Mrs Pargeter's Public Relations Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Simon Brett

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Simon Brett

  The Mrs Pargeter Mysteries

  MRS PARGETER’S PACKAGE

  MRS PARGETER’S POUND OF FLESH

  MRS PARGETER’S PLOT

  MRS PARGETER’S POINT OF HONOUR

  MRS PARGETER’S PRINCIPLE *

  MRS PARGETER’S PUBLIC RELATIONS *

  The Charles Paris Theatrical Series

  A RECONSTRUCTED CORPSE

  SICKEN AND SO DIE

  DEAD ROOM FARCE

  A DECENT INTERVAL *

  THE CINDERELLA KILLER *

  The Fethering Mysteries

  BONES UNDER THE BEACH HUT

  GUNS IN THE GALLERY *

  THE CORPSE ON THE COURT *

  THE STRANGLING ON THE STAGE *

  THE TOMB IN TURKEY *

  * available from Severn House

  MRS PARGETER’S PUBLIC RELATIONS

  A Mrs Pargeter mystery

  Simon Brett

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2016 by

  Crème de la Crime, an imprint of

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  First published in the USA 2017 by

  Crème de la Crime, an imprint of

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  This eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2016 by Simon Brett.

  The right of Simon Brett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-092-8 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-576-3 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-847-6 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  To Gordon and Angus,

  our new kittens

  (for reasons which will become obvious)

  ONE

  Mrs Pargeter didn’t have any close relations. An only child born of only children, she had lost both her parents in her early twenties. Though deeply saddened, her grief was mitigated by her meeting, shortly after their deaths, the love of her life, the man who became her husband, Mr Pargeter. He, by way of contrast, though he very rarely talked about them, had a lot of relations.

  Not only did he not talk about them, he also very rarely saw them. And the reason for such circumspection was that many of his relations had stepped over the fine line which separates honest upright citizens from the criminal classes. Such associations, in the view of Mr Pargeter (who had always had a strong respect for the law), could only compromise the legitimacy of his own varied business enterprises.

  So it wasn’t until after her husband’s much lamented death that his widow first had any dealings with the rest of his family. In fact, the first contact happened some long time after that death. And in a rather unusual manner …

  One of the hazards of being wealthy is that you develop a magnetic attraction for charity fundraisers. However discreetly and unflamboyantly you live, word gets around that you have money. And, while there are a lot of people out there keen to separate you from that money by illegal means, there are just as many who want to do the same thing for impeccably worthy reasons. And nobody in either camp expresses much interest in where your money came from.

  Charity fundraisers are relentless in their pursuit of the wealthy. They pounce on the Sunday Times ‘Rich List’ the minute it drops through their letterboxes and spend a long time trying to find the most tenuous of links between the interests of each name featured with the concerns of their own individual charities.

  Their acquisitive antennae are finely tuned to detect any weaknesses in their wealthy prey. For example, the average charity fundraiser would reckon that a well-endowed widow of mature years must, by definition, be a soft touch. But that would be an average charity fundraiser who hadn’t met Mrs Pargeter.

  She was, however, always open to their approaches. She had no illusions that, whatever inducements their invitations to events might contain, all they really wanted was her money. So if a charity towards whose aims she felt sympathetic asked her to attend a reception or theatrical performance or sporting fixture, she might well accept to check out what kind of set-up it was.

  The one thing she drew the line at was charity balls. This was partly because of her single status. The late Mr Pargeter had been a surprisingly neat and nimble dancer, so a ball in his company could be most enjoyable. But attending on her own, submitting to having her toes trodden on by a variety of unfamiliar partners with no sense of rhythm, was not Mrs Pargeter’s idea of fun.

  Also charity balls always went on far too long. Though Mrs Pargeter had a wide and fascinating circle of friends, few of them were the type who would ever want to ‘get up a table’ for such an event. And in her experience the kind of people who did want to ‘get up a table’ had limited charm and limited conversation. So the thought of sitting on the same table with them at a charity ball from seven thirty till ‘Carriages at Midnight’ – not to mention enduring indifferent food, sweet fizzy wine that wasn’t champagne, the inevitable auction and endless speeches of thanks – held little attraction.

  In fact, on mor
e than one occasion Mrs Pargeter had willingly paid the price of two tickets for the undoubted privilege of not attending a charity ball.

