“No, Mrs Pargeter, wouldn’t seem right borrowing from you.”
“Wouldn’t be borrowing. I’d regard it as an investment in your business.”
Gary shook his head. “Kind of you, but no thanks. I’ll save up what I need out of my profits. That’s the best way.”
“If you’re sure…”
“Course I am. Something your husband used to say to me quite often: ‘Neither a lender nor a borrower be’.”
“Ah yes.”
“Always had a way with words, Mr Pargeter. Kept making up clever little sayings like that, you know.”
“Mm,” Mrs Pargeter agreed, a little wistfully.
They had reached the door to her suite. She opened it with her key and ushered the chauffeur inside. The sitting room bore not a single trace of the devastation Erasmus had wreaked on it. Gary neatly lined up the Harrods carriers on a luggage bench.
“Thank you so much for doing that.”
“Pleasure, Mrs Pargeter. And you’ll call me when you next need the car?”
“Of course.” She looked at him with sudden beadiness. “By the way, Gary, you haven’t sent me an invoice yet.”
He coloured. “No, well, I –”
“Do it.”
“Yes, Mrs Pargeter,” he said meekly.
“Otherwise,” she continued, “it’s going to be a very long time before you can afford to buy that Roller.”
“Yes, yes, I know. It’s just that I feel I owe you such a lot for –”
“I expect an invoice in tomorrow’s post, Gary. If you don’t collect what’s owing to you, you’ll never save any money.”
There was no arguing with that tone in Mrs Pargeter’s voice.
“Of course not. ‘Nother thing I always remember your husband used to say: ‘Look after the pennies and the pounds’ll look after themselves’.” Gary looked envious. “Wish I could come up with neat little things like that.”
“Don’t worry,” Mrs Pargeter said kindly. “We’ve all been blessed with different gifts. With my husband it was words…”
“Amongst other things.”
“Amongst other things, yes. With you, though, it’s driving. My husband never actually passed his driving test, you know, so you’ve got the advantage of him there.”
“Yes. Yes, I have, haven’t I?” The thought seemed to cheer him. He moved to the door. “OK, give me a bell if you need me. And I’ll see you get an invoice in the morning.”
“Bye, Gary. And if you change your mind about the loan for the Roller…”
The chauffeur shook his head, but with marginally less conviction than he had before. After he’d gone, Mrs Pargeter went through into the bedroom and looked benignly down at her late husband’s photograph. “You did a good job with that boy,” she said. “Gary’s heart’s in the right place, no question.”
Suddenly she remembered something and hurried out into the sitting room. She came back, holding a bright silk blouse against her ample frontage, and again faced the photograph. “Nice one, this, isn’t it? Really me, as you always used to say. Don’t ask the price, though. Can’t run the risk of you having a posthumous heart attack, can we? You wouldn’t believe the way things’ve gone up since you popped your clogs, love.”
She hung the blouse in the mahogany wardrobe, and was thoughtful for a moment. Then, turning back to the photograph, she mused, “You know, I’m drifting on this Concrete Jacket case. No forward momentum. I think the time has come for me to make something happen.” Mrs Pargeter made a decision. “Yes, this could be exactly the right moment to get things under way.”
She grinned. “As you always used to say, love: ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
“Hm,” she chuckled as she reached for the Yellow Pages, “and no doubt Gary thinks you made up that one too.”
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Seventeen
The two youths wore sleeveless T-shirts and the bulges of their biceps left no doubt that they worked out. Their blonded hair was as short as Velcro over their scalps, and though the only weapons they carried were wet rags and sponges, they looked menacing enough for the majority of motorists, whether they wanted their windscreens cleaned or not, to hand over the price of a quick getaway when the lights changed.
The younger youth swaggered across to the battered brown Maxi that drew up at the head of the queue just as the green light gave way to red.
“Do your windscreen, guv?” The voice was abrasive South London and what it said was a classic example of something Latin masters have spent many generations trying to din into their charges: a question expecting the answer Yes. Though in fact ‘demanding’ might be a more accurate description.
“And what if I don’t want it done?” asked the driver, a mournful, long-faced man in a brown suit.
The youth flexed his threatening biceps and loomed over the Maxi as if he could crush it like a cigarette packet. “Well,” he replied softly. “I think you might regret that decision, guv. I’m sure you wouldn’t like –”
But suddenly, as he recognized the driver, his whole attitude and body language changed. The beefy frame seemed to shrink into a posture of conciliation – even supplication – as he mouthed the name, ‘Truffler’.
“Right. I’ve been looking for you.” The tall man leant across to open the passenger door. “Get in, Seb.”
“But I –”
“Get in,” Truffler repeated in a voice that eliminated the option of refusal. The boy called Seb looked across at his fellow extortioner, shrugged helplessly and got into the Maxi’s passenger seat. At that moment the lights changed to green and the car lurched forward.
After a few minutes of silence, Truffler asked, “How’s your dad?”
“All right,” the boy replied, his South London rasp giving way to the rounded vowels of a public school education.
“He’s a good lad, Stan,” said Truffler. “You keeping in touch with him, are you, Seb?”
“Oh yes. Saw him at Visiting on Sunday.”
“Last time I saw Stan,” Truffler ruminated, “he said the one thing he cared about was that you didn’t get into trouble with the law.”
“I’m not in trouble with the law,” Seb protested, perhaps a little too vehemently.
The older man’s tired eyes flicked across at him. “So what’s with all this windscreen-cleaning business then?”
“That’s not illegal… exactly.” But the boy’s colour and hesitation showed he wasn’t even convincing himself.
Truffler pursed his lips and drove on towards his office.
♦
When she brought the coffee in, Bronwen looked with undisguised admiration at Seb’s physique. “You know,” she mused, to no one in particular, “I often think the answer to my problems might be a toyboy…”
Seb grinned, but Truffler came back at her in a tone which, by his normally gentle standards, was harsh. “Yeah? And I sometimes think the answer to your problems might be getting that filing finished.”
She pouted and looked round the office with mock despair. Certainly the prospect of filing the debris that covered every surface there was a daunting one.
“You know I don’t mean in here,” said Truffler. “This lot is filed.”
And it was, according to his system. The shoeboxes of papers he had gone through with Mrs Pargeter still lay piled over other layers on his desk, and the rest of the room looked as if a bomb had gone off in a paper factory. But to Truffler it all made sense. He could put his hand on any document he required within seconds.
“I meant,” he went on sourly, “get on with the filing out in your office.”
With another pout, and a little wiggle of her bottom for Seb’s benefit, Bronwen flounced out of the office, closing the door behind her with unnecessary force.