Mrs. Pargeter's Plot (15 page)

She got into the limousine and he closed the door after her. ‘Right you are,' she said imperiously.

The uniformed chauffeur put the vehicle into gear. ‘Very good, milady,' said Gary, who, needless to say, was in on the deception.

Lady Entwistle gave the photographer a regal wave as the limousine slid forward. Her last view of Clickety Clark was of a lined face almost bisected by a sycophantic smile.

The minute she was out of sight, however, the smile dropped sharply from his lips and a hard shrewd light came into his eye. Mrs Pargeter was too far away to see him nod to the driver of a parked blue Jaguar on the other side of the road.

The man's dark glasses turned up from the paper he was pretending to read, and he caught the photographer's eye. Clickety Clark gave a little jerk of his head towards the departing limousine. The driver nodded and started the engine. His car began to follow Gary's.

Mrs Pargeter was unsuspicious of surveillance, so she did not look round to see who was driving the Jaguar a few cars behind. She probably wouldn't have recognized the man in his dark glasses, anyway.

Had he taken them off, though, she might have been able to identify a face she had seen twice – once in a photograph on Truffler Mason's desk, and once on the screen of Ricky Van Hoeg's computer.

The man was Blunt.

Truffler Mason's car was like an extension of his clothes. Indeed, if any automobile manufacturer had tried to design a vehicle which breathed the image of tired sports jacket, crumpled beige trousers and black Gas Board Inspector shoes, they would undoubtedly have come up with a dented brown Maxi. As a symbol of the post-war decline of the British motor industry, the car had about it an air of failure, which exactly matched Truffler's own aura of defeatism.

In fact, of course, the detective was considerably more positive and cheerful than he appeared. At that detail the comparison between man and car ceased. The Maxi did not possess a secret, more attractive, persona.

It was four o'clock in the morning. The Maxi was parked in a dark lay-by on a country road a few miles out of Bedford. The meagre moonlight outlined two figures in the front. Truffler sat in the driving seat. Beside him was Keyhole Crabbe. Both held plastic cups. Truffler's contained coffee; Keyhole was just replenishing his with whisky. He proffered the half-bottle towards the detective.

‘Sure you won't?'

Truffler shook his large head decisively. ‘No, no. Driving. Wouldn't do any good for me to get stopped – particularly with you on board.'

‘No.'

‘Wouldn't do you a lot of good either, come to that. What with you being kind of “absent without leave”, as it were.'

‘True.'

The detective took a thoughtful sip of coffee before continuing his debriefing. ‘So you reckon there's a lot of them in the same position?' he asked eventually.

‘Certainly four in my nick. I've been asking around. And, by coincidence – or possibly not by coincidence – they're all blokes who've got a stash hidden away somewhere.'

‘And all blokes who've been offered some “investment opportunity” while they're inside?'

‘Right. And in each case it was Blunt who made the offer.'

‘Yes . . .' Truffler nodded ruminatively. ‘He's on a permanent tour of Her Majesty's prisons, old Blunt, isn't he? Short stretches here, there and everywhere.'

‘Hm.'

‘But I really can't cast him in the part of the geezer who thought up the scam – if it is a scam. He hasn't got the braincells for that kind of work. He's just muscle. Got to be someone else behind him.'

‘Right. ‘Course, the other thing all these blokes I've talked to in the nick have in common is that in each case their wife or girlfriend or whoever's managed to raise fifty grand for their stake.'

‘But none of them'll tell you what the money's for?'

‘No. I've tried all my favourite methods of winkling it out – usually very effective they are too – but this time no dice. It's all very secret . . . like they was almost embarrassed about it.'

Truffler grimaced ruefully. ‘The perfect con.'

‘Howdja mean?'

‘One of the many wise things the late Mr Pargeter told me was that the best cons're always the ones where the people who've got conned are too ashamed to own up to what they done.' Keyhole Crabbe nodded agreement to this truism, as Truffler Mason went on, ‘Anything else your four got in common?'

The prisoner thought about his answer for a moment. ‘Just that they're all in for longish stretches. None be out for another three years, anyway.'

Truffler rubbed his chin. The rasp of bristles was unnaturally loud in the silent car. ‘I wonder . . .'

A new recollection came to Keyhole. ‘One other thing too . . .'

‘What's that?'

‘Couple of them mentioned that their old ladies've been abroad while they been inside.'

Truffler was instantly alert. ‘What, off with boyfriends you reckon? Doing naughties? Having it off with randy geezers who're lining themselves up for broken legs – or worse – when the husbands get out?'

Keyhole Crabbe quickly dampened such tabloid speculation. ‘No, no. Nothing like that. No Roger the Lodgers involved. The husbands knew all about these trips, seemed pleased about them even.'

‘But surely . . .'

The prisoner opened his hands wide in apology. ‘All I got, Truffler. Not another dickie bird. Sorry. I'll go on probing, of course, but, like I say, they keep clamming up on me.'

‘Hm.' Truffler knew his informant too well to push for more. If Keyhole Crabbe said that was all he'd got, then that was all he'd got. ‘Well, can't thank you enough. Mrs Pargeter'll be really grateful to you.'

‘Least I could do for her,' Keyhole shrugged.

‘I'll follow up through my contacts in a few other nicks,' said Truffler. ‘See if it's happening anywhere else.' He turned the key in the ignition, and the Maxi shuddered into asthmatic, apathetic life. ‘Right then, Keyhole . . . better get you back inside, eh?'

‘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!'

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.'