by Simon Brett
‘Yeah.’
The car moved tentatively out of the lay-by in the direction of Bedford Prison. After a moment of silence, Keyhole Crabbe said, ‘On the other hand . . .’
‘What’s that?’
‘Think perhaps I should pay a call on the old lady.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘If it’s not out your way . . . not holding you up?’
‘No problem.’
‘It’s not for me, you understand,’ Keyhole confided, ‘but Mrs Crabbe . . . well, she does like her conjugal visits.’
‘Sure.’
‘So, Truffler, if you can take me back to the old domestic nest, and then if you don’t mind hanging about and having a cup of tea . . .’
‘No problem. I’ll be happy to sit around for an hour or so.’
‘Hour or so?’ an appalled Keyhole Crabbe echoed. ‘Give us a break, Truffler. Ten minutes’ll be fine.’
Truffler Mason had driven straight on from Bedford, and arrived in time to join Mrs Pargeter for the Greene’s Hotel ‘Full English Breakfast’. They both ordered everything, and she insisted they should wait till the toast and marmalade stage before talking business.
After Truffler had brought her up to date with Keyhole Crabbe’s investigations, Mrs Pargeter poured some more coffee for both of them, and sat back thoughtfully. ‘If it is a con . . . presumably whoever’s taking the money is going to be well away before all the lags who’ve paid up come out of prison.’
‘I’d have thought so,’ Truffler agreed. ‘Why else would Blunt only have targeted the ones doing longish stretches?’
She drummed her fingers on the table. ‘I wonder what it is he’s been offering them?’
‘And on whose behalf he’s been offering it?’
‘Yes. Maybe Lady Entwistle’ll hear something more from Clickety Clark, though I’m not sure she will. I’d’ve expected someone like that to be quicker off the mark in his follow-up . . .’
Truffler Mason shook his head with foreboding. ‘I still wish you hadn’t done that, Mrs P.’
‘What?’
‘The false identity, Lady Entwistle routine. Clickety Clark’s quite a canny operator. I’ve a nasty feeling you may’ve put him on his guard by doing that.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs Pargeter breezily. ‘He didn’t suspect a thing.’
Truffler was not convinced. ‘Well, I hope you’re right.’
“Course I am. And I know what we’re going to have to do next – go straight to the source, talk to Blunt. That’s the only way we’re going to find out anything. He’s not inside at the moment, is he?’
‘No. For once, he’s actually at large. Which must make quite a change for him. As we found out from Ricky Van Hoeg, our man’s been in and out like a yo-yo last couple of years.’
‘All different prisons, weren’t they?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And all short sentences?’
‘That’s right.’ The detective caught something in his employer’s tone and looked at her shrewdly. ‘What’re you suggesting?’
‘Just that his sequence of sentences might have been a deliberate policy. Sort of sales trip, you could say . . .’
‘Hadn’t thought of that, Mrs P., but it makes good sense.’
‘Also the fact that he’s not inside now might mean things’re coming to a head.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Sales trips successfully completed – Blunt and his mates have creamed off all the loot they reckon they’re going to get – next thing they’ll do is make off with it.’
‘You could be right.’
‘Which makes it all the more urgent that we find Blunt before they leave the country.’
‘Yes,’ Truffler agreed grimly. ‘I got some leads. Contacts I can check up on through my filing system. Or I can get more details from Ricky Van Hoeg if I need them. He can put out one of his requests for info on the Internet. Don’t you worry, Mrs Pargeter, I’ll track Blunt down for you.’
‘Good. The next thing we must do is—’
She was stopped in mid-sentence by the appearance in the dining room of an obsequious Hedgeclipper Clinton. In his hand was a mobile phone. The only detail that once again let down his elegant image was the marmoset on his shoulder.
‘Mrs Pargeter,’ the hotel manager rippled subserviently, ‘I’m so sorry to interrupt your breakfast, but there’s a lady on the telephone asking for you. I wouldn’t normally have butted in . . .’ He put his hand discreetly over the receiver and breathed, ‘. . . but she does sound very distressed.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Pargeter, taking the phone. ‘Hello? Tammy?’
