“Wouldn’t say that.” Truffler’s normally mournful tone took on a note of deeper pessimism. “Business still very shaky, I’m afraid. No, I got Bronwen back, because… well, she’d got problems – you know, divorce and…”
“This must be the longest divorce in history. I mean, last time she was working for you, you said she was in the middle of a very sticky divorce.”
“Yes. This is another divorce.”
“Oh. You mean she went off and remarried?”
“Mm. And now she’s redivorcing.”
For the second time that afternoon Mrs Pargeter was reminded of Dr Johnson’s words about the triumph of hope over experience. “She must be a glutton for punishment.”
“If that’s what Bronwen is, what does it make the men who keep marrying her?” asked Truffler gloomily. “Anyway, what can I do for you, Mrs Pargeter? Anything, anything at all.”
“I’m not interrupting, am I? Should you be concentrating on your reading? Is it something important?”
“No, it’s only the Lag Mag.”
Her violet-blue eyes peered at him curiously for an explanation.
“‘Lag Mag’ – that’s what it gets nicknamed. Really called Inside Out.”
“And it’s a kind of specialist magazine, is it?”
“You could say that.” He let out a mournful chuckle. “Yes, it’s for specialists who might be interested in… people’s movements.”
“People’s movements?” she echoed, perplexed. “You’re not talking about aerobics, are you?”
“No, no. I’m talking about who’s going in, who’s coming out…”
From her expression, this was clearly insufficient information, so Truffler Mason elaborated. “… who’s being transferred… you know, from High Security to Category B… Cat. C to an Open Prison… who’s got time off for good behaviour… all that kind of stuff.”
Mrs Pargeter’s mouth hardened into a line of prim disapproval. “Prisoners, you mean? I didn’t think you had anything to do with that kind of person now, Truffler.”
“I don’t, I don’t. Not professionally. I don’t work with them. But I still need this kind of information. I do a lot of Missing Persons work, you know.”
“Are you telling me that you’re one of the so-called ‘specialists’ for whom this magazine is intended?” Her tone had not lost its tartness.
“In a way, yes.”
“So are most of these ‘specialists’ private detectives?”
“No, most of them are… I don’t know… girl-friends who want a bit of warning to get the new lover out before the old man comes back… villains who’ve got scores to settle… poor bastards who’ve got scores to be settled against them… geezers who know where the stash is buried… grasses who aren’t sure whether their change of identity has worked… that kind of stuff.”
“I don’t see that you fit into any of those categories, Truffler.”
He looked aggrieved, as hangdog as a Labrador wrongly accused of eating the Sunday joint. “But I need to know that kind of info, Mrs P. Listen, someone hires me to work out who’s nicked their jewellery what the police’ve had no luck finding… OK, I check out the MO, and know that there’s only three villains in the country works that way… I check through here…” He tapped the magazine on his desk for emphasis. Puffs of dust rose like a Red Indian signal telling that the US Cavalry was nearing the ravine where they’d be ripe for ambush. “… and I find out that two of the geezers who fit the frame were, on the night of the fifteenth, in Strangeways and Parkhurst respectively. So I know who my man is, don’t I?”
“Yes, I see what you mean.” Mrs Pargeter, who always owned up straight away when she found herself in the wrong, looked properly contrite. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have distrusted you, Truffler.”
He shrugged forgiveness. “Nah. Think nothing of it. I appreciate the fact you care enough for it to upset you. But don’t you have no worries on that score. I been on the right side of the law since the moment that your husband… er…” He wove his long fingers together in embarrassment as he tried to shape the word.
“Died?” Mrs Pargeter supplied easily.
“Yes.” Relieved to move off the subject, he once again tapped his copy of Inside Out on the desk, beaming up another warlike message to the Shoshoni. “And this is an invaluable means of keeping tabs on former colleagues… you know, seeing where they are, when they’ll be back in circulation again. Dead useful when it comes to doing my Christmas card list.”
“All right, all right.” Mrs Pargeter grinned. “I think you’ve convinced me that the magazine’s an essential tool of your trade.”
“Not just that,” Truffler persisted. “It’s also a very useful Early Warning System.”
“Oh?”
He nodded grimly. “Oh yes. For instance, this very week, I discover, Fossilface O’Donahue will be out.”
“Fossilface O’Donahue?” she echoed.
Truffler Mason found the relevant page in his copy of Inside Out, and held it open across the desk to Mrs Pargeter. The photograph which confronted her showed the aptness of its subject’s nickname. The face did indeed look like a relic from an age before the invention of the wheel, or of human sensitivity, or of compassion. Though the picture was in black and white, she got the feeling it wouldn’t have looked very different in colour. The face was a slab of grey, with that pumicestone surface of the heavy smoker. The eyes, which can normally be relied on to lend animation to a face, were dull, dark pebbles, lurking resentfully deep in two parallel crevices. Mrs Pargeter looked up at Truffler. “Should I know him?”
“No, I don’t think you should. Be a lot better all round if you never do know him. Mean, vengeful bastard, without a glimmer of a sense of humour. Slippery, too – always used to come out of hiding to do a job, then apparently disappear off the face of the earth. Bad news all round, I’d say.” He paused, choosing his words with circumspection. “Mind you, your husband did know him, and he and Fossilface didn’t always see eye to eye on everything, so I’m going to be keeping a close watch on the geezer’s… what shall I call it… re-entry into society?”
“You think there might be danger from this… Fossilface? Danger for me?”
“No, there won’t be,” Truffler reassured her. “Not now I know he’s coming out. You’ll be as safe as houses. See – I told you Inside Out was useful. He can settle any other scores he wants to – that I don’t care about – but Fossilface O’Donahue is not going to come near you, Mrs P.”
It was not the first time she had had cause to be grateful for the comprehensive network of care the late Mr Pargeter had organized for his survivor. She reached across the desk and placed her hand on Truffler Mason’s huge knuckles. “Bless you. I do appreciate the way you look after me, you know.”
“Think nothing of it. Entirely my pleasure. And what else can I do for you now, eh? I’m sure you haven’t just turned up to admire the colour of my wallpaper.”
No, thought Mrs Pargeter, nobody could possibly have turned up to admire the colour of that wallpaper. “So what is it, Mrs P.? Come on, you tell Truffler.”
“Well,” she began. “Well, I don’t want to take up your time if you’ve got other things on your desk that you should be –”
With one gesture of his long sports-jacketed forearm, Truffler Mason swept everything off the dusty wooden surface. It clattered to the floor, with an effect that must have jammed the Red Indian signals’ switchboard.
“Nothing else on my desk,” he announced with what, on a less permanently despondent face, would have been a grin.