mentioned to me on the phone? Double-barrelled name…?”
“Fisher-Metcalf, that’s right. Used to be Chris Dover’s solicitor. I went to see him yesterday, and I’ve fixed an appointment for you to go and see him at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“But no solicitor worth his salt is going to discuss the affairs of one of his clients, even if that client is dead – I mean, unless it’s the police or someone official making the enquiries.”
“Mrs Pargeter, I wouldn’t be so sure that Mr Fisher-Metcalf
“You mean you’ve got something on him, Truffler?”
The satisfaction on the private detective’s face was so positive that he almost looked cheerful.
“Yes, Mrs Pargeter, I’ve got something on him.”
? Mrs Pargeter’s Package ?
Twenty-Six
The office was in Hackney and so drab that it looked like something out of a Fifties British B-feature. The adenoidal girl who let Mrs Pargeter into her anteroom would not have looked out of place in the same movie. Lank, dull hair, droopy cardigan, shapeless kilt in some tartan Mrs Pargeter did not recognise. Certainly not an obvious one like the Black Watch or Hunting Stuart. Moping Mactavish, perhaps?
“If you’d just wait a moment,” said the girl, as if through a nasal drip, “I’ll tell Mr Fisher-Metcalf you’re here.”
Mrs Pargeter sat on a cracked mock-leather chair and gazed on a dispiriting vista of faded green box-files. Whatever inroads the new technology might have made elsewhere, it hadn’t penetrated this little corner of post- war Britain. The telephone on the desk was a black Bakelite one, and the old manual typewriter, stuffed with a sheaf of paper and carbons, looked like a close relative of an eighteenth-century threshing machine. Only the dangling overhead light with its parchment shade confirmed that the place even had electricity laid on.
Over everything lay a thick blurring of dust. The room smelled of dust. And of something else, less pleasant, as though a cracked drain had been seeping quietly into the foundations for a couple of centuries.
The girl drooped back into the room with an apologetic sniff. “If you’d like to come through…”
Mrs Pargeter, glad that the purple and yellow flowers of her silk dress were bringing a splash of colour into this murk of greens and beiges, went through into Mr Fisher-Metcalf’s office.
Its owner would easily have qualified for a part in the same film as his secretary. Shiny pin-striped suit, white shirt, a tie patterned with dots so tiny that the effect was uniform black. His bald head was inadequately disguised with a meagre combing of salt-and-pepper hair. His face drooped with defeat, apology and a degree of guilt.
“Good morning,” he said. “Mrs Pargeter, isn’t it? Won’t you take a seat?” The anaemic secretary still lingered in the doorway. “Perhaps you’d like a cup of coffee…?”
The smell of the anteroom had put Mrs Pargeter off the idea of anything prepared out there, so she refused the offer. The secretary vanished with a farewell sniff.
“Now, Mrs Pargeter, what can I do for you?”
The apology in his tone expressed a whole lifetime of failure. Clearly Mr Fisher-Metcalf had never quite been up to any of the challenges life had offered him. He had just scraped through exams at school, then just scraped through his legal exams, fortunate to be entering a self-perpetuating profession.
Though Mrs Pargeter knew some excellent solicitors – indeed, she owed the fact that she and the late Mr Pargeter had not been prevented from spending more of their married life together to the good offices of the famous Arnold Justiman – she did not have a very high opinion of the profession. She knew it to be one in which talent was not of paramount importance. The British legal system – created, of course, by solicitors – guarantees undemanding and lucrative employment for life to anyone who can be crammed up to qualify.
So she didn’t really think she was going to have too much trouble dealing with Mr Fisher-Metcalf.
“I want to talk about your late client, Mr Chris Dover.”
A cloud of professional affront crossed the solicitor’s face. “I’m afraid it is not proper for me to discuss the affairs of my clients, whether living or dead.”
“Ah,” said Mrs Pargeter. No point in delaying the offensive. Time was of the essence to her investigation. “And would that still be the case if I were to tell you that I know all about Harry Thackeray?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It was bluster. He was already defeated, as easily pushed over as a cardboard cutout.
“What I’m talking about is the case four years back when Harry Thackeray was accused of organising a protection racket in Canning Town. I know you were involved.”
“Of course I was involved. I was acting for Mr Thackeray in my professional capacity.”
“I was talking about what you did in a less professional capacity.”
“Oh?”
“Funny what happened there, wasn’t it? Looked like the prosecution had a cast-iron case against Harry Thackeray. All those publicans, restaurant owners, shopkeepers, all prepared to testify that they had been menaced, threatened, beaten up in some cases – do you remember that poor Bengali with the two broken arms? And then, suddenly, night before the case, they all spontaneously decided that their recollections were a bit hazy and that they didn’t want to testify, after all.”
“People have the right to change their minds.”
“Oh, sure. Yes. One of the greatest human rights, that. Funny they should all change their minds at the same time, though, wasn’t it?”
“Coincidences do happen.”
“Yes,” Mrs Pargeter agreed. “Like the coincidence that all of those witnesses had visits the day before the case from rather big men with baseball bats – men who, it seems, didn’t even appear to know the rules of baseball.”
He still clung on to the last shreds of his bluff. “I don’t know why you’re telling me all this, Mrs Pargeter.”
“I’m just reminding you that you organised those visits by the men with baseball bats.”
“You don’t have any proof of that.”
Unhurried, Mrs Pargeter opened her handbag and pulled out some papers. She put them on Mr Fisher- Metcalf’s desk. “These are the names and addresses of the men who made the visits, and at the bottom you’ll find signed statements by two of them as to whose orders they were obeying. These are only photocopies, obviously.”
“Oh.” The cardboard cutout was now flat and unresisting on the floor.
“‘Pincer’ Cartwright and ‘Dumptruck’ Donnellan.” Mrs Pargeter smiled sweetly. “What quaint names.”
Good old Truffler, she thought. Never fails to come up with the goods.
The solicitor moistened his lips with a wormlike tongue. “Are you from the police?”
Mrs Pargeter let out a peal of laughter. “Good heavens, no. Far from it. Like any normal, law-abiding citizen, I have always tried to have as little to do with the police as possible. No, as I said, all I want to do is get some information about the late Chris Dover. If I get that information, I certainly wouldn’t feel any need to go near the police.”
“Ah. Good. Well, Mrs Pargeter, I’m sure I would be able to reconsider my decision about discussing Mr Dover’s affairs… given the, er, rather unusual circumstances…”
“Oh, good.”
“What, er, information do you require?”
“Well, let’s start with how long you’d known Chris Dover.”
“A long time. I’ve acted for him ever since I qualified.”
“And when was that?”
“The early Sixties.”
“Ah. Before he started his own company.”
“Yes.”
“In fact, while his activities were still criminal.”
