out of his voice.
“Yes, I am, sir. I’m not ashamed of that. I want to get ahead in the Force, sir. I want to be the kind of detective who makes his mark.”
It could have been Wilkinson’s younger self speaking. Of latter years he had kept quiet about such aspirations; they tended only to prompt ribaldry from his colleagues. Yes, he remembered when he had been full of ambition, just as Sergeant Hughes was now. But Wilkinson had been kept down, had his ambitions thwarted by the jealousy of older, less gifted officers.
And he was determined now to see to it that exactly the same thing happened to Sergeant Hughes.
“You haven’t done any follow-up interviews with any of the witnesses, have you, Hughes?”
“No, sir. I haven’t had time yet. But I was planning to talk to them when –”
Suddenly Wilkinson, moustache bristling, was on his feet and bellowing across his desk, “You will do nothing of the kind! You will do nothing more connected with the case without telling me beforehand precisely what action you propose to take. And you will only then do it if you have my express permission. You have no idea, Hughes, of the delicacy of this operation. Its outcome can only be successful if it is conducted in absolute secrecy. If you imagine, Hughes, that I have kept the facts from you out of some kind of dog-in-the-manger selfishness, then you have a very inaccurate notion of what makes a good copper. I have kept you in the dark because I know how easily rumours can spread. The very walls have ears, you know, Hughes – even inside a police station. I am very close to tying up this case once and for all – and if the whole elaborate mechanism gets destroyed at this stage by some wet-behind-the-ears, newly promoted sergeant who fancies himself as Sherlock Holmes, I’ll… well, I won’t be responsible for my actions!”
Hughes hadn’t seen his boss speaking in this vein before, and it was undeniably impressive. Most of the time Inspector Wilkinson came across as an ineffectual old fuddy-duddy, a dinosaur in the Police Force, whose retirement could not come soon enough. But now, he had a certain magnificence. Here was a man who knew what he was doing, a man who was well ahead of the game, and who had all the details of the case at his fingertips. Hughes was properly subdued by the outburst.
Wilkinson sank slowly back into his chair. “Do you take my point?”
“Yes, sir,” the Sergeant mumbled.
“Good.” The Inspector gave him a bleak smile. “So… since you’ve got as far as you have in the case, what would be your next step, Sergeant Hughes?”
“I’d apply for a search warrant and have a look around Chastaigne Varleigh.”
“Would you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And do you imagine for a moment that I haven’t thought of that?” Wilkinson reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a folded document. “One search warrant, all duly signed and authorized.”
“Yes, sir,” the chastened Sergeant repeated.
“The only important thing now is the timing of when we go in. As I believe I may have mentioned before, Hughes, the mark of a good copper is an intuitive instinct for timing. That is something I have, and something that you may possibly over the years develop.”
The Sergeant couldn’t stop himself from asking, “So are we going in straight away, sir? When are we going in?”
“That is something that I will decide. I am in charge of this case, and all decisions concerning it will be taken by
“Of course, sir. But will it be soon?”
“Yes, Hughes.” Inspector Wilkinson smiled a confident – almost complacent – smile. “It will be very soon indeed.”
? Mrs Pargeter’s Point of Honour ?
Thirteen
It was night. Diluted moonlight washed over the gravel outside Chastaigne Varleigh, where a red Transit van was parked. A thickset man jumped out of the van’s back doors and said to his mate, “Nearly done. All we got to get now is the –”
“Who’s this coming?” the other man hissed, and pointed down the drive. Through the metal gates swung the headlights of another vehicle.
“Don’t think we’ll wait to find out!”
The two men leapt in the van’s cab, and gunned its engine into life. They waited till the approaching vehicle – also a red Transit van – had drawn up just behind them, then screeched off down the drive in a fusillade of gravel.
The two men in the newly arrived van only got a quick impression of the driver’s face. It was unfamiliar, heavy and sour-looking.
“Who the hell were they?” asked Truffler Mason in bewilderment.
“I don’t know,” Gary replied.
“D’you get their number?”
“Course I did.” Gary’s memory for number plates was photographic and infallible.
The two men jumped out of the cab and hurried towards the house.
“I don’t like the look of this at all,” murmured Truffler, pulling at the chain beside the heavy oak door and setting up a distant jangling inside the house. “Something’s seriously wonky.”
“Hope nothing’s happened to the old bird,” said Gary anxiously.
“No, it’s all right, I can hear footsteps. She’s coming.”
The door opened, and Veronica Chastaigne stood there, blinking at them in some astonishment. Outlined in the thin moonlight, she looked paler and more frail than ever. “Good evening. Can I help you?”
“Yes. I’m Truffler Mason and this is Gary,” said Truffler. “We’ve been sent by Mrs Pargeter to collect your paintings.”
The old lady’s astonishment grew. “What? But some other men have been and done that.”
“The ones who’ve just gone?”
“I suppose so. I didn’t think they’d got all the paintings, but maybe they had.”
“Damn!” Truffler Mason looked down the drive without hope. The tail lights of the first Transit were long out of sight. “Damn!” he repeated. “Who the hell were they?”
¦
The walls of the Long Gallery looked depressingly bare, their oak panelling loweringly dark. Of the rich array of paintings Mrs Pargeter had been shown, only three remained. There were a couple of minor Madonnas and a voluptuous Rubens nude.
“I’m sorry.” Veronica Chastaigne shrugged helplessly. “I was told two men would be arriving in a red van. Two men arrived in a red van, so I naturally assumed they were the ones I was expecting.”
“Yes, of course, Mrs Chastaigne. It wasn’t your fault.” Truffler shook his head in frustration as he looked around the denuded space.
Gary was equally angry. “How did they know it was going to be a red van? Someone’s got to have been talking out of turn.”
“Yes, and I’ll damned well find out who –”
Truffler’s words were stopped by the sound of a little sigh escaping from Veronica Chastaigne. He turned, but neither he nor Gary was quick enough to catch the old lady before she collapsed unconscious on to the wooden floor.
The chauffeur was instantly kneeling down beside her. He lifted the pitifully light form a little to cradle her head in his arms. Veronica Chastaigne gave no signs of noticing what was happening to her.
“Blimey O’Reilly! She’s not dead, is she?”
“No.” Gary looked up unhappily at his colleague. “Doesn’t look too good, though.”
