fiftysomething and stringy, so nobody’s going to be interested.”
“Oh, well…” Mrs Pargeter shrugged philosophically. “That’s the way things go. I once heard someone say that experience is the comb life gives you after you’ve lost your hair.”
“Sickening, isn’t it? Trouble is, Melita, when you actually do have the freedom, you don’t realise it. I mean, when I was about twenty I could have been having a whale of a time, lots of affairs, no strings, but did I? No, I just spent all my time worrying because nobody appeared to want to marry me. Didn’t you find that?”
“Well, not exactly.” Mrs Pargeter didn’t really want to elaborate. In fact, she had had a vibrantly exciting sex- life before she met the late Mr Pargeter – and indeed a vibrantly exciting sex-life throughout their marriage – but she had always believed that sex was a subject of exclusive interest to the participants.
Joyce was fortunately prevented from asking for elaboration by the arrival of Yianni with her ouzo. She diluted it from the accompanying glass of water, watched with satisfaction as the transparent liquid clouded to milky whiteness and took a long swallow, before continuing her monologue. “Conchita’s just the same as I was. I mean, there my daughter is, lovely girl, early twenties, successful career, could have any man she wants, and what does she do? She keeps falling for bastards – married men, usually – and keeps getting her heart broken when they won’t leave their wives and set up home with her. Why goes that happen?”
“In my experience,” said Mrs Pargeter judiciously, “women who always go after unsuitable men do so because deep down they don’t really want to commit themselves.”
“Huh,” said Joyce. “Well, I just wish Conchita’d settle down and get married.”
“Why? Do you really think marriage is the perfect solution?”
“I don’t know. I just think life is generally a pretty dreadful business and maybe it’s easier if there are two of you trying to cope with it.”
This seemed to Mrs Pargeter an unnecessarily pessimistic world-view. She had never regarded life as an imposition, rather as an unrivalled cellarful of opportunity to be relished to the last drop. Probably it was just bereavement that had made her friend so negative.
“I don’t know, though,” Joyce went on, digging herself deeper into her trough of gloom. “How much do you ever know about other people? I mean, you think you’re close, you live with someone, sleep with them for twenty- five years, then they die and you realise you never knew them at all. I don’t think you ever really know anything about another person.”
This made Mrs Pargeter think. It did not make her question her own marriage – she had never doubted that she and the late Mr Pargeter had known each other through and through – but it did make her ask herself how much she knew about Joyce Dover.
The answer quickly came back – not a great deal. Mrs Pargeter had met Joyce some fifteen years before in Chigwell, during one of those periods when the late Mr Pargeter had had to be away from home for a while. Joyce’s husband, Chris, it transpired, was also away at the time (though on very different business), and she and their daughter Conchita, then a tiny black-eyed six-year-old, were living in a rented house till his return. The two women had seen a lot of each other for three months, and kept in touch intermittently since.
Though there was a ten-year age difference between them, they had got on from the start, without ever knowing a great deal about each other’s backgrounds. Joyce, Mrs Pargeter was told, had always lived in London. Her husband Chris had been born in Uruguay, but, politically disaffected with the governing regime, had fled to England in his late teens. He had made a success of some kind of export business (dealing chiefly with Africa) and had, from all accounts, turned himself into the perfect English gentleman. His origins were betrayed only in details like his daughter’s unusual Christian name. That was all Mrs Pargeter had ever known about the life and business of Chris Dover.
And she had seen to it that his wife Joyce knew even less about the life and business of the late Mr Pargeter.
Joyce maundered on, but Mrs Pargeter only half-listened. The retsina was as welcome as ever, and in the soft, warm breeze that flowed off the sea, lulled by the recorded strumming of bouzoukis, she started to relax. It had been a tiring day, and the prospect of a lethargic fortnight in the sun became very appealing. There was always, Mrs Pargeter found, something seductive about being in a new place. So many exciting details to find out when you start from total ignorance. Yes, she was going to enjoy herself in Agios Nikitas. Very relaxing, she thought, to be in a place where I know no one, and no one knows me.
Which was why she was so surprised to hear a voice saying, “Ah, good evening. Mrs Pargeter, isn’t it…?”
? Mrs Pargeter’s Package ?
Four
The man she looked up to see was a creature of contradictions. The voice that addressed her had been thick Cockney, but its owner looked typically Greek. Heavy Mediterranean features seemed at odds with the thinness of his body, and this incongruity was accentuated by the flapping tourist uniform of brightly-coloured shorts and T- shirt. Sticklike legs ended in sports socks and improbable silver-grey trainers. He looked like a Greek trying to pass himself off as an English holidaymaker.
Responding to the blankness in her eyes, the man immediately identified himself. “Larry Lambeth. I used to work with your late husband.”
That explained everything. The late Mr Pargeter’s business interests had been wide and had involved acquaintanceship with people from a variety of backgrounds. Since he was a great believer in the separation of his domestic and professional lives, there were many of his contacts whom Mrs Pargeter had never met and she had become accustomed – particularly since her husband’s death – to encounters of this kind with people she had never seen before.
“Do join us, please, Mr Lambeth. Can I get you a drink?”
“Allow me.” He called across to a waiter in fluent Greek, then sat down.
After introducing Joyce, Mrs Pargeter asked the question that was uppermost in her mind. “I’m delighted to meet you, but how on earth did you know I was going to be here?”
“Oh, there aren’t many secrets in a place like this. Everyone knows everyone, all related, you know. No, I’m sure I would have found out pretty quickly, anyway, but in fact I was tipped off.”
“Tipped off?”
“Well, that is to say I was informed by a friend back in England that you was planning a trip over here.”
“Oh?”
“Truffler Mason.”
“Ah.” No further explanation was required. Truffler Mason was one of the inestimably useful contacts featured in an address book which the late Mr Pargeter had bequeathed to his wife. The skills which had earned Truffler his nickname were now being directed into the legitimate work of the Mason de Vere Detective Agency, and he had proved invaluable to Mrs Pargeter in a murder investigation the previous year. Larry Lambeth could not have provided better credentials.
The waiter brought fresh drinks. Mrs Pargeter was still only half-way down her initial half-litre bottle of retsina, and placed the full one beside it. Joyce, who had drained her first ouzo, fell on the second with disturbing enthusiasm. Larry Lambeth had ordered a glass of Greek brandy. This would have been against the advice of the late Mr Pargeter, who, having sampled it when they were on Crete, had expressed the opinion that, though Greek brandy might well be an excellent rust-removing agent, it had no place in the human digestive system. Larry Lambeth, however, sipped at his drink with apparent fervour, before continuing his explanation.
“No, fact is, Truffler rang me last week, Mrs P. Tipped me off, like, said you was on your way, asked me to look after you, you know, see if there was anything you needed, generally help you out. And of course I said yes. I mean, it would have been a pleasure to help, anyway. I’d have done it without asking, but Mr P. – your husband, that is – he specifically asked me to keep an eye out for you, you know, if there ever was a time I could be of any assistance.”
Mrs Pargeter smiled fondly. It was always heartwarming to find out the careful provisions the late Mr Pargeter had made for her before his death. Not every widow had the benefit of such assiduous long-term protection.