  She also had very strong views about the nature of the charities to which she might contemplate donating. Though with a huge appetite for life and a respect for the past, she would never give money to any restoration or maintenance project. It was Mrs Pargeter’s view that change was part of progress. If a medieval castle was falling down, that was probably because it had outlasted its usefulness as a medieval castle and would not be missed.

  She felt the same about endangered species. Though she probably wouldn’t have understood the description, Mrs Pargeter was something of a Darwinian. To her mind, the fact that the world population of Guatemalan dingbats was reduced to single figures suggested that the Guatemalan dingbat was probably not very well adapted to modern life and would be well advised to make an unobtrusive exit from it.

  Though the most compassionate of women, Mrs Pargeter’s compassion did not extend to the animal kingdom. Friends of hers had cats and dogs that she was perfectly happy to meet socially, but she’d never contemplated owning either herself. She was not afflicted by the pervading British sentimentality about pets. She reckoned there were far too many human problems in need of alleviation before she started extending her largesse to other species.

  Which made it all the more remarkable that she was to be seen one evening in early May at a fundraising reception for a cat charity. More remarkable still, given her views on the subject, was the fact that the event was due to include an auction.

  TWO

  Characteristically, the reason for her presence was compassion for another human being. Mrs Pargeter was generous by nature, but her generosity became even more lavish when it could be focused on people with any connection to her late husband.

  Jasmine Angold was just such a person. Her husband too was late (though not as late as Mr Pargeter) and Jasmine was going through the second year of bereavement, which many widows assert is worse than the first. Friends and acquaintances who had been so solicitous during the initial year after the death, who had made such an effort to include the new widow in many social events, seem to reckon that, twelve months on, she should be standing on her own two feet. Meanwhile, the woman herself is facing the bleak and ongoing reality of her partner’s disappearance from her life.

  Jasmine Angold was not completely on her own. She had a daughter Charley who lived with her – or who perhaps (Mrs Pargeter couldn’t remember) had come back to live with her after her father’s death.

  Jasmine’s late husband, nicknamed ‘Silver’ Angold because of his exceptional skills in dealing with precious metals, had been one of Mr Pargeter’s longest-serving and most loyal of associates. They had worked together on projects almost too numerous to count. Mrs Pargeter did not know the precise details of any of these enterprises – her husband had never liked to bring his work home and had always operated on the principle that what people didn’t know about they couldn’t be questioned about – but she knew he held ‘Silver’ Angold in very high esteem. It was instinctive therefore that she should extend the hand of friendship to his widow.

  Even if that hand turned out to be the one she was led by into a fundraising reception for a cat charity. Mrs Pargeter had been able to tell, from the way Jasmine Angold spoke of the event, how much she wanted to be there. Within a year of her husband’s demise, her favourite cat Edna had died just after Christmas, and Jasmine was taking this second bereavement almost worse than she had the first. After an appropriate period of mourning, she had been busy online searching out a replacement for Edna. Which was how she had found out about the particular cat charity whose reception she was so keen to attend.

  So, suppressing her own views on the feline world, Mrs Pargeter had arranged for her driver Gary to call in his Rolls-Royce first at her own mansion in Chigwell, then at Jasmine’s home in Romford and deliver them both to the Baronet Hotel, Billericay. There she expected to find out more about the charity she was meant to be supporting.

  The British, notoriously soppy about pets, seem to become even soppier about pets encountered in foreign climes. And soppiest when the pets in question are cats. On countless flights back to Heathrow or Gatwick from Mediterranean holiday resorts, the cabin staff get sick of hearing sentences beginning, ‘Oh, and there was this adorable little cat who was always around the villa and who virtually adopted us …’

  It’s a small step down the slippery slope from that to actually trying to repatriate the creatures to the United Kingdom. ‘Nobody else seemed to be feeding her and you just wonder how on earth the cats out there survive the winter. They’re all terribly thin.’ The thought that this thinness might not be due to neglect but to the animal’s ability to adapt to a less bulky body shape in a very hot country does not apparently arise. ‘It seemed the least we could do to give the poor little thing a decent home. Oh, there was a lot of paperwork involved, but when you see the expression of gratitude in those little eyes …’

  Thinking of this kind had led to the setting up of the charity to whose fundraising efforts Mrs Pargeter was lending her support that May evening in the Balmoral Suite of Billericay’s Baronet Hotel.