An expression of horror transformed her normally benign features. ‘What! Don’t worry, we’ll be there straight away!’
Chapter Twenty-Three
The discordant decorative styles of the Jackets’ home somehow made the devastation even more shocking. The multicoloured windows had been smashed; wall-coverings of hessian, flock and vinyl had been slashed; the panelling and extensive range of doors had been splintered by sledgehammer blows. The artex ceilings and swirly carpets had been sprayed with unspeakable fluids. The floor was a Dresden of contorted wrought-iron, shattered onyx and the shards of glass figurines.
Tammy Jacket’s personal decor – on this occasion an electric blue angora sweater, silver leather miniskirt, tartan tights and gold pixie boots – was in perfect order, but she looked at least as devastated as her house. She stood in the fractured doorway to her beloved sitting room, her sobbing only quietened by the reassurance of Mrs Pargeter’s plump arm around her waist. Truffler Mason picked his way delicately through the debris on the sitting-room floor.
‘It’s so awful,’ Tammy murmured. ‘All our lovely things.’
Mrs Pargeter was far too tactful to question the description. Instead, she stroked soothingly as she said, ‘Yes, I know. But at least thank goodness you weren’t here.’
‘No, but the next time I might be. I can’t . . .’ The thought was too much, and the intensity of Tammy’s sobbing once again increased.
‘It’s all right, love,’ Mrs Pargeter murmured. ‘You’ll be all right. Truffler . . .’ she called into the sitting room.
He turned round at her summons and raised a lugubrious eyebrow. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m going to take Tammy away. Take her somewhere safe.’
He nodded. ‘Good idea. I’ll have a nose round here for a bit.’
As the rhythm of Tammy’s sobbing became more even, Mrs Pargeter once again looked around the bomb site that had been a sitting room. ‘Do you reckon it was just random destruction, Truffler? Or someone giving Tammy some kind of warning?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I think they was definitely looking for something.’ He turned to Tammy with surprising gentleness. ‘That list you give me . . . you reckon it was everything?’
She sniffed to regain control of herself. ‘Everything valuable, yes. I mean, everything Concrete and I would consider to be valuable.’
It crossed Mrs Pargeter’s mind that these two definitions might not in everyone’s mind coincide, but she suppressed the disloyal thought.
Tammy Jacket shook her shoulders purposefully. ‘I must go and repair my make-up. Then we’ll be off, will we, Mrs P.?’
‘Yes. Off somewhere safe, where you won’t have to worry about a thing.’
‘Great.’ Tammy paused at the foot of the stairs. ‘Bless you,’ she said before she disappeared. ‘Both of you.’
Mrs Pargeter moved closer to Truffler and surveyed the devastation. ‘Blunt, do you reckon?’
The detective nodded decisively. ‘Has all the hallmarks of his subtlety, yes. I’d put money on it.’
‘Hm. Makes it all the more important we find him . . . before he does any more harm.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll get him. Soon as I’m back in the office, I’ll go through my files. I’ll track him down all right, and see he’s stopped from doing any more mischief.’
&n
bsp; Mrs Pargeter was intrigued to know how this outcome would be achieved, but restrained her curiosity. She had never forgotten the late Mr Pargeter’s advice about there being certain subjects of which she did not need ever to have any knowledge.
‘Meanwhile,’ said Truffler, looking again at the wreck of the Jackets’ sitting room, ‘I’ll go through this lot with the proverbial fine toothcomb. Get back to you when I find out what it was they was after.’
‘When? You’re that confident?’
‘Yes, Mrs P. I am that confident. These bastards came here to get something, and I’m going to find out what it was.’
Gary’s limousine eased along the road like an electric iron over linen. ‘Nearly home now,’ the chauffeur called out to the two women in the back. ‘Won’t be long.’
Tammy Jacket was seized by another moment of panic. ‘But suppose they find me there?’
Mrs Pargeter’s comforting arm was instantly around her shoulders. ‘Nobody’s going to find you at Gary’s place. You’ll be fine.’
Tammy let out a little whimper. ‘Oh, but what can Concrete have done, for them to have smashed our place up like that?’
