Mrs. Pargeter's Point of Honour by Simon Brett Page A

increasingly tempted to begin investigating on his own. Their most recent exchange had made his mind up. The files of Wilkinson’s previous researches were bound still to be around the station. It would be easy to dig out the relevant ones and go through them.
    Sergeant Hughes was sure that a mind of his quality would very quickly overtake whatever progress his dinosaur of a boss might have achieved. Hughes visualized the satisfaction of sewing the whole case up on his own, the accolades he would receive, the recommendations for promotion – above all, the expression that would appear on Wilkinson’s face when he saw that he’d finally been relegated to the rank of yesterday’s man. Oh yes, thought the Sergeant, I am bloody well going to crack this case – on my own.
    His boss’s voice invaded these gleeful fantasies. ‘Try a bit more of the Wagner, shall we?’
    Hughes met this suggestion with an almost inaudible grunt.
    â€˜No, perhaps not,’ Inspector Wilkinson decided.

Chapter Ten
    The room looked like the first attempt of a tyro set designer to produce the studio of a tortured artist. There was a bit too much of everything – too much paint spilled on the floor, too many dirty buckets, battered paint pots, spattered palettes, cracking easels and paint-hardened rags. The room seemed to boom out in over-elaborate shorthand: I reflect the image of a nonconforming bohemian.
    The actual artwork on display amidst the cluttered chaos confused the image even further, prompting the suspicion that perhaps this was not the studio of one individual artist, but of a collection of artists, all working in different styles. Every school of painting from the old masters onwards seemed to be represented.
Pietàs
and altarpieces rubbed shoulders with blurred impressionists; Russian icons faced up to pop art swirls; titled ladies in eighteenth-century frocks stared dubiously at twentieth-century abstracts. All the paintings looked to be genuine representatives of their schools; the only detail that cast doubt on their validity was that most of them were unfinished.
    The artist whose personality these conflicting images presumably reflected also looked a bit overdone. One might have accepted the wild matted hair, the beret,
or
the filthy smock; the presence of all three seemed a bit over the top. His manic-depressive manner, in which moods of gloom alternated suddenly with wild bursts of elation, was also a little too studied. As he sat at a paint-spattered table, a half-empty bottle of red wine clutched in his desperate hand, he seemed an assemblage of artistic clichés rather than someone whose eccentricity was a spontaneous expression of personality.
    He looked across at his guests with malevolent despair. Mrs Pargeter and HRH perched gingerly on dilapidated armchairs. Though she had shown no qualms about sitting on the dust in Thiffler Mason’s office, Mrs Pargeter looked less certain of the hygienic standards of this place. She had no wish to add further smudges of colour to the vibrant pattern of her fine silk dress.
    â€˜So . . . I’m “VVO”. Welcome to my humble studio.’ The artist flung out a despondent gesture which encompassed the whole room, and slopped more of his wine bottle’s contents into a chipped enamel mug.
    â€˜Thank you,’ said Mrs Pargeter politely. ‘One thing HRH wouldn’t tell me . . . he said I should ask you myself . . . is what “VVO” stands for . . .?’
    Hamish Ramon Henriques smiled quietly, as the artist shrugged another gesture of despair. ‘Huh,’ he grunted bitterly. ‘It’s a joke that was made at my expense by some of . . . some of the people HRH and I work with from time to time.’
    â€˜Yes?’ Mrs Pargeter prompted.
    The bitterness grew deeper, as VVO went on, ‘Just because I take my art seriously . . . just because it matters to me