  Like many such initiatives, it was the brainchild of a middle-class woman with a very wealthy husband and too much time on her hands. Mendy Farstairs came from one of those families who insisted on giving children silly nicknames which somehow stuck through life. Her husband Rufus Farstairs was an international banker whose aim seemed to be to spend as much of his life in foreign parts as was humanly possible. And, when in the UK, to spend as much time as was humanly possible shooting or on the golf course.

  In spite of this packed schedule, he had contrived on three occasions to impregnate Mendy, and once the third son had been sent off to private boarding school, she was at a pretty loose end. Rufus, who had no interest in what she got up to if it required him to do anything other than sign cheques, was happy to fund whatever activities Mendy chose thereafter to indulge in.

  The first of these was the purchase and refurbishment of a villa on the Greek island of Atmos. It had been planned as an idyllic bolt hole in which husband and wife could escape from the pressures of life in England and spend quality time together, but in the event Rufus Farstairs only visited it once. That was just after the purchase of the building and he travelled out there simply to check on his investment. On that occasion, because the villa was not yet habitable, the couple stayed in a nearby hotel, the Hotel Thalassa. And thereafter Rufus, having dictated that the place should be called ‘Villa Rufus’, was quite content for his wife to oversee the refurbishment and decoration of their property on her own.

  Their three sons also found the attractions of a Greek island less than riveting, their tastes being for activity holidays with large groups of their braying public school chums, so Mendy Farstairs ended up spending quite a lot of time alone on Atmos. While there she divided her time between patronizing the few other British expatriates and getting to know the island’s cats.

  Under the illusion that the creatures are interested in human beings as something other than suppliers of food, she reckoned that she had developed a close affinity with Atmos’s feline population. Villa Rufus became a magnetic destination for them. Cats infested every corner of the place. Mendy enlisted a local odd-job man called Costas Philippoussis to help look after the growing menagerie, but she wasn’t convinced that he had the same instinctive nurturing instinct for the cats that she had. In common with most of the men on Atmos, he was laid-back to the point of torpor. Or, not to beat about the bush, lazy.

  As a result, each time she returned to England, Mendy Farstairs worried increasingly about what was happening to her unwitting adoptees while she was away.

  For a wealthy middle-aged busybody with too much time on her hands, it was only a small step from these thoughts to the idea of repatriating Greek cats to homes in the United Kingdom. And so it was that Mendy Farstairs’ charity wa
s born.

  And, in honour of her somewhat lethargic Greek assistant, she named that charity ‘PhiliPussies’.

  THREE

  That evening the Balmoral Suite of the Baronet Hotel smelt of money. Mrs Pargeter was not surprised. She had insisted on paying for both tickets which, at a hundred pounds each, she thought were quite steep for an event where only drinks and canapés were being served. True, the drink was genuine champagne rather than the sweet prosecco with which people were frequently fobbed off on such occasions, but she reckoned the guests would have to drink a lot of it to justify the price of admission.

  Both women looked very smart. Jasmine Angold, thin with dark eyes, sharp features and copper-beech dyed hair, wore a dress in silver and gold stripes, bought by her husband in the pomp of his success. Mrs Pargeter’s ample curves were magnificently displayed in purple.

  Once they had both taken champagne flutes from the trays waitresses were holding at the entrance, they found themselves approached by a woman dressed in a slightly frumpy blue dress which seemed at odds with the designer wear boasted by most of the attendees. It looked almost like a uniform for a nurse or some other functionary in the medical world. On her blue-veined feet she wore brown leather sandals.

  The woman’s face, surrounded by a cloud of white hair, was innocent of make-up, and had that desiccated, wrinkly look of someone who’s spent most of their life under a hot sun. The skin of her arms and bare legs looked as though they had been cured like leather. There was a sweet vagueness about the woman, which prompted an immediate distrust in Mrs Pargeter. She was wary of loopy old ladies. In her experience they could be unreliable. And potentially vicious.

  The reason why the woman had accosted them was quickly evident. Pinned to the front of her dress and around the rim of the straw basket she carried was a profusion of small crochet cats in a variety of coloured wools.