‘Don’t worry. I know Concrete. I’m sure he hasn’t done anything really bad. And we’ll get to the bottom of it. Truffler’s good, he’ll sort things out. And it’s not as if we just got Truffler on our team. There’s a whole lot of other people who used to work with my husband and every one of them’s more than ready to—’
She was interrupted by the trilling of the carphone. Gary answered, and switched it through to the back. ‘Pick up the handset, Mrs P. It’s Truffler.’
‘Hello?’ said Mrs Pargeter into the receiver. ‘You getting anywhere?’
‘Think so. Been through all the safes Tammy listed for me – and blimey, there was a lot of them. Concrete designed that house with more hiding places than a conjuror’s tailcoat. But, so far as I can tell, nothing in any of the safes has been touched.’
‘So all the really valuable stuff’s OK? They haven’t got any of it?’ said Mrs Pargeter, raising her voice to include Tammy Jacket in this good news.
Tammy managed a half-smile through her tears.
‘That’s the way it looks, yes,’ Truffler confirmed. ‘Only thing I haven’t been able to find, though . . .’
‘Is what?’ Mrs Pargeter prompted.
‘. . . but I can’t really think why it would be valuable to anyone . . .’
‘For heaven’s sake, Truffler! What’re you talking about?’
‘Well, it was what Tammy was showing us when we was round her place the other—’
‘What!’ Mrs Pargeter almost screamed in exasperation.
‘It was that brochure thing. Those photos of that property development Concrete worked on in Brazil.’
‘Oh?’
‘Now why on earth would those be of value to a bunch of villains?’ asked Truffler.
‘Why indeed?’ Mrs Pargeter wondered.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gary’s cottage looked as if it was auditioning. Auditioning maybe for the lid of a chocolate box, or Conservative Party election literature, or for one of those British Tourist Board publications which are left optimistically around American travel agents and hotels.
The thatch was done to a turn like the top of a perfect cottage loaf. The black beams, wary of right angles, veered appropriately from the symmetrical. Between them, the walls were as pristine white as Mrs Pargeter’s conscience or Gary’s criminal record. The leaded windows were suitably irregular. Here were no double-glazed sheets overlaid with fancy beading; the panes’ bulges and concavities bore witness to their authentic individuality. The red-brick garden path undulated charmingly.
And, yes, around the green-painted wooden door, roses bloomed.
The sun shone. The requisite birds swooped and glided. Fluffy clouds gambolled like lambkins across the clean blue pasture of the sky, and a warm breeze stirred the lethargy of the rose bushes.
There was even a smell of newly baked bread in the air.
Whatever show it was auditioning for, the cottage must surely have got the part.
Gary’s limousine was parked on the gravel in front of the garden, and through the high open gates of the adjacent thatched barn, which he used as a garage, the gleaming bonnets of the rest of his fleet of hire cars could be seen.
Behind the cottage, in a garden heavy with nodding hollyhocks, three women gathered on wooden chairs round a rustic table. The neat evenness of the grass was a tribute to the efforts of Gary and his little red cultivator/tractor, parked neatly under an apple tree. A trailer full of garden refuse was attached to the machine, but somehow even that contrived to look neat.
Mrs Pargeter gazed with satisfaction over the vista of farmers’ fields beyond the neatly trimmed hedge, while Denise, Gary’s pretty blonde wife, ministered to Tammy Jacket with tea and fancy cakes.
Gary himself was at the end of the garden, wielding a petrol-powered strimmer, whose lethal circular blade attachment scythed through a patch of rough grass at the edge of the fields. The whirring of each burst from its motor alternated with the drowsy hum of insects. Gary worked systematically through the weeds, exuding the quiet contentment of ownership.
Mrs Pargeter extracted herself from a reverie of a rather pleasantly erotic country walk that she and the late Mr Pargeter had once taken in Oxfordshire, and concentrated on what Denise was saying. ‘. . . and Gary’s a bit old-fashioned about the idea of my working. He feels that a husband should be able to support his wife and family on his own.’
