“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!”
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Twenty-Three
The discordant decorative styles of the Jackets’ home somehow made the devastation even more shocking. The multicoloured windows had been smashed; wallcoverings 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 mini-skirt, 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 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.”
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 earphone. 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.
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
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.