‘Well, that’s fine, isn’t it?’ Mrs Pargeter agreed easily. ‘Everyone doesn’t have to be a feminist career girl, do they? Work out what suits you best as a couple, eh?’ Denise nodded. ‘And the car-hire business is going awfully well, I gather?’
‘Oh yes. Splendidly. Has Gary had a word with you about it yet, Mrs Pargeter?’
‘About what?’
Denise looked a little confused, as if she had spoken out of turn. ‘Oh, nothing. No, the business is going very well indeed. We’re getting more and more weddings and stuff . . . seems to sort of spread by word of mouth.’
‘Provide a good service and people’ll come back for more. My husband always used to say that. Certainly worked for him.’
‘Yes. Did you ever have a job yourself, Mrs Pargeter? I mean, while your husband was alive?’
Mrs Pargeter smiled enigmatically. ‘Erm. Not a job as such, no.’ She looked fondly across at Tammy Jacket, who was demolishing a cream cake with considerable enthusiasm. ‘You feeling better now, love, are you?’
Not a hair of the copper-coloured coiffure was stirred by the vigorous nod of reply. ‘Yes. Yes, thank you. Much more relaxed.’
‘Good.’
But the smile faded quickly from Tammy’s face. ‘I am worried about Concrete, though . . .’
Mrs Pargeter tried to reassure her. ‘Come on, you weren’t before. You said you knew he’d get off and there was no problem.’
‘Yeah . . .’ Tammy’s mouth twisted with uncertainty. ‘But when I visited him yesterday, he was all . . . odd.’
‘Howdja mean – “odd”?’
‘Well, like sort of . . . scared. I never really seen Concrete scared before.’
‘Any idea what he was scared of?’
‘Well, it was almost like he was . . . scared of being in the nick.’
‘Oh? I thought he was quite used to . . .’
The words were out before Mrs Pargeter had time to stop them. But fortunately Tammy Jacket was too preoccupied to notice any potential lapse of decorum.
‘Yes, yes, he is. It’s odd, though, Mrs Pargeter. It’s like there’s something he’s afraid of the other lags finding out . . .’
‘But you’ve no idea what it could be?’
Slowly, Tammy Jacket shook her head.
Mrs Pargeter pressed on in the hope of further illumination. ‘Do you think it’s possibly something to do with Willie Cass’s death?’
There was a bewildered shrug. ‘I suppose it could be, but I don’t know what.’
‘You say Concrete didn’t know Willie that well?’
‘No. Well, I mean just like you do know somebody you work with . . .’
‘Hm.’
Tammy was silent and thoughtful for a moment. Then she said slowly, ‘Unless of course they got pally when they was out in Brazil together.’
Mrs Pargeter focused sharply on the woman. ‘Willie Cass was in Brazil with Concrete?’
‘Yes. Didn’t I say?’ The casualness of her reply showed how unaware Tammy was of the information’s significance.
‘No,’ said Mrs Pargeter, just managing to keep the edge of annoyance out of her voice. ‘You didn’t.’
Denise was sensitive to the slight change in atmosphere. Instantly she proffered the pot. ‘More tea, anyone?’
A little time had elapsed. The tea things had been cleared from the table, and Denise was inside the cottage doing her chores. Gary was still down the garden. His strimmer was switched off now. He was tidying up, raking together the last swathes of fallen grass, and dumping them in the trailer of his cultivator.
Tammy Jacket lay in a hammock, with a magazine propped up in front of her. But the long gaps between page-turnings and the frequency with which the magazine slipped down on to her lap suggested sleep was not far away. Finally, after the shock of what had happened to her house, she was beginning to relax.
Mrs Pargeter looked up and smiled as Gary came towards her. ‘A good job jobbed?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ The chauffeur grinned slightly awkwardly, and lingered in front of her as if there was something he was trying to say.
‘Problem? Something worrying you?’
‘Well, no. Not as such. Not exactly a problem, Mrs P. Just something we once talked about.’
‘Mm?’ Mrs Pargeter was pretty certain she knew what was coming. Denise’s earlier hesitancy had forewarned her. She saw the chauffeur twisting his fingers nervously. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Gary. You don’t have to be shy with me. If there’s something you want to say, say